Garden cooking

As of this minute all of the pictures for Stella's board book have been uploaded and I have all but the final page written, they just need to be typed in.  So her birthday has come and gone and my new goal is to have the book done before school starts again.  Of course both girls did get books for their birthdays.  We gave Stella a book called When Stella was very, very Small

We gave Maria a book called Mud Pies and Other Recipes.  

Some of the recipes are Mud Puddle Soup, Pencil Sharpener Pudding, Sawdust Cakes and Silky Spaghetti.  One of the ones we made was Leaves en Brochette-  "using a pencil for a skewer, spear as many leaves as you can find.  Alternate the kinds and, if possible, the colors.  In a sunny place, rest the skewer on two two forked sticks so that it can be turned occasionally in the sun."  Lately, this is how we've been using our imagination!

Board books

For Stella's first birthday Maria and I are creating an ABC board book for her.  Just this last weekend we began to make a dent in taking a picture for each letter of the alphabet.  Each letter is made out of something that represents the letter, "A" is made out of apples and "B" is made out of books, etc.  We're trying to photograph in different locations to make it interesting.  Right now we have dozens of eggs and I'm wondering where we can recruit some chickens to be in the photo.  For "A" we rearranged the apple display at Hannaford-and then put it back.
I think I'm going to work on it through a website called My Custom Story because Tikatok doesn't offer board books and we want Stella to be able to use it right away.  I haven't begun putting much of the book together yet but here are some of our pictures.  The plan is to have Maria come up with a sentence for each picture or page too.

Ecology

Seventh grade science is in the midst of the last unit of the school year-Ecosystems.  This is a great unit to wrap up life science because many concepts we've talked about all year can fit in some part of the ecosystem.  The kingdoms of life compete for resources in different habitats, carbon and oxygen cycle as animals respire and plants photosynthesize, water passes not only through the environment but through the living organisms as well.  Genetics and natural selection even come back as we talk about the importance of biodiversity.  Today we were talking about the energy in a food web, where it comes from and where it goes next.  I read to the students a book called This is the Sea that Feeds Us by Robert Baldwin and as they listened they wrote down the path of energy through the food chain.  This book is full of great science, great verse and great illustrations which engage my three-year-old daughter and my twelve-year-old students and I look forward to reading it every year.
Getting a sense of publishers and the type of material they print is an important step in knowing where to submit material and also what topics are viable for a book.  Since I love this book so much I checked out Dawn Publications website today.  I'm excited about this publisher for three main reasons. 1) Dawn Publications focuses on books that tie into current science standards so educators can use them in the classroom, perfect for a science teacher 2)  They publish many first time authors 3) Their mission statement: "Dawn Publications is dedicated to inspiring in children a deeper understanding and appreciation for all life on Earth. We aim to help parents and teachers encourage children to bond with the Earth in a relationship of love, respect, and intelligent cooperation, through the books we publish and the educational materials we offer online."
Check out their alphabetical listing to find This is the Sea that Feeds Us as well as Over in the Ocean another of our favorites.  I've ordered a few more books for market research which will do double duty as birthday presents including Amy's Light.
After looking at all the books from Dawn Publications and reading submission information on their website I started scribbling down potential topics on an old envelope that I then shoved in my pocket.  I'm going to brainstorm for awhile and also take a look at science standards for elementary grades for different states and see how they match up/overlap to decide what topic might appeal to a wide range of science teachers.  Then I'm going to see if Dawn has any books published on these topics already and if not consider that as a place to start!

When do you buy a book?

The social studies classes at school have just finished an economics unit.  Students had to research and create a product they thought would appeal to other seventh graders and it made me think about a book needing to be not only appealing for a child to read but also in the right place and time for parents to buy it.  When am I most inclined to purchase a new book for Maria or Estella?  Around a holiday- for a Christmas stocking, an Easter basket, a birthday present, as a gift for another child-again birthday but perhaps also christening.  Another time we often purchase books is when we're on vacation as souvenirs of our trip.  Any time we go to Spain we stock up on books of all kinds.  Some of our favorites are Luna and Cocodrilo by Antonio Rubio and Oscar Villan.  Years ago when we went to Rocky Mountain National Park on vacation I bought Antelope, Bison, Cougar: A National Park Wildlife Alphabet Book and in the gift store they stamped it with an official passport stamp of the national park.  A few years ago while spending a weekend on Monhegan Island with my family I bought The Country of Pointed Firs by Sarah Orne Jewett because it was about coastal Maine, my exact location at the time.  Anyone going to Maine with a middle schooler?  Think about buying them Touch Blue by Cynthia Lord, a great book about a small Maine island with a unique idea for keeping its one room school house open.  Where and when do you buy books?  What are some great purchases you've made when on vacation?  What makes a book as irresistible to you as a pink, animal print bracelet made out of duck tape is to a seventh grader?

