And now it's time for Susanna Hill's Valentiny contest! The rules this year: write a Valentines story appropriate for children (children here defined as ages 12 and under) maximum 214 words in which someone feels guilty! My entry is 210 words. Only the Best for You, Mom! By Jilanne Hoffmann Mom, why are you giving me the stink eye? One … Continue reading Only the Best for You, Mom! – Valentiny Contest
So while I'm frantically revising picture book manuscripts to take to Highlights Summer Camp, Listen To Your Mother released the 2016 videos from shows in 41 cities. As promised, here's my piece in the San Francisco Show! It was a privilege and an honor to be on stage with such amazing women. Cheers! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2s145rabK20
A couple of weeks ago, I told you about my husband's cousins who are hiking the Appalachian Trail with their two children. The children were reciting from Moby Dick and Frost's "The Road Less Traveled." NPR caught wind of the family's adventure and interviewed them on the trail. While there was no recitation during the … Continue reading Appalachian Trail Hikers on NPR
I'd like to introduce you to the Kallin family, my husband's cousins who live in rural Maine. The father (trail name: All In) is an environmental lawyer and their mother (trail name: Mama Bear) is a biologist and farmer extraordinaire. They pulled their two kids, ages 7 (trail name: Cartwheel) and 9 (trail name: Robin … Continue reading Moby Dick, Robert Frost, and Einstein on the Appalachian Trail
And so my eight-year-old son, the voracious reader but painfully reluctant writer, has progressed from writing about building a treehouse in Maine with his dad, to a nonfiction report on the Iguanodon with its fearsome thumb spikes, to creating a fictional story about the adventures of Frog the Kitten and Sid the Skunk. Now the … Continue reading Open Mic Fright
An article in today’s Sunday NYT (April 1, 2012) highlights very young writers who are publishing their work through a variety of self-publishing imprints (what used to be known as vanity presses), thanks to their benefactors—their parents. Parents insist that having a published book in hand raises their children’s self-esteem and tangibly recognizes their achievement. … Continue reading Reality Check
So I was teaching my library class this morning to a group of second and third graders, and I asked them to tell me how they select books. Some of the obvious answers: “my friends are reading them”; “I look at the front and back covers” (exceedingly important for kids’ books!); and “I read the … Continue reading Sobering Thought
Thinking about writing—and my son. In a recent parent-teacher conference, one of his teachers suggested that my son is a perfectionist, and that’s why he’s so reticent to put words on the page. She told me how she sat down with him one day to brainstorm ideas. As they came up with idea after idea, … Continue reading Writing as Calculus
I confess, I have a son who would rather eat peas than write a solitary paragraph for school. It doesn’t matter whether it’s about his favorite book, what he did over summer break, or some fantabulous story (that he’d love to tell you about, instead). At the beginning of second grade when his class first … Continue reading The Writing Lesson
Jilanne Hoffmann 