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Sardines is One!

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Sardines turns one this month and I don’t have to bake any kind of all natural carrot cupcake for a screaming baby and pretend it’s as good as the real thing. This past month I’ve had a chance to share Sardines in some pretty remarkable ways. On October 5th I spent the day at Freeport Middle School as the visiting author. I met with kids who have been reading the book in their Language Arts classes. I got to share with them about the process of bringing a book from the idea phase to the published in your hand phase. They shared their lovely insights and artwork on Sardines with me.

Next week I head to Scarborough Middle School for a repeat performance. This visit is especially meaningful as SMS is the school I was teaching at when I first imagined and wrote Sardines.

Sardines has been named to the Maine Student Book Award list, which means that more Maine kids will have a chance to learn about it and read it…and hopefully vote for it! Poland librarian Julie Purdy created an entire reading challenge based on the book and shared some incredible pictures of the display she created with me.

All in all, I feel very lucky to be able to share this book with so many people in so many different ways! If you still can’t get enough of me talking about Sardines. I recorded this interview with Phoebe Little from Maine Publisher’s Alliance.

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One Book, One Community

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This week I’ll be traveling to Newport, Maine, just a bit west of Bangor where my book Sardines was chosen for their community reading program. One Book, One Community is a program of the American Library Association in which a book is chosen for the entire community to have the opportunity to read and discuss. Sardines is a book about Maine kids and Maine families. Any recognition or appreciation that the book receives is all the more meaningful when it comes from my home state.

The program is at 11am on Wednesday at the Newport Cultural Center.

publishing, Reading

One Evening In Maine

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Last month my middle grade novel Sardines won the Maine Writer’s and Publisher’s Award for Young People’s Literature. This was a great night and a wonderful honor.

Something I shared that night was that my road to publication started at a Maine Writer’s and Publisher’s event to match authors with potential agents. There I met Dan who turned into Lauren Macleod who has been my agent for going on 14 years now?!

One of the things I love most about Maine is the small communities within communities. At the awards night I ran into a former colleague, the older brother of a college friend, a few online friends and friends of friends. Those of you from Maine are nodding. This is how it goes in Maine. You can wear your hiking boots to the bar and chances are the woman sitting next to you has a kelp farm with your next door neighbor.

Sardines has also been nominated for the Maine Student Book Award. This means hundreds if not thousands of kids across Maine will be encouraged to read and evaluate it by their teachers and librarians. Sardines is a book about kids in Maine working together in a found family to solve some of the many challenges that kids today face. It makes me so happy that more kids in Maine might have the opportunity to read it.

I love reading class novels with my 7th graders because it brings us together in community around a text. Reading is usually a solo act but reading the same book gives us a common experience and context to bring us together. A few weeks ago the librarian from Newport Maine told me that Sardines was their One Book One Community read for this summer. Newport is a small town, but to think that even ten people might come together to read and talk about Sardines is both humbling and incredibly gratifying. I’ll be heading up there in August to chat about the book, and who knows, I’m sure I’ll run into my mother-in-law’s cousin’s dog sitter or the guy who fixed my flat in Gulf Hagas ten years ago.

parenting, publishing, Writing

Happy Birthday to Sardines!

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I love birthdays. I usually make mine into a week-long event. I like to share food and drinks with friends or drag everyone who’s willing to a minor league baseball game or to the beach for the day. But book birthdays are more like your very first birthday. It’s about more than just celebration -they are about the actual work that goes to bringing something into the world.

I wrote this book thinking about the things kids carry with them every day when they go to school. Sometimes it’s the small things; a squabble over the last frozen waffle. Sometimes it’s big things; parents who are fighting, sick relatives, bullying they may experience at school or in their homes. As a teacher I try and always remember that the things I think are most important are often not the most important things for my students.

I dedicated this book to my kids, who at the time of writing this are in 2nd and 7th grade. This book is about finding your people. Some of us are lucky enough to find them in middle school, like Lucas my main character. For some of us, probably most of us, it takes a little longer. In the past 2 years my kids have had to change schools twice -due to the delicate art of moving during a pandemic. And I, with my fingers crossed and my helicopter-parenting able to deploy at a moment’s notice, have had to watch as they navigate finding their people. It is wonderful and terrifying all at the same time.

Today I officially send this book-baby out into the world. It is wonderful and a little terrifying all at the same time. I hope my book finds the kids who will love it and enjoy it just as it is. I hope it makes someone feel a little more seen and a little less lonely. I hope it serves as a reminder that our people are out there, sometimes hidden in plain sight.

publishing, Writing

Countdown…

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Photo by Jordan Benton on Pexels.com

My middle grade debut, Sardines will be out in less than a month! So far it’s gotten some great reviews from Publisher’s Weekly and the infamously difficult to please, Kirkus Reviews who called it, “A thoughtful and compassionate story of friends and family.”

