In Which I Tell You About a Really Awesome Book About Young Witches That You Need to Read

Okay, five or so faithful readers, I promised I would be back later to share some of my summer reads. Well, guess what, I'm back the very next day. Write this down, because it will probably never happen again. I'll write a post later this summer with a rundown of multiple books I've read, but for now I want to tell you about a book that everyone who likes middle grade fantasy should read, but you should especially read if you (or your kids) are a Harry Potter fan.

Just to be clear, I was a serious HP fan for many years. The books didn't come out until I was an adult, and I didn't discover them until book four came out when I was in graduate school. Despite this, I embraced the books and their world wholeheartedly. I got all the new books from #5 on on release day, read them within a couple days, and shared them with friends. I stood in line to see the first three movies the day they were released. I was all in.

Then I found out recently that the author is not a particularly nice person, to put it lightly. She is a vocal advocate against transgender rights in the UK. As if that wasn't bad enough, she has repeatedly told trans readers on Twitter that the message of belonging and acceptance that they found when they read her books as children was not meant for people like them. 

I believe it's possible to separate an artist's work from the artist and I have no plans to disown people who still enjoy the world. It really is an exceptionally cool and well-crafted world (though there are some problems and contradictions which, as my 17yo likes to say, produce plot holes big enough to drive a lorry through). However, after finding out this information about the writer I looked at the books with a more critical eye and realized there's prejudice baked into the books that I was blind to when I first read them. Just as one example, the books are rife with fatphobia. Can you name a single fat character from those books who is an admirable person? Ethnic and racial stereotypes that I didn't notice offhand as a white American reader are also all over the books. The author literally used two Chinese last names for Cho Chang's name. 

So I've stepped away from that world but I was longing to find another magical world that didn't have the same problems with either the author and the world. There's lots of great middle grade fantasy out there. I adore all of Rick Riordan's books as well as the books from his imprint that uplifts writers from marginalized cultures, Rick Riordan presents. Rick is pretty much the opposite of J.K. Rowling. He is actively trying to raise of the voices of cultural minorities and sexual and gender minorities and to do everything he can to make the books he writes as inclusive as possible. However, his books and the books from his imprint, while amazing and delightful, are a different type of fantasy from the Harry Potter books.

I'm happy to report that there's a recently released middle grade fantasy written by a nonbinary author of Dominican descent that is similar in vein to HP without all the negative elements above. The author, Claribel Ortega, was actively trying to create a world similar to the HP world in which people like her would feel welcome and see themselves. Claribel has succeeded admirably with Witchlings from Scholastic. 

The middle grade reader and HP fan at my house has not yet read this, but she was excited right away by a cover that showed that the main character and important supporting characters are girls. The cover really is delightful. I want to credit the artist Lissy Marlin and jacket designer Christopher Stengel.

The book is already an NY Times Bestseller, and I hope it finds its way into the hearts of countless MG readers and MG loving adults. There's lots of room left for multiple sequels and the story would make a great movie. Just like in the HP world, there's a magical world that lives alongside our modern world. One difference I love is that magical kids (witchlings) aren't shipped off the boarding school. There are schools within the magical towns that they attend during the day. There are whole witch families that are part of the plot, which I love. Claribel, by the way, circumvents that wizard/witch gender binary in HP by calling magical people of all genders witches. Boys and men are witches, girls and women are witches, and nonbinary people of all ages are witches (or witchlings if they haven't reached their full powers).

Kids are sorted in houses in a special ceremony at the age of 12. You can even find out which house/coven you would be sorted into by taking this quiz. The sorting kicks off the action when MC Seven Salazar isn't place in House Hyacinth with her best friend as she always dreamed but rather is one of three witches who are designated as "spares", an underclass within the magical community. Seven and her fellow spares turn out to be more formidable than anyone would have imagined. But I'll leave it to you to find out what else happens.

I recommend you run, not walk, to your nearest library or bookseller, to pick up this book. If buying a new book isn't in your budget and your library doesn't have the book, put in a request. I can't speak for all library systems, but our system is nearly always willing to buy my requests, especially if they're bestselling children's books.

