For Parents

HOW TO RAISE A RHINO–Interview with Deb Aronson

By K.D. Garcia on May 3, 2023 / Articles, For Kids, For Parents, For Teachers

I am over the moon excited to welcome Deb Aronson today. Deb’s new book, How to Raise a Rhino releases this month.

Anna Merz is My Kind of Hero

I have to tell you, how impressed I was to learn about Anna Merz. She is a strong, adventurous woman who fought to save a nearly extinct species, and you can learn all about her Deb Aronson’s new book, How to Raise a Rhino.

A Little About How to Raise a Rhino

How to Raise a Rhino is a nonfiction book that tells how Anna Merz retired to Kenya and found her true calling— Kifaru Mama (Rhino Mama).

After Anna witnessed the slaughter of black rhinos for their parts, she became determined to rescue the highly endangered black rhino. Black rhinos can be thought of as the dodo of the modern world — ungainly creatures destined for extinction. They may not have the beauty of a cheetah, the majesty of an elephant or the smarts of a dolphin, but they needed saving. Anna, small, older white woman stepped up.

She fostered (and fell in love with) an abandoned rhino, established a sanctuary for these wonderful creatures, and brought international attention to this species in peril!

Let’s Get to Know Deb

What take home message do you hope readers find in your book?

I hope young readers understand Anna’s story as a window into the vast range of options they have in their lives. When I was a tween, I had no idea what grown ups did. I write biographies like this to give tweens an idea of things they might do. I purposefully don’t write about famous people because, at least in my mind, there’s no way I could do something a famous person does or has done.

What is your favorite part of the book?

I love the parts where Anna slowly learns, mostly through her relationship with Samia, the rhino she raises, that rhinos are far more nuanced and intelligent than she was led to believe.

If you could save an endangered species which species would you chose?

I’d love to go back in time to save the dodo! But really, I think one message of Anna’s work is, if you work to save one species from extinction, you end up helping many others. At the sanctuary, Anna focused on black rhinos. The sanctuary also protected rare Grevy’s zebras, the endangered white rhino and several other threatened species.

What is the most exotic place you’ve travelled?

Well…I’m not sure the most exotic but in my younger days I was an archaeologist and for that work I traveled and worked in northern Syria with Kurdish workers. Our lingua franca was rudimentary Arabic – none of us spoke it well. I also traveled to Peru. My grandmother took me with her on a birding trip to Guatemala and Belize when I was in 7th grade. The average age of the group was 60!

Do you have another nonfiction project in the works?

I do! I’m working on a biography of Pauli Murray, whose work as a lawyer, civil rights activist, poet and early transgender activist resonates deeply with me. Like my own late mother (Margaret Aronson), Dr. Murray illustrates that, when you see something that is unjust, if you can do something to right that wrong, do it. Like Dr. Murray, my mother worked side by side with civil rights activist and fair housing champion, Morris Milgram, so that’s an interesting overlap!

Eager to Read More?

This whole conversation has me eager to learn more about endangered animals. After you’ve checked out How to Raise a Rhino, consider:

Will We Miss them?: Endangered Species (Nature’s Treasures) by Alexandra Wright and Marshall H. Peck. This is an introduction to the fascinating lives of endangered species.

Can You Save an Endangered Species? (You Choose Books) (You Choose: Eco Expeditions) by Eric Braun. With dozens of story outcomes, it’s up to the reader to save the animals from extinction—but they have to choose to help.

National Geographic The Photo Ark of Vanishing; The World’s Most Vulnerable Animals by Joel Sartore.

Still interested in more? Check out Stem Tuesday-Extinction-in the Classroom

Author Interview: Dianne Salerni and her latest release, The Carrefour Curse

By Mike Hays on March 15, 2023 / Author Interviews, books, For Kids, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, For Writers, New Releases

ABOUT THE BOOK

The Addams Family meets The Westing Game in this exhilarating mystery about a modern magical dynasty trapped in the ruins of their once-grand, now-crumbling ancestral home.

Twelve-year-old Garnet regrets that she doesn’t know her family. Her mother has done her best to keep it that way, living far from the rest of the magical Carrefour clan and their dark, dangerous mansion known as Crossroad House.

But when Garnet finally gets summoned to the estate, it isn’t quite what she hoped for. Her relatives are strange and quarrelsome, each room in Crossroad House is more dilapidated than the last, and she can’t keep straight which dusty hallways and cobwebbed corners are forbidden.

Then Garnet learns the family secret: their dying patriarch fights to retain his life by stealing power from others. Every accident that isn’t an accident, every unexpected illness and unexplained disappearance grants Jasper Carrefour a little more time. While the Carrefours squabbles over who will inherit his role when (if) he dies, Garnet encounters evidence of an even deeper curse. Was she brought to Crossroad House as part of the curse . . . or is she meant to break it?

Written with loads of creepy atmosphere and an edge-of-your-seat magical mystery, this thrilling story reads like The Haunting of Hill House for preteens. Perfect for late-night reading under the covers.

