Author: Loree Burns

Posted on

Later, Pollinator!

Actually, what I mean to say is, “Later, pollinator manuscript!”

That’s right, today is the day I drive to Boston and hand the first draft* of my new book over to an editor. Not just any editor, mind you, but a talented editor who I trust completely.

Here’s a look at my baby all dressed up and ready for the trip**:

Isn’t she cute? She is fifty-five pages long and contains 12,009 glorious words. I call her THE HIVE DETECTIVES; here is a sneak peek at the bee scientists she is named for:

I’m rather smitten with this new baby of mine!

* It feels ridiculous to call this a first draft. In reality, what I’m handing in is the 1,311,292nd draft. But as this is the first draft my editor will see, and because ‘first draft’ sounds so much better than ‘1,311,292nd draft’, I’m going with it.

** Please note than my desk is never this clean. If you are at all familiar with the term ‘nesting’ in relation to the arrival of human babies, however, you will understand why it looks so pristine today. I’ve been tidying up all morning!

*** Please excuse the poor quality of my photographs. New moms often lose their ability to perform the most basic of functions. At least for a few days.

 

Posted on

Butterfly

BUTTERFLY
Written by Ben Morgan
Photographs By Thomas Marent
DK Publishing, 2008

Category: Nonfiction for any age

What can I say about this book? If you are the least bit interested in butterflies you will be mesmerized. If you appreciate photography, you will be inspired. If you admire gorgeous books in which concept, content, layout, and design merge perfectly, you will be impressed.

The images are astonishingly beautiful, but I lingered longest over those taken at the Mexican wintering roosts of the monarch butterflies. If all goes according to plan, I will have the chance to visit those roosts this winter. I also spent a good bit of time grinning at the image of pine processionary caterpillars marching head-to-rear through leaf litter. To those poor friends who have seen my fork-and-knife pine processionary presentation: the real thing is so much more beautiful!

Treat yourself to a peek at this book if you can …

 

Posted on

Pete Puffin’s Wild Ride

PETE PUFFIN’S WILD RIDE
By Libby Hatton
Alaska Geographic, 2008

Category: Picture book, fiction

Author/Illustrator Libby Hatton recently sent me “a note of appreciation” … and I am sending her one right back with this blog post.

Libby’s latest picture book, like TRACKING TRASH, was inspired by the 1992 spill of 28,800 plastic bathtub toys into the Pacific Ocean. After an unfortunate fall from an Alaskan cruise ship, the titular Pete Puffin—a wooden toy—narrates the story of his epic adventures afloat on Alaskan currents. Lift-and-read postcards from Pete’s owner, a boy named Eddy, complete the tale while adding an interactive element that younger readers will surely appreciate.

Libby’s book joins a rather long list of children’s books inspired by the 1992 cargo spill that released 28,800 plastic ducks, beavers, frogs, and turtles into the Pacific Ocean:

DUCKY, by Eve Bunting
10 LITTLE RUBBER DUCKS, by Eric Carle
DEXTER’S JOURNEY, by Chris d’Lacey
TRACKING TRASH, by me

This ever-growing list excites me to no end, and not just because I am on it. No, the list excites me because I talk with students in schools all the time about telling stories, and one of the messages I try to impart is this one:

WRITE THE STORY THAT EXCITES YOU, EVEN IF IT HAS BEEN TOLD BEFORE. JUST TELL IT YOUR WAY!

Each of the writers in the list above has taken the story of an amazing accident and turned it into a way of sharing their passions. Eve Bunting explores emotion (she tells the spill story through the eyes of a single lost duck), Eric Carle used the story to explore a concept through art (the concept: ordinal numbers), Chris d’Lacey created a story to entice beginning readers, I delved into the science, and Libby Hatton uses the story to share her passion for Alaska and its environs. Each of us told the same story, but by drawing on our unique passions and interests.

Thank you for your book, Libby. And welcome to the ducky-spill book club!

 

Posted on

WIP Nitty Gritty

This week I have been working with my foremost Work-In-Progress, the bee book. For the last month I have been diligently polishing and perfecting the text, so this week was all about the images.

