2013 Edgar Nominees: My reading list for the next few months

Edgar Allan Poe

This past week the Mystery Writers of America announced the nominees for the 2013 Edgar Awards. The winners will be announced at the Gala Banquet on May 2.

My goal is to read all of the nominees for the juvenile and young adult categories before then. Stay tuned for my reviews. In the meantime, here’s the list of nominees if you want to read along with me.

 

BEST JUVENILE

Fake Mustache: Or, How Jodie O’Rodeo and Her Wonder Horse (and Some Nerdy Kid) Saved the U.S. Presidential Election from a Mad Genius Criminal Mastermind by Tom Angleberger (Abrams – Amulet Books)
13 Hangmen by Art Corriveau (Abrams – Amulet Books)
The Quick Fix by Jack D. Ferraiolo (Abrams – Amulet Books)
Spy School by Stuart Gibbs (Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers)
Three Times Lucky by Sheila Turnage (Penguin Young Readers Group – Dial Books for Young Readers)

BEST YOUNG ADULT

Emily’s Dress and Other Missing Things by Kathryn Burak (Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group – Roaring Brook Press)
The Edge of Nowhere by Elizabeth George (Penguin Young Readers Group – Viking)
Crusher by Niall Leonard (Random House Children’s Books – Delacorte BFYR)
Amelia Anne is Dead and Gone by Kat Rosenfield (Penguin Young Readers Group – Dutton Children’s Books)
Code Name Verity by Elizabeth Wein (Disney Publishering World – Hyperion)

 

photo credit: Chelsea Daniele via photopin cc

 

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My Article in Highlights: A Childhood Dream Come True

If you’ve liked my Facebook page, you’ve already heard the news. My author’s copies of Highlights arrived in the mail!

My article in Highlights!

My article in Highlights!

This is definitely one of those childhood dreams come true. My parents ordered Highlights for my brothers and me when we were young. My favorite part was the Hidden Pictures, but I enjoyed reading the stories and (occasionally) the articles, too.

Toward the back of every Highlights issue is a section called “Your Own Pages,” which features drawings and poems submitted by children. When I was a kid, I secretly wanted to submit a poem but never had the courage to do so.

When I started writing for children’s magazines about six years ago, I knew I wanted to be published in Highlights. However, I also knew they only took the best work. I tried a few other magazines first, but nothing seemed to work out. Then I wrote an article on the history of women’s marathons. Highlights passed, but that article was later picked up by Hopscotch for Girls. It wasn’t until the spring of 2011 that I decided to give Highlights a try again. I’d already had short stories published in Pockets, as well as an online article. My writing credentials were building, and I figured I was ready.

I checked out the Highlights website to see what their current needs were. They wanted articles on kids involved in science, and I immediately thought of Brandon, one of my students who’d just had a science experiment put on the space shuttle Endeavour. I was crazy if I didn’t try submitting!

I wrote the article that summer after Brandon had presented his findings at the Smithsonian. I submitted it to the magazine in August of 2011. They accepted the article in early November. The official contract arrived in January 2012. So between my submission and its publication nearly a year and half passed. That’s actually much faster than some other children’s magazines that have published my work (The women’s marathon article took five years to publish in Hopscotch for Girls).

In the end, I can finally say I’ve been published in Highlights.

Childhood dream: accomplished.

So if you have any children who receive Highlights or if you happen to be hanging out in a dentist’s office, check out my article on pages 18 and 19.

P.S. Anyone notice the irony in all this? Teachers are supposed to help their students’ dreams come true, but it was one of my own students who helped my childhood dream come true!

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Foreshadowing

In writing, there’s a little trick called “foreshadowing.” It simply means to hint at something that will happen later in the story. As one of my high school English teachers liked to say, “If there’s a gun on the wall in the first act, you can bet it will go off by the third act.” This idea was really coined by the Russian playwright Anton Chekov.

I bring it up today because I found the January 2013 issue of Highlights at a local library, and inside was a hint of my upcoming article. I would post the picture here, but this new version of WordPress has a few kinks in it. Grrr!

Anyway, the picture “foreshadows” my upcoming article in the February issue! Actually, several people I know have already received their copies of the magazine. I am still awaiting my author’s copies, but I’ll post when I do. Just thought it was cool to see my article “foreshadowed” in the prior month’s issue.

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Writing Wednesday: Its vs. It’s

The words its and it’s are often confused. The good news is that the difference is pretty simple.

Its is a possessive pronoun. That means you use it to show that an object owns something. For example: To keep the coconut fresh, store it tightly sealed in its bag. (The bag belongs to the coconut.)

It’s is a contraction joining the words it and is. For example: I’m baking a cake, but I’m not sure if it’s done yet.

