Mourning the Middle Grade Years by Donna Galanti

Just recently, it struck me that I couldn’t remember the last time I read a goodnight book to my 13-year-old son. I asked him if he knew. He couldn’t remember either.

“There was probably a night where you couldn’t read to me, Mom, because you were busy. And then the next night we forgot about it. And the next.”

“So it just faded away?”

“Yup.”

*Mom choke-up*

Since then I’ve been bothered by the fact that:
1. I desperately want to remember when and what that last goodnight book was.
2. If I’d known it was the last time, I would have cherished it.
3. Bedtime reading to my son is forever gone – and why am I just realizing the significance of this now?

I mourn something long disappeared that I had not known was even gone.

Along with the bedtime reading, has gone the picture books and middle grade books. Some I received as a little girl 40+ years ago. My mother lovingly wrote my name in mine, the year I received it, and who gave me the book. The Tooth Fairy brought me books from the entire Beatrix Potter series to all of Roald Dahl’s books.

The picture books have since been packed away in my office and the middle grade books collect dust on my son’s shelves.

“Mom, can we pack these books up now too?”

“Never!” I protest and gently dust them off and take them to my room where middle grade will never die. 

Books like Wonder, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Big Nate, Warriors, Flat Stanley, Goosebumps, Genius Files, Joshua Dread, Captain Underpants (the lunch signs are the BEST!), Charlie Bone (Mom, this is THE best series EVER! You have to read it). Oh, and how amazingly cool for my son that the Charlie Bone series author, Jenny Nimmo, blurbed my first middle grade book.

My son, pushing 14, has now moved on to sucking up darker novels like Marie Lu’s YA fantasy series Legend, Prodigy, and Champion.

And I realized, sadly, he’s also moved on from all of our middle grade shows: iCarly, Good Luck Charlie, Pair of Kings, Drake and Josh, Sponge Bob Square Pants. My middle grade shows growing up included Little House on the Prairie, The Love Boat, Magnum P.I., Benson, Greatest American Hero, and re-runs of The Carol Burnett Show and Leave it to Beaver.

At nearly-14, my son's tv shows now consist of Arrow, About a Boy, Limitless, Dr. Who (okay that’s forever cool), and How I Met Your Mother (soooo not middle grade!). 

I nostalgically bring up our shared favorite episodes to him of middle grade shows buried in tv-land dust.

“Can’t we just watch a Sponge Bob episode tonight? How about the "Frankendoodle" one or "Pizza Delivery" or "Best Day Ever"?” I ask.

“No, Mom. That’s kid stuff.” *Josh sigh*

“What about iCarly where Spencer pranks everyone and does the prank song?” I start bopping around.

“No, Mom.” *eye roll*

“Okay.” *Mom sigh*

I’ve grown with my son as he’s grown, true, but in doing so I’ve also relived many of my own childhood paths – and I don’t want them to end. I’ve returned home to a place where I will always be young, laughing myself silly, whizzing through an adventure, and experiencing so many wondrous ‘firsts’.

As a kid growing up in the 1970s and 1980s there weren’t books categorized “middle grade” and so I downed Sidney Sheldon, Stephen King, Jack London, Paul Zindel, and V.C. Andrews (all soooo not middle grade). I still re-read many today. They were my middle grade. Now I have my son’s too. And someday I hope he’ll come back around to them, like I did. Maybe with his own child. He doesn’t need to relive his childhood now. He’s living it.

He also doesn’t need me to be home anymore after school. He has a job folding pizza boxes and can ride his bike to a friend’s house. He doesn’t need me to read him bedtime stories or cut up his meat. He doesn’t need me to do his laundry. He can do that just fine (good!).

