Upper-MG Authors to Adventure With by guest blogger Sean Easley

This month, I'm delighted to turn the Project Mayhem reins over to my fellow Electric Eighteen debut author, Sean Easley. I can't wait to read his debut next year, a fantasy that sounds like EXACTLY the kind of story I would have loved as a kid - and still love now!! Since my kids and I will have to wait a while for Sean's book to come out, he joins us on Project Mayhem to recommend some of his favorite upper-MG adventures. Welcome, Sean! 

UPPER MG AUTHORS TO ADVENTURE WITH

Now that the summer break is over and school’s back in session, it’s easy to think we’ve left all the summer adventure fun behind in August.

But that’s the beauty of books… they’re a “uniquely portable magic,” as Stephen King says. I’d argue they’re a uniquely season-less magic, too, able to take you places you aren’t able to go, even in the midst of the business of life. And kids need these stories, to lend adventure to their lives, to teach them about the world they live in and how they fit, and to show them the wonder that are the people they live in it with.

That’s what draws me to these middle grade adventure stories. In a world where we’re pushed to accept mundane responsibilities and take out the garbage and feed the dog, the ability to embark on a grand adventure that teaches us something about ourselves and others is valuable. More than valuable… it’s priceless. Magic.

When I was younger, it was authors like Susan Cooper and Madeliene L’Engle and Diana Wynne Jones and John Bellairs who kept me in adventure when the school year rolled around. But it didn’t stop there. So many authors today are weaving new stories to carry our students to new worlds and build them up along the way.

So let’s reclaim the adventures by jumping into a book by one of these amazing upper-MG adventure authors.

Tracey Baptiste: The Jumbies - We’ll start with one of the slightly younger entries on the list. Tracey Baptiste has done an amazing job of bringing a Haitian folktale to life in a way that’s a bit scary, a bit dark, but with a heart and life all its own.

Kelly Barnhill: The Girl Who Drank the Moon - Kelly Barnhill’s lyrical prose and beautiful stories are full of their own kind of adventure and magic. The Girl Who Drank the Moon packages an exciting journey in the guise of a fairy tale about the nature of love, power, and the lengths people will go to for control over both. It’s a gorgeous book, and one every middle grade kid should read.

Robert Beatty: Serafina and the Black Cloak - Robert Beatty’s Serafina series gives us a girl who’s choosing her own adventures in and around the famous Biltmore Estate. There’s more to Serafina than meets the eye, more even than she knows at the beginning of her journey, but her path to family and courage is a fantastic ride that’s sure to make every kid appreciate what they have in their own families and friendships.

Soman Chainani: School for Good and Evil - Chainani’s School for Good and Evil series is full of friendships, rivalries, and tricky situations. Set in a world that’ll make you question your thoughts on right and wrong, this series still has a long road ahead of it.

John Flanagan: Ranger’s Apprentice series - Flanagan’s Ranger’s Apprentice series is a truly expansive property full of action, adventure, and a wondrous world full of places to explore. Centered around a boy who’s learning where he fits in his society, this series has come a long, long way over the years, and features over a dozen books, plus sequel series. Kids who fall for Flanagan’s effortless prose and engaging characters will have their hands full for a long time.

Claire Legrand: Some Kind of Happiness - One of the few one-shot books on this list, Claire Legrand’s Some Kind of Happiness is a heartfelt, magical adventure of discovery, healing, friendship. In it you’ll find a tale about the power of story itself that will stick with you for a long time to come. This is a true favorite.

Lisa McMann: The Unwanteds - If you’re looking for an adventure about creativity and uniqueness, then look no further than Lisa McMann’s The Unwanteds. Set in a world where kids get sorted into Wanteds, Necessaries, and Unwanteds, McMann explores individuality and the feelings that come from not being what someone else wants you to be, and packages it in a way that’ll really resonate with kids of all kinds, but especially who’ve also felt unwanted (which is incidentally one of the most common feelings among kids in this age group).