Introduction

Today, we have the pleasure of hosting a favorite author of mine, Dianne K. Salerni, to talk about her latest release from Holiday House Books called, The Carrefour Curse. Here’s her official introduction:

Dianne K. Salerni has written many books for children, including Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selections Eleanor, Alice, and the Roosevelt Ghosts and Jadie in Five Dimensions. After teaching elementary school for twenty-five years, Dianne now spends her time hanging around creepy cemeteries and climbing 2,000-year-old pyramids for book research. Visit her online at https://diannesalerni.com/

Dianne can also be found online at:

The Interview

MH: One of my favorite things as a reader and a creator is the author’s story of their story. The journey and brain science behind how a story grew from bits and pieces of an idea to a book on the shelf is fascinating to me. What is the origin story of your latest middle-grade release, The Carrefour Curse?

Dianne: There were two main inspirations for The Carrefour Curse: Dark Shadows, the supernatural soap opera, and The Spook House, a vignette written by Ambrose Bierce. My mother was a fan of Dark Shadows, and I used to watch the show as a young child even though I wasn’t allowed to. I hid behind the sofa and became a lifelong fan of all things gothic. As for the Bierce story, the image of a locked room filled with dead people haunted me for a long time, and I tried for years to build a plot around it. When I got the idea to combine Dark Shadows and The Spook House, the result was The Carrefour Curse.

I wrote the first draft in 2017, and when it was finished, I proclaimed it “a terrible mess,” closed the document, and forgot about it. Fast forward to early 2020, when I devoured the Netflix series, Locke & Key. I loved that show so much, I made a list of all the elements that called to me and thought, I’d like to write a story with these elements. Then I remembered I already had! For the first time in three years, I opened the document named Crossroad House, read it, and discovered that, although it was messy, it wasn’t terrible. Revising this manuscript soon became my pandemic project.

MH: I’ve always been drawn to your ability to create real and believable fictional worlds within a recognizable “normal” story world. From the magical extra day of The Eighth Day series to the extra dimension worlds of Jadie in Five Dimensions, you build logical worlds that allow the reader to seamlessly move in and out of. I realize my begging at your feet and screaming, “How do you do this?” is too broad and too unfair of a question to ask, but can you share a few steps of how you create such effective world shifts in your books?

Dianne: Well, it certainly doesn’t happen in the first draft, that’s for sure! The world-building usually starts with an idea. Like: There’s a secret day hidden between Wednesday and Thursday. Or: Our 3-dimensional universe exists inside a larger 4-dimensional universe. In my first draft, world-building is thin, disjointed, and often contradictory as I try to nail down the plot. After the story is complete, I work on a list of “rules” for my alternate world, with my priority being that the rules have to allow all my events to happen and still make sense. In successive drafts, I work on the inconsistencies and the logic and make sure that the world elements saturate the story, instead of feeling tacked on. In the final drafts, I make a list of the chapters and chart what elements appear in each one. Has it been several chapters since my main character felt like Crossroad House was watching her or influencing events? I’ll work a mention in.

MH: Can you describe your creative process of how an idea becomes a fully-formed story in your hands?

Dianne: Every book starts with a premise, like the secret day or the nesting universes, or an inspirational source, like Dark Shadows and The Spook House. Next, come the characters. Who are they and what happens to them? What is the main conflict? In rare cases, before I start writing, I’ll outline the entire story on Scrivener. I did that with Eleanor, Alice, & the Roosevelt Ghosts and also with the second and third books in the Eighth Day series. But most of the time, I outline the first third or half and then jump into writing because I don’t know how it all works out until it happens on the page. Sometimes there are surprises. In The Carrefour Curse, a rather important character invented herself in Chapter 23 and inserted herself into the climax, forcing me—in later drafts—to weave her very existence into the first half of the book. Sometimes, the surprise is that the book is a dud. There are many, many unfinished manuscripts on my computer.

MH: Are you a multiple-irons in-the-fire creator or a one-story-at-a-time creator?

Dianne: Usually, I’ll work on only one story at a time. If I’m struggling with it, I might put it aside to revise and polish an old manuscript. (The Carrefour Curse is not the only one of my books to come out of a resurrected manuscript.) Once in a while, publication deadlines require that I work on more than one thing at a time. While I was under contract for the Eighth Day series, I once found myself proofreading the galley of Book 1, making editorial revisions on Book 2, and drafting Book 3. I got so confused about what Jax knew and when he knew it that I had to rearrange my schedule to work on one at a time: first the proofreading, then the revisions, and finally back to drafting.

MH: Can you describe your experience with Holiday House in bringing The Carrefour Curse to its publication date?

Dianne: Holiday House has been wonderful to work with. My last three books have been published through Holiday House, and I think my editor, Sally Morgridge, is brilliant. I love the covers they’ve commissioned for all three books – they’re all very different but each one perfect in its own way. The publicity department is enthusiastic and very communicative. In the past, I have worked with bigger publishers where I never had any contact with my “official publicist,” so this is a refreshing change!

