Category: Blog

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Cheers for the CYBILS

© Painting by Catherine Griffin Burns

The 2010 Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards (CYBILS) finalists were named on January 1st and I was thrilled and honored to see THE HIVE DETECTIVES on the Middle Grade/Young Adult Nonfiction List. Thank you, CYBILS judges! And thank you, Kate Messner, for nominating THD in the first place.

CYBILS are awarded in eleven categories, and this year more than 1200 books were nominated. I served as a first round judge for the inaugural CYBILS back in 2006, and this number stupefies me. That’s a lot of books to read and ponder in a very short time frame, especially a time frame that spans the holiday season. Signing on to do so may, in fact, be the ultimate definition of Kidlit Book Love. Those judges rock.

A final, wild Hooray! for the surprising number of titles that I’d not seen before these lists were announced. How did I miss so many great 2010 books? I don’t know, but I’m glad the CYBILS judges pointed a spotlight on them before the world moved on to a brand new publishing year.

If you love kids books and would like to learn more about the CYBILS, follow the links above. Be sure to check out the book categories closest to my science geek heart, Nonfiction for Middle Grade/Young Adults and Nonfiction Picture Books. And if you decide to treat yourself to a book or two, consider ordering them through the CYBILS website; this is the simplest way to thank the amazing kidlit bloggers who pour their time, energy, and passion into celebrating great books for kids.

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Behind the Bee Book Posts: A Summary

2010 was a honey of a year for me, what with the publication of THE HIVE DETECTIVES and all. It’s been a treat to mark the sweetness by sharing the stories and the people who helped me bring the book into the world. Thanks to all of you who have read the stories, commented on them, and shared them. Here’s a link list for the entire series of posts.

Part 1: My friend, Linda
Part 2: Erica Zappy
Part 3: Ellen Harasimowicz
Part 4: Jennifer O’Keefe
Part 5: Mary Duane
Part 6: The Hive Detectives
Part 7: Gus Skamarycz
Part 8: My sister, Karin

Enjoy!

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Behind the Bee Book: Part 8

l&kChristmas 1981 (or so)

When I visit schools, I tell kids that at the top of my favorite-parts-of-writing-a-book list is the dedication. I usually write it after all the research is done, the writing is finished, the editing is finalized, and the book is ready to be printed. I take a deep breath, think about all the experiences that have helped to shape the book, and to shape me as its author, and choose one person to whom I would like to pay tribute.

For me, for this book, that person was my sister Karin. Karin is twenty years younger than me (not really, but she’d want me to tell you so) and is one of the most genuinely compassionate people I know. This is the girl who would give you her car keys if you really and truly needed them, and she would not think to ask if you have a driver’s license. She doesn’t care. You are in need, and she can help. So she does. I’ve always admired this about her.

While I was writing THD, Karin moved from outside of Boston where we grew up to the boonies, where I live. I wonder now how I got along without her. She lives around the corner and is Auntie K, the person my kids turn to when I am being unreasonable and refusing them everything. She is also the person I turn to when I need help, whether it’s a gallon of milk or a day of childcare or an ear to chew. Without her to handle the rustle-them-up-and-get-them-off-to-school morning routine with my kids, I simply wouldn’t have been able to do school visits the past two years. And there were plenty of afternoons when she has handled the greet-them-off-the-bus-and-feed-them-a-snack part of the day, too. It would have been so much harder to write this book—and get through our day-to-day life—without her. Which is why if you open THE HIVE DETECTIVES to the first page, you’ll see this dedication:

For my sister, Karin

And in case this final post in my ‘Behind the Bee Book’ series is feeling a bit too lovey-dovey and mushy, you should also know this: my sister Karin hates bees. With. A. Passion.

(Tee Hee!)

Thanks for everything, sis. I love you more than bees!

