Author Spotlight: Susan Patron

Susan Patron's initial career plan was "to be a struggling writer renting a maid's room in a Paris attic." 

Instead, after earning her BA in English Literature and her Master's in Library and Informational Sciences, she began a career as a children's librarian at the Los Angeles Public Library in 1972. Then in 1980, she accepted a position there as the Juvenile Materials Collection Development Manager. 

But, being a librarian was not Susan Patron's only ambition. She reviewed children's literature. She taught and lectured on children's literature. She served on boards and committees in the children's literature field. 

And she wrote. She loved being a librarian, but she wanted to be a writer, too. So she worked on writing children's books during weekends and over vacations. Her first book, Burgoo Stew, was published in 1991. She followed that with three more picture books, and then wrote a chapter book - Maybe Yes, Maybe No, Maybe Maybe - which won the 1993 Parent's Choice Award.

Then came The Higher Power of Lucky. It was published in 2006, and won the Newbery Medal in 2007. Says Mrs. Patron:

"I wrote The Higher Power of Lucky for the 10-year-old girl that lives inside me. That girl was curious about everything and sometimes went to great lengths to get information about the world and how it works."

Susan Patron was born in 1948 in San Gabriel, California. She grew up the middle of three sisters, in Hollywood, California. She now lives with her husband, Rene, in Los Angeles, and in a small cabin in the high desert of the Eastern Sierras - where she does most of her writing.

Sources:

Susan Patron - Wikipedia

Susan Patron - SimonSays.com

Susan Patron's Response - Publisher'sWeekly.com

Author Interview: Susan Patron on The Higher Power of Lucky - Cynsations Blog

Writing for the Inner Child: Newbery Winner Reaches for the Heart - washingtonpost.com

Did Somebody Say "Chocolate?"

I would just like to point out that September 12 is National Chocolate Milkshake Day. So, all you people out there in Cyber World, go on out into the Real World and get you a chocolate milkshake on September 12, and do your civic duty. 

If you don't want to go out - or can't go out - to get one, drag out the ol' cookbook and jus' make you one. No cookbook? Then here's a Google search for "chocolate milkshake recipes." It pulls up about 94,500 results! That's a lotta chocolate milkshakes! Now, if that number makes your head spin, just check out Cooks.com and search "chocolate milkshake." That will pull up a smaller slew of chocolate milkshake recipes to try: chocolate mint, chocolate banana, chocolate peanut butter, mocha milkshake...

Ooooh! I do love mocha. I wonder if a mocha frappe freeze counts toward the celebration? Hmmm.... I'd better get the frappe AND the milkshake. Just in case.

Holy Carats!

Oh my stars! Would you look at this lovely award! Thank you, thank you, thank you to Beth at This Crazy Thing Called Motherhood for honoring me with this!

And now, to share the loveliness with some other bloggers I love to read:

MommyC at The Barn's on Fire, the Horses are Out, and Someone Has a Stinky Bum. Now, how can you not want to check out her blog, with a title like that? Here is a woman who is by turns rugged, witty, contemplative, and a total doting mommy. She tells it like it is, and is not afraid to do so.

Ms. Froggie over at thefrogblog is an illustrator extraordinaire. Her paintings are so full of life, so full of perspective, and so true-to-the-child. She can tell the most wonderful stories with just one picture. Hers is a blog you can't help but linger over.

Megan's blog, FriedOKRA, is a joy. She has such a fresh style, writing in a Southern drawl that makes you just hear her in your head as you read! Her ability to pull you right on into her life as she tells it is uncanny. It is an experience not to be missed.

Go on! Check 'em out! It will be a treat...

International Literacy Day

International Literacy Day is observed annually on September 8. Created by UNESCO on November 17, 1965, it was first celebrated on September 8, 1966. Its aim is "to highlight the importance of literacy to individuals, communities, and societies."

Why call attention to literacy? Is it really that big of an issue? Check out these statistics:

* Some 774 million adults worldwide lack minimum literacy skills, and two-thirds of them are women.

* 75 million children are out of school, and many more attend sporadically or drop out.

* Between 94 and 115 million children lack access to education altogether.

But wait! There has been progress: there are now close to four billion literate people worldwide! And the people of UNESCO and other supporting organizations believe we can push that number ever higher. In fact, in 2003, the UN General Assembly launched what they have dubbed The Literacy Decade, set to run from January 1, 2003 and continue through the end of 2012. Their goal: "increasing literacy levels by 50% by the year 2015."

