Picture Book Endings - Day 1

Through next Monday, the Cat & The Fiddle dishes up thoughts on picture book endings.

Much has been written about famous openers and favorite first lines. No one can deny the importance of the beginning paragraph in establishing story elements, and snaring the reader.

Although they're not as quotable (because their impact depends on context), endings are equally crucial. Beginnings are all about promise, but endings have the harder work of following through. It's the last lines that determine whether or not a story has left a successful emotional impact.

For Non-Fiction Monday, a look at the affective ending of All Pigs Are Beautiful by Dick King-Smith.

This book is somewhat of a mash-up. It’s written in first person POV and relates personal experiences, but includes informational material and side-bar factoids.

APAB begins: “I love pigs. I don’t care if they’re little pigs or big pigs, with long snouts or short snouts, with ears that stick up or ears that flop down. I don’t mind if they’re black or white or ginger or spotted. I just love pigs.”

Emotion conveyed through repetition, detail, description, all with an honest, conversational tone. Putting aside E.B. White’s lovable Wilbur (remember, he needed a spider to convince him of his worth) the outpouring of pig-aphilia is surprising. Pigs are not fluffy and cuddly- they’re associated with messiness, filth, ugliness. Which makes the reader wonder why the writer loves them so much. Stay tuned.

The writer relates loving anecdotes about his boar Monty (a pale white who liked to wallow in mud and be scratched between the ears) and general information about pigs (i.e. “Each piglet chooses its own private teat and returns to it for every feeding.”). He describes pigs' commonalities with humans (they can be moody and stubborn, their moms are nurturing, etc.) and suggests several things they might be saying if you understood their grunts and squeaks. "This food is really excellent, yum, yum." etc.

The book ends with: “How you noticed how often I’ve said that pigs are like people? That’s one of the reasons I like them so much. There is one big difference, though. People can be good-looking or just ordinary-looking or plain ugly. But all pigs are beautiful.”

Why does this work?

The question is an effective way of summarizing the book, and it grabs the reader's attention.

The description of people recalls the description of pigs in the beginning paragraph, creating a satisfying circle.

The last sentence is earned by what has come before. “All pigs are beautiful” is a conclusion that’s strong and surprising given the reputation of pigs in popular culture, but we understand why the author feels this way. It’s his intimacy with pigs, his affection for them, that makes them beautiful in his eyes. The unadorned language rings true.

What non-fiction pb endings do you admire? Why?

Tomorrow, a look at the ending of a popular fantasy picture book.

P.S. Humongous thanks to the Cooperative Children's Book Center for choosing Tyrannosaurus Math as one of the best concept books of 2010.

Tricks of the Trade: Revision Tips from Picture Book Authors

Today TC & TF features revision tips from authors who have taught in UCLA Extension’s Writers Program. Including yours truly.

Why ? Because I’m currently tweaking a manuscript, and have been pondering the revision process itself. I wondered what tricks my comrades had up their sleeves. Here's what they had to say.

Caroline Arnold:

After I've done all the usual grammar and syntax corrections, cutting and pasting, and I think I'm getting close, I always read my manuscript aloud. Even with books for older readers that are not meant as read-alouds, this helps me hear if my text is flowing smoothly.

Merrily Kutner:

Here’s my tip: when revising, check to see if you’ve used active not passive writing. Passive writing tells rather than shows. When writing actively, the specific verb you choose is your most valuable tool and many times saves words. So, pick verbs that describe exactly how the character is acting; alternate words for “sat” carry different emotional meanings (perched, slouched, squat). The subject and verb contain the important information in each sentence so keep those elements close together toward the front of the sentence for greatest impact. Sentences that start with “there was,” “there is,” and “there are” are telling and most always passive.

Example:
Passive—The leaves were raked into piles by Mark and John.
Active—Mark and John raked the leaves.

Although the first sentence is acceptable it isn’t a strong one. If you make Mark and John the subjects and put the “rakes” directly in their hands, you’ll create a more active and vivid picture for readers. Also, if you’re stumped where to revise just try to cut each page by 30 words…it will add up and get your word count down.

