DYN-O-MITE

I had a weird childhood. My dad worked in children's book publishing. So did my uncle. And my grandfather.

As a toddler, I would roam the halls of Scholastic and run into (literally) the founder of Scholastic, Maurice (Robbie) Robinson. As I grew steadier on my feet, I would peek into the offices of editors and publicists and look for the latest book or a Dynamite magazine.

There was this one guy. Dad called him "Jovial Bob." He was the editor of Bananas. You remember BANANAS - that funny, cool magazine for kids in the 1970s.  Dad would make me walk down the hall to Jovial Bob's office to ask for the latest issue in person. Jovial Bob was funny, but a little intimidating. His humor... dark. My love of Bananas was strong, however. I would muster my courage, enter his office, and brave his riddles in order to win a copy.

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A few years ago, I ran into "Jovial Bob" -- my childhood go-to guy for BANANAS. He was signing books after a reading at the NC Literary Festival in Chapel Hill.

I waited for an hour to get an autograph. When it was my turn, I stood before Jovial Bob sheepishly without a book to sign.

 "I'm on an austerity budget," I explained, "Do you mind signing my program?"

"What do you need? A loan?" he said reaching for his wallet.

 "No.  I just wanted to say 'hi.'  Dad sends 'Jovial Bob' his regards."

"Who is your dad?" asked Jovial Bob, aka R.L. Stine, his royal highness of horror, who seemed surprised to hear the name of his alter ego.

After some pleasantries, Jovial Bob realized that I was that little kid who was always bugging him for BANANAS, those many years ago.

I told Mr. Stine that, while I admired his success with Goosebumps, they were too scary for me! I still preferred his work in Bananas. I tried my best to lure him back to the funny side. He looked unconvinced. Someone from the crowd yelled, "I loved Bananas, too!" (The educational publisher's version of "Freebird" at a book signing.)

RL Stine's trick for writing scary stories for kids:  
"How do I make them scary without causing too many goosebumps? The secret is to never make the story seem real. It has to seem like fantasy. The reader can't believe it could ever really happen."

 It was great to see Jovial Bob again. He is the master at what he does.

Time flies. Enjoy your Halloween, my dearies.

Love,
Amy C. Spaulding
Sleepy Hollow Books

(Photo credit for Dynamite Magazine cover -- copyright: Scholastic, Inc.)
(Photo credit of fan photo [Amy C. Spaulding with author R.L. Stine] --  courtesy of Sleepy Hollow Books)

Spectacle

6th Grade. 1976.

I was a brainiac. A super student.

But at the start of the school year, I couldn’t pay attention. Couldn’t concentrate. Couldn’t “get” the work the teacher was doing on the board. I just couldn’t seem to FOCUS.

Maybe I was dumb after all.

My smart mother took me to the optometrist.

Confirmed. I couldn’t see!  I needed glasses.

I cried. Right there in Mr. Optometrist’s office.  My life was ruined. 

“Don’t cry,” he said, starting to cry, too.

I got a pair of rimless glasses. “Just like not wearing glasses at all,” he said.

I cried harder.

Moral of the story: Get your KID’S eyes checked regularly.

Glasses are (now) cool.


(Illustration is by Ellen Raskin from her book SPECTACLES.)

Passion

When I was a kid, I had a passion for ice skating.

During our earliest years in Brooklyn, my sister Susie and I would soap up the empty bathtub with Ivory and skate until we'd fall and clunk our heads. This happened so many times that the management took away our soap and closed our rink permanently.

I solved this issue by rising early one Sunday morning and cracking a dozen eggs on the kitchen floor.

Susie and I were having a grand time skating until crash landings summoned a sleepy father.  He started yelling about our breakfast, which was now broken yolk and eggshells on the floor.

My son was two when developed a passion for hockey. Wearing his duck bicycle helmet strapped about his chin, Nick would skate in socks across the kitchen linoleum and smack the orange plastic puck into the oven. His slap shot was so good that my husband would yell, “Put the biscuit in the basket!” from the dining room. Whenever we would set foot on the black-and-white linoleum, Nick would squeak, “Get off the ice!!”

