Travels with Priscilla

500 miles is a long way for anyone to walk. Let alone a child. Let alone, in the dead of winter. Priscilla of Priscilla and the Hollyhocks made that long journey in 1838 as part of the Cherokee Trail of Tears. 170 years later, Priscilla and the Hollyhocks was published, making Priscilla’s story accessible to thousands more people than had ever heard of the slave girl. Priscilla may have ended her long walk in Mulkeytown, Illinois, in 1838 when Basil Silkwood bought her freedom and adopted her, but in some ways, she’s still traveling. In the months since publication, I’ve shared her story at eleven bookstores, three blogs, one writer’s club, three author festivals, a literary podcast, four schools, an intergenerational book group, the Belmont Picture Book Festival, several newspaper articles, Merrimack Valley Magazine, three inner city after-school programs, and the Charlesbridge Spring Open House. North Andover, Massachusetts, chose Priscilla and the Hollyhocks as the book all elementary students in town read as part of the town-wide “One Community Reads” program. Illustrator Anna Alter has also taken Priscilla “on the road” in numerous events. In addition:

• Priscilla has traveled to meet readers who discovered her story in bookstores, libraries and schools. One man wrote of his own connection to the book:

My parents own a farm near Mulkeytown (R.R.#1, Mulkeytown), and they and I grew up there. My school bus went by the Silkwood Inn every day when I was young, though I'll admit I wasn't well aware of its history then. I do remember my maternal grandfather talking about the turkeys that would roost in the trees when the handlers would stay in the Inn on their way to St. Louis.

When I mentioned your book to my father, he was well aware of the story of Priscilla and the legendary connection to red hollyhocks in the area. I had heard the Priscilla story before as a child, but did not remember this until a friend mentioned your book, which I purchased for myself and my parents.

My great grandfather and his siblings were orphaned and taken in by families in the area. Some were treated as farm laborers, but my great-grandfather’s brother was taken in by the Silkwoods and treated kindly, according to my father. I'm not clear on the dates. I believe he would have been decades younger than Priscilla. But if it's true that she lived in and then near the house until her death and helped care for the younger children adopted by the Silkwoods, then it must follow that they knew each other.

• Priscilla has traveled to people who heard me speak about the book or visited my web site or blog. I’ve received cards and letters from numerous readers who have been inspired by Priscilla’s courage and resilience. One child recognized me at an unrelated community event and said, “I’m so glad I learned about Priscilla!”
  

  A United Methodist Church in La Jolla, California planted a hollyhock garden in Priscilla’s honor. A member there wrote, “When our flowers are in bloom next spring, we will once again think about you and of course about Priscilla.”

• Priscilla has traveled to viewers who heard of her story on cable television. I’ve been interviewed for TV stations in the Merrimack Valley, Belmont, Wellesley, and Cape Cod. Who knows how often those shows are broadcast, or who connects to Priscilla because they hear me tell her story in that format? Here’s an excerpt from an email I received recently:

I am probably one of the maybe 10 (?!) people who watch Belmont Cable TV regularly. There I was depressed on the sofa staring at the screen when your happy face appeared reading from and talking about Priscilla and the Hollyhocks. The next day, I got the book out from my daughter’s school where I volunteer in the library. What a beautiful book. Allegra is only six and just starting to understand slavery, but she was engrossed in the story. We talked about Priscilla and how brave she was and how she saw the beauty around her even when she had so many terrible things happen to her. And of course Allegra (an only child) loved that she ended up in a HUGE family with lots of brothers and sisters.
Congratulations!
Keep writing and sharing and dreaming and hoping. And know that people in the most unlikely places are listening and thankful for your voice.

• Priscilla has traveled to people who were guests on a popular Hollywood talk show on which a good friend of mine was a producer. She gave copies of the book to Jimmy Carter, Henry Louis Gates, Anne Lamott, Angela Bassett, Lawrence Fishburne, among others. I also sent copies of the book to the Obama family (nine months before the presidential election) and to Massachusetts Governor Patrick’s family. (He sent a lovely hand-written thank you.)

• Priscilla has traveled to Basil and Mariah Silkwood’s descendents, as evidenced in this email I received:

Hi. I'm descended from the Silkwood family, and I have been looking for seeds for Priscilla hollyhocks for years. Do you have any idea where I might get some? I was delighted to find the book you wrote about her story. It is a good story. I'm glad it's being told. Basil was my great-great uncle, but even with that loose connection I'm still proud of him. Thanks for spreading the tale. Good luck. I hope it is very successful for you.

