Don M. Winn's Blog, page 17

The Making of The Eldridge Conspiracy: A Special Pre-release Preview

[image error]It’s finally here! The fourth and final installment in the Sir Kaye the Boy Knight series, The Eldridge Conspiracy, is now available for preorder on Amazon.com and other online retailers. Can’t wait? Read a sneak peek of Sir Kaye Book 4: The Eldridge Conspiracy by Don Winn.

So what can you expect from book 4 in the Sir Kaye series? In this exciting finale, the young knight, Kaye, and his friends Reggie and Beau enter Eldridge in search of the only man who can save Kaye’s father. During their journey, they encounter and make a powerful enemy of Baron Thomas—the self-proclaimed heir to the throne of Eldridge—who also has his sights set on ruling the country of Knox. Together, the boys dodge the baron’s henchmen and race against time to stop an assassination that would plunge the two kingdoms into war. At the end of this post is an early review of The Eldridge Conspiracy from the UK Wishing Shelf Awards.

[image error]I’ve mentioned in previous blogs that there are elements of the story that are inspired by actual historical events. Without giving too much of the story away, I thought I would share one of the historical accounts, and that is a story about John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster.

Parliament had assembled on January 27, 1377, with Crown Prince Richard of Bordeaux and his uncle, John of Gaunt, Duke of Lancaster, presiding. Disturbing rumors spread throughout Parliament that John of Gaunt was a changeling (not born of noble blood, but substituted as a baby for the real royal infant, who had died). These rumors were causing “great noise and great clamor” throughout the assembly.

The rumors were not true. They appear to have been spread by the banished Bishop William of Wykeham in an attempt to discredit and topple the duke. The duke was a target because of his power over the young prince.

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John of Gaunt dines with John I of Portugal, from Jean de Wavrin’s Chronique d’Angleterre

The bishop asserted (falsely) that John of Gaunt’s mother, Queen Philippa, actually gave birth to a daughter but “overlaid and suffocated” her. Fearful of confessing this to King Edward, she had another infant smuggled into St. Bavoon’s Abbey and replaced her dead daughter with this living child, the son of a Ghent laborer, butcher, or porter. She named the child John and brought him up as her own. Philippa was said to have admitted this in confession to Bishop William of Wykeham on her deathbed in 1369, insisting that should there ever arise any prospect of John succeeding to the throne, the bishop must break the seal of the confessional and publicly reveal the truth.

As you read The Eldridge Conspiracy, keep on the lookout for how aspects of the account of John of Gaunt are interwoven in the story.

Check out the About the Sir Kaye series page for a preview of the first three books in the award-winning Sir Kaye series and links to purchase.

The Sir Kaye titles are available for significant discounts to schools, libraries, non-profits, retailers, and vendors through Progressive Rising Phoenix Press or Ingram/LSI.

The Eldridge Conspiracy Early Review from The Wishing Shelf Book Review

This set of books just gets better and better. Yes, it’s a non-stop adventure, packed full of nasty barons and battling knights. But it’s also a story which is strongly-themed and where the bond between the characters is highly prized.

I very much enjoyed the fourth installment of the Sir Kaye Knight books. I have enjoyed all of them over the last few years and, I must say, I think they get better and better. They tick almost every box for a ‘good children’s book’: a strong hero, a thoroughly exciting adventure, a light, accessible writing style and even a strong moral to keep parents happy!

Let’s start with pacing, a very important aspect of any adventure book. Well, this has it; lots of it. There’s a little bit too much ‘telling’ and not ‘showing’ in the first chapter. But, other than that, there’s plenty happening and, most importantly, it is happening to plenty of interesting characters. This book, like all of them in the set, should keep any 7 – 10 year old thoroughly absorbed.

All in all, the writing style is perfect for a children’s adventure novel. It’s not Hemingway – thankfully – but it has plenty of speech, short paragraphs and short chapters. Best of all, it’s not full of adverbs – which can kill any story – and the author knows when to ‘get things moving’.

[image error]The author works particularly well with setting. He understands how important it is not to just simply describe the ‘historical’ setting but, rather, have the characters interact with it in a natural and unobtrusive way. Many authors who set a book in a different century seem determined to describe every silver spoon and every woolen tunic. Thankfully, this author has not fallen into that trap.

But I have kept the best bit for last. And that’s the theme. The bond between the characters, Kaye, his father, the king, Beau and, of course, the narrator, seem to be a very important aspect to this set of books. The nobility of the knight, in the author’s mind, seems to be the important message he wants to send to his readers. And it is this, not the crusade itself, which helps it stand up above many other sword-type novels for boys.

To sum up, this is a thinking-boy’s book. There’s an adventure, yes, but it’s not full of war and blood. It’s a story where the author seems determined that the readers get to know the characters and want to be like them. And for me, being a parent, that results in a pretty big THUMBS-UP!

A ‘Wishing Shelf’ Book Review

The Making of The Eldridge Conspiracy: Interview with Illustrator Dave Allred

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Like most children, when I was a kid, the pictures and illustrations were my favorite part of any book. As a dyslexic kid, illustrations were especially important to me: pictures were often the key that made it possible for me to fully understand the story. The more pictures the book had, the better I liked the book. A good children’s story isn’t complete without at least few illustrations to help bring it to life, and in The Eldridge Conspiracy, Illustrator/artist Dave Allred doesn’t disappoint.

Dave has been creating the art for the Sir Kaye series since Book One, The Knighting of Sir Kaye. In The Eldridge Conspiracy, the fourth and final book in the Sir Kaye series, Dave has stepped up his game with some incredible illustrations. Since this is the final book in the Sir Kaye series, I wanted to take this opportunity to interview Dave about his work as an artist.

[image error]Before we begin the interview, I would first like to share one of my favorite illustrations from The Eldridge Conspiracy. This particular illustration I find especially evocative and to me it really highlights Dave’s skill as an artist. The illustration features Reggie and Beau as they are headed to Eldridge to find Sir Kaye and are stopped by two thugs.

Don: Tell us about yourself and how you started in the field.

Dave: I can’t remember ever NOT drawing. I have always had an obsession for doodling on something! As a kid, I always wondered how artists got paid to draw professionally for people. It has always been a learning process for me to discover how to do that!

Don: What influences have shaped your taste and style?

Dave: Disney animation and Comic books. (Specifically the artist John Byrne.)

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Don: Do you want to establish a consistent and recognizable style, or are you willing to explore different directions as time goes by?

Dave: I have two default settings: Disney cartoony-style and comic book illustration style. (For example: Space Cop Zack style or Sir Kaye style) Everything else I really have to work for. I try to stay focused on those two genres.

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Don: Your book illustrations capture the essence of the characters and give them and their defining traits a visual representation. Can you walk us through that process for the Sir Kaye series?

[image error]Dave: Usually it starts with direction I get from either the author or editor, and then as I read the script, the images of the characters pop into my head. As I draw the characters, as time goes on, they become more alive to me, and I can refine them.

Don: When the images of the characters pop into your head, have you ever been surprised at what they look like, or have any of them been unexpected in any way?

Dave: I don’t think I’ve ever been surprised how a certain character ends up looking. I try to visualize them first and hope my hand can cooperate with my brain to translate it on to paper. Sometimes I can nail it right out of the box, and other times, it takes an evolutionary process. An example of that is seen in comparing Kaye 1 with Kaye 4! Often with creation, you have to let it happen on its own—it shouldn’t have to be forced.

Don: What’s the technical process? Pen and paper first, then digital work?