The vacuum cleaner was the zamboni. This went on for years.

When I was trying to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, I had a dream.

In the dream, I was visiting a young friend who had made his home in a junkyard. There were all sorts of cars rusted and piled, one on top of another, in a huge field. I was lamenting that "my friend" could not see the treasure that was under this pile of rubbish. The junkyard was built on top of an ice skating rink. “You love skating!” I exclaimed. "Can’t you see it? It is right beneath your feet! All you have to do is clear out all these cars!” What I was saying to my dream self was:  You must clear out the detritus of your life -- the debris, the clutter, the rusted hunks of junk -- and uncover what is already here waiting for you; your dreams lie just beneath your feet.

There are many times in a person’s life when, at a tender age, they have the opportunity to share who they are with the world. That courage can sometimes lead to broken dreams smashed on the kitchen floor.

"I want to be a writer," I told my Dad, when I was 12. "Writers are weird," he replied. (I was discouraged; now, I consider myself well qualified...in the weird department!)

“I want to be a Buddhist monk,” my husband told the nuns at his school. Future horse trainer is what they put under his yearbook photo.

My son declared that he wanted to be a t-shirt designer when he grew up. “You can do better than that,” he was told. Crush. (Hey, Ralph Lauren started out designing ties.)

In our house, we now have a phrase. When someone criticizes someone else's ideas without listening to them, we yell, "Stop squashing my dreams!"

Growing up, I never told anyone my deep, dark secret: I wanted to be an entertainer -- a 1930s showgirl, in black and white, on Broadway. So what if couldn't sing on key and I was born in the wrong decade? Putting on a show – helping people through hard times using art, music, beauty, dance, and teamwork --  still speaks to me. The Show now equals books. The 1930s/Depression = preadolescence.

While clearing out what not longer serves us, we must identify and toss the mental chatter and old, out-dated messages about who we are and what is meaningful and valuable.

 

Junk the rusted Mustang, sell the Sunfish, donate your old shoes. Dump the broken records of other peoples’ expectations. Then, the ice will be clear for happy.

 

-- Amy C. Spaulding, Publisher, sleepyhollowbooks.com

Purpose may point you in the right direction but it’s passion that propels you.”
– Travis McAshan, Entrepreneur and Web Strategist

If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.”
– Benjamin Franklin, American Statesman

Every Little Thing is Gonna Be All Right

5 baby birds were born in the little nest on my porch. They are growing by leaps and bounds and are now crowding the nest. Soon they will take their first flight. Who will be first? The next generation of songbirds is about to take wing.

Here is a new blog post by author Maureen Wartski called "Wings" -- in celebration of the season: http://maureenwartski.wordpress.com/2012/04/26/wings/.

Ms. Wartski's middle grade novel Yuri's Brush with Magic (ages 9-12) is available from The Regulator Bookstore and on Amazon.com.

The Palace Within

I was driving to pick up dog food at Costco, when I starting thinking about this blog post. My thoughts drifted to the parquet floors of Peterhoff, the summer home of the tsars.

I had been on a study abroad program to Leningrad. We had visited the Bolshoi Ballet; the Hermitage; the place where Pushkin had studied. We had inspected Mon Plaisir, where royals would lunch while enjoying spectacular views of the Gulf of Finland. (Good for the digestion.) After each course, the royal table would disappear into floor below, where servants would remove dishes and plate the next course. Then, whoosh, the table would rise again to waiting guests with forks poised.

It was all lovely. Really. Palaces, gardens, fountains, grand halls, amber brooches, malachite urns. Yes, there were diamond-encrusted clocks, delicate jeweled birds in golden cages, flattering oils, voluptuous silks, overstuffed beds. And there was I, traipsing through the Summer Palace in clumsy, felt strap-on sandals, when a funny thought entered my head. "Where is MY palace?"

