Festival Celebrates Literacy

The Arkansas Literary Festival will take place next weekend, April 8-11, 2010 in Little Rock, AR. If you’re anywhere close, please come!

Books, theater, music, comics, books, games, chess, puppets, origami, Shakespeare, books, authors in the schools, authors in the library, authors just strolling around, books, authors everywhere, panels and workships, art and illustration — and did I mention, books? And authors?

This year, I’ve served as the Co-Chair of the Children’s Programs for the Literary Festival and it’s been great fun planning the event. We tried to find a mix of activities relating to literacy and tried to schedule it so that families can take advantage of the range of activities.

Read the full program and schedule at www.arkansasliteraryfestival.org.

It's Here.

I hail from Arkansas and until now, we’ve been known for the Clinton Presidential Library, the US’s only diamond mine (Crater of Diamonds State Park), and the headquarters of Wal-Mart. But this year we’ll be known for the Arkansas Teen Book Award, established by Arkansas Librarians. (Facebook page.) The reading list was announced in December, 2009 and this year’s winners will be announced in December, 2010.

Two days ago, we looked at opening lines from 100 top novels and categorized them to learn how to open a novel. Yesterday, we looked at the opening lines from the teen novels on the 7-9th grade, 2010 Arkansas Teen Book Award reading list and challenged you to identify the novels. Today’s opening lines are from the 10-12th grade reading list for the Arkansas Teen Book Award.

Identify These Teen Novels from Their Opening Lines, #2

OK, TRY to identify these without any help. They are all 2008 copyright books. Need help? See the tip below.
(Actually, many of these are graphic novels and there’s at least one non-fiction on the list.)

• I look at my fingers again, the ones that trembled and shook just a few days ago at Mr. Bender’s kitchen table.
• Willow Creek Camping Ground, Willow Creek, Montana.
  Daddy?
• Yarlung Tsangpo Canyon, Himalayas – 1938.
  See anything?
• You have never been so hungry; you have never been so cold.
• As with the banking industry, the Russian political system and the romantic liaisons on the Gossip Girl, all is not as it seems in the world of food and drink.
• Time 6:13:10 four minutes earlier…
  Readings look good, Annie.
• No doubt with all those grapes, Aristotle, the world’s first naturalist, passed gas.
• We live in a world where medical miracles and high-tech marvels are almost commonplace.
• In these dungeons the darkness was complete, but Katsa had a map in her mind.
• Needle doesn’t know which way to point.
• twenty-two years later -
  I’m dreaming of the boy in the tree and at the exact moment I’m about to hear the answer that I’ve been waiting for, the flashlights yank me out of what could have been one of those perfect moments of clarity people talk about for the rest of their lives.
• The first thing you find out when yer dog learns to talk is that dogs don’t got nothing much to say.
• I’m a senior at Cesar Chavez High in San Francisco’s sunny Mission district, and that makes me one of the most surveilled people in the world.
• Henry and I dug the whole seven feet deep.
• The strikers cheered as the tractor dragged the ancient Chrysler Newport in front of the main gate.
• just cause you can’t see, don’t mean aint nothing there. (See comments: Thanks to the author for adding the comment with the opening line!)
• “So I was reading this Vonnegut novel,” I said to Samantha.
• I was born in the United States of America.
• The Cosmic hurricane rips through uncharted space at one
  million miles per hour, gas plumes extending for a thousand light-years
  in any direction.
• Venomous by Christopher Krovatin

Tip No. 1: The Reading List (pdf) can be found here. These are the opening lines for the Level 2, Grades 10-12 list. I didn’t scramble up the list, it just goes down the line.
Tip No. 2: The links will take you to the Amazon page for each book.

It's Here.

I hail from Arkansas and until now, we’ve been known for the Clinton Presidential Library, the US’s only diamond mine (Crater of Diamonds State Park), and the headquarters of Wal-Mart. But this year we’ll be known for the Arkansas Teen Book Award, established by Arkansas Librarians. (Facebook page.) The reading list was announced in December, 2009 and this year’s winners will be announced in December, 2010.

Yesterday, we looked at opening lines from 100 top novels and categorized them to learn how to open a novel. Here, I’m taking the opening lines from the teen novels on the 2010 Arkansas Teen Book Award reading list and challenging you to identify the novel.

Identify These Teen Novels from Their Opening Lines, #1

OK, TRY to identify these without any help. They are all 2008 copyright books. Need help? See the tip below.

