And the winner is...

And the winner of the classroom set (25) of

The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis

(chosen via www.random.org)

is

Tanya Hudson

of

Chase Street Elementary School

in Athens, Georgia.

Congratulations, Tanya! 

Want books? Classroom set giveaway

Because I'm so happy that spring is finally here....

....and the snow is finally gone....

.... I'm going to celebrate.

How?

I'm giving away books.

Yep.

Just givin' 'em away.

To whom?

Teachers and school librarians, that's who.

How many?

Twenty-five.

What?

TWENTY-FIVE.

That's right.

I'm giving away a classroom set - 25 hardcover copies - of

THE SMALL ADVENTURE OF POPEYE AND ELVIS

All you have to do is leave the following in the comments section of this blog:

1. Your name

2. Your school name

3. Your email address

That's it!

The giveaway starts:

Now! (April 15)

The giveaway ends:

April 22 (midnight)

(Please note: I'll ship the books anywhere in the U.S. No international shipments. Sorry.)

 

Yoohoo Boats!

Love that students from a school in Oconee County, Georgia, made Yoohoo boats after reading The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis.

Things I Love Thursday

How could I not love a teacher who does something like

THIS!

It's a wrap!

My last school visit of the year was a special one.

I spoke to 4th and 5th graders at the Mather School in Dorchester, MA. (It's the first tax-supported public elementary school in the U.S.)

All of the students had read The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis.

We had some great discussions about the book: their favorite parts, the character they liked best and why, any connections they had, etc.

Students showing drawings of their favorite scene

More drawings of favorite scenes

 

A student making a video for The Foundation for Children's Books

 Special thanks to The Foundation for Children's Books for making this visit possible.
 

Things I Love Thursday

I love these photos sent to me by Mrs. Mroczenski's third grade class at Cushing Elementary School in Delafield, WI.

They noticed a pair of butterfly wings hanging in the Lost and Found at their school.

The wings reminded them of Starletta in The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis.

"Yoohoo! Starletta! Did you lose your wings at Cushing Elementary?"

Thank you, Mrs. Mroczenski's class!

Things I Love Thursday

Oh, how I love Karen Cushman!

Her writing is so much fun to read.

She's all about WORDS.

Glorious, creative words.

And talk about good insults!

I thought Elvis (The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis) was pretty good at insulting.

I mean, bug-brained booger breath is pretty good, right?

But Elvis can't hold a candle to Meggy Swann (The Alchemy and Meggy Swann).

Exhibit A:

wart-necked flap maggot

penny pinching nip cheese

milk-livered minnow

mewling flap-mouthed flax wench

Cease your bibble babble, you gleeking goat's bladder.

And when she isn't busy insulting, Karen Cushman is tossing out words like:

skimble skamble

marble-hearted

beslubbered

I love this book.

Two Things on Tuesday

Thing One

Dear Barbara O'Connor:

How are you? I’m doing good. Your book The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis was so good. Sometimes it was sad and sometimes happy. 

I really enjoyed your book. 

Thank you for writing it to me. 

 

Thing Two

Popeye, Starletta and Elvis

Two Things on Tuesday

Thing One

Received from a teacher:

My 3rd grade students made cards for you after we finished reading aloud your fabulous book, The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis...  

I admire your writing very much and thank you so much for hooking my reluctant boy readers. That Spit and Swear Club was their favorite!   

Love that!!!

Thing Two

Word by word, sentence by sentence, page by page....it's growing

Two Things on Tuesday

Thing One

I love this so much.

Translation: I am good at readin'

 

Thing Two

A long, long time ago, I had an idea for a book that involved little boats sent sailing down a creek.

I wanted the boats to be cool. But I'm not too cool. 

So I was thrilled to get help from a cool dude from Maine who made a boat from a Yoohoo drink box.

Here is the original Yoohoo boat made by Ben from Maine:

 

I love that there is a race car stashed inside.

