Debbie Levy's Blog, page 6

School Visit Souvenirs

Thinking about book-related school and community visits that lie ahead this season has me looking back at mementos from previous outings.

Kids’ questions are always interesting:

And I always like the older students’ responses to my prompt to think of their favorite words (in terms of sound, appearance on the page, and meaning):

 

Finally, a flattering portrait is always appreciated:

It’s all a breath of fresh air!

“We Shall Overcome” in South Carolina

I’m no expert on state standards in education. So I offer the excerpt and link below only to say that, from my point of view, exposing students to “We Shall Overcome” and other freedom songs is a good thing. Thanks, South Carolina educators, for agreeing. I like this third grade lesson plan!

-From South Carolina’s Academic Standards (page 126)

Year of Goodbyes: Writing Workshop Guide

Sometimes I visit schools, or speak with groups of educators or writers or community members, and the subject is my book, The Year of Goodbyes. More specifically, the subject is writing: using the book as the backdrop for a series of writing exercises that, collectively, look something like a workshop.

It’s been thought-provoking and rewarding–and, you know what? I don’t have to be present for it to be so. So I’ve collected and refined the writing activities that I think work best and put them together in an illustrated hand-out (in printable PDF form). You can get it here: Writing Workshop Guide. It’s now also on the Year of Goodbyes page here on this website.

I’ve been thinking about this Year of Goodbyes Writing Workshop Guide ever since the paperback edition of the book was released earlier this year. And in the last several months I’ve been thinking even more about the connections between the events and people in The Year of Goodbyes and the experience of people and communities today. Once again, refugees in search of life in a new land. Once again, goodbye to all that is familiar. Once again, in the countries of refuge, fear of the unknown outsider. Once again, intolerance–as well as kindness. I hope educators and book/writing group leaders will find that the activities in the guide get readers thinking and writing about these connections and others.

I’ll be doing this tonight as part of the monthly meeting of a Teen Writers Club at one of our local libraries. But remember, teachers, librarians, and other book people: You can do this without me!

Risk and Reward

[image error]I didn’t set out to write a “risky book” when I wrote We Shall Overcome: The Story of a Song, a picture book about how voices upon voices over years upon years built up this famous song like a collage. I do want children to know and to face truths, even uncomfortable ones. I think they are capable. And I think that facing truths is something that goes on, and should go on, in our schools. For more on this subject, you can read my guest post at the Pencil Tips Writing Workshop blog here.

 

Then and Now

I had occasion to be in Miami Beach last week–in South Beach, at a conference for my husband’s job. He worked, and I had plenty of opportunity to enjoy the good weather and soak up the nostalgia.

It is a nostalgic place for me. When I was a kid, and especially a teenager, I visited Miami Beach frequently. My grandmother lived there for a while. My father’s three siblings lived there. I have pages and pages of photo albums like this:

This was the 1970s. There was no such thing as SoBe. What we knew of Lincoln Road was that in olden days it used to be called the “Fifth Avenue of the South.” When I was visiting Grandma in the 1970s it wasn’t the Fifth Avenue of anywhere and it wasn’t really anyplace anyone wanted to go–so, of course, I had to go there. This was when I was going to grow up to be a photographer, and I took my Minolta SRT-101 everywhere:

That was then. This is now:

One thing that hasn’t changed in South Beach: the feral cats. So bold! Then:

Now, still walking around like they own the place:

Finally, here’s something I didn’t expect to find on my wanderings along the beach: a hotel pool patio adorned with a quote from Maya Angelou. There’s definitely nothing comparable in my photos from the ’70s!

“Everything in the universe has a rhythm, everything dances.”

You’re In Kansas, Dozer! And Pennsylvania!

I’m happy to report that Dozer’s Run: A True Story of a Dog and His Race is a nominee for the 2016 Bill Martin, Jr. Picture Book Award of the Kansas Reading Association. Many thanks to the librarians, teachers, and reading professionals who are taking Dozer for a run with their young readers!

Heading east, Dozer’s Run was also named to the short list for Pennsylvania’s  2015-2016 Keystone to Reading Book Award. Team Dozer had a wonderful visit earlier this year with students in Media, Pennsylvania, at the beautiful Benchmark School. I’m delighted to know that other kids in the Keystone State will have the opportunity to get to know this special dog’s story!