THE HIVE DETECTIVES will be illustrated with sixty or more photographs, and one of my many jobs is to choose which images best suit the text I have written or convey principles that complement what I have written. I thought I’d share a bit of the process here on the ol’ blog …

First, some context. Here is a sneak peak at the reader’s introduction to the Varroa mite, a nasty little creature that plagues honey bees:

Let’s start with Varroa mites. These are tiny insects—about the size of this letter “o”—that survive by attaching themselves to the outside of a bee and feeding on its blood. (Technically, bees don’t have blood. They have hemolymph, which is blood mixed together with other bodily fluids. Either way, an insect that drinks this stuff is pretty gross.) Mites spend the early part of their life cycle hidden inside a honeycomb cell, usually underneath a growing larva. When the larva is fed by adult bees, the hidden mite is fed, too. Later, when the cell is capped and the larva begins to pupate, female mites lay eggs. The eggs hatch and dozens of newborn mites attach themselves to the developing bee. In many cases the bee will die. If the bee does survive, it will emerge from its capped cell unhealthy, misshapen, and covered in a new generation of Varroa mites. These young mites hop from one bee to the next until they find a new larval cell to hide in and begin the cycle again.

And to give you an idea of what the little buggers look like:


Photo by Scott Bauer, Courtesy USDA/ARS

Now, I plan to use the image above in the book, but I also want to give the reader a visual of a mite actually on a bee. Here are my two best choices:


Photo by Scott Bauer, Courtesy USDA/ARS

This image is incredibly crisp and the mite on the bee stands out well. Aesthetically speaking, it is my favorite. But the location of the mite is unfortunate. All honey bees are darkish and less-hairy in this part of their bodies. (Scroll through the images here and you will see what I mean. The honey bee is third row down on the left.) I am worried that readers will think the mite in this image is actually a normal part of the bee’s anatomy.


Photo by Lila de Guzman, Courtesy USDA/ARS

This second choice is less crisp because the photographer was attempting to capture a group of bees. (Let me assure you that it is very hard to focus a camera on a cluster of busy honey bees and produce a crisp, sharp and focused image!) However, these bees are horribly infested with Varroa mites, and the mites should be easily recognizable to my readers. It is a creepy image, too, and sometimes creepy is good.

Which would you choose?

 

Posted on

Brookwood School


© Loree Griffin Burns

Last Wednesday Harvard University held it’s first Sustainability Celebration. Three days later, the Brookwood School in Manchester, Massachusetts held a similar event. And while Boston-area media outlets have waxed on about green being the new crimson in Harvard Yard, I’m here to tell you that the Brookwood community has been wearing green for decades … and they did these colors proud on Saturday at their second annual Sustainability Fair.

In all, I spent three days in the Brookwood community. On Thursday and Friday, I visited with eighth graders during their science classes, where we talked about TRACKING TRASH, science projects, science teachers, and protecting our oceans. I also addressed the entire student body during their weekly School Meeting, visited with a PreK class, answered questions for curious second graders, lunched with students and faculty, and sat in on a class of soon-to-be science teachers working with their Brookwood mentor. It was an incredible two days during which I gathered as much as I shared!

On Saturday I took part in the school’s Sustainability Fair. Students, faculty, and parents came together to share with their community tools and ideas for sustaining our world. From a coat drive to a Croc drive, from safe household cleaners to sustainable tea, from composting to coastwatching, the Brookwood community taught me a whole lot about going green. Check out these highlights:


© Loree Griffin Burns

Did you know that if your VCR is plugged into the wall socket, it draws a large amount of energy even when powered off? A super-smart Brookwood student told me all about it, and proved his point with this plugged-in-but-turned-off VCR connected to an energy register. According to Laurenzo, Americans could cut home energy consumption by 75% simply by unplugging unused electronic appliances; talk about a no-brainer.


© Loree Griffin Burns

A group of eighth-graders organized a “No Idling” campaign at Brookwood. Their mission is to educate parents about the evils of idling their engines and to convince drivers in the community to turn off their cars while waiting in the pick-up line. “A single vehicle dropping off and picking up kids at one school puts three pounds of pollution into the air per month.” Ouch.


© Loree Griffin Burns

I tried some of this Sustainabili-Tea and it was de-lish. The students who sold it shared their tea-brewing secrets with me: sun-power!


© Loree Griffin Burns

Got Crocs? It seems to me that most people do … these plastic shoes are everywhere. But what I didn’t know was that Crocs can be recycled. Soles Unlimited is an organization committed to taking old Crocs and turning them into new shoes for people who need them. If your looking for a green project of your own, consider a Croc Drive; the Greenwood folks had boxes and boxes by the end of the afternoon.


© Loree Griffin Burns

Folks from Salem Sound Coastwatch used this tabletop visual to show fair-goers how pollution moves through a watershed. There is nothing like a dribbling of cocoa powder (factory pollutants) and green jello (lawn chemicals) to make it clear why we need to be vigilant near our waterways.

For educating yourself and your family about sustainability issues, fair participants introduced me to the Eco-Bunnies and to Annie Leonard and her Story of Stuff. (If you only follow one link in this post, please make it this last one. It is truly a must-see.)

