Kurtis Scaletta's Blog, page 13

Seeking

Our son is, in the language of child development, a sensory-seeker.

At least for tactile things — he wants to shove to feel the bodies next to him. His impulse to throw things (including punches) overwhelms him. He begs for us to “squish” him, and flings himself at our bodies. It’s made classes he’s been in tough, all that pushing, the time-outs and tantrums. It makes every night long, when the craving for rough contact seems to be stronger. He stuffs blankets in his mouth, tries to fold himself up in the bed or the couch, and sometimes seems to be trying to kick out of his own skin, as if he’s molting.

It’s hard to know, with toddlers, what is normal nuttiness and what is unusual even for toddlers, but we definitely thought that having a preschooler wasn’t supposed to be this hard. Other kids B’s age didn’t seem to be quite so turbulent every single day, or their parents quite so ragged, and B seemed to be lagging behind on a lot of behavioral stuff. We started with behavioral counseling, which has helped us as parents a great deal, but that segued into occupational therapy.

Now he’s been diagnosed with a sensory processing disorder. We’re still learning what that means, but it’s nice to have an explanation and a treatment plan for what we long suspected were more than the usual toddler problems. Some issues seem to be directly related to the sensory-processing dysfunction (like, er, using the potty). Other things (like going to bed) just seem held back by it–he was distracted, or overwhelmed, by other things. And of course some of them are normal toddler things.

For him sounds seem to be amplified, often distracting or annoying him, while tactile sensations don’t quite process, so he digs in deeper to feel. I’ve wondered so many times what is going on his head, and asked in that classic exasperated parental way, “what were you thinking?” Now I know his body is trying to give his brain the information it needs, or maybe any information at all. Suddenly everything made sense, so to speak.

So now we go to the sensitively-named AUTISM SHOP for weighted blankets and big-kid chew toys that give him the tactile sensations he craves. He sees two therapists every week. We’ve learned he needs to do “heavy work,” and my wife has improvised games for him involving shoving things around the house to calm him in advance of outings. We do yoga at bedtime. He loves it, especially “the lion,” which gives him license to roar.

Life has gotten a little bit easier. We’re even getting sleep, and sleep makes everything else seem less impossible.

We’re lucky to live in an era and a country where there is so much awareness of these developmental issues, and of course we’re lucky to have the resources to give him what he needs. I suppose many kids just outgrow the issues, but by then they have reputations that will follow them, expectations that become self-fulfilling–that they will be trouble in class, or get into fights. I hope he can learn how to cope before Kindergarten. I feel bad for him. Being a kid is so hard already. Obviously other kids have bigger challenges than he does, and I want to hug them all. Kids this age aren’t really guilty of anything. They have needs and impulses they are trying to sort out. They can be exasperating but none of them are “bad kids.”

If I can end this entry with a plea, it is for adults to stop clucking their tongue or pursing their lips when they see a kid like ours acting out, presumably judging us for not spanking him or whatever.  You really don’t know what’s going on with him, and you don’t know how much we’ve worried and stressed about his behavior, how much we’ve done and how far he’s come. Offer a sympathetic smile or mind your own business. We’re working on it.

We’re doing it for him, mind you, not for you.

Filed under: Family

Some Author

The Minnesota State Fair is pretty much the biggest thing that happens in the state of Minnesota every year, and for the last five years a big part of it is the Alphabet Forest, an oasis of literary fun launched by the brilliant artist and author Debra Fraser. This year I had the good fortune (and fun!) to be a part of it. I told kids about my Topps League books and helped them design their own baseball cards. I even wore a blue ribbon (just like my favorite porcine literary hero). While I didn’t see any orb weavers making words, the kids sure did. Proud to be a part of the Great Minnesota Great Together and one of its newer traditions.

 

Some Photos from Monrovia & A Roundup of Robots

I was very pleased to hear from a librarian at the American International School in Monrovia — a new iteration of the school I attended back in the 1980s, and which Linus Tuttle would have attended in the book Mamba Point. I wanted my book to be read in Liberia, and now I know it has been — I even have proof!

These kids hale from the U.S.,  Zambia, Sweden, and Nigeria. The school formerly known as ACS and other international schools are real melting pots, and it made for an interesting childhood. I hope this book rings true for these kids, even though it is decades old and Liberia and the rest of the world has changed around it. Special thanks to Denise Burress, a librarian at the school, for the photos, to the kids for reading and posing with the book, and to their parents for letting me use these photos.

