Kate Messner's Blog, page 7

A Great Day at Henry Elementary School!

My second day of Missouri school visits this week brought me to the fantastic readers of Henry Elementary School, who had  warm welcome waiting outside the library!

My first two hours of the day were dedicated to a marathon book signing that claimed the life of a brand new Sharpie.

This book especially made me smile…

I love when a student drops off a book to be signed & there’s already a bookmark in the middle!

After the book signing, I gave presentations to the K-1st, 2nd-3rd, and 4th-5th grade groups. They were all amazing listeners, readers, and writers – and near the end of the afternoon, as the kids were leaving the library, I heard one of the best things an author can possible hear after a talk. A girl turned to her teacher and said, “Can we go write now?!” It made my whole day.  And so did these smiling faces…

Thanks, staff and students of Henry Elementary School – I loved spending my Tuesday with you!

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Thank you, Bellerive Elementary!

I’m in Missouri this week for two days of author visits. Today, I spent the day at Bellerive Elementary School just outside St. Louis, talking books, reading, and writing with some amazing readers and writers.  And boy, does this school ever know how to make an author feel welcome. Check out the artwork that greeted me everywhere I turned.

It’s so much fun to see my characters brought to life in kids’ artwork!

Cassie even created Gianna’s leaf-mobile from THE BRILLIANT FALL OF GIANNA Z.

School librarian Melissa Biehl organized this whole extravaganza – what an amazing woman!

She also introduced me to Jerome.

He’s the official bearded dragon of the Bellerive Elementary Library. I even got to hold him for a bit while the students cleaned out his cage.

Jerome was very friendly, if a little prickly.

After school, I got to spend time with district teachers, giving a “Real Revision” workshop. They were great sports – and enthusiastic writers even after a long day of teaching!

Thanks so much to EVERYONE  at Bellerive Elementary School for a great visit! What an amazing group of readers and writers!

 

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Introducing book #2 in the Silver Jaguar Society mysteries!

I’ve been busier than usual with Skype author visits to classrooms this fall. I’m delighted that so many teachers have chosen to share CAPTURE THE FLAG as a first read-aloud of the school year, and it’s been great fun to answer kids’ questions about the book and the series. One question that always comes up is this:

Is there going to be a sequel?

The answer is YES!  It’s called HIDE AND SEEK, and here’s the cover:

José, Anna, and Henry are junior members of the secret Silver Jaguar Society, sworn to protect the world’s most important artifacts. When they discover that the society’s treasured Jaguar Cup has been replaced with a counterfeit, the trio and their families rush to the rain forests of Costa Rica in search of the real chalice. But when the trail runs dry, new mysteries emerge: Who can they trust? Is there a traitor in their midst? With danger at every turn, it will take more than they realize for José and his friends to recover the cup before it falls into the wrong hands.

HIDE AND SEEK was so much fun to write, not only because I’m madly in love with these characters but also because this book meant traveling to Costa Rica’s rain forest for research.  You can bet that many of the animals I blogged about after that trip have crawled, flown, climbed, and slithered their way into the story, too.

HIDE AND SEEK comes out April 1st from Scholastic – and it’s already on GoodReads if you’d like to add to your to-read list. It’s available for pre-order, too, at your local indie bookstore or wherever you like to buy books.

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Teachers Write: What’s your character’s knot?

I’m working through a novel revision right now with a huge focus on character. Specifically, I’m studying the growth of my main character throughout the book, because if a character doesn’t grow and change…well, there’s not much of a story to be told.

I’ve been reading this book, which I recommend:

Jeff Gerke’s PLOT VERSUS CHARACTER takes a hard look at what we really need to make our characters live on the page. Every character, Gerke says, should start with a knot, which he describes like this:

I refer to your character’s problem as his knot. If you’ve worked with ropes much, especially in a nautical setting, you know they have to run smoothly through eyelets and pulleys and across capstans. A knot in the wrong rope at the wrong place can result in irritation, delay, or even disaster

So it is with your character. There he is, going along fine, minding his business, when something causes a knot to form in the rope of his life. Maybe he sees it and begins working on untying it. Maybe he sees it and doesn’t work on it. Maybe he doesn’t see it at all and the problems it’s causing are happening in his blind spot.

Whether he knows about it or is working to correct it or not, the knot is messing up his life.

                          ~from PLOT VERSUS CHARACTER by Jeff Gerke, p. 85.

Good stuff, this is.

So today’s prompt is this:  What is your character’s knot?  Remember that when we talk about a knot, we’re talking about a character’s internal problem, rather than the bear that may be about to eat him or her. I’m not denying that’s a problem, but it’s not the kind of internal struggle we’re talking about here.  If you have a work-in-progress, write a little about your main character’s knot (or your antagonist’s knot… bad guys have knots, too, you know!)  If this doesn’t fit what you’re working on right now, try writing about the knot of the main character in one of your favorite books that you’ve read. What’s Harry Potter’s knot? What about Katniss?