MH: What’s next?

Dianne: I have a book on submission. Because it’s not recommended that we talk about works on submission, I’ll say only that it’s a comedy-mystery and somewhat different from my other books. While I wait for word on that, I’m drafting a middle grade horror story. We’ll see how that goes because I’m approaching the end of the “index cards” on my Scrivener corkboard and wading into the un-outlined part of the story. For me, this is the scariest part of my horror story!

MH: What are some of your favorite activities, outside of the butt-in-chair life of an author, to recharge your creative battery?

Twice a week, I volunteer at our local animal shelter. I walk dogs and service the cat room – feeding and cleaning up after the cats and assorted critters. (Currently, we have more rabbits than cats in the so-called cat room.) I have three hydroponic gardens in my home. I typically grow lettuce, tomatoes, and baby bok choy, but I’ve also experimented with sweet peas (too much vine and not enough peas), dwarf eggplants (they do better outside), and Swiss chard (nobody at my house would eat it). I also enjoy skiing and scuba diving, and my husband and I LOVE to make homemade pasta.

Conclusion

Thank you, Dianne, for a fantastic insight into your writer’s life and The Carrefour Curse. How can one not want to read a book with a tagline like, The Addams Family meets The Westing Game? The entire MUF family wishes much success for the book and for you. Personally, I can’t wait to read the next one.

For more information on The Carrefour Curse and Holiday House Books, check out the following links.

The Carrefour Curse Book Page @ Holiday House Books

Holiday House Books Socials

YOUNG PEOPLE WORKING FOR CHANGE

By Sue Cowing on February 20, 2023 / Articles, Book Lists, For Kids, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, Nonfiction

Several new books have come out featuring young people working for change in their communities and the world. Child leaders have emerged in almost every activist movement today. Though too young to vote, they organize, draw public attention to issues, and often can get laws and policy changed. The causes they champion directly impact the quality of their future lives. These include water rights, human rights, and especially climate change.
Here are some of the books designed to inform and encourage young readers who want to make a difference. .
The Climate Book (2023) is by 19-year-old Greta Thunberg, an internationally known and respected leader in the movement to combat climate change. This has been her focus ever since she demonstrated outside the Swedish parliament with a hand-made sign at age 15. In this book, she outlines the urgent need for accurate information and effective , and she provides both. She calls on the wisdom and knowledge of hundreds of scientists, indigenous leaders, historians, engineers, and mathematicians. Her book includes graphs and illustrations, and suggests paths for real step-by-step change. Also see Greta’s Story: The Schoolgirl Who Went on Strike to Save the Planet by Valentina Camerini (2019)

We Have a Dream: Meet 30 Young Indigenous People and People of Color Protecting the Planet (2022) is by Mya-Rose Craig.” Mya-Rose, British Bangladeshi ornithologist who was awarded an honorary science degree from Bristol University at age 17. She has created “Black to Nature” camps to encourage indigenous people and people of color to fight for equal rights and environmental protection, since they are the most affected. This book profiles thirty young people around the world, including the US, who are already taking action.

Also see Young Native Activist: Growing Up in Native American Rights Movements by Aslan Tudo. Alsn is a 13 year old member of the Lipan Apache Tribe of Texas. When he was 8 and again at 11, Aslan went to South Dakota to join the protests of Lakota Sioux against construction of a oil pipeline at Standing Rock. In this book, he describes native American causes in which he continues to be active.

In Movement Makers: How Young Activists Upended the Politics of Climate change (2022), author Nicke Englefried interviews over 100 youth leaders. She tells the background story of how youth climate campaigns have drawn attention, changed the national discussion, and become a mass movement.

Saving Animals: A Future Activist’s Guide (2021), is by Catherine Kelaher, founder of New South Wales’ Hen Rescue. Her organization rehomes chickens and other animals from factory farms. This well-researched guide is full of ideas about how to protect and make the world a better place for pets, farm animals & wildlife . It includes stories of empathetic young people who are doing just that.

Glimmer of Hope: How Tragedy Sparked a Movement (2018), is by the founders of March For Our Lives. On Valentine’s Day in 2018, a mass-shooter killed 17 students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, Florida. Surviving students channeled their grief and anger into a youth movement to end gun violence. The students of the movement provide a blueprint, showing how they took action in rallies, on social media, in voter registration drives, and with a march on Washington.

Tomorrow Begins Now: Teen Heroes Who Faced Down Injustice (2022) is by Ava Lorelei Deakin. It features stories, ranging from the 1950s to today, of 11 teens fighting for their civil rights and liberties. Their issues include school segregation, sports equality, censorship, unjust deportation, and others.

Putting Peace First: 7 Commitments to Change the World (2018) is by Eric David Dawson, who at age 18 founded a non-profit called Peace First. Peace first is based on the idea that young people can change the world now. Putting Peace First is his handbook for would-be peacemakers, with step-by-step explanations of how peacemakers have achieved their goals