Shannon Messenger: Keeper of the Lost Cities series - Messenger’s Keeper series is a new take on an old concept: elves. You’ll be surprised with the adventure Messenger crafts, though… it’s a wild ride, full of lost cities like Atlantis and Shangri La and a fun conservationist take on the fantasy genre.

Brandon Mull: Fablehaven, Beyonders, Dragonwatch - Brandon Mull has proven himself a master of middle grade fantasy adventure. His Fablehaven series about a magical creature wildlife preserve is incredibly fun and unbelievably imaginative—great for all ages. You really haven’t lived until you’ve imagined kids milking a giant cow by sliding down its udders.

Kenneth Oppel: Airborn, The Boundless - Oppel’s middle grade stories all vary wildly from one another, but in each he does a fantastic job of developing his worlds and creating unique, gut-wrenching stories. Flying ships, massive luxury trains, you can’t go wrong with one of Oppel’s books.

Karuna Riazi: The Gauntlet - A newcomer compared to the rest of the list, Riazi’s debut The Gauntlet gives an exciting story, a compelling cast, and an intriguing adventure inside a giant mechanical board game. I’ll be looking out for more from Riazi moving forward, too—her characters are so authentic, and the story’s a real page-turner.

James Riley: Story Thieves - Riley’s Story Thieves is all about the adventures we find in books. Where would you go if you could jump into your favorite stories and experience them alongside the characters? It’s an exciting race through literature that shows just how fun reading can be, and a great way to round out this list.

There are so many more, and just like Riley’s Story Thieves I wish I could jump into each and experience the worlds they have in store for me. And I’m looking forward to sharing my own, new story next year when The Hotel Between releases from Simon & Schuster.

Sean Easley started writing in third grade because he was looking for adventure. He’s worked with kids and teens for well over a decade, listening to their stories, and somehow ended up with a Masters degree in education along the way. Now he’s a full-time writer living with his wife and son in Texas, where he stubbornly refuses to wear cowboy boots. Visit him at seaneasley.com and on Twitter and Instagram @AuthorEasley.

"GRAY AREA" STORIES: NOVELS FOR OLDER MIDDLE SCHOOL READERS by Laurie Morrison

This week, I'm so delighted to welcome my friend Laurie Morrison to Project Mayhem. She's a fellow member of the Electric 18's and will debut with EVERY SHINY THING, co-written with Cordelia Jensen. Recently, her solo MG debut was announced and it sounds AMAZING!! I invited her to talk about why she wrote the book.

The Importance of “Gray Area” Stories: Middle Grade Novels for Older Middle School Readers

By Laurie Morrison

This week, I got to share the exciting news that my new novel, Up for Air, will be published by Abrams/Amulet in spring 2019. Up for Air is about thirteen-year-old Annabelle, a star swimmer and struggling student, who is thrilled when she gets called up to the high school summer team and has a chance to shine. But when she attracts the attention of an older boy and finds herself alienated from her closest friends, she has to figure out what her true strengths are and where she really fits.

One of the reasons I am most excited about this novel is also the reason I was worried, for a while, that it might be tough to sell. You see, it’s an upper middle grade book that delves into some topics that middle grade novels don’t often address: a pretty intense crush on an older boy, the thrill of having a new kind of body that attracts a new kind of attention, and the temptations and pressures that come along with having older friends.

I started writing Up for Air three years ago, but I abandoned it a few times along the way because I was concerned that it might fall into the unmarketable gray area between middle grade and young adult fiction. In the meantime, one of the projects I worked on was Every Shiny Thing, a book I wrote with my friend Cordelia Jensen, which will be published next spring. Every Shiny Thing is also upper middle grade, and it tackles some pretty heavy topics, but I didn’t worry about that one’s marketability in the same way. I think that’s because I’ve rarely heard anyone say that middle grade novels shouldn’t deal with hard, sad topics; that seems to be okay, but certain language and certain kinds of crushes and romances are a no-go, many people think.

