Archive for the ‘Newbery’ Category
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Time to resume my posting routine!
The past two weeks, I’ve been happily rediscovering The Pydain Chronicles by Lloyd Alexander. Expect a review of the series on Saturday.
I’ve been collecting biographical notes on Lloyd Alexander. Because I missed posting yesterday, I’ll run my four author teasers right through until Saturday. Next week, I’ll start surprising you again with a mix of mid-week news, questions, or quick reviews.
Regards my biographical notes, I’m changing up their structure. In school, my fourth-grade students just finished writing biographies. They divided their notes into four categories: childhood, education and jobs, accomplishments, and other interesting facts. That seems like a good format to follow. So, from now on, I’ll post author info according to those categories with a couple differences. Because these are authors, I’ll focus on their writing life instead of their general accomplishments. Also, my interesting facts will center on info about the author’s books and perhaps include links to long interviews.
Daily Teaser Archives
Without further ado, let me turn to Lloyd Alexander. Him being one of my favorite authors, it was especially fun to research his life. A stockbroker’s son, Alexander was born in January of 1924. He grew up in the western suburbs of Drexel Hill in Philadelphia, which I had forgotten. I read a biography of him years ago but because his Prydain Chronicles are entrenched in Welsh mythology, I tricked myself into remembering him as being British.
Although his parents read mostly newspapers, the family had lots of books. According to a quote in the Washington Post article “Lloyd Alexander: Fantasy and Adventure Writer,” his parents bought books at the Salvation Army to fill up empty shelves. As for what books Alexander most enjoyed, like me, he felt that he’d need a book to list them all. It should come as no surprise to those familiar with his books that he loved Arthurian legends and world myths. To my delight, he also loved an unabridged dictionary.
Map created with 3DEM from SRTM
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)
EDUCATION & JOBS
Finding pleasure in reading classics, Alexander vowed in high school to be a writer. Although he had no idea how to proceed, he did his best to educate himself. First though he had to appease his horrified parents, who urged him to pursue a more practical job. Alexander accepted a bank messenger job, despite having to use his fingers to add. When he could finally afford it, he attended a local college. He stayed only for one term. Dissatisfied with not having learned enough to be a writer, Alexander joined the army believing that the adventure might better serve his writing education.
The United States had already entered World War II. Alexander was shipped to Texas where he served as an artilleryman, a cymbal player in the band, an organist in the post chapel, and a first-aid man. Eventually, he was assigned to a military intelligence center in Maryland. There he trained as a member of a combat team to be parachuted into France to work with the Resistance, but instead the team ended up sailing to Wales to finish their training. Years later, Alexander drew on the beauty of Wales to create the enchanted kingdom of Pyrdain.
After World War II, Alexander was discharged to attend the University of Paris. There, he married and for a while felt content living abroad. Yet he grew to feel that if he were to write anything worthwhile, he’d have to be closer to his own roots. With his wife, Alexander returned to Philadelphia where he earned a living working for a small magazine. On the side, he wrote novel after novel. Alexander experienced seven years of constant rejection before his first novel was at last published. Tomorrow I’ll tell you about his life as a writer.
WRITING LIFE
Alexander didn’t start out a children’s writer. Instead, he wrote for adults about subjects he knew well, including his wife (“Janine Is French”) and cats (“My Five Tigers”).
After ten years of writing for adults, Alexander turned to writing for young people. He called it, “the most creative and liberating experience of my life. I was able to express my own deepest feelings far more than I ever could when writing for adults.”
Alexander relied on extensive outlines. Although those outlines regularly changed, they served as a blueprint and gave him some sense of how small or big his project would be.
Despite this being a childhood love, Alexander also didn’t start out being a fantasy writer. While doing historical research for Time Cat, he stumbled across Welsh mythology and enjoyed remembering all the hero tales, games, and imaginings of my childhood. The material inspired him to write his Newbery award-winning fantasy series The Prydain Chronicles.