I asked Ben how to make one and here is what he said:

First I put the straw in and drank it.  Then I unfolded the top to be the front of the boat.  Then I cut out the top right side.  I didn't use any glue or tape.

Since then, I have had the great pleasure of seeing Yoohoo boat art made by student from all over the country. 

This was a painting done by a teacher in Wilton, CT!!

 

 

 

Things I Love Thursday

I love it when teachers and librarians take the time to write to children's authors with letters like the one below.

I'm sure I'm not alone when I say that there are times I doubt myself. 

I'll never write another book.

I'm a pathetic excuse for a human being pretending to write books for children that matter to anyone besides my best friends, who are required to like them.

Every other children's author in the universe is far better than me.

I might as well quit and become a dental hygienist. 

And then....lo and behold.....I receive this email with the subject line:  Love you, love your books.

Wait!

What?

Me?

My books?

So to those of you who do amazing things like write amazing letters....thank you.

And now, without further ado....that letter:

Good Morning,

Allow me to introduce myself. I am possibly one of your biggest adult fans. Your books are so perfectly suited for kids. I am a curriculum specialist at a Title I school in ___. 

We were a school of transformation when I came, meaning we were in the bottom 5% of the state in testing. In one year we grew 20 points in reading and math, and 40 points in science. 

I say all that to say what we are most proud of is that our kids saw themselves are readers for the first time. The Small Adventure of] Popeye and Elvis was a part of that. We used that book with fourth graders as a mentor text for character study. 

This year we actually bought every 4th grader their own copy so that as the teacher reads and models thinking the students will have it with them. (They actually start today….. .)We will also be using it in writer’s workshop to study author’s craft.


I read your blog religiously and have loved your TIPS for writing, especially the ones about SET UP. I have actually incorporated that into the reading lessons. So thank you for that.

Again, I just wanted to thank you for your love of kids, your talent as a writer and the impact that you have made on me but more importantly of the students we server.

Have a great day and keep up the great work!
 

Things I Love Thursday

I love these Yoo-hoo boats made by Mrs. Terlecky and Mrs. Harper's fifth grade class in Dublin, OH!

 They made them as an activity related to their reading of The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis.

Thanks, y'all! I love them!!

Fifth Grade Yoo-Hoo Adventures

Mill Pond 5th graders having a small Yoo-hoo boat adventure!

 

Things I Love Thursday

I love GIANT Yoohoo boats like this one Henry made!

Thanks to Ms. Kilpatrick and the students of Mill Pond School in Westborough, MA for a great Skype visit. 

(Too bad about that FIRE DRILL, though. haha)

Share Our Books

I'm sad to report that the Share Our Books program has been discontinued.

:-(

I have donated the 250 copies of The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis to The Foundation for Children's Books, so at least I know they will be in good hands.

Special thanks to Sara Pennypacker for her efforts with Share Our Books.  

A lovely display

I love this display from a school I visited recently. (The book is The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis.)

 

Yoohoo!

Remember these great kids and their amazing teacher?

  

They sent me a Yoohoo package!

Ruby wondered what was in it.

 

Look!

Yoohoo boats with secret messages inside them

 

 Thank you, Mrs. Maiese's class!

 

Things I Love Thursday

Teachers!

I love teachers!

Especially teachers who share the joy of reading with students with such infectious energy and fun as third grade teacher, Mrs. Maiese.

And how in the world could I NOT love her for writing me the following letter:

Hello there from Titus Elementary School in Warrington, PA!

My class and I have just finished reading Popeye and Elvis (which is a ritual for my classroom each year).  The kids have named your book their favorite book of. all. time.  Any time I picked up your book to read, you could absolutely hear a pin drop… if it weren’t for the slurping sounds of them drinking Yoo-Hoo J

In appreciation for you and your book, we would like to send you something via snail mail.  Is it possible to get a mailing address to which we can send you something?

Thank you so much for inspiring a love for reading, writing, suspense, and Yoo-Hoo!

We appreciate your time.  You are a celebrity to us all.

