There are so many resources for writers of children's books that are easily accessed online. This is an organization for writers of children's book that I have found very helpful:
The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (website SCBWI.ORG). Formed in 1971, there are currently more than 19,000 members worldwide, in over 70 regions, making it the largest children's book writing organization in the world.
The SCBWI sponsors two annual International Conferences on Writing and Illustrating for Children as well as dozens of regional conferences and events throughout the world. It also publishes a bi-monthly newsletter, offers awards and grants for works in progress, and provides many informational publications on the art and business of writing and selling written, illustrated, and electronic material for children. The SCBWI also presents the annual Golden Kite Award for the best fiction and nonfiction children's books and the Sid Fleischman Humor Award for children's books.
Membership in the SCBWI is open to anyone with an active interest in children’s books, literature or media.
For Regional SCBWI Organizations – Click on “Regions” at scbwi.org
This lightly fictionalized story of the golden delicious apple truly reads like a fairy tale. In 1905 Missouri, the famous Stark Bro's Nursery is the place farmers send their apples, hopeful that the brothers will want to sell the apples to their customers. But Paul and Lloyd are picky, likening each taste of a new apple to trying a glass slipper on one lady’s foot after another to try to find Cinderella. Meanwhile, in West Virginia, Anderson Mullins discovers a one-of-a-kind apple tree on his property that produces the most delicious golden apples. They win fair ribbons, yield year after year and stay sweet even through winter storage. In 1914 he sends three to the Starks and it becomes their Cinderella apple. Paul journeys to West Virginia to buy the apple tree, bringing back twigs to graft onto the trees back home. And from that one tree, every golden delicious apple is descended. The colors of Kemly's charming watercolor-and-ink illustrations neatly evoke the time period and the agricultural theme. A standout amidst the proliferation of apple books found in elementary classrooms. (author's note) (Picture book. 6-10) Copyright Kirkus 2008 Kirkus/BPI Communications.All rights reserved.
As part of Governor Manchin's "Come Home to West Virginia" effort, our state's Wonderful West Virginia Magazine will be publishing a special "West Virginia Reunion" issue. As a West Virginia author, I was asked to share my thoughts on West Virginia and "coming home" to our beautiful state. This is what I wrote:
1. During the years we lived in Michigan, coming home to West Virginia meant singing “Oh, those hills, beautiful hills, how I love those West Virginia hills . . ." with my husband and our two children when we caught our first sight of the West Virginia hills as we were driving back home to visit my family in Weirton.
2. My favorite West Virginia reunion memory has to be plural. It is all of my high school reunions (Madonna High School, Class of 1966). As I look around at all of those faces, now beginning to grow old, I am always reminded of Willa Cather’s words of how “We possess together the precious, the incommunicable past.”
3. West Virginia’s best-kept secret is its fifty shades of springtime-green.
4. Even when I am away from West Virginia I feel its influence: The hills, the mountains -- it’s the land that always pulls me home. Of my books, my newest one, GOLDEN DELICIOUS: A CINDERELLA APPLE STORY, is an ideal “Homesick Remedy.” Why? Because it’s a fun, true story about the discovery of the Golden Delicious apple on Anderson Mullins’s Clay County farm. Kathleen Kemly’s beautiful illustrations will make you want to sink your teeth into one of those “gorgeous, glowing, golden apples.” No wonder Golden Delicious is our state fruit!
Recently I did a program for parents on the importance of reading aloud. In that presentation, I stressed that reading-aloud ranks right up there with loving, feeding, and clothing their children. When my children were little, the best time of the day for me was at night when I sat in bed with them reading wonderful books. Now I look forward to doing that with my grandsons.
I know that I am a writer because I love to read. (I don't think a person can be a writer unless they are a reader.) And how did I become such a book-lover? I was lucky enough to have been read aloud to when I was a young child.
On the vital and far-reaching importance of reading aloud, children's author Mem Fox says, "If parents understood the huge educational benefit and intense happiness brought about by reading aloud to their children, and if every parent--and every adult caring for a child--read aloud a minimum of three stories a day (20 minutes) to the children in their lives, we could probably wipe out illiteracy within one generation." That's a bold statement, but I believe it's true. And wouldn't that change the world for the better! So, spread the word . . . Read-aloud!
Yesterday I found out that an Australian newspaper wrote an article "Young Reader Inspired by Famous Namesake" about my Australian cousin Anna Egan (who I wrote about in this post) and me. Here's a little bit of the article:
Anna's mum, Yoshi Egan, of Cleveland, said they were so excited to discover a children's author in West Virginia had the same name that they immediately began searching for her books in Australia.
