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Teaching Rescued by Eliot Schrefer in a Middle School Reading Classroom

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Rescued
Ape Quartet #3
Author: Eliot Schrefer
Published April 26th, 2016 by Scholastic Press

Summary: They grew up together. Now they have to escape together.

Raja has been raised in captivity. Not behind the bars of a zoo, but within the confines of an American home. He was stolen when he was young to be someone’s pet. Now he’s grown up and is about to be sent away again, to a place from which there will be no return.

John grew up with Raja. The orangutan was his friend, his brother. But when John’s parents split up and he moved across the country, he left Raja behind. Now Raja is in danger.

There’s one last chance to save Raja—a chance that will force John to confront his fractured family and the captivity he’s imposed on himself all of these years.

About the Author: Eliot Schrefer is a New York Times-bestselling author, and has twice been a finalist for the National Book Award. In naming him an Editor’s Choice, the New York Times has called his work “dazzling… big-hearted.” He is also the author of two novels for adults and four other novels for children and young adults. His books have been named to the NPR “best of the year” list, the ALA best fiction list for young adults, and the Chicago Public Library’s “Best of the Best.” His work has also been selected to the Amelia Bloomer List, recognizing best feminist books for young readers, and he has been a finalist for the Walden Award and won the Green Earth Book Award and Sigurd Olson Nature Writing Award. He lives in New York City, where he reviews books for USAToday.

Review: I think out of the three Ape Quartet books published so far, this is the one that is going to hit closest to home for many. It will make many readers uncomfortable and want to make a change. First, it takes place in the United States unlike Africa like the first two. Second, it really digs into an issue that is still very much prominent here–animal injustice.

I find Schrefer’s writing to be so beautiful yet so easy to read. He can pull you into his stories and makes you feel for not only his human characters but also his animal characters. He does such a tremendous amount of research for all of his books and with this one it brings the injustice of Raja alive.

I am a sucker for ape books. I find apes to be the most fascinating animals, and orangutans may be my favorite because they have these amazing eyes that just show me that they are so intelligent and deep thinkers. They are also introverts; I think I just relate to them in that way. This book brings orangutans to life through Raja.

As evident from Schrefer’s status as a two-time National Book Award finalist, his books can be used as a mentor text for just about any aspect of writing that you are looking for: characterization, imagery, voice, conflict, etc. Read any of his books, and you can pull out so much to discuss and use within the classroom. Additionally, there are some amazing ape books, including Schrefer’s other Ape Quartet books, that would make for an amazing lit circle opportunity or text set.

Review originally posted here on May 13, 2016.

Teachers’ Tools for Navigation: Last year, our whole-class novel unit was done using Hurt Go Happy and included a trip to Center for Great Apes. This year, I had a completely different type of novel planned, but my students begged to read more about apes (and visit CFGA again). After looking at all of the available ape books, I decided that Rescued was perfect for the standards I wanted to teach and also included orangutans instead of chimps, and orangutans are the other great ape at CFGA. After setting up a Donors Choose and getting funded (THANK YOU ALL DONORS!), Eliot Schrefer also so kindly contacted me and offered to send even more copies of Rescued to my students–wow! So much kindness! Now that we had a plethora of copies, I wanted to share the love, so I contacted my South Carolina middle school teacher friend, Jennie Smith, to see if she wanted to read Rescued with us and collaborate some how. I was so happy that she said yes!

The Unit

Because I do love whole-class novels, but I also don’t like how a whole-class novel can also ruin a book with too much time spent on one book with way too many assignments during the unit. To try to fight this, I planned the unit quite simply:

  • Each week the students were given a focus question on Monday that they could think about all week then answer on Friday.
    • These focus questions are how we collaborated with Mrs. Smith’s class as well. My 1st and 2nd period posted their answers on Padlet and Mrs. Smith’s students would also post. The kids would then respond to each other.
    • Focus questions:
      • 1. What’s a big idea that’s emerging that’s worth talking about?
      • 2. Is there a passage that struck you as important in developing a character or a conflict in the reading so far? Share the passage and explain.
      • 3. What incident up to this point has had the most impact on the plot? How so? What did the characters’ response to this incident teach you about them?
      • 4. There are many who argue that Great Apes are human-like, including the lawyer who will take apes as plaintiffs to demand rights. What are some examples in this section of Raja showing how close to humans he truly is?
      • 5. How did the characters (specifically John’s mom, John’s dad, John, and Raja) change throughout the book? What other narrative elements helped shape their final persona? Find a piece of dialogue and a specific incident in the book that is evidence for your analysis of the character.
    • The idea of focus questions was something I got from a talk by Kelly Gallagher and Penny Kittle at NCTE 2017.
  • Because of one of the standards the unit was focusing on, we also looked at narrative elements, specifically dialogue, setting, and conflicts. Here is my scale for the unit:
  • Throughout the unit, I would also stop to have students think about certain text-dependent questions. I tried not to do this too often to not slow down the narrative; however, I loved seeing my students’ thinking. We would then discuss these questions, but I like allowing my students to write answers first before discussing because it allows them to get their thinking organized. (I shared some of these text-dependent questions and an example of a student’s answers below.)