Just days before, we students had visited the Leningrad Blockade Museum. Affixed to a piece of board was the recipe and proportions the bakers of Leningrad had used to make bread while the Germans were busy blockading their city for nearly 3 years. The wartime bread was made, in large part, of sawdust, shoe leather, and other detritus that could be consumed. Until that day, I did not know you could eat shoe leather.

And just miles away -- *snap* -- we found ourselves in this palatial estate, Peterhof -- (it is magnificent, you should really go there: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peterhof_Palace) -- where we had to remove our shoes (but thankfully, not eat them), so that we wouldn't scuff the parquet floors.

The timing of this served to tick me off. Why does one girl get to be a princess and one a pauper? Why does one get to walk in slippers in royal gardens and one is born into circumstances where life is spent barefoot -- not in Eden, but in poverty.

I wondered why, why, why. "And where is MY palace?" I asked the museum gods, wagging my finger at the fat little cherubs on the frescoed ceilings.

Granted, I have lived a life of luxury relative to the world's population. I have always had enough to eat. I was educated. I own a home and drive a car. I can afford pets.

But WHY don't I have a palace? I wondered, as I channeled my inner Eloise, the storybook heroine of the Plaza Hotel. I wondered this as I slid the length of the parquet ballroom floor in my government-issued slippers, turning the royal hall of masterpieces into an existential slip and slide. The museum guard chided me in Russian for my lack of decorum.

But before I heard his words, I heard my own. And the voice said: "Build your palace within."

Hmmm. I thought, "Build your palace within. What the heck does that mean?" I was still a teenager who liked pretty things.

As I was walking into Costco today, I passed the pyramid of Whey Protein Powder Shakes, the Jack LaLane Juicers (only $89 dollars!) and past cases with diamond bracelets and Lladro figurines. It was starting to feel just a little too much like a museum... and a slip-and-slide.

The photograph above was taken on the night of Dec. 4, 2010. (The launch of Sleepy Hollow Books and the debut of Maureen Wartski's novel, Yuri's Brush with Magic.) Here is my winter palace: the Regulator Bookstore in Durham, North Carolina. Although it may not be stately or ornate -- you might even call it modest -- it holds a jewel greater than the Tiffany Yellow Diamond. This simple building holds a heart and soul, the vortex of community, within its walls. It is run by a fellow named Tom Campbell and another gentleman named John Valentine; they feed the soul and warm the heart.

Happy Valentine's Day to one and all. May your palace within glow brightly this year.
xoxo Amy

(Photo credit: Caperton Morton Andersson)

Holding Up the Sky

We know Aesop’s fabled tortoise won the race, but what if hare and turtle were to take to the sea? The sea turtle would be my odds-on favorite. Sea turtles can cross oceans and swim in bursts of up to 30 mph when evading predators. Sea turtles are one of the few species so ancient that they watched the dinosaurs evolve and become extinct.

Sea turtles have survived for 150 million years. Now we are stewards of the Earth. Sea turtles have become endangered due to climate change, poaching, development, and pollution. If they go extinct, who will hold up the Sky?

My wish is that parents, librarians, and teachers use the novel Yuri’s Brush with Magic by Maureen Wartski in book clubs and middle-school classrooms to open discussion about these ancient sea creatures and how kids can help protect our environment.

Would you like to...

"Adopt" a sea turtle and track its progress on the computer? Click here: http://www.seaturtle.org/adopt/

Visit a sea turtle in person? Start here:
North Carolina Aquariums http://www.ncaquariums.com/
Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rehab. Center http://www.seaturtlehospital.org/

Spend summer at a Sea Turtle Camp?
Check this out: http://www.seaturtlecamp.com/

Find a great holiday gift for your tween? Order a copy of Yuri’s Brush with Magic here: http://www.amazon.com/Yuris-Brush-Magic-Maureen-Wartski/dp/0982454252. For bulk orders, please contact amy@sleepyhollowbooks.com; (919) 724-0250

Tweet us: https://twitter.com/#!/sleepyhollowboo
Watch us: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WvT1rEkxN0M
Friend us: http://www.facebook.com/sleepyhollowbooks

“Anytime you see a turtle up on top of a fence post, you know he had some help.” -- Alex Haley

(Photo credit: Joe Tansey)

Another reason why I love North Carolina...

