Two Summery Haiku
At last it’s summer in Maine (we’ve been waiting so long!)! So here are two poetic expressions of the season.
On the Dock #1
Weight of sunlight
on my skin–golden sawdust
sifting down.
On the Dock #2
Shock of deep green cold
slaps through me swallows me
diving in.
Highlights Stands Up for ALL Kids
Proud to have three of my books published by these fine folks! The CEO of Highlights Magazine says, “Our company’s core belief…is that ‘Children are the world’s most important people.’ This includes ALL children.”
Why I Hate Reading Logs (and Natalie Babbitt Agrees with Me)
I have a fifth grader–okay, I used to. She graduated a few weeks ago. That means I’ve been a witness to six years of the current educational practices of northern New England. Specifically, six years of reading logs.
I do not like reading logs.
For the first few years, I just had to fill them out myself, which was not such a big deal. But then she hit third grade, and the rules started to rain down upon us.
She had to fill the logs out herself. She had to write the author’s last name, then first name. Then the full title of the book, even if it was (and it often was) Geronimo Stilton and the Mystifying Midadventure of Mumbling Mansion (with Cheese). She had to write the pages she started on, the page she stopped on, and the number of minutes read.
And there were so many ways to get it wrong. Reading more than two books at once was wrong. Reading a book and stopping halfway through was wrong. Skipping around in a book was wrong. Reading ten minutes Monday and an hour Tuesday was wrong, although reading twenty minutes on Monday and twenty on Tuesday was right.
It drove me nuts. I objected. Frankly, I should have told her teachers we were not filling in the silly logs, but my girl is a rule-follower and doesn’t tolerate civil disobedience well, and the very idea panicked her. (I was a teacher’s pet myself for many years, so I understood what she was feeling.) Doing the logs was anxiety producing, and having your mom call to say you would not be doing them anymore was even worse.
How could it be possible that all of this actually helped anyone develop a love of reading?
Now for a change of subject (bear with me, it’s related):
I’ve been thoroughly enjoying Barking With the Big Dogs, a collection of Natalie Babbit’s speeches and essays. It’s marvelous. She raised her children and did most of her writing before the advent of reading logs, but she had quite a bit to say about the way reading and the love of books are taught. So more on this next week….
Read MoreEditing Services
Finished that manuscript? Need a second opinion or a professional touch to polish it up? I’m glad to recommend my friend and colleague, Michelle Coppola Ames, who has just hung up her shingle as a freelance editor. Michelle is an insightful editor, a talented writer, and an all-around lovely person. Look for her at Wordplay Editorial Services.
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Sarah’s Writing Tips: #2
Boredom: the feeling of your brain at work.
Allow yourself to get bored.
Boredom is not a catastrophe. It’s the feeling of your brain searching for the next idea. It’s mental effort taking place.
Don’t always reach for your phone. (Listen, I like a good game of Candy Crush myself, but still). If you’re stuck, sit at your desk and look out of the window and wait. Pretty soon you will be so bored with waiting that you will start writing.
Read MoreSarah’s Writing Tips: #1
Mess: evidence of creativity.
Get messy.
1) A neat first draft is the enemy of creative thought and self confidence.
(That’s why I still write my first drafts in longhand. I can get messy and scribbly more easily with a pen in my hand than with my fingers on the keyboard.)
2) Double-space a typed first draft, or skip lines if you’re writing in longhand, to give yourself plenty of room for alterations and additions.
Read MoreWe Need Diverse Books…and Let’s Not Stop There
Yes, yes, we need diverse books. We need books with black kids and brown kids, trans kids and gay kids, poor kids and not-so-poor kids, able-bodied kids and kids with disabilities. Kids of all kinds. I’m there, I promise.
But. But.
What happens next? What happens when the art is created and the words are written? What happens when we’ve created the books that act as mirrors (so every kid can see him/her/theirself reflected in the pages) and windows (so every kid can experience what life is like for people who don’t look or sound or pray like him/her/them?)
I’m a little worried about this part.
When I tried talking with the principal of our local elementary school about the fact that my daughter will have been there six years and will graduate without learning a thing about the Civil Rights movement or the Underground Railroad or the suffragettes or Native American tribes in our state, he pointed me toward the school and classroom libraries and encouraged me to channel my activism into getting diverse books on those shelves. Okay, good, I can do that.
But. Are the books getting taken down? Are they getting read? If they are read, are they getting discussed? Are kids finding ways to apply what they read to their own lives?
When I ran a before-school books and breakfast club and we read and talked about Wonder, my kid could relate the way Auggie was treated to unkindness a classmate was suffering. When we read Marvin Redpost: Is He a Girl? and talked about stereotypes, another mom told me that her second grade daughter quickly got adept at spotting them.
But that was because we talked. We discussed. We engaged.
What happens without that context? What happens if you read Freedom Summer without talking more about the civil rights movement and its heroism and struggles and triumphs and ongoing challenges? What happens if you leave young readers knowing that a town would rather fill its swimming pool with concrete than let brown and black and white kids swim together–and that’s all that those kids end up learning?
Yes, we need diverse books. We need diverse curriculum too. (And diverse teachers in our classrooms!) And once we have the books, we need to talk about them. Discuss, argue, praise, weep, think. Think hard.
Diverse books can’t save the world. Diverse readers just might.
#WeNeedDiverseBooks
#WeNeedMoreThanDiverseBooks
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Sarah L. Thomson
A children’s book author publishing award-winning nonfiction, poetry, picture books and novels including…
“Thomson focuses on newfound connection, magic, and suspense to conjure a fast-paced, heartwarming mystery. Thomson’s world is populated by resourceful protagonists, fanciful creatures, and quirky supporting characters.”
—Publishers Weekly