The Field Trip

Once again I was lucky enough to bring my students to the CFGAs. All students were able to attend this year, and they were so kind to donate to the Center goodies for the Apes–it always fills my heart to see the empathy in their hearts!

I have gone to the Center for Great Apes for years, and sadly this is the first year it rained. Luckily, we were able to get in a 90-minute tour to see the amazing animals who inspired Schrefer’s novel. To see more about the Center, the apes they’ve saved, and the amazing work they do, please visit http://www.centerforgreatapes.org/.

Author Virtual Visit

After reading Rescued, I was so happy to be able to give my (and Jennie’s) students an opportunity to interview Eliot Schrefer about the book. Each student wrote down at least one question they had for Eliot then in groups, the students chose their favorites, then based on these choices, we broke it down to 5 per class equaling fifteen interview questions altogether:

  • Why did you start writing about apes in the first place? And how did you decide on the order of publication for the Ape Quartet? 
  • Do you like writing realistic fiction like Rescued or fantasy like Mez’s Magic better?
  • Will you continue to write about apes now that you are done with the Ape Quartet? 
  • While the titles of your other books, Endangered, Threatened, and Captured, inspire a feeling of fear, the title Rescued inspires hope. Did this change in connotation of your title mark your different opinion about orangutans?
  • Were you ever stuck in between two decisions while writing the book? When? 
  • Who do you think the antagonist of the book is?
  • How did you come up with the whole “Raja bites off John’s finger” scenario? 
  • How did you come up with the concept of Friendlyland? 
  • How did you come up with the character traits for each character (Ex. Gary being a bad father)? Did you base them off people you know or knew? 
  • Can you tell us more about the corruption happening in Indonesia which allows palm oil companies to be able to keep burning down forests even though it is illegal? 
  • Do you feel that apes should be treated like human beings and given the same rights such as due process, land, etc. like the lawyer in the book? 
  • Was it hard for you to decide what would happen to Raja at the end of the book or did you know that you wanted Raja to be released into the wild instead of being kept at the sanctuary?
  • Do you have a favorite sanctuary or zoo you’ve visited? Have you visited the CFGA?
  • You used the word “merantau” which means “hitting a dead end and leaving one life to live another elsewhere” which pretty much sums up the theme of the book. Where did you come across this word? 
  • What writing tips can you give to students who want to be a writer?

We then did a Google Hangout with Mrs. Smith’s class and Eliot Schrefer on May 25th after school:

Some of my favorite answers/quotes from the visit were:

  • Realistic fiction allows for a shifting antagonist.
  • Wanted to help people realize that orangutans aren’t stuffed animals come to life.
  • I don’t have characters first. I have stories first then make the best characters for that story.
  • Apes should not be kept against their will.
  • I used the idea of merantau to develop the plot.
  • Advice: For any artistic pursuit, I encourage you to think of the long range range view. It is risky to put all expectations of self in one basket. Focus on the joy you feel when doing the art. Remember what brings you joy! And do research, take advice, and read.

Discussion Questions: These were the first five of the text-dependent questions I asked during our reading of Rescued as well as an example of a student response (color coded for RATE. R=restate, A=answer, T=text evidence, E=elaborate/explain).

  • What can you infer about John and Raja’s relationship based on the first section?
  • Why does John feel like he needs to go see Raja before he leaves?
  • In the Q&A, the author says he “realized that a captive ape’s situation was similar to the plight of a kid during a divorce, getting swept along by the needs of powerful parents, at risk for being seen for what he represents instead of as a child with his own needs” (p. 251). How are John’s and Raja’s situations similar after the divorce? How are they different?
  • Do you agree with the choice John and his dad are making? Why or why not?
  • Why do you believe the author is beginning each part with a memory of Raja’s?
  • How did the author foreshadow this scene (on pg. 99) earlier in the book?

Flagged Passages: “My telltale heart, the one I’d left behind.” (p. 38)

Read This If You Love: Eliot Schrefer novels: Endangered and Threatened, Hurt Go Happy by Ginny Rorby, Half Brother by Kenneth Oppel, The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate, Ivan: The Remarkable True Story of the Shopping Mall Gorilla by Katherine Applegate, Primates by Jim Ottaviani

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Author Guest Post with Teaching Tools!: “Talking to Kids about World War II” by Diane C. Taylor, Author of World War II: From the Rise of the Nazi Party to the Dropping of the Atomic Bomb

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World War II: From the Rise of the Nazi Party to the Dropping of the Atomic Bomb
Diane C. Taylor
Published May 1st, 2018 by Nomad Press

Summary: Why did the world find itself immersed in another global conflict only two decades after World War I?