If you’re not sure which one to use, just try substituting the words “it is.” If “it is” makes sense, then use it’s (with the apostrophe). If “it is” does not make sense, do not use the apostrophe. For example:

  • This cake has no vanilla in its frosting. (No apostrophe in its because “This cake has no vanilla in it is frosting” would not make sense.)
  • It’s going to taste yummy. (You want the apostrophe in it’s because “It is going to taste yummy” does make sense.)
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Monday Book Review: Shooting Kabul by N.H. Senzai

I picked up Shooting Kabul this past summer because it was one of the summer reading choices at my school. It’s also nominated for the Rebecca Caudill Young Readers Award this year. The book takes a rare look into the flight of refugees from Afghanistan just prior to the 9/11 attacks.

Title: Shooting Kabul

Author: N.H. Senzai

Age group: middle grade (ages 9-12)

Genre: Contemporary Realistic Fiction

Synopsis: Twelve-year-old Fadi and his family leave Afghanistan (illegally) in the summer of 2001. While trying to sneak out of the country, Fadi is responsible for holding the hand of his younger sister Mariam. The family waits for a truck to take them across the border to Pakistan. When it arrives, many families come out of hiding and swarm the truck. Mariam gets lost in the crowd just as Fadi is pulled up onto the truck.

When it becomes apparent the family won’t be able to find Mariam quickly, they move to the United States as planned and leave the search for Mariam to others. However, Fadi feels terribly guilty. A photography contest with a grand prize of a trip to India catches Fadi’s attention. Perhaps if he wins the contest and travels to India, he can sneak back into Afghanistan to save his sister.

Does it pass the “Homeschool Mom Test“? Yes. I didn’t find any objectionable material in this book. In fact, it provides some wonderful opportunities to discuss immigration and prejudice with children.

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Writing Wednesday: Lie vs Lay

Last week I went over the differences between lie and lay with my students. As I warned them, it’s probably the hardest grammar rule out there. I’ll try to make it as simple as possible.

There are two basic steps:

1) Decide what meaning you want.

  • “Lie” means “to rest or recline.”*
  • “Lay” means “to put something down.”

2) Decide which form of the verb you need.

  • present tense
  • present participle (the -ing version)
  • past tense
  • past participle (used with helping verbs like have, has, and had)

The tricky part is that lie and lay are both irregular verbs, meaning that they don’t take the usually -ed ending for the past and the past participle.

Let’s look at lie (meaning “to rest or recline”) first.

  • Present tense examples: Jenny lies in bed whenever she is sick. The pencils lie on the table over there.
  • Present participle example: The papers are lying all over the floor.
  • Past tense example: Jim lay in bed yesterday because he had the flu. (Not: Jim laid in bed.)
  • Past participle example: The twins have lain in bed all week with the chicken pox. (Not: The twins have laid in bed all week.)

Now let’s look at lay (meaning “to put something down”).

  • Present tense example: Lay your books on the desk, please.
  • Present participle example: He is laying tile at his mother’s house.
  • Past tense example: I laid the baby in the crib.
  • Past perfect example: She has laid the old newspapers in a bin.

Notice the forms of lay always have an object (animate or inanimate) after them (books, tile, baby, newspapers). There has to be a “something” that is being set down.

On the other hand, if there’s no object and no actually movement, you want a form of lie.

*Lie can also mean “to tell an untruth.” However, we never seem to mess up that verb because it takes the regular -ed ending for past tense. (He lied. She has lied, too.)

photo credit: Lucia Whittaker via photopin cc

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Monday Book Review: Magyk by Angie Sage

Have a young Harry Potter fan who is looking for a different wizard series to try? Check out Magyk (and its sequels) by Angie Sage. I met Angie Sage when she visited my classroom. (Man, I miss the author visits we had at my old school! We don’t get them at my current school.)

Title: Magyk

Author: Angie Sage

Genre: Fantasy

Age group: middle grade

Synopsis: Septimus Heap is the seventh son of a seventh son. On the night he is born, he is pronounced dead by the midwife who swiftly takes him away. On that same night, his father, a not-so-talented wizard named Silas Heap, finds a baby girl abandoned in the snow. Silas decides that he and his wife should adopt the baby girl, but Marcia Overstrand, the apprentice to the ExtraOrdinary Wizard, warns him that he should not tell anyone where he found the girl. Thus, Silas and his wife decide they’ll tell everyone they had a baby girl instead of a boy. But who is this mysterious girl Silas found, and what really happened to their son Septimus who was carried off by the midwife?

Does it pass the “Homeschool Mom Test“? Obviously if you’re not a fan of the Harry Potter series because you think it will suddenly cause your children to study witchcraft, then this is not the book for you. (By the way, I’ve known hundreds of children who have read the Harry Potter series, and I haven’t met a single one who left his or her faith in order to practice witchcraft. Kids deserve more credit than we sometimes give them. If we’ve taught them well, they know a fantasy story when they read one.)

I’ve read only the first book in this series, but I found it to be a fun fantasy read, and I think any kid that enjoys Harry Potter will enjoy this as well.

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Writing Wednesday: Is it time to give up the “Can vs May” debate?

During my undergraduate years, I had a fabulous linguistics professor who told us that people often had the same response when they learned what he did for a living: “Oh, you’re an English professor? I guess I better watch my grammar around you.”

His response: “Well, you can watch your grammar if you want, but I have better things to do with my time.”