Alexis O’Neill:

Make sure that at least one person in your writers' group is a ruthless chopper. When you can't find one more word to eliminate from your precious manuscript, give The Chopper a target word count and invite her to cut cut cut. This is how I got my 700-word book review down to the required 250 words. And, on that word diet, it read beautifully!

Ann Whitford Paul:

It’s been said, “An apple a day keeps the doctor away.” I say, “The willingness and ability to revise will keep rejection letters away.” Try new approaches. Imagine your story is a pippin apple. Maybe if you told it from a different viewpoint, it would turn into a macintosh or delicious apple. Share your apple with other growers. A critique group will catch things that you hadn’t considered and offer suggestions for improvement. And don’t expect everything to come together overnight. An apple tree takes years to produce an apple. You might take years to produce a story. Enjoy the process and the taste of accomplishment when you finally get an offer will be all the sweeter.

Barney Saltzberg:

First and foremost, LEAVE YOUR EGO AT HOME, Preferably in a closet with the door closed!

Practical tips: I find that since I write on the computer, it helps me to print out what I'm working on so I can read my story on paper. I read it with a pen or pencil and make my edits on the page. I will then go back, save a new draft and add the changes I have made. Since I write picture books, I do read my work out loud. It's helpful to 'hear' they rhythm of what I'm reading.

At some point in the process when I think I'm close to being finished, I might have someone else read my work out loud to see how the story works. I know how to 'read' what I've written, but someone else might emphasize different things in my story. Having them read the story without my setting it up, or explaining things, is a way to see if they understand what I'm trying to say. We tend to defend or explain what we've written. People want to 'get' our work. If it's not making sense to another person, don't think of it as an attack, think of it as an opportunity to re-examine what you have just written and find a way to make the story more compelling and clear.

April Halprin Wayland:

When I first wrote New Year at the Pier—A Rosh Hashanah Story, illustrated by Stéphane Jorisch (Dial), the main character was a 10-year-old girl. My editor, Lauri Hornik, suggested making the main character younger, more in keeping with the picture book audience.

At first I was cranky. I liked the story just fine, thank you. But my friend Janet Wong said, Just try it. So I tried it. I made the little brother into the main character. Since he was younger, he couldn’t write a list of the things he wanted to apologize for….which sent me in a new direction and did wonders for the book.

Huh. My editor was right….imagine that!

So if you want to rewrite something but you don’t know where to begin, here’s a blog post about looking at something from a completely different point of view.

Michelle Markel:

For me, the hardest part of revision is keeping the love alive. Sometimes you go on MANY dates with your manuscript. Some of them don't end so well. How can you rekindle the spark of the first drafts? (don’t throw them out- lest you forget those magical moments!) Read some poetry or other inspired writing before looking at your own. Stimulate your imagination with regards to your main character or setting. Take field trips, go back to the library, use Google images or Youtube.

Or do the opposite. Ignore your story. You two may need some time apart. Indulge in other activities and see how long you can bear living without each other. Arrange to meet when you’re good and ready. Something mysterious may occur the next time you meet- the grace of a solution.

What works for you?

P.S. Revision is one of the topics covered in Writing the Picture Book, a six week Saturday afternoon class I'll be teaching this Spring through UCLA Extension. Catalog on-line in February.

Thanks to Kate Narita for posting cool lesson ideas for Tyrannosaurus Math, as well as an interview with me today.

Math Books Have Feelings Too

When I was in elementary school during the Mad Men era, math was drill and kill. Math was presented as a useful tool,  a way to manage money and measure yardage and lumber. By the time I was in high school, yawning through a trigonometry class,  Math seemed like its own closed off universe, one I wanted to visit as infrequently as possible.

So I'm delighted by math books that approach the subject with a sense of awe, or use math metaphorically. My hope is that children will develop an early appreciation for the subject. Our lives are filled with losses, additions, divisions  and multiplications….

 Here are five of my favorites:

Zero is the Leaves on The Tree by Betsy Franco

In this book zero means stillness, absence, silence and more:

Zero is "the sound of snowflakes landing on your mitten,"

"the ripples in the pool before the first swimmer jumps in."

