First lines from the 2014 Cybil Award Books

by Susan J Berger

I wanted to do a first line post. First, my gratitude to the internet which permits me to do the research and to Amazon's Look Inside feature which allows me to copy the first lines into my post without leaving home. The title links are to Amazon so that you, too, may read further and decide if you want to buy or borrow the book from the library.

Next my gratitude to The Los Angeles Public Library whose on-line service enables me to place holds on books I want and/or order books electronically.

These first lines are from The 2014 Cybil winners.

Picture Books

Mr. Tiger Goes Wild written and illustrated by Peter Brown

Everyone was perfectly fine with the way things were. Everyone but Mr. Tiger.

I love this.

Easy Reader

Urgency Emergency! Big Bad Wolf by Dosh Archer  

It was a busy day at City Hospital. Doctor Glenda was writing something important on the wall chart. Nurse Percy was helping someone in a red coat who was crying because she couldn’t find her grandma.

Not so much.  Three. Count them. Three was ­__ing in the first paragraph? Not a great example for an easy reader.

Easy Chapter Books

Horror (scary tales) by James Preller

“Wake up, Liam. We’re here,” Mr. Finn whispered from the driver’s seat. “Our new home.”

            The eight year old boy rubbed his eyes, groggy from the long drive. He looked out the car window, blinking into the dark. “What time is it?”

            Around midnight,” his father said. “you three have been crashed out for hours. Home Sweet

Since this is admittedly a horror story, I would read on to find the horror

Speculative Fiction

Lockwood & Co. The Screaming Staircase by Jonathan Stroud

Of the first few hauntings I investigated with Lockwood & Co. I intend to say little, in part to protect the identity of the victim, in part because of the gruesome nature of the incidents, but mainly because, in a variety of ingenious ways, we succeeded in messing them all up.

Wow. Try saying that all in one breath. I believe the author thought the editor was sure to read the first sentence and wanted to make it count.

Middle Grade Fiction

Ultra by David Carroll

THE STARTING LINE

Mile O

QUINN: I still don’t get why it was such a big deal. All the kids like to run. Go to any schoolyard. You’ll see kids playing tag, soccer, capture-the-flag . . .All those games involve running.

SYDNEY WATSON WALTERS: The difference is, most kids run for 10 or 15 minutes. Not for 24 hours straight like you.  

This turns out to be a kind of preface. I read on to find out why someone would run for 24 hours. Sounds like a book I might like.

Young Adult Speculative Fiction

The SummerPrince by Alaya Dawn Johnson

 When I was eight, my papai took me to the park to watch a king die.

I love this opening. What a great first sentence. Naturally I read on to find out what happened. If you like the sentence, click the link and read on yourself.

YA Fiction

Yaqui DelgadoWants to Kick Your Ass by Meg Medina  

“Yaqui Delgado wants to kick your ass.”

            A kid named Vanessa tells me this in the morning before school. She springs out with no warning and blocks my way, her textbook held at her chest like a shield. She’s tall like me and caramel. I’ve seen her in the lunchroom, I think. Or maybe in the halls. It’s hard to remember.

I have to read this one. She had me at the name.

This is a bit short so I’ll add three from NY Times Best Seller List from the week of March 25th

 The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate

Hello

I am Ivan. I am a gorilla.

It’s not as easy as it looks.


I've been told by several friends this is a wonderful book. It's definitely one I want to read.

A Long Walk toWater by Linda Sue Park

Southern Sudan 2008

Going was easy.

            Going, the big Plastic Container held only air. Tall for her eleven years, Nya could switch the handle form on hand to the other, swing the container by her side, or cradle it in both arms. She could even drag it behind her, bumping it against the ground and raising a tiny cloud of dust with each step.

I've met Linda Sue Park at the SCBWI Summer conference. I am so delighted to see her on the best seller list.

One last Book.

Journey by Aaron Becker

This book had no words It’s a story in pictures. It’s 4 on the picture book Best Seller List and a 2014 Caldecott Honor book. I love picture books with no words. So I wanted to call it to your attention.

Happy reading and writing.

