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upstate NY ~ Sue H |
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Wilmington, VT ~ Sue H |
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Pandemic painting ~ Suzy L |
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upstate NY ~ Sue H |
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Wilmington, VT ~ Sue H |
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Pandemic painting ~ Suzy L |
Today I (Tina Cho) welcome my writing friend and one of my critique partners--Carrie Finison! Her latest picture book, Don't Hug Doug, hit bookstores the end of January. Carrie is sharing some expert advice on writing in second person point of view and benefits of doing so. Take it away, Carrie!
One
day, when Doug was hammering and gluing and generally minding his own business,
some relatives stopped by. They’d been invited to lunch.
Aunt
Muriel wrapped him in a pillowy, billowy embrace. “Such twirly curls! And such
big, brown, puppy dog eyes!”
“He’s
squishier than a jelly doughnut,” said Uncle Hank-the-Tank.
“Dug-ga-hug-ga,”
babbled sticky Sukey.
They
hugged him and squeezed him and squooshed him and smooshed him.
Their
hugs made Doug feel as shriveled and wrung out as a week-old balloon. But he
thought it would be rude to say so.
He
tried going stiff, but they just hugged him tighter. He tried going limp, but
they just hugged him longer…and longer…and LONGER.
I liked the story told this way, but I could not get the
ending right. In one version, Doug built a robot for his relatives to hug
instead of him. In another version, he adopted a puppy to soak up their
attention. In another version, he set up a booby trap with a giant stuffed
animal who took on their enthusiastic embraces.
While these endings were fun, and funny, they felt wrong
because they didn’t truly solve Doug’s problem. Yes, he managed to avoid his
relatives’ hugs — this time. But what about next time? Or the time after that?
Eventually, he’d be right back where he started. His real problem wasn’t
avoiding a single hug — it was getting his relatives to listen to him and
accept the fact that he didn’t want hugs from them.
THAT problem felt insurmountable. How could Doug solve this
problem? How could ANY kid solve it? The truth is, adults often don’t listen to
children’s wishes when it comes to hugging (and lots of other things, too) —
and often they don’t even think to ask in the first place.
Doug, I realized, could not force his relatives to listen to
him — but I could. As the writer, I could make readers say things out loud. I
could make them say things to each other. I could give them an invitation to
interact — with the book, and with each other.
I rewrote the story in the second person point of view,
addressing the reader. Here it is in published form:
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The beauty of
writing from the second person is that you create an interactive experience. In
this case, I wanted both child and adult readers to have plenty of practice
asking and answering the question, “Do you want a hug?” So I made them say it
out loud, right in the text of the book. (Cue writerly cackle.)
And, I could
give them a chance to physically practice a high five as an alterative to
hugging.
Thinking more
broadly, the second person point of view can be helpful in an array of
circumstances:
-
You
want your reader’s experience to be interactive — either verbally (the reader
says things out loud) or physically (the reader physically interacts with the
book in some way).
-
You
want to immerse your reader in the experience of the main character. In these
books, the narrator addresses the main character of the book as ‘you’ and the
reader “becomes” the main character.
-
You
want to persuade the reader.
-
You
want to convey a familiar childhood experience in a humorous way.
Don’t Feed the Coos by Jonathan Stutzman, illustrated by Heather Fox
Don’t Push the Button by Bill Cotter
The Elephant’s Guide to Hide and Seek by Kjersten Hays, illustrated by Gladys Jose
Flying Deep: Climb Inside Deep-Sea Submersible Alvin by Michelle Cusolito, illustrated by Nicole Wong
How Do You Dance? by Thyra Heder
How to Babysit a Grandpa by Jean Reagan, illustrated by Lee Wildish
How to Wear a Sari by Darshana Khiani, illustrated by Joanne Lew-Vriethoff
If You Decide to Go to the Moon by Faith McNulty, illustrated by Steve Kellogg
If Your Monster Won’t Go to Bed by Denise Vega, illustrated by Zachariah O’Hora
The Iridescence of Birds: A Book About Henri Matisse by Patricia MacLachlan, illustrated by Hadley Hooper
The Secret Code Inside You by Rajani LaRocca, illustrated by Steven Salerno
Warning: Do Not Open This Book! by Adam Lehrhaupt, illustrated by Matthew Forsythe
When Grandma Gives You a Lemon Tree by Jamie L.B. Deenihan, illustrated by Lorraine Rocha
When Your Elephant Has the Sniffles by Susanna Leonard Hill, illustrated by Daniel Wiseman
You DON’T Want a Unicorn by Ame Dyckman, illustrated by Liz Climo
A round of applause, please, for the dozen delightful books that have won Cybils Awards for 2020. Recommended reading for all!
For details about the books and how to order, see the Cybils announcement, here. I've shared the covers of all the winning books at the end of this post.
The Cybils, a blogger-powered program, recognizes books that librarians, educators, and other children's book bloggers are itching to put into the hands of young readers. This year, 987 books were nominated. The official mission statement explains: The Cybils Awards aims to recognize the children’s and young adult authors and illustrators whose books combine the highest literary merit and popular appeal. If some la-di-dah awards can be compared to brussels sprouts, and other, more populist ones to gummy bears, we’re thinking more like organic chicken nuggets. We’re yummy and nutritious.