This is the coolest thing that’s happened this year in my book world, even cooler than knowing that Ron Gardenhire had one of the Topps League books on his desk, and that was pretty darn cool.

All right, meanwhile The Winter of the Robots has been out in the world. I use my Facebook page (go ahead and friend me) to link to reviews and events, and should do more of that here, because I do realize not everyone has been sucked into the Zuckerbergtronvoid. But here are a few notable ones, and I am sorry if I forgot any (the Booklist review is behind a paywall, sadly, because it’s great.)

The Star Tribune talks about me and some of my favorite local writers/favorite people. It was particularly fun to appear here with Anne Ursu, who was a key inspiration and connection in my pre-published days. Her book The Real Boy is my favorite middle grade novel of the year. I blogged about it here.

The Buffalo News includes The Winter of the Robots on this list of things for kids to read, do, and learn. Love that they combine it with Legos, where kids can begin their robot-building adventures (even programmable robots!)

And I am welcomed back to The Mixed Up Files blog by the great sciencey fiction writer (not a typo!) Jacqueline Houtman. Thanks, Jacqueline!

 

 

 

Winter of the Robots: Round-Up

We had a great turnout (and a great time) at the Winter of the Robots launch party yesterday at the Red Balloon. Thanks to Holly and the staff and all the people who turned out on a cold rainy day to help me celebrate.

A few things about me and/or Robots on the blogosphere…

First, I talk about the source material on the CLN’s Just Launched blog.

Also, a review on Project Mayhem.

And today I talk to Sheila O’Connor about process on Smack Dab in the Middle.

 

The Winter of the Robots!

The Winter of the Robots is finally here! Here are some places you can buy it.

The Red Balloon can take orders for signed books and send them to you (order before October 20)

Indiebound (enter your zip code to find the closest independent bookstore)

Barnes and Noble (enter your zip code to see what local stores have it in stock)

And of course, Amazon. But you’re doing BOOKS a favor by pursuing one of the other options.

Strapped for cash? You can look on Worldcat to see if your local library has it… and request it if they don’t.

 

 

The Winter of the Robots: Robots

Hate to drop a big spoiler on you, but this book is about robots. And by that I mean autonomous machines, not human characters with metal skins, like C3PO. I’m curious about the robotics of robots — how they’re made and how they work. So much has been done with the far-fetched side of robots, I felt like the nitty-gritty realities were a step into somewhat unexplored territory.

The book involves a lot of staged robot battles, the kind kids compete in for sport. I had a lot of fun writing those scenes and imagining the robots kids would make for those battles. There is also, as the jacket promises, the ultimate robot battle. Even the tallest part of the tale are based on real robots and what they can do.

But the robots are not the hero of this story, it is the kids who make robots. Jim (the protagonist and narrator) doesn’t know it at the beginning of the book, but he has a talent for programming. I think it comes because he has spent so much of his life trying to figure out what other people are thinking, trying to map input to output, reading their faintest signals. What will set his father off on a tirade? What does it mean when a girl offers the faintest of smiles? It’s a great relief to him when he delve directly into the brain of someone, though even his own creations sometimes surprise him.

So Jim is a muggle who turns out to be a wizard, but he can’t do this alone. His friend Oliver has years of expertise. Other characters bring a knowledge of cars and engines, necessary when they upscale the operation, and skills with the tools they need. They make a pretty good team.

I hope that kids who like robots like this book, and I hope kids who didn’t think they like robots will want to build one.

Winter of the Robots: Winter

I started writing this book in the middle of a snowy winter. We don’t have a snow blower, and I had to hand-shovel every inch of what must have been six hundred inches of snow that winter. Much of my agony is transferred to Jim, particularly the part where he has to shovel the same snow to make room for new snow.

Unlike Jim, a pretty girl from across the alley didn’t come over to help with her dad’s snow blower.

Since then we hired a service.

 

Winter of the Robots: Victory

The Winter of the Robots is the first book to be set in my neighborhood, which is called Victory. It’s the northwestern most neighborhood in Minneapolis, bordering two suburbs, and is mostly unknown to anybody who doesn’t live around here. At one point Jim’s mother jokes that Victory is the Edina of North Minneapolis, but you kind of have to be from Minneapolis to get that joke.