Women's History Month via Supercuts

By Hilde Garcia

A chair. I sit. After a multitude of minutes that have turned into years due to the breakneck pace my life has been since my wonderful twins were born, I sit. At Super Cuts. Because my regular stylist is sick with the flu, but I need my hair done and I need it done now.

I’ve been trying to be the most amazing mom, wife, teacher, aunt, person, so I do for everyone, everyone except me. I’ve buried parts of me that so deep that my kids have no idea who I was before they arrived. I used to act. I use to produce. I still write. But lately, my writing's been buried in a deluge of baseball games, cheer practices and girl scout events.  Smothered by a heavy dose of lesson plans, grading papers, homework and the endless pile of laundry. It’s a miracle that I pee on a daily basis. 

My writing partner, Sue, say she’s in awe of me. I’m not sure why. I don’t write often. Lately, it seems like never. I post when prompted by my group and mostly at gunpoint. In fact, why should I post? I’m no one famous- just a pre-published lady with a story to tell. Who will want to read anything I write?

AND there is always something in my way. I am not sure why I am destined for this. I have learned the word no, but it’s like Murphy knows I want to write, so he throws stuff to cause my pencil to break.

This week’s obstacle of choice? Planning a party for my niece, 3 vet visits and a dying hamster that I couldn’t save. And that was all by Wednesday night.

Who knows? Maybe I’m my own biggest obstacle. I promised this post by Tuesday to make up for missing my deadline last week and here it is, Friday night, and I am banging it out at Super Cuts. The lady doing my hair is talking to me, but I seem able to write in one language and talk to her in another. Who knew?

(And by the way, my hair is looking great, because taking passport photos in the morning with bad hair, isn’t going to work. I’m going to have to look at that photo for ten years. I am going to ensure I look like someone who is NOT frazzled.)

Sigh…. Does it ever end? 

But in honor of Women’s History Month this March, I’d like to highlight some amazing children’s novels that I love for two reasons. One, these fictional young heroines shape their worlds with their courage and love. I’d like to think they are representative of so many other amazing women who have done the same in the real world. And two, I have met most of them or heard them speak and they are as amazing as their heroines. They are diverse and smart and courageous and give me strength to keep making strides.

So I believe these characters exist in us and their choices/our choices can change the world. Each of these heroines comes from a different walk of life and time period, just like the authors who crafted them, and yet they all face their troubles and obstacles with grace and courage. So I’ll keep making my own strides, to face my obstacles in the same fashion, even it if is at gunpoint, and when I am published, I can join the ranks of these one-of-a-kind women.

If you haven’t read some of their outstanding novels, do so. You won’t be disappointed.

Esperanza Rising by Pam Muñoz Ryan

Esperanza thought she'd always live with her family on their ranch in Mexico but a sudden tragedy forces Esperanza and Mama to flee to California during the Great Depression, and to settle in a camp for Mexican farm workers. Esperanza isn't ready for the hard labor, financial struggles, or lack of acceptance she now faces. When their new life is threatened, Esperanza must find a way to rise above her difficult circumstances.

Moon Over Manifest by ClaireVanderpool

The movement of the train rocked me like a lullaby. I closed my eyes to the dusty countryside and imagined the sign I’d seen only in Gideon’s stories: Manifest—A Town with a rich past and a bright future.

A powerful story of loss and redemption.

Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Larson

Alone in the world, teen-aged Hattie is driven to prove up on her uncle's homesteading claim.
She courageously leaves Iowa to prove up on her late uncle's homestead claim near Vida, Montana.  With a stubborn stick-to-itiveness, Hattie faces frost, drought and blizzards. Despite many hardships, Hattie forges ahead, sharing her adventures with her friends.

Her backbreaking quest for a home is lightened by her neighbors, the Muellers.  But she feels threatened by pressure to be a "Loyal" American, forbidding friendships with folks of German descent.  Despite everything, Hattie's determined to stay until a tragedy causes her to discover the true meaning of home.