The theme of this year's International Literacy Day is "Literacy is the Best Remedy," putting special focus on the important connection between literacy and health. Celebrations are planned worldwide - too many for me to list here. But you can find information on several of them by visiting UNESCO's web page.

Here in the United States, the International Reading Association plans a celebration on Monday, September 8, 2008 at the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial Public Library in Washington, DC. This year's special guest is author and former National Teacher of the Year, Sharon Draper. For more details, check out the IRA's International Literacy Day web page.

There are many, many resources out there with ideas for celebrating International Literacy Day with children. Parents and teachers may want to check out Crayola.com's ILD web page - full of activities, printables and lesson plans tailored to this most important day. Teachers will want to visit readwritethink.org for lesson plans, web links and more to use in the classroom to explore literacy in a variety of interactive ways.

Hold on, though. This party isn't only for the kids! ProLiteracy.org has a very informative PDF file full of statistics, history, and activities for adults to celebrate International Literacy Day. You can also check out the Global Development Research Center's web page for some great ideas. The National Institute for Literacy has a web page full of links, resources, information, and ways for adults to get involved.

Those of us who are literate tend to take that ability for granted. It's up to us as parents and teachers and concerned adults to help children see how powerful literacy is, and to realize what wonderful things they can do as a literate person. It's also our responsibility to help those who are not literate, but would dearly love to be. Visit any of the links within this post, or the Sources list at the end of this post, for websites to point you in the right direction or for more information.

So check out the websites. Read up. Find out how to get involved. Even though September 8 is already upon us, even if you're just finding out about this most important day, don't let that stop you from learning more and finding ways to help. Because working to provide literacy to all is much more than a one-day job... 

Sources:

International Literacy Day - Wikipedia

International Literacy Day - UN official site

International Literacy Day - UNESCO official site

International Literacy Day Background - Nat'l Institute for Literacy

Book Review: Fly By Night, by Frances Hardinge

     "Purely out of interest," Eponymous Clent asked, "what so bewitches you about the idea of the traveling life?"...

     ...Mosca raised her head and stared up the hillside toward the ragged treeline. The sky was warmed by a gentle redness suggesting a soft but radiant dawn. The true dawn was still some three hours away.

   "Very soon," Mosca said quietly, "my uncle will wake up. An' when he does...he's likely to notice that I've burned down his mill."

Summary: Mosca Mye - a girl who can read in a time when girls were permitted to do no such thing - lives in Chough, a curious place - wet all the time, swampy, and if you leave anything in the water for any length of time, it petrifies to a chalky white. Chough is situated on the fringes of what her father dubbed "The Fractured Realm," where it was commonly believed that "books were dangerous." The Realm has a long, twisted, fear-infused and politically charged history. For years, no one has been able to agree on who should rule the land, though many have tried and failed, and everyone had someone different in mind to do the leading.

One night Mosca runs away from the mill house where her aunt and uncle force her to stay. But she accidentally drops her lamp in the straw during her escape. Realizing as she watches the small flame begin to grow that she can never come back, she sets off with her formidable goose, Saracen, to find a new life. Along the way she acquires the company of a loquacious, opportunistic, and not altogether law-abiding writer named Eponymous Clent. And then, the adventure truly begins...

For Teachers and Librarians:

There are so many avenues to pursue here. You've got political issues with ruling factions, kings and other royalty, and behind-the-scenes dealings and manipulations, which merge quite nicely with a unit on the current presidential elections, or a comparison of various systems of government - with plusses and minuses to each. With Banned Books Week coming up at the end of this month, this book fits rather well in that subject, as books and printed matter are fiercely controlled in Mosca's world. How does this affect Mosca's society? How do banned books affect our society? There are educational issues to explore, as girls aren't permitted to learn to read, and schools are controlled by the same group that controls books and printed matter. You could go with a more personal theme: trust issues, right vs wrong (and all the gray areas in between), anger, fear, family relationships. You could even go with the travel angle, creating a map of "The Fractured Realm," and mark the path of Mosca's journey throughout the book, noting significant events along the way. Really, it is a gold mine just waiting to be found as far as educational possibilities go, and a gold mine as far as just plain great story goes. Fly By Night is a fantastically resourceful addition to your classroom however you choose to use it.

