Tag: books

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Promote Your Book

PROMOTE YOUR BOOK: OVER 250 PROVEN, LOW-COST TIPS AND TECHNIQUES FOR THE ENTERPRISING AUTHOR
by Patricia Fry
Allworth Press, 2011

Category: Nonfiction for writers

Back in 2004, I had a good premise for a children’s book … and no clue what to do with it. I had done enough research to know that what I needed was a strong book proposal with which to pitch my idea to publishers, but I didn’t know how to write one. So I took a class.

This class.

And Patricia Fry taught me everything I needed to know. In six weeks, I had refined my book idea, written a solid book proposal, and drafted a professional cover letter to go with it. I sent the entire package to Houghton Mifflin shortly after the class ended, and was eventually offered a contract.

In 2007, I had a new children’s book … and no idea how to help get the word out about it. So I bought a book.

This book.

Once again, Patricia Fry taught me what I needed to know. I launched my website, started a blog, and learned to promote myself better, both online and in person.

Not surprisingly, when Patricia asked to interview me for her latest endeavor, a book for writers on the subject of book promotion, I was thrilled and honored to participate. And today I’m happy to let you know that PROMOTE YOUR BOOK: OVER 250 PROVEN, LOW-COST TIPS AND TECHNIQUES FOR THE ENTERPRISING AUTHOR is available to the public. It is just what I expected: a treasure trove of useful marketing tips and ideas for anyone with a book to sell, be it your first or your fifty-first, be it traditionally published or self published.

Well done, Patricia. And great timing; I’ll be reading PROMOTE YOUR BOOK as I prepare to launch CITIZEN SCIENTISTS this spring …

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Blizzard of Glass

blizzardofglass

BLIZZARD OF GLASS: THE HALIFAX EXPLOSION OF 1917
By Sally M. Walker
Henry Holt, 2011

Category: Middle Grade/Young Adult Nonfiction

I picked up an Advance Reader’s Edition of this book at the annual conference of the American Library Association last month. Technically, I am too biased to review it: Sally Walker is a friend and Henry Holt is publishing my own next book. But I’m not the sort of girl that would let those things sway her into praising a book she didn’t love … and I love this book too much not to sing about it.

In 1917, a ship carrying munitions into Halifax Harbor collided with another ship, setting off what was then the largest man-made explosion in history. The accident happened on an otherwise humdrum December morning, and Sally Walker tells the story perfectly, bringing readers into Halifax, showing them around, feeding them breakfast, walking them to school, and leading them, moment by painstaking moment, toward the disaster that changed the community forever. She gives special attention to those facets of the story that will most intrigue young people, and she does so with respect and care for both her subjects and her readers.

This is narrative nonfiction at its finest, folks. A page-turner right out of the history books, a disaster story told not for its shock value, but for its enduring value. Today’s kids are surrounded by disaster—natural or manmade, real or in sound-byte. To some of them, it may feel as if disaster is a new thing, as if dealing with it is something humans are not equipped for. The fact is—and BLIZZARD OF GLASS readers come to understand this—we humans have dealt with disaster for our entire history. And time and again, we’ve come together, in community, to help one another through. That message rings powerfully in this book, and its why I made sure both my tweens had a chance to read it before I passed it along, with rave reviews, to my town librarian.

BLIZZARD OF GLASS will be available in bookstores on November 22, 2011. Don’t miss it!

Edited to add:

It’s Nonfiction Monday, which means a gaggle of bloggers are talking about children’s nonfiction. You can see a roundup of today’s offerings at the proseandkahn blog. As always, you can read up on Nonfiction Monday celebrations at the official website.

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The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks

THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS
By Rebecca Skloot
Crown, 2010

Category: Nonfiction for adults

Every once in a while I read a book that reminds me that sharing true stories about real people is only the second most satisfying way I spend my literary time. The first? Reading true stories about real people written by my colleagues. This month I listened to the audio version of Rebecca Skloot’s THE IMMORTAL LIFE OF HENRIETTA LACKS, and I can tell you for sure that this book is a model of what creative nonfiction can be. It’s brilliant.

HeLa was the first human cell line successfully grown long-term in a petri dish, and I remember reading years ago in a graduate school textbook that the cells came from a woman whose initials are disguised in the word HeLa itself: Helen Lane. The textbook was wrong. The real woman’s name was Henrietta Lacks, and her true story—and the true story of her family—is heartbreaking and inspiring and I am so glad that Rebecca Skloot has finally shared it with the world. And that I got to read it.