World War II: From the Rise of the Nazi Party to the Dropping of the Atomic Bomb introduces kids ages 12 to 15 to the political, military, and cultural forces that shook the globe from 1939 to 1945 and beyond. Middle school students examine the events leading up to, during, and after WWII and the repercussions of these events on populations around the world, from Germany’s invasion of Poland to the resulting domino fall of events that engaged several countries and caused the deaths of 60 million people, including 40 million civilians. They also see how the dark side of Hitler’s ideology was always present, eventually resulting in the Holocaust, the systematic murder of 11 million people, including 6 million Jews and other populations.

About the Author: Diane C. Taylor is a freelance writer whose published works include both fiction and nonfiction. She has written educational material for a nonprofit arts program in Dallas, Texas, and has been an English instructor for students in middle school, high school, and college. Diane lives in Bowling Green, Kentucky.

Author Guest Post: 

“Talking to Kids About World War II”

No event of the twentieth century was as big or as bad as World War II. For six years, from 1939 to 1945, a conflict that started when Germany invaded Poland quickly encompassed all four corners of the globe. No one—neither countries nor individuals—sat out this conflict. The political and economic reverberations of the war were simply too widespread to be ignored.

Like it or not, there was no such thing as being a disinterested party to World War II.

I think the same can be said as it pertains to teaching this subject to children. World War II fundamentally changed the world, and it’s not done affecting us even today. Conflict between Israel and Palestine. Tensions within the European Union. The role of the United Nations. The challenge of caring for displaced persons. The nuclear arms race. Just listen to the news and you’ll hear about scores of international issues that trace their origins back to the Second World War.

If all the world is a stage, then World War II is the de facto backdrop of the ongoing drama. This is why teaching about World War II and the Holocaust is a crucial part of raising future generations who can solve problems that were created before these kids were even born.

But how do you explain something as monstrous—and as monstrously complex—as World War II to a 12-year-old child?

That was the foremost question on my mind the entire time I was writing World War II: From the Rise of Hitler to the Dropping of the Atomic Bomb. To my immense relief, I discovered that World War II can be dismantled and reassembled into a coherent narrative that a young reader can understand. If you take one piece of the story at a time, and strip it down to its barest essentials, you can put it all back together in a way that makes sense of the mass insanity that was the Second World War.

By working to ensure our kids know the history and consequences of the greatest conflict in human history, we can do our best to avoid future wars on the same scale.

Teachers’ Tools for Navigation: 

Hands-on activities are another great way to make the experiences of World War II feel relevant and important to teenagers. Try one of these!

Prevent Starvation

Throughout World War II, starvation was a constant concern. Food was scarce everywhere. As a result, people frequently planted vegetable gardens in any available outdoor space.

Form a group with friends or classmates and take a walk around your neighborhood. Your goal is to figure out where you can grow food.

  • How much land is available? Do homes have front or back yards? Are there parks or medians that you can use?
  • Is the available terrain easy to garden? Is it hilly or flat? Heavily or sparsely wooded? Do you have access to water?
  • Does the soil lend itself to gardening? How can you tell?

Draw up a map of where you will plant your gardens and indicate what you will grow. Can you calculate how much food you will produce or how many people will you be able to feed?

To investigate more, find out as much as you can about where you food comes from right now. Is much of it grown locally, or is it transported from far away? If the food distribution system in your area were disrupted, what products would stop showing up in the grocery store?

The President Speaks

On December 8, 1941, Americans tuned their radios to hear President Roosevelt declare war against Japan. You can listen to that address at this website.

Or try searching these words together: Roosevelt, congress, war.

In an era before television, this is most likely how you would have experienced this historic event.

Discuss your reaction to FDR’s speech among your classmates or friends, or write a journal entry.

  • What is the atmosphere surrounding this speech?
  • Did you learn anything new by listening to this broadcast?
  • What is your impression of President Roosevelt?

Would you have chosen to take the United States to war, or would you have followed the lead of Rep. Jeanette Rankin, who voted against the war? Compose and deliver a brief speech of your own, outlining your reasons for either going to war or staying out of the fight. Assume your audience is made up of friends or classmates.

To investigate more, click here to listen or watch speeches that other presidents of the United States have given. Contrast and compare one of those speeches to the one you listened to from President Roosevelt. How do they differ in style, language, and substance? How are they similar?

Find more resources in the free classroom teaching guide!

Thank you so much, Diane and Nomad Press!

Kellee’s 7th Grade Lunch Book Club 2017-18

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Two years ago, towards the end of the year, I walked into our library, and I noticed a smattering of kids sitting around the library. They were doing homework, reading, eating, sitting silently, etc. I started talking to them, and they shared how they felt the lunchroom just wasn’t the place for them: it was too loud, too full of drama, or too cliquey. It was then that I asked them if they would be interested in a lunch book club–they all answered with a resounding YES!

This year was my 2nd year with my book club, and I am so glad that I can give kids a friendly place to eat lunch, but equally important, I am so happy that I can give them some amazing reading opportunities as well! Last year, we split our book club into Mock Newbery, Author Skypes, and Harry Potter clubs. This year, the students really wanted to have more opinions in what they read, so they voted to only do author virtual visits this year.

