Author: Loree Burns

Posted on

Big Slick

BIG SLICK
By Eric Luper
FSG, 2007

Category: Young adult fiction

I’ve warned you. I’ve told you and told you again that this book was coming … and that it was a must read. And now I am back to tell you that BIG SLICK is here!

My copy arrived on Friday, and it has been an incredible weekend. I’ve been able to scour the cover, analyze the flap copy, giggle over the author blurb, marvel at the snazzy interior design choices, and, most importantly, read the book. It is a dizzying thing, to read in published form for the first time a book you watched grow from a short story idea into a debut novel … and to see in print for the first time the name of a person you know is destined for big things.

BIG SLICK is here. Read it!

 

Posted on

Camel Rider

CAMEL RIDER
By Prue Mason
Charlesbridge, 2007

Category: Middle grade fiction

Lately my boys have had a lot of questions about the war. The most troublesome for me has been this: “Why doesn’t it feel like we are at war?” I have mixed feelings when I tell them that nine-year-old boys living in Iraq today are probably experiencing a war more like the one my boys hold in their imaginations … armies, battles, scary times. It reassures them (and me) to know they are far away from the danger, but it inevitably reminds me how little I know about life in the Middle East. It was against the backdrop of these worries that we decided to read CAMEL RIDER; we were hoping for a glimpse at life in that part of the world.

CAMEL RIDER is the story of two boys: Adam lives with his family in an ex-pat community in Abudai, Walid is a slave, forced to race camels for abusive owners. The boys come from different cultures, speak different languages, practice different religions, and live completely disparate lives … but when war comes unexpectedly to Abudai, they are thrust together, alone and in the desert. Their only chance at survival is finding a way to work together.

The book did give the boys and me a better sense for the Middle East as a place, and we came away with at least an appreciation for the cultural differences between Arabs and westerners. Kudos to Prue Mason, and to Charlesbridge, for giving us a place to start.

One last note: the author uses both Adam’s and Walid’s points of view to tell the story, and the switches happen frequently, even within chapters. These point of view changes are marked in the text by font changes, but are harder to convey when reading the book out loud.

 

Posted on

Tracking Trash in L.A.

Sonja Bolle summarized the year in kid’s environmental books for the Sunday L.A. Times … and she included some nice thoughts on TRACKING TRASH. You can read the full article here.

I have to send a shout out to the creative and talented folks at YAY! Design, who designed TRACKING TRASH and who are responsible for the pithy motto that so captured Bolle’s imagination: “study, understand, protect”.

Yay YAY!

 

Posted on

Marine Life of the Pacific Northwest

MARINE LIFE OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST
By Andy Lamb and Bernard P. Hanby
Photography by Bernard P. Hanby
Harbour Publishing, 2005

One of the truly special aspects of writing TRACKING TRASH was the people I met along the way, and one of the truly special people I met was Bernie Hanby, an underwater photographer from British Columbia.

One of Bernie’s photographs, a walleye Pollock, appears on page 31 of TRACKING TRASH. The same photograph appears in on page 364 of MARINE LIFE OF THE PACIFIC NORTHWEST, an encyclopedia of marine invertebrates, seaweeds, and fishes. The book is a compilation of Bernie’s lifetime of underwater photography, and it is simply astonishing. I’ve spent weeks lingering over more than 1700 color images, nearly as many textual descriptions, and a single, inspirational dedication:

“This book, reflecting a shared curiosity, is dedicated to all who are interested in the magic and wonder of the marine world, with the hope that increased interest will result in its preservation.”

Thank you, Bernie, for sharing your images with the world and for sharing this incredible book with me.

 

Posted on

The Second Edition is Here!

The second edition of TRACKING TRASH arrived today. Check out the new back jacket …

It may be hard to read in this photo, but trust me, its pretty cool. There are several review blurbs and a “Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honor Book for Nonfiction” designation. I like that.

The new edition also sports one re-worded sentence and no accidentally repeated lines. Nice.

Posted on

Hooray for Coca Cola!

I came across this today and had to share.

What does this have to do with children’s books? Nothing at all.

Why am I posting it on my reading blog? Because it makes me happy. And hopeful.

And because I haven’t been posting much. FALL is typically a low reading time in the Burns house as we each adapt to our new fall schedules. The process always takes a few weeks … and this year we have a giant beach cleanup and a little Streptococcus in the mix!

I hope you are all reading lots …

 

Posted on

Nine!

My boys are celebrating their NINTH birthday today. Nine! I can hardly believe it. Can you guess what I got them for their birthday?

CHARLIE BONE AND THE INVISIBLE BOY, by Jenny Nimmo

THE MONSTER’s RING, by Bruce Coville
(inscribed by the author “May the powers bright smile on all you do!”)

and

THE INVENTION OF HUGO CABRET, by Brian Selznick

DRAGON DRAWING BOOK, by Ralph Masiello
(inscribed by the author “Dream Big! Draw Big!”)

Happy Birthday boys!

(I can see, by the way, that the day is quickly coming when these two will know more than me about everything. Perhaps it is already here? They just showed me how to do some funky font magic with Microsoft Word. And then they nearly died laughing when I told them why I didn’t know how to do it myself: they didn’t teach kids about Microsoft Word when I was in third grade … because it hadn’t been invented yet!)

 

Posted on

Need a Report/Book Idea?

What’s up with this? By second grade, students of both sexes equate the word “scientist” exclusively with men?

And this: a friend’s fifth-grade daughter has to do a report on a scientist and the Famous Scientists List distributed by the teacher has only one woman on it?

(Huge frustrated sigh.)

Okay. I suppose if you have to choose just one person to represent the entirety of womankind’s contribution to scientific achievement, Marie Curie is a worthy choice. But … GOOD GLORY! … are there no other important female scientists to offer up to a classroom of boys and girls itching for people to emulate?

What about Lise Meitner, who explained nuclear fission? Or Rosalind Franklin, without whom we might never have deciphered the three-dimensional structure of DNA? Or Barbara McClintock, who won a Nobel Prize for her work in genetics? Or Maria Reiche, who dedicated her adult life to recording, protecting, and trying to decipher the giant ground drawings of the Peruvian desert? Or Sylvia Earle, the “best-known marine scientist on the planet”? Or Laurie Boyer, who is this very minute rocking the world of embryonic stem cell research?

There have been and continue to be so many interesting and important female scientists just waiting to be discovered. Writer friends—grown-ups and fifth-graders alike—take note: their stories need to be told. Get busy!

 

Posted on

COASTSWEEP Update

Okay, folks, here is a long-overdue COASTSWEEP update. (What’s that? You don’t know what COASTSWEEP is? Well, then, read this.)

My family and I are hosting a COASTSWEEP event in central Massachusetts on Sunday, October 21 from 10am to 2pm. We will be ridding the shores surrounding Indian Lake in Worcester, Massachusetts of all the debris we can get our grubby, little hands on. And we will be recording each and every item we collect so that the fine folks at The Ocean Conservancy can compile their annual International Coastal Cleanup Report. (You can see the 2006 report here.)

If you would like to participate in a Massachusetts cleanup, check out COASTSWEEP’s 2007 Cleanups page for information on events happening throughout the state this fall. And pay close attention to this letter to learn how you can win a signed copy of TRACKING TRASH or a visit from its, ahem, esteemed author …