(Full disclosure: contemplating nullness and emptiness and numbers, thoughts drifted to Three Dog's Night's lyrics "Cause one is the loneliest number that you'll ever do / One is the loneliest number, worse than two")

One Gorilla by Atsuko Morozumi

The narrator counts the things she loves (which are tenderly portrayed) “Here is a list of things I love. One gorilla. 2 butterflies among the flowers. And one gorilla. Three budgerigars in my house and one gorilla."  Counting as an expressive act.

Note: now that I think about it, the artwork reminds me of Henri Rousseau, painter of imaginary jungles (and subject of my upcoming book from Eerdmans).

 

MATHterpieces- the Art of Problem Solving by David Schwartz

Opposite a reproduction of 12 famous paintings are related items that the reader is asked to group in different ways. Dali's painting The Persistence of Memory is accompanied by the verse, "Is it a dream or is it real? / It's hard to know when art's surreal. / Dali's clocks once so precise-- / now they're melting just like ice. / Find SEVEN ways to make an 8 / group the CLOCKS, it's getting late."

Adding up melting clocks sounds like fun to me. As an advocate of exposing children to the visual arts, which rely on math (pattern, balance, repetition...) to work their charms,  I like the pairing of math and masterpiece here.

1-2-3 A Child’s First Counting Book by Alison Jay.

 

The gorgeous artwork conveys the emotion in this book, inviting the reader to enter a magical kingdom and count its fairy tale elements. When I opened this the first time, I sighed with happiness.

Marvelous Math, edited by Lee Bennett Hopkins.

This fancifully illustrated book will get readers thinking about the many ways math touches their lives.  It includes this lovely poem by my friend Joan Graham:

Nature Knows Its Math

      

         Divide

         the year

         into seasons,

         four,

         subtract

         the snow then

         add

         some more

         green,

         a bud,

         a breeze,

         a whispering

         behind

         the trees,

         and here

         beneath the

         rain-scrubbed

         sky

         orange poppies

         multiply.

  --© Joan Bransfield Graham

Check out a past post from Miss Rumphius for a list of math books incorporating poetry.

With my book Tyrannosaurus Math I hope to bring cheer to the word problem genre (subject of several postings here). For more information about how that book was written please visit Cynsations Craft, Career and Cheer.   Thank you Cynthia!

P.S. Please revisit this wonderful math themed poem by Mary Cornish at Poetry 180. HAPPY NEW YEAR from TC&TF!

Dinosaurs in the Library

Where has the year gone. On Saturday I did my last author program of 2009 at Los Angeles Public Library's (Central Branch) KLOS Theater. After reading  Tyrannosaurus Math,

I had fun talking about dinosaur fossils (Boy, has T-Rex been in the news lately! My favorite article was about the tiny ancestor Raptorex) and math. I have kids draw objects/clues out of a bag. What would a ruler, a calendar, a map, and a $100 bill have to do with paleontology?

We made a leaf pictograph, just like T-Math did in the book, and also grouped members of the audience to show different number combinations that add up to ten. I love getting the kids involved.

Thanks, FOCAL,  for inviting me and my imaginary dinosaur into this classy venue. As always, it was a pleasure.

Happy Holidays to all from The Cat and The Fiddle! May 2010 bring you health, happiness, and delightful stories.

Math Stories

For Non-Fiction Monday, one last nod to William Steig (on the last day of his honorary month) in the form of a math lesson:

Read Amos and Boris. (Enjoy!)

Make a list of what Amos loaded on the ship: cheese, biscuits, acorns, honey, wheat germ, two barrels of fresh water, a compass, a sextant, a telescope, a saw, a hammer, nails, a needle and thread, bandages, iodine, a yoyo and playing cards.

How many items were food/drink? How many were tools (both for navigation and repair)? How many were for first aid? For play? How many total?

(One could do this lesson, for example, in conjunction with the Open Court Literacy Program’s Grade 1 story on Captain Bill Pinkney’s Journey. Fiction, math and social studies, in one coup.)

