Marcia Thornton Jones's Blog, page 170

Toys and Games of Childhood by Darlene Beck Jacobson

     While doing some research for my historical novel WHEELS OF CHANGE, I came upon a site that listed the most popular toys and games at the turn of the 20th Century.  Here it is:

          Teddy Bear (1902)- in honor of President Theodore Roosevelt who, on a hunting trip, had an opportunity to kill a bear and didn’t.2         Erector Set- invented by AC Gilbert, a gold medal Olympian in the 1908 Pole Vault.3        Lionel Trains (1901)4        Lincoln Logs (1916)5        Raggedy Ann Doll 6       Radio Flyer Wagon (1917)7        Tinker Toys (1914)8        Crayola Crayons 8 pack (1903)9        Tin Toys 1      Tiddlywinks          Baseball Cards  (1900)    Ping Pong  (1901)   Jigsaw Puzzle (1909)       Other popular toys included:  Snap Card Game, Playing cards, marbles, checkers, chess,    yoyos, wooden tops, dolls.                  After viewing this, I was struck by how  - even in this technological age - many of the items are still enjoyed. And, many classic books from my own childhood still get read by today's children: Dr. Suess, Nancy Drew, Little Women, Ramona Quimby, Cinderella, Snow White, PeterPan, Robinson Crusoe, Winnie the Pooh.   Isn't it nice to know that some things NEVER change?

What I Did on My Summer Vacations (Jody Feldman’s June Post)

Not much.

But in between doing a lot of this...










I did much more of this, but mostly with my face in a book.
Little did I know I was training to become a writer.

Lessons On Writing From Little-Girl-MeBy Marcia Thornton ...

Lessons On Writing From Little-Girl-Me
By Marcia Thornton Jones
This month we’re traveling back to our childhood, remembering favorite books, games, and what defined us as kids. I asked little-girl-me to point out what my childhood memories taught me about me writing.
1.      People who say they’re your best friends sometimes steal the toys from your sandbox. (Stories need conflict; don’t make life easy for the protagonist.)2.      Kids that pluck the glowing part from a lightning bug and stick it on their fingers as a pretend diamond are really being cruel even though they don’t think so. (Antagonists have their own plotline; Don’t tell readers a character is mean; reveal it through behavior.)3.      The taste of red is Twizzler and the flavor of a SweeTART is pucker: (Make a scene authentic with sensory details; taste is the sense most writers forget to use.)4.      You must drag the box to the top before you can roll down a hill tucked inside it. (Writing in the flow is exhilarating…but sometimes it can be slow and laborious.)5.      When you have to erase your math homework so much the paper tears, you can always fix it with tape. (Revising is messy and frustrating, but revising is where the best stories are crafted.)6.      Skinned knees hurt, and so do broken hearts and bruised egos. (Rejections are tough; honor the emotional hurt, but learn to brush them off and keep writing.)7.      Sneakers are better for running than flip flops. (Success in writing has a lot to do with endurance; be prepared to stick with it until the end.)8.      Books like Cleary’s HENRY HUGGINS convey hope and Rawlings’s THE YEARLING bring you to tears. (Rhythm, style, theme, and plotting are learned by reading books that resonate with readers; never stop reading.)9.      You don’t have to follow the rules when you play with A BARREL OF MONKEYS, and you can use a super ball when playing jacks. (Challenge yourself to write outside your comfort zone; it’s okay to break the rules.)10.  Be the heroine of your own daydreams. (The protagonist is an active--not passive--participant of her story; the only one that can make you a writing success is yourself.)
This makes me wonder. What lessons from here and now am I missing? What could the today-me teach the ten-years-from-now-me?

Jabberbox

In the summertime, when I was a child without the schedule of school, I inhabited stories. Sometimes they were spin-offs from books I was reading. In our front yard, a grove of trees made a perfect railroad car so we could be the Boxcar Children. Sometimes we made worlds for the peg people from the game of Life. Sometimes a fallen tree became a ship––and gave us all poison ivy by crushing the plants and releasing their evil juices. But the strangest of all these inventions was our relationship with Jabberbox.

In reality, Jabberbox was an old wheelbarrow that had long ago lost its wheels and handles. It had been abandoned, upside down, in the woods behind our house for such a long time that a hole had rusted in the center. And so of course the wheelbarrow became a monster who had to be fed.

I can remember tiptoeing up to Jabberbox, my small hand clutching a few dead leaves, or maybe, if I felt really bold, a slimy worm. You had to stick your hand completely inside Jabberbox's gaping maw. If you weren't careful, you'd get bit by the jagged, rusty edges of teeth around its mouth.

What sort of game was this? Certainly I would never have let my own daughter go near such a tetanus trap. I'm sure my parents had no idea of what a risky game we played.

But there it was. The abandoned, dangerous object. A ravenous creature, who constantly needed to be fed. A jabberer, a profligate word waster, a scold.

We worshipped Jabberbox.

And what, dare I ask, does that say about me as a kid?

Megan: Summer Utopia

Somehow, it is June 4th. Which means 1) that it is my day to blog here and 2) there are four days until my editor wants my last major revision on my next middle grade novel. Number 2 is how the date snuck up on me, and why I didn't get to spend as much time as I wanted on Number 1. (I can actually hear my high school economics teacher saying, "That's a reason, not an excuse.")

