Lauri Meyers .

Ho, ho, ho! It's time for another fun year of Susanna Hill's Christmas Story Contest . She's come up with a doozy this year. The Contest :  Write a  children's story  (children here defined as approximately age 12 and under) in which  wild weather impacts the holidays!   Your story may be poetry or prose, silly or serious or sweet, religious or not, based on Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa or whatever you celebrate, but is  not to exceed 350 words. Stories must be posted by  Friday December 12 at 11:59 PM EST. Here is my entry in 348 words. The original idea was ReindeerNado...but then the toys got mixed in, and here's where we ended up.  (Note: This story is fictional and any resemblance to persons living or not is purely coincidental!)   :D Jimmy Cantore Steals Christmas By Lauri Meyers Jimmy Cantore tightened the last nut on the Weatherstation 2000 Wind Turbine. His plan was simple. The machine would create enough wind to sweep over the bloc

My 6yo and I GEEKED OUT last week.  Over 2 days, we leveled our personal library following the Fountas & Pinnell system her teacher uses. In her first grade classroom, books are in tubs with a letter on them. Kids know their letter levels, and they get to pick from the book boxes for independent reading.  The Fountas & Pinnell system creates a gradient of text levels, assigning a letter to the text difficulty from A to Z. The system uses word count, vocabulary, grammar, sentence structure, content, etc. to assess how accessible books are to young readers.   Image by Anissat via freeimages.com I started wanting to help my new reader. It turns out I learned quite a lot about picture books in the process. I also discovered my daughter (who can be a handful at homework time) loves doing analytical things as much as I do! When I was pooping out, she would bring down "just one more" stack of books. Now, most of our books have a lovely hot pink post it n

I'm finally ready with my last post on subversive books: Real Life Scary. The other topics I covered so far are: Part 1: While Your Parents Are Out Part 2: Nakeyness Part 3: The Dark Part 4: Scary Creatures Part 5: Mortal Danger I didn't plan to write about real life scariness. It took brainstorming what made books scary to identify this area. I've also been procrastinating this one, because perhaps it scares me the most. There's something refreshing about being able to close a book on gooey green monsters, which you know probably aren't real. And even though I'm scared of the dark, I know there's probably really not anything lurking in it. But real life. Now, that's scary. It's probably not fair to call these subversive, but here's a selection of books that make me pause before reading to my kids. And my breath hitches when I consider there are little children who are living in similar situations to these today.

My posts on scary books have covered my biggest fear: The Dark  and the Scary Creatures which lurk in it. But why do these scare me so? Danger. Maybe even Mortal Peril. Clearly, this is too scary for picture books, right? Wrong. Let's enter the world of extreme danger in picture books.  "I would not eat a rabbit." ( I Want My Hat Back , by Jon Klassen)   Do you ever wonder, "What would my critique group say if my picture book protagonist...um... murdered the antagonist in cold blood?" "Murder in picture books is off limits." "I think kids should learn to work it out." "Maybe they could just hug instead?" It didn't seem to concern Jon Klassen when he wrote his books This is Not My Hat and I Want My Hat Back. "Nobody will ever find me." ( This is Not My Hat , by Jon Klassen)   In both of these books we get a pretty good idea on Klassen's feelings on theft and the repercussions of o

Susanna Hill is hosting her annual Halloweensie Contest . The rules are to write a Halloween story in 100 words or less including the words pumpkin, creak, and broomstick. After having a good poem at 111 words, I cut it down to 109. Then I thesaurused (that's a word right?) a few more changes to get to 105. Then I stomped around and pulled my hair out and threw myself on the bed and cried, "Why? Why only 100 words?" I rubbed some fake spiderweb for inspiration and finally got to 100 exactly . Sulky Spider's Spooky Webs By Lauri Meyers Sulky Spider planned a scheme For making trick or treaters scream. Spider silk began to spin A Jack 'o Web with wicked grin. "Pretty pumpkin ," cowgirls said. "Pretty?" Sulky hung her head. "A webby ghost will do the trick!" She spun a spooky ghoul up quick. Pirates shouted, "Ghosts are neat!" She gobbled up her web. "Defeat."     Spinnerets be