Many thanks to librarian Sheila Geraty, science teacher Rich Lehrer, Sustainability Fair organizers Ben Wildrick and Amy Henderson, and all the students at Brookwood School. It was truly a pleasure getting to know you … and learning from your bright green school community!

 

Posted on

My Village


© Loree Griffin Burns & Gerry Burns

This was going to be a very good week. There was to be a relaxed review of my bee manuscript. And a relaxed preparation for my three-day visit with students and faculty at the Brookwood School in Manchester, Massachusetts. And some relaxed time for blogging about books I adore.

Alas, my computer.

My poor, overworked, much-appreciated, not-nearly-old-enough-to-die computer had some issues. The prognosis is not good. I spent days slapping bandages over gaping wounds, hanging out with the Geek Squad at Best Buy, cyber-chatting with Hewlett-Packard representatives, taking deep and calming breaths. (“It is only a computer. It is only a computer.”) I’ve been polling friends, consulting their spouses, borrowing electronic equipment from whoever had some to spare.

It has not been relaxing.

But I am a lucky girl. My village stepped up, held my hand, saw me through. Again. Whatever would I do without these people? A thousand thank yous to my village–you know who you are–and a thousand wishes to all of you: may your computers stay healthy and your villages stay strong!

 

Posted on

Clan Apis

CLAN APIS
By Jay Hosler, Ph.D.
Active Synapse, 2000

Category: Graphic Novel

I’m still working, working, working on THE HIVE DETECTIVES manuscript. At this stage—the end of the ‘first complete draft’ stage—I am mostly polishing and refining with snippets of fresh writing thrown in as needed.

I’m also still reviewing the cool bee stuff (books, videos, websites, etc) I’ve noted during the last eighteen months … with an eye toward useful materials to include in the book’s back matter. Some of what I have collected is interesting to me, like this website of honey recipes, but won’t be particularly interesting to my middle grade readers.

Other things on my list, however, are so freakin’ cool that I plan to include them in the backmatter AND to shout about them at every opportunity. Jay Hosler’s CLAN APIS falls into this latter category.

CLAN APIS is a graphic novel about honey bees. I know. I wasn’t quite sure what to expect myself. But let me tell you … this is a a totally fun and scientifically accurate graphic novel introduction to the world of the honey bee. I kid you not. It is a honey bee must read.

Hosler is a neurobiologist at Juniata College, where he studies—you guessed it—honey bees. In his spare time he cartoons, mostly about sciencey stuff. Can’t remember the last sciencey cartoon you came across? Then check out Killer Bee, Hosler’s cartoon look at the life-or-death struggle of one honey bee scientist. It’s a gem.

Hosler has also explored Darwin’s theory of natural selection in comic book form. Do I even need to tell you that THE SANDWALK ADVENTURES is now at the tippy-top of my wish list?

Science rocks! As do scientists who share their work with the world in unexpected and completely effective ways.

 

Posted on

Happy Earth Science Week!

What’s that? You didn’t know it WAS Earth Science Week? No worries. You have until October 18 to celebrate and this Earth Science Week website is chock full of ideas on how to get started.

We Burnses celebrated at Purgatory Chasm, a quarter-mile long gash in the surface of the planet that happens to be located near where we live. The chasm is believed to have formed when melted glacial waters burst from its foundations 14,000 years ago. Now it is the main attraction of the Purgatory Chasm State Reservation and a heckuva lot of fun to hike through. If you are very brave (which I am not), you can even poke around in the caves formed when giant slabs and boulders of disrupted granite re-settled themselves in the chasm. Sadly, I didn’t bring my camera to the Chasm.

But I did bring my camera to the top of Lenox Mountain, which turned out to be another fine place to contemplate the Earth:


© Loree Griffin Burns

And now that you know where I’ve been for the past few days, I’ll show you where I am going:


© Loree Griffin Burns

Only three weeks left to make the bee book perfect!

 

Posted on

Cold Light

COLD LIGHT
By Anita Sitarski
Boyds Mills Press, 2007

Category: Middle Grade Nonfiction

Earlier this week the 2008 Nobel Prize for Chemistry was awarded to three scientists for their work on green fluorescent protein (GFP):

Osamu Shimamura purfied GFP from this jellyfish;

Martin Chalfie used it as a glow-in-the-dark tag to visualize other proteins in other organisms;

Roger Tsien engineered versions that glow in crazy cool colors.

Hot stuff.

Even hotter? The nitty gritty has been clearly and enthusiastically explained in Anita Sitarski’s COLD LIGHT, a book written for middle graders but perfect for anyone now needing to brush up on the history and science of bioluminescence.

Kids books rock!