You never know what you’re going to get on a Wacky Wednesday here at Read These Books and Use Them. Today, I need your help! I love the Hunger Games series by Suzanne Collins (love her Gregor series, too). I even had it marked on my calendar when Mockingjay was coming out, but then. . .we are in the process of moving. I have so much to do–packing and cleaning and decluttering. Our house goes on the market next week. We have expenses that have popped up as they do when you are moving and making minor repairs. I already read a book a week for a column. To make a long story short, I haven’t bought Mockingjay yet because I’m being practical, and I want someone to talk me out of my practicality. Anyone out there want to take a stab? If you’ve bought it and read it already at your home or for your classroom, convince me–please.

In the meantime, here are some past Suzanne Collins posts:

• Catching Fire
• Gregor and the Code of the Claw (book 5)
• Gregor the Overlander
• Hunger Games

I also wanted to tell you about a new deal I have on my sidebar–JUICE IN THE CITY. This is a great new daily deals site (with awesome content, too!) aimed at fun moms, and I have just become an affiliate member. Not only is the site fabulous, but I can earn money as an affiliate, too! Check it out here: Juice in the City.

Juice in the City aims to bring moms what they really want: insanely good deals on crazy-fun things to do…and great content. Each day Juice in the City features something fun for local moms to do at an incredible price. Juice in the City started in the San Francisco Bay Area and is rolling out new cities across the country every few weeks.

Check it out and sign up!

Also, I’m teaching a telecourse on making a teacher’s guide to go with your children’s book–for any of you children’s authors out there–on Wednesday, September 8 at 7:00 p.m. CST. The cost is just $5.97–even if you can’t attend the actual call, you can download it at your convenience for the same price. Here’s the link: Get Real Resources

Okay, I guess that’s all the Wacky Wednesday news and ideas I have. Remember, why should I buy Mockingjay now?

Our New Home: Immigrant Children Speak is a powerful book written by the children who have immigrated to Canada from countries such as China, India, Russia, Ghana, Malaysia, Argentina, Germany, and Pakistan. I love that this book gives power to the voices of the children. (Not to mention, that this is a great book to share when working on the six plus one traits of writing–voice.) It’s organized into several chapters that cover a topic of immigration from leaving to differences, from adjusting to problems. Another great thing about this book is the children writing about their immigration experiences are talking right to other children their age and it’s in their own words.

Our New Home is a great book to use if you live in an urban area where you have students who have immigrated from another country. It might help other students understand why they act or talk or think or behave the way they do. It will help kids understand each other, and it educates children on some of the horrors around the world without going into too much detail. If you live in a rural area, this book can open the eyes of your students or children to see how big the world is and some of the struggles that kids their age have to go through.

Take for example, Stephanie from Newfoundland, who doesn’t think the “Newfie” jokes she hears from comedians are very funny or Matthew who was bullied for reporting a fight at recess on school property. How about, Ikram from Somalia, who had to flee when a Civil War started in her country. When children hear these stories, written in the language of another child, they can often see the same type of events (bullying) going on around them, and then stop. It’s hard to stop if no one ever points it out. Share Our New Home with your child or class today. It will make a difference. It will.

photo by RachelH_ www.flickr.com

*Picture book, realistic fiction for preschoolers through second graders
*First grade girl as main character
*Rating: Miss Brooks Loves Books! (and I don’t) is such a cute picture book and perfect for teachers and parents to share during National Book Week or any time reading needs to be celebrated. (Well, that’s all the time, right?)

Short, short summary: A first-grade girl tells readers how much Miss Brooks, the enthusiastic librarian, loves books. Miss Brooks dresses up in costumes to share books with her students. As our narrator tells us, ” I think Miss Brooks gets a little too excited. And I bet her costumes itch.” One day, Miss Brooks tells her students that it will soon be Book Week, and they each need to share a book they love with the class and dress up in a costume. The little girl wants to move–her mother informs her there’s a librarian in every town. So, she doesn’t know what book she’ll present until her mother tells her she’s as stubborn as a wart. This gives her a great idea–she loves warts and she’ll read about them! Pick up a copy of Miss Brooks Loves Books! (and I don’t) to find out exactly which book the little girl chooses. (Kids will love this!)