As an author, it was a privilege to learn and write about strong, brave Priscilla who, like Miss Rumphius or Johnny Appleseed, carried seeds of beauty wherever she went. The more I have presented about this book, the more deeply I have come to appreciate the courage of both the African-American slave child who never gave up hope and the white businessman who flouted societal conventions to make her part of his family. What a great opportunity to remember the strength of the human spirit. Who knows where Priscilla and I will travel together in the future?

Posted by Anne Broyles, author of Priscilla and the Hollyhocks.
Visit Anne online at www.annebroyles.com
Keep up with Anne at http://annebroyles.livejournal.com

Ominous Warning for 2009?

A dreary Wednesday morning (holidays are over, no more sweets left in the kitchen, sleet pelting down outside) was broken up by, who woulda thunk, a submission from the slush pile. A manuscript, author to remain unnamed, was accompanied by a . . . um, a piece of foam art? Intrigued by this art, staff gathered around editorial assistant Lynne Mehley's desk to ponder its meaning. A consensus was made--it looks like a tombstone. With daily news from other publishers about mass layoffs we felt this may be an ominous sign for Charlesbridge's future, and decided that if layoffs do occur within the company, this should be used as the pink slip.

However, note to authors with unsolicited manuscripts: sending in items like this may not get your book published (although no decision has been made on this particular one), but it will certainly help the team at Charlesbridge get through hump day.

Sales Assistant, Gina Choe, was kind enough to model the tombstone in these pictures. (Note: Gina is still employed).

Posted by Taylor.

Kids Heart Authors Day!

Before this ingenious campaign by our own Mitali Perkins (of Rickshaw Girl fame), Valentine's Day was merely the annual homage to unlabeled and often surprisingly gross pieces of chocolate that you ate out of obligation, or to fill that lonely place in your heart. Now you can save your palate and your sense of dignity by marching down to your local independent bookstore and hanging out with children's authors and illustrators. You may even get a couple of hugs!

Kids Heart Authors Day is a new campaign to support literacy, children's authors and illustrators, and independent bookstores. What else could you want? Here's how it works: authors, illustrators, and bookstores from around New England can sign up to participate at www.kidsheartauthors.com. They will then be paired up and on February 14th, kids can show up to the bookstore nearest them to get signed copies of their favorite books and meet the people that created them. The events will take place from 10:00 a.m. til noon. More details are at the website, and we'll keep you up-to-date about Charlesbridge authors and illustrators who plan to attend.

Mitali Perkins talks about life between cultures

Check out this wonderful interview with Mitali Perkins, author of Rickshaw Girl, at Kabiliana, the fantastic blog about books by Valentina Acava Mmaka.

Posted by Donna

Did Galileo Really Have a Dog?

This is a question children ask me over and over when I visit their classrooms to talk about the great scientist/inventor/- musician/astronomer/all-around Renaissance man Galileo Galilei. You see, there is a picture of Galileo with his dog "Luna" on the cover of my book, Galileo's Journal, which was published in 2006. Putting Luna there was not a frivolous decision, I can assure you. Galileo loved nature and, seemed to have a fondness for animals. In letters to him written by his daughter, Sister Maria Celeste, from her cloistered convent, there is communication about a small donkey kept on his property, as well as doves. And research showed that certain types of dogs were pets in Italian households during Galileo's lifetime. So we put Luna in the book and readers really connected with her. I always assure students that, while I don't know for sure whether he had a dog, Galileo was a gregarious sort of guy and liked companionship. So he might have had a dog like Luna. Kids seem to be okay with this reply.

I Heart Your Blog

Children's book editor, volunteer librarian, mother of two, and choir singing superstar, Emily Mitchell of the blog Emily Reads, hearts our blog! OMG! (In the spirit of journalistic integrity I must disclose that Emily also works for Charlesbridge.) Nevertheless! Someone actually reads this thing!

Now it is our turn to spread the blog love to others. The decision was tough and heart-wrenching, but we finally came up with seven (but not nearly all) of our favorites. All we had to do was write them a little love letter, post the links to their blogs, and voila! We heart these blogs:


Three Silly Chicks (For the silliest and funniest kids books around)

7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast (Reviews by grown-ups about kids books--but don't worry, these grown-ups are still a little childish--in a good way!)

Bartography (Of course we have to throw in a little nepotistic shout-out to our author of the upcoming book, The Day-Glo Brothers, Chris Barton. Yo what up Chris!?--that's was the shout-out part)

Guys Lit Wire (Wait, what? Guys read? Well according to this blog they do, and they do it a lot)

Poetry for Children (Helping to keep children's poetry alive and well. Thank goodness for this blog!)

