Author: Loree Burns

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John D. Runkle School

There is something special about being invited into a school community. Each one is entirely unique, and I am always intrigued by the glimpses I am given into a place that is new to me. Last Friday I got a second invite into the Runkle School community, and saw again many examples of students giving their Runkle best. (Don’t you just love that phrase?)

My visit fell during the school’s annual Music and Arts festival, which meant I was treated to gorgeous art displays and live music during my stay. Although not technically part of the festival, I snapped this picture of the quilt hanging in the school library. Isn’t it lovely?

Science teacher Maxine Hunter challenged her students to keep a plastic journal for the twenty-four hours leading up to my visit, and I was impressed with the student response. Rachel, a sixth grader, recorded 158 ‘plastic encounters’ (another Runkle phrase I adore). The journals got students thinking about plastic in new ways; Rachel wondered why a glow stick that is used for a few short hours is made out of plastic that will last for decades. It’s a good question.

Thanks to librarian Teresa Gallo-Toth, who coordinated my visit to Runkle (and sent me home with some great ideas for read-alouds to share with my kids), to Science Coordinator Janet MacNeil, who shared her wisdom and told me about this cool Understanding Science website, and to all the staff and students I met during my stay; I had a Runkle good time!

 

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Gone Froggin’

The kids and I spent Friday afternoon poking around the milkweed sprouts at Wachusett Meadow Wildlife Sanctuary. We were hoping to find some monarch butterflies or, better still, some monarch eggs. No luck. But we did meet this fellow, and about a half dozen of his friends:

We were tempted to ring in the long weekend with a hearty American bullfrog chorus, but the mosquitoes and our empty bellies got the better of us and we left well before dark. I love this time of year, though, when it feels okay to head indoors a little early. We’ve got a bit of spring and a whole bunch of summer stretched out before us … plenty of time to spot butterflies and soak in frog sounds.

Happy Memorial Day weekend, friends!

 

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Henri Again

This week I have been working, once again, on the picture book biography of entomologist Jean Henri Fabre. He continues to amuse me. In a chapter from Fabre’s THE LIFE OF THE CATERPILLAR, he writes:

“After unsuspectingly passing a whole morning with my insects, stooping over them, magnifying-glass in hand, to examine the workings of their slits, I found my forehead and eyelids suffering with redness for twenty-four hours and afflicted with an itching even more painful and persistent than that produced by the sting of a nettle.”

He goes on to explain the source of his pain: hairs on the body of the Pine Processionary caterpillars he had been watching all morning. Fabre was the first to note that these caterpillars grind tiny poisonous hairs on their bodies into even tinier poisonous dust particles, which float invisibly in the air, landing and stinging anyone unfortunate enough to be nearby.

Fabre, dedicated seeker that he was, did not let a few stinging hairs stop him observing and recording the life and times of these caterpillars. But he did lament to his readers:

“No, the search for truth on the back of the Processionary is not all sunshine.”

Goodness, I adore this man.

(I searched everywhere–but couldn’t ultimately find–a picture to illustrate this post; I know I took some neat shots of a funky, hairy yellow caterpillar last summer … but my image filing system is a bit, er, underdeveloped. Sigh.)

 

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A Life In Books (Sorta)

When I began this blog three years ago and named it A Life In Books, I was thinking how the track of my life–its daily happenings and goings-on–could be followed fairly easily by looking at the books that came across my desk.* Some of them were books I was reading as research for a new writing project, or books I was reading for pleasure, or books I was reading to my kids. Others were books recommended by friends or colleagues, books written by friends and colleagues, or books I stumbled upon quite by accident and which, glancing quickly, seemed out of place in my stacks. There is an interesting mix of intention and whimsy in the piles of books that surround me on any given day, and I still think sharing them could be an interesting way of sharing myself … if only I could find the time to do the job justice.

Seriously. Too many books. Too little time.

Looking over my blog posts for the last few months, for example, I am totally bummed at the many pages missing (so to speak) from My Life in Books. Did I not blog about Frommer’s WASHINGTON, D.C. … or even the DC trip itself? Did I never write an ode to ROGET’S THESAURUS … even after communing with it daily for two weeks as I sculpted the nineteen tight, tight, tight paragraphs of the BUTTERFLYING manuscript? Have I still not blogged about HOW WE KNOW WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT OUR CHANGING CLIMATE? And GRANNY TORRELLI MAKES SOUP? Oi.

Deep breath.

Anyway. Just thought I’d let you know that my blog is officially three years old this month, and that one day soon** I hope to go all Complete and Unabridged.

* The title also referred, of course, to the fact that I hoped to spend the rest of my life in books: writing and sharing them with the world. But this more obvious meaning has always felt secondary to me.

** I am using the term soon loosely, of course.

 

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A Book Fair for Boys

The dedicated book reviewers at GuysLitWire have launched an initiative to get books into the hands of boys incarcerated at the Los Angelos County juvenile hall system. You can learn more about the GuysLitWire Book Fair for Boys here. I decided to help out by adding some nonfiction to the new library:

 

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The Life Cycles of Butterflies

THE LIFE CYCLES OF BUTTERFLIES
by Judy Burris & Wayne Richards
Storey Publishing, 2006

Category: Middle grade nonfiction

Since I shared my favorite recent adult book on butterflies, I decided it was only fair to share my favorite recent kids book on butterflies. I treated myself to a copy of THE LIFE CYCLES OF BUTTERFLIES while visiting the live butterfly exhibit at the National Museum of Natural History this weekend … and read it cover-to-cover on the train ride home. It is perfect for new butterfly hunters struggling to identify the species in their own backyard.