Gentle’s Holler by Kerry Madden

The sixties may have come to other parts of North Carolina, but with Mama pregnant again, Daddy struggling to find work, and nine siblings underfoot, nobody in the holler has much time for modern-day notions. Especially not twelve-year-old Livy Two, aspiring songwriter and self-appointed guardian of little sister Gentle, whose eyes “don’t work so good yet.” Even after a doctor confirms her fears, Livy Two is determined to make the best of Gentle’s situation and sets out to transform the family’s scrappy dachshund into a genuine Seeing Eye dog. But when tragedy strikes, can Livy Two continue to be strong?

Fly Girl by Sherri L. Smith

Ida Mae Jones dreams of flight. Her daddy was a pilot and being black didn’t stop him from fulfilling his dreams. But her daddy’s gone now, and being a woman, and being black, are two strikes against her. When America enters the war with Germany and Japan, the Army creates the WASP, the Women Airforce Service Pilots—and Ida suddenly sees a way to fly. But WASP won’t accept her as a black woman, forcing Ida Mae to make a difficult choice of “passing,” of pretending to be white to be accepted into the program. Hiding one’s racial heritage, denying one’s family, denying one’s self is a heavy burden. And while Ida Mae chases her dream, she must also decide who it is she really wants to be. 

Sold by Patricia McCormick

A current account of sexual slavery in Nepal. Written in spare and evocative vignettes, this powerful novel renders a world that is as unimaginable as it is real, and a girl who not only survives but triumphs.

Dispatch #19: I Saw It on Amaryllis Street

by Lupe Fernandez

Another in the a series of "Where Do Ideas Come From?"

On a cold, crisp Wednesday morning, I step out to the curb and watch a waste management truck pick up a green plastic bin of residential garbage. All along the street, the green and black bins - black for recycling - wait to be emptied. The waste truck uses an mechanical prong to pick up the bin and dump its contents into the hulking truck. There's a loud grinding sound of gears and hydraulics at work.

I'm fascinated and my mind starts to wonder and I imagine this scene...

I step up to the curb. The clouds clear and the sunset is a beautiful orange fire.

This girl in a grimy green tunic shivers next to me. "I like when it rains," she says, rubbing an gray lesion on her cheek.

"Yeah?" I say, watching the vapor pour from my mouth. She's standing too close to me. I hope she doesn't notice I smell like rotten fruit. "Everything's all wet." I tug the sleeves of my black tunic over my scabby hands.

"It makes everything clean." She hops in place; her left leg is shorter than her right. "The air smells new. I don't know. Makes me hopeful. Know what I mean?"

"I never noticed," I say. I look down the street. "They always come around now."

The girl pulls up her tunic pant leg to keep it from staining. She stumbles and grabs my shoulder to keep from falling. A warmth floods from her hand into my arm and spreads across my chest. I take a deep breath and suddenly feel hopeful. Her teeth chattered.

"They should come in the afternoon when it's warmer," I say, "I mean who decided this. This is so stupid. They should like built a shelter or a have heaters or something." There's a blanket in the shed. I turn to walk off the curb and back onto the sidewalk, when my body goes rigid. A gurgling hiss comes out of my mouth. I leap back to the curb.

"You shouldn't do that," she says.

"I'm okay," I say. The signal shock makes the stabbing chest pain come back. I don't scream this time. I'm good at hiding  defects. "Did they put you out last night.

"Can you believe that?" She laughs. "Last night. They couldn't do it this morning. I mean why green? I don't look good in green."

Geese honk and fly by overhead in a V formation.

"Lazy parents," I say. I'm burning inside.

The girl points to another set of pick-ups across the street to distract. "Look, it's 2216 and 2218." She laughs again. How can she laugh about this stuff? "They've been out there for a week and no pick-up."
"A bunch of losers," I say.

Others line up on the curb and mumble; their breaths puff vapor with every quick exhale. 2216 in the black tunic coughs and then everyone starts coughing all along the street. Fat grey clouds return and smother the sun. The sky spits rain.

There's complaining from both sides of the street.

"Yay!" the girl tilts her head up and smiles. Fat drops plink on her face.

Then we all hear the beeping of the truck. Everybody shuts up. "I wonder which one it is?" I don't look.

"It's always the green one," she says. Her nose and cheeks flush red.