Regarding fantasy, Alexander felt it served as great nourishment for imagination. He told Encountering Enchantment that he believed that imagination to be at the heart of everything we do. It leads people to ask “What if?” and helps develop intelligence. Alexander encouraged everyone to read fairy tales, and then read more, and to keep reading them. He believed that “If we nourish imagination, we nourish everything else.
MISCELLANY & INTERVIEWS
Time for other interesting facts! Did you know that Lloyd Alexander was one of the creators of the children’s literary magazine? He wrote over forty books, including his most famous work which I’ll review on Saturday, a set of five high fantasy novels called The Prydain Chronicles. Its conclusion The High King received the 1969 Newbery Medal.
Alexander played Mozart on his violin, drew cartoons, and fed squirrels in his back yard. In the Washington Post article “Lloyd Alexander: Fantasy and Adventure Writer, he admitted to a weakness for doughnuts and wafers before bedtime. His daughter, Madeline Khalil, died in 1990. He died two May 17, 2007, two weeks after the death of his wife of sixty-one years.
To learn more about Alexander’s life, read: Lloyd Alexander Interview Transcript.
To learn more about the creation of The Prydain Chronicles, read: Welsh Mythological Underpinnings of Lloyd Alexander’s Prydain Cycle.
Unless otherwise noted, the main source for the above information comes from: Kids Read: Lloyd Alexander.
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Interview with Margi Preus
Posted on: February 26, 2012
- In: Adventure | Authors N-Z | Grades 6-8 | Historical | Newbery
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This past week, I had the exciting opportunity to interview Margi Preus. Her book Heart of a Samurai has turned me back onto historical fiction. I must admit though the interview left me wanting to know even more about this talented author. Perhaps in the future there will be another review and therefore hopefully another interview. In the meantime, I appreciate that Margi Preus took time to answer my questions and let me get to know just a little bit about her. Enjoy!
Allison: You’re an animal lover. Do you have pets? What’s your favorite animal? Any YouTube recommendations of funny animal antics?
Margi: I have a yellow lab named Jeeves, after the P.G. Wodehouse character (a very intelligent valet). We had high hopes for our dog to live up to his name, and he does greet our guests at the door. However, we have not yet successfully trained him to carry a tray of martinis without mishap. As for youtube, I am particularly fond of “Bailey the Unknown Reindeer.”
Allison: What’s your best skiing, hiking, and/or boating stories?
Margi: Wow. I have had so many fantastic skiing/boating/hiking experiences. One of my more unusual outdoor experiences was, years ago, hitch-hiking through the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in northern Minnesota (it’s a canoe only area, so I was hitching rides in other peoples’ canoes.) A bit odd, perhaps, and a long story, but I needed to get back to work. I was late by a day, which did not rattle my employer at all, as she assumed I had been windbound.
Allison: What’s your worst skiing, hiking, and/or boating stories?
Margi: The worst hiking experience by far was losing my 11-year-old son in the fog at the top of a razor-sharp mountain in Norway. We found him, and he was okay, but there were some heart-stopping moments I would never want to relive.
Allison: What got you interested in writing historical fiction?
Margi: I did not, in fact, get interested in writing Historical Fiction. I didn’t even know I was writing H.F. until someone pointed it out. I was just interested in telling a story, actually. It just so happened to be a historical one. It has had the effect of making me interested in writing more, though.
Allison: What got you interested in writing about other cultures?
Margi: I also didn’t plan on writing about other cultures. It was the story that interested me, I think, first. Then, in learning about the culture, I became interested in it. Isn’t that the way it usually works?
Allison: Congratulations on winning the Newbery Honor for Heart of a Samurai! How did you hear the news and how did it feel?
Margi: Thank you. I was on a ski vacation, actually, in Washington State (another fantastic ski adventure!). Just four of us in a little cabin in the mountains. I didn’t know my cell phone even worked there until it rang at 7 o’clock in the morning. I was, well, shocked, you could say. Thrilled. Amazed. I stood watching the sun rise, illuminating the Enchantment Mountains, feeling pretty enchanted myself. Then we went for a celebratory ski and afterwards lunch with some good Washington grown wine.
Allison: As part of your research for Heart of a Samurai, you visited Japan. What sites would you recommend most to tourists?