Dave: My process starts with pencil sketches, and once approved I move on to inking those sketches, then scanning them into the computer to clean them up and correct any problems. Sometimes I have to draw pieces of a scene if there are a lot of elements, and then I reconstruct them on the computer into one cohesive scene.

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Don: Are some characters more fun to draw than others? Do you have a favorite character from the Sir Kaye series?

[image error]Dave: For the Kaye books, all the characters were evenly matched as to which one was my favorite to draw, but Reggie is probably easiest to draw because I can relate to him. He has the most facial expressions because the story is told through him. I think my favorite character is Beau. He is a royal but doesn’t need or crave the acclaim or the spotlight. He is a loyal supporting character that lets Kaye (and sometimes Reggie) have all the glory.

Don: What do you think as you look back on your earlier work: are there changes?

Dave: It has been over 5 years since I drew the first Kaye book. In that time, just by drawing so much every day, I have become a better artist. So, my artwork has changed for the better. I have more patience with myself these days, and I can visualize scenes easier. The actual execution of drawing—the mechanics, I have refined more. I still have a ways to go, and I’m always trying to improve in my artwork.

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Don: What is the best part about being an illustrator?

Dave: Two things: Working from my home studio in my PJs, and seeing my drawings turn into characters, and seeing those characters come to life.

Don: Why do you think the Kaye series is good for kids?

[image error]Dave: In all four of the Sir Kaye books, the characters portray teamwork and friendship. The characters are not perfect. They seem real because they are human and make mistakes, get into trouble, get out of trouble, help each other, and through it all, they remain friends. There is a spirit of never giving up throughout the series, and kids need all of these attributes through life. These books teach good morals and perseverance.

Don: Why do you think the Kaye series appeals to reluctant readers?

Dave: Because the stories in these books are character-driven stories, not event-driven. Any reluctant reader can read just the first couple of pages and instantly connect to the characters. This hooks the reader into reading further, and further until the pages keep turning, and before they know it, the reluctant reader is making new friends of these characters.

Don: What do you like about illustrating the Sir Kaye series featuring the same characters and their continuing adventures?

Dave: It stretches me because it is a period piece dealing with the medieval times and customs and in working on a series the characters evolve stylistically, as I get to know them better.

Don: I’d like the thank Dave Allred for taking the time to do this interview and most importantly, for all of his hard work illustrating the Sir Kaye series. Check out Dave’s website: http://www.drawnbydave.com/

As promised in my previous blog about ships in the Middle Ages, below is a scene from K4 featuring the medieval cog ship The Triumph.

And keep on the lookout for the fifth and final K4 Making of… blog where you’ll get to see a pre-release preview of the book.

Don’t miss a thing! Follow the Cardboard Box Adventures blog to join in the fun.

If you’re looking for a series of exciting adventure books that helps reluctant readers, take a peek at the award-winning Sir Kaye series published by Progressive Rising Phoenix Press.

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The Making of The Eldridge Conspiracy: Ships in the Middle Ages

Note: All photos in this blog are taken from a video of the cog ship Twekamp af Elbogen arriving at Falsterbo canal in September, 2007. Falsterbo is a town located at the south-western tip of Sweden in Vellinge Municipality in Skåne.[image error]

“So might Adam have looked back at Eden; Hornblower remembered the stuffy dark midshipsmen’s berth, the smells and the creakings, the bitter cold nights, turning out in response to the call for all hands, the weevilly bread and the wooden beef, and he yearned for them all, with the sick feeling of hopeless longing. Liberty was vanishing over the horizon. Yet it was not these personal feelings that drove him below in search of action. They may have quickened his wits, but it was a sense of duty which inspired him.”

This is a quote from Mr. Midshipman Hornblower by C.S. Forester, the first book in one of my favorite high seas adventure series. And like young Horatio Hornblower, our young protagonist in the Sir Kaye series, Kaye Balfour, is also motivated by a sense of duty and desire to be like his father.

As a kid, I loved a good swashbuckling high seas adventure, like the Hornblower series, and my Sir Kaye series would not be complete without the addition of an ancient sailing ship. And so, The Eldridge Conspiracy, the fourth and final book in the series, features a cog ship in some of its scenes.

What were cog ships and what role did they play in medieval times?

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A cog ship, also simply known as a “cog” was a large, spacious transport ship used in the Middle Ages. The first written history of cog ships dates back to 948 AD in Amsterdam.

When cog ships were first created, they had open hulls (the body of the ship) and could only be rowed short distances. The 13th century saw great advancements in technology for cog ships, which resulted in larger ships with decks, raised platforms, bows, and sterns. Additionally, rudders began to appear on cog ships around 1240 AD. Cog ships gradually replaced the traditional Viking ships in northern Europe. The differences made by these beginning technological advances cannot be overstated: exploration, conquest, and military ventures were each only as successful as the ships that carried their adventurers.

Since there was no photography during the Middle Ages, no one is exactly sure what a cog ship looked like back in its day. Our best guesses come from images of the time, including seals that featured cog ships, and from the best-preserved cog ship, the Bremen cog. However, even on the Bremen cog, only the hull is preserved, and the rig (mast and mast machinery) is gone.

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When cog ships were first created, they could only travel very slowly and for short periods of time. But gradually refinements and improvements were made, and by the 13th century, cog ships were strong enough to cross even the most dangerous of oceans, and were equipped to be protected from pirates. Some were even used as warships.

By the 14th century, cog ships had reached their capacity and were slowly phased out by hulk ships.

Features that are common for all cog ships include: One single square sail, clinker outer planking at the sides of the hull, straight steep stem and sternposts (opposed to the rounded Viking stem), relatively flat bottoms, and strong cross-beams, usually protruded through the ships’ sides, holding the sides together.

(For those who care to know: Clinker, also known as lapstrake, is a method of boat building where the edges of hull planks overlap, called a “land” or “landing.” )

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The cog ship in The Eldridge Conspiracy is a merchant ship called The Triumph. Compared to older ships modeled after Viking vessels, the cog ship was well-suited for a merchant vessel because of its higher capacity for carrying cargo. The Triumph includes all the design advancements made by the 13th century.

Other than very old and rare cog ship wreckage that has been found, there are no actual cog ships still in existence from the time period. However, there are some recreations.

The Hanseatic Cog at Sea video (about 5 minutes) is of the cog ship Twekamp af Elbogen, a true copy of the cog wreck discovered in Skanör, Sweden in 1991. And all photos in this blog are of the ship in the video.

(If you desire some medieval sailing adventure, cog ship sail tours on the Twekamp af Elbogen are available from Malmo, Sweden during the summer.)

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The fourth K4 Making of… blog will give a preview of the fantastic K4 illustrations by Dave Allred, including one of the cog ship The Triumph. And you definitely won’t want to miss the fifth and final K4 Making of… blog where you’ll get to see a pre-release preview of the book.

Don’t miss a thing! Follow the Cardboard Box Adventures blog to join in the fun.

If you’re looking for a series of exciting adventure books that helps reluctant readers, take a peek at the award-winning Sir Kaye series published by Progressive Rising Phoenix Press.

The Making of The Eldridge Conspiracy: Jousting

[image error]I can’t imagine a series of books about knights in the Middle Ages that didn’t include something about jousting. In The Eldridge Conspiracy (K4), the fourth and final book in my Sir Kaye, the Boy Knight series there is an important aspect of the plot that includes jousting. So for my second K4 research blog, here are some interesting facts about jousting in the middle ages.

What is jousting and how did it get its start?

