A letter from Lynelle Woolley, the creator of Flower Girl World

The season for weddings is not far off, and for many girls the next few months will be spent being fitted for dresses and helping brides to get ready for the big day. Being a flower girl is such a special experience that Lynelle Woolley decided to create a series that would allow all girls to take part in a wedding. Here is a letter from Lynelle. 

Hello Marya and Friends,

Welcome to my world – Flower Girl World! I have to say that it’s such a happy place to be.

Like many mothers who are writers, my inspiration for the Flower Girl World book series was my daughter. During her pre-school years, she was asked to be in three different weddings. By the third marriage, we both were pros! Each experience was so different (beach wedding in Hawaii, garden wedding in Napa Valley, non-denominational church wedding in Salt Lake City), yet one thing remained constant: the exuberance and pride my daughter felt before, during, and after the events.

So that got this flower girl mom thinking…wouldn’t it be great to spread that joy to all girls in the flower girl age range, whether they are in a wedding or not?

I started by telling my daughter some flower girl stories set at different types of weddings… and now it’s grown into a picture book, chapter book and plans for more! For me, it was important that the stories feature positive themes like acceptance and friendship, and characters of diverse backgrounds and talents.

Let me introduce you to my flower girl friends:

 

Willow – the fashion model flower girl from New York, NY

Poppy – the cowgirl flower girl from Big Sky, MT

Camellia – the ballerina flower girl from Chicago, IL

Rosie – the detective flower girl from Washington D.C.

Iris – the arts and crafts flower girl from Philadelphia, PA

Starr – the performer flower girl from San Antonio, TX

All the girls make an appearance in the first two books.  

In the picture book, Camellia the Fabulous Flower Girl, Cami believes she’s an expert flower girl. But when she meets fellow attendants Willow and Poppy (who have cool moves of their own), Cami discovers how much fun sharing the aisle – and the spotlight – can be.

In the chapter book, Rosie and the Wedding Day Rescue, Rosie, Iris, and Starr must use their special talents to save a wedding from total disaster!

Presently, I am working on the next two books in the chapter series, Iris and the Aloha Adventure and Starr and the High Seas Wedding Drama and have 16 more stories on the way (a few more characters too)! Beyond the books, our website, www.FlowerGirlWorld.com, is the destination for everything flower girl, including fun activities for girls.

Writing about flower girls is such a joyous way to spend my day. Thank you for letting me share my experience with you.

Lynelle Woolley

A letter from Tracy Barrett, author of Dark of the Moon

When I was a teen, I went to the island of Crete on a school trip. Not surprisingly, I went to visit Knossos, the palace built for ancient Cretan royalty. It is also the place that is said to house the labyrinth where the Minotaur lived. During my visit, I saw and heard references to the labyrinth and the Minotaur many times, and I must confess that I felt sorry for the monster, who was condemned to a miserable life because his mother angered Zeus.

Tracy Barrett has written a book about the myth of the Minotaur, giving her rendering of the tale a distinct flavor that is all her own. She has kindly agreed to tell us about her book in a letter.

Dear TTLG:

Some people have called Dark of the Moon a feminist retelling of the myth of the Minotaur. It didn’t start out that way. Like all of my books, Dark of the Moon started out with a question—in this case, a lot of questions!

            I love Greek mythology, but the myth of the Minotaur has always bothered me. If you need a refresher, the story goes like this: King Minos of Crete neglected to sacrifice a bull to Zeus, and as punishment, Zeus caused Minos’s wife, Pasiphaë, to conceive a passion for the bull. She also conceived a bull-headed son, the Minotaur. This monster was confined in a maze where he ate children, until the Athenian Prince Theseus arrived. The Minotaur’s human sister, Ariadne, gave Theseus a sword and a ball of yarn so that the prince could kill her brother and use the yarn to find his way out. Then Theseus and Ariadne sailed away. Theseus abandoned Ariadne on the island of Naxos, and then forgot to take down the black sail that would signal to his father that he had died on Crete. His father jumped off a cliff when he saw it.

            Wait a second—Theseus forgot that he was flying a black sail? How could you not notice that, especially since you knew it would tell your father you were dead?

            And that Minotaur—all the other half-human critters in Greek mythology are human down to the waist, and then turn animal. Except for this one. Why?