Margi: I’m hardly an expert on travel in Japan, but if you haven’t been there before, then you should go straight to Kyoto and just start walking. And/or, If you can swing it, it is a pretty cool thing to get to the farther reaches of the country, to the small towns and traditional inns. It’s tricky if you don’t speak or read the language, but, you know–hey!–adventure?
Allison: What are some similarities and differences you found between Japan and America?
Margi: Similarities and differences? So many of both. The Japanese people I have met have been extremely generous, kind and hospitable. Also polite, with consummate manners. One thing I noticed on my return from Japan, from the first moment I stepped off the plane in the U.S., were airport personnel yelling at us, rather than politely bowing.
Allison: As an American woman, how were you able to take on the perspective of a Japanese fisherman?
Margi: While writing, I was painfully aware of how audacious it was for me to be writing from the point of view of a 19th century Japanese boy, but I guess somewhere deep inside me there must be one. As for the fisherman part, I spent a lot of time fishing with my dad as a kid, so that part wasn’t a terrible stretch. You know, you’re not really trying to BE that character or person when you’re writing, you’re trying to be a kind of voice for them, in a way. I don’t know if that’s what I mean.
Allison: There is not a lot available about Manjiro himself. How were you able to make his story come alive through fiction?
Margi: The luckiest thing for me is that Drifting to the Southeast, Manjiro’s own account of his adventures, had been translated and published by Spinner Publications shortly before I started working on the story. That was my bible, and while I wrote I constantly referred to it to try to make my story as accurate as I could, while still writing a novel. Making the story read like a novel required flexing some writing muscles I didn’t know I had. It was a work out! It’s also true that there are large portions of his experience where there is very little information. His time in America, for instance. Not much to go on. It’s been a relief and a pleasure when kids and adults, too, tell me that their favorite parts are those sections that I had to completely make up. Whew.
Drifting to the Southeast, was translated by Junya Nagakuni and Junji Kitadai and published in 2003 by Spinner Publications of New Bedford, Mass. It isn’t exactly kid-friendly reading, but for die-hard Manjiro fans, it’s a must. Another good book, more suitable for young people, is Shipwrecked by Rhoda Blumberg, a nonfiction picture books with lots of photos and period drawings. This is the book that introduced me to Manjiro. Excellent!
Allison: Besides writing, you also teach. What’s your best and worst teaching story?
Margi: I really enjoy teaching and have had some very fun and memorable classes. However, my early years of teaching had some bumpy parts. As adjunct faculty, I sometimes get asked to teach things I probably have no business teaching. One time it was a freshman seminar, “Humor in American Literature” (I suppose I was considered qualified because I directed a comedy theater for many years). Anyway, we spent the first few weeks staring at each other, the students and I, with a kind of suspicion one might exhibit upon encountering fruitcake in your Christmas stocking. Or just fruitcake in general. Somehow, though, and I’m not sure how, we ended up having a great time. We read, we performed, but especially we wrote a lot. A lot of very funny stuff. I was extremely gratified when a number of students told me that they hadn’t thought they liked to write, but now they really did and wanted to do more. yippee ti yi yay!
Allison: What are your next book plans?
Margi: Thank you for asking. The next book is called Shadow on the Mountain and is. . . whattya know! Historical fiction! It is inspired by true life stories of people who were involved in the Resistance in Norway when it was occupied by Nazi Germany, 1940-1945 . My young hero starts out by delivering underground newspapers, becomes a courier, which requires him to transport coded messages and small weapons by bicycle or on skis, eventually becomes a spy and, when he is at last discovered, has to make his escape over the mountains, on skis, traveling only at night. All of this with the Gestapo on his heels! Many of his adventures are the real life adventures of Erling Storrusten, a man I interviewed in Norway last year. Shadow on the Mountain should be out this fall from Amulet Books!