In the end, though, I couldn’t let go of Annabelle’s story. It was a story I had to tell, in part because of my own memories of middle school and the books I loved back then, and in part because of my work with middle school students. I’ve taught middle school English for the past ten years, and most of the 7th and 8th graders I know, and even many 6th graders, read more young adult books than middle grade ones because middle grade books feel too young to them. And yes, kids like to “read up” about characters who are older than they are, and that’s great. But there’s also something powerful and validating about having books that are closer to what they’re currently going through. Because what does it tell them about the experiences they are having right now if they can’t find any books that delve into those kinds of experiences in all their giddy, painful, glorious messiness? 

One of my favorite books that is boldly situated in the upper middle grade gray area is Rebecca Stead’s Goodbye Stranger. Stead’s novel does not shy away from “untouchable” middle grade topics; it explores a girl’s experience of coming into her sexuality and deals with the topic of slut shaming. I read the novel aloud to a class of seventh graders a couple of years ago, and the students’ enthusiasm and impassioned discussions validated my belief in the importance of gray area stories and sparked my hope that there might be room for more of these books in the market after all.

I know, I know. Rebecca Stead is Rebecca Stead, and she’s earned the right to break some rules. But I think we’re seeing more and more of what my agent calls “age 10 and up” middle grade these days: more books that feature crushes, body image, and peer pressure, and maybe even characters who are fourteen, an age that has often been considered off limits, as Dianne Salerni posted about on Project Mayhem in the past. Here are a few recently published books that appeal to the older end of the middle school crowd.

Where You’ll Find Me by Natasha Friend

In Friend’s most recent middle grade book, thirteen-year-old Anna moves in with her dad and his new family as her mother recovers from a suicide attempt, and she finds herself stuck at the misfit lunch table after her former best friend dumps her. I ran a book group for 5th-8th grade girls who had read this book, and it was a hit with all of them. It’s more about family and friend dynamics than any kind of crush or romance, but, as one of the younger readers in my book group gleefully pointed out, there is some occasional “bad language” that doesn’t commonly appear in MG books but feels true to life, and the eighth graders in the group agreed that they felt like they were reading about an actual eighth grader, not reading about a character who is supposed to be in eighth grade but seems younger.

Well, That Was Awkward by Rachel Vail

This funny retelling of Cyrano de Bergerac is about eighth grader Gracie, who falls for a boy named A.J., who likes Gracie’s best friend, Sienna. Gracie helps the flustered Sienna figure out how to handle her interactions with A.J. and ends up posing as Sienna over text. This is a delightful romantic comedy that captures the awkwardness and excitement and sort of crowd-sourced dynamic of adolescent relationships, and it delves into some rich family dynamics, as well. Plus, Gracie turns fourteen in the course of the story!

Family Game Night and Other Catastrophes by Mary E. Lambert

Annabelle refuses to let any of her friends come within five miles of her house because her mom is a hoarder. This funny, poignant novel is about the summer her dad takes off and her grandmother jumps in to try to fix the family’s problems. There’s a sweet storyline with the boy Annabelle likes, and Annabelle’s spot-on upper middle grade humor will make her story appeal to older middle school readers and younger ones alike. (Also, apparently there is something about the names Anna and Annabelle that scream upper middle grade for some reason!)

I’d love to know about any other upper middle grade novels you love that would appeal to older middle school students and that might break some of the commonly accepted “rules” for middle grade, especially if you know of any diverse, own voices books that I can add to my list!

Laurie writes books for kids and teens, reads voraciously, and teaches middle school English. When she's not writing, reading, or teaching, you can often find her taking long walks even when it's cold or rainy, making fancy pizza, or cheering on an odd blend of New York sports teams she grew up rooting for and Philadelphia teams she's adopted since settling in Philadelphia. She loves iced coffee, just-out-of-the-oven pastries, the ocean, and TV shows that make her laugh or gasp out loud. 

You can find Laurie on her website: lauriemorrisonwrites.com or on Twitter at @LaurieLMorrison.

Middle Grade Adventure Novels

I’m on my way to the 21st-Century Children's Nonfiction Conference, so for today's post I wanted to share some middle grade adventure stories from authors I know. The first is someone I went to high school with in Juneau, Alaska. We reconnected on Facebook. The second is a critique client. I invited them to describe their stories and offer a bit of advice. If you like adventure stories, or know young people who do, check out their books!