Happiest of holidays to you,

Mrs. Jillian Maiese
Third Grade

And then, as if I didn't love her enough, she added this to a follow-up email:

My former students loved your book so much they still talk about it.  Whenever I have to leave any former student a note of some kind, I always attach a box of Yoo-Hoo to it.  It’s just created so many fun and meaningful ways to communicate with my kids. 

Thank you, Mrs. Maiese, for encouraging readers like these:

Mrs. Maiese's third grade readers

I love teachers.

I love kids.

A Poem I Love

I recently got an email from a 4th grade teacher and literacy coach at The Pike School in Andover, MA. Her class had just finished The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis.

Among other activities, the students made Yoohoo boats and put special messages in them.

Isabel wrote a poem and agreed to let me share it with you:

The 4th grade class of 2012,
has done very, very well.
We were rewarded with a chocolate drink,
and we made a boat that doesn't sink.
We read The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis,
and it was a great book.
We wrote down all the vocab words
and then just had to look.
2 boys formed a friendship,
that lasted for awhile.
Elvis was a cool kid,
and Popeye had denials.
We have now finished it,
and it left us at a cliff,
and we were all surprised that it ended
at that bit!  
PS We took a vocabulary test to see if we knew the meanings to all the vocabulary words! 


Isn't that great?

AND guess what? They knew ALL of the vocabulary words!

Go, Pike School 4th graders!!!!

Writing Tip Tuesday

One job of a writer is to relate information to the reader as seamlessly as possible. (Good ole "show, don't tell.")

But that is sometimes tricky and takes a lot more effort than a non-writer might realize.

Making that skill all the more difficult is the fact that you, the writer, know information that the reader does not - so it's sometimes hard to gauge what to leave to the reader to find out as she reads along vs. what to go ahead and give her right away.

One of the most valuable "tools" for a writer is a pair (or two) of fresh eyes, i.e., a cold reader.

A cold reader can tell you what she doesn't understand, what she needs to know sooner, etc.

Let me give you two examples from personal experience:

I recently had a teacher relate to me that her students liked the way I didn't tell them who Ugly was in the opening scene of Greetings from Nowhere - that they had to read another paragraph or two to find out.

"Harold would have known what to do," Aggie said to Ugly. She tossed the unopened envelope into the junk drawer on top of the batteries and rubber bands, old keys and more unopened envelopes. "Let's go sit and ponder" Aggie said.

So, the reader doesn't know who Ugly is.

If I had gone on much longer, however, young readers would probably have gotten frustrated. I needed to get the information in there soon - but as seamlessly as possible.

She scooped up the little black cat and shuffled across the dirty orange carpet.

There - now we know.

I kept the reader waiting just long enough to make them curious - but not frustrated.

But in the rough draft of The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis, I wasn't as successful:

When the BB hit Henry square in the eye, she had screamed bloody murder and carried on so much that when Velma came running out of the house to see what all the fuss was about, she had thought it was Charlene who’d been shot in the eye.It wasn't until another page and a half that I identified Velma as his grandmother.

Initially, it just felt too telling to insert "his grandmother" in front of Velma.

I knew who Velma was - so it was hard for me to gauge whether or not the reader really needed to know this right away.

Apparently the reader did need to know.

Two topnotch editors - reading with fresh eyes - wrote "Who is Velma?" in the margin.

I'll be honest with you - I didn't really want to insert "his grandmother" - and it felt not-very-seamless to me - but I knew I had to do it.

Sometimes, you just have to listen.

I heard an agent speak at a conference years ago and I will never forget her "formula" for a good children's book: Make 'em laugh; make 'em cry; and make 'em wait.

I realize the "make 'em wait" part applies primarily to plot - but I also think it should apply to "smaller" elements of the story, as well.

But this can be one of the trickier elements of writing for children - how long to make 'em wait for information.

I think the answer comes from a combination of instinct, experience, and the value of cold readers.

(I realize that I've imparted zero information in this supposed "tip" - but sometimes food for thought is as good as a tip. At least, that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.)