Our area was hard hit by the foreclosure crisis. Housing seems to be on the rebound, but crime is up. It’s a fine place to live but we have our share of urban blight. All of this is reflected in the book. Jim’s dad sells home security systems, and there’s background buzz about crime and abandoned houses throughout the book. I tried to do this honestly, without disparaging the neighborhood or exaggerating the problems.

The book is also largely set in bordering areas, particularly the Camden industrial area along the river where Jim and Rocky discover an abandon junkyard. I drive by that area every day and the book was largely inspired by the mysterious areas behind large fences that fade into the weeds. I had to fictionalize that area more, so street names have changed, etc. The burger place doesn’t exist but it’s the kind of place that would thrive there. The story involves a defense company, and it’s reasonable since two others exist within a mile or two of the fictional one. Otters live in my imaginary junkyard, and otters really do live in that part of the river bank.

In 2011 a tornado ripped through the neighborhood, particularly ravaging the area where the book (which I had started) takes place. I allude to the denuded park and other evidence that it happened. In fact, the whole story is possible because of that tornado, since a storm-hurled tree rips a hole in the fence that the kids use to get into and out of the abandoned illegal junkyard where all of this happens.

Locals will recognize another touch of Victory in the names of three major characters. Oliver Newton, James Knox and his sister Penny all get their names from a series of the north-south streets that go the length of Minneapolis. They go alphabetically from East to West, Aldrich to Zenith. The middle of the alphabet is James, Knox, Logan, Morgan, Newton, Oliver, and Penn.

The book never says so, but Jim (or James) lives on Oliver. His best friend Oliver lives on James.

 

 

Winter of the Robots: The Bad Guys

Leading up to the release of The Tanglewood Terror, I posted a series of short thought pieces on the ingredients of that book called “Tangled Themes.” I can’t come up with a label as good for The Winter of the Robots, but I want to do a similar series. 

I’ll begin with the bad guys. The Winter of the Robots has some, sort of, from the menacing dinosaur-styled robots (one of whom graces the cover) to morally suspect humans. I don’t want to give much away, but this might be my first book with a bona-fide antagonist. There are really none in my first three novels or any of my chapter books. I have foils, but no villains, especially not of the cackling Voldemortian stamp.

I don’t really believe in good guys and bad guys. Most of my favorite books and movies don’t have them, and in my own life my challenges have been overcoming a more frustrating kind of adversity that doesn’t have the courtesy to present itself as something with a head I can lop off. This is true in my books, too, where kids struggle with aspects of themselves and against natural phenomena and against well-meaning adults but not against wicked adversaries. They might be annoyed or frustrated with others, but those others are never evil… perhaps the worst thing anyone has done in any of my books is take a plastic bucket from a pig, for a few seconds.

I knew early on that The Winter of the Robots would be a different kind of story, with higher stakes. There is real physical danger and a real menace.  There are actual criminals and criminal behavior, though at least some of it is indulged in by the protagonist and his associates.

But robots are just doing what they’re programmed to do, and the people who programmed them meant for them to do those things in a completely different context. At heart this book is about the real, complex form of “evil” as I have experienced it–people and machines doing what they’re supposed to do, convinced in their circuits that it is necessary.

The is a more palpable evil, too — lying, cheating, stealing, and other shortcuts people take to get what they want. It is always rationalized as necessary or at least permissible in the circumstances, to avoid a severe and undeserved fate. But the protagonists do it as much as the antagonists, and the only difference is a moment or two of reflection and regret.

It’s not really starkly different from the first form, and the worst things they do, they do for love.

 

Winter is Coming

The first professional review for Winter of the Robots has arrived, from the infamously toughnosed Kirkus Reviews, and they said all good things. I’ll link to the full review eventually, but the skinny is that Robots is “a deft mix of middle school drama and edgy techno thrills.”

Also, you should read what Aaron Starmer wrote about the book here, and you should read his new book The Riverman when it comes out next year.

I’ll keep this page updated with blurbs, quotes, and miscellaneous plaudits as they happen (knock on virtual wood).

The Winter of the Robots comes out on October 8, 2013.

 

Thread title was used without the knowledge or consent of George R. R. Martin.