True North by P. Wyatt Slack

A shipwreck... A mystery... And the search for hidden treasure. Twelve-year-old Shelby is looking for adventure. When the shiny object she finds frozen in a chunk of glacier ice hints at hidden treasure, she and her brother Cole rush to follow the clue. But they are not the only ones on the trail. Fighting the real dangers of Alaska's wilderness, they race to find the treasure before the man in the brown rubber boots gets it (or them).

True North is the first in what will be a series of adventures for Shelby and Cole as they spend their summer in various towns of Southeast Alaska. Each port of call comes with new excitement, mystery, and a taste of the history of this fascinating and wild land.

Ideal Audience:

The Alaskan Inside Passage Adventure series is for middle grade readers (grades 3-6) who want to go on adventures (vicariously) with kids like them. I was lucky enough to grow up in Alaska where dangers are real and adventure is around every corner. Abandoned gold mines, a glacier you can climb on, stormy seas, and wild animals (all places I got to explore during grade school) offer Shelby and Cole endless ways to find adventure, danger, and fun!

Words of Advice or Inspiration:

Give your characters a spirit of adventure. No one wants to hang out with sullen kids in real life, so why would they hang out with them in books? Give those characters a zest for life. And if their tendency to seek excitement leads them into trouble, so much the better!

http://clayinkpotpress.com/

Amazon author page

Missing Danny Who?: Stories of a Runaway

by Danny Ockham as told to Zandy Clark

Danny Ockham should be called Danny I. Dunno, because he does not know much about his past, or his future. Living in the present, he survives his wildman father one day at a time. When his mother deserts them, Danny runs away to the desert alone. Now, every act is a plan to get food.  Now, foraging  and fishing are real, when before they were his mother's hobby.

Danny changes his name as often as his underwear to escape foster care and the blame for a wildfire. "No more stupid dreaming to be someone else," he thinks. "Now I am a new person." Danny stays one step ahead of trouble, like a modern-day Huckleberry Finn. Does odd jobs for people he befriends in his trek up Arizona rivers to the high country. When he finally seems to have found a home, his mother reappears. Will he choose her reservation life, or the one he has made for himself?

His troubles double when he tries to help his Iraqi friend escape from her abusive adopted father. Danny grows up fast while learning about confusing laws intended to help abuse victims. He wants to help, but does he have a right to interfere, if she won't go willingly? 

Part wilderness adventure, part coming-of-age story, Danny's tale will appeal to anyone who has ever wondered what would happen if they simply ran away from it all.

What I learned by self publishing my first novel:

I am a loner, like my hero, Danny, so at 75 years of age, naturally I didn't wait for publisher's rejections of my first novel, but rather set out to publish it myself. I avoided all the expensive self publishers, thank God, and was guided by friends to CreateSpace.com, an Amazon affiliate.

What I learned was how to collaborate. No, I did not use CreateSpace editing service, formatting service or cover design service, but I did take chances by contacting people through networking who might mesh with my subject, an abused runaway in Arizona.

I met Velma Moss, Ph.D. In education, who had written and self published several books. She liked Danny's story and wanted to help make it available to teachers as well as kids. Since my only computer is an iPad, she offered to format the book on her ancient Dell so it would not turn into spaghetti due to the scrambling that inevitably happens when Apple software meets Createspace's Microsoft.  Even so, justifying the copy flush left and right created what I call "squiggles", which are hanging               

Lines such as you see here, but not too hard 

to fix!

Then, I stumbled on Chris Eboch and took a chance asking her to help edit my book, because her books are southwestern and sometimes Middle Grade, like mine. Think about it for a minute! She could be blunt about some inappropriate subject matter that would kill it for all publishers as well as most teachers and parents. Somehow, I knew she was the right person to fix Danny's rambling narrative. Perhaps it still is rambling (you tell me!), but it flows much more smoothly than before, by all accounts. That's partly because my pet babies, my rants, have been eliminated. Createspace editors, who cost the same, would not have been so direct as Chris.