Funding: Book Grant

Our Orange County Foundation Grants has a grant that is given each year to middle school book clubs, and I was lucky enough to receive it! This grant funds my book club completely (books for the entire year and food for an end-of-year party), and I cannot thank the Foundation enough for having this grant that is funded by the License 4 Learning and the School District Education Foundation Matching Grant Program.

Choosing Authors and Books

I want students to not find the book club to be a burden to their free choice of reading that we give at my school, so I do not give much guidance in their choices. We met for the first time in late September after I was told that I had received the grant. To start, we visit Kate Messner’s amazing list of authors who are gracious enough to virtually visit with students who have read their books for free. From this list, I had the students pick their top 6 authors (one for November, January, February, March, April, and May). We were so lucky that all 6 of the authors we contacted were able to visit with us, and we were able to find Fridays that worked for them and us!

My students purposefully picked their authors. They said they wanted a mix of authors they knew and didn’t know, and a mix of authors of different backgrounds and ethnicity. After researching the list and looking up authors, they chose:

  • Michele Weber Hurwitz
  • Laurel Snyder
  • Eliot Schrefer
  • Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich
  • Dan Gemeinhart
  • Mitali Perkins

After we chose our authors and they had confirmed their availability, the group members were able to look at all of the author’s books and pick at least one title they wanted to read. They like doing it this way instead of the whole club reading the same book because it allows more freedom of choice. Once students chose their titles, I ordered them through the grant.

Set Up

The book club originally was going to meet only Tuesday and Thursday, but after a bit they all wanted to start meeting every day, and I was so happy to do so (though it was not required). The book club is quite informal for 2 weeks out of the month: we just hang out together and eat. Then about 2 weeks before the author virtual visit, we spend our Tuesdays and Thursdays lunch periods chatting about the books, usually separated into smaller groups by what book they read. During their book meetings, they would also come up with questions for the author. We also use our online component (Canvas) to do online discussions. This allows students to put their thoughts down on a discussion board while they were thinking about it. Then they can use this if they need help during their book meetings. Finally, the last meetings before the virtual visit we get our questions in order and assign who is going to ask them, making sure that everyone has something to ask.

Virtual Visits

Each visit was as wonderful as the last! I always wish I had recorded them because I am terrible about taking notes when listening since the authors are so brilliant and funny and awesome!

I cannot thank these authors enough for their generous donation of their time! My students love this experience, and I am so lucky to be able to give this once-in-a-lifetime book club experience!

Author Q&A with Lynn Brunelle, Author of Turn This Book Into a Beehive!

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Turn This Book Into a Beehive! And 19 Other Experiments and Activities That Explore the Amazing World of Bees
Author: Lynn Brunelle
Illustrator: Anna-Maria Jung
Published April 3rd, 2018 by Workman Publishing

Summary: What a promise! Actually, promises. First, here’s a book that teaches kids all about the fascinating world of bees. Second, fun exercises, activities, and illustrations engage the imagination and offer a deeper understanding of bee life and bee behavior. Third, by following a few simple steps including removing the book’s cover and taping it together, readers can transform the book into an actual living home for backyard bees. Fourth, added all together,Turn This Book Into a Beehive! lets kids make a difference in the world—building a home where bees can thrive is one small but critical step in reversing the alarming trend of dwindling bee populations.

Turn This Book Into a Beehive!introduces kids to the amazing mason bee, a non-aggressive, non-stinging super-pollinator that does the work of over 100 honeybees. Mason bees usually live in hollow reeds or holes in wood, but here’s how to make a home just for them: Tear out the perforated paper—each illustrated as a different room in a house—roll the sheets into tubes, enclose the tubes using the book’s cover, and hang the structure outside. The bees will arrive, pack mud into the tubes, and begin pollinating all the plants in your backyard.

Twenty experiments and activities reveal even more about bees—how to smell like a bee, understand the role of flowers and pollen, learn how bees communicate with each other through “dance,” and more. It’s the real buzz on bees, delivered in the most ingenious and interactive way.

About the Author: Lynn Brunelle is a four-time Emmy Award–winning writer for Bill Nye the Science Guy and author of over 45 books, including the bestselling Pop Bottle Science and Camp Out! She is a regular contributor to KING-TV’s New Day Northwest as a family science guru and NPR’s Science Friday.

Q&A with Author, Lynn Brunelle:

Unleashing Readers: How did you research and learn more about the mason bee?

Lynn Brunelle: First I went to garden stores and asked around about bees.

I learned that honeybees and social bees were only 2% of the bees on the world. 98% of the bees are solitary wild bees that do amazing work as pollinators. I saw some of the houses these garden centers were selling to attract these bees. Then I went online and did some digging. All honeybees are domesticated and were brought here by colonists. In fact honeybees have been domesticated for a loooooooong time! There are images of beekeepers carved into caves, chiseled into Egyptian art, painted on Greek pottery and minted into Roman coins.