In honor of this upcoming book birthday -which I will definitely be celebrating with cake of some kind – I’m doing a giveaway. Two ways to win a copy. One is here on goodreads and the other is on twitter where you just need to RT the giveaway and follow me @sashikaufman. Support from my friends and family means the most so THANKS!!!!

publishing

The Young and the Beautiful

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Sardines Cover Reveal…coming at the end of this post, I promise!

photoshop by my incomparable tech guru (and 8th grade student) Oliver Ames

When I was born my parents had two immediate reactions. Red hair?! Big feet?!

The red hair was temporary but the latter is still true. I walk proudly on my size 11.5 skis.

When I first saw this cover I also had two reactions. The first was that it is beautiful, and the second was that the kids looked so young! Up until this point the characters in all my books have been high school age. The characters in Sardines are in 6th grade so it makes sense that they wouldn’t look like high school kids, but still. These 6th graders are young but they’re dealing with big stuff, like mental health, missing parents, bullies and figuring out their identities. Big stuff requires big friendship and that’s exactly what they find, sometimes in ways they least expect.

So here it is. My characters: Lucas, Robbie, Cat, Anna and Finn as imagined and executed by the amazing Erwin Madrid, designed by Catherine San Juan. I hope you’ll read their story when it comes into print this fall from Quill Tree Books, Harper Collins.

publishing, Writing

Sardines and Other Pieces of My Heart

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Some authors say, “This is the book of my heart.” I’ve always wondered when exactly you know you’re writing the book of your heart. If I had to guess, I’d say it’s the book that perfectly encapsulates an experience you’ve had. Or maybe it’s the book you dreamed of finding and reading when you were a certain age.

I don’t know if any of the books I’ve written so far are the “book of my heart.” However, I have noticed that no matter what I do, my books have certain themes that pop up in one form or another. One of these themes is the importance of friendship. In every book I’ve written so far the most important relationships are friendships. I’m smiling as I write this because I’m thinking about the friends I’ve been lucky enough to have. Friends who have helped me feel anchored in an otherwise chaotic world, friends who have given my confidence to do things I might not have done otherwise, friends who have walked around campus with me wearing only our bath towels, or driven across country with me eating cheese and tofurkey sandwiches.

I have a new book coming out this Fall. It’s called Sardines and it’s my first book for the middle grade crowd. If you’re less familiar with children’s literature, middle grade readers are those in the 4th-8th grade age bracket. There’s less sex, drugs and swearing than in your standard YA fare.

Is it the book of my heart? I don’t know. Here’s what I do know. This book is about Lucas. Lucas is a 6th grader living in a small town in Maine. His mom is struggling with mental health issues exacerbated by the death of Lucas’ brother. But even though there’s a lot of hard stuff, Lucas still has his friends. His incredible friend group, brought together by the after school program they all attend come up with an unusual, and almost magical, way to help each other solve the problems that are closest to their hearts.

Lucas wonders, as most young people wonder, who he is in relation to his parents. He’s definitely not exactly like one or the other and he’s not an exact combination of the two of them. He’s his own thing. That search for identity is a kernel that I plucked right from my own heart, even though I didn’t realize it as I was writing it. But that’s the way the best writing happens; it spills out from some corner of your heart when you’re not even looking.

Next week I get to share the cover for Sardines, which will be hitting shelves this fall. I can’t wait for everyone to see it!

Nature, parenting, Random musings, School, Sneaky Motherhood

The Joy of Fewer Choices

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In a week and a half my son’s beloved preschool will reopen -with extreme precautions including temperature readings before they can enter their classrooms. I’m a teacher. I could keep him home with me. He’s been home with me since mid-March -longer even than my maternity leave when he was born. But I want him to go back. I want this for all of us. I think. Sending him back to school feels terrifying; not because of the virus necessarily, but because it’s a choice I’ll make. Despite what we may see on the news about people rioting to get their choices and freedoms back, I really haven’t minded having most of mine taken away.

Run to Target on a school night to buy some new socks for my kid? Dash to the grocery store because we’re out of someone’s favorite cereal? Take five extra minutes to get a coffee somewhere? The answers have all been so clear for the last two and a half months: no, no, and nope.

I started out in mid-March somewhat terrified of what my life would be like trying to balance my job, teaching middle school, with taking care of my 10 and 5 year old children. There have been some moments of extreme frustration for sure. There has been way more screen time than usual. But there’s also been baking and science experiments, art projects and family movies. Every day we went out and found a new trail, a  frog pond or a tide pool. There have been countless forts and fairy houses. 

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During this quarantine time I’ve been reading The Giver by Lois Lowry with my 7th grade students. This incredibly prescient book describes a society where choices, freedoms, and even strong emotions have all been eliminated in favor of safety, security, and sameness. The book’s main character, a twelve year old boy, learns that things in the past were different and rebels against The Community to forge his own path. In my 16 years of teaching, I’ve probably taught this book 10 times. And every time I’ve struggled to understand how members of the community could be satisfied with their limited lives, devoid of excitement, freedom and choice. This time I’ve read the book differently. 