In Which the State of My Inbox Compels Me to Buy Oreos

The writing life is tough. I mean, yeah, it's amazing to dream up whole worlds and I don't want to stop doing it. But it's also really tough. I've been actively trying to get an agent for nearly two and a half years now. With four different books. In all that time I have only ever had one agent request a full manuscript and two request partial manuscripts. The partials were for the same book. Two of my manuscripts never got any requests at all.

I've learned a lot over the past two and a half years. I know that each book has been better than the last. Every time I finished a book I was sure that book was going to be "the one". The one that got me an agent and then a book deal. Every time (so far) I have been wrong. But, looking back, I can see why the first three books didn't do that. I can see that I still needed to grow as a writer.

But this most recent one. I was so sure it was special. The pacing is on point. There's a cliffhanger ending at 10 pages, at 30 pages, and at 50 pages, the three increments agents normally ask for. It's unique. It has disability rep. It has queer rep. It has an environmental message. It even has a fox as a service animal.

Still, my inbox is crickets. I got two partial requests from agents who only ask for a query, but both ended in rejection. The advice is to query in small batches and change up  your query and opening pages if you don't get requests. So I've been doing that. I've had agented writers look over my query letter and opening pages. They've been pronounced great and sure to get requests. Still, agents don't seem to be getting the message.

Maybe it's not getting in front of the right person, people say. Is there a magic wand telling me who that right person might be? (Maybe you're an agent reading this after I queried you and you're that person? I can hope). Otherwise I just need to keep sending it to agents I think I'd like to work with who rep middle grade sci fi and seem like they might be interested. Maybe this will yield the results I'm looking for. Maybe the book is in the right inbox right now. There's no way to know that.

What I do know is that I'm not going to stop writing new stories. What I also know is that, if this round of queries doesn't go anywhere, I need to set this book aside. That doesn't mean it will be dead forever. My dream is that after I get an offer of rep for whatever book does that for me, my agent will be interested in eventually sending all of my books on submission to editors. There's no guarantee of that. But it's well within the realm of possibility. But at this point I need to protect my heart. I was so sure this was the book that was doing to get requests early and in spades. It has so many things agents are supposed to be looking for: disability rep, queer rep, and environmental message. I really don't know what it's missing. Or if it's missing nothing and the right person simply hasn't seen it.

That's one of the super frustrating things about writing. It can be really difficult to know if it's you or if it's them. But there are really two choices for writers facing piles of rejections. You can give up or you can keep writing. I'm not going to say I will always keep writing no matter what. That it doesn't matter at all if I never get published. I just feel compelled to tell stories. That's true for some people, but I'm not sure it will be true for me long term. If I'm still nowhere near publication in five years will I keep plugging away? I have lots of idea, so maybe. But maybe not. 

I love books, especially books for young people. I will never stop caring about them. But will I stop writing them if there's no hope they will ever make it on shelves? I just don't know. I hope I won't, but my battered heart can only take so much. If there comes a time when writing never brings me any joy I think it will be time to take a long break, at the very least.

Speaking of breaks, my kids are out of school for the summer, so I've decided to take a break from significant writing work. I might still write, but only if it brings me joy. Otherwise I'm going to enjoy spending time with my kids and I'm going to read a lot of books. 

Oh, and I mustn't forget the Oreos. One day last week when I was feeling particularly bad about the state of my inbox I found Fireworks Oreos at the store and I bought them. These are special edition Oreos that only come out in the summer. They have something like pop rocks in the cream. The rest of my family thinks that is super weird and will not eat them. So these are the only Oreos that are safe from my teenage son, who is basically a food black hole. So I get to eat my feelings and my family doesn't have more snack food tempting them. Everyone wins.

I've read some great books already this summer. I'll be back soon to share about some of them.

In Which My Son Attends a College Visit Weekend and I Come Away with Writing Advice

 My 17yo is starting to look seriously at colleges, and this weekend he attended an overnight visit event at Asbury University, which is his current top choice and only about 45 minutes from our house. He wants to study media production, and Asbury has a very well respected program. This weekend's visit was aimed at students interested in the media program and was capped off by the college's film festival on Saturday night. For the film festival weekend, there were judges and other visitors from the film industry on campus, giving talks and meeting with students and prospective students.