"You should tell them to put you out in the morning."

"They don't listen to me." She rubs her red filmy eye.

The green squat truck grumbles around the corner; the carrier pod spouts vapor from its exhaust. It stops by 2211. From the side of the pod, a yellow prong folds and slips under 2211 shoulders and flings her into open carrier hatch. The prong folds back into the pod and the truck moves to the next pick up, and so on down the street.

"They're stupid," I say.

The girl looks at my black tunic. "Black looks good on you." She traces the white symbol on the chest of my tunic. I hold her trembling hand. "I've never talked to a Return before. What's it like?"

The beeping truck pulls in front of us.

"It's a mistake!" I yell at the truck. "She should be in black." The cab has no windows, so nobody's listening.

"It was nice talking to you."  Her hands slips away from mine.

The truck prongs spring out, catch her under the shoulders and she's gone.

My fingers dig into my palms. When the black truck comes and takes me to the station, I'm not coming back. I'm not come back until I find her.

...and scene. The next time your stand on the curb and hear a garbage truck coming down your street, you should...well, I'd be careful.

Grambo: From Idea to Printed page

Beth Navarro

by Beth Navarro

The Management is privileged to participate in Beth Navarro's blog tour for new her picture book, Grambo.

My education in children’s books (besides my ancient memories of Corduroy and The Rainbow Goblins) began at Vroman’s Bookstore in Pasadena, California. I worked in the kid’s section where I read my weight in books daily. I fell in love with picture books. Hard. And young adult books and middle grade books and… well you get the idea. At that time money was a bit tight and for Christmas I decided instead of traditional gifts to write my family members children’s stories instead. Some were odd. My parent’s story transformed them into windows each longing for each other’s life, one on top of the Sears Tower and one in a country barn. Grambo I wrote for Grandma Jean. Grambo was her nickname for reasons I didn’t really know (Maybe she really was a secret agent???). Her story came very easily. Instantly I pictured granny kicking bootie in combat boots. Grandma as a spy. What could be cooler then that? The stories were a hit. Christmas was over and I left the stories in a random writing file on my computer. I didn’t think too much more about them.

But I couldn’t get that image of Granny the Crime Stopper and her grandson, who discovers her secret, out of my mind.

Eventually, I dusted Grambo off and did some rewriting and more rewriting.

As I fine tuned Grambo, a friend of mine introduced to the wonderful creator and publishers at Be There Bedtime Stories and encouraged me to show them Grambo. They loved Grambo as much as I did. It felt like kismet. Away we go!

Working with Be There Bedtime Stories has been amazing. I love how they believe in connecting people through storytelling. All of their books are online in format. Grambo is their first printed book. I am beyond honored. The fact that I can get the message of Grambo out to kids makes me so happy. The relationship between grandchild and grandmother is a special one and it should be celebrated.

Betsy Hamilton, the illustrator, couldn’t have been more perfectly chosen. Betsy’s style fit Grambo’s adventures like Grambo’s night vision goggles fit in her giant handbag. I had a bit of a unique experience. From what I know if you work with a large publisher, an author really has nothing to do with the illustrating part of it. I feel lucky to have been included and asked suggestions. I saw the drawings along the way. It was absolutely amazing to see what had only existed in my head appear in my email inbox. One thing I do get a lot from people who have seen the book and who knew Grandma Jean: “Did you show your illustrator pictures of Jean? It looks just like her!” I didn’t. Must be fate.

Holding Grambo, the picture book I wrote, in my hands has been a dream come true. I hope for this for any writer or illustrator. The feeling is incomparable.

I dedicated the book to Grandma Jean and my Grandma Nette because they both embody the Grambo spirit to me. Amazing, loving and capable of anything. I do wish Grandma Jean was here to see Grambo in print. I think she’d be proud.

 

Grambo will be available on Amazon starting March 26th. Help get Grambo on the Amazon bestseller list on launch day!

Here are prizes when you buy on launch day March 26:

Buy 4 or more books: You get one more book free! Plus the prizes below.

Buy three books: You get an 8X10 Grambo illustration print autographed by the illustrator plus the prizes below.