Jousting is derived from Old French joster, ultimately from Latin iuxtare, meaning “to approach, to meet.” And “to meet” is exactly what happens in jousting. Jousting is the sport in which two knights fight on horseback while holding heavy lances, with each opponent endeavoring to strike his opponent while riding towards him at high speed, and if possible, breaking the lance on the opponent’s shield or jousting armor, or unhorsing him.

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Medieval style jousting tournament.

The lance was made of wood with a metal tip made of steel or iron and measured between 9 and 14 feet in length. The participants experienced over three times their body weight in G-forces when the lances collided with their armor.

The beginnings of jousting did not look like what we imagine today. Originally, there was no divider between the two competitors, and the jousters would run straight at each other with their lances. As one could imagine, this head-to-head combat on horseback led to many injuries and fatalities. However, the introduction of the divider created a more controlled battleground.

A list was the field or arena where a jousting event was held and a divider, which was initially just cloth stretching along the center of the field, eventually became a wooden barrier known as the tilt.

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More medieval style jousting.

Jousting started as a form of weapons training that became popular in the Middle Ages as a result of heavy cavalry (armored men on war horses) becoming the primary weapon of the time. First, jousting was simply a way of training knights for battle in a controlled environment. The sport taught new knights horsemanship, accuracy, and how to react in combat. However, what was created as a military training exercise quickly became a popular form of entertainment.

The first recorded jousting tournament was said to be arranged by a Frenchman named Godfrey de Preuilly in 1066 and it soon became so popular, the King had to put a limit on how many tournaments could be held, so that not all of the knights would be busy jousting when a real conflict arose.

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An ancient bas-relief sculpture of jousting knights.

Jousting tournaments were considered highly formal events, and they were planned and arranged months in advance. After gaining the proper royal permits, nobles would challenge their neighboring landowners, and each would choose their best knights to fight. Sometimes, a noble would hire a man to joust who was not a committed knight to their land. These men were called “freelancers,” which is where we get the term today.

By the 14th century, jousting became very popular with many members of the nobility, including kings. Jousting was a way to showcase their own skill, courage, and talents, and the sport was just as dangerous for a king as a knight. England’s King Henry VIII suffered a severe injury to his leg when a horse fell on him during a tournament, ending the 44-year-old king’s jousting career and ultimately leaving him with wounds from which he never fully recovered.

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Depiction of King Henry VIII jousting.

King Henry II of France was the most famous royal jousting fatality. During a jousting exhibition to celebrate the marriage of his daughter to the king of Spain in 1559, the king received a fatal wound when a sliver of his opponent’s lance broke off and pierced him in the eye.

Many aspects of jousting tournaments mirror the sports customs we still have today. For instance, medieval heralds would work similarly to sports journalists of the day, promoting the events and jousters. Many of the best jousters became very famous, like today’s sports heroes. It became such a popular form of entertainment that jousters would travel around on jousting circuits, fighting each other over and over.

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Illustration from The Eldridge Conspiracy of a jousting knight.

Knights did not just compete for fame and bragging rights. They often competed for gifts, money, and possibly even land from a grateful noble.

My next K4 research blog will be about the cog ship, a type of ship used in the Middle Ages.

Don’t miss a thing! Follow the Cardboard Box Adventures blog to join in the fun.

If you’re looking for a series of exciting adventure books that helps reluctant readers, take a peek at the award-winning Sir Kaye series published by Progressive Rising Phoenix Press.

 

The Making of The Eldridge Conspiracy: Abbeys in the Middle Ages

[image error]For those of you eagerly awaiting the exciting conclusion to the Sir Kaye the Boy Knight series, The Eldridge Conspiracy (K4) will not disappoint! As the title suggests, our heroes will be uncovering a major conspiracy with roots that began in book one, The Knighting of Sir Kaye. Elements of this conspiracy are taken from actual historical events.

So what can we expect to see in book four, The Eldridge Conspiracy? No spoilers here, but what I can says is there will be plenty of action, mystery, and suspense and readers will be introduced to new historical elements of medieval life, including abbeys, ships of the era, and jousting. The next few blogs feature some really cool medieval research that supports the story. For our first research blog, I thought I’d begin with abbeys, since an abbey plays a very important role in the story.

What is an abbey? In the Middle Ages, an abbey was a group of buildings near a church that housed the monastics (the buildings were also sometimes called a convent, friary, nunnery, monastery, or priory). Monastics, or people who adopted the monastic way of life, are individuals who have chosen to renounce all worldly pursuits and devote themselves strictly to spiritual works. Typically, we hear them called monks or nuns. Commonly, abbeys were either inhabited only by females and run by an abbess, or they were strictly male and run by an abbot. Rarely, there were double monasteries, which housed men and women, and those were led by an abbess as well.

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Abbey of San Galgano, Tuscany, Italy

Life at the Abbey:

Life at the abbey was very simple. Days consisted of worship services, reading the Bible, and hard labor. There was little staff; the monks or nuns were the staff, so everyone had to do their part to maintain the abbey. Days were spent farming and raising all of the supplies (farm animals, vegetables, grains) needed to feed everyone who lived there, or cooking, cleaning, sewing necessary garments and linen, and doing laundry chores. The first worship service of the day usually began around 2 a.m., and the last service would conclude the day at sunset.

Monastics would also spend time during the day or night reading the Bible, praying, singing or chanting, and meditating for hours.

There are modern-day monasteries, where the pattern of life is basically similar to life in an abbey during the Medieval era. In modern-day monasteries, monks do all of their own farming and cleaning and live very basic lives, so they can be sure to keep their priorities on spiritual things. Even their food choices are simplified in order to prevent greed or gluttony; they choose to eat bland things that work to sustain them and keep them healthy, rather than rich or highly spiced foods that many of us would prefer.

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Abbey on a medieval stained glass window panel from the abbey of Mariawald in Germany.

Uses for an Abbey:

Abbeys filled many needs in their community, serving as farms, inns, hospitals, schools, and libraries. Abbeys would give travelers and pilgrims a place to stay for the night, and monks and nuns would never turn away a sick person who came to their door seeking help. Most abbeys had a skilled herbalist among its residents who could minister to the needs of the sick or injured. Additionally, the monasteries would provide education for young boys who wished to become priests. Some monastics spent time copying manuscripts of important books so that they could be preserved, and they kept records of important events that happened in their communities. Like Reggie, the residents of Abbeys were often chroniclers.

Conspiracies in Abbeys:

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Well for collecting rainwater in the Pomposa Abbey in Italy.

Please don’t interpret any of this information as my personal opinion, rather these are matters of history that follow. Nearing the end of the Middle Ages, there was a problem with serious corruption in the church. All members of the clergy were supposed to be well-educated; however, many priests and leaders were illiterate. There were some who hardly knew how to perform the religious services. Many took advantage of their positions and used them to live materialistic and luxurious lives. They convinced pilgrims that the holy relics at their abbeys had the power to cleanse them of their sins, and then charged the pilgrims to see the relics. To make it worse, some of these “relics,” which were said to be things like pieces of Jesus’ cross, Moses’ burning bush, or straw from Jesus’ manger, were nothing but things these monks and priests had found on the ground.

These corrupt leaders’ most profitable form of income was selling indulgences. An indulgence was a piece of paper signed by the Pope that was a “get out of jail free card” of sorts. A person could cash in an indulgence to be forgiven for one sin. Some clergy even taught that through indulgences, salvation could be attained—if one bought enough indulgences.

Our next K4 research blog will give you a little history about jousting in the Middle Ages.