The solitary bees like mason bees are native bees and they’re amazing pollinators. I found experts as well. I contacted the USDA mason bee lab in Utah and spoke with bee people from around the country. It was so interesting and really exciting to learn so much.

Then I made my prototype of a book-turned-hive and stuck it out in my garden. Mason bees came! It worked; my garden has never been so productive!!

UR: How did you generate the activities within the book?

LB: My favorite thing is to make big concepts accessible to people of all ages, especially kids. And I think using laughter and hands-on fun is a great way for kids to really understand a concept. So when I was writing all of the amazing things about bees, I was always keeping in mind what kind of hands-on activity I could share for kids to really absorb the content. The fact that bees are positively charged and flowers are negatively charged and that makes pollen leap to a bee is FANTASTIC! And you can show that with a balloon and confetti. The fact that bees are amazing smellers is a perfect lead-in for getting kids to tune into their own sense of smell.

UR: Which activity is your favorite?

LB: It’s the actual making of the mason bee home that I love. Turning the book into a hive and watching as things unfold in the garden.

With mason bees, every girl’s a queen—like a single mom she finds the house—usually a hollow reed or stem or any tube—even paper ones in an inside out book cover!!! She gathers food, makes a pile of food, lays an egg on top of the food pile and then gathers mud to spackle a wall. In a good hollow tube, she can make 6-10 little rooms with an egg and a food supply in each one.

UR: What’s something else we might learn about you, either as a writer or as a person?

LB: I love my job! I get to learn about new things and share them every day. I love the outdoors. My family and I love hiking through the woods with the dogs, kayaking on the water and paddle boarding in the summer. We enjoy camping and exploring. I have a happy garden, I make jewelry and fused glass and am learning how to weld. My sons and I play the ukulele. They are teaching me to tell the difference between rap artists and I play the trombone. I make a great hummus and am getting better at rolling sushi with the help of my patient husband.

We Flagged: 


Thank you to Lynn Brunelle and Workman Press for this interview!

 

Author Guest Post!: “Defeating Your Fear of Writing” by Jan Eldredge, Author of Evangeline of the Bayou

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“Defeating Your Fear of Writing”

“Fear is a steal trap,” Gran advises Evangeline, the heroine of my debut middle grade novel. EVANGELINE OF THE BAYOU is the story of twelve-year-old Evangeline Clement, a haunt huntress apprentice studying the ways of folk magic and honing her monster-hunting skills. As soon as her animal familiar makes itself known, the only thing left to do is prove to the council she has heart. Then she will finally be declared a true haunt huntress. Of course, things do not go as planned for Evangeline. And when she and her grandmother are called to New Orleans to resolve an unusual case, she must summon her courage to defeat a powerful evil that’s been after her family for generations.

Gran goes on to warn Evangeline, “Fear keeps you from moving forward. It binds up your courage as well as your smarts.” These wise words of Gran’s hold true for nearly any situation we encounter, whether it be hunting monsters or writing essays.

As the leader of a local writers group for the past dozen years, and having been a member of numerous critique groups, I’ve learned that one thing we creatives all have in common is fear. And we have a lot of them, like: showing our writing to family and friends, getting our work critiqued by other writers, not knowing how to begin our stories, not knowing how to end our stories, or not being able to come up with any new ideas. But one of the most common fears I’ve seen is that of simply getting started, rallying the courage to just jump in and begin the writing of that novel, memoir, or short story. I call it “freezing on the high-dive”.  Taking that initial leap can be scary, but it doesn’t have to be.

After discussing this topic with numerous fellow writers over numerous coffees and teas, I’ve come to suspect this particular fear stems from the mistaken belief that we have to get our words right the first time, that somehow a perfect stream of brilliance must flow straight from our head and onto the blank sheet of paper. This unrealistic expectation can lead to a lot of frustration and writing resistance. Fortunately, there are a few easy techniques writers of any age and any writing level can incorporate to defeat their fear of writing and get their words moving forward. These simple tips can be applied to everything from the writing of novels and essays, to the writing of thank you notes.

The first step is to think of the writing process as one that uses two distinct parts of your brain: the creative side and the editorial side. Going into a project while trying to use them simultaneously is when many of us run into trouble. The two parts do not play, or work, well together.

Once you’ve accepted the fact that you’ve essentially just carved your brain into two halves, the next step is to hush that editorial side. Reassure it that it will have its turn to make corrections and clean things up later, but for now it’s Creative’s turn to play. Allow your imagination to run wild and free. Let go of rules and logic. There are no right or wrong ideas in this phase of your project. Don’t worry about choosing the perfect word, and don’t worry about things like spelling and punctuation. That’s Editor’s job for later on.

If you’re still having trouble coming up with ideas, here’s another helpful tip: just start writing. Write anything, even if it’s simply the words, “I don’t know what to write.” There’s something almost magical about the act of putting pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard, that gets the creative tap flowing. Taking away all those expectations of perfection will conquer that fear of not being able to think of anything to write.