Surprising? Not to me, even though I’m a grammar geek. As I was telling my students yesterday, we can clarify our ideas when we speak conversationally; thus, we don’t have to worry quite so much about grammar during our conversations. Correct grammar is most essential when we’re writing and don’t have the opportunity to clarify any misunderstandings for our reader.

This brings me to the old “can vs. may” debate that has played out in classrooms for decades. The student asks, “Can I go to the bathroom?” And the teacher responds, “May I go to the bathroom?” Or, if the teacher’s feeling snarky, she says, “I don’t know. Can you?”

Even though I’m an English teacher, I never “correct” my students when they ask if they can go to the bathroom. This may shock some of you, but the word can actually has more than one meaning. Yes, it means to have the ability to do something. However, according to every dictionary I could get my hands on (including Merriam-Webster), the word can also means to “have permission to —used interchangeably with may.”

So why do some people insist that can cannot be used as a synonym for may? Honestly, I don’t know. When my students ask if they can go to the bathroom, I know they’re asking me for permission, and isn’t that the point–that I understand what they are asking?

It’s time to admit that can has more than one meaning, and when it comes to correcting students’ use of the word, as my linguistics professor would say, we’ve got better things to do with our time.

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Monday Book Review: The Mysterious Benedict Society by Trenton Lee Stewart

Years ago, Trenton Lee Stewart came to speak at the school where I was teaching. He read a portion of his first Mysterious Benedict Society book, and I thought, “Wow, not only do I want to read that book, but I wish I’d written it!”

In the years since that author visit, I’ve not only read the book and its sequel, I’ve also bought the book for several of my nieces and recommended it to many of my students. Everybody seems to like it. The only difficult thing about the book is that it’s long, especially for a middle grade book. On the bright side, this is a perfect book for a young voracious reader who is looking for something a bit more challenging but isn’t ready for the mature topics covered in YA books.

The photo to the right is my classroom copy of the book. Look carefully and you’ll see how well “loved” this book has been by my students. Good thing we’ve got tape to hold this baby together. 🙂

Title: The Mysterious Benedict Society

Author: Trenton Lee Stewart

Genre: Mystery

Age group: Middle grade (10 and up)

Synopsis: Reynie Muldoon is a gifted orphan whose tutor suggests he respond to an ad in the paper looking for “gifted children.” After taking an exceptionally peculiar exam, Reynie is welcomed into the “Mysterious Benedict Society,” in which he and three other unusually gifted children must save the world from a crazy scientist obsessed with mind control.

Does it pass the “Home School Mom Test“? Yes. This book is safe for kids ages 10 and up.

The best part of this book is that the four main characters must solve all sorts of puzzles and riddles, and the readers get to play along with them. The book is part of a trilogy, and a prequel was just released a few months ago.

The series even has a fun website (here) with games kids can play, including one that tells you which of the four main characters you are most like. (In case you care, I’m most like Reynie–compassionate, caring, full of self-doubt, but a great team player. :))

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Writing Wednesday: Perfect Verb Tenses

Did you know some verb tenses are “perfect”?

Everyone knows about the three “simple” tenses: present, past, and future. However, we also have three “perfect tenses” in English: present perfect, past perfect, and future perfect.

So what makes a tense “perfect”? The perfect tenses have a version of “have” as a helping verb and use the past participle form of the verb, which is usually an -ed ending.

Why as writers should be care about the perfect tenses? They allow us greater accuracy in explaining exactly when the action of the sentence is happening.

Present Perfect Tense:

We use present perfect tense when something happened in the past but still occurs today. For example, I have made the pumpkin pie for our family’s Thanksgiving dinner for the past twenty years.

Notice the verb have made. I made the pumpkin pie in the past, and I’m still making it for this year’s Thanksgiving feast. In fact, I just took this year’s pie out of the oven an hour ago, and here it is:

Nice, huh?

We form present perfect tense by using the helping verb have (or has, if your subject is third person singular like he, she, or it) and the past participle of your verb. (e.g. I have helped Mom; he has helped Mom, too.)

Past Perfect Tenses:

We use past perfect tenses when something happened prior to something else in the sentence. For example, we had polished off the turkey by the time we started on the pie.

Noticed the verbs had polished and started. The verb started is in regular past tense. Had started is past perfect because it indicates that the action of polishing off the turkey happened prior to starting on the pie.

We form the past perfect by using the helping verb had with past participle.

Future Perfect Tenses:

We used the future perfect tense when we want to indicate that some action will have finished by the time we get to the next one. For example, I will have stuffed the turkey by noon tomorrow.

Notice the verb will have stuffed. It’s telling us that the action of stuffing the turkey will be finished by noon tomorrow. Noon has not arrived yet. In fact, tomorrow has not arrived yet! But by the time it does, the action of stuffing the turkey will already be complete.

We form the future perfect tenses by using the helping verbs will and have before the past participle.

turkey photo credit: Calgary Reviews via photopin

Questions about verb tenses? Got your own Thanksgiving example to share?

Compliments on my pumpkin pie? I’m an expert, you know. 🙂

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