Don’t miss a thing! Follow the Cardboard Box Adventures blog to join in the fun.

If you’re looking for a series of exciting adventure books that helps engage reluctant readers, take a peek at the award-winning Sir Kaye series published by Progressive Rising Phoenix Press.

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The cloisters of Salisbury Cathedral.

Supplementary Information:

Rooms in the Abbey:

The following rooms might be included in a plan of a Medieval monastery. The descriptions of the rooms are as follows:

Cellarium—store-house of a monastery
Chapter-house—a room in which monks met daily, to discuss business and to hear a chapter of the monastic rule
Cloister—a covered walkway in a monastery often situated around an quadrangle. A cloister often comprised of a plain wall or colonnade on the outer side and a series of windows on the inner side.
Dorter—a monastic dormitory. Sometimes the monks slept in isolated rooms called cells.
Frater—another term for a refectory (dining room)
Garderobe—a lavatory in a medieval building
Granary—a storehouse for threshed grain
Infirmary—the part of a monastery which housed monks who were too sick or old to take part in the normal monastic life
Kitchen—where food was prepared and cooked
Lavatorium—a room which contained a trough with running water where monks washed their hands before meals
Misericord—the part of a monastery where monks were disciplined
Night Stair—a staircase used by the monks to enter a church directly from their dormitory in order to attend late night and early morning services
Refectory—the dining hall of a monastery
Sacristy—a small building, usually attached to the chancel in which vestments and sacred vessels were kept
Scriptorium—the room in a monastery used by clerics or scribes copying manuscripts
Warming-house—the only room in a monastery, apart from the infirmary and kitchen, where a fire was allowed. Also called a calefactory.

Source link: http://m.medieval-life-and-times.info/medieval-religion/medieval-monastery.htm

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Cloisters in Moissac, France

A Trip in Time: The History of San Francisco Cable Cars

When I was a kid, I loved all the fascinating family stories and experiences I would hear from relatives. As most of my relatives (great aunts and uncles mostly) were up in years and had lived through the great depression, they had lots of stories to tell. My dad also lived during the great depression and talked a lot about what life was like during that period of time. But what always fascinated me the most was when he talked about when he lived in San Francisco during the mid-1950’s and it was the cable cars that fascinated me the most.

When I was nine years old, we made a family trip to San Francisco and although I have a lot of fun memories from our time there, the highlight of the trip for me was getting to ride a cable car for the first time.

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1969 family San Francisco cable car ride. From left to right, my brother Mike, me, my brother Marty, my mother Sylvia, and my sister Diana.

Reminiscing about all of my dad’s stories about San Francisco and remembering my early experience with the city has given me the idea for a new book project—a mystery that takes place in San Francisco after World War II. The cable car system is part of the mystery.  The story is about a boy whose father—a cable car gripman (more on that later)—dies under mysterious circumstances. The boy is now an orphan, and as he waits in the train station to go live with his great aunt, he decides that he can’t leave without knowing what happened to his father, so he stays in San Francisco.

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Cable car operator Leonard “Cowboy” Whitman Jr.

Since I’m in the early stages of story development, my wife and I recently made a research trip to San Francisco and we spent a good portion of our time riding the cable cars and talking with many of the locals and tourists. I also had the privilege of interviewing one of the cable car operators, Leonard “Cowboy” Whitman, about his experiences as a cable car operator.

Cowboy has been a conductor for about 7 years and before that he operated one of the street cars for 23 years. We all sat in a parked cable car and visited during his lunch break.  The questions I asked were mostly about the people that operate and ride the cable cars, things you won’t read about online. We learned a lot of interesting history, all of which will add to the richness of the story.

The San Francisco cable car system is the world’s last manually operated cable car system. Of the 23 original lines that were built between 1873 and 1890, only three lines remain, one of which combines parts of two earlier lines: two routes from downtown near Union Square to Fisherman’s Wharf (Powell-Mason line: 1.40 miles and Powell-Hyde line: 1.6 miles) on a north-south orientation, and a third east-west route along California Street, 1.4 miles.

San Francisco was built on hills (over 50 of them!) so the streets go steeply up and down. In 1869, Andrew Smith Hallidie reportedly had the idea for a cable car system after witnessing an accident where a streetcar drawn by horses slid backwards over wet cobblestones, killing the horses.

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San Francisco cable car on top of a hill with a view of Alcatraz in the background.

For its time, the cable car system was quite ingenious. The cable cars are pulled by a cable that runs below the street and the cars hold onto the cable with a grip that runs through a narrow opening between the rails in the street surface. Each cable is 1.25 inches in diameter, running at a constant speed of 9.5 miles per hour, and driven by a 510 horsepower electric motor located in the central powerhouse.

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San Francisco cable car powerhouse and museum.

To start and stop the movement of the car, the gripman opens and closes the grip (it’s like a vice grip) around the cable. The grip’s jaws exert a pressure of up to 30,000 pounds per square inch on the cable.

There are four separate cables: one 16,000-foot length and one 10,300-foot length for the Hyde and Mason segments, a 9,300-foot length for their common Powell section, and one 21,000-foot length for the California Street line. That’s a lot of cable!

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A cable car gripman operating the manual cable car controls.

The cable car driver is known as the gripman or grip operator. This job requires a lot of skill as the gripman has to smoothly operate the grip lever to grip and release the cable. This must be done at certain points to allow the vehicle to coast over crossing cables or places where the cable does not follow the tracks, and to avoid possible collisions with other traffic. Operating the grip and brake requires a lot of upper body strength as well as good balance and hand-eye coordination.

In addition to the gripman, each cable car carries a conductor. The conductor’s job is to collect fares, manage the passengers boarding and exiting the car, and when descending downhill, operating the rear wheel brakes. There are also standing passengers on the running boards so properly managing the passengers is an important job.

Another interesting fact is that after World War II, it cost 7 cents to ride the cable car. Today it costs 7 dollars.

I highly recommend the Cable Car Museum. It’s a free educational facility located at 1201 Mason Street, and it has lots of interesting things to see.

Future research will include more interviews and fact-finding about the postwar lives of orphans in the Bay Area.

Don’t miss a thing! Follow the Cardboard Box Adventures blog to join in the fun.

If you’re looking for a series of exciting adventure books that helps engage reluctant readers, take a peek at the award-winning Sir Kaye series published by Progressive Rising Phoenix Press.

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Textiles and the Wool Trade in the Middle Ages

For about the last 50 or 60 years, much of the clothing purchased in the western world has been made of some kind of a manmade textile, or a blend of natural fibers and manmade materials. Most of us have a selection of polyester, rayon, nylon, acrylic, acetate, and cotton/poly blends in our closets. Natural fibers like linen, cotton, silk, and wool can be more expensive than the manmade fabrics. And today, wool, which many of us remember unpleasantly from our childhood as the picky, prickly, uncomfortable top layer our mothers wrapped us in, is often viewed as unwieldy.

But once, natural fibers were all that were available. Medieval Europe from at least 1000 B.C.E. forward highly prized wool fabrics. Wool was warm, long-lasting, relatively inexpensive, and plentiful. It could be grown, harvested, spun, and woven right at home. Wool was a necessity for everyone in the middle ages, including the elite. All houses were cold and drafty, heated only by fireplaces, and wool was the only way to keep warm.

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The Cotswold Lion Sheep is a rare breed originating from the Cotswolds region of England. The area has been a prolific producer of wool from Roman times. This breed was predominant originating in medieval times.