Don’t misunderstand me; I am enjoying the new phase of things. Watching him work, open a bank account, clean his room because he wants to (faint!), be reasonable when things don’t go his way, and calm his frazzled mom down when deadlines loom. “It’ll be okay Mom. You’ll get it done. You always do.” *Josh hug*

He helped me years ago in writing my first middle grade book when I got stuck on plot and character. And soon, I’ll give him to read the YA fantasy I’m writing before I share it with my agent. Although, I still get thrills when he tells his friends that his mom’s new (middle grade) book out is the best book ever. *mom beam*

He may have said goodbye to middle grade for now, but I do love sharing in the new wonders with him. I just won’t ever stop loving middle grade, not since I fell in love with it through my son. I’ll wait for the day he comes back to it. *fingers crossed*

There is one thing that still remains: Mad Libs. Where middle grade toilet humor abounds because exploding butt nuggets, scrubby cow plops, booger blub, and crusty toe nail clippings make everything funny. Thank goodness for that!

Have you ever mourned moving on from a phase in your child's middle grade life? 

Book Review: THE GIRL IN THE TORCH, by: Robert Sharenow

Image credit: HarperCollins website

Hi Mayhemers! Marissa Burt here. Today, I'm delighted to introduce you to Robert Sharenow's wonderful new MG historical THE GIRL IN THE TORCH. I received a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. First, a bit about the novel from the promotional materials:

"THE GIRL IN THE TORCH tells the story of Sarah, a 12 year-old immigrant girl who is orphaned when her mother dies upon their arrival in America, escaping the pogroms of Czarist Russia. Everyone in their village dreamed of America after a tantalizing postcard of the Statue of Liberty featuring Emma Lazarus' poem circulated among them. But when no American relatives can be located to sponsor Sarah after her mother's death, her hopes are crushed as she is placed on a ship for deportation back to Russia.

In desperation, she makes a daring leap into New York Harbor and swims to the nearest land mass, Liberty Island, where she takes refuge inside the Stature of Liberty, the torch becoming her own private bedroom. To survive, she scavenges for food among the tourists during the day, evading capture by hiding amid the trees and retreating to Lady Liberty upon nightfall.

Eventually, she is discovered by a troubled night watchman named Maryk who takes her under his wing and brings her to his boardinghouse in Chinatown. There, Sarah is integrated into a very diverse and eccentric group of outsiders who become like family to her. As she struggles with her new life and identity, crackdowns on illegal immigrants sweep Chinatown, putting Sarah and her housemates at risk. Will she escape their wrath or be sent back to Russia to face what promises to be a tortured life?"

I was delighted to discover that THE GIRL IN THE TORCH is as rich with historical details and

Image credit: Wikimedia, public domain

well-fleshed out characters as the promotional materials promise. The obviously well-researched historical background created a vibrant setting that was full of life.

And Sarah! What a main character! It takes skill to create empathetic characters facing difficult situations with pluck and still keep them realistic. I liked Sarah's strength despite the direness of her circumstances and how she discovers a kind community in the midst of her own loneliness and loss.

I found the narrative to be a winsome blend of gratitude, optimism, and realism that seems relevant today. I left the story with a rekindled interest in the stories of past immigrants and, though not directly addressed in the book, with questions about how we deal with immigration today.

All that to say, I highly recommend that you add THE GIRL IN THE TORCH to your summer reading list! It is available in bookstores and libraries now. Happy reading, Mayhemers. :)

The Opening Hook by Jim Hill

I’m teaching a picture book writing class at the Cotuit Center for the Arts, and it’s been fascinating exploring the connections between middle grade novels and picture books. How do you compare a five-hundred-word story to a thirty-thousand-word-plus novel? One way is to look at the opening.

Among the many books I’m drawing from for lessons is Ann Whitford Paul’s Writing Picture Books. She talks about the “story question” of a book, an idea I think of as the character’s need and theme bundled up together. Getting the reader involved with the character’s need is imperative from the get go, otherwise why will she turn the page? So, how do you do that? What’s the hook?

At the 2014 NESCBWI conference, Jo Knowles presented a fantastic workshop on baiting the hook, “Let’s Go On a Journey.” She proposed a series of questions that every book opening should answer:

• Who is the main character?
• What do you know about him/her? How?
• What is happening?
• Is there a conflict? What is it?
• What is the overall emotion conveyed?
• Would you keep reading? Why/why not?