Planet Esme (The coolest place for those who love kid's books, written by a professional readiologist!)

I.N.K-Interesting Non-fiction for Kids (This pretty much sums up half of Charlesbridge's back list)

Poetry Friday

Two Writing Teachers is hosting Poetry Friday today!

One of our favorite illustrators, Grace Lin, joined by author Ranida McKneally, didn't just celebrate autumn (and the other seasons) in Our Seasons, they told us how the weather works and how it effects us humans. Pretty haikus are accompanied by scientific explanations.

Here's one perfect for today:

Punching the blue sky,

The wind shows off its poer.

Ki-Ki almost flies

Then we learn what makes the wind: "Air moves when there's a difference in air pressure from one area to another. Air pressure is the weight of air pushing down from above. Most differences in air pressure are caused by the sun's heat. Because the sun heats the earth unevenly, the air is warmer insome places than in others. Warm air doesn't press down as much as cold air, so we say it has low pressure. Cold air has high pressure--when air is cooled, it shrinks and sinks.

When air is heated, it expands and rises. As warm air rises, cold air flows in from surrounding areas to replace the rising air. Air always moves from areas of high pressure to areas of low pressure. When air moves you feel it as wind."

Posted by Donna

Writing is a Gift

When I visit schools and talk to students about writing I am frequently asked why I am a writer. Actually, the answer is really quite simple. I tell students that I write because I can’t not write. Believe me, I’ve tried, but I’ve never been able to go without it for very long. Lucky for me.

I’ve always written and I’ve always enjoyed it. From little made up books and plays as a child, to atrocious teen-aged, angst ridden poetry, to college essays and then children’s writing as an adult. I’ve always loved to write. Journal writing has been a part of my life, and unfortunately my personal baggage every time I move, since I was a teenager. I’ve always loved the thrill of following up on an idea, the joy of creativity and the hidden wonder of revision. But it is just recently that I have begun to see the power and purpose of writing in my life.

First of all, writing allows me the gift of time spent exactly the way that I want to spend it. Every morning I get up early and while the rest of the house is still asleep, I pour myself a cup of steaming, hot tea, wrap myself in a cozy quilt, and get out my journal. Most days I don’t know what I’m going to write, all I do know is that when I open the journal my heart and my mind opens also. Words flow, thoughts come easily, my imagination soars, and when my morning writing time is over I feel fortified to face my day. And why not when the first hour has been filled with all the things I most want to do anyway; read, think, daydream, imagine and of course, drink tea.

Writing has given me the gift of truly seeing. Georgia O’Keeffe said, “Nobody sees a flower—really—it is so small it takes time…to see takes time….” Writing gives me the time, and the purpose, to make myself slow down and really see, and through that closer look, my world grows and is enriched. Let me give you an example. I recently completed a picture book about Claude Monet, the Impressionist painter famous for capturing light in his paintings. As I read about him I found myself looking at my world through a different lens. Scenes that I’d seen a million times before I now saw through Monet’s eyes. I didn’t just briefly notice the pretty silver edging on a cloud, or the shimmering sunlight as it landed on a leaf. I looked more closely. “What color is the light?” I asked myself. “White? Silver? How would I paint it?” Thanks to my writing about Monet I notice more. And this is true for each person I’ve researched and written about. By putting myself in their skin, I also see the world out of their eyes. So my gift of writing has also become a gift of awareness.

Writing has given me a chance to reflect and go deeper. As I sit every day in front of my journal, wise and wonderful sayings do not automatically appear as if on cue. If they appear at all, they come unexpectedly as I follow a train of thought from one track to another, from one destination to another. Writing creates the opportunity to slow down enough to actually think. That too is a gift. I believe that we often don’t really know what we think about something until we write it down. I know this to be true for myself. There is so much swirling around in my head, deposited there through all of my senses and my daily experiences and encounters. Writing helps me figure out not only how to solve problems, but what they are. Writing helps me think through solutions, scenarios, and explore feelings. All of that knowledge is already there, in my head, a treasure trove waiting to be accessed. Writing is my way of digging for that unmined treasure.