A fantasy story with math potential…makes me think of :

DIY Fantasy Word Problems

1.    Pick a fantasy character (princess, superhero, alien. I’ll pick the princess)

2.    Brainstorm people or things that would be in their setting.
(fancy ball, prince, knight, dragon, castle. I’ll pick the ball)

3.    Brainstorm activities that character might be involved in. What would be fun? What would be dangerous?
(Getting rescued, getting dressed up, picking a prince. I’ll pick “getting dressed up”)

4.    Brainstorm how math could be involved in that activity.
(Counting jewels. Going shopping. Measuring cloth for a gown. I’ll pick “going shopping”)

Here’s a simple word problem:

A king gave the princess $500 for her outfit to wear to the ball. She picked out a gown that cost $80, a ruby necklace that cost $100, a diamond ring that cost $300, and a pair of satin slippers that were $70. Will she have enough money to buy her outfit?

Draw a picture.  Customized high interest subject + word problems = fun!

Here we are having fun at the CSLA conference last weekend in Ontario. You can't see any copies of Tyrannosaurus Math because they were sold out! Librarians rock.

Your Book - On the Analyst's Couch

Have you ever put your manuscript or book under psychoanalysis?

I asked myself why I wrote Tyrannosaurus Math – which is a very different question than how I got the idea.  As I told Rex Green during our interview, I’ve always been a huge fan of Tyrannosaurus Rex. But why did he pop up as the main character in my book? He was a symbolic way of “attacking” math (my least favorite subject in school). He was a joyous way of channeling years of pent up frustration with boring word problems. For me, it was perfect casting.

What is the personal connection between you and your book(s) ? Are you reflected somehow in the main character? I posed these questions to my fellow authors in the Children’s Authors Network 

Alexis O' Neill on The Recess Queen

I have to tell you – bullies infuriate me!  I hate (yes, hate!) people who push others around either physically or verbally.  As an adult I worked for a doozy of a bully once (who knew that adults could be bullied by other adults?  I thought this was just playground stuff!)  So, I had the right emotion for a bully book – but how was I going to get the bully in my story to stop being a bully?  In life, things are messy and don’t tie up neatly in pretty bows.  (At least not always.)  So I thought I’d create a perfect world in my story.  In a perfect world, a bully can change.  And even in a messy world, there's always the hope that just the right gesture (like inviting someone to play) can make a difference.



April Halprin Wayland on New Year At The Pier

Every Jewish New Year I join 200 singing  friends from my synagogue as we walk to the end of the pier in Manhattan Beach, CA.

There we take pieces of bread and toss them into the ocean to symbolically let go of any thing we wish we hadn't done in the past year.  To clean our slate for the new year.

The wind, the songs, the sea, the gulls...it feels so wonderful.  If I couldn't bring readers to the pier myself, I wanted them to feel the poetry of this joyous ritual called tashlich.  What better way than a picture book?



Janet Wong on Homegrown House


The girl in HOMEGROWN HOUSE is me in two ways: I am both the girl in the book, who is tired of moving, and also the mom who wants to move to a “better” house. I lived in eight different homes by the age of fifteen. I realized only about ten years ago how much moving from house to house had formed me. I was living in a perfectly good house in Seattle, but rather than settle in and make it “homegrown,” I found myself itching to move to a “better” house—something with a water view. We ended up moving just ten blocks away! In hindsight the little girl in me was right, and we should not have moved to the house with the lake view. We have since moved once again, for my husband’s work, and will move again next year, to a house we are building.


Jeri Chase Ferris on Demanding Justice and other titles


I like to be treated fairly, and I’m pretty sure you do too. When people are not treated fairly I like to make it right, and I’m pretty sure you do too. I write books about people who lived dangerous and exciting lives, who worked hard and made our country a better place – Benjamin Banneker, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Biddy Mason, Matthew Henson, Marian Anderson – but because of the color of their skin they were treated most unfairly. In telling their stories, I want to bring them back to life and let you (and everyone) see what they did for America. I want them to be given fairness and justice, recognition and thanks.  My most recent book is the biography of Mary Ann Shadd Cary, a free black woman who lived during the time of slavery and spent her entire life fighting for justice. The title of her story is DEMANDING JUSTICE, and that is what I want to do with each book I write.



