Caroline Starr Rose

award-winning picture book and middle-grade author

(BLUE) BIRD BY (BLUE) BIRD: On Small Writing Goals and Big Change

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In 1998 I showed my sixth graders at Southwest Middle School (Orlando, FL) a video about Roald Dahl. In it he discussed his writing habits — how he always used a yellow legal pad, stopped when the writing was strong (so it would be easier to pick up the next day), and wrote two hours a day, whether he had something to say or not.

For years I’d talked about writing a book. After watching the video, and with summer just a few weeks away, I decided to give it a try. I checked out a dozen or so books on the Oregon Trail, researched for two weeks,* and started writing.** Dahl’s advice to write for two hours a day felt doable. It’s been a pattern I’ve kept up ever since.

Except when I haven’t, which is most of the time.

It’s far too easy for me to get distracted by the computer, life responsibilities, and the like. This spring, while researching my second book for Putnam, I realized I needed to be better about using my time well. The idea of juggling two books at once was an overwhelming one. I needed a plan, something simple, like Dahl’s two-hour approach.

I started by simply writing down the amount of time I was researching each day. It was frustrating at first to see exactly how much work I was (and was not) doing. But it was a good, honest start.

When working on editorial revisions for BLUE BIRDS, I had the luxury of ten weeks to get my first round done. I aimed for three to five hours a day, five days a week. When the amount of work necessary to pull the book up to what it needed*** felt insurmountable, I tried to remember the small, daily work would lead to something better in two months’ time.

The act of writing down my hours each day pushed me to keep moving. On days where writing was cut to just a few hours or squeezed out entirely, it was also good to refer to my calendar. I had meetings, a boy with a broken wrist, and a retreat to pull together and facilitate in August and September. Seeing those full days helped me chill out a little. I wasn’t eating bon bons or wasting my time. I was busy living life.

If I commit to doing the work, it will get done.

What strategies do you use to meet writing goals?

* do not try this at home
** terrible manuscript but great learning experience!
*** it’s not there yet, but it’s closer

An invitation to look beyond ourselves

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In April I learned Blue Birds was a finalist for the New Mexico Press Women’s Zia Award. I wasn’t able to attend the event, so I sent along a few words to be read on my behalf:

It is an honor to have Blue Birds considered for the Zia Award.

A young reader sent me a letter not long after Blue Birds released, telling me how much she enjoyed the story. Her words have stayed with me because they speak so clearly what I hoped the story would convey:

“When Alis and Kimi met, a whole new world was opened to my eyes. They didn’t look at each other like strangers; they looked at each other like best friends would, despite appearances.”

Alis is English and Kimi is Roanoke. The girls share no language. They are meant to be enemies. Yet these things aren’t a barrier to the friendship that grows between them.

Blue Birds is my hope-filled attempt to show we can be bigger than the biases — known and unknown — that we hold. It is an invitation to look beyond ourselves with the curiosity that comes so easily to children, to believe that when we truly know another person our lives are forever changed.

I’m happy to share Blue Birds is the first runner up for the Zia Award. May Alis and Kimi’s story continue to speak into the lives of readers as they have mine.

NM Elementary Teachers, Librarians, and Battle of the Books Facilitators — I’d Love to Visit Your School!

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blue birds on shelf

My historical verse novel, Blue Birds, has just been named the 2016 Jefferson Cup Award winner for Young Readers, which honors a distinguished biography, historical fiction or American history book for young people. It is also included in this year’s New Mexico Battle of the Books elementary list and is a wonderful addition to upper elementary classrooms.

Blue Birds is a story of the island of Roanoke, England’s first colony in the Americas. Established in 1587, this colony founded twenty years before Jamestown met an untimely end. To this day, no one is truly sure what happened to the 117 colonists who lived there.

Blue Birds aligns with