To get help on the subject of textiles, my wife, Elizabeth, has agreed to be interviewed for this blog. Although Elizabeth’s training and work is in the sciences (biochemistry, genetics, and nutritional psychology), she also has an affinity for working with textiles of all kinds and is a big history buff for the time period of the middle ages.

Don: When did you first become interested in textiles?

[image error]Elizabeth: I got an early start. Both of my parents worked with textiles extensively; my dad had been trained by his father in the family business—upholstery and furniture- and drapery-making, and my mom had learned to sew from her mom and grandmother and made most of my clothes while I was growing up. She also loved to crochet, so there was yarn as well as lots of fabric around. I loved it all. My grandmother didn’t sew much by the time I came along, but she had cupboard after cupboard of fabric. She always wanted to visit fabric stores, especially the mill-end stores that peppered the southern US during those years. She bought fabric wherever she went, and she and I and my sister Lydia regularly hauled out the teetering stacks to enjoy them and dream of what could be made from their bounty. She taught me to sew on buttons and repair garment hems by hand. My grandfather always had a project on his workbench. I loved seeing what beautiful pieces of furniture he had conceived. Hand tufted, tucked, beautifully finished velvet or brocade, brass nail studded pieces were his favorite. He loved the ornate. My dad had 6 brothers, all but one of whom also did upholstery, so any family visits also involved ‘going to the shop’ of each respective uncle and seeing bolts of colorful cloth, pieces of furniture waiting to be picked up, and works-in-progress on the bench.

Don: What do you enjoy most about textiles?

Elizabeth: The sense of possibility. There are literally countless possibilities for every yard, inch, or skein, and I get to imagine and decide which possibilities are the most beautiful, creative, expressive, and functional. Beauty and function intersect intrinsically when I allow my creativity to blossom in the presence of textiles. It is said that form follows function, but I believe beauty leads the way. Working with textiles is a contemplative pursuit, and allows me to focus on the process of making something, rather than on the end product. Don’t get me wrong: the end products are wonderful in and of themselves, but immersing myself in the process of imagining, creating, problem solving, and making something is where the real experience is for me. We have to look for such opportunities in modern life; all too often, our work and home life focuses solely on getting as many things done in as short a time as possible. That approach shortchanges us emotionally over time. By nature, we are process-oriented beings, and the more we can get back to that foundation, and learn to enjoy the process of doing and being, the more fulfilled and at peace we can be.

Don: Today, there are a lot of synthetic or man-made textiles available. What are some of the manmade textiles and what is the upside and downside to man-made textiles?

Elizabeth: As a child of the 60’s and 70’s, the most common textiles of the era were man-made from a variety of petroleum products. Who can forget the horrors of Quiana, leisure suits, and clothing made from what was admiringly called ‘bullet-proof’ polyester, so-called because it literally never wore out? The upside of man- made textiles were primarily those of convenience and a low need for maintenance. Few of them ever needed ironing, the terms ‘drip-dry’ and ‘wash-and-wear’ were coined as their main selling features. The world was a rapidly changing place in the decades after the second World War, partly due to the increase in income, which allowed for more leisure time than people had ever had the luxury of having in history. Labor saving devices and products at times bordered on the absurd, but spoke to the ethos of the era. What ‘lady of the house’ wanted to starch and iron 7 shirts and pairs of slacks, or 7 dresses for each family member every single week when she could purchase synthetics and spend her time on the tennis court or playing bridge with her girlfriends?

But those conveniences came at a price, which didn’t become part of social awareness for many years. Synthetic fabrics were (and still are) made from chemicals derived from coal, oil, and natural gas. The process is called polymerization. It begins with monomers, identical molecules that have the ability to be joined together to make larger molecules called polymers. Liquefied polymers then go through a high pressure process that forces the chemicals through a plate covered with tiny holes called spinnerets to make the slick fibers that can then be dyed and woven into fabric. The processes necessary to make these textiles are hard on the environment, and produce fabrics that can’t naturally biodegrade. Synthetic fabrics can only be melted down and re-spun into more fabric, or burned, which releases toxic gases and fumes into our environment. Experts estimate that 12% of landfills are comprised of non-biodegradable textiles. (See reference footnotes).

 

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The polyester fiber manufacturing process.

Don: What are your favorite textiles and why?

Elizabeth: Natural fibers like wool, cotton, and linen, are my favorites. Unlike the slick, hollow fibers of man-made origin, these fibers have an integrity to them that allows them to intertwine and cling to one another as they are worked with. Wool, for example, has tiny barbs on each fiber that allow it to be pulled from shorn fleeces and twisted easily into a plied yarn that can then be knit, crocheted, or woven into fabric. Wool is springy and elastic, even cuddly! When I’m making a quilt, each triangle or square naturally clings to its neighbor as the pieces are sewn together. Clothing from these textiles are a delight to wear. Rather than trapping body heat and moisture, all natural fibers ‘breathe’, allowing perspiration and excess heat to escape naturally. And while each natural fiber takes dye in its own unique way, the un-dyed colors of different cottons, wools, and linens have their own quiet, understated beauty.

Don: Looking back at medieval times, what kinds of textiles did they have? What was the most prevalent?

Elizabeth: That’s a really big question, with a really big answer. I’ll append some links to some excellent references by experts on the topic. The short answer is that linen, wool, and silk featured predominantly. Early on, guilds or professional associations of skilled crafts persons like weavers and wool growers developed and leveraged the position of such vital trades in medieval society. Subsistence-level production of wool, whereby most families had flocks and made the necessary clothing from its shearing, went on for hundreds of years, so literally from the most humble slave to kings and queens, the textile base of raw materials was the same, albeit more refined and skillfully woven for royalty or the gentry.

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Medieval loom in the upper room seigniorial houses in Moscow.

Don: How important was the wool trade in medieval times?

Elizabeth: John H. Munro, ‘Medieval Woollens: Textiles, Textile Technology and Industrial Organisation, c. 800-1500’, in The Cambridge History of Western Textiles, Volume 1, ed. by D. T. Jenkins (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003), pp. 181-227 (at 181) states: “No form of manufacturing had a greater impact upon the economy and society of medieval Europe than did those industries producing cloths from various kinds of wool.” The book “The English Wool Market” by Adrian R. Bell and Chris Brooks calls the time period “an era when trade in wool had been the backbone and driving force in the English medieval economy.” Wool as a commodity created a whole list of new jobs and trades, even scientific discoveries, new dyestuffs, manufacturing procedures, new spinning wheels and looms, and mechanized fulling (cleaning the wool for cloth-making) and napping (shearing off the fuzzy halo of wool fibers on finished cloth to make it smooth). Trade, transportation, and banking all changed as a result of the demands of the new business model for wool products and exports.

Don: Anything else about textiles and wool specifically you’d like to share?

Elizabeth: I encourage our readers to think about what they buy when it’s time to purchase clothes or textiles for the home. What would it be like to buy fewer articles of clothing, but to buy better quality products that are sustainably made from natural fibers? It can require a change in mindset and shopping habits, but the health of our environment stands to gain, which benefits us all. Many families like to thrift shop at used clothing stores. Here’s a link to multiple clues one can use to determine fiber content of unlabeled vintage clothing: http://www.rebeccablood.net/domestic/fiber_content_tests.html

Source Links:

http://www.tikp.co.uk/knowledge/material-functionality/biodegradable/textile-waste/

http://store.elsevier.com/product.jsp?locale=en_US&isbn=9781845694531

https://www.purewaste.org/media/pdf/textile-product-waste-fast-facts.pdf

http://www.medievaltextiles.org/archives.html

https://www.cs.arizona.edu/patterns/weaving/webdocs/mnm_mt27.pdf

http://www.medats.org.uk/

 

If you’re looking for a series of exciting adventure books that helps reluctant readers, take a peek at the award-winning Sir Kaye series published by Progressive Rising Phoenix Press.