(Photo credit: Amy C. Spaulding)

Love the ones you're with

Yesterday was Respect for the Aged Day in Japan. People bring meals to the elderly; everyone has the day off, presumably to celebrate and help the elder citizens of their communities.

It got me thinking about my grandparents. I never knew my maternal grandfather, Al Smith. He died shortly after my parents were married. But his memory loomed large and he was a good friend and advocate for my mother. My paternal grandfather was a big personality – fun, smart, playful and loving. I would give anything to spend one more day on his front porch looking out at the mountains with his arm around me. There are some things that are indelible to the memory – like the feel of shirt fabric on a young arm or the gnarled thumbnail of a man who retired but never quit working.

My message to kids – to ANYONE who has a grandparent on this Earth: Be kind to them. Listen to them. Sit close to them. Rub their feet (if they like that). Give them as many hugs as you can. Tell them that you love them. Write them letters. (Especially thank you notes.) Believe me, you will miss them when they are gone.

The Freedom to Learn

Happy 4th of July!

Maureen Crane Wartski, author of Yuri's Brush with Magic, shared her thoughts about the gift of freedom. You can follow her blog at: http://maureenwartski.wordpress.com/ Enjoy!

The Freedom to Learn by Maureen Crane Wartski

This past week our grandson, Ben, graduated from Durant Middle School. Sitting amongst the crowd of proud parents, grandparents, relatives and friends, I watched as row after row of children from 6th to 8th grades rose to claim certificates and trophies: honors, high honors, awards of distinction. This beautiful grouping of young people made me think of one of our most precious freedoms: the freedom to learn.

At this time of year we are likely to think of Freedom, its implications, its precious legacy. Still, beyond those that are outlined in the constitution, beyond even the sacrifices that are made by dedicated men and women in the defense of our country, there are other freedoms which we as a democratic people too often take for granted. Education is one of them.

All right, I can hear the younger generation stirring. I can hear muttered protests that Grammy must finally have lost it. Since when has school equaled freedom? But though nowadays it is taken for granted, education wasn’t always available for all. Who can forget that in the poisonous days of slavery those in bondage were forbidden to learn to read or write? Or the ‘separate but equal’ laws or the shameful, segregated schools?

In the world today there are many impoverished communities where education is an unaffordable luxury and other lands where girls are not allowed to go to school because men fear that knowledge will empower them. There are totalitarian regimes that only allow their twisted version of the truth to be taught and which ruthlessly suppress and punish any who think otherwise. Yet even in those repressive places there are groups of young women who teach other women no matter what the consequences, and there are educators who speak out, students who dare to question, even though they lose their freedom…or worse. The thirst for knowledge is so strong, the need to learn so great, that it will not be denied.

Ben’s classmates wear their Freedom with ease. Why not? It is their birthright, after all. Theirs is a society in which all citizens are guaranteed the right to go to school. Granted, there have been agonizing cuts in education and the system of allocating schools is hardly perfect, but this is still a far cry from countries where the nearest school … if there is a school at all… is a five or ten mile walk away or where youngsters drop out of school at age nine to help support their families. All that is asked of our children is that they learn. And learn they do, these beautiful young people, discovering facts that my generation could only imagine. At their fingertips lie worlds of knowledge yet undreamed, and from them one day will come amazing new achievements.

They come, smartly dressed

Hair combed, shirts pressed, bright-eyed…

Sunny day in June.

Not so long ago, many women, forbidden to become doctors, endured slights, insults and countless difficulties to become healers. Now, there are women in every field: medicine, engineering, the arts, the sciences, education, politics… the list goes on and on. Not very long ago enslaved African Americans secretly learned their letters. They braved brutal punishment in doing so because they knew that without learning there was no understanding and without understanding there could be no hope for dreams.

