Author

“Daylight”

I hadn’t planned to write a MeToo story for middle grade readers.

I was waiting for my editor to get back to me with editorial notes for another middle grade novel I’d written, MY LIFE IN THE FISH TANK. My longtime publisher, Simon & Schuster, had offered me a two-book deal–FISH TANK plus whatever else I wrote next. Of course I was delighted with this deal, but also a little worried, because in winter 2018 I had no idea what that second book would be.

But as I waited for the editorial notes for Book #1, I had a lot of time to follow the news.

And all the news was about Harvey Weinstein and other famous men accused of sexual harassment–or worse–towards women with less power in the workplace.

Where did this behavior come from, I wondered. It couldn’t have started when these men were full-grown adults. It had to have an origin in boyhood, right?

I did some research online, reading articles by education experts that pinpointed sexually harassing behavior as originating in middle school. Seventh grade, these experts said. When I mentioned this to several teachers, they told me that actually, they saw it earlier–in fifth grade. Even in second and third.

I started thinking about own my middle school experience, how I’d taught myself to avoid taking the main staircase, which was where girls got groped. I thought about my daughter, who one day had asked me to drive her home from middle school, because she “didn’t like the bus.” At the time she didn’t tell me why, but later I learned that certain boys were “misbehaving” in a way that made her feel powerless and uncomfortable. And with only a driver on the bus to supervise, there was no adult to witness it, she thought.

I spoke to moms of current middle schoolers, who confided that their daughters had similar experiences. One of these moms suggested I interview a middle school psychologist in a nearby town who might be willing to speak candidly. So I reached out.

This school psychologist told me that sexual harassment happened in her middle school all the time. But typically “under the radar” of adults, she said–in the lunchroom, on the bus, at the lockers, where no adults are present. Usually she heard about it indirectly, not from the target of the harassment, but from the target’s friends, who were often confused and upset. She also heard about it when kids came to her about “friendship problems”–and with a little digging, discovered that one girl’s harassment was at the root of tensions within the group.

So by spring, I knew there was plenty of material for a middle grade novel. But was there one on this subject already on the bookshelf? There had to be, given the pervasiveness of the problem.

 It shocked me to discover that there wasn’t a middle grade book about sexual harassment–or  the middle school version of it, which included unwanted hugs, sitting too close, mean jokes about girls’ bodies. Of course, such microaggressions didn’t rise to the level of Harvey Weinstein-style assault. But for a girl going through puberty, self-conscious about her developing body, this behavior could be painful and humiliating. And when her protests were ignored or mocked, a girl’s self-esteem could plummet in dangerous ways.

 I started writing, telling myself that I was merely scribbling notes for Book #2 in the two-book deal, and that I’d turn to Book #1 as soon as I had my editor’s notes.

But Book #2 was getting written fast–so fast it felt like it was pouring out of me. I even had a title–MAYBE HE JUST LIKES YOU–which helped me to focus on the story I wanted to tell. And as the spring turned to summer, and Brett Kavanaugh was nominated to the Supreme Court, I realized that this book needed to come out as soon as possible.

I called my editor, Alyson Heller at Simon & Schuster, to ask if we could flip the order of the two books in my contract–if MAYBE HE JUST LIKES YOU could be published ASAP, a whole year before MY LIFE IN THE FISH TANK.

To my great relief, she agreed, even though that meant S&S would have to accelerate its production schedule for a book they hadn’t read and that I hadn’t even finished.

But I quickly did. It was surreal revising and doing copyedits for MAYBE HE JUST LIKES YOU while watching Dr. Christine Blasey Ford on television–but I was able to include her testimony about the sting of “the laughter” in MAYBE’s climactic scene. (I doubt many kids will pick up on it, but there it is.)

I’ve been overwhelmed by the outpouring of support for this book, the deeply emotional reactions it’s produced, the stories I’ve heard. I can’t say I’m happy to have written this story. It wasn’t easy to tell (despite the hopeful ending). But I am happy that this is a time when a book like MAYBE could have been written. And published. And read.

And I really hope the subject matter is discussed openly, in schools and around the kitchen table. Because as the #MeToo movement shows, exposing behavior to daylight is the only way to effect change.

Published October 1st, 2019 from Aladdin

About the Book: For seventh grader Mila, it starts with an unwanted hug on the school blacktop.

The next day, it’s another hug. A smirk. Comments. It all feels…weird. According to her friend Zara, Mila is being immature, overreacting. Doesn’t she know what flirting looks like?

But it keeps happening, despite Mila’s protests. On the bus, in the halls. Even during band practice-the one time Mila could always escape to her “blue-sky” feeling. It seems like the boys are EVERYWHERE. And it doesn’t feel like flirting–so what is it?