As much as I miss my extended family; hugs from my mom and dad, snuggles with my niece and nephews. As much as 6 feet apart walks with friends aren’t the same as long dinners and ice cream cone walks on the beach…..I’m going to whisper this part….I really haven’t missed that many things all that much. I definitely don’t miss the pace of my pre-quarantine life. I used to rejoice if I had 20 minutes of downtime. My to-do list spanned two pages. My weekends were full of things I had to do. Also, I got squirrely with anxiety if I had too few things to do on a weekend. This time in quarantine time has helped me become comfortable with less doing and more being. I am hugely grateful for that. 

 I am also aware of the enormous privilege I have to enjoy quarantine in the ways that I have. I’m still being paid. I have plenty of food. I have access to technology, and I live in a beautiful place where a hike in the woods or a walk on the beach is only minutes away. 

Sending my son back to school feels like the beginning of the end of this time. There are positives for him, for me, and for my daughter whatever we decide; whatever we choose. I’ll be able to devote more time to wrapping up the year with my 7th graders. I might be able to get through an online teaching session without my son insisting on a snack or needing me to find the scissors. My daughter won’t have to share her zoom time with her little brother. 

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In spite of these things I can’t help feeling loss and a little lost.  Having my son around, with his needs for snacks and scissors, uno games and one-on-one basketball, keeps me out of my head, protects me from my anxieties. My daughter is old enough to give me plenty of space, but I’m not sure I want it. With space comes choices; things to do, to accomplish, to check off my burgeoning to-do list. We adapted to this quarantine world, I made schedules, we had a calendar, we made a giant chocolate chip cookie and bird feeders. Some days I counted the minutes until movie-time at 5:00, but 5:00 always came. I don’t know how to end this piece, any more than I know how to close this strange chapter of our lives. There’s no cure, no vaccine as of yet, but we are all starting to emerge, starting to make choices again. I am hopeful and I am scared and I guess I’ll just have to live that way, for now. 

 

publishing, Reading, Writing

2019 Round Up -Stuff I Wrote and Read

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Screen Shot 2019-11-08 at 10.32.21 AMThe most exciting part of 2019, writing wise, was the sale of two new middle grade books (one written, one not yet) to Alexandra Cooper at Harper Collins. It really doesn’t get more exciting than that! The book I’ve already written is called Sardines and it follows 11-year-old Lucas and a group of four other kids from disparate social and economic circles as they are forced together each afternoon by the middle school’s aftercare program. As the group bonds, they create a game in which the group works together to grant each kid a wish. That’s the blurb from the publishers weekly rights report. But the book is about a lot more than that. Here are a few things I hope kids and grown ups will take away from the book.

  • Everyone is carrying around hard things in their emotional backpacks.
  • Never compare your insides to someone else’s outsides.
  • You are stronger than you think.
  • It’s okay if you’re not.
  • Mental health is as real and important as other kinds of health.

AS King

Speaking of mental health, one of the best books I read this year was The Year We Fell From Space by A.S. King. I’m an A.S. King fan from way back. She is hands down one of my favorite writers for young people and for all people. The Year We Fell From Space takes everything I love about her YA books and puts it in a format for middle grade readers. When I was a kid my mom used to say to me, “Everyone has crazy thoughts; that doesn’t make you crazy.” This book follows 7th grader Liberty Johansen as she navigates her family’s divorce and her father’s struggle with depression. Liberty is afraid if her father has depression she might have it too. She’s also dealing with unkindness from peers and  the part of growing up where you learn that your parents aren’t perfect and neither are you. What I love about A.S. King is that she does things in middle grade fiction that are usually reserved for YA. She lets the characters’ freak flags fly and doesn’t need to explain everything. She puts faith in younger readers to understand that life is weird and complicated and sometimes defies simple explanations.

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Back to School

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This year marks my 33rd first day of school. This year I had a new student in tears come in to my classroom a few minutes before the bell. She was accompanied by one of our guidance counselors. We exchanged a knowing glance. Anxiety is a real bitch. I smiled sympathetically and told her that even after 32 more or less successful first days of school, I still get nervous. I still have dreams where I don’t know my schedule or I can’t get the combination on my locker to work, or I’m paging through the course catalog trying to sign up for classes at the last minute. Ugh, that course catalog -it plagues me still. I told her about the dream I have where I’m all prepared for the first day except I’m wearing a towel instead of pants. She cringed. No one wants to hear about their teacher in a towel. Good, let her transform some of that anxiety into thinking I’m a totally inappropriate wingnut. Let her smile for a second and feel that pit in her stomach, that churning in her chest, ease a little bit. I know them both well and have for most of my life.

This year I posted a giant sticky for the kids to add their fears about the worst possible thing that could happen on the first day of 7th grade. They could be as realistic (my pants fall down) or unrealistic (zombie apocalypse) as they chose.