The leaves are turning red, zombies are roaming my neighbor's yard, and I'm wearing my gray writing sweater every day, it must be... PiBoIdMo time! Logo by Vin Vogel This is my third Picture Book Idea Month, and I am primed and ready to fill another notebook with ideas inspired by fabulous daily guest posts. But I'm not sure my muse is ready. She's having a really hard time adjusting to back to school. Just because I have a tiny bit of free time, doesn't mean she's no longer needed. Tara Lazar (whose sixth picture book just sold, btw!) posed a question about how a writer can summon their muse. I always revert back to my corporate training in flowcharting when it comes to questions like this. Easy Peasy! Enjoy spending the month of November with your muse, and the fresh smell of unicorn rainbow gas.  UPDATE: I won a guest posting spot on PrePiBoIdMo from Tara. SQUEE! Read the final post here along with Summoning Your Muse with amazing illu

My last post on scary books covered my biggest fear:  The Dark . But the thing that makes the dark so scary is the fear of the Scary Creatures which lurk in it. With the exception of some overlap in the Halloween books, each of these books features a completely different chill making critter. I think I'll take this in order of scariest illustrations. "The roof space is creeping and crawling with things, things that have horns and raggedy wings." ( In the Haunted House , by Eve Bunting and illustrated by Susan Meddaugh) The first read of this is scary with two sets of feet walking through a house full of scary creatures. Knowing the twist at the end - a little girl drags daddy through this pretend Halloween house again - helps kids appreciate following reads.   ""Oh," said Dave. "Why is it...trying to eat my burger?"" (Are the Dinosaurs Dead, Dad? , by Julie Middleton and illustrated by Russell Ayto) These di

I told you a few posts ago about the subversive story I had been noodling, but I left out an important detail: I LOST THE MANUSCRIPT. For some unknown reason I hadn't typed it up yet. Still I carried its paper-clipped pages and post it notes in my purse. And hence, I lost it. "Argh!!! I can't eat this. This story isn't even finished." (Angry Bear by Malowanki via freeimages.com) I'm confident I'll find it though. Unless a bear took it. (which might have happened, because the last place I recall having it was at the campsite.) Most of it is more or less in my head anyway. It's just hanging out with random song lyrics from the 80s and nursery rhyme warnings of epidemics. It's in good hands. Sort of. And besides it adds a bit of intrigue that this manuscript is going to put up a fight! Unless of course it is so grim and disturbing it is just not meant to be found. Mwa-ha-ha! Do let this cautionary tale serve a

I started studying subversive books way back in September with the plan to cover lack of parental supervision , nudity , and scariness. I thought scary would be easy. But then over the course of the last few weeks, my living room turned into a Booknado! I considered Lion vs. Rabbit (Alex Latimer) because bullying is scary and Extra Yarn (Mac Barnett, Jon Klassen) because an archduke breaking into your house is scary. Vampire Baby (Kelly Bennett, Paul Meisel) seemed like a sure thing, but it's just too darn cute. I interviewed my 4yo over juice boxes. "Is Tiger in My Soup * scary?"  "I give it one dot of scary." Geesh. Even my kid has her own rating scale for scariness and tigers roaring apparently rate low. (*Kashmira Sheth, Jeffrey Ebbeler) I entered a state of I-don't-know-what's-scary paralysis!! So I decided to focus on what scares me the most: 1. The Dark 2. Scary Creatures 3. Mortal Danger 4. Real Life Ma

We are talking subversive books this month, and today I want to cover the oh-so-shameful topic of nudity in picture books . GASP!   Since nudity has caused books to be banned , it's appropriate to consider in a subversive light.  I'm going to start with the blatant books which use NAKED right in the title.     "They brought Wilbur to a giant portrait of Grand-pah, the oldest, greatest, and most naked naked mole rat ever." ( Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed , by Mo Willems) Please use your best movie commercial voice for the following: " In a world where everyone is naked, one naked mole rat dares to wear clothes."   Mo turns the tables on us. He makes us feel uncomfortable not by the nudity, but by the un-nudity. And in doing so he weaves a lovely tale of being yourself. "and ONE naked baby goes back in the bath!"  ( One Naked Baby , by Maggie Smith) This book has been a staple in our house for six years, because it made my

I have a picture book idea which is a tad subversive - y'know, a little cannibalism, inappropriate toad jokes, poop-eating, etc. I really want to write this book. I'm positive I can decapitate a cute bunny rabbit is a very classy way. (I'm sure I've made this sound worse than it is...or perhaps not wicked enough.) But... Approaching the critique group with such a wild beast of a manuscript is a challenge. I'm guilty of critiquing out others subversive attempts too. "Your protagonist cannot eat the antagonist in a picture book." (It's happened) "Why was this child alone?" (PBs do it all the time.) "The deep dark woods seem a little scary for the 4-6 crowd." (Well... that's where the wild things are.) So I'm becoming a student of the subversive. Today I want to look at the class of books where the parents are missing, but really aren't "missed." A great picture book rule is to get rid of