And the freedom to dream— the knowledge that any one of us can make those dreams a reality— has to be one of the sweetest gifts of freedom.

Serendipity!

Serendipity |ˌserənˈdipitē|
noun
the occurrence and development of events by chance in a happy or beneficial way : a fortunate stroke of serendipity | a series of small serendipities.

I had a wonderful interview with Frank Stasio on The State of Things program on WUNCFM 91.5 on Monday. We talked about Sleepy Hollow Books and my family’s history of promoting literacy and a love of books among young readers.

LISTEN NOW!
Click the link to hear the program.

Yuri's Brush with Magic is available from these fine booksellers... I hope you will patronize them.

Regulator Bookshop, The Gothic Bookshop, Flyleaf Books, Purple Crow Books, and Quail Ridge Books and Music
Also available on Amazon.com.

Have a serendipitous day!

Amy

Happy New Year! あけましておめでとうございます

I hope the new year finds you and your family well and happy!

To celebrate the end of 2010, I attended the year-end Mochi-Tsuki (rice cake pounding) event hosted by the Nippon Club of the Triangle.





Boiled sticky rice (餅米 mochigome) is put into a shallow stone bowl and patted with water and then pounded with a large wooden mallet. Mashing the rice, it forms a sticky white dumpling -- and can be eaten with all sorts of delicious toppings.

Mochi is also made into a New Year's decoration called kagami mochi (鏡餅), formed from two round cakes of mochi with a bitter orange (橙 daidai) placed on top. The name daidai is supposed to be auspicious since it means "several generations."

To write "Happy New Year" in Japanese: あけましておめでとうございます

To say "Happy New Year" in Japanese: Akemashite omedeto gozaimasu

10:10:10!

My friend Grace has a lovely quote on her website:

"Act each day as if the good that you do will change the world forever. Just as the sands of the Sahara blow across the Atlantic and sparkle a Caribbean sunset, your smile today can cross the oceans and provide a little goodness to a stranger on the other side of the world."

What a lovely sentiment. I had the great honor of traveling to the Duke Marine Lab in Beaufort, NC this past weekend. We had a series of lectures by NC Sea Turtle Biologist Dr. Matthew Godfrey, and scientists Campbell, Piniak, Boucquey, Bjorkland, and Ramus. I know so much more about sea turtles now!

Did you know that sea turtles are considered "living dinosaurs"? Fossil records date their species back to the time of the dinosaur. There are five remaining species of sea turtles on earth -- and all five are on the endangered list.

So it was a pleasure to help the folks at the Duke Marine Lab release three of the green turtles that they had rehabbed back to health -- into the wild.

On Sunday, October 10, 2010, we traveled on the Susan Hudson research vessel out to a good spot in the ocean and set the turtles free. This little turtle took off like a shot. It must have been the big smooch I gave him. Swim well, little fellow. Enjoy the Carribbean sunsets. Think of me. You certainly put a big smile in my heart.

Maureen Crane Wartski -- YURI'S BRUSH WITH MAGIC

HALLOWEEN!

Why do we love Halloween?

At Halloween we can be playful AND spooky without being too serious. We can play with our darker impulses during the holiday without acting on them. We can bring our shadows into light.

Books are a good place to grapple with the shadow. Peter Pan had his shadow. When he lost it, he returned to Wendy so she could sew it back on. GOOSEBUMPS has long been a series favorite. Now vampire tomes for teens and young adults flood the market. Our cultural shadow continues to morph and each generation draws its outline differently.

I have always enjoyed Halloween. I loved dressing up in costumes and looting neighborhood candy bowls. “Arghhh. Hand over your Snickers, Matey!” One Halloween I dressed up as "Laura" from LITTLE HOUSE ON THE PRAIRIE in a sunbonnet and gingham dress. Another year I was a hobo. More creative costumes usually involved wearing a painted cardboard box.

In retrospect, my favorite costume was the one my Mom made 5 minutes before my bus came.

“Mom--- Mom---Mom. I have a Halloween parade at school today. I need a costume.”