Buy two books: You get a gift certificate for one Be There Bedtime Stories online book plus the prize below.

Buy one book: You get a discount! (It will already be shown on the amazon link.)

To receive your prize email your amazon receipt to grambobook@gmail.com by April 15th with the address where you’d like your prize. You will receive it by June 1st 2014.

Beth Navarro lives and writes in Sierra Madre, California. She is proud to be a member of SCBWI and is the co-editor for the Southern California tri-region newsletter, Kite Tales.  http://www.bethnavarro.chttp://www.bethnavarro.com/

To get all the up to date information about Grambo: https://www.facebook.com/Grambobethnavarro

Researching the Past

by Susan J Berger

I found a 1939 nickel when I was cleaning change out of my purse. Once I stopped wondering what it was worth in today’s market. (Somewhere between fifty cents and five dollars, according to Cointrackers)

I started wondering what it would buy in 1939. I love research. I may want to set a story in 1939. Or it may inform my writing in other ways, i.e., a grandmother’s remembrance. I plunged joyfully into Google. The results were not quite what I expected.

The cost of living website says

The average house cost $6,980
Equivalent today: $109953

The average car cost $700
Equivalent today: $11,027

The average wage was $1,253

Equivalent today: $19,738

That’s roughly 24.00 a week On other websites I saw average wage of $1,850 – roughly 35.00 a week. I suspect the truth was somewhere in between these figures.

In 1939 you could buy a Hershey bar for a nickel, Or a cup of coffee. Or a loaf of bread. You could cook off with a Popsicle.

Children learned to read with the Dick and Jane Books, first published in 1931

Ludwig Bemelman’s Madeline was published in 1939 as were the 16th Nancy Drew Book. The Clue of the Tapping Heels and The Hardy Boys number 18, The Twisted Claw.. The fourth Little House Book, By the Shores of Silver Lake made it’s appearance.

The17th Newbery award went to Thimble Summer by Elizabeth Enright.

The second Caldecott went in 1939: Mei Li by Thomas Handforth (Doubleday)

The average hardbound book cost 2.75

On June 19^th, 1939 Robert De Graff introduced Pocket Books to the American public, changing the face of reading. The first paperback books were 25 cents a copy. (That link will take you to an interesting article,.)

Magazines cost ten cents.

 So did Comic Books

 

The First Superman comic came out in 1939

In 2010 a rare copy of Detective Comics No. 27 from 1939 went for $1,075,500  Don't you wish your grandparents had saved them?

 You could go to the movies for 23 cents

 Popular movies from 1939 included

• Gone with the Wind
• The Wizard of Oz
• Stagecoach
• Of Mice and Men
• Wuthering Heights
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame

The 12th Annual Oscars read like a who's who in film history.

The rest of the world was at was, but in America we were still on the sidelines.

The1939 Worlds Fair in New York in introduced the first televisions and the. NBC/RCA 1st public TV demo with FDR at opening of NYWorld's Fair

England already had TV but broadcasting closed in 1939 because of the war. TV broadcasting didn’t resume until 1946

I would have like to have see Elektro, the robot who could smoke a cigarette and say the Lords Prayer in 300 languages.

The most popular attraction was The World of Tomorrow  and The Futurama exhibit designed by Norman Bel Geddes showing what the world would look like in the far off 1960's.

I found a food price advert:

You could buy a Phonograph for twenty five dollars. But I couldn't find the price of a record. I found that Frank Sinatra quit his twenty five dollar and hour job and moved on to sing with Harry James band for the princely sum of seventy five dollars a week.  But I couldn't find out how much a record cost. If any of you know, please tell me.

Research on the internet is fun and can be a greater time sink than Facebook. I am so glad there are still libraries. I think I included links to the information in this post. Some are video links. Who knows? You might want to write a book set in that period.

Side note: I finished this post last Thursday and asked Lupe to check and schedule it. When I went in at 11:30PM Sunday night to check labels, The entire content of the post was gone. I preview it a few times to check spacing on Thursday so I know I'd saved it. I finished rewriting the post early Monday morning. Just another exciting blogger mystery. Write on!