I am often asked what compelled me to write a book about the Irish Saint Brigid. I am very interested in Celtic spirituality, in particular the early Irish saints. None is more appealing than St. Brigid, a woman of truly unique vision, personality, and spirit. It is quite possible that she founded the first monastery in Ireland, one that served as a model for those founded later for men. If not consecrated a bishop, Brigid certainly acted like one! Her life was a whirlwind of activity: acting as a champion of the poor, a healer, and a peacemaker in a violent time, all the while never once taking her mind from God, the source of all that she was and all that she accomplished.
People are searching for books on Saint Brigid only to find very little written about her. A cursory internet search for Brigid finds a proliferation of websites, many of them religious, but also a significant number of others that focus on the goddess Brigid. As I say in my book, THE LIFE OF SAINT BRIGID published by Appletree Press in Belfast, it is impossible to separate the legends of the saint from the stories of the goddess that had the same name. The Irish of the latter half of the first millennium joyously celebrated both, not worrying over which was more “real.”
Brigid’s story is an inspiration for those looking for a spirituality, a unique Celtic spirituality, that celebrates the sacred in all of creation, and for those searching as well for the feminine face of God.
In a recent interview, I was asked if my book THE LIFE OF SAINT BRIGID was connected to my ancestry.
My maiden name, Egan, is Irish. My grandfather was born in County Mayo. In 2000, my brother, sister and I attended a Clan Egan Gathering at Redwood Castle in Ireland. I had been doing research on Saint Brigid in preparation for writing a book about her. Amazingly, the source I was using (a translation from THE LEABHAR BREAC, a manuscript written in Latin and Middle Irish) had been written for the MacEgans in the early 15th century, a part of it quite likely written in the very castle where we had our reunion!
A wonderful pairing of my Golden Delicious book with a children's Golden Delicious tree care kit is now available from Stark Brothers nursery. How exciting! Here's an excerpt from an article published in the Charleston Gazette on Jan. 24, 2009:
West Virginia author Anna Egan Smucker’s newest book is featured in the Stark Bros. nursery catalog as part of a grow-your-own fruit tree kit for children.
The nursery's kit includes a copy of the book, a Golden Delicious Dwarf Apple tree ready for planting, a "My Apple Tree" planting guide for kids, a children's tree care kit and a patch. It sells for $41.97. To get a kit, visit starkbros.com/KidsClub/.
Apple books are popular for teachers to use in teaching students about science - especially during apple picking season. There is a wealth of across-the-curriculum teaching ideas & resources for teachers with activities for all grade levels at the www.usapple.org educators’ site and at www.nyapplecountry.com/edplansa.htm
Scholastic's Kid Lit Kit blog author Jeremy Brunaccioni posted a really nice review of Golden Delicious: A Cinderella Apple Story in his Picture Book Thursday "Harvest Time" edition. He also reviewed the book Corn by Gail Gibbons and The Best Gift of All which was written by Jonathan Emmett and illustrated by Vanessa Cabban.
Golden Delicious: A Cinderella Apple Story If you’ve ever read Michael Pollan’s The Botany of Desire and thought the apple information would be useful in the classroom but too advanced for your students, then this is the book you’ve been waiting for. It traces the discovery and distribution of the Golden Delicious. The author’s note is extensive and intriguing enough to make me want to plant some apple trees in my yard.
Activity Purchase a selection of apples to have a taste testing and graph the results. Invite a neighboring class or two and compare their graph results. Bon appetit!
There is a direct connection between writing poetry and writing the text of a picture book. In both, every word has to be perfect. In many respects, I think writing a novel is easier. There is so much more room in which to work!
If you are looking for intelligent discourse on books or wondering what to read next, I encourage you to subscribe to Meredith Sue Willis's free e-newsletter BOOKS FOR READERS. Just send a blank email to Readerbooks-subscribe@topica.com Thank you, Meredith Sue for ALL you do for readers and writers!
GOLDEN DELICIOUS: A CINDERELLA APPLE STORY made its official Grand Debut at the West Virginia Book Festival in our state capital of Charleston. I was delighted with the response. After my slide presentation, both the WV Book Company and Borders sold out of their copies!
A great and unexpected pleasure was meeting several descendants of Bewel Mullins, the brother of Anderson Mullins, the Clay County farmer who discovered the Golden Delicious apple. What a terrific family! The above photo shows Helen Elaine Whited Dawson, Helen Suzanne Mullins Plybon, Nancy Margaret Mullins Schaffner, me, and David Lonnie Mullins. They're justifiably proud to have their "family" story in a book.
As always, the West Virginia Book Festival, held the second weekend in October, was a great energizer for me. It's fantastic to be in the company of so many fellow-booklovers. A huge THANK YOU!! to all those people, especially the librarians, the WV Book Festival committee, and all of the volunteers who work so hard to put this annual event together.
It's also a wonderful opportunity to hear other authors read from their work. I was especially impressed with Ann Pancake who read from her powerful book STRANGE AS THIS WEATHER HAS BEEN. This novel brings home in a visceral way the devastation of mountaintop removal mining on our land and people.
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