The book is written by brother and sister butterfly lovers who remember well their early days of butterflying. They’ve included lots of visual information, including photographs of twenty-three common garden butterflies in all four life stages: egg, caterpillar, chrysalis and butterfly. If you know a kid looking for a butterfly field guide, consider this one; it may not be comprehensive as far as species go, but it is a truly great place to start.

And while you are waiting for a copy of the book to arrive, check out the authors’ website; it’s brimming with life cycle photographs and teacher resources.

 

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Do Butterflies Bite?


Photo by Deborah Smith Selkow

Those are my boys up there, when they were littler. The picture was taken at our friends Deb and Stan’s house, where we had gone to collect some monarch caterpillars (there are a few in the glass jar between the boys). Stan sent me this picture on Sunday as a Mother’s Day surprise, and it was so unexpected and lovely that I had to share it. Oh, I miss those pudgy little faces!

And how lovely, too, that he sent the picture during the very week that the season’s first Monarch butterflies were reported in Connecticut. Surely they will be here in our backyard soon? (For a complete rundown of spring monarch sightings, visit JourneyNorth.)

Coincidentally, I just finished a fantastic book about butterflies. Now would be the perfect time tell you about it:

DO BUTTERFLIES BITE?
By Hazel Davies and Carol A. Butler
Rutgers University Press, 2008

Category: Nonfiction for grownups and young adults

DO BUTTERFLIES BITE? uses a question and answer format to give readers a comprehensive overview of butteflies and moths, from the basics of their biology and body plans to the complexities of their life cycles and living situations. I learned a lot in its 224 pages; for example, did you know a group of butterflies is referred to as a rabble? Or that silkworm moths—cultivated for more than 5000 years now—have lost the ability to fly? Or that citizen scientists across North America will be counting butterflies over Memorial Day weekend? (More on that here.) I can’t recommend this book highly enough; it’s an interesting read for beginning or intermediate butterfly lovers.

Happy Butterflying!

 

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Words of Wisdom

This afternoon I am celebrating the flight of a particularly exciting manuscript from my desk over to my agent’s desk. Hooray!

So, how am I celebrating?

For starters, chocolate.

And I’ve followed up with some quiet moments to meander through my notes from last month’s New England Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators Conference. There I found this powerful charge from non-fiction author April Pulley Sayre:

Take the reader by the hand and show them what you love.

Yes. Yes. Yes. This is what most of us who write nonfiction for children strive for, I think. Take them by the hand. Show them what you love.

I’ll be away from my desk (and my blog) for a few days, so I’ll wish you all a great weekend now. Happy Mother’s Day to all of you who nurture and raise up children!

 

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Solomon Schechter Day School


Photo by Pat McEachen

I spent last Friday with fourth, fifth, and sixth graders at Solomon Schechter Day School of Greater Boston. I am still not tired of sharing the TRACKING TRASH story with young readers, and I am especially thrilled when a group of kids who don’t have any idea who I am or why I am in their classroom leave school thinking hard about ocean pollution and how to address it.

One student asked during my presentation why concerned scientists couldn’t simply use a plastic magnet to pull floating plastic debris out of the ocean. I told him it was a good idea, but someone needed to design an object that would attract plastic the way a magnet attracts metal. He was not entirely satisfied with this answer, and I watched him chew on it throughout the rest of my talk.

Later, at a luncheon for me and twenty-some student writers, we talked about writing and science and, of course, trash. (They brought it up, I swear; I do not force trash conversations over lunch!) Anyway, the boy with the magnet idea spoke up (I’m paraphrasing his thoughts here):

“I’m still thinking about the magnet. First, it’s not that I am obsessed with magnets. It’s just that I had a sliver under my thumbnail yesterday and was thinking how useful a splinter-attracting magnet would have been. And when I heard you talk about small plastic pieces floating in the ocean, I thought how useful a plastic-attracting magnet would be.”

I let him keep going, because this kid was GOING …

“So, I’ve been thinking. What if we put metal into plastic, so that it was easier to collect with a magnet?”

Okay, let go of the logistical limitations such an idea might have and just marvel at the fact that this young man is thinking hard about solutions to the ocean plastic problem. Could miniscule metal shavings be incorporated into plastic recipes? I have no idea. But if they could, a giant magnet being pulled through the ocean might someday be able to collect floating plastic debris in a way we humans are currently unable to collect it. This germ of an idea is brilliant, and I would not be surprised if its young creator figures a way around all the pesky logistics.

Thank you, Solomon Schechter Day School, for inspiring me. You are a thoughtful and intelligent bunch, and it was my pleasure to spend a day with you!

 

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I’m at DoodleBuds today!

I had a lovely chat with author, artist, creative director, and blogger Heather Zschock this week. Heather keeps a delightful and eclectic blog that features, among other things, a weekly Author/Artist Series. I’m this week’s guest author. Heather is a new mom, and so we talked a bit about creating and parenting at the same time. My words of wisdom?

It’s an endless struggle for balance.

(Well it is, isn’t it?)

You can read our entire interview here, and you can find previous interviews in the Author/Artist Series here.

Enjoy!