Joan Bransfield Graham on Splish Splash and Flicker Flash

 The characters in my books are water (SPLISH SPLASH) and light (FLICKER FLASH).  What better way to explore their varied shapes than with shape itself--

concrete poetry.  Growing up on a barrier island along the southern coast of New Jersey, I was always fascinated with the ocean and water in general.  From the Atlantic to the Pacific (I'm now in California.) with some sailing on the Chesapeake and a five-year stop near Lake Michigan, I am definitely a water person.  Studying photography for many years, developing my own black and white prints, and now having fun with my digital camera and Photoshop, I am always sensitive to the effects of light and shadow.  I think my characters picked me.

Off to the CSLA conference in Ontario,  where Alexis, April, George Pilling and I will be talking about "Serendipity: Happy Accidents in Writing."  More on that later!
              

Ten Things Picture Book Writers Can Learn From Shrek!

Last weekend, teacher extraordinaire Daniele Della Gala and I did a presentation called “Tyrannosaurus Math: Crunching the Numbers with Stories” at the California Math Council Conference in Palm Springs. After the talk, one of the attendees appreciated the sophisticated language in the book, at which point I expressed my debt to William Steig. Who has been on my mind lately because, by felicitous circumstance, November is William Steig Month.

Author/illustrator Barney Saltzberg and I have used Steig’s work in our picture books classes at UCLA Extension’s Writer’s Program. “The reason I write and illustrate picture books is because I fell in love with The Amazing Bone,” Barney said. "As a writer, I marvel at the predicaments that Steig puts his characters in. I never in my wildest dreams figure out what the solution will be.”

In honor of William Steig, TC&TF offers thoughts about one of his most successful books:

10 Things Picture Book Writers Can Learn From Shrek!

1. Stay true to your roots. “Shrek” means “fear” is Yiddish. Steig was raised by Eastern European Jewish immigrants who settled in the Bronx.

2. Create an original, irresistible character. Shrek has a funny name, he’s funny looking, fearless, lovestruck and possesses superpowers! He also furnished material for three movies -and a fourth in production.

3. Write a great first line: “His mother was ugly and his father was ugly, but Shrek was uglier than the two of them put together.” And a killer first paragraph: “By the time he toddled, Shrek could spit flame a full ninety-nine yards and vent smoke from either ear. With just a look he cowed reptiles in the swamp. Any snake dumb enough to bite him instantly got convulsions and died.”

4. Honor the classics. The exaggeration of Shrek’s revolting qualities and his strengths borrow from the tall tale tradition, while the quest frame, the seven-incident plot, the animism, the witch (and her chant), dragon, knight, and princess belong to fairy tales.

5. Honor the classics, but make the story your own. Steig was raised by parents involved in the social justice movement. Sympathetic to the underdog, Steig made the hero of his tale an ugly monster (with a donkey instead of a handsome steed) who finds love in the end, warts and all.

6. Choose your nouns and verbs wisely. Shrek toddles, slogs, stalks, swaggers. His head is his noggin, topped by a knob. Steig deftly uses long or unfamiliar words and stylish language in a way that’s accessible to children.

7. Use humor, both verbal (one day his parents “hissed things over,” “they kicked him goodbye,” etc.) and visual/situational (Shrek has a nightmare of kids hugging and kissing him).

8. Incorporate poetic language. Several characters speak in rhyme, and the warning on the tree is in rhyme. Many of Steig’s sentences are patterned and/or rhythmic.

9. Make it dangerous, but don’t kill anyone. Despite Shrek’s superpowers, characters only faint, become unconscious, or get so hot they dive in the moat.

10. Write with joy. Steig’s musings about art can be applied to literature as well: “(The spectator) experiences again what the artist experienced in making the painting: movement, emotion, a glorying in man’s boundless creative power, and wonder - which is respect for life.” (From Pipers At the Gates of Dawn by Jonathan Cott.)


If you’re a Steig fan, treat yourself to the on-line feature from the Jewish Museum’s 2007 Exhibit “From The New Yorker to Shrek: The Art of William Steig.” It includes an adorable illustration called “Family Reunion” that brings together many of the characters from his books.

November 14 is the 102nd anniversary of Steig's birth. We love you, William!