A glimmer of spring

I pull the push pin out of the cork, flip the page up to reveal a new picture, a new orientation of numbers, contemplate the pay periods of a new month and experience a moment of deja vu.  The turning of a calendar page and how it sometimes can prod ones mind and spirit into action.  Certain months instigate more of a call to action than others.  August for example says- "Have you had enough fun this summer because I'm going to fly by!".  December says- "How much Christmas shopping have you actually accomplished.  March says- "Hey, you've been stumbling through the darkness of winter for two months.  Take the snowman decorations off the car window and cross your fingers that "Jingle Bells" as a bed time song will stop before St. Patrick's Day".  And the first 50 degree day of the new year, combined with a cup of tea and a fortuitous car ride, sparks my mind to life again.
The book went over well at Christmas.  Everyone thought it was a great idea and Maria found the rabbit in her bag and I found no typos, a complete package.  And then the buzz of the holidays is over, work starts in earnest and all thought of writing is buried under the day to day sludge much like the yard under three feet of snow.  The last couple of Saturdays I've found myself in the car during the 4:00 pm hour driving for the sake of a late afternoon nap and as my car is always tuned to NHPR I was introduced to The Moth Radio Hour.  The Moth is a theatre somewhere in New York and I know very little about it.  It's a stage for story telling and I believe the story tellers range from well known to unknown.  The stories I have heard had me stifling laughter at risk of waking up the nappers in the backseat although reading the website they describe the storytelling as "humorous and heartbreaking tales told with honesty, bravery and wit."  If you're not familiar with The Moth visit The Moth, they have a lot of free downloads and podcasts.   It's not radio for your kids ears unless those ears are asleep in the back seat.
It has renewed my interest in wanting to be a storyteller.  If you want to publish a story where do you start?  I have no idea but my new commitment to myself is to answer that question.  It could be a journey that takes decades but it has to start sometime and sometime might as well be now.

 

To print!

All week I've been editing the book.  You would think forming the story would be the toughest part when really it's getting the words to appear on the page the right way.  Every time I read through the PDF preview I found something else that was wrong and had to go back to the editor to fix it.  What appeared in the editing window was not matching up with the final PDF and I finally had to delete the whole text box and retype it.  Anyway, I just clicked the button to buy the book so it should be here in 7-10 business days and God help me if there are any typos because who knows how often I'll have to read it.  Here's a link to the book!  Seriously, don't tell me if you find mistakes.
Rowena Rabbit

Today is the day

A week from today I am back at work full time and so this week it's time to buckle down, narrow the lists and accomplish whichever projects are the most important to me.  Yesterday, for example, I took the girls' photograph for the Christmas cards.  Tomorrow I hope to finish off the first of Maria's pink, knit, cabled leg warmers.  Today was the day for the book, the only day.  If it's a present for Maria I can't work on it when she's around on Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  Wednesday I will be running around to appointments and that leaves Thursday which I'm holding in reserve for trouble shooting.  I woke up this morning knowing what I wanted all the shots to look like so creative process did not get in the way.  However it's cloudy today and without the sun shining in the windows I would need to use a flash on all of the pictures.  I hate the look of flash photography so I moved all the pictures outside.  I hauled out the contents of Maria's closet, art supplies, stacks of books, stuffed animals, blankets and the fitted sheet from our bed which did a nice job doubling as the wall color of Maria's bedroom.  The sun did peek out around noon time long enough for me to get a couple of indoor shots that I needed since the cat, the living room chair and Estella's bed are not going outdoors.

As I started to upload the pictures onto the website I ran into one more snafu, the pictures are importing in the wrong direction, they need to be turned 90 degrees to the right no matter the original orientation of the picture.  I queried their customer service and hopefully they get back to me soon because time is running out to assure holiday delivery.