With these questions in mind, I’ve been looking at my work-in-progress and published books to see how well Jo’s questions are addressed. The opening of Up & Down (Philomel, 2010) by Oliver Jeffers makes for an excellent example.

Up & Down features two characters (the Boy and the Penguin) established in Lost & Found (Philomel, 2005). Lost & Found can be described as “a wonderful story about the meaning of loneliness and the importance of friendship.” Up & Down continues that theme by looking at the importance of individual growth within a relationship.

It opens with a spread that establishes the relationship between the Boy and the Penguin with the text:
“Once there were two friends…”

The second spread continues:
“who always did everything together. Until the day the penguin decided there was something important he wanted to do by himself…”

The third spread takes the reader inside the head of the Penguin so that she can see his dream:
“…fly!”

Run that opening through the magic of Jo’s Questions and you’ll see they’re all answered. And unless you’re the Grinch, pre heart-expansion, you want to read on. Now, in a middle-grade novel you’re more likely to hit these points within the first two pages. The brevity of text and the interplay with the pictures allows Jeffers to breathe space into the opening. And yet, there’s a ton of story in there that reveals the tone, the protagonist, the need, and addresses Anne Whitford Paul’s “story question.”

Now it’s your turn. Pull a book off the shelf, and give it a close read. How does it compare? Make notes. Next, take a look at your draft and do the same. You might find the opening needs a little revision love–I know mine did.

Compelling Middle-grade Boy Readers to Turn the Page (Post by Joe McGee)

This past weekend I had my three young boys over to stay with me – ages 13, 11, and 7. And while they’re active and get outside to play, they are, like the majority of today’s children, addicted to technology. If it were up to them, they’d stay on the couch, eyes glued to a screen (iPod, iPhone, Xbox, etc). But they read, they most definitely read  (their dad’s a writer, they’d better read), and when they come over they know they’re not watching television. I don’t even own a television, but I do own books…shelves upon shelves upon shelves of books. But watching them on the couch, all pushing buttons and wrapped up in their game thing-a-ma-jigs, I got to wondering, how do we inspire this same hunger for reading? How to we get middle-grade boys eager to turn the page? How do we get boys reading as voraciously as they are when playing video games?

Peter Langella, in his 2013 Vermont College of Fine Arts graduate lecture “Boys and Literacy:

Reverse-Engineering the Writing Process,” offered a startling statistic: that only 1/3 of 13-year-old boys read and that 30 percent of potential middle-grade readers are plugged in for three or more hours.

As writers of middle-grade fiction, how can we meet the needs, and challenge the cognitive and critical development, of the present day middle-grade boy reader?

Through progressive revelation, shorter chapter construction, and powerful, chapter-ending beats, middle-grade fiction can compel boy readers to keep turning pages, despite the lure of the multitude of electronic sirens.

On the “Guys Read” website, a web-based literacy program founded by the award-winning children’s writer and first National Ambassador of Young People’s literature, Jon Scieszka, several reasons are offered as to why boys may not read as much as their female counterparts. One such reason is their “action-oriented, competitive learning style.”

In the same sense that video games provide “achievement” awards for completing segments of a scene, accomplishing a task, or acquiring necessary information, books can award their readers with satisfying information or pivotal answers to clues.

In The Art of War for Writers, James Scott Bell states, “progressive revelation keeps readers turning pages.” Bell instructs the writer to drop clues like bread crumbs, drawing the reader forward with “unanswered questions.”  Bell further explains that mystery and hints, introduced in stages, makes the reader wonder what is happening and, ultimately, discovering the plot in controlled, incremental doses.

This method of pulling the reader forward through the desire to see questions answered and secrets revealed acts in a similar manner to video game rewards for in-story accomplishments. In short, satisfying curiosity and providing a path towards logical storyline completion is the achievement children are used to getting.