 

Eating With Your Hands is Required: A Taste of Ethiopia

I admit that I was not the typical child raised on the standard American diet of hotdogs, burgers and fries…although those were occasionally included in the mix of foods I ate. At a very young age I experienced ethnic, even exotic foods that many adults have never tried. Both of my parents were excellent cooks and there was always a wide variety of different types of food available. Despite my varied ethnic heritage and diet, one instruction always remained constant however: don’t eat with your hands!

[image error]That all changed recently when my wife and I were driving home from the airport and happened upon a restaurant called A Taste of Ethiopia. My wife and I both eat a vegan diet, so it’s not always easy to find a restaurant that serves a good variety of vegan options. But we loved this restaurant! Not only was the food fantastic but we got to eat with our hands. More about that later. We enjoyed it so much that we went back the next day and after enjoying another fine meal, we visited with the owner, Woine Mariam, about her restaurant and life in Ethiopia. [Woine is pronounced Winnie, like Winnie the Pooh, in Woine’s words.]

Woine grew up in Ethiopia and learned to cook by watching her mother. “I watched her constantly, and each time I saw her cook something, I said to myself, “That’s how you do that.” Her mother was an excellent cook who made delicious meals for the family daily. As part of their faith, they practiced two vegetarian days per week. As a result, the skill of preparing tasty, well-spiced vegetables has been elevated to an art form. And, of interest to our readers, kids in Ethiopia grow up eating lots of vegetables and lots of spices. So different from many in this country!

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Close up of the mural in the restaurant.

 

Woine said that when babies are ready to be weaned they are fed a mixture of roasted chickpeas, roasted peas, turmeric, and other spices called Shiro Wat. The ingredients are roasted and ground into a powder and then cooked with water, onions, and garlic. Babies are also fed a well-seasoned mash of potatoes and carrots. “There are no canned baby foods, no Gerber, in my country. We make our own baby foods from vegetables. Kids enjoy what we enjoy: it’s not different. People think kids won’t like what we like, but if they grow up eating the food, they love it.”

That’s a key point for us in this part of the world. We need to realize that what kids are exposed to in their food life will be what they come to expect. If we think they’ll only like macaroni from a blue box or Mcnuggetted-chicken, and that’s all we expose them to, that’s all they’ll like. And in a world where the childhood obesity issue has reached staggering proportions, helping kids to love vegetables could be a big part of the solution.

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Vegetarian Sampler Platter

 

Our experiences at Woine’s restaurant were delightful. Food is served on a large platter, family style, for all at the table to share. There was a variety of dishes on the sampler platter we enjoyed, featuring chickpeas, lentils, vegetables, greens, cabbage, and even vinegar-dressed salad. Underneath it all is the Ethiopian foundation, its staple food: Injera, a fermented flatbread made from Teff (a tiny Ethiopian grain), or a combination of Teff, wheat, and barley. That’s how Woine makes hers, and it’s delicious. It takes three days to ferment, rather like sourdough starter, and is baked on a clay surface without added oil. Woine uses injera starter from home, from her mother’s own kitchen, and has kept this batch going for the 10 years she’s been in business. It was my favorite part of the meal.

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And here’s where the “eat with your hands” part of the experience comes in: there are no forks at the Ethiopian table. Instead, after washing their hands thoroughly, one tears off a section of injera and uses it to scoop or pinch up bits of the thick stews, vegetables, and salad a bite at a time. Woine says of forks, “Why would you want anything between you and your food?” Indeed, it comes naturally to all human beings to experience food by hand. “When people bring in their little ones, and they see the platters of food, and eat with their hands, and the children are all smiles, faces covered with different sauces by the end of their meal, that’s my best reward,” Woine concludes.

So even if your kids seem firmly entrenched in the “I don’t like vegetables” camp, perhaps the excitement and novelty of eating exotic food with their hands will be the doorway to broader horizons.

[image error]If you live in the Austin area, or plan to visit the Austin area, don’t forget to check out A Taste of Ethiopia at the following locations:

1100 Grand Avenue, Pflugerville, TX 78660 (pictured on the right)
3801 South Congress Avenue, Austin, TX 78784

Or visit online at: http://www.tasteofethiopiaaustin.com/

An Interview with Peggy Stern About Dyslexiaville: Helping Kids with Dyslexia and Attention Issues

When I was diagnosed with dyslexia in the first grade, the intervention I received helped me to cobble together some basic reading skills, though barely at best. Once I achieved a certain baseline level in remedial reading, I was again on my own. Dyslexia, however, affects far more than just reading, and the biggest problem can be the social and emotional toll it takes on the child—the feelings of shame, inadequacy, and a lack of belonging. Sadly, the social and emotional problems caused by dyslexia are rarely addressed.

Peggy Stern and John Canemaker win an Academy Award for the animated short The Moon and the Son

There is one woman on a mission to change that. Peggy Stern is an Academy Award-winning film producer/director who also happens to be dyslexic. It was her dyslexia that led her to filmmaking and animation at a young age, and in March 2006, Stern won the Oscar for Best Animated Short for her film The Moon and the Son.

I recently interviewed Peggy about her own struggle, and she spoke of her passion for helping children with dyslexia and attention issues, including the social and emotional complications. That passion led to the creation of Dyslexiaville, a multimedia resource focusing on social and emotional learning for children with dyslexia and attention issues. Their mission is to help kids succeed in both school and life, because of—not in spite of—their learning differences.

Some of the multimedia resources available from Dyslexiaville include the Super d! Show, which is available for viewing on YouTube. The Super d! Show is a series of short episodes about the everyday lives of kids with learning and attention issues, and is designed to instill confidence in kids with LD. Part of the Super d! Show includes DNN, the Dylexia News Network, which is news from all across the country about kids with learning and attention issues. All the series produced at Dyslexiaville are cast only with kids who have learning differences like dyslexia or ADHD.

Don: Peggy, what can you tell us about your own experience with dyslexia?

Peggy: I was born in 1957, and when I was five, my grandmother noticed that no matter how many times a small book about the seasons was read to me, I could never remember what order they came in. All of that simple sequencing stuff went right by me. I had the same struggle remembering the order of the months as well. I had no idea where to begin. My grandmother was able to see that I wasn’t just switching the letters in words, I was having trouble with sequencing as well.

She took me to meet with a former student who had just graduated and was starting to do some tutoring. My grandmother remembers that the tutor wasn’t convinced of my dyslexia at first. She thought she was dealing with some classic overbearing grandmother who thought she could diagnose such things, but she agreed to meet with us anyway. We arrived at her apartment after kindergarten one day, and the tutor had me sit down at the table and among other things asked me to write my name. That was one of the first things you are taught in kindergarten, but it took me twenty minutes, working through the tricks I’d been taught for each letter, and triumphant at the end, I accidentally had the end of the “Y” sticking straight up, and didn’t even see it. By the end of that first meeting, the tutor was a believer in my dyslexia.

I had a hard time retaining any information about letters or sequences. Often I would come back the next day only to start all over because I wouldn’t have retained what was taught the day before. It took a long time for me to grasp things. I lied to my friends about having a tutor. No one knew where I went after school. I would either say I was going to a dance class, or to my grandmother’s. I was completely ashamed. How I carried that shame around is one of the main things that stuck with me as I became an adult.

It was around 8th grade when I finally became a reader, and then it all took off for me. It was just like the world opened up. I loved reading. I wasn’t super great at retaining every fact I read, I couldn’t take notes in class and there were still lots of things I struggled with, but being able to read opened up the whole world. My tutor had been there at my side, constantly making me feel smart. She kept reemphasizing, saying, “Okay, yes, I know this is hard for you, and this is slow, but look at how creative you are when we talk about a character or do other activities.” She was incredibly magical. One thing she did was have me dictate a story to her, type it up; and then we would work on my reading using the story I had written. By doing that, my tutor made a young child feel like she had something worthwhile to say. How amazing is that?

I am very thankful for a grandmother who took notice of my learning difference. I sometimes wonder what my life would have been like if I had a different family. What would have happened to me? And I think a lot about how lucky I was to have this really creative teacher.

Jordan, Andres, and BrookeLyn, actors on the Super d! Show

 

That’s a lot of what went into me wanting to do something about social-emotional learning, because I think there are a lot of teachers out there who are beginning to understand, and there will hopefully be increasingly more government intervention in the sense that states are going to require more teacher training. All of these things have to happen, 100% across the country. We need to have it mandated, and families should not have to fight and take their kids out of public school. All of that has to dramatically change. But while that is happening, there needs to be some way for the children who are not in a supportive system yet to not feel like they are stupid or that they are being fake. They need to recognize the strengths they have and realize that they are just not being taught correctly yet. That is why I care so deeply about it.

I had success, but it took a village. I learned though, because I had my grandmother and my tutor to speak up with the people close to me. When I was in high school, I wasn’t afraid to say: “I really need help, could you read this over?” I had people around me who would help reorganize my papers for me. It wasn’t so much spelling errors, as it was that my topic sentence would be at the bottom of the page.

A key point was that I wasn’t too embarrassed to ask for help. That is social-emotional, that’s me having had somebody make me feel okay about showing this weakness that had to do with how I wrote or how I spelled. That’s what kids need, and every kid deserves it.

Professor Boom investigates the dyslexic brain on the Super d! Show.

 

Don: One thing I’ve learned is that not all people with dyslexia are alike. There are things we all have in common, but we each have our own unique strengths, and some may have more of a struggle with one thing than another. How has this fact influenced your work with Dyslexiaville?

Peggy: When I approached someone about funding, he said to me, “So, are you going to be teaching reading through the web?” And I said, “No.” He then said, “Well, if you were doing that, I would fund you, because that’s what needs to happen. And we need to make sure every kid has access to that, but otherwise, I’m not really interested.”

And I thought, “Well ok, so it goes.” I then said to him, ”I don’t think you could replace the kind of intervention that needs to happen in a classroom, or with a tutor, or in a resource room, because every dyslexic child tends to learn differently, and varied programs and kinds of intervention are needed to find what works best. Teachers have to find what is going to be the best way for that child. That is what science has shown us, it isn’t the same in every child.”

The idea that there is some program that we could put out there on the web that would suddenly have kids doing it and they’d be transformed, is not going to happen. But I do think we can use the web for other things, and that’s why I’m very excited to be doing this. I do think we can use media to build community, and we can tell stories that make people learn about themselves and understand how they learn. It can show them what their strengths are, and that will help them with whatever intervention that they get.

Filming an episode of the Super d! Show

 

Also, we’re really trying to help turn this generation into advocates for themselves. Kids tend to blame themselves for their learning differences, or in some settings they’re still told that they aren’t trying hard enough. And even with a kid who might have accommodations, for instance, and happens to have a substitute teacher, and is told they aren’t allowed to use their calculator for a test. The child sort of figures, “Well, I don’t know what to say, because I know I’ve been given an accommodation to use this, but this is the teacher, they’re the authority.” So we’re really trying to have episodes in the program that get at that idea, that get at that ‘self-advocacy.’

Don: How are your own experiences reflected in the show?

Peggy: My own experiences and those of my two co-writers and directors are reflected in the show. David Bailen, he’s 25 now, but I’ve known him since he was 12. I had made a film about his mother, and had found out from her that he was dyslexic. At 12 years old, his school didn’t know how to deal with him, and he was going to have to change schools. He’s super talented. He’s a musician, a songwriter, he’s an artist, and he turned into a screenwriter. And so he wrote the first 11 episodes of the first season. David was the first person who I turned to. He was at NYU, studying film and screenwriting, and I started talking to him about this. He was involved from the beginning.

Then there was Max Strebel. I also met Max when he was a freshman at NYU, and at that point, I had already done a film that was with the head of animation at NYU, and that film had won an Academy Award. So I had already started talking to people about wanting to do a film or a project about dyslexia, and I wanted to use animation, and I was going to work with the same animator. So, one of the other teachers at NYU knew about that and in her freshman class, this young student came in, and he showed her a film that he’d done about his own dyslexia. It was an animated film called “Words,” and it was amazing. It was only a few minutes long, but it was all hand drawn and it was really powerful. She said I had to meet this kid. So we met and I actually used some of the film in some fundraising I was doing. I said to him, “I love what you’re doing, let’s collaborate.” And so I brought him in early on. And really, the three of us were the initial core group and we all drew from our own experiences.

The Dyslexic News Network, sharing news from and about kids with dyslexia and learning differences, including viewer-submitted videos, which helps to foster a sense of community and belonging for students who have LD.

 

Don: How did Dyslexiaville first come about and what was your goal for the show?

Peggy: I attended a conference on dyslexia and creativity. They had invited a lot of different people, film makers, writers, and all kinds of people to come and talk about their dyslexia and what they ended up doing. So, I was there as a filmmaker and I presented some of my past work, and I ended by talking about what I was developing for Dyslexiaville. That night, a woman came up to me and said, “I am on the Board of Dyslexic Advantage, but I also have two children who are in 3rd and 5th grade who have dyslexia, and my husband has dyslexia too. I’m living this right now, and I love what you’re doing.”

She started donating her time and working with me. She lived in Seattle, and we would talk once a week, and she got very involved and was the co-producer with me on the first series. And what was great was that she had younger kids, so while we were taking from our own experiences, I had mine as an almost 57-year old and then these 22, 23-year olds, and then Kristi who had her 8 and 10-year old. And we just pulled all our thoughts and ideas together and knew we wanted to touch on three things.

We wanted to touch on identity, and kids coming to understand who they are as a learner; we wanted to touch on self-advocacy, which I mentioned earlier; and we wanted to touch on this concept of community, the idea that you’re not alone and you’re not the only one. So each episode touches on some part of those three things.

Super d! Show cast members having fun.

 

Don: What has been the response to the show? Do you feel like you’re connecting with your audience?

Peggy: One example is a teacher who’s in Providence, Rhode Island. She actually filmed her second graders responding to the episodes. She said, “Hi Peggy, I’m Tracy, and I just watched the Obnoxious Teacher episode,” and the students all gave feedback, such as, “I really liked it, and I liked it because…” They were very enthusiastic, and the teacher had asked them specifically try to say why they liked it. So this one little girl said, “I really liked how Kia ended up not drawing the moustache on the teacher, because I think that it was true that she didn’t like how he was making her feel, but she didn’t want to turn around and do the same thing to him.” So I was really thrilled to see that a second grader understood that level of the story.

And then I’ve gotten things from tutors who are using the episodes. They say that they sit there and just watch as a smiles appear on faces of the kids. By the end of the first episode, they’re just beaming. Literally, it is not even a verbal response, it’s just this kind of body language response and this smile. A teacher wrote me a beautiful little paragraph about that.

 

That’s part of the beauty of it. A child could watch this story, and if they see themselves in it, it might make them say to their parents, “Hey, do you think I have anything?” Because a lot of things don’t get identified early enough.

There are so many things that go into the world of a child. Knowing if we we’re hitting the right tone was extremely challenging in some ways. I had made a film about Chuck Jones, the animator who created Bugs Bunny, and he really guided me with one of the things that he said in the film. I had asked him, “How did you know that kids would like your stuff? And he said, “Oh, I can promise you, we had no idea. We just figured if we could make ourselves laugh, then probably kids would laugh because we were all kids, and we just made sure that we laughed.”

I just loved that, because it felt like I shouldn’t make it so complicated. You don’t need an algorithm, or you’re going to have 16 people going to go and give you a psychological assessment of every age. Just try to be authentic and true to our own experiences as kids who grew up with LD, and what we thought was funny.

Super d! Show cast member Charlie on set.

 

Don: Do the kids on your show have any film experience?

Peggy: None of these kids had ever been filmed before. Some of them had been in school plays, but they had never been on a set, they had no professional experience, and honestly, none of us had too much professional experience doing fiction with kids. We were all pretty new to the genre.

And yet, because the kids knew that the grownups were all LD too—the director, the producer, me—there was just a lot of safety. And when we would be going through the scripts with the kids, often with kids I knew were shy about reading out loud, I would just read their part for them. The idea was never to feel tested, that everyone was going to have the time they needed, and we would get there in the end and we would help each other. It wasn’t hierarchical particularly, so I think that really created an exciting environment.

And so for me it is really gratifying both to see what these fifteen kids in the cast got out of being in the series, and then hearing what kids are getting from seeing it. And the other thing I can share about the kids is that I’ve been hearing that kids want to watch them over and over, and that was a goal that we had, obviously. I mean, by making things sort of fun, and funny, because I think that repetition is important, you take it in more. Kids often want to do that, but you have to make it worth their while. It has to be fun.

Don: What are some of the social and emotional topics you’ll be touching on in season one?

Peggy: We got a little bolder, I would say. One of the new titles is going to be Anxiety, one of them is Procrastination. You know they are trying to get at this real social-emotional topic, which is, yes, you’re in school and you might be even getting intervention and help, but that doesn’t mean that your emotional relationship to having LD is completely easy. They bring up a topic and present strategies to each other about how to cope with it in the story. About how to cope with your own anxiety.”

Don: Tell us the story of how the 12th episode was written?

Peggy: Ari, who is the main character in the episode where the kid gets lost in the park, wrote the episode himself.

Cast member Ari, who wrote episode 12 of the Super d! Show.

 

Ari is extremely funny and he actually wrote an episode during the shooting two years ago. He brought it to me and said, “Will you look at this?” I was blown away. I showed it to the other kids, and asked them if they were willing to learn some new lines. We ended up shooting it on the last afternoon. We squeezed it in there. So that will be up there and it was written by 10-year old Ari. It is about memory basically.

So we have this interview series that will be going up that is called, “Not So Late Night with Ari.” Initially, he is interviewing the kids in the cast, and it will be little mini-docs about each kid in the cast and their own experience with LD. Then we hope to bring in others, both kids and adults, well-known and not necessarily well-known. They will be short little 5-minute episodes, geared for the kid-audience.

Don: How much effort do the kids put into doing the show? Do they memorize their lines?

Peggy: What’s interesting is that within the fifteen kids in the cast, there is a huge range of working memory and ability to memorize lines among them. Jordan, who is featured in the Wall Street Journal article about Dyslexiaville and who plays Professor Boone, happens to be very musical and has an incredible ability to memorize lines. She’s dyslexic, and goes to the same school as some of the other kids, but memorizing lines comes very easily to her. She said the way she did it, is she would put all the lines to a song and melody that she knew and would just keep running it in her head.

Behind the scenes of the Super d! Show with cast members Jordan and Ayanna.

 

And so we actually encouraged all the kids from the beginning to read aloud themselves, or if their reading wasn’t strong enough, to have a family member read their lines on an iPad so they could listen to them almost like a song, and that really helped. But there were a few of the younger kids who did struggle more.

And I have to admit that there are definitely scenes where I am literally sitting out of frame and I am on the eye line of the camera, so then they would be looking at me and I would be mouthing the words. We only had to do it in a few cases, but it would help.

The kids look professional up there, but they worked hard to memorize this stuff. And they worked hard to do as well as they did and I just give them so much credit for their determination, and then on top of that, they weren’t just performing it in a classroom. We were on a soundstage and a set, with 12 adults around doing camera, lighting, and costume.

Don: I think when they work so hard and make it look easy, that people don’t necessarily appreciate how much effort actually went into it.

Peggy: Yes, and I think it’s an important thing to show. It is a stereotype that these kids who need extra help aren’t trying hard enough. Kids with ADHD or dyslexia or any kind of processing or learning difference try harder than everybody else. They have to. They have to do things over and over. And just like these kids have strategies with their homework to either concentrate or stay on task or whatever it might be, they had to add learning their lines, and remembering where to be on the set, and doing things over and over into their lives, and they had to do that as a child with a learning difference. I think they have found some good strategies and saw that they could help each other. It was wonderful to watch, I mean it was just incredible, the kids were really, really amazing at figuring out how to do this for the first time.

Super d! Show cast members sleeping…or maybe not

Winter’s Reflections

As the season changes and gray skies wrap us in winter’s embrace, I’m nostalgic for the snowy winters of my youth. I grew up in the Denver, Colorado area, where snowbound winters were an annual feature rather than the rarity they are here in Central Texas. FYI, Austin’s forecast is 75 degrees today. Not exactly sweater weather….but I digress.

Those Denver winters were a glorious thing to me. I can say glorious now because as a kid I didn’t have to chip ice off the car windshield, shovel snow off the driveway, or brave the slippery streets to get to work. No, for me, bad weather days or snow days meant one thing: I didn’t have to go to school. And for this dyslexic guy, the only thing better than not having to go to school was getting to spend the day out in the snow.

Snow days meant building snow forts, snowball fights with my siblings and neighbors, and my favorite…sledding! Some of the neighborhood kids had actual sleds but the majority of us had to improvise. We used everything from plastic trash bags to flattened cardboard boxes. Sometimes the boys with sleds found that using a trash bag or flattened cardboard box worked even better. The hill behind our house got a real workout on snow days. Those are some great memories.

To all of my blog readers: I’d love to hear your memories of snow days…

Here’s a reprint of something I wrote years ago as a remembrance of those special days:

Snow Days

This morning I heard the announcement —

school’s closed ‘cuz it snowed in the night!

I got up without needing prodding,

and was ready to go at first light.

With a scarf and a hat and wool mittens,

galoshes and four pairs of socks,

who wants to be stuck inside sittin’?

I’m goin’ out with the kids on the block!

We built castles and snow forts and igloos,

we hurled snowballs and sledded all day,

with school canceled because of the weather,

we had hours and hours for play.

When I think of those snow days, it’s funny,

we played all day outside as a rule,

but when it was time for our learning,

such days were too cold to hold school.

Don’t miss my next special blog: “Dyslexiaville: Helping Kids with Dyslexia and Attention Issues,” An Iterview with Academy Award-Winning Film Director/Producer Peggy Stern.