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Behind the Bee Book: Part 7

Gussm© Ellen Harasimowicz

This fellow, Gus Skamarycz, stung me with a honey bee. Here’s the proof, which can also be found on page 41 of THE HIVE DETECTIVES:

Bee Sting 2tight © Ellen Harasimowicz

What more can one say, except Thank you, Gus!

I’ve got one final post in this Behind the Bee Book blog series, which I’ll tack up tomorrow. My feelings of thankfulness and good fortune, however, will likely go on for some time …

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Behind the Bee Book: Part 6

People often ask me where I get ideas for book projects, and I tell them the truth: all over the place. In the woods. From my friends. Hanging on trees. I know this isn’t true for all writers, but for me, ideas are the easy part. It’s the next step that I find daunting: pursuing the scientists I want to write about and convincing them to help me tell their story. It takes tact and, to be honest, a level of persistence that is sometimes uncomfortable for me.

You see, to convince a publisher to offer a book contract, I need to assure them I’ve got access to all the information I need to make the book, for example, that the scientists I am writing about are on board. But the easiest way to get the scientists on board is to tell them I have a book contract. Which I usually can’t get until I convince them to get on board. It can be an awkward little dance, and for THE HIVE DETECTIVES, that dance began at the 2007 conference of the Eastern Apicultural Society.

I’d been researching the CCD story for months and learned that this conference was going to bring together a group of scientists pursuing various lines of CCD research. Despite the fact that I hadn’t even pitched the book to my publisher yet, I began spending the advance: I registered for the conference and set out for Delaware.

I heard Dennis vanEngelsdorp speak on the first day and although I hadn’t planned to approach him, found myself in an elevator with him and a few of his colleagues shortly after. I did a mental dash through my elevator pitch, marveled at the fact that I was actually going to give it in an elevator, took a deep breath … and decided not to say a word.

Hey, I never said I was good at this.

Back in my conference dorm room, though, I psyched myself up for a second chance. And then I made sure I got one. I found Dennis after another talk and told him about the book I was hoping to create for young readers. His response was enthusiastic, and he gave me the sort of inside information that is crucial at this stage in a book project: the names of some scientists I should talk to, and permission to tell them he’d sent me their way. And so, back home and with a book proposal well underway, I contacted Jeff Pettis, Maryann Frazier, Diana Cox-Foster and Dave Hackenberg. Thanks in large part to Dennis’ introduction, each agreed to be part of my project. Not long after, I got my book contract.

There followed an abundance of interviews, lab tours, apiary tours, and follow-up questions with the hive detectives. It was a lot to ask of men and women on the front lines of an international pollinator crisis—but these particular men and women happen to have not only a sincere passion for their work, but a dedication to sharing it. Thank you Jeff, Maryann, Diana, Dave, and Dennis. I appreciate every interview, tour, lesson, answered email, and borrowed photograph; THE HIVE DETECTIVES is a better book for all of it.

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Some Food for Writerly Thought

Illustration by Catherine Burns

There are a few morals to that last behind the bee book story, especially for readers who may also be nonfiction writers …

In my experience, writing nonfiction almost always requires an up front investment of time and, harder still, money. I don’t know any way around it. But I can tell you this: I have never regretted the investments. Not even once.

The dance—that back-and-forth between myself, the publisher, and the scientists I write about that happens while I am trying to secure a contract and the subject’s cooperation—gets easier over time. For example, it was much easier for me to approach the scientists for THE HIVE DETECTIVES than it had been for my first book, TRACKING TRASH, simply because I could put an actual book in their hands and say, “This is what I’ve done before, and I’d like to do something similar about you and your work.” Also? I’ve gotten more comfortable with the concept of rejection, from both the publisher and from subjects. It happens. It’s not personal. It’s just part of the job.

I’m a firm believer in cutting one’s self a little slack. So I chickened out of a great opportunity in that elevator with Dennis. Whatever. Beating myself up over it wouldn’t help a whit; forgiving myself and coming up with a new plan helped a lot.