Charles Gilman does a wonderful job of progressive revelation in his “Tales From Lovecraft Middle School” series. As each book in the series is conceptually designed as a self-contained mystery, with links to an overall arc built on intrigue and suspense, the reader is fed a steady diet of clues, questions, and answers; just enough to sate their appetite and evoke deeper interest.

Another method to get boys turning pages and eager to read more than they currently do, is in the design and construction of the story itself. Shorter chapter lengths provide a different sense of accomplishment than the aforementioned concept.

Shorter chapters serve to compel increased page turns for two reasons. On a deeper level, containing a scene in a smaller vessel (i.e. a shorter chapter) allows the generally distracted reader to more easily grasp the story they are offered. Parceling plot in smaller chunks allows the reader to digest it quicker, easier and more satisfyingly.

Secondly, there is an inherent feeling of satisfaction in finishing a chapter. I believe that this holds true for both children and adults. Humans like completing things. If a young reader is able to read a chapter rather quickly, they may feel as if they have accomplished something. If the story has captured their interest and if the questions demand answers, they are more likely to turn that page and dive into the next chapter (especially if they expect that next chapter to be manageable).

Another element for compelling middle-grade boy readers is using chapter ending beats.

Robert McKee, in his book, Story, defines beat as “an exchange of behavior in action/reaction” that “shape[s] the turning of a scene.” That last beat, he explains, is the “Turning Point.”

While McKee intends his use of turning point in the traditional sense of story structure, I refer to it in the literal sense of a page turning point. Referring to the “Guys Read” contention that boys are more inclined towards “action-oriented” and “competitive learning” styles, the idea of fashioning powerful, cliffhanger endings is certainly a good way to get them turning pages.

Leaving a reader in the midst of action, or introducing a potential obstacle or challenge, may be enough to trigger the arguably innate desire for young male readers to turn that page.

While these are in no way intended to be gimmicks or ploys to trick an audience, they are concepts intended to meet the current mindset of a majority middle-grade boy readers.

The numbers of male readers within the middle-grade and young adult genre are depressingly low. Through understanding, accepting, and challenging the cognitive and critical thinking skills of middle-grade readers, as well as recognizing the needs existing in their own learning and reading processes, we may be best able to keep them turning pages and picking up more books.

To quote Jon Scieszka’s online literacy program: “Guys Read.”

Now, let’s get them reading more.

Which Project Mayhem Book Are You?, by: Marissa Burt

To kick off your holiday weekend, I've got a little quiz for you. Come on, we all take them. You know the quizzes I'm talking about. The ones you censor from your facebook feed, because you feel a little bit sheepish broadcasting the fact that you wanted to find out the color of your soul or what flavor of ice cream you are or whatever. Well this is one quiz you can publish without a disclaimer, because these books are all amazing!

Not only was it great fun to try and think of Lego characters and foods that match up with the fabulous Team Mayhem books, but it reminded me what a talented bunch we have with us here at Project Mayhem.

So which book are you? Take the quiz and find out. Or take it a couple of times, because there are thirteen possible results. And don't forget to share yours with us in the comments!

Which Project Mayhem Book Are You?

Musing on the Magic of Middle-Graders

Having three young boys, I am often reminded of the magic that exists at that age; how their minds process the world. It is a unique blend of awe and curiosity, coupled with slow-drying beliefs based on experience and exposure (like a blob of Elmer's glue drying on the page, it can still be smeared if pressed upon before drying). It is an age where innocence balances on the border of maturity and imagination still has a healthy part in looking at the world and then looking beyond it, to places that exist in story or dreams; to see things busy adults, or practical minds are either incapable of seeing or simply dismiss. Middle-grade is that wonderful age where children begin to develop independence, while craving adventure; they don't need the constant security and protection that a younger child requires, and they have not fallen into that hormonal whirlwind of adolescence.

If this age were an era, it might be termed the Age of Discovery.  

Summer is almost upon us and middle-graders far and wide will be home, removed from the classroom and homework, lessons and teachers. There will be baseball games, and fireflies, trees to climb, dares, and tag, and hide and go seek, and forts, and bicycles, skateboards, ramps, and races. There might be clubs, and codes, and rock collections. 

As I write this, there is a fort in my living room, made out of blankets and dining room chairs. There is a jar of tadpoles that the boys came home with yesterday. They (the boys, not the tadpoles) have magic wands they carved themselves out of sticks they found in the woods. They've turned the old swing set into a fort and perch in it, hatching plans, while our one-eyed puppy sits up there with them, watching for eavesdroppers. The other night we toasted marshmallows and made S'mores and as the night crept in, the boys danced around in the dark, finding wood for the fire and challenging each other as to who could make the "perfect" S'more. And in the dark, there might be monsters, or fairies and the flames might belch forth jets of dragonfire. 

As a father, I encourage these moments of inventiveness and exploration. As an adult, I secretly revel in them, drinking them in like an elixir of youthfulness. As a children's writer, I record them, adding to the vault of story material and middle-aged relevance. 

So take this as a reminder, whether you have children of your own or not, to be mindful of the magic that middle-graders will create, experience, discover, and revel in. Be mindful of it. Let it fuel your inner child. Let it fuel your stories. 

And maybe...maybe build a fort of your own. Really, who says that we have to grow up?

'Tis the Season...to Give Them Monsters!

‘Tis the holiday season, and with that in mind, I’ll refrain from seizing upon this opportunity (it’s Friday the 13^th! ) to share quirky, bizarre stuff and an otherwise creepy, twisted, middle-grade related, spooky post….

Ok, no I won’t. Sorry, I tried.

What I will give you is permission to put darkness in your middle-grade fiction. Give ‘em monsters, and lots of ‘em. It’s the gift that keeps on giving…because while your young readers may insist on sleeping with a Nerf katana, or ask you to sweep the bedroom perimeter one more time, they are (in general) utterly fascinated with the creepy crawly, shadow slinking, mystery of the monster. They might not admit that they’re scared (they're too old for that, maybe), and they may not even understand that they enjoy that fear. That it’s exciting and necessary.

Necessary? Yep.

The monster represents everything they don’t understand. Everything they fear and worry about. Christopher Vogler, a veteran Hollywood story consultant and writing teacher, calls these monsters, this darkness, the Shadow. In his book, The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers, Vogler says that the Shadow “represents the energy of the dark side, the unexpressed, unrealized, or rejected aspects of something.” Middle-grade readers struggle with A LOT. Depending on the scale of the middle-grade spectrum, we could be dealing with puberty, adolescence, moving, divorce, abuse, relationships, emotions, identity, friendship, and the list goes on and on.

Stories need conflict and often that conflict comes in the form of the monster. Monsters offer wonderful personifications of the Shadow. The Shadow, as a monster, allows the writer to create a story in which he or she addresses those relative conflicts in the confines of the narrative. The monster allows for more traditional storytelling, offering an obvious vehicle for conflict, while providing an entertaining book. Percy Jackson is not battling kittens! He is fighting Medusa and Harpies and all sorts of monstrous creatures.

Middle-grade readers want to be entertained. They want a story they can relate to and enjoy and that offers excitement. What’s more exciting than a good monster to battle? Roald Dahl gave us The Witches, not The Unicorns. In his book, BFG, Dahl gives us flesh-eating giants. Flesh. Human flesh. The giants eat people. They crunch on people’s bones. Dahl certainly didn’t flinch at putting these horrors in the hands of definitely middle-grade readers, and I think these giants personify every seemingly impossible obstacle middle-grade readers face and the gatekeepers they fear stand before them. R.L. Stine didn’t build a reading empire on the back of his Feather Tickle series. No! Goosebumps. And it’s a slight understatement to say they did rather well.

But, to be fair, not every monster has to be big, or scary, or ugly, or have fangs and tentacles. Look at our own beloved Charlottes’s Web. You don’t think that when Charlotte says “Where’s Papa going with that ax?” she sees her father as a monster, at least in that scene? And what does she do? She runs out there to confront him. To face the monster. To do battle. And she wins. She saves Wilbur’s life. She beats the monster.

So, whether you have thought about it or not, whether you realize it or not, monsters, the Shadow, are an integral part of our middle-grade fiction. They give our readers a symbolic representation of their own fear and uncertainty in an exciting and entertaining medium: The Monster.

If you still doubt that there is any room to discuss monsters and holidays, consider The Nightmare Before Christmas in which monsters meet Santa….and kidnap him. Or look to the Germanic lore of the Krampus. American kids get coal if they’re bad. Germanic children get stuffed in a sack and get taken back to the Krampus’ lair to be eaten. I’ll take the coal.

Why am I telling you all of this? Because I want you to give the gift of darkness to your readers. Give them the Shadow. And I want to give you, as writers, permission to box up your unicorns and rainbows, pack away your puppies, and shush the critics who say “today’s fiction is too dark,” and let the mayhem loose.

Give them monsters this year. 

Critical success vs. reader success: the correlation, by Yahong Chi

Take any random middle-grade bookworm out there. How much would you be willing to bet that they pay any attention to or place any value in the blurbs—brief lines of praise from big-name authors or review companies—on the cover of their current favourite novel?

If you said zero, high-five. Me too.

The reason for this varies, but I’ve found that it mostly comes down to the fact that readers like to find out what they like for themselves. If they’re not paying much attention to the book industry (and I’m operating under the assumption that most middle-graders don’t), then the praise of a sterile name like “Kirkus Reviews” or “Horn Book” doesn’t mean much to them.

Author blurbs are a little different, as readers do collect and remember past favourite authors. So if your middle-grader is a big fan of James Dashner, for example, they might be inclined to give some of the (many) books he’s blurbed a try. But in general, from my personal observations, our target audience—kids—does not place anywhere near as much importance on blurbs as we in the industry do.

So do those blurbs mean anything? Is there a correlation between a book’s critical success and its sales numbers (i.e. its reader success)?

Common sense says “yes”. If critics love a book, then surely all the aspects which were loved by reviewers will translate into readers’ reading experience, even if they’re not actively looking out for it, right? But there’s a marked difference here: while reviewers tend to know precisely what they’re looking for (and what is missing), such as a lack of character growth, immersive worldbuilding, or quicker pacing, young readers aren’t so specific.

To illustrate this point, I asked a middle-grader to describe what she liked about a recent book. She said she liked how it had superpowers, and super-interesting characters, and it had lots of good ideas. I asked her what she didn’t like about it; she said she felt it was too long, and the plot could’ve been “spun” better. When I asked her to elaborate, she said she didn’t really know, but she just felt like the author could’ve done the plot more differently, better.

Now, if a critic were reviewing the book, would they say the same things (in much fancier lingo, of course)? Or would they note completely different things, because they were looking for different things? This is a question which I as a reviewer am personally very interested in, especially when you look at examples like the Artemis Fowl series, which has been reviewed as “clichéd” and worse, and yet has had so much commercial success.

What do you think? What kind of correlation exists between critical success and reader success?

-Yahong

Identity Crisis?

The other night I was brainstorming with a friend about Mayhem blog-post ideas.  I found myself describing us as a community of people who love middle-grade: readers, writers, teachers, librarians, and others. I was about to sit down and write a post to hand out "Best Supporting Actor/Actress" awards for secondary characters in middle-grade novels (a post which still may be forthcoming), when I paused.  

I *think* my understanding of the Mayhem community is somewhat accurate - the comments at least seem to reflect our mutual interest in getting good books into the hands of readers.  But then I felt like I myself was back in middle-school, poked by insecurity and second-guessing things, wondering if we're actually sparking conversations that connect with our readers.

So are we?  I'd love to hear from you all - especially any new followers - and extend an open invitation for comments and introductions.  So don't be shy.  If you've never commented before, now's your chance.