So, what do I do with this book?

1. Students young and old can write about a favorite book after reading this one. Let students creatively tell about their favorite book with a journal entry as well as a presentation of some kind–maybe even dressing up in costumes like in the book.

2. Create a class book of poems or holidays or anything that you want. The point is to work on something together as a class. The easy way to make a class book is to have each student create a page, illustrate it, laminate these, and then bind them together with a cover of some sort. Children love to get these class- made books out of the library and read them–even your most reluctant readers.

3. Did students know that Shrek was a book before a movie? Discuss with students other books that have been made into movies. Ask students which they usually like better. For a fun Friday afternoon activity, read a book to students that was made into a movie, watch the movie (or part of it), and then compare and contrast them.

Learn to write for children's magazines!

In September, I’ll be teaching a course through WOW! Women On Writing about writing children’s short stories, articles, and fillers. I am re-posting an interview below with Angela, WOW!’s executive editor, that appeared on their blog, The Muffin, at the beginning of this year. I hope that it helps any of you who have thought about writing for children’s magazines or websites. If you have book dreams, it helps to start out at the magazine level to work on your writing skills and get publication credits under your belt. Read on to find out more:

Angela: I’ve never tried writing for children’s publications, but I’ve always been intrigued by the idea. It must be so rewarding to reach out and entertain a child through your writing. I still remember all the articles and stories I read in magazines, such as Cricket, as a child. Maybe it’s because I was so young that the stories stuck with me or the fact that I was reading something I wanted to read for the first time.

So to gain a bit of insight into this market, I caught up with Margo L. Dill and asked her a few questions on the subject. Margo teaches the e-course Writing for Children. The course begins Wednesday, September 8. If this is a market you’ve been thinking about writing for, I urge you to visit the classroom page and sign up today.

Welcome, Margo! Like I mentioned above, I’m new to children’s writing. So tell me, what are the different types of manuscripts children’s magazines accept?

Margo: Children’s magazines accept short stories, poems, and articles. They also accept fillers, which are pieces like recipes, puzzles, quizzes, and arts and crafts.

Angela: That’s a wide variety, and it sounds like a lot of fun. If a writer wanted to craft a short story for a children’s magazine, what things should she keep in mind to better target her market?

Margo: I teach about the characteristics of a children’s short story during the fiction lessons because writing a short story for children is very different than writing for adults. The age of the main character is very important and should be the same age or older than the target age range. For example, if you are writing a short story for readers between 8 and 12 years old, the main character should be 11 or 12. As a rule, children don’t like to read about kids younger than them or adults as main characters. The other big mistake I see made in many children’s stories, and we cover this in the class, is that the child protagonist does not solve his own problem. An adult swoops in and saves the day. Children want to read about other children solving their own problems.

Angela: I never thought about it, but that makes complete sense. I think it’s a good lesson too for children to learn how to solve their own problems. In your class curriculum you recommend sending a cover letter with a short story submission. Are cover letters important? Shouldn’t the story stand on its own?

We talk about writing for the bug magazines.

Angela: Great advice, and it sounds simple enough. Let’s talk nonfiction articles. You mention that it’s easier to break into the children’s magazine market with nonfiction. That’s also true with the adult magazine market. In your opinion, how do these markets differ?

Margo: The biggest difference is that there are fewer nonfiction children’s magazines than there are adult magazines, so the competition is fierce. Therefore, you have to know how to research your market and your topic to give yourself an advantage over other freelance writers. You also must write a killer query letter, which we work on in the online class. Many children’s magazines have theme lists; so before you send your query, it is important to see if your idea will fit in any of the themes. Some magazines will invite queries that do not fit in any themes for possible future consideration. Writing for children is similar to writing for adults, and it should be taken just as seriously.