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Behind the Bee Book: Part 5

Mary Duane 66© Ellen Harasimowicz

When I met Mary Duane, president of the Worcester County Beekeepers Association, I had no plans to include her in THE HIVE DETECTIVES. I was, however, super excited to take her up on her offer to show me around a box hive. Working with Mary in her bee yard was the perfect way to rest my brain as I puzzled my way through the writing of the THD manuscript.

And let me tell you, about halfway through the first draft, my brain needed a rest. I’d realized that the story I was telling—the story of Colony Collapse Disorder (CCD)—was hard to write about without using a lot of unusual bee terms, and defining all these terms was killing the dramatic tension I was trying to build. Also, the ending I was building up to was dire (maybe too dire?); I wasn’t sure how to temper this.

So I rested my brain while working bees with Mary. She taught me how to inspect a hive, how to find the queen, how to recognize the signs of a colony preparing to swarm, how life in the hive was tied to the weather and the bloom, how to collect honey. Over one spring, summer, and fall, I learned how to keep bees, and in the process—bonus of bonuses—I discovered the answer to my manuscript dilemmas: Mary herself.

By bringing readers into one of Mary’s hives at the very start of the book, I was able to introduce all those pesky bee terms. When they came up later, readers already knew what they meant and so they weren’t a distraction to the drama of the CCD story. And to balance that visit into Mary’s hives at the beginning, I decided to include a return trip at the end of the book; readers learned how to collect honey and got a sense that some bees—in particular, Mary’s bees—were doing all right, despite the mysterious scourge called CCD.

Thank you, Mary, for sharing your knowledge and your bees, and for not hesitating when I said,

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The Fantastic Secret of Owen Jester

THE FANTASTIC SECRET OF OWEN JESTER
by Barbara O’Connor
FSG, 2010

Category: Middle grade fiction

I fell for this cover the moment I saw it. It helped that the name Barbara O’Connor was printed on it, but truly, it was so many other things, too: the colors, that frog, those children, and, goodness, what is that mysterious, secretive, red, round … thing?

I couldn’t resist.

And then I stumbled into a chunk of free reading time this week. Alone and uninterrupted, I read THE FANTASTIC SECRET OF OWEN JESTER in a single sitting, and fell in love a second time. There were boys, and a know-it-all girl they wanted no part of, and a frog, and long summer days, and an adventure that made me want to be ten again.

I am buying myself a copy for Christmas.

You should too.


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Behind the Bee Book: Part 4

THDsoftcover

If you are a children’s book writer or illustrator, and especially if you live in New England, you may like this bit of bee book trivia: What New England children’s book author/illustrator took the photo on the cover of THE HIVE DETECTIVES?

Answer: Jen O’Keefe!

It turns out that in addition to writing, illustrating, photographing, mothering, and volunteering, Jen keeps bees. (She is hiveless at the moment, but I get the feeling this is temporary.) When she found out I was writing a book about honey bees, she mentioned her hobby and sent me a few photographs. I knew the moment I saw the image above that it would make an amazing cover shot. It’s creepy and mysterious and aesthetically irresistible all at the same time.

The picture is of something called burr comb. Under normal conditions, honey bees shape their honeycomb into flat sheets. Under certain unusual conditions, however, the bees get a little loosey-goosey with their protocols. They’ll build honeycomb into spaces that were never meant to hold it—between hive boxes or inside syrup feeders, for example—and the shapes they come up with can be pretty funky. Several years ago, Jen fed one of her hives some leftover chunk honey (honey containing chunks of wax) inside a box-shaped feeder tray. She went on vacation for a few days and came back to a box-shaped tray full of burr comb. The photographer in her couldn’t resist:

“It was astonishing and gorgeous and I caught it in the nick of time, because [the bees] were grooming the comb for laying. I’ve still got the feeder in my art studio filled with the burr comb. It’s like a museum piece.”

Thank you, Jen, for sharing your talents with me, and for letting that unforgettable burr comb grace the cover of THE HIVE DETECTIVES.