I was honored to be chosen as a nonfiction panelist for the yummy and nutritious Cybils this year. As a Round 1 Panelist, I worked with a crew of outstanding book bloggers to name the finalists at the end of December. This year, some categories were combined. We reviewed all the nonfiction nominees, with three subgroups for elementary, middle, and high school levels. That was more than 200 books.
It was a great chance to read many excellent books that had escaped my attention in this pandemic year. All the panelists were engaged and well-informed. As we read, we compared notes online, and for the final vote we conferred (for hours!) by Zoom to narrow our choices to the short-listed finalists for each level. I, for one, was glad that I didn't have to choose the single "best" book in any category.
Having seen the review process, I can attest that the winners have got to be outstanding. If you're not familiar with any of these, check them out! And let's get more great books into the hands of more readers. Thanks!
Just announced Feb. 14, the worthy winners are:
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EASY READER |
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EARLY CHAPTER BOOK |
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FICTION PICTURE BOOK |
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ELEMENTARY NONFICTION |
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ELEMENTARY/MG SPECULATIVE NONFICTION |
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MG GRAPHIC NOVEL |
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MIDDLE GRADE FICTION |
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MIDDLE GRADE NONFICTION |
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YOUNG ADULT GRAPHIC NOVEL |
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HIGH SCHOOL NONFICTION |
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YOUNG ADULT FICTION |
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YA SPECULATIVE FICTION |
(updated Feb 12)
Guest Post by Jennifer Swanson
Today we are turning the blog over to award-winning nonfiction author Jennifer Swanson. Jennifer has written more than 40 nonfiction books, mostly about science and technology. She’s been a STEM girl since age 7, when she started a science club in her garage. She created the STEM Tuesday blog and has a science podcast for kids, with her cohost Jed Doherty, called Solve It! for Kids
Think back to the days when you were in elementary school, or even high school or college. How many of you remember sitting in class thinking, “Why do I have to know this? There is no way I’ll ever use this again?” Come on. I know that you have at least one class where you thought this. I’ll be honest. I did. A lot! Particularly when I was in math, English, or yes, even some science classes.
Believe it or not, those topics that we are sure we will never use again, we always do. Especially if you’re a writer. Well, that’s what’s happened to me. And I’m sure a bunch of you, too.
The thing is, as a writer you are always told to “write what you know”. That’s a great statement but it can carry more weight than you intend. We’d all like to think that that statement means that we get to write what we are passionate about. Sometimes that’s the case. And sometimes we write what is offered to us so that we can get a paycheck and keep moving forward
As a new writer starting out, particularly in the nonfiction world the first thing you learn is that you say “YES” to a job that is offered to you. My first few writing jobs were with educational publishers. There you are competing against a bunch of other authors for a work-for-hire job. In order to stay at the top of the acquiring editor’s writer list, you needed to work quickly and diligently to keep getting assignments.
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The COOL thing about using things that you learned years ago is that now you have DISTANCE. Years later when you pick up this topic again, you may find it much easier. Why? First of all, no tests! And also, you can learn the topic the way you want to, which is not always the way the teacher presents the material.
How did this book turn out? Well, the whole series was a Junior Library Guild Selection and got great reviews. Not bad, huh?
The funny thing is that researching this book actually changed the trajectory of my writing. I learned a lot about electrical engineering, of course, but I also learned that I loved writing about engineering and technology. This book is where I was first introduced to the self-driving car!! (The self-driving car is a big thing for me. If you know me, you know this to be true).
Is this the only book where I’ve used stuff I learned in school? Nope. When Workman Publishing was looking to expand their Big Fat Notebook series to high schoolers, I got an email from the editor asking me if I wanted to write the chemistry book in that series. Now, this should be a no-brainer, right? I have a B.S. in Chemistry. Uh, yeah, that was 30 years ago. Did I ever think that I’d be writing a chemistry book all these years later. No.And yet, I had tons of fun doing it. The trick to using what you never thought you would is that you find out it’s actually kind of fun. Plus, now, you can explain things that you remember were difficult for you.
Take chemical bonds. Some kids have problems with these. But now, I get to take the time to explain it in a way that a kid would understand. (and I do, too, now)
And here’s where that math comes in. Yep! I got to use fractions, units and conversions, all in dimensional analysis.
So why am I talking about all of this? To let you know that if you’re a writer, you may be asked to write about anything. This is true of both nonfiction and fiction authors.
The point is, don’t say no. You can do it!Besides, saying yes to one book, you just might be inspired to write a different one. One that is your own idea. As you can see, my obsession passion for self-driving cars led me to write this one Without doing the Electrical Engineering book, I may never have written Save the Crash-test Dummies (Peachtree Publishing)
If you take a look at most of the books I’ve written, you’ll see that I tend to use a lot of what I learned in school. Yes, there is a lot of science, but also history, technology, math, social studies, and don’t forget the after-school sports!
Here is my challenge to you, think about something you thought you’d never use again. Then look around. Have you used it? And if not, then I challenge you to do so. It may open a whole new world of ideas and opportunities for you.
Jennifer's books have received starred reviews and other accolades, including Booklist Best Tech books, Green Earth Book Honor award, a Florida Book award, multiple California Reading association awards, and National Science Teaching Best STEM awards. An accomplished and exciting speaker, Jennifer has presented at National NSTA conferences, Highlights Foundation workshops, the World Science Festival in NYC, and the Library of Congress National Book Festival. Visit her website at http://www.JenniferSwansonBooks.com