I stayed for the first talk before heading home, and I was pleasantly surprised that I took a lot a way from it as a writer. Asbury is a Christian university and the talk was aimed at that audience, titled "What every Christian needs to know before going to Hollywood". The speakers, a movie composer and a producer who are married to each other, emphasized that by "Hollywood" they really meant the entertainment industry in general, which is global, and that the principles would apply wherever the students ended up.

I was pleasantly surprised to realize that a whole lot of the advice applies to the creative life in general, including writing, and not just to moviemaking. It was also a good reminder that my son, who is severely dyslexic and doesn't read for pleasure (he can read, but it's a lot of work for him and he only reads when he needs the information) isn't quite as different from me as it would seem on the surface. At the core, he wants to build a life as a storyteller, just as I'm trying to do.

I won't share any of the specifically Christian advice on this general interest blog, but I thought some of the advice would apply to people of other faiths and no faith. Those points are as follows:

1. The importance of community. I've posted here about finding my writing community. Writing is most often a solitary occupation. When you're in the query trenches or agented but on submission to editors, it is also most often an incredibly discouraging occupation. If you have someone to share both your joys and your sorrows with, it's significantly more bearable.

2. Don't go into writing (they said filmmaking, but the principle is the same) because you want to be rich and famous. Go into it because you love to tell stories. That's what I try to keep in mind as I write story after story that no agents want to pick up so far. Yes, I want to see them on shelves and I hope to someday make some money from them, but it's unlikely that I'll get rich from it, which is okay. What I want to do is to tell stories that will both entertain and impact readers.

3. Show interest in other people in the industry. Don't always think about only yourself and what will benefit you. This may in the end open doors for you. I'm not sure if the "opening doors" part is quite as true in publishing, but, along with building a community of writing peers, I do think it's both helpful and important to establish relationships to whatever extent you can with writers ahead of you on the path. At least, they're more likely to read and hype your book if they already know who you are and have had good interactions with you.

4. It takes 10,000 hours of work before you become an expert in something. It may not take exactly 10,000 hours to write a novel that's good enough to get published, but in the case of the large majority of writers, it's not your first novel that ends up being your debut novel. Even if you do sell your first novel, the version that sits on shelves will go through sometimes significant edits and take a lot of work. Even established writers often say that they look back on their early published books and see all that they still had to learn. I can look back at my first three books and, even though I love the stories and hope to someday edit/rewrite them into books worthy of publication, I can see the things I still had to learn and the ways they're lacking. Not that my fourth book is perfect, but it's much better at this stage than the others were at the same stage because of everything I learned from writing them.

I returned to campus for the film festival last night, and I heard something there that was meaningful to me as a writer as well. The chair of the media communication department quoted a filmmaker whose name I immediately forgot (please tell me in the comments if you know who said this), who said "Make visible what, without you, might otherwise never have been seen." That really struck me, because that is half of why I write. First, because I love to tell stories, but second to make the marginalizations I identify with or am very close to, visible. This includes people on the asexual spectrum, girls with ADHD, and the diabetes community. Even if you don't identify with any marginalized group I still think this can apply. You might be making small town life visible, an unusual interest, an experience you've had, or something I haven't even thought of. Everyone has something unique to bring to their writing, and I believe there's a kid out there who could see a character like them in a book for the first time because of the story only you/I can tell.

To end, I'll share some pictures from the festival. I got to meet actor Joel McCreary, who played the prime minister of Genovia in the Princess Diaries as well as posing by statues of Kings Peter and Edmund of Narnia, which are actual set pieces from Prince Caspian movie. The media building as Asbury officially qualifies as a museum because of all the TV and movie artifacts it houses. They're all from projects that Asbury faculty and alumni have worked on.

In Which I Attend a Writing Conference and Come Home With a Business Card

When I started this blog a year and a half ago I set a goal of blogging once a month, and, given my record of 6+ months between posts on my parenting blog, I'm doing pretty well even though I've missed the mark a handful of times. I was sure I'd missed a month since I've been so busy this winter, but my last post was on February 1st and it's still March, so I haven't failed yet!

I've been in the query trenches for a few months now with my fourth middle grade novel with very little to show for it. It's disheartening since I was so sure this one was going to be "the one". It's not only the best written of my books (it turns out you do get better by writing more books), but it has both queer rep and disability rep (including an adorable glucose alert fox!) in addition to a climate change message. I mean, isn't that everything agents and editors are looking for? Apparently not, or at least not any of the agents I've queried so far. 

I've changed my beginning since the first set of queries, and a conference I attended this weekend showed me that I should try changing it again because both the agent in the First Pages section and my peer critique group were confused by the beginning. At the advice of a CP, I'd pulled a scene that was originally in chapter 6 and stuck it at the beginning to create more tension right away, and it doesn't seem to be working the way I intended.

So now I'm back to playing with what the best beginning might be. I'm even toying with starting with a prologue, which breaks all the rules, but if I do it for the right reasons it's okay to break the rules.

In any case, right now I'm trying to figure out how to cut some words since it's very long for middle grade and I have a feeling some of my rejections might be coming because of that. After I've done that, the right beginning might become clear.

Because querying and editing a middle grade book apparently isn't enough for me, I've started writing an adult contemporary romance. I never in a million years thought I would want to write for adults, let alone write romance, but the idea just fell from the sky on me and I felt compelled to write it. It's a romance between an asexual woman who has given up on love and her first crush who has just returned to their hometown, a widower with a young daughter who believes he buried his heart with his wife. The heroine owns the combination cat cafe and bookshop of my dreams, and there are plenty of cute kittens as well as tea and cookies. Basically all of my favorite things. Here's an aesthetic I worked up.

Despite writing the romance, my heart belongs to writing for kids, so, as I alluded to above, I attended the MidSouth SCBWI conference this past weekend. It was full of wonderful information, and it was also great to hang out with other writers.  I think the two most valuable things I came away with were the clear idea that my current first page isn't working and the business card of an editor from a small press. The second, of course, requires an explanation.

Saturday there was a gala dinner, and we were encouraged to dress as book characters. I chose to dress as Harbor Lightkeep, the main character from the book I'm querying. Because why dress as someone else's character when I can dress as my own? Here's a photo of my dressed for the banquet.

I was talking with a group of women at the cocktail hour and explained the costume and a bit about the book. One of the women asked me if I had an agent and I said no, I was still looking for one. She then handed me her card. She's an editor at a small press! I'm not naming her or the press because I have no idea what will come of this, but even if it doesn't lead to an offer or it does but I decide it's not the best fit, it was still exciting to have an actual publishing professional really love my idea.

In Which I Enter the Kids Choice Kidlit Writing Contest

I had a lot of fun entering the Halloween themed 200 word story contest back in the fall, so when I heard about this one I decided to throw something together for it, too. Plus, quite a few of my #MGWaves friends entered, and it's hard to fight peer pressure even at 46. 😂 You can read all the stories, including mine, here on Kailie Pew's blog, but I decided to post my story on my own blog as well. It's a short little PB idea I got when a chipmunk stole part of my lunch while I was hiking last summer. PBs aren't what I normally write and I'd never done anything with the idea, so I decided to roll with it. Maybe some kids will fall in love with it.

                                                                The Apple

Petra set her apple down for one second, just long enough for the chipmunk to grab it.

How unlucky could she get?

Chippy couldn’t believe his luck. A whole apple to himself! How would he get it into his den?

Chippy rolled it up to hole and pushed. 

“I’ll help you with that,” Redbud the squirrel said.

Redbud grabbed the apple… and ran up a tree!

Redbud couldn’t believe his luck. A whole apple to himself!

How would he get it into his nest hole?

He lined it up and pushed.

Poe the raven landed next to him. “I’ll help you with that.” He grabbed the apple in his beak

and took off!

Poe couldn’t believe his luck. A whole apple to himself!

As he flew over the creek he spotted Harry the red-tailed hawk. Harry dived.

Poe let out a screech and dropped the apple, soaring away.

The apple dropped into the creek as Petra hiked past. No way!

She took it out and dried it on her shirt.

“Would you like my apple?” she asked her brother. 

He grabbed it and took a huge bite. Petra burst out laughing.

“Wait till you hear where that apple has been!”