Now that you’ve got some great ideas and images, and maybe even some really cool lines of dialogue, let your creative side take a rest. This is the time to set your internal editor free. Allow it to get to work picking and choosing what elements to use, what order to put them in, and making sure the grammar, spelling, and punctuation are all up to snuff.

This is the technique I used while writing EVANGELINE OF THE BAYOU, and I’m using it now as I work on the sequel. Keeping the creative half of my mind separated from the editorial half has helped me defeat my fear of just diving into the writing. It’s helped me overcome my worry that my writing is too sloppy, nonsensical, and filled with mistakes. I know that by setting my creative side free to do what it does best, it’ll provide me with fun, fresh, and unexpected ideas. Sometimes it delivers more ideas than I can use, or ideas that are in need of further research and tweaking, but that’s okay, because I know I’ll soon be unleashing my editorial side to make my words all shiny and clean.

About the Author: Jan Eldredge was born and raised in Louisiana. She now lives in Celebration, Florida with her husband, their children, and a house full of cats. When she’s not writing, she spends her time reading, going to theme parks, and exploring old cemeteries. She is particularly fascinated with monsters, magic, and all such eldritch things.

Evangeline of the Bayou
Author: Jan Eldredge
Illustrator: Joseph Kuefler
Published May 1st, 2018 by Balzer + Bay

About Evangeline of the Bayou: Evangeline Clement is not just your everyday twelve-year-old. Upon her thirteenth birthday, she will officially become a haunt huntress just as talented as her mama and Gran, descended from a long, proud line of haunt huntresses in Louisiana. That is, if her animal familiar shows up, her powers emerge, and she can prove to the Council that she has heart (whatever that means). Because she couldn’t possibly be a middling, born without any magical abilities, right? She can’t be the end of Gran’s line.

Fear is a steel trap. It keeps you from moving forward. It binds up your courage, as well as your smarts.
— Gran Holyfield, haunt huntress

Citizens have been calling for Gran’s help to send troublesome creatures like Bayou Banshees and Johnny Revenants back where they belong. As her apprentice, Evangeline has learned not just the cures to any local supernatural afflictions but also how to navigate the bayou, how to climb trees, and how to fight – all while wearing her signature silver-tipped gator-skinned boots! Now in an unusual request, Gran has been called from the swamp to New Orleans to undertake an emergency case. But after a string of undeniable signs indicating that death is near, can Evangeline protect her aging grandmother and save the city of New Orleans – whether she’s a haunt huntress or not?

EVANGELINE OF THE BAYOU will inspire young readers to trust their gut no matter how terrifying that might be.

Thank you so much to Jan for your honest and inspiring post!

Author Guest Post!: “What Kinds of Storybook Characters Teach the Best Lessons” by Patty Costello, Author of Catalina and the Kind’s Wall

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“What Kinds of Storybook Characters Teach the Best Lessons?”

Do you want to teach your students prosocial behaviors? What are good ways to teach children about sharing, caring, helping, honesty, fairness, and responsibility? One popular way is through storybooks, which have been a part of children’s lives and schooling for hundreds of years. Storybooks entertain, but they can also teach important life and moral lessons. But what are the best kind of characters in storybooks to teach children prosocial behavior? Does one type of character work better than another? Many stories for young children often contain animal characters who are anthropomorphized: they take on human characteristics and can talk, walk, eat, and get into all sorts of mischief too. A group of researchers at the Jackman Institute of Child Study in Toronto found that in a review of over 1000 children’s books, more than half the books featured animals, and only 2% were realistic depictions of the animals; in other words, 98% of the animals in over half of picture books feature anthropomorphized animals. People on all sides of the picture book equation – teachers, students, parents, authors, and illustrators – all have assumed that children are naturally attracted to animals and therefore in using anthropomorphized animals, a story may be more enchanting and its lessons more accessible to children’s young minds. And the bigger assumption is that children may be more likely to act in agreement with the moral of the anthropomorphized animal story.

But is this true? These same researchers – Nicole Larsen, Kang Lee and Patricia Ganea – realized in 2017 that no direct psychological or child development study had ever asked this question – are anthropomorphized animals better at promoting prosocial behavior in children compared to a book featuring human characters? The researchers realized that it was unclear as to whether children can learn prosocial moral lessons from stories with anthropomorphized animal characters and then act accordingly.

The researchers designed a study to help answer this very question: Can children learn prosocial moral lessons from stories with anthropomorphized animal characters? Do stories with anthropomorphized animal characters work better than stories with human characters at teaching kids lessons?

How did they study this? They first picked a book called Little Racoon Learns to Share by Mary Pacard. The book has a sharing theme and a moral lesson – that sharing makes you feel good. The story features anthropomorphized animals as the main characters. The researchers took the book and used Photoshop to create the same book, only with human characters instead.