Mila starts to gain confidence when she enrolls in karate class. But her friends still don’t understand why Mila is making such a big deal about the boys’ attention. When Mila is finally pushed too far, she realizes she can’t battle this on her own–and finds help in some unexpected places.

About the Author: Barbara Dee is the author of several middle grade novels including Maybe He Just Likes You, Everything I Know About You, Halfway Normal, and Star-Crossed. Her books have received several starred reviews and been included on many best-of lists, including the ALA Rainbow List’s Top Ten, the Chicago Public Library Best of the Best, and the NCSS-CBC Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People. Star-Crossed was also a Goodreads Choice Awards finalist. Barbara is one of the founders of the Chappaqua Children’s Book Festival. She lives with her family, including a naughty cat named Luna and a sweet rescue hound dog named Ripley, in Westchester County, New York.

Thank you, Barbara, for writing about this for middle schoolers! It is a topic that needs to be talked about; we’re glad this book exists!

Ginny Rorby is the author 6 MG/YA novels: How to Speak Dolphin, Lost in the River of Grass, 2013 winner of the Sunshine State Young Readers Award, Hurt Go Happy, 2008 winner of the Schneider Family Book Award, The Outside of a Horse, Dolphin Sky, and Freeing Finch (2019). Ginny is a past director of the Mendocino Coast Writers’ Conference and its current president. She can be reached at Ginnyrorby@mcn.org and at www.ginnyrorby.org.

Today we are lucky to have her on Unleashing Readers to answer some questions.

All of your books combine human and animals into stories that build empathy for both. Why do you combine both instead of focusing on just one or the other? 

To me, our treatment of each other extends to our treatment of animals. I think we are losing our appreciation of the natural world and its systems. We only care about what we learn to care about. If I can help young readers connect with even a fictional animal of another species, they will be richer for it, a better person and, hopefully, grow up tuned into the needs of all beings.

When planning a book, what do you usually have first: a topic, a character, a story, or something else? How do you get from that to a final book? 

Almost without exception, the animal character comes first. Dolphin Sky came from the tragic conditions of three captive dolphins at roadside “attraction” in Florida. Hurt Go Happy was based on the equally tragic story of Lucy, a sign language using chimpanzee. The Outside of a Horse was the result of two newscasts, one on the slaughter of horses (100,000 annually) and a second about the horses used to pull the caissons at Arlington National Cemetery helping Iraq war veterans deal with PTSD. Lost in the River of Grass is an exception: it is based on the true story of my husband sinking his airboat and having to walk out of the Everglades, but it also shows the main character’s initial fear of the wildlife she and Andy encounter and her growing appreciation of the beauty of a natural place. How to Speak Dolphin was purposed to me by Scholastic. Even though it was about a sister with an autistic little brother, the fate of the dolphin became my first consideration. Once I’ve been driven to distraction by the plight of an animal, I try to create a character with issues compatible the story, which is always about how healing a relationship with an animal can be.

Many of your books focus on very tough topics such as abuse of children or animals. Why do you feel that this topic is so important to write about? 

I’ve always believed the abuse of animals and children is linked. A person capable of abusing a dog or cat, or any animal, is surely capable of abusing vulnerable humans. To write about it is to expose it. To expose it may empower a child to seek a safe adult, or to speak up if they know a friend who is being abused. Beyond that, my goal is to have young people look deeper into the plight of animals. When they go (heaven forbid) to SeaWorld, I want them to hate seeing a whale in captivity, or a dolphin forced to jump through a hoop for our amusement. When I was 6 or 7, my mother took me to a circus in Orlando. One of the elephants being herded past in a parade of animals, toppled over and died. To this day, I’ve never been to a circus. Thankfully, six decades later, the outcry over forcing elephants to perform, has finally resulted in change. And we seem to be slowly coming to our senses about whales and dolphins in captivity. There are still thousands of animals in confined situations compelled to perform for our amusement, or caged in labs being experimented on. The emails I get from young readers show me I’m getting my message across. I can’t ask for more than that.

Tell us about your newest book and how it came to be. 

Freeing Finch, my most recent, had two beginnings. I wrote the first iteration about an abandoned dog and an abandoned (at least in her own mind) child. It didn’t quite hit the mark. Two years ago, our local orthopedic surgeon and acquaintance with whom I’d aligned over attempts by our local hospital to close Labor and Delivery, came out as trans, had confirmation surgery at age 70, (Kate’s surgery ) and changed her name to Kathryn. I was stunned but supportive. I have many gay friends but had never met anyone transgender (that I knew of). I sent Kate a congratulatory email and received back a note of gratitude. I then mustered my courage and said I’d like to learn more. She recommended I read Becoming Nicole. By then, Katie Couric had visited Kate and Linda, her wife, of 47 years, to interview and include them in a special she was doing on transgenderism. A year later, Kate and Linda were featured in Katie Couric’s National Geographic special, the Gender Revolution.