• Conner Broekhart was a remarkable boy, a fact that became evident very early in his idyllic childhood.
• The day I broke up with my boyfriend Evan was the day he wrote the song.
• We can hear someone screaming as soon as we get off the elevator.
• They’d stolen a march on the day.
• The best time to talk to ghosts is just before the sun comes up.
• When my father died, I thought the world would come to an end.
• December 14, 2007
  To: Headmaster Richmond and the Board of Directors, Alabaster Preparatory Academy
• Ten minutes after the last class of the day, Lucy got a text message from her best friend Sarah Hebert, “Need u,” it said.
• Pugg Brothers. . .Please report to the principal’s office.
• . . . Gino Michelini on KLS-FM, 92.3 on your FM dial!
• Decatur, Alabama
  August 12, 1993
  Kevin Gardner was not home, even though it was way past his eleven-o’clock curfew.
• Long ago and far away in the land of ice and snow, there came a time when it seemed that winter would never end.
• Some people call me a child-witch,
  but I’m just a girl who likes to watch
  the hands of women
  as they gather wild herbs and flowers
  to heal the sick.
• There was a hand in the darkness, and it held a knife.
• When I wake up, the other side of the bed is cold.
• “You won’t believe this, but it’s true. I wrote a story called ‘The Savage,’ about a savage kid that lived under the ruined chapel in Burgess Woods, and the kid came to life in the real world.”
• Mark Twain was born fully grown, with a cigar clamped between his teeth.
• Henry Smith’s father told him that if you build your house far enough away from Trouble, then Trouble will never find you.
• Maybe Mommers and I shouldn’t have been surprised; Dwight had told us it was a trailer even before we’d packed our bags.
• Imagine for a moment that it is early Saturday morning in the United States.

Interestingly, the list includes several graphic novels, but not as many as the grade 10-12 list (opening lines coming tomorrow), which is about a third graphic novels. Arkansas is currently having a big push in schools about encouraging kids to eat right and control their weight. So, both lists include books about eating.

Tip : The Reading List (pdf) can be found here. These are the opening lines for the Level 1, Grades 7-9 list. I didn’t scramble up the list, it just goes down the line. Tomorrow, we’ll do the same thing for the 10-12 grade list.
Tip No. 2: The links will take you to the Amazon page for each book.

It's Here.

Connect with Authors Through Skype

One site that quickly gained popularity this year is the Skype an Author, a Wetpaint site, billed at the key to Virtual Author Visits in Your Library or Classroom. Set up by Sarah Chauncey of the Grandview Elementary School Library in Rockland County, NY schools and author Mona Kirby, it is getting attention from many sources, including the School Library Journal.

The site allows authors to set up pages describing their books and how they might do a Skype visit. Skype is the online audio/video free phone service; a Skype visits allows an author to see students and students to see the author.

Authors are asked to do one of two types of Skype visits:

• No Charge – Meet the Author Visit – 10 to 15 minutes
• In-Depth Visit – 30-60 Minutes – Charge to be determined by author

Why Should you Want to Skype?

(See what Catherine Balkin said in yesterday’s post. )

Set Up Your Page

I recently updated the Darcy Pattison page on the Skype an Author site.

Here are some tips:

Set up your Webcam

One final thing you’ll want to do before going live with the Skype an Author site is to test out your Skype/Webcam set up. I discovered, for example, that the lighting in my office is great for doing work on the computer, but awful for doubling as a video studio. Here is one videos to get you started on simple lighting. Look for other tutorials.

How to Apply Simple 3-Point Lighting to Amateur Film Making

It's Here.

The Arkansas SCBWI Conference is this weekend in Conway, AR.

Featured speakers are Anastasia Suen, Greenwillow editor Martha Mahilick, and agent Jennifer (Jaeger) Rofe, from the Andrea Brown Literary Agency.

Earlier, I linked to the websites and blogs of the speakers.

Full registration information is available on the Arkansas SCBWI website.

If you’re anywhere close, come join us!

It's Here.

Meet Editor and Agent at Arkansas Conference

The Arkansas SCBWI Spring Conference schedule is now online!

When: May 15-16, 2009
Where: Conway, AR

Speakers include:

• Anastasia Suen, author, teacher
• Jennifer (Jaeger) Rofe, literary agent, Andrea Brown Literary
  • Interview at KidLit Central news
  • Cynsations interview
• Martha Mihalick, editor, Greenwillow Books/Harpercollins
  • Greenwillow books on Facebook
  • Christy’s Creative Space report on Mihalick’s talk on Voice
  • Cheryl’s Musings reports on books edited by Mihalick
  • Market My Words interview with Mihalick about marketing
  • Mihalick’s personal blog, A Curiosity Shop
• Melanie Siegel, illustrator
• Darcy Pattison, author, teacher

It's Here.