 

On This Day

Everybody–or, at least, everyone who is aware of major events in 20th century history–has heard of Kristallnacht. Translated as “Crystal Night” or “Night of Shattered Glass,” it refers to the two-day convulsion of violence that broke out against Jews in Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia starting on November 9, 1938. Crystal Night is much too nice a euphemism for these riots, as explained here on the website of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

But I’m writing on October 28, not November 9, 1938. What happened on October 28 is an important part of my mother’s story as told in The Year of Goodbyes. That day, a Friday, Nazi police raided homes throughout Germany–including Hamburg, where my mother (Jutta) and her family lived–arresting Ostjuden by the thousands and sending them by truck and train to the border with Poland. Who were Ostjuden? They were Jews, such as my mother’s parents, Isaac and Rose Salzberg, who came from nations to the east of Germany, mainly Poland.

Seventeen thousand Ostjuden were rounded up on October 28 and shipped to the border. The Polish government refused to let them in. The result: chaos and misery on the German-Poland border, with Jews stranded in railroad stations, sleeping in open fields, and crowded into camps.

And so, what about the Salzbergs? They were Ostjuden. What about my mom?

Here is what my mother’s friend Ellen wrote in Mom’s poesiealbum–her autograph album–the very next day:

“Hear much, say little

Do not complain to everyone.

Steadfast in misfortune and in fortune

These are the true masterpieces.

To remember, and all the best for the future,

Your friend,

Ellen Riesenfeld

October 29, 1938″

My mother and her sister and parents were lucky. They weren’t sent to the border. They remained steadfast in misfortune and good fortune–as Ellen’s poesie advised–but it wasn’t easy. My mother had a distinct memory of hearing boots on the marble staircase–the Nazi police going to someone else’s apartment. Click-clack-click-clack. It’s in the book, in this chapter:

So many others were not lucky, among them the parents and sister of a 17-year-old Jewish boy named Herschel Grynszpan. He was living in Paris at the time, and he received a postcard from his sister describing how she and her parents had been expelled from their home in Hanover, Germany, as part of the October 28 action and were now stuck in the cold on the boder. Grynszpan sought revenge by killing a German official at the German embassy in Paris. And that killing gave the Nazis a tidy if transparent excuse to egg their citizens on to the rage and hatred that resulted in the Kristallnacht pogroms little more than a week later.

Refugees pushed up against unwelcoming borders. Young men turning to individual acts of violence in despair and powerlessness. Blame-mongering and blame-shifting. Demagogues spurring masses into a frenzy. Yeah, I’m still one of those who thinks Holocaust history is relevant to all of us.

 

NEH Nonfiction Favorites

When I wasn’t looking, the National Endowment for the Humanities created a list of “Nonfiction Favorites,” also known as the NEH Nonfiction Booklist. I’m so happy to find The Year of Goodbyes: A True Story of Friendship, Family, and Friends on this list.

Here’s how the good people at NEH explain their endeavor:

“In order to fulfill the need for high-quality children’s nonfiction, we scoured nonfiction awards lists and crowdsourced recommendations, consulting with a panel of respected education and library science experts.  After extensive review and consultation, we have put together a list of books covering many of the wide range of projects we have funded over the last half century.”

See the whole list  here. And thank you, NEH!

Tearjerker of the Month. Again!

Yes, that is my own Imperfect Spiral, the Tearjerker of the Month in the October 2015 Scholastic Reading Club newsletter. And yes, I am still tickled to see my book offered in the newsletter because, as careful readers of this website know, I waited something like 50 years for it. (See here.) I never expected to be paired with a pack of free tissues, but publishing is packed with surprises!

Imperfect Spiral: Scholastic Reading Club’s Tearjerker of the Month, for three years running. Here’s to you, Danielle Snyder and Humphrey Danker, my fraught little fictive protagonists!

Preview From The Talented Gilbert Ford

As you may know, authors and artists generally work separately on the picture books that are published under their joint bylines. There are good reasons for this, and there are good people–editors and art directors–who work in between the author and illustrator to help bring about a book that realizes all of our visions.

This is how it has been for my forthcoming book, Soldier Song. The book tells the true story of a concert on the banks of the Rappahannock River during the Civil War that united soldiers from North and South, if only for an evening. Illustrator Gilbert Ford has his hands full with this project. Unlike most picture books, which are usually 32 pages, maybe 40, maybe 48, Soldier Song will be 80 pages. That is a lot of art. I saw Gilbert’s sketches several months ago, and was excited to see the direction he was taking. Now, on the blog EMU’s Debuts, he shares one of the illustrations in its glorious, somber, surprising color. I was right to be excited. I can’t wait to see everything else the talented Gilbert Ford has been creating for this book, to be published by Disney-Hyperion in 2016. Here is the picture, with the relevant part of his interview: