Jane Yolen's Blog, page 11
June 19, 2019
Kite for Moon — Lesson Plan
A Google hyperdoc by Rayna L. Freedman
June 17, 2019
What to Do with a String
Illustrated by C. F. Payne
Creative Editions (July 16, 2019)
ISBN-10:
1568463227
ISBN-13:
978-1568463223
The publisher says: “Jane Yolen is an award-winning author, poet, and teacher. She has written more than 365 books, including What to Do with a Box, illustrated by Chris Sheban, and the Caldecott Medal—winning Owl Moon, illustrated by John Schoenherr. The Educational Book & Media Association honored her significant contributions with its 2018 Jeremiah Ludington Award.
C. F. Payne is a renowned artist and illustrator whose picture books include The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Lineup for Yesterday, both published by Creative Editions”
I say: Following up my 2016 surprise big seller, the rhymed concept picture book, WHAT TO DO WITH A BOX, Creative Editions is bringing out the companion book, WHAT TO DO WITH A STRING. Same idea, same author (me), also in rhyme, but a new illustrator. Between the time Chris Sheban did that astonishingly original artwork for BOX, he became very sought after and Creative couldn’t get him for the sequel.
Well, Payne has done a very different take on this sequel, equally full of pizazz and surprises. One character (not several and a dog as in BOX). I love it to pieces.
Eek, You Reek!: Poems about Animals That Stink, Stank, Stunk
Millbrook Press October 1, 2019
with
Heidi E. Y. Stemple
Illustrated by Eugenia Nobati
ISBN-10: 1512482013
ISBN-13: 978-1512482010
So I had a brilliant idea. Humorous poems about stinky animals. Lots of back matter. You know–skunk, stink bug, mink, ferret,. Had a moment’s doubt that there wouldn’t be enough. Google set my mind at rest. Talked to daughter Heidi about doing the book with me.
“Terrible idea,” she said. “Not enough different animals.”
I showed her the list.
“Who would read it?” she asked.
Every fourth grade boy in the universe.
“I’m not convinced.”
I wrote about six poems, handed them to her.
“Okay, I’m in, but I’m not writing my poems till the book sells.”
Thanks to Carol Hinz at Lerner’s Millbrook Press who found them amusing, asked for more, Heidi did her research, wrote her own poems. The illustrations by Eugenia Nobati are howlingly funny and beautiful at the same time.
Merbaby’s Baby
Illustrated by Elizabeth Dulemba
Little Simon (June 25, 2019)
ISBN-10: 1534443177
ISBN-13: 978-1534443174
This board book began years ago as a poem in a collection called DRAGON NIGHT & OTHER LULLABIES. From there it became a song with music by Lui Collins, a wonderful folk singing friend of mine with who I’d written many songs both for children and adults. (We eventually started a band together with other friends I’d written for–when I was 76!!! And I am still part of it as I ride serenely–well I am making that part up–into my 80’s.)
But I was thinking about doing a series of board books under the title WATER BABIES and showed the manuscript of about seven of them to my friend and board book specialist Jeff Salane at Simon & Schuster. And he said that he felt MERBABY was a stand-alone board book and he adored Elizabeth’s art work–as do I– and so we spun that one off.
Now I have written two other MERBABY books which Jeff is considering. The thing about being a long-time professional author is that I know how to change with the publishing tides and ride the waves. Hahaha–a metaphor Merbaby would love and understand.
School of Fish — Series
Illustrated by Mike Moran
Simon Spotlight (July 2, 2019)
ISBN-10: 1534438882
ISBN-13: 978-1534438880
This 6 book series, coming out two books a year for three years, began as a single book as part of a collection of board book manuscripts I had written under the collective title WATER BABIES. That collection of board books has yet to find a publishing home, but Jeff Salane, one of my editors (at Simon & Schuster, who specializes in board books) was smart enough to see that one book’s potential as an Easy Reader and showed it to the two editors there who immediately bought the book and asked for five more in the series. I loved working with Siobahn and Sally the editors whose enthusiasm for our little fish schoolers has never flagged.
As S&S introduces book one:
a Level 1 Ready-to-Read story bursting with all the excitement and a little bit of the nervousness that color a fish’s first day at a new school.
I look around.
What do I see?
Another fish who’s just like me!
A little scared.
A little new.
All alone and feeling blue.
Starting at a new school is never easy, but it can also be really exciting. Beginning readers can follow along as one intrepid little fish goes through the many emotions associated with a new school experience!
Mike Moran’s breezy, humorous pictures are just right and light for the books. And if they want six more from me, I would be delighted to accommodate them.
A Kite for Moon
with
Heidi E Y Stemple
Illustrated by
Matt Phelan
Zonderkidz (April 9, 2019)
ISBN-10: 0310756421
ISBN-13: 978-0310756422
A lyrical book about a little boy, his obsession with the moon, and how he becomes an astronaut who gets to walk on the moon. And though the book is dedicated to Neil Armstrong, it’s not about him. It’s about desire, dedication, and hard work. In fact, the very things that created the book itself.
The book began not as a moonwalk book but as a kite book. My father was
International Kite Flying champion. Had books about kites published. At one point he was in the Guinness Book of World Records for flying the most kites on a single string. I began writing about him (in a metaphoric way. He’d never flown kites as a boy, it was an adult obsession.) Along the way the manuscript morphed into a book about an astronaut. (These thing happen!)
I loved the book, my agent loved the book, but no editor wanted it. So I put it in a drawer and forgot about it.
Ten years or so later, an illustrator friend mentioned in passing that he would love to do a book with me. And I told him I’d love to do a book with him. Asked my daughter Heidi Stemple, herself a writer/editor and my PA if she would find me the latest iteration of the book in the files. Due to a computer disaster, those files had been destroyed. But we had back up paper files.
She did, but first read it through, and said to me, “It needs work. Can I take a whack at it?” I thought she meant a small tidying up, a little cut/paste. We had worked together on nearly 20 books at that point so I said, “Sure”. But instead of using pair of small scissors, a needle and thread (this is a metaphor!), she whacked at it with a big machete. And when she was done, and I saw how brilliant a little book it was. “This is not my book any longer,” I said. “It is OUR book.”
We sold it to the first editor who saw it, convinced her to put Matt Phelan on the project as illustrator (not the other illustrator friend who’d moved on) Heidi wrote about this in a blog: ”We were sitting at a conference listening to lectures when Matt Phelan got up to speak. His art was being shown and, there was a piece he had with kids in a classroom and my head exploded. THAT was our kid! I poked JY in the side (she didn’t appreciate that) and whispered “Kite! Kite!”
Once I explained what I meant, we both went to work on Zonderkidz to approach Matt to illustrate. He said yes. The only thing we changed after that was the last page originally said ‘listened’ and we changed it to “watched” based on Matt’s amazing last page. I don’t want to give anything away, but when I read the last 2 pages, I still get choked up.”
The book began garnering grand reviews when it came out in the 50th anniversary year of the Moon Landing.
What reviewers have said:
“Yolen and Stemple remind readers of the simple awe of a most wonderful journey.” — Publisher’s Weekly“The allure of the moon has been a favorite theme for picture book authors from Margaret Wise Brown and Eric Carle to Frank Asch and Mordicai Gerstein. Yolen has explored it previously in Owl Moon. Here, writing with her daughter, she imagines the trajectory of an astronaut’s lifelong interest. The text is spare but full of warmth and lyricism. Phelan’s lively, flowing inked outlines convey both the steadfast connection between boy and orb and the movement born of passion. The paintings contain subtle and pleasing parallels, e.g., the rocket’s orange and yellow exhaust mimics the flame-colored tail of that childhood kite; the conclusion echoes the opening while extending the message. VERDICT Smooth pacing and narrative clarity combine with an evocative presentation to make this a first choice to celebrate the 50th anniversary of America’s moon landing.” — School Library Journal“…certain to be an enduringly popular and appreciated addition to family, daycare center, preschool, elementary school, and community library picture book collections.”—Midwest Book Review
June 15, 2019
Devil’s Arithmetic — Teacher’s Guide
September 25, 2014
Interstitial Moment
Interstitial Moment
At 75, I almost (almost) don’t care what people think about me or my work. The work is out there and readers have every right to like it or not. They can think it is life-changing or a load of codswallop. Once the piece is out there, it no longer belongs to me but to them. (I am quick to add: in the deeper sense, not the copyright sense.)
But here’s the warning part: My job is not to write what the reader wants, but what I want. What the story (or poem) wants. I have to tell the truth on the slant (as Emily Dickinson said) as I see it, as the story comes to and through me. That’s all I owe anyone, all I owe myself–to tell Truth on the slant.
What I have problems with more and more are people who–because they love my work–think they somehow own me. That they truly know me.
They don’t. They only know the work.
And when they meet me online or at a conference and if they get to talk to me without my Jane Yolen headdress on, they always say things like,
“Oh–I didn’t know you were so funny/silly/anarchic/endearing/profane/ boring” whatever. Because they don’t know me, you see, only the work.
The thing readers like that forget is that I can revise the work over and over. I listen to the characters. So—yes, the story pulls through me and some of me (sometimes a lot of me) scrapes off. But then I revise it to make it fit the story.
So that’s not really me. It’s the work. Don’t confuse the two.
Years ago, I received a piece of fan mail from an adult, (it was clearly not a child) who loved my picture book Rainbow Rider. This was in the ‘70s, so put this into context. The letter spoke of how we were soul mates and how he wanted to meet me to share lives. To tell the truth, it was a very scary little piece of mail. I wrote back that Rainbow Rider was a made-up story, ,that I wrote a lot of stories—some as mythic as that one and others as profane as a piece of soap. He wrote back and said I was an awful person, a liar, and he would never read anything I wrote again.
He missed the point. All storytellers are liars. We make up things to get at the truth. The truth of the story and—if we are lucky and have revised well—the truth of the world as well.
On the slant.
September 22, 2014
A Bit of Medical Advice
I had a major surgery the end of July–spine stuff and I am doing terrifically, thanks. No pain, walking 2 1/2 miles almost every day, and the times the weather doesn’t permit, only a mile.
But this medical alert is about another result of the surgery which will take longer to resolve, Anaesthesia Brain. Few doctors will tell you outright it exists unless you ask. As I have had it before, I asked. Six months before the anaesthesia is fully out of my body. Hot showers, hot baths–makes it reassert itself. Dizziness in baths or showers can compound things.
What this means is: my brain is a lot slower than I am used to. I cannot read and keep paragraphs in my head the way I was wont to do. And writing long pieces (novels especially) are taking me lots longer. Really deep level research–not happening yet. So for the first time in my life as a writer I am massively behind on books–novels–under contract. I hope my editors understand this. And my fans.
My daughter Heidi says: “So now you are only three times faster than most people instead of six.” And I suppose there is some truth in that. But it doesn’t make it any easier for me. Or make it any happier about it.
Six months–expect me back around January 29. I might even be smiling on my birthday–February 11.
August 12, 2014
August 2013
I have been spending much of February through August dealing with a bad back, trying to write (with difficulty)and finally making the decision to have a massive seven hour surgery to deal with a compressed and out of alignment spine plus 2 destroyed discs. Am back from the hospital.
This is the start of week three Jane.2. Feeling well, aching but no deep pain that a half tramadol and a tylenol can’t control. Walking a half mile a day. Surgeons expect a mile at six weeks so I think I am on target.
There have been books rejected, books sold, poems and stories reprinted. But the focus has been on my back which is why stuff like this journal have been left to languish.
Giving you three poems instead. Part of my writing a poem a day for the last four years, though the last two I have been sending them out to subscribers as well. Please do not post these anywhere without permission.
February 24:
From another old favorite poem by a favorite poet.
Being Grass
”I’ll be the grass.”—May Swenson, from “The Exchange”
You be the wind,
I’ll be the grass,
I will feel you
as you pass.
You be the storm,
I’ll be the sea.
You’ll ruffle and tumble
and trouble old me.
You be the cloud,
I’ll be the sun.
You’ll hide my shimmer
till day is done.
You be the snow,
I’ll be the earth,
hiding the treasure
and what it is worth.
You be the wind,
I’ll be the grass,
We’ll be the winter,
and we will pass.
©2014 Jane Yolen all rights reserved
April 10: Started after reading a blog post by Windling in Myth and Moor about journies both inward and outward.
What Is the Path?
What is the path?
A longing, a stretch.
A step, an itch,
An ache, a turning,
A glance, a yearning,
A compass, a guide,
A world opened wide.
What is the road?
A jaunt, a will,
A trip, a spill,
A passage,
A message,
A post, a sign,
Travel through time.
What is the way?
The road, the path,
The aftermath.
The finished chore.
The opening door.
Pilgrimage, poem,
The coming home.
©2014 Jane Yolen all rights reserved
July 19:
My friend Patty MacLachlan sent me good wishes for my coming operation with the world’s greatest typo which I am using herewith.
Walkabout
This flats-and-sneakers lady,
never one to wear out her toes
in those bad girl shoes.
Who cultivated Italian sandals,
and gray bunny slippers.
Who left the shoe store empty-handed.
Yes, that one, with the quixotic back.
So surgery is indicated,
deep and wide, an exchange of discs,
assortment of steel rods,
risers, separators, the layers spread
and re-sewn, quilting the spine.
Soon all the alarms will ring hosannahs
in airports world-wide.
On that day, if the surgeons are worthy
of their collective hire,
the seams sewn with perfect stitchery,
that woman will eschew flats
for the first time in her life,
walking out of the hospital
in the highest of heals.
©2014 Jane Yolen all rights reserved