The book, The Firefly Five, is set in the future in a utopia. Designing the utopia was perhaps the most fun part of writing the book. I wanted to give these future kids the kind of idyllic childhood I had with days spent exploring the woods, riding bikes, swimming, and  good old fashined "hanging out." I would meet up with my friends and we would range over the neighborhood, watched over by the other adults on the street. In the book, I tried to recreate that feeling.

As summer begins, I hope that all you readers get to recapture that feeling, too. Maybe some of the posts here at Smack Dab in the Middle will remind you of your own childhood and inpsire you to live it again. That's what I plan to do. Once I get these revisions done.

On Girls & Horses by Irene Latham

me and RustyDuring the magic years of my childhood we lived in a ranch style house on Willie Rd. in Folsom, Louisiana. The pasture in the back was home to a number of ponies: Cinnamon and Sugar, who were mother and daughter; Rusty, who was a Welsh pony my sister and I turned into a biter by feeding him sugar cubes all the time; Honey, who was the palomino Shetland pony I raised from when she was 6 months old; Cherry who was the only bonafide horse I ever owned. I'll never forget how high in the air I felt whenever I rode her!

I adored horses. I read anything and everything, both fiction and nonfiction. The Black Stallion books by Walter Farley, the Chincoteague books by Marguerite Henry. I knew the language, the lingo. I went to horse camp. I picked and groomed and had absolutely no fear. All my writing from those years is horse-centric. I thought I would always have horses in my life.

And then we moved to Birmingham, Alabama, where there was no ranch style house, no pasture. The only horses were the ones who belonged to someone else and lived across the street. I moved on to other dramas, other obsessions.

Yet that horse girl still lives inside me. I still love a good horse book. I still love to watch horses, and do ride occasionally -- though my girlish fervor is now tempered by fear. (I did break my arm after falling off a horse, after all.) Horses still pop up in my writing all the time.

Which is why this summer I am traveling with a couple of my writing buddies to see the annual Pony Swim from Assateague Island to Chincoteague Island. And just like that little girl I was, I can't wait!

Bring it Back by Ann Haywood Leal

It all began with the same sounds: a drippy faucet slowly filling up a sink with water, the whir of a fan, a baby crying from the next block, two brothers fighting . . .  surrounded by a light staticky buzz that was almost visible in the quickly disappearing sun.

Then the streetlight flickered to life and it was Game On.

My brother, Tim, and I huddled in the far-reaches of the streetlight periphery, bouncing on our toes, preparing and trying to anticipate.  Would we have extras tonight?  Ringers brought in from the outlying blocks of the neighborhood?  Could we out-strategize all of them tonight?

Then the pattering of feet, sneakers and sandals, the snap of flip-flops, and the almost-silent padding of summer toughened bare feet . . . quickly approaching, but not yet revealing faces in the direct beam of the streetlight.

Tim and I scanned the outer shadows for creative, yet undiscovered hiding places, nodding and planning.

The players moved in as if circling the wagons, strategy heavy in the air.

Somehow, somewhere, the can was produced, plopped in the precise center of the circle of light on the asphalt.  The girl from one block over positioned her dirty Converse next to the can and closed her eyes tightly, shouting out the countdown.

And we scattered.  
As Tim and I hid, we waited for our chance, watching and listening for the creeping rubber Converse soles.

My toes itched, aching to connect with the metal of the can.  I slowly crept out of the shelter of my hiding place, spotting a clear path to the streetlight.

I crouched to a runner's start and took off, the summer sweat trickling down my back.  Pounding feet approached from the opposite side of the street, but I kept going until I reached my destination.  I took a half step back and my right foot sent the can clanging across the pavement.

My glory was short-lived, because as with all kid freedom, a parent had to break in and cut it off.  Voices rang out from doorsteps, calling us back.

I never minded much, the going back in part.  Because I knew I had more friends waiting for me inside.

Smack Dab News

Holly Schindler will be discussing both published and forthcoming work during an #AuthorChat on Crossroad Reviews, June 30 3pm EST.

We're The People: An Inclusive Middle Grade Summer Reading List!

We're The People is a wonderful summer reading initiative from children's lit advocates Edi Campbell, Nathalie Mvondo, Sarah Park Dahlen, Lyn-Miller Lachman, Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, Debbie Reese, and Sujei Lugo. An "inclusive summer reading list", it includes some of my MG favourites like GEEKS, GIRLS, and SECRET IDENTITIES by Mike Jung, Jacqueline Woodson's BROWN GIRL DREAMING, Rita Williams-Garcia's ONE CRAZY SUMMER, N.H. Senzai's SHOOTING KABUL, and MARCH: BOOK ONE from Rep. John Lewis with Andrew Aydin and Nate Powell, among a whole host of others. Looking for some MG reads to add to your summer list?  Check out their Pinterest page; add your suggestions and join the conversation on Facebook.

Smack Dab in the Classroom by Dia Calhoun

Because it's almost summer, I can't bear to write about using middle grade books in the classroom. One of my greatest joys as a kid was reading outside.

Our family camping trips looked like this: my father, mother, my brother, sister, and I gatherd around the campfire by American River in the Cascades, reading. Yes, READING. Not fishing, not hiking, not swimming. READING. We would occasionally look up at the towering trees, the rushing water.

Yes, we did play--and eat! At night I would take the flashlight in my sleeping bag and continue reading the pile of library books I'd brought.

May every kid this summer, find the joy of reading outside the classroom.