Reading comprehension

I'm very glad I went back to this post a second time. At first, I thought Feiwel & Friends was releasing Wuthering Heights with zombies added - and really, one of those is more than enough.

This is where Brian James, author of Zombie Blondes, comes in. He’s taken the timeless story of Wuthering Heights and set it in modern-day San Francisco. We still have Cathy, young, sweet, and in love with the boy next door, and we have Henry, misunderstood, mistreated, and furious. The book is called The Heights.

So: no zombies in this book, just an updated version of Wuthering Heights - which actually sounds pretty cool.

Speaking of small hotel rooms

Justina's comment about her Norwegian room reminded me of this one I shared with two other people in London:
That's what I get for having a very tall roommate.

Meet Justina!

I'm delighted to be the third stop on Justina Chen Headley's blog tour for her new book North of Beautiful!

To win your very own signed copy of the (excellent) book, be the first to answer this question in the comments:

What is Justina's new community service project tied to North of Beautiful?

And visit the other stops on the tour to learn more about Justina - and for more chances to win.

Monday - Mitali's Fire Escape
Tuesday - Shelf Elf
Wednesday - Archimedes Forgets
Thursday - Bibliophile
Friday - Teen Book Review

S: Coffee and tea both play a role in North of Beautiful. Which one do you prefer?

J: Bubble tea—fruity drinks filled with fat tapioca pearls, sucked out in oversized straws. It’s a party in a cup. Or a cup of tea when it's on vacation.

S: From your blogging and tweeting, it's clear that you're into geocaching. Did you start geocaching before it became one of Jacob's hobbies, or did it move from the book into the rest of your life?

J: I had read about geocaching in an article, thought it was interesting, and tucked the idea away until I started working on this book. It occurred to me that geocaching—high tech treasure hunting using a GPS—could be symbolic of Jacob’s transformative effect on Terra. Her controlling mapmaker of a father who tries to box her into a grid; the boy who uses maps to break open her world. So in the name of research, I bought a GPS, created an account at www.geocaching.com, and hauled my family on a geocaching expedition. The kids and I were hooked!

One of our best geocaching adventures happened over the summer with the readergirlz, Jackie Parker, and Nancy Pearl. Check out www.youtube.com/northofbeautiful for our footage from that day!

S: During the trip to China, Terra makes a few side trips alone. What's your advice for girls who want to travel by themselves - or just split off from the family vacation for a few hours?

J: Right out of college, Microsoft sent me to Europe by myself. Up until then, I had never been out of the country, much less traveled alone. But in two weeks, I had to visit five countries, train sales people, and conduct research with corporate accounts. Worse, the only other language I spoke was rudimentary Spanish—not particularly helpful considering Spain wasn’t on my itinerary. That said, I had a lovely adventure in every country—whether it was the bus driver who detoured from his regular route to take me to the Microsoft office outside of Paris. (Remember, I couldn’t speak more than three words in French, and so I held up my business card, smiled, and said: “Microsoft!”) Then there was the owner of a bistro who comped my dinner since my credit card was demagnetized somewhere along the way. And then I had no idea what tiny meant until I checked into one hotel in Norway. I could touch opposite walls with my arms outstretched.

So here’s my advice: make sure someone knows exactly where you’re going and you have an exit plan in case something goes wrong. Double check with someone knowledgeable that the neighborhood you’re investigating is safe. Know the essential words: please, thank you, sorry. Practice awareness at all times. Go to the bathroom before you set out. Pack a sense of adventure, a smile, and enough cab fare to get you back to your home base.

S: What's your favorite way to procrastinate?

J: These days? As you’ve noticed, it’s tweeting and blogging!

"there seems to be some kind of symmetry between the muscular movement of my hand and the flow of ideas"

Why Joseph J. Ellis writes his first drafts by hand.

Publishing behind the scenes

In case you're still wondering where character names and Italian hardwood fit into the process, Macmillan Digital Marketing lays it out for you:

11 Planets

11 Planets. David Aguilar, National Geographic Children's Books, 2008.

It's a geeky thing to admit, but I totally have a soft spot for the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics.

Maybe it's because one of my college astronomy professors is married to a researcher there, and she took her students to visit the labs. Whatever the reason, I thought it was pretty cool that David Aguilar, a director at the CfA, is both the writer and illustrator of 11 Planets.

For a man who probably gets most of his images off the pixels of a CCD, Aguilar creates some beautiful drawings. He covers the eleven planets of the title, along with some other highlights of this solar system and a look at the solar systems that have only recently been discovered.

If the title count seems off to you, there's a good chance you went through science class before the International Astronomical Union decided to make everyone's mnemonics obsolete. There are now, according to the IAU, which gets to make the rules for this sort of thing, eight full-fledged planets and three minor ones. The minor planets include the now-demoted Pluto, the large asteroid Ceres, and Eris, which had the even cooler name Xena until the official body decided to weigh in. The name they chose is hardly inappropriate, though: in Greek mythology, Eris' domain is discord.

11 Planets is a Cybils Middle Grade/YA Non-Fiction finalist.

Science on the Loose

Science on the Loose. Helaine Becker, Maple Tree Press, 2008.

Science on the Loose is a fun book.

I'm not saying that it isn't informative or filled with examples or anything like that - but fundamentally, it's about all the fun you can find in science.

From mini-volcanoes (did I miss something as a kid? I don't remember making one, but this experiment shows up in almost every science book) to testing whether images with eyes make people behave better to pointing out that Nature once ran an article called "Chickens Prefer Beautiful Humans" (apparently chickens are among the more discerning barnyard fowl; an unrelated experiment revealed just how little it takes to make a turkey happy), Science on the Loose is a great introduction to the idea of science as a subject that's simultaneously playful, joyful, and real.

Science on the Loose is a Cybils Middle Grade/YA Non-Fiction nominee.