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- In: Adventure | Asian or Asian American | Eastern Asia | Grades 6-8 | Historical | Newbery | Realistic
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How would you react if someone greeted you with a bow or by avoiding eye contact? Captain Whitfield reacted with impatience, which puzzled Manjiro and his fishermen companions. To them, those actions showed politeness. Other similar examples of miscommunication between cultures abound in Heart of a Samurai by Margi Preus, the fictionalized true story of how a Japanese teenage fisherman named Manjiro discovered America in 1841 and how as an adult he persuaded Japan to ease open its boundaries. As such, it will interest historical fiction buffs and those seeking multicultural novels. Because Heart of a Samurai also involves sea travel, whaling expeditions, mutiny, and storms, it’ll also appeal to anyone who likes adventure stories.
Margi Preus visited Japan twice, which no doubt helped with her convincing portrayal of Manjiro and his companions. At first, the five are simply steering their fishing boat towards home. Except for their talk of samurai and swords, and geisha and kimonos, the five could have been from anywhere. The details don’t really become more important when the five encounter Americans, yet even then Preus delivers. If your country had shut itself off from the rest of the world, how would you react to meeting outsiders? Would your clothes differ? What about your mannerisms? Perhaps most telling, if you and the outsiders spoke in different languages, how would you communicate? In every situation, Preus helps me see what five fisherman in 1841 might have felt.
All of these situations are also explored within the context of a story that is already incredibly interesting. Manjiro and his companions get caught in storm. Even when they find land, their peril has just begun. Their boat capsizes, Jusuke injures his leg, and starvation becomes imminent. Then when rescue happens, it comes in the form of “barbarians”. Okay, the strangers didn’t have tails, horns, or fangs, but there were hairy faces and big noses. Manjiro and his companions might have been better off being left alone to die. At least, this is how Manjiro viewed their predicament. On the flip side, the strangers viewed the Manjiro and his companions as pagans and cannibals and spies. In less capable hands, Heart of a Samurai could have amounted to a simplistic story of prejudice, that all too easily transforms into peace and harmony. It could also have easily turned into a condemnatory tale of how American whalers, church leaders, teachers, and students all failed to accept an outsider. To a certain extent, this is what happened. Yet prejudice is rarely that simple. What I appreciated most about Heart of a Samurai is that neither side is portrayed as being right or wrong; rather people from both cultures at times need to work to understand each other’s perspectives.
Heart of a Samurai isn’t flawless. When Manjiro inquires about the disappearance of a shipmate, the rest of the crew respond with lines such as: “Jolly took a dickey run and met his oppos” and “Jolly had the devil to pay and no pitch hot.” Manjiro wonders what they were talking about and decides that English is a difficult language, but to be honest I couldn’t understand the banter either. When Captain Whitfield docks his ship, he takes a wife whom we rarely hear about again. Although the real captain does take a wife at this time, and so Preus is keeping to the facts, it might have been nice to provide her with a larger role. Finally, there’s an incident with Manjiro and a bully, which feels cliché regardless of whether it has roots in truth.
Because of an author’s need to remain faithful to actual events, the risk of historical fiction is that it can read like a dry narrative. In contrast, Heart of a Samurai poignantly explores universal themes. Some are fairly familiar such as that of growing up and finding one’s place in the world. Early on, Manjiro and Goemon share dreams of what they wanted to be when they grew up, declare themselves the Samurai of Bird Island, and play fight with swords made out of driftwood. There is also a subtle but meaningful moment when Manjiro watches a snail and wonders where it is going with such purpose. Other themes have been less frequently explored but are equally important such as how to negotiate the precarious balance between two worlds that one loves. I like Manjiro’s first reaction to seeing a world map. He can’t read the words on it, but imagines that they say: “Come and see!” My favorite scene is a bittersweet one: “He had encountered both beauty and pain. Now he understood that was how it would always be.” Through moments like these, Preus makes Manjiro feel like a real person.
It was fun to read my second book in one month about adventure on the high sea, my first being the equally exceptional Fish by Gregory Mone. I also appreciated learning about a pivotal moment in Japan’s history. Yet what I loved most about Heart of a Samurai is how Preus introduced me to an inspiring individual whom I wish I could have known, within the context of an enthralling story.
My rating? Bag it: Carry it with you. Make it a top priority to read.
How would you rate this book?
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