Danny's cover happened by chance. I saw a news story about a mural painted by a hundred or more abused foster children, guided by Oliverio Balcells. What could be more...ummm, symbolically synergistic? Baloney, it works because it is a surrealistic desert landscape highly colorful and simple. I drew Danny and stuck him in the foreground with scotch tape.  (Yes, I am Scottish).

Getting permission took time. A lawyer had to chime in, but I waited for that. Normally, I would not, but my norms have changed since I wrote Danny. 

So, I have learned to collaborate with like-minded people and wait and rewrite for two years or more, a first in my runaway life.  

Amazon page 

Thanks for joining us, P. Wyatt Slack and Zandy Clark!

What are your favorite recent adventure novels for young people?

Chris Eboch's novels for ages nine and up include The Genie’s Gift, a middle eastern fantasy; The Eyes of Pharaoh, a mystery in ancient Egypt; The Well of Sacrifice, a Mayan adventure; Bandits Peak, a survival story, and the Haunted series, which starts with The Ghost on the Stairs. Her writing craft books include You Can Write for Children: How to Write Great Stories, Articles, and Books for Kids and Teenagers and Advanced Plotting. Learn more at www.chriseboch.com or her Amazon page or sign up for her newsletter. 

Review of Lauren Oliver's CURIOSITY HOUSE: THE SHRUNKEN HEAD (by: guest reviewer Kira Lemke)

Hello Mayhemers!

Marissa here. Today, I'm delighted to welcome to the blog a good friend of mine, Kira Lemke, who has read and reviewed Lauren Oliver's forthcoming THE SHRUNKEN HEAD, the first installment in THE CURIOSITY HOUSE series.

First, let me introduce you to Kira. Kira Lemke is a student at Providence Classical Christian School. She has three novels in process on Storybird as KiraNoelle. When she isn't studying or writing, she likes to paint, bake, and keep her younger siblings in line. Some of her favorite things are tardigrades, giant squids, Ancient Egypt, and sensorimotor neural engineering.

Here's what Kira had to say about THE SHRUNKEN HEAD:

"Pippa, Max, Sam, and Thomas are four orphans with remarkable abilities who reside in Dumphrey’s Dime Museum of Freaks, oddities, and Wonders, still reeling from the Great Depression and recent lack of public interest in freak shows.

In a last ditch effort to save the museum, Mr. Dumphrey procures the supposed shrunken head of an Amazonian chief. Everything seems to be going splendid- record crowds, women fainting in horror- until the head is stolen. The four children band together in an effort to save the head, the museum, and themselves.

 Mysteries and mysterious abilities are all well and good, but, quite frankly, the superhuman and the unknown populate every other book on the middle grade bookshelf. And for a good reason- unusual abilities add a layer of excitement, of novelty, of escape from normal life, and ambiguity is crucial for plot and suspense- but each new novel needs to find its special niche to set it a cut above the rest. For The Shrunken Head, it’s character.

There is a place, between upper middle grade and young adult, where a child reads both and fits in neither. Standard middle grade plots begin to seem a bit childish, but young adult is still a bit too mature. The key to bridging this gap is not to read exclusively Charles Dickens (and I’m speaking from experience here), but to read books with good characters. Young adult won’t get any less mature, but good characters can add a layer of sophistication to any middle grade novel, a tricky gamut The Shrunken Head runs effortlessly. Pippa, Max, Sam, and Thomas are all clearly children, but each deals with problems common to all age groups. Though the obstacle in question (e.g., reading minds) may never be encountered, the underlying emotion (e.g., fear of failure) is far too familiar. With such masterful writing, The Shrunken Head will appeal to all age groups.

The genius of the children is not limited to relatability. Each child has a distinct voice easily recognizable from the others. Now, yes, in most books, you can tell which character is speaking. Oliver and Chester have turned this into an art form. Max is so Max, and Sam is so Sam, that the otherwise unremarkable fundamental building block of writing becomes one of the book’s crowning jewels.

This book is exactly what middle grade needs. I’d recommend it to anyone."

Kira, thank you so much for joining the Mayhem and sharing your thoughts on THE SHRUNKEN HEAD!

It is now available for pre-order from your favorite book-seller or library and will be on shelves 9/29/2015. Happy reading! :) 

Elizabeth Varadan on Writing Sherlock Holmes Mystery for Kids

Today I’m interviewing Elizabeth Varadan, author of the middle grade mystery Imogene and The Case of The Missing Pearls, featuring Sherlock Holmes. I think you’ll find her experience in writing about a classic character interesting.

Tell us a little about your book.

Imogene is a ten-year-old girl in Victorian England. Her father is a banker, so they have a few servants, and Imogene has a governess who teachers her piano, handwriting, embroidery, and the like. A real education isn’t considered necessary for a girl of her place in society. Her job in life is to develop skills that attractive a rich husband.

But Imogene, from snooping the cases in the newspapers the adults have discarded, thinks she would rather be a detective. When her mother’s pearls go missing and Sherlock Holmes is called in, Imogene sees her chance to learn from great detective. She manages to get him to let her be his assistant and keep track of what goes on in the house. At the kitchen door, she meets Rusty, Mr. Holmes’s messenger, and a friendship develops between them as they try to solve the case themselves. (Rusty becomes her self-appointed partner.) Being headstrong, Imogene decides to take matters into her own hands, and her life is soon in danger.

How did you get the idea to do a Sherlock Holmes story? Why this story, with this heroine?

A trip to the Sherlock Holmes museum planted a little seed in my mind. And a book I found in a used bookstore with a younger protagonist, Kitty and Mr. Kipling, by Lenore Blegvad made that little seed grow. In Kitty and Mr. Kipling, a little girl in Vermont becomes friends with Rudyard Kipling when he and his family move next door for a year. It’s actually based on reality, but the idea took hold that it would be fun to write a story about a young girl who becomes friends with Sherlock Holmes. (I’m a Sherlock Holmes fan.)

That put me in Victorian England, and I had to figure out how they would become friends, given his personality. That problem suggested a mystery, and the mystery would have to take place in Imogene’s home, as young girls couldn’t be out and about on their own without chaperones, etc. (The name Imogene came from my ten-year-old alter ego, when I was a Nancy Drew fan and wanted to be a detective.)

Did you look into the legal ramifications of writing about Sherlock Holmes before you started? Did you have a publisher in mind?

None of that to begin with. I just had fun writing the story. And then I started submitting it around. One editor kindly told me about the legal aspects: In the United States, the copyright for Doyle’s characters still operates, so I had to get permission from the Conan Doyle Estate to get my book published. A little research led me to the American lawyer for the estate, Jon Lellenberg, who has been a jewel. The license cost $250.00 to get the license, and they get a percentage of your royalties after the $250.00 is used up. But I don’t mind that. Doyle created one of the most famous characters of all time, and why should everyone benefit from that if they can’t too? It also boosted my confidence when I got the license. Someone besides me thought the book had possibilities.

MX Publishing has a large selection of Sherlock Holmes titles, many of them for adults. How did you connect with the publisher? What was the process of working with them?

Jon Lellenberg suggested MX. Steve Emecs has been great to work with, and it’s been nice to connect with other writers of Sherlock Holmes fiction. Most of them are devoted fans that know a lot more about the canon than I do, and I’ve made friends with some of them. Now I feel like I have more experts to consult for the sequels I’ve planned.

Do you have plans for more books following Imogene and Sherlock Holmes?

I do have two sequels planned for Imogene and Rusty (and of course, Sherlock.) But I’m also working on a “cozy” mystery for adults, and I’ve been working forever on a story that takes place in Sacramento, 1919, and features a ghost. Some books just take longer than others to get right, but this is a book near and dear to my heart.

Thanks for sharing your story, Elizabeth.

Thanks so much for having me on your blog. It’s a pleasure to be here.

Connect with Elizabeth Varadan:

Victorian Scribbles blog

Elizabeth Varadan’s Fourth Wish blog.

Twitter: @4thWishVaradan

Facebook

Amazon Author page