Check Out The Mitten

I'm over at The Mitten Blog today, talking about the Youth Literature Seminar in Kalamazoo. 

The Riddle of the Labyrinth

The Riddle of the Labyrinth: the quest to crack an ancient code

by Margalit Fox

Harper Collins, 2013

In 1900, archeologist Arthur Evans discovered a series of tablets on the island of Crete. The tablets dated from 1450 BCE, almost 700 years before the Greek alphabet was developed. The tablets were written in an unknown script and in an unknown language, referred to as Linear B. The Riddle of the Labyrinth tells the story of how Linear B was decoded, and the contributions of the three major players, Arthur Evans, Alice Kober and Michael Ventris. The process took 53 years. The work was done before computers were available to private citizens and when paper was in such sort supply that Kober had to cut her own index cards from church flyers and greeting cards. 

From reading this book, I learned that languages may be logographic where each character depicts an idea (Chinese), or syllabic where each symbol refers to a syllable (Japanese kana script) or phonetic where each character stands for a sound. “By some estimates, only 15 percent of the roughly six thousand languages spoken around the globe have written forms.” 

I recommend this book for anyone who is interested in codes, the development of language or history.

Submission Advice

Adventures in YA & Children’s Publishing has an excellent article on queries, synopses and first pages. Seven agents talk about the most common submission mistakes. 

My favorite query mistake was from Katie Grimm. She advised against writing a query that "Makes you sound mentally unstable. Maybe you think you sound quirky or that you’ve really done your research, or you’re just that enthusiastic, but show your feet are on the ground and you haven’t been stalking us!"  

It reminds me of an author event I attended with Ruth McNally Barshaw. The audience was small, so we had a chance to chat with the author. (I won’t mention her name here, but she’s a friend of Ruth’s.) The author announced that the second book in a series was about to be released, and I said I was looking forward to reading it. The conversation didn’t go well after that. 

Author: You’ve read [name of first book in series]? 
Me: I’ve read all your books. 
Author: stunned silence. The look on her face said, “Oh, no. It’s a stalker.” 
Ruth (trying to help): Ann reads a lot. 

That’s right. I stalk lots of people.

Code Name Verity

Code Name Verity

by Elizabeth Wein

Hyperion, 2012

This is easily the most extraordinary book I’ve read this year. And yet it’s difficult to write about it without giving the story away, and I want everyone to experience it as I did, fresh and without bias.

Code Name Verity is the story of two young women during WWII. One was a pilot, the other a spy, and they were best friends. The spy was captured by the Gestapo. While this book is not overly graphic, it does not pull punches. The Nazis are sadistic torturers and yet they are fully developed characters with secret weaknesses, love for their children and personal dreams. The first half of the book is told by Verity, the spy, and Kitty Hawk, the pilot, tells the remainder. These characters remain in my thoughts.

This is a book for anyone with an interest in Scheherazade, Peter Pan, unreliable narrators or simply fine writing.

Links

This is what I found most interesting this week. 

Preliminary research suggests that different parts of the brain are involved when people are immersed in what they’re reading as opposed to skimming.

At Literary Rambles, Lorin Oberweger offers excellent advice on putting an emotional hook in a query letter summary. 

The Swagger Writers are doing an fascinating series called The October Memoir and Backstory Blog Challenge. Members recount a childhood memory for each year starting at age one. Today is year 11, so scroll back for what has already been posted.

The Jade Notebook

The Jade Notebook

by Lara Resau

Delacorte Books for Young Readers, 2012

I enjoyed all three of Lara’s notebook books (The Indigo Notebook, The Ruby Notebook and The Jade Notebook), although I liked the last best of all. This novel continues Zeta’s search for a stable home and family and Wendell’s quest to become a professional photographer. The supporting characters are interesting and quirky.

I checked this book out of the library, but I intend to buy a copy to study novel structure, suspense scenes and building emotion. There is much to be learned from Lara’s writing.

This post is in celebration of Darcy Pattison’s Random Acts of Publicity Event.