Mom headed to the linen closet. She grabbed a white sheet and her pinking shears. She cut out eyeholes, threw the sheet over my head, tied a red yarn ribbon around my neck and pushed me out the door.

“There, you’re a ghost. Go catch your bus.”

“But, Mom, I don’t wanna be a ghost,” I whined.

Slam. Door shut, case closed.

“Yay. Boo.” I said as I dragged my dingy gray Chuck Taylors to the bus stop wearing my sad little ghost costume.

Mom never had a problem with her shadow.

(Photo credit: "Halloween in Sleepy Hollow, 1978", by Emilie Spaulding)

The Hokey Pokey: What I Learned at the 2009 NC Literary Festival at UNC

Kids love funny. They love spooky. Kids love characters that make them laugh and shriek. If it’s going to be spooky – it better be funny spooky.

The two rock stars of the Children’s tent on Saturday at the 2009 NC Literary Festival were R.L. Stine and Judy Schachner – the authors of the Goosebumps and Skippyjon Jones series respectively.

Both were amazing presenters. They were highly interactive with their audience and involved the children in the telling of their stories. They had their programs well-rehearsed. They were playful, spontaneous and professional. They had the mastery of an unruly crowd that rivaled that of any elementary school teacher.

One author did highly personalized dedications and the line extended and snaked on at the book signing for over two hours. Now that’s the way to create a buzz. Everyone who passed asked, “What’s the line for?” like they were ready to jump on it – whether for winter boots or ice cream sandwiches.

It was totally worth the wait, because this author is a talented, lovely, and magnetic creative genius. I noticed, however, that the 12:00 noon hour for book-signings was torture for hungry and hot toddlers who have the patience of three-year-olds. Or for me.

The other author did not do personalized dedications, but simply signed, and took pictures with adoring fans. There was a two book maximum for signings and the crowd moved much more quickly through the book-signing process. We felt equally happy and attended to.

What I couldn’t get over was how darn nice and talented these authors are. Their patience and good-humor bordered on saint-like. Maybe the most important thing I learned from watching them work the crowd and do their thing is that, above all, they knew that children want to laugh, or shriek, and be entertained. These authors are great entertainers – on paper and in person.

Both authors voiced their belief that when a kid falls in love with a book or a character, that kid wants to read more and more – and that’s what it’s all about.

SHOUT OUT: Clay Carmichael read from her YA book, WILD THINGS. Zoe, her 12-year-old protagonist, has the sassy charm of Tatum O’Neal’s “Addie” in Paper Moon; she says those things you’d wished you’d thought of and is made for the silver screen. Catch WILD THINGS at a local bookstore near you…before Zoe goes Hollywood on us.

Going to Galveston

A clairvoyant friend of mine recently said, “Right now is the time for JOY. All our decisions and actions must be guided by joy.”

I wondered aloud, “Is joy really possible these days? Isn’t being happy now and then good enough?” Then I started examining when and how often I felt joyful during my day. And it reminded me of a funny story my mom would tell me…

When my mother was a young lady, she and her sister and aunt and uncle were musing over where to go on vacation. Someone suggested Galveston, Texas. So they all hopped into their car and started driving. They traveled through Alabama, then Mississippi, and Louisiana. After a series of mishaps, and overtaken by fatigue, someone said, “Whose bright idea was this, anyway – going to Galveston?”

This led to a heated discussion.
“ I didn’t really want to go to Galveston,” said my mother.
“Neither did I,” said sister.
“Me, either,” said her Uncle.
“Hold on a moment,” said the Aunt to her husband, “ You’re the one who said Galveston was nice this time of year.”
He replied, “ I said it was nice -- I didn’t say I wanted to GO there!”

Today, when my mother says, “Make sure you’re not 'Going to Galveston',” she means, be sure your heart is in it, before you jump into something you think will please others.

When we look at our lives searching for JOY– we may have more choices than we think. If we slow down and take time to listen to our hearts –- and seek those things that truly make us happy -– we can find directions to Joy.

(Photo credit: Unknown; Janet and Emilie Smith)