All children in the study (males and females ages 4 – 6) had a vocabulary test first to make sure that they were all at a similar language ability level. Next, the children were allowed to choose 10 of their favorite stickers from a huge pile of stickers. They were then told that there was a child their same age that could not be there that day and therefore would not get any stickers. The children were told that they could share some of their stickers with this (imaginary) child by putting them into an envelope when no one would be looking. This was the pre-test or baseline measure to get a sense of their sharing level before they heard the book about sharing.

Next, students were divided into three groups of 32 children each. The first group heard the sharing story with the human characters. The second group heard the same story, but with the original animal characters. The third group, the control group, heard a story about seeds. The children in the control condition were also asked to choose between reading either a book about human characters or a book about animal characters. This question was asked to determine whether children would prefer to read the animal book or the human book when given a choice. If the argument that using anthropomorphized animal characters makes a story more captivating to young children is correct, then children should be more likely to choose the book about animal characters. I’ll cut to the chase on this one – the children in this control group picked each book equally – there was not a clear preference for the animal book over the human book.

After the three groups heard the book, the same sticker sharing task was given with new stickers (post-test). The researchers measured the differences in sticker donation before and after the story reading. Again, the researchers were wondering whether reading storybooks with a sharing theme could significantly increase children’s generous giving relative to reading the control story about seeds. More importantly, they examined whether the story in the animal condition with anthropomorphized animal characters and the story in the human condition with real human characters would have differential effects in promoting generosity in young children, that is, would the children share more stickers after hearing the sharing story with animals or humans, or would it even matter?

What happened? I bet you are very curious by now! Reading a book about sharing had an immediate effect on children’s sharing behavior: Children who read the book with human characters became more generous with how many stickers they donated to the fictional child. In contrast, there was no difference in generosity between children who read the book with anthropomorphized animal characters and the control book; both groups decreased how many stickers they gave.

Here is the chart I adopted from the study:

Condition Before the book: How many stickers did they donate? After hearing the book: How many stickers did they donate?
Human characters 2.03 stickers 3 stickers ↑
Animals characters 2.31 stickers 1.7 stickers ↓
Control condition – book about seeds 2.14 stickers 2 stickers ↓

Why did the researchers think this happened? Maybe children see anthropomorphic characters more as animals than humans. Maybe they are not able to interpret the anthropomorphic characters as being similar to themselves, and as a result, the lesson in the story is not absorbed. This does not mean that children should never hear stories with animal characters, but it’s important to keep this in mind.

Future research future should look at whether anthropomorphism in books has the same effect on older children as on younger children as this study was done on 4 – 6-year olds.

It’s fun (at least for me as a cognitive neuroscientist!) to think about storybooks from an academic perspective – maybe the assumptions we hold are not true – studying these assumptions in a systematic way can provide real answers and guidance for future generations of teachers and parents.

This post was adopted from the following article should you like to read it yourself: Larsen, N.E., Lee, K., Ganea, P.A. (2017). Do storybooks with anthropomorphized animal characters promote prosocial behaviors in young children? Developmental Science, pp. 1-9.

About the Author: Patty lives in Boise, Idaho with her husband, a zany awesome toddler, a dog named Pippa, and a dog named Spencer. She grew up in the Twin Cities and is a Minnesotan at heart (you betcha!). She has a BS in Psychology from the University of St Thomas and a PhD in Neuroscience from the University of Minnesota. She currently works in higher education. Her first book, Catalina and the King’s Wall, released May 5th, 2018 from Eifrig Publishing. At all hours of the day (and night) she can be found standing at her desk, helping her university run smoothly and working on her next children’s book. For fun, she likes to trail run, mountain bike, cross country ski, and hike. She is also a voracious volunteer for various local organizations.

Catalina and the King’s Wall
Author: Patty Costello
Illustrator: Diana Cojocaru
Expected publication: May 5th, 2018 by Eifrig Publishing

About Catalina and the King’s Wall: When Catalina overhears the king planning to build a wall, she fears her family won’t ever be able to visit. Catalina tricks the king into building walls that droop, drip, swirl, and swoosh away. But now the king demands an impenetrable wall. Luckily, Catalina has the perfect ingredients to bake up a family reunion! Through beautiful illustrations and enjoyable prose, kids learn how to stand by their convictions of inclusivity and kindness even when powerful people tell them not to.

Thank you, Patty, for a look at this study and for sharing your book!

Author Guest Post!: “Digging into Fantasy and SciFi: An Anthropological Approach” by Darby Karchut, Author of Del Toro Moon

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“Digging into Fantasy and SciFi: An Anthropological Approach”

Like many authors, I came to writing via a circuitous route. A childhood obsession with The Lord of the Rings led to a fascination with history and other cultures, which led to an undergraduate degree in anthropology, which led to teaching 7th grade social studies, which led to writing middle grade and YA fantasy. See? Circuitous.

This is particularly true with my upcoming book, Del Toro Moon, a tale about a boy and his family—descendants of Spanish knights and aided by talking Andalusian war horses—who hunt monsters in the modern-day American Southwest. Del Toro Moon incorporates all my feels: fantasy, horses, the history and legends of the Southwest (I’m a proud New Mexican native now living in Colorado), and powerful familial bonds, especially between fathers and sons.