            The Minotaur might not be too bright, but couldn’t he accidentally stumble out of the labyrinth? Wouldn’t you want something a bit more secure than a maze to hold a man-eating monster?

            Why did Theseus dump Ariadne on Naxos? If he didn’t want to take her home with him, why not just leave her on Crete?

            It occurred to me that maybe the Greeks had gotten something wrong when they re-told this Cretan myth. Maybe a lot of things. After all, the Cretan culture was very foreign to the Greeks, and religious customs of other cultures are often hard to understand.

            So I dug around and found some interesting facts.

·        Pasiphaë means “she shines for all” and Ariadne means “most pure.” Moon goddess and priestess?

·        The Cretans worshipped the sun in the form of a bull.

·        The island of Naxos is the site of an ancient center of moon-goddess worship.

·        It’s possible that the Cretans practiced human sacrifice.

·        Some ancient cultures, especially in the Mediterranean, practiced a fertility ceremony that hints that once they had performed a ritual sacrifice of a king or priest.

Is it possible that Athenian travelers saw a religious ceremony where the priestess of the moon was united in ritual marriage with a priest wearing a bull’s-head mask—perhaps with a human sacrifice, perhaps with a ritual that recalled that sacrifice—and either misinterpreted what was going on, or willfully changed it to make their Cretan rivals look like savages, or garbled the telling in such a way that the myth of the Minotaur that we know was created?

            We’ll never know. But these questions inspired my re-telling of the Minotaur myth in Dark of the Moon as a speculation about what might possibly have been a set of beliefs that was so strange to outsiders that in order to make sense of it, the Greeks came up with the story of the Minotaur. I’m not claiming historical accuracy, just speculating on what might have been while—I hope—spinning a good yarn. The fact that Ariadne, my main character, comes across as a strong female protagonist, is very gratifying. Much as I love ancient Greek culture, there’s no question that few women were held in high esteem in that society. Maybe—just maybe—that wasn’t true in Crete.

Thank you so much for this letter Tracy. You can find out more about Tracy and her books on her website.

A letter from Amy Nathan author of Round and Round Together.

Today is Martin Luther King Jr. Day, and in honor of that great man, I have asked Amy Nathan, the author of Round and Round Together to tell me about her book and how it came to be written.

First here is a brief description of the book and its author:

On August 28, 1963—the day of Martin Luther King Jr.'s famous "I Have a Dream" speech—segregation ended at Gwynn Oak amusement park in Maryland when eleven-month old Sharon Langley, her dad beside her, became the first black child to ride the park's famous merry-go-round. As Amy Nathan tells the story of how individuals in Baltimore integrated one amusement park in their town, she also gives an overview of the history of segregation and the civil rights movement. Round and Round Together creates a new civil rights symbol—the Gwynn Oak carousel is now the Smithsonian Carousel which thousands of kids enjoy each year.

Round and Round Together is illustrated with archival photos from newspapers and other sources, as well as personal photos from family albums of individuals interviewed for the book and a timeline of major civil rights events.

Amy Nathan is an award-winning author of several books for young people including The Young Musician's Survival Guide, Count on Us: American Women in the Military, Yankee Doodle Gals: Women Pilots of World War II, Meet the Musicians, and Surviving Homework.

Now, I will share Amy's letter with you. 

Dear TTLG:

I grew up in Baltimore, not far from the amusement park in Round and Round Together.
I never knew of its link to the 1963 March on Washington until four years ago when
my brother recommended Here Lies Jim Crow, C. Fraser Smith’s book on Maryland Civil
Rights. It mentions briefly that segregation ended  at that amusement park on
August 28, 1963, the day of the March on Washington. The first African American
child to go on a ride there that day, eleven-month-old Sharon Langley, rode the
merry-go-round,sitting between two white youngsters. What a great story for kids,
I thought: black and white kids circling round and round having fun together at
a formerly segregated park on the same day that Martin Luther King, Jr., was
speaking of his dream that one day black and white kids would treat each other
as brothers and sisters.
I started researching and discovered something the Smith book hadn’t mentioned.
That merry-go-round was now on the National Mall in Washington, D.C, sitting
in front of the Smithsonian, not far from where Dr. King delivered his famous
speech. I contacted the Smithsonian press office. They knew their carousel had
been at that Baltimore park but didn’t know of its connection to Civil Rights and
August 28, 1963.
   I had stumbled on a new symbol of the Civil Rights movement, one most people
didn’t seem to know about, one that kids could relate to—and have fun on. It’s
a symbol that can give a feel for what the Jim Crow era was like, the pervasive
unfairness of a system that even kept little kids from riding a merry-go-round
just because of the color of their skin. Climbing onboard for a ride today
offers a “you are there," letting riders imagine what it was like for Sharon
Langley’s family on August 28, 1963, visiting a previously whites-only
amusement park, not really knowing what kind of reception they would receive.
   Originally I planned to write a short picture book but soon realized this story
offered a way to give an overview of the Civil Rights movement as a whole. The
Baltimoreans who kept trying different tactics over the years in order to find
a nonviolent way to end Jim Crow at that park were typical of Civil Rights
volunteers in other cities, all learning along the way how to organize effective
protests. So I geared the book toward an older YA audience, putting off writing
that picture book until later (one is in the works now). My goal was to write a
YA book that would help readers understand the Civil Rights movement better.
Little did I realize it could also give insight into current events. As I was
finishing the book,nonviolent protests were making headlines once again with
the Arab Spring and the Occupy movement.I hope Round and Round Together’s story
of the evolving nature of 1950’s and 60s demonstrations can offer some perspective
into the varied and often changing strategies being tried out by today’s
protestors.

                                     Thanks for your interest in how this book came to be!

                                    Amy Nathan

                                    www.AmyNathanBooks.com

A letter from Monica Kulling about her book Merci Mr. Dash

A few weeks ago I reviewed a book called Merci Mr. Dash which was written by Monica Kulling. I was curious to find out how Monica got the idea for the book, so I asked her to write to us to describe how the book came to be. Here is her letter.

Dear TTLG readers:

Where did I meet Mister Dash, and how did he find his way onto the printed page, dressed to impress and ready for his adventures with the French lady he lives with, Madame Croissant, and Daphne, her granddaughter whom he tolerates?

I was walking our two big dogs in High Park, a gem of green space in the heart of downtown Toronto where our dogs — Charly, a Golden Retriever, and Roxy, a Black Lab/Shepherd mix — love running wild and free on its leash-free portions. Suddenly, on the trail ahead of me a woman called her dog, “Da-ash! Mister Da-ash!” What kind of dog will answer to that fun name, I thought? And then he materialized, jaunty and bouncing, like an actor making his appearance on stage. Mister Dash seemed so proud to be a black Standard poodle. The rest of my walk was spent conjuring up a picture-book story for this, to my mind, wonderful character that had landed in my lap.

By the time I got home, I had the bare bones of a simple story. Mister Dash, well mannered and cultured (aren’t all poodles well-mannered and cultured?), has an extensive wardrobe and can read the newspaper, but doesn’t speak because he isn’t a cartoon character. Madame Croissant is also well-mannered and cultured. She comes from Paris and owns and operates a gift store specializing in items from France. Their well-ordered life is “turned into a whirlwind” every weekend when Madame Croissant’s granddaughter comes to visit. The clash of the two temperamentally disparate characters, Mister Dash and Daphne, is the heart of the story.

I wrote the first draft quickly and easily; after my two trusted first readers (Nancy and Susan) provided me with their always reasonable, useful comments, I revised the story and sent it off to its first publisher where it was met with an odd reception. The editor turned it down flat with the comment: “I don’t like stories with poodles in them.” Huh? Okay. In response, I decided to flip the character on its head and turn Mister Dash into a mixed breed dog. Suddenly the character opened up to other possibilities. Mister Dash could now rely on five different breeds in his makeup to help save the day.

And just how would Mister Dash save the day? I drew on my life’s experience for the “disaster” Daphne winds up in and from which Mister Dash must rescue her. When I was six, my sister five, and my brother three, we were playing outdoors. (In those days kids were allowed a longer leash.) I was pedalling a fire truck with my brother sitting behind me, and my sister was pedalling her tricycle. We started down a steep hill at the end of our block. I managed to keep the fire truck on track. But a tricycle wasn’t so easy for a five-year-old to manage on a hill. My sister quickly lost control of her pedals and went careening down the hill, to be rescued by my father.

And what about Daphne? Where did I find that character? That was the easiest bit. Daphne, c’est moi!