 

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Nonfiction Galore

January is award season in the children’s publishing world, and the result is lists and lists of books I’d like to read. I’ve compiled a few of my favorite nonfiction book lists here …

From the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE), the 2011 Orbis Pictus Award and Finalists

From the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), the 2011 Outstanding Science Trade Books for Students K-12

From the American Library Association, the 2011 YALSA Award for Excellence in Young Adult Nonfiction winner and finalists

Also from the American Library Association, the 2011 Sibert Medal winner and honor books

From the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and Subaru, the 2010 SB&F Prize for Excellence in Science Books winners and finalists

And don’t forget the Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ 2010 Literary Awards finalists in the Nonfiction Picture Book and Nonfiction Middle Grade and Young Adult Book categories

* * *

Are there lists of this year’s award-winning non-fiction that I’ve missed? Please let me know and I’ll add them.

And what do you think of that rockin’ banner up there? I thought it was a bit loud, but its creator, my son, thinks that is because I’m a bit old.

Finally, did you know you can find all things nonfiction from around the blogosphere every Monday at Nonfiction Monday? Here’s today’s roundup, courtesy of the blog Great Kid Books. Check it out.

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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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The Songs of Insects

THE SONGS OF INSECTS
By Lang Elliott and Wil Hershberger
Houghton Mifflin, 2006

Category: Nonfiction for Adults

Friends, this book is a treasure.

I know, I know. You think you don’t need a field guide to the most common crickets, katydids, grasshoppers and cicadas of eastern North America. But consider this delightfulness:

The Music of Nature

Now, tell me … if you could find a field guide that felt like visiting that website, wouldn’t you want to own it? A book chock full of images so stunning that you are both mesmerized and curious? A book that reminds you to slow down and consider sounds that are so common you’ve almost forgotten they are there?

Yes? I thought so. Well, both book and website are part of the creative vision and inspirational mission of Mr. Lang Elliott: to promote the understanding and appreciation of “nature near at hand.” And both are worth exploring thoroughly.

THE SONGS OF INSECTS is the perfect resource for naturalists-in-the-making, and although it is written for adults, it has mega kid-appeal. My nine-year-old daughter spent hours with it this past summer, consulting its sights and sounds as we puzzled out players in nighttime choruses from Massachusetts to Maine. A word of warning: your child will discover in the pages of this book that there are some singing insects whose songs become harder for humans to hear as we age. And if your kids are as fresh as mine, one night soon, as you are outside listening to the sounds of nature together, this may happen:

Fresh Daughter (stopping and cocking her head): Mom! Shhhh! Do you hear that?

Me (stopping and cocking alongside her): No.

Fresh Daughter: There it is again. Sort of high pitched. You don’t hear it?

Me (listening harder): No. I can’t hear anything.

Fresh Daughter (now giggling uncontrollably): Oh. Sorry. It must be one of those crickets that old people can’t hear.

She finds this endlessly amusing. And to be honest, so does her mother. What’s not to love about a moonlit adventure inspired by a book and decorated with the sounds of insects singing and your child giggling?

A treasure, I tell you. A treasure.

 

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Seth Baumgartner’s Love Manifesto

Happy Book Release Day to my friend, Eric Luper!

I was lucky enough to watch SETH BAUMGARTNER’S LOVE MANIFESTO grow from an idea in Eric’s (crazy awesome) brain into an irresistable young adult novel that is generating lotsa buzz in the publishing world.

In celebration of the book’s release, Eric is holding a crazy awesome contest. Entering is simple, winners will be announced daily, and you just might walk away with a signed copy of Eric’s book AND an iPod shuffle. All you have to do is visit Eric’s blog and submit one eensy, weensy haiku.

Go you!

Go Eric!

Go SETH BAUMGARTNER’S LOVE MANIFESTO!

 

© Loree Griffin Burns

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Mycelium Running

MYCELIUM RUNNING,
How Mushrooms Can Help Save the World
By Paul Stamets
Ten Speed Press, 2005

Category: Nonfiction for Grown-ups

About a month ago, I picked a book that had been sitting on my desk for more than a year, MYCELIUM RUNNING, and finally started reading. Within days, the Deepwater Horizon exploded and oil from below the Earth’s crust began pouring into the Gulf of Mexico. Serendipitous, that, because while my mind has since grappled with the enormity of the disaster in the Gulf—massive amounts of oil and massive amounts of dispersants pouring and shooting into our oceans—I have been saved from complete despair by the calm and practiced thoughts of a mushroom man.