For Parents, Grandparents and Caregivers:

If you're looking for a book that will grab the attention of both your boys and girls, this is the one! It will be hard for them to put down, as each chapter raises more questions than it answers, and will leave them madly turning pages to see how everything turns out. If you're looking to provide your kiddos with a book with a good message, here's how the author sees things in Fly By Night:

"If there is a moral it's probably something along the lines of 'read everything, question everyone, write what you like and let others do the same.'"

This is a book that works great as an independent read, and will keep them leaning closer and closer if you read it aloud. Even better, you will enjoy the story every bit as much as your kids.

For the Kids:

Mosca is a 12 year-old girl who knows what she wants. And what she wants is to have a life where people can't tell her what she can and can't do. Her dad taught her to read, even though it wasn't allowed, and he taught her how to think for herself, which was frowned upon. One day, she finds herself on her own and searching for that new life, with just her menacing pet goose for company. Soon, she meets Eponymous Clent. They travel together, with Eponymous agreeing to take her on as his secretary. They wind up in very dangerous situations, and Mosca finds herself having to make a lot of decisions all on her own. How do things turn out? There's only one way to know - ask your parents for a trip to the library or bookstore, and find Fly By Night, and read it. It's the kind of book you'll keep reading long after bedtime, under the covers, with a flashlight. Yeah, it's that good!

For Everyone Else:

This may be a children's novel, but all you teens and adults out there won't be able to resist being pulled into this story. It's so full of plot twists, danger, mystery, and even humor, you will not be able to put it down. Fly By Night is definitely a must-read for ages 9 to 99. Go ahead and give it a try. You won't be disappointed.

Wrapping Up:

Fly By Night has all the trappings of a great novel - a main character you care about, villains you want to be vanquished, injustice you hope is righted, mystery that keeps you turning pages, plot twists that keep you guessing, and a story that's just plain fun to read.

Title: Fly By Night

Author: Frances Hardinge

Pages: 512

Reading Level: Ages 9-12

Publisher and Date: Harper Trophy, February 19, 2008

Edition: 1st paperback

Language: English

Published In: United States

Price: $7.99

ISBN-10: 0060876301

ISBN-13: 978-0060876302

Author Spotlight: Frances Hardinge

Frances Hardinge can't remember a time when she did not want to become an author. Her tastes tend to run toward the darker side of fiction. In fact, her website reports, "She has always liked dark stories - when she was six, she wrote a short story that included an attempted poisoning, a faked death and a villain being thrown off a cliff - all in just one page!"

She has written a number of short stories for magazines. After winning a magazine competition, she started work on a children's novel, but it took persistent prodding from a friend before it ever made it to a publisher. That novel, Fly By Night, was inspired by her childhood home and village - a big, old house in Kent, England. First published in 2005 in England, her debut novel went on to receive the Branford Boase Award in 2006, among others. Ms Hardinge followed up with Verdigris Deep, published in 2007. She is now working on a third stand-alone novel, which is said to have volcanoes heavily involved within it, as well as a sequel to Fly By Night.

She studied English at Oxford University, then worked as a technical writer and graphic designer, writing fiction only during her spare time. It wasn't until after publication of Fly By Night that she moved to writing full-time.

Frances Hardinge is rarely seen without her infamous black hat, and tends to wear only black clothing. For fun, she and her friends like to dress up in old-fashioned clothes, and hold murder mystery parties, and stage duels in stately homes.

Ms Hardinge now lives part-time in Oxford, and part-time in London with her boyfriend.

Sources:

Frances Hardinge Official Site

Frances Hardinge - Wikipedia

Frances Hardinge Biography - Harpercollinschildrens.com

Frances Hardinge Biography - Kidzworld.com

Ten Questions with Frances Hardinge

Frances Hardinge Forum

Frances Hardinge - Author

Fight Procrastination Day...

...is celebrated every year on the first Wednesday in September. To mark the occasion, I offer these quotes on the art of, shall we say, postponing action:

Never put off till tomorrow what you can do the day after tomorrow.

       - Mark Twain

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

       - Douglas Adams

Now, it would be entirely appropriate - not to mention timely - for me to write a post all about how to fight procrastination.

But I think I'll do it later.