Since I write mostly fantasy, my school visits often focus on reading and writing in that very popular genre. One writing trick I share with upper elementary and middle/high school students is to have them scrutinize literary worlds as an anthropologist would—another cross-curriculum tool between literature and social studies.

Part One

I begin by reviewing the eight elements or universals found in all human cultures. I do include this caveat: if a group of people does not have all eight elements, then it is probably a social group, not a culture as an anthropologist would define it:

Elements of Cultures

Religion

  • Religion answers basic meanings about life
  • Can be formal and elaborate or informal and peripheral to the culture

Language

  • One of the strongest unify forces of a culture
  • Variation of a language is called a dialect (local form of a language that may have a distinct vocabulary and pronunciation)
  • Idioms, metaphors, sayings, and cuss words – so fun for writers!

History

  • Actual as well as mythical
  • Shapes how a culture views itself and the world
  • Stories about the challenges and successes of a culture support certain values and help people develop cultural pride and unity
  • Cultural holidays mark important events and enable people to celebrate their heritages

Daily Life (Food/Clothing/Shelter)

  • Secular and holy meals
  • Clothes and weapons or tools, including information technology
  • Housing, including the building, furniture, gardens, etc.

Social Groups

  • People can belong to more than one social group based on age, gender, interests, etc.
  • The family is the most important social group
  • People act differently in different groups (socialization)
  • Ethnic group: a group that shares a language, history, religion, and sometimes, physical traits

Arts & Crafts

  • Expresses what people think is beautiful and meaningful
  • Can also tell stories about important figures and events in the culture
  • Music, visual arts, dance, performing arts, literature, crafts

Government

  • People need rules in order to live together without conflict
  • Limited Governments (restricts the power of its leaders)
  • Unlimited Governments: (leaders are all-powerful)

Economy

  • A system that determines what goods and services are produced, how to produce them, and who will receive them
  • Four main types of economic systems:
    • Traditional: barter and trade
    • Market: capitalism
    • Command: communism
    • Mixed: a blend of two or more

Part Two

Next, the students divide into teams of two or three. Using a simple web graphic organizer (I’ve included an example—feel free to use it), each team takes apart a favorite book, movie, or TV show and determines if that book/movie/show/etc. has those eight elements. Some common favorites are:

Star Wars                                Harry Potter                 Star Trek         Percy Jackson

The Lord of the Rings            The Hunger Games        Warriors          Others?

The students must include a justification. For example, if a team is examining Star Wars and puts “Jedi” in the Religion circle, they must explain why they placed it there as opposed to History or Government.

Part Three

Finally, I have them complete the same exercise with their own work-in-progress. This is also a useful tool to aid in plotting a story prior to writing the first draft. I’ve had some pretty amazing discussions during this activity. One of my favorite was a debate focused on whether information technology should be listed under “Tools” or “Religion.”

I’d enjoy hearing about other ways teachers and librarians are connecting various disciplines, especially between the humanities and STEM. Please share with me and thank you!

About the Author: Darby Karchut is a multi-award winning author, dreamer, and compulsive dawn greeter.  A proud native of New Mexico, she now lives in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, where she runs in blizzards and bikes in lightning storms. When not dodging death by Colorado, Darby is busy at her writing desk. Her books include the best selling middle grade series: THE ADVENTURES OF FINN MacCULLEN. Best thing ever: her YA debut novel, GRIFFIN RISING, has been optioned for film. Her latest book, DEL TORO MOON, releases Fall 2018 from Owl Hollow Press. Visit the author at www.darbykarchut.com

Del Toro Moon
Author: Darby Karchut
Publishing September 2018 by Owl Hollow Press

Summary: Bad enough Matt Del Toro is the greenest greenhorn in the family’s centuries-old business: riding down and destroying wolf-like creatures, known as skinners. He must also learn how to match his father’s skills at monster hunting. Odds of doing that? Yeah, about a million to one. Because Matt’s father is the legendary Javier Del Toro—hunter, scholar, and a true caballero: a gentleman of the horse.

Now, with the skinners multiplying, both in numbers and ferocity, Matt is desperate to keep his father and hot-tempered older brother from killing each other, prevent his new friend, Perry—a horse-crazy girl who recently moved to their small town of Huerfano, Colorado—from discovering the true nature of his odder-than-oddball family, and save a group of paleontologists from getting skinner-ed.

Luckily, Matt has twelve hundred pounds of backup in his best friend—El Cid, an Andalusian war stallion with the ability of human speech, more fighting savvy than a medieval knight, and a heart as big and steadfast as the Rocky Mountains.

Serious horse power.

Those skinners don’t stand a chance.

www.darbykarchut.com

www.owlhollowpress.com

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/35183477-del-toro-moon?from_search=true

Thank you Darby for sharing this look at writing from a cross-curricular viewpoint!