In Which I Reflect on Book Bans

There's been a lot of outrage in the press and on social media lately about the removal of the holocaust centered graphic novel, Maus by Art Spiegelman, from the 8th grade curriculum in McMinn County, Tennessee because it was determined to be inappropriate due to "nudity and profane language". Given that the "nudity" cited is nude mice and the profanity is fairly tame and nothing the average 8th grader wouldn't have heard before, it's pretty clearly posturing on the part of the district. The district did later release a statement saying that they do believe it's important for students to learn about the holocaust and that they were looking for a more "age appropriate" book to use. Since the unit was reportedly coming up soon, unfortunately what's most likely to happen this year is that the holocaust unit will be cancelled. But even if it's continued with a more "age appropriate" text, the probability is that whatever text is chosen won't convey the horrors of the holocaust the way the true story of a holocaust survivor does. While I love historical fiction and think it's a good gateway to introduce the topic of the holocaust to younger children, the fact is too much of it either doesn't touch on the worst parts (such as Anne Frank's diary, which ends before the was captured and sent to a concentration camp) or focuses on the heroism of gentiles (such as Lois Lowry's Number the Stars). I love both of the mentioned books and am not saying kids shouldn't read them, but that can't be where the lesson stops, particularly not for older students. 

Some people try to give book removals and bans a positive twist, saying that kids will for sure want to read a book that's been banned and will run out to buy it or check it out of the public library. This may happen with a few kids, but the fact is that the majority of kids either won't be inspired to read a banned book or might want to but won't have access to it. Eighth graders are 13 or 14. They can't get to a library or bookstore on their own, and they most often don't have their own money. If their parents don't want them reading Maus, they won't get access to it.

While the removal of Maus has gotten a lot of attention, it's just one example of a nationwide trend of books being banned or just quietly removed from classrooms, school libraries, and even some public libraries. The most commonly banned/removed books are those written by BIPOC and/or queer authors featuring BIPOC and/or queer kids. Just glancing through my 11yo's bookshelf, I found three books that I know have been the subject of bans. In some cases the authors have had school visits booked and had the visits cancelled last minute because parents protested.

In these cases as well, some misinformed people are saying that authors should see the bans as a badge of honor and saying that bans only increase sales. The problem is, while bans might give an author a slight bump in sales, those sales will be to adults and are unlikely to get the books in the hands of the kids who really need them. For most of history, children's books featured white cishet kids almost exclusively. On the rare occasion the protagonist wasn't white, the author usually was. While the representation is still far from even, now more and more books about BIPOC kids written by BIPOC authors are being published. Some, like Jerry Craft's New Kid, which won a Newbery, are even winning major awards. However, that does not make them immune to being challenged. New Kid, along with a huge number of other books starring Black kids, is being challenged around the nation as part of the push against "critical race theory" being taught in public schools. Which is so far off the mark it would be laughable if it weren't so serious. The two other books pictured, Drama by Raina Telgemeier and The Insiders by Mark Oshiro, have been challenged because they feature queer characters, which, in the view of some parents, makes them "inappropriate" at best and "pornographic" at worst. A list of books removed for review in one school district over potential "pornographic" content includes picture books about transgender children.

For authors, these bans are bad for a few reasons. First of all, many queer and BIPOC writers decided to write for children specifically because they didn't see kids like them in books growing up and they wanted to give that experience to children. More practically, these bans are causing income loss for authors. Not only are fewer books selling because schools can't buy them, but the authors either aren't scheduling school visits or are having already booked visits cancelled. School visits are often a huge part of the income of children's writers.

Most important, I think, is the effect these bans have on children. For some kids, especially those in low income areas, the classroom and school library are the places they have access to books. It's incredibly valuable for these kids to read books whose heroes look like them. Queer kids from conservative families can be particularly hurt. Some school librarians report kids reading books during library time that their parents would never allow them to bring home. These kids might know they're gay or transgender and not feel safe telling their families, or they might be starting to ask questions about gender identity and sexuality that they don't feel they can ask at home. Books featuring queer kids can be a literal lifesaver for these kids, who sadly have a higher suicide rate than the general population.

Even for white, cishet kids, reading books about BIPOC and queer kids is incredibly valuable. They need to know that these kids exist, that they can be heroes of fantastical adventures or, alternatively, that they also have normal lives and normal kid problems and really aren't so different after all. Kids from Christian families need to see Muslim kids, Jewish kids, and kids from other minority religions in the books they read.