1.  Tell us a little bit about yourself.  What specifically draws you to middle-grade literature?  Are you a parent?  Teacher?  Librarian?  Writer?  All of the above?  None of the above, but,  like me, just never grew out of the middle-grade shelves?  :)

2.  What aspect of middle-grade books do you enjoy discussing online?  Reviews?  Author interviews? Writing tips?  Marketing tips?  Anything you'd like to see more of?

3.  And, just for fun, who IS your favorite supporting character in a middle-grade novel?

I''ll go first, okay?

I'm Marissa.  Even if I didn't write MG fantasy, it would still be my favorite section in the library.  I love how middle-grade novels straddle childhood and adulthood, one foot planted firmly in the realm of fantastic, magical imagination, and the other tiptoeing into realms of identity and what it means to relate to the world and people around us.

I also like to read book reviews and author interviews.  As a parent, I'm hungry for good recommendations, especially since my boys are already bored with my never-ending raves over Anne of Green Gables.  I can pull out a few classic middle-grade titles I know might appeal, but I'm always looking for good MG reads with boy-appeal.

And my favorite supporting character?  Favorite anything is just so hard to narrow down, but I've just finished reading MIRAGE, by: Jenn Reese, and I really have enjoyed Aluna's friend, Hoku.

Middle-grade Marissa's Writing Tips

Marissa's Top Secret Journals

My very first Diary

I’m learning not to hate my overcrowded inbox, and my favorite e-mails are from middle-grade readers.  I thrill when they tell me they loved visiting the Land of Story, but hearing that they are working on their own writing projects is even more delightful.  Often, they’ll ask me for writing advice.  My complicated and completely original tips are: 1. READ as much as you can and as widely as you can and 2. WRITE whenever you can and about whatever you can.

When they ask me about my early writing attempts, I like to tell them about my journals.  At school visits, I’ll sometimes even allow them a peek at my very first diary.  Just a peek, however, because as you can see from the photo, there is a Stern Warning for unsuspecting readers.  (In case you can't see the text, it reads: "If you have managed to find and unlock this, I prefer you do not read this until I give permission or I am dead. If you do read this, please do not tell a soul about anything recorded here.  Thank you."  Now don't you wonder just what juicy secrets happened in my 4th grade classroom?)  I’ve found journals to be an outstanding and relatively low-pressure way to develop my writing, with the added bonus that you have a completely biased (and often hilarious) record of past events.

I think of this whenever I re-read my well-loved collection of L.M. Montgomery’s journals.  You rediscover her familiar sharp wit and keen insight into humanity on the pages of her journals, yet she’s also preserved a fascinating historical account of everyday life in turn of the century Canada.  I’m not suggesting my pink teddy-bear diary would provide the same to future readers, but it’s of priceless worth to me and my family.  Long forgotten memories burst forth in full color when I see my childish scrawl and remember the accompanying emotions. 

Recreating real-life scenes on a blank page is a useful exercise for writers.  Challenging oneself to get the setting of the classroom exactly right and then recreate the emotion of The Most Embarrassing Moment can inspire good writing when the plot-well has run dry or the idea of writing a full story seems impossible.  Recording overheard conversations can aid in developing an ear for dialogue, and a scathing description of the Mean Girl in P.E. class can sharpen character-development skills. 

Of course, this translates to adult writers as well, and I continue to take great delight in picking out a New Journal once I’ve closed the pages of another volume.  My favorite thing these days is to get a blank sketchbook, and fill its pages with written words and inspiring photos and even a sketch or two.  Have I convinced you yet?  Whatever your age, I declare in my completely biased opinion that a journal is an essential tool for the writer, so head on out to your local bookstore and have fun picking one out. Just make sure to get a lock.  Or make sure no one can find them without your permission or until you are dead.

What do you think, Readers of Mayhem?  To journal or not to journal?  Even better, tell us what your favorite (or first!) journal looks like, and, if you dare, what precautions you’ve taken to make sure its privacy is secured.