Paul Stamets is a mycologist, a mushroom scientist. He hunts them around the world, cultures them for fun and profit, and slowly, over the course of thirty years, has come to realize that mushrooms—more specifically, the network of cells that grow underground beneath them, called a mycelium—can help us save and restore the planet. How? By filtering contaminants from groundwater (a process called mycofiltration), restoring old growth forests (mycoforestry), cleaning up pollutants, including oil, from the environment (mycoremediation), and controlling insect pests (mycopesticides). In MYCELIUM RUNNING, Stamets explores all these topics, collectively called mycorestoration, and shares convincing experiments that indicate he just might be onto something.

I’ll admit to being unsettled by Stamets’ claim that mushrooms (and their mycelium) are sentient organisms … but I also have to admit to feelings of complete elation when a flush of mushrooms appeared in my front yard after a rainstorm last week (I posted a photo of these lovelies yesterday). I recommend MYCELIUM RUNNING to anyone up for an in-depth look at the world of mushrooms and environmental restoration. If you’d rather a brief overview of Stamets work and ideas, check out:

his TED lecture;
his thoughts on the Gulf oil spill;
and his Fungi Perfecti website.

I’d love to hear what you think. Or see pictures of the mushrooms in your backyard. Or know how YOU are dealing with news from the Gulf …

 

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Albert Einstein

ALBERT EINSTEIN
By Kathleen Krull
Illustrated by Boris Kulikov
Viking, 2009

Category: Middle Grade Biography

It has been far too long since I blogged about a book love here. And while all the things that have been keeping me from doing so hold—my writing life is crazy busy and my family life is crazier busier—I had to make time today to shout about Kathleen Krull’s ALBERT EINSTEIN. It’s a must read, I think, for kids anyone with an interest in Mr. Albert Einstein.

We all know the man was a genius; his name has actually become synonymous with the term. And most people realize he devised the formula E=mc2. But do you know what this formula means? or how Einstein came to it? or why it turned the world of physics on its head? Do you know what the photoelectric effect is? or how one might prove the existence of atoms? or that Albert Einstein explained both in the very same year he devised his Theory of Relativity?

Now, thanks to Kathleen Krull, there is a perfectly understandable and completely enjoyable overview of the man, his life … and his work. Everything the layperson needs to know about Einstein and his contribution to theoretical physics explained succinctly in 134 pages of a children’s biography. What’s not to love about that?

Breezy writing, historical details, and rock solid scientific content are the hallmarks of all the titles in Krull’s ‘Giants of Science’ series. I highly recommend LEONARDO DA VINCI, ISAAC NEWTON, MARIE CURIE, and SIGMUND FREUD, too.

 

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Borrowed Names


BORROWED NAMES
by Jeannine Atkins
Henry Holt, 2010

Category: NF/Poetry for Young Adults

I spent the long weekend wrapped in children’s literature at the American Library Association’s Midwinter Conference in Boston, MA. Catching up with publishing friends, meeting librarians, browsing books, and retreating from the outside world (and its tragedy, politics, winter storms and spring To Do lists) was a welcome, if selfish, joy. I came home rejuvenated. I also came home with an amazing book to tell you about …

At the conference, I picked up an Advanced Reading Copy (ARC) of Jeannine Atkins BORROWED NAMES, a biography (of sorts) for young adults. Jeannine is a friend, and one whose sensibility I admire; I knew her book would be something I’d enjoy. I did not know it would move me the way it did.

BORROWED NAMES is a collective biography, told in verse, of three women: Laura Ingalls Wilder, Madam C.J. Walker, and Marie Curie. Three extraordinary lives that at first glance seem unrelated are pulled close in Jeannine’s poems, which explore their times (all three women were born in 1867), their passions (work and family) and their relationships with their daughters (Rose Wilder Lane, A’Lelia Walker, and Irène Joliet-Curie). I was struck by the originality of this idea and I was completely captivated by the poems. Exploring the delicate complexity of the mother-daughter relationship through poetry was an inspired choice. Well done, Jeannine!

I earmarked pages and underlined words throughout my copy of BORROWED NAMES, and I intend to read it again, more slowly and with time for truly relishing the verse. When I do, I know that I will be caught all over again by the poem called Handful of Dirt, in which Irène Joliet-Curie grieves for Marie and asks “Who is a daughter without her mother?”

Yes, I cried. Wouldn’t you?

BORROWED NAMES will be available in March 2010, and I hope some of you will look for it then. (Heck, I’d pre-order it now if I were you!) Share it with your mother or your daughter or your sister or your best friend. I hope it moves you (and them) as much as it did me.