Angela: I bet your students love the query letter part of the class! And you seem to have had a lot of success with queries. You’ve had articles, short stories, poetry, activities, and recipes published in various children’s publications. Quite an impressive list, too, I might add! I’m sure writers who are interested in your class would love to break into these publications. But what if they don’t have any clips? Is it just as important to have clips in the children’s market as it is in the adult market?

Margo: Thanks, Ang. I thought the different types of manuscripts I’ve had published showed I was a bit scattered, but I appreciate the compliment. (laughs) Clips are not as important in children’s magazines. If you are writing strictly fiction or poetry (which I don’t recommend to ONLY write these), then you don’t need clips. Editors want to see the entire manuscript before they make a decision. As for fillers, you also need to send the entire manuscript unless the guidelines say otherwise. Every once and a while, a magazine editor will ask for a query for a quiz idea, instead of seeing the whole quiz first. For nonfiction articles, clips can help you get published; but in general, children’s magazine editors will accept a query idea on speculation. This means if you don’t have a lot of clips, you will write the article because they like your idea, but they may or may not purchase it until after they read the complete article.

Angela: That’s great to know! I’m sure some of us are breathing a sigh of relief on the clip thing. So what do you ultimately hope students will learn from taking your course?

Margo: Children’s writing for magazines and websites is just as tough (or maybe tougher because there are less markets) than writing for adults. It is so important to have markets in mind before you write a story, article, or poem if you want to publish your work. Creativity is important, but published writers must use their creativity to craft a publishable manuscript, or it is a waste of time. I will show my students how and where to search for markets, how to target markets, how to craft a short story and submit it, and how to write a great query for an article. I also want them to see how fillers can be quite lucrative and motivating! When I taught this class in the fall, one of my students got an acceptance for a filler from a website during the class and became an educational writer for BrightHub.com.

Angela: Thank you, Margo, for sharing some great tips with us today!

Readers, if you’re interested in breaking into children’s writing, remember, Margo’s class Writing for Children: Everything You Need to Know About Short Stories, Articles, and Fillers starts Wednesday, September 8, 2010. It runs for 7 weeks. Visit the classroom page to view what you’ll be learning week by week. Enroll today to reserve your spot. Happy writing!

Danica McKellar

My generation knows Danica McKellar best as Winnie from The Wonder Years, and West Wing fans know her as Elise Snuffin (8 episodes). But that’s not why I chose to write about her on my blog on a Monday–it’s because she’s helping girls around the world (especially in the United States and Canada) improve their math skills, treat themselves and others with respect, and strive for high self-esteem and self-confidence. I am a new fan of Danica McKellar and her math series for girls. Here are the three books:

I had seen these books at Borders and Barnes and Noble and thought they looked interesting. But I never really had a reason to pick one up. Then, through my job reviewing books for The News-Gazette, I was lucky enough to review a copy of Hot X: Algebra Exposed a couple weeks ago, and I fell in love with this book. That’s hard to say about a non-fiction book that helps girls do math, isn’t it? But it’s the truth.

What I love about these books is how easy they make math–I was even working algebra problems I hadn’t solved in 20 years. But the best part of Danica McKellar’s math series is the message she is sending to tween and teen girls: “It’s OKAY to be SMART! Being SMART is WONDERFUL! Math is nothing. You have the power over math.” Love it! Love it! Love it! We need a beautiful celebrity spouting out this message, and Danica McKellar is doing just that. Besides math explanations that your daughters and students will actually understand, Danica provides advice and tips for dating, dealing with friends and low self-esteem, and lots of other problems that girls endure. She offers tips from her own life as well as quotes from REAL girls. She even has QUIZZES!! You know teens love quizzes.

If you have a daughter or a female student (the book really is for girls) who is struggling, struggling, struggling with math, then recommend any one of these books.

On a side note, Arlene from Adventure Salon (a blog about your Bucket List!), recently gave me this award: