Loree Burns – Page 52

September 6, 2008April 25, 2015

Quaking

QUAKING
By Kathryn Erskine
Philomel, 2007

Category: Young adult fiction

I met Kathryn Erskine this summer at a retreat, and we traded copies of our respective books. I finally found time to read hers, and the experience was so powerful and so timely that I want to tell the world about it. Or, at least tell the part of the world that happens across my blog now and again.

QUAKING is the story of fourteen-year old Matt (not Mattie, and definitely not Matilda), who has lost both parents to domestic violence and who seems, when we first meet her, as if she might never recover. She is a bitter and closed off young woman, she is mean to the people around her—especially the Quaker parents who take her in—and for a few chapters I didn’t like her at all. But Erskine pulled me in slowly, revealing pieces of Matt at just the right moments, and in just the right doses. By the end of the book, when Matt has to choose between remaining invisible (and safe) and standing up for what she truly believes in, I was completely won over.

The timeliness of the book is tied up in its backdrop: the state of our national psyche in the days, weeks, and months following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Matt’s story will make you remember those times, and it will make you think hard about war and peace and what being patriotic means to you. These questions are woven into Matt’s story, and the result is the best kind of novel: one that makes you think.

Thank you for writing this book, Kathy, and for sharing it with me.

September 3, 2008April 25, 2015

Flying

My friend Kate Messner recently compared the process of revising a book to the metamorphosis of a monarch caterpillar. Revise, revise, revise. (Chew, chew, chew.) Revise again, again, again. (Chew more, more, more.) Rest. (Pupate.) Presto! What was once a small, new creation is reborn as a brilliant, eye-popping butterfly. Or novel.

Me? I need to hang out with Kate more. Because today, I felt more like this:

Did you ever have a day like that? A day when your work-in-progress is not eye-popping but, well, a bit ragged around the edges? Just a bit?

Yes, well, then you know what I mean. This writing thing is not for the faint of heart. The good news is that this butterfly is a friend of mine. I spent several hours following him around my backyard on Monday, and I can tell you this: he can still fly. He was as spunky and fritillary as his companions, chewed-up wings and all. He was ragged and rugged. Not whole, surely, but unique. And beautiful. Very, very beautiful.

Sigh.

There is not much we writers can do, I suppose, but wake up every day and keep flying …

September 2, 2008April 25, 2015

International Coastal Cleanup

On September 20, volunteers around the world will take to beaches in a massive effort to clean up our oceans and shorelines. I’ll be one of them.

International Coastal Cleanup is a project of The Ocean Conservancy. Each September, volunteers clear their local beaches of whatever garbage has washed ashore or been left behind. The genius of ICC events is in the data cards: volunteers don’t just pick up the trash, they record it. That’s right, each and every ketchup packet, paper napkin, and plastic bottle is actually counted. At the end of the cleanup, data cards are submitted to The Ocean Conservancy, whose staff tabulates the data and compiles it into an annual report. The information in ICC reports can then be used to help draft legislation–like the 2006 Marine Debris Research, Prevention, and Reduction Act–aimed at protecting our world oceans.

Revere Beach, 2005 © Loree Griffin Burns

Here are some tidbits from the 2007 ICC Report (which you can access here):

378,000 men, women and children in 76 countries took part;

six million pounds of trash were collected;

33,000 miles of shoreline were cleaned;

Getting involved is easy …

If you live outside of Massachusetts, visit The Ocean Conservancy’s ICC website to find a cleanup near you.

If you live in Massachusetts, consider attending the statewide kickoff event at Salisbury Beach State Reservation at 10am on Saturday, September 20. I’ll be there with gloves, trash bag, and data card in hand. You can find other Massachusetts events at the COASTSWEEP website.

One more thing …

Thanks to the generosity of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and the efforts of COASTSWEEP officials, each and every Massachusetts cleanup coordinator (there are more than seventy) will be receiving a signed copy of TRACKING TRASH in thanks for their efforts on behalf of our oceans. There is also a statewide raffle going on, with prizes that include a school visit from yours truly and several more signed copies of the book. (Find raffle information here.)

I am so proud to be part of this incredible effort; here’s to trash trackers everywhere!

September 2, 2008April 25, 2015

Fruitless Fall

FRUITLESS FALL
By Rowan Jacobsen
Bloomsbury, 2008

Category: Non-fiction for adult readers

It is probably impossible to have lived through the last two years and not at least heard about Colony Collapse Disorder, the mysterious ailment that has ravaged the world’s population of managed honeybees. CCD has been covered in every major newspaper and in magazines from The New Yorker to Martha Stewart Living. This fall, several adult books on the topic are being released. Here’s a tip: Rowan Jacobsen’s FRUITLESS FALL is the one to read.