Before I rewrote Freeing Finch, I had no dog in the fight. I’m straight, cisgender, widowed, childless, white, and a lapsed Episcopalian. I grew up in Central Florida during the civil rights era but was too young and self-centered to truly notice what was happening. We certainly weren’t in the thick of it. My saving grace has turned out to be that I detest injustice.

Since Kate’s focus has been to educate the uninformed, I continued to pepper her with questions, read many of the available books, interviewed transgender acquaintances, and watched Jazz Jennings grow up on YouTube.

I remembered the book I’d written years before about an abandoned dog and a young girl whose mother died, leaving her to be raised by her recently remarried step-father. The abandonment theme reminded me of the stories I was reading about families turning their backs on gender-questioning children.

It’s the 21st century. Gender is a rainbow spectrum. Let’s educate ourselves and move on.

Thank you so much, Ginny, for sharing your writing process and inspirations!

“Why We Need International Books in the Classroom”

After finishing college, my husband and I packed two suitcases each, sold everything else that we owned, and bought plane tickets to Japan. Our plan was to teach English for a year or two and then move back to Tennessee, but we wound up loving life abroad so much that we lived outside Tokyo for almost five years.

For much of my time in Japan, I worked at an international elementary school, where I taught children from all over the world. My classroom was made up of students from Sri Lanka and Denmark and Korea, Canada and Sudan and Poland. Along with a typical American curriculum (math, P.E., language arts, etc.), I was responsible for making sure my class of 15-20 ESL students learned how to speak and read and write and listen in English—a second (or third) language for almost all of them.

It was a challenge, of course, not only to communicate, but to create an environment where everyone felt comfortable celebrating their differences. Unfortunately, sometimes the American textbooks themselves complicated this problem. (Think of how often things like currency and sports and apparel are referenced just in simple math worksheets.) Finding educational resources that represented the diversity of the students in my classroom—even just a fragment of it—was difficult.

Because of this, more often than not, I turned to literature to address the diversity gap in my classroom’s curriculum.

For my students in Japan, bringing books with an international setting or international characters into the classroom helped to make everyone feel more welcome. Though we were a mix of varied beliefs and colors, traditions and clothing and languages, the books we read helped us learn about each other, which in turn created a more respectful and joyful environment.

But this sort of magic isn’t reserved for an international classroom.

Now, back in the U.S., I teach college English in my home state, and I have my students read texts written by diverse authors from all over the world. Though I occasionally teach a special course composed of all international students, the majority of my classes are largely composed of white Americans who’ve never left the country. (As of 2018, over 75% of the students at my university were white and less than 2% came from outside the U.S.)

In my international classrooms in Japan, the diverse books that I brought to our shelves provided ways for my students to see themselves and their peers in the stories we read. Now, for many of my students, however, such texts require that they learn about cultures with which they’re completely unfamiliar. This forces them to see the world through perspectives they’ve never encountered and, ultimately, open both their minds and their hearts.

Bringing writing with international settings and characters into the classroom, especially writing by diverse authors, is beneficial at any grade level and to any group of students. It teaches readers of all ages that the world is bigger than what’s outside the window—and that people are still people, wherever you go.

The Story That Cannot Be Told
Author: J. Kasper Kramer
Published October 8th, 2019 by Atheneum Books for Young Readers

About the Book: A powerful middle grade debut that weaves together folklore and history to tell the story of a girl finding her voice and the strength to use it during the final months of the Communist regime in Romania in 1989.

Ileana has always collected stories. Some are about the past, before the leader of her country tore down her home to make room for his golden palace; back when families had enough food, and the hot water worked on more than just Saturday nights. Others are folktales like the one she was named for, which her father used to tell her at bedtime. But some stories can get you in trouble, like the dangerous one criticizing Romania’s Communist government that Uncle Andrei published—right before he went missing.

Fearing for her safety, Ileana’s parents send her to live with the grandparents she’s never met, far from the prying eyes and ears of the secret police and their spies, who could be any of the neighbors. But danger is never far away. Now, to save her family and the village she’s come to love, Ileana will have to tell the most important story of her life.

About the Author: J. Kasper Kramer is an author and English professor in Chattanooga, Tennessee. Her debut novel, The Story That Cannot Be Told from Simon & Schuster/Atheneum, published on October 8^th. You can find her online at www.jkasperkramer.com and on Twitter @JKasperKramer.

Thank you so much for this guest post looking at how perspective and a worldly view shape outlook!