Thank you so much for writing to us Monica. You can read my review of Merci, Mr. Dash here.

A letter from Susan Stockdale about her book Bring on the birds

Not long ago a wonderful book arrived in mail called Bring on the Birds by Susan Stockdale.I was so delighted with the book that I wrote to the author/illustrator and I asked her to tell us a little about how the book came into being. This is what Susan told me about her writing process.

Dear TTLG:
My fascination with birds began with childhood visits to the Parrot Jungle in Miami, Florida, where I grew up. I was enchanted by the birds’ brilliant, bold colors and their elegant patterns. They seemed so exotic to me.

A rough sketch of blue-footed boobies

Recently, an American Robin built a nest on the ledge above my front door. Because there is a glass pane above the ledge, I was able to stand on a ladder and peer into the nest every day. My whole family got involved! It was exciting to see the turquoise eggs appear, one by one. We marveled at the patience of the mother Robin as she sat on them day after day. Then the nestlings hatched, grew by leaps and bounds every day, and finally flew from the nest. This beautiful spectacle was the inspiration behind Bring On the Birds. I also liked the idea of creating a book about birds because they are so accessible. You just look up in the sky, and there they are – no admission fee required.

As with all my books, my first step was to write the words. I was concerned about how they sounded; I actually said them out loud as I wrote them. I thought about their alliteration and rhythm. For Bring On the Birds, I began by writing the rhyme scheme:

Stage two for the boobies

“Swooping birds, whooping birds, birds with puffy chests.

Dancing birds, diving birds, birds with fluffy crests.”

 

Then I headed to the library to determine: Which birds swoop? Whoop? Have puffy chests? I selected birds that had the most visual appeal to me as an illustrator. And, because I celebrate biodiversity among animals in all my books, I was looking for birds from disparate geographic areas. For example, for “Swooping birds,” I came up with a list of 10 birds of prey. From this list, I chose the Great Horned Owl because I was drawn to the beautiful patterns on its face and wings. I knew they’d be wonderful to paint.

The background is added

My research is extensive. First, I consult books and magazines at the library, as well as online resources. After writing my manuscript and creating a dummy with the illustration sketches, I find experts to review both This is easy to achieve in the Washington, DC area where I live, with its abundance of museums and

experts in every possible field. 

I always have three scientists vet my work. For Bring On the Birds, I worked with ornithologists Dr. Carla Dove of the National Museum of Natural History and Dr.John Rappole of the National Zoo. I also consulted with Anne Hobbs, a Public Information Officer at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. These experts advised me

about the best way to present the birds realistically in my text and illustrations. Clearly, every piece of information that I convey to my young readers has to be 100% accurate. So far, none of my books have contained incorrect information!

More background and detail is added

I tried to see as many of the birds in my book as possible. I visited zoos and I examined bird specimens at the National Museum of Natural History. Certainly, my most exotic trip was to the Galapagos Islands, where I saw the Blue-footed Boobies and the Great Frigatebird. It was thrilling to watch the Boobies perform their comical mating dance, and the Great Frigatebird puff out its startling crimson chest.

After I finalized my manuscript, I selected photographs of the 21 birds I intended to paint. My reference photographs helped me determine which characteristics I wanted to dramatize in each bird, like the multi-colored beak of the Atlantic Puffin.

The illustration is complete

Next, I created sketches – sometimes as many as 20 - before arriving at the image I wanted to illustrate for each bird. Once I selected a final image, I consulted again with experts to ensure that it was visually accurate. Then I revised the sketch into a detailed drawing and traced it onto heavy paper. Then I began painting. For each color, I applied three or more layers of acrylic paint, giving the images a flat, almost silkscreen-like appearance. To produce such fine detail in my work I used small brushes. I am lucky to have a very steady hand. I loved the challenge of interpreting the unique quality of each bird in my own style while staying true to its anatomy --an approach I consider stylized realism. I played visually with every color, shape and pattern until my eye was satisfied. Having worked as a textile designer for the clothing industry, it has become instinctive for me to find patterns in everything I paint. I worked as a visual choreographer, choosing carefully where to place even a hair-thin bird feather. People often ask me, why do I create books about animals? To me, they are the most beautiful, elegant and outrageous of subjects, and I love to paint them. Their quirky individuality provides me with the perfect opportunity to express my passion for color, pattern, and design.