Despite the media frenzy, very few people understand what is and isn’t true about CCD, or what the collapse of the honeybee will mean to humankind. Jacobsen’s straightforward, no-punches-pulled style forces readers to see the honeybee collapse for what it is: yet another indication that bigger is not always better.

If you are at all interested in the subject–and Good Lord, who isn’t?–I highly recommend this book. And you can think of it as a primer; once you’ve read FRUITLESS FALL you will be ready for THE HIVE DETECTIVES, written by yours truly and to be published as part of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt’s ‘Scientists in the Field’ series in Spring 2010.

(Yes, I just gave you a homework assignment!)

August 29, 2008April 25, 2015

Goodbye? Goodbye?

I tried to organize my LJ Friends list yesterday and, well, I apparently muffed it. As in I deleted an entire Friends list.

Ack!

So sorry, Friends. I think I’ve got things straightened out now. I hope…

August 28, 2008April 25, 2015

Hello! Hello!

What a fantabulous August it has been. The Burns family has spent oodles of time at the beach, and on the tennis court, and reading (together and apart), and napping. Okay, truth be told, I was the only one who napped; I don’t think my husband or kids even know how.

Anyway, now my husband is back at his job and the kids are back to school and I am back at my desk. And, believe it or not, there are a lot of exciting things going on here at my desk this fall. There is the bee book waiting for a final run through. And a picture book biography half re-built and needing attention. And presentations to hone and polish. Proposals to send out the door. And, OH JOY!, new research trips to plan. (More on that last soon.)

It’s so good to be back. I hope you had a fantabulous August, too …

(As you can see, I am still playing out-of-doors with my new camera lens. We found this Walkingstick on our hammock, of all places. He (she?) was very difficult to photograph … how to get that six-inch long body ALL in focus at once?)

August 7, 2008April 25, 2015

Update … check!

One of the things I have been working on this summer is an update to my website. I wanted to add some TRACKING TRASH reviews and links to online booksellers. I wanted to put up some school visit photographs and update my Research Trips pages with images from my honey bee adventures. I wanted to put up a recording of me reading a story I wrote in middle school, the dog-eared and yellowed story I pull out at school visits and that kids always want for me to read out loud.

And now, after months of tweaking and hours of hard work by my friends at Schementec, my new and improved website has gone live. Check it out and let me know what you think!

I am so pleased to have checked this update off my To Do list that I am going to celebrate with a long blog vacation. The month of August will be about quiet rejuvination and preparation for a busy fall. See you all in Septmember!

August 1, 2008

On Writing Non-Fiction

“… the one all-important requirement imposed on him who handles a pen is to have something to say that will interest the reader. If the subject has to do with any of the natural sciences, it is more than likely to prove interesting; but the difficult part, the very difficult part, is to clear it of its thorns and present it in an attractive light.”

Jean Henri Fabre
(1823-1915)

Henri’s life and work and words continue to have me transfixed …

July 29, 2008April 25, 2015

Still More From the Purple Patch of Heaven

Okay. I promise that this will be my last post of creatures from my Echinacea patch. But I cannot promise to stop watching them, because I am having too much fun. And if you think this is simply some twisted form of summertime procrastination, well …

… so what?!

ps. You may notice I haven’t identified the insects this time ’round. That is mostly because I am a complete amateur and cannot be sure of most of them. I *think* it goes something like this (from top to bottom): burrowing bee, sweat bee, skipper, honey bee, yellowjacket fly. But please correct me if you know better!

July 25, 2008April 25, 2015

Echinacea

You know, purple coneflower:

I have been working this week on a book about a man I admire a great deal. Jean Henri Fabre was humble and patient and had a great passion for the natural world, most especially for insects. He spent a good deal of his life watching bugs in his backyard. And when I say watching bugs, I mean he lay down in the sand and admired dung beetles as they worked … for hours. Sometimes he would hire a neighbor child to hold a shade umbrella over him, other times he was so lost in the dung beetles that he suffered heat stroke. His neighbors thought he was a bit odd.

What has this got to do with Echinacea?

Well, there happens to be a goodly amount of Echinacea in my yard. The plants are in full bloom now, and as I passed them on the way to the mailbox this afternoon I noticed that there was an awful lot going on in that purple patch of Heaven. Thinking of Henri, I waded on in…

These are only the insects that I managed to catch on film. There were at least two other species of butterfly, several types of bee, and all sorts of flying creatures that buzzed through but didn’t bother to stop. Can someone tell me how it is that I have passed this garden in high summer for three years running and never once stopped to fully appreciate this wonderful chaos?

Who cares what the neighbors think; I’m going back in tomorrow. Anyone want to come and hold the umbrella?