Write away…and feel free to share excerpts & thoughts in the comments if you’d like!

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Amazing Readers (and one tarantula!) at Fox Run Elementary!

I’ve been at a different San Antonio elementary school every day this week, spending time with amazing kids, teachers, librarians, and parent volunteers – and today was no exception.  My morning at Fox Run Elementary School started with a special welcome on the school’s morning announcements.

These girls do the announcements live on school-wide television every morning!

Librarian Cari Young, who coordinated my week of visits, heads up the library here and did an amazing job getting her readers ready for today’s presentations.

She also introduced me to her library guest, Gordon the Tarantula.

Gordon is on loan from the regional educational center, which loans out not only the usual books and A/V supplies but also live animals.  Gordon’s visiting for two weeks, and while he’s in the library, kids are invited to write his diary.

What does the tarantula have to say?

Such a fun way to get kids thinking about point of view and voice!  My favorite entry from the spider said, “I need to shave my legs.”

Throughout the day, I signed lots and lots of books…and one cast.

Thanks so much, Fox Run readers, for an amazing day in your school library!

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My Day with the Huebner Huskies!

When I’m visiting a city for school or library visits, I always love to see the area, so I was thrilled when San Antonio librarian friends Cari, Sue, and Natalie asked if I’d like to join them for dinner on the River Walk last night. We enjoyed some great Mexican food, the weather was perfect (it’s no longer outdoor dining weather at home!), and the view was spectacular.

After dinner, they took me to see the Alamo because you simply cannot leave San Antonio without having your picture taken at the Alamo.

Mission accomplished!  From left to right, that’s Natalie Watts, me, and Cari Young. It’s fascinating to me that this gorgeous historic site is right in the middle of downtown San Antonio, next to a mall, in fact.

The next morning, Natalie picked me up for my visit to her wonderful library and introduced me to the stellar Huebner Husky readers.

I gave presentations for the K, 1st, and 2nd students – then had lunch with these great ladies.

Kristin and Rachel are PTA library volunteers who help keep the place running. Today, in addition to taking care of breakfast (breakfast tacos!) and lunch for my author visit, they were getting ready for the school’s upcoming Scholastic Book Fair.

In this picture, they’re working on something I thought was too cool not to share.  They create a teacher wish-list board, with pictures of all the teachers and tiny folders where they can put slips of paper with the titles of books they’d like for their classrooms.  Parents who visit the book fair check out the board to find their child’s teacher and take a slip if they’d like to purchase a book for the class library.  Kristin and Rachel say by the end of the book fair, those slips of paper are almost always gone, and the kids have great new books to read in their classrooms. Neat, huh?

After lunch today, I spent some time in individual classrooms, visiting 5th graders who hadn’t seen a presentation but wanted to know about research and writing, and chatting with first graders who won a “private Q and A session” in the library drawing.

Then it was back to the library to finish signing books for the kids before dismissal time. We finished the last batch with about five minutes to spare!

I was heading out for a quiet dinner with my book tonight, but when I got to the restaurant, one of Huebner’s second grade teachers, Jillian Curtis, rushed up to say hi.

Jillian happened to be eating out there with her husband and invited me to join them – something I appreciated so much because I’ve been missing my family at night.  An evening of great conversation with new friends was the perfect way to end the day.

Thanks so much, Huebner Huskies!  It was truly a joy spending the day with such fantastic readers, writers, and thinkers.

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Thank you, Wetmore Elementary!

My day started with a big Texas sunrise on the way to school, where I was greeted by this sign…

…this life-size image of the school principal.  (This was my first clue that the lead learners at this school have a great sense of humor!)

…and a whole bunch of smiling faces!

I really wish every school could have a librarian like the women I’ve met in San Antonio this week. Wetmore Elementary’s Cynthia Baker and Jean Ann Johnson were hopping from the minute Cynthia picked me up this morning, setting things up, handling the book signing, and making sure every group arrived at the library ready to talk books, reading, and writing.  Cynthia apparently book-talked my titles so well that they ran  out of a couple titles, but Cynthia and Jean Ann sprang into action, made a few phone calls, and hustled over to the Scholastic Warehouse and Barnes and Noble so that kids could have signed copies of the books they’d requested. Here we are at the end of a very busy day!

From left to right, that’s Jean Ann, me, and Cynthia.

I also had a little fun, informal time with kids at the library later on.  Charlie and Cole are both reading my mystery, CAPTURE THE FLAG, so they challenged me to a game.