So far, book bans have not reached my district. I'm blessed to live in an area that's pretty progressive for Kentucky, and our district has been headed by a Black superintendent for the past six years, which I think is likely to ward off books being removed under a false charge of teaching "critical race theory". That doesn't mean my district is definitely safe, though, and I'm prepared to challenge the school board if the bans make their way here. In the meantime, I'm doing my part to see that my white, Christian, cishet (at least as far as I know) fifth grader reads books starring all kind of kids and not just kids that look like her and believe the things she believes.

In Which I Share Some Holiday Reads

 When I started this blog I had a goal of updating it at least monthly. Since my last post was nearly two months ago, I have clearly failed at that. I apologize to my tiny handful of faithful readers. My excuse is that I was wrapped up in trying to finish the steampunk airship adventure I started this spring. I succeeded and have now done a lot of edits based on feedback from critique partners and beta readers. I've sent out just a few queries to test the waters, but I'll be surprised (pleasantly of course) if one of these early queries results in an offer of representation. My instinct is that I probably still have some polishing to do before it will really shine for an agent. I'm focusing now on entering it in the Author Mentor Match mentorship contest and have picked out the four mentors I'm going to apply to. Just for fun, here's the latest aesthetic I created for my book. 

I'm not just here to brag about the book I finished, though. Since it's Christmas Eve, I figured I'd share some holiday reads I've enjoyed. And I say holiday reads as opposed to Christmas reads because one of them is about a holiday (actually two holidays that share a name) I don't celebrate.

As you may remember from last December's post, my family has a lot holiday reading traditions and I love Christmas books. For years I had a habit of reading Tony Abbot's beautiful Santa Claus origin story, Kringle, every December. However, this year I tried to read it and just couldn't get into it. I think I've read it too many times and just need to take a break from it. However, for those who haven't yet read it, I highly recommend it. It's a Santa Claus origin story told in the form of an epic fantasy including elves, goblins, and a rune that stops time. It even gives a nod to the Christian origin of the holiday, which the average Santa Claus story doesn't often do.

Last year, through #MGBooktober on Twitter, I discovered what might be my new favorite Christmas read, Kate Milford's Greenglass House. This fun mystery with just a hint of the paranormal is a wonderfully enjoyable book to curl up with in December. Even better, it has a sequel that also takes place at Christmas, Ghosts of Greenglass House. 

Today, instead of reading Kringle, which I brought with me on my Christmas travels just in case I felt inspired to read it, I'm reading another book that was recommended to me on Twitter. Like Greenglass House, this story is a mystery of a sort and takes place at an isolated hotel, but it is otherwise quite different. I'm really enjoying it so far. The book is Winterhouse by Ben Guterson.

This year at Advent my family moved away from the middle grade reading trend to read an adult novella by well known dog book writer W. Bruce Cameron. Even though it's written for adults, by my ten year old and my sixteen year old really enjoyed A Dog's Perfect Christmas, and I can confidently recommend it as a family read if you have children who are upper elementary or older.

My last recommended holiday read is a short story collection I read this fall, focusing on a holiday that is not mine. Once Upon an Eid is a collection of stories by Muslim writers from a variety of backgrounds that feature families celebrating both Eid Al Fitr and Edi Al Adha. I found the stories delightful and enjoyed learning about two holidays that are quite different from any of the holidays I celebrate. This book is a great example of how books from outside of our culture and experience can serve as windows into experiences different from your own.

If you celebrate Christmas, Merry Christmas Eve! I hope you have a wonderful holiday. If your winter holiday has already happened or is still to come, I hope it is or was a joyful time, in spite of any changes this never-ending pandemic caused. I'm thankful that my entire immediate family is now vaccinated along with my parents, brothers, and sister in law, so we can all gather (relatively) safely, but I still long for a day we can celebrate with larger groups of people without having to think so much about it. In the meantime, books, both holiday books and other books, will be here for us. In books we can peek into scenes from holidays we celebrate an holidays we don't celebrate. We can travel without need for a test, mask, or passport, to places that exist in our world and places that don't.