And speaking of treasure troves, there is just so much untapped creativity in our heads. Writing, for me, has been a way to tap into it. My first book came to me as a total surprise. I didn’t set out to write a picture book. I sat down to do a writing exercise with my students. I set a timer for fifteen minutes and told them to write about school. As we all wrote in that silent classroom, the only sound was the scratching of pencils against paper and the ticking of the timer. And when the timer went off, lo and behold, I had completed the first draft of my book, First Day Jitters. The story wasn’t planned. I didn’t know that it was there, inside me, I just brought myself to the paper and I wrote the words that poured out of my head and my heart.

Salman Rushdie has said that “in this world without a quiet corner there can be no easy escapes…” Writing is my quiet corner. It provides me with an easy escape. All I need to do is pick up a pen and my journal and I can be traversing the landscape of my mind as in reflective journal writing, or I can be creating a new reality, as in fiction writing, or meeting new people, like Monet, when researching for nonfiction writing. Writing in all of its forms is a gift that has vastly enriched my life and a gift for which I am very grateful. Of course I can’t not write. And why would I want to?

Posted by Julie Danneberg, author of First Day Jitters and the forthcoming Lost and Found.

I am Moved to Write

My husband wants me to buy a plush and expensive new car. The Forester I am driving now is not that old and in great shape, so how does he justify this extravagance? “It will be a complete write-off,” he claims.

Maybe he has a point. Every August, when we begin our long drive to Maine, it is a matter of moments before I get that certain look on my face. And then Rob knows he’s in for it. Pretty soon I will be barraging him with tongue twisters and silly verse. From time to time I will consult him, asking which sounds better- “bumbling black bear” or “bungling black bear?” or other such blithering blather. But most of the time he is left alone, subject only to my incessant muttering and frenetic scribbling. For the next nine hours the poor guy is trapped in the car with me, his riding, writing fool.

He is free to listen to music, or to the news, or to talk on the cell phone, none of which distract me. Once I have engaged my gears, the RPMs (rhymes per minute) keep accelerating and my mind drives full speed ahead.

Oh, I could see myself in a spiffy new car, with lavish leather reclining seats, climate control, quiet interior, mood lighting and a computer with satellite Internet connection.

A limo is actually what I have in mind. Instead, we travel in my husband’s work van, loaded chock-full of luggage, 212 pounds of dogs and cat, and towing a sailboat. It happens to be a very nice, roomy vehicle, but its rigid suspension makes for a rather stiff and bumpy ride, and its lack of sound insulation creates a non-stop drone that resembles a ride in an old New York subway.

But all of this is irrelevant, for I have entered a blissfully oblivious state, and the only sound I hear is the playful babble in my brain.

My facial expressions, I am told, range from agitated twitches to motionless, blank stares. Rob will sometimes try to talk to me, or take my pulse if I don’t respond. But when I do look at him, my expression is glazed-over and strange. He has every right at that point to demand: “Who are you and what have you done with my wife?’

But, he is a patient and supportive man. Rather than feeling abandoned, he spurs me on. And whether it’s his big heart, or strong instinct for survival, he always assumes all of the driving when I am moved to write.

And now I need to talk to my accountant.

Posted by Iza Trapani, author and illustrator of loads and loads of books, but most recently Rufus and Friends: Rhyme Time, our characters of the month (see the bottom of the blog).

While your here, join the poll at the right. And why not follow us? Next month, author Julie Danneberg will be posting here.

G'day, mate! - a note from Cassie

Hi ya!
My name if Cassie. I'm actually a character in an Aussie book called If the Shoe Fits. My wonderful author, Krista Bell, really captured me, I think. I love to dance. LOVE IT! But, the thought of dancing in front of an audience made me want to puke. But when I found out that the best dancer in the whole school--Jake (who is also very cute)--was also afraid, it gave me a weird kind of courage. I figured together we could help each other out. And we did! We even got chosen to be in the superstar dancer, Miranda Farren's, dance troupe. Teamwork really helps to make your dreams come true.

You know, living in Australia isn't so different than living in the United States, I think. Except, at Christmas, it's summer here. But, mostly the kids are just like the kids where you live. I love to dance just like loads of kids in the U.S. I worry about fitting in and wearing the right clothes, but I love hanging out with my friends. We do have different kinds of animals here, like koalas and platypus. If you want to get to know a little bit more about my country and the kids and animals who live here, try reading some of these books:

• Camel Rider (this one actually takes place in the Middle East, but one of the boys is Aussie and it's written by an Aussie--Prue Mason).
• Diary of a Would-be Princess
• Finding Home
• A Platypus, Probably

Besides dancing, I love to read and I've read all of these books. I guarantee you'll like them as much as I did.

Hoo-roo! (that means 'see you later').

Posted by Cassie, the main character in If the Shoe Fits.