While I love presenting to big groups of kids, I also really enjoy the quieter conversations that happen when they stop back later to have books signed, or even when they’re on their way back to class.  One boy who’d been fascinated by my story about Champ, the legendary Lake Champlain monster, stopped to ask if I’d heard about chupacabra.  I hadn’t…so I had him write it down in my notebook to research later on.  This is what I found. Fascinating stuff…and a story that just might make its way into one of my books down the road.  Yesterday, a girl at Harmony Hills suggested an idea for a future Marty McGuire book, and that’s in my notebook now, too.

Thanks so much for a great day, Wetmore Elementary readers! Everything your principal and librarian told me about how awesome you kids are is 100% true, and I so loved spending the day in your school library.

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Meeting Readers at Harmony Hills Elementary

Day Two of my week of school visits in San Antonio brought me to Harmony Hills Elementary School, where amazing librarian Angie Oliverson had the library decked out in banners for all of my books. I especially loved this one with the mini-tornadoes!

The hallway near the library was full of fantastic student art. Second graders had illustrated their favorite scenes in SEA MONSTER’S FIRST DAY.

Watch out, Andy Rash…I think some of these kids may be after your illustrating job soon!

I gave presentations to three different groups of kids, ranging from Pre-K to fifth grade. You can tell by their faces just how enthusiastic these readers were!

I also popped in for a little extra time with one fifth grade classroom where the students have been reading EYE OF THE STORM.

While they ate lunch, I signed books, and we chatted about everything from tornadoes to favorite books to future plans (one girl told me she’s going to be a lawyer!)  I have no doubts she’ll make it – and truly, I see all of these kids doing great things. Thanks, Harmony Hills Elementary School, for a magical day!

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Thank you, Tuscany Heights Elementary!

I’m visiting Texas for the first time this week and just finished up the first of five days of elementary school visits in San Antonio.  Tuscan Heights Elementary has a simply wonderful staff, student, and family community, and it was so much fun spending time with their 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders this morning.

Third grade reading superstars!

Fabulous Fourth Graders!

First-Rate Fifth Graders!

I talked with the kids about how reading made me a writer, shared some of my favorite research stories, from kissing frogs to exploring a tropical rain forest, and then the students had great questions.  My favorite inquiry of the day?  “When you kissed that frog (research for a frog-kissing scene in Marty McGuire) did you like it?”

As soon as I could stop laughing, I did answer. “Not so much.”  While frog-kissing is most definitely not on my list of things to try again,  I did appreciate the insight it gave me as to Marty’s predicament.

I got to meet so many great readers and writers, including Tessa, who recently wrote a proposal to get a Writing Club started at her school.

And of course, I got to spend time with Tuscany Heights Elementary’s dynamic lead-reader, school librarian Sue Keuntz.

Thanks to everyone at Tuscany Heights Elementary for such a warm, wonderful welcome.  Tomorrow, I’m off to Harmony Hills Elementary – looking forward to another great day with Texas readers!

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Think Before You Thank: Writers & Acknowledgments

I learned something recently that I thought I’d share…because it saved me from doing something nice that could have turned into something uncomfortable.

If you’ve ever finished a novel and gone on to read the acknowledgments pages in the back, you know that authors are frequently thankful to lots of people. We thank our editors and agents, our copy editors, publicists and cover designers.  We thank experts who helped with research and gatekeepers who may have granted access to research opportunities. We thank our partners and friends and writing buddies, and sometimes, we thank booksellers, teachers, and librarians who have been champions of our work.  And all of that is lovely, but…

An acknowledgment in the back of a book is different from a quiet thank you note that arrives in a mailbox. It’s a very public thank you, and in some situations, it might not be comfortable for the person being thanked.

A museum employee or zookeeper who granted unusual access to records or an exhibit, for example, may have bent some rules in doing so.  A public thank you could make for an awkward conversation with that person’s boss.

A teacher or librarian who enjoys an author’s work might be delighted to see his or her name in the back of a book.  But what if that reader wants to be on a state or national awards committee and the author’s book shows up in the pile of titles to be discussed?  Suddenly, having that public thank you in the book is awkward at best and at worst, could create pressure for the person to resign from a great opportunity.

I’ll be honest – I wouldn’t have thought of any of this until a friend brought it to my attention recently.  Because what could be wrong with saying thanks?  Nothing…as long as the person has a heads up.

Here’s what I’m going to do from now on…  There are certain people I know are happy to be thanked – my critique partners, my agent and editor, my family.  But for others– individuals who have helped along the way by assisting with research or spreading the word about my books – I’ve decided it’s probably best to fire off a quick note first. Something like this…

Dear awesome person,

I wanted to drop you a note to say thanks again for (awesome things that you did).  If it’s okay with you, I’d like to say a more public thank you by including your name in the acknowledgments for (title of book that is awesome because of you).  Please let me know if that’s all right, and even if it’s not, know that I’m so very grateful for your help.

Best,

~Kate

 

So I’m curious now.  How do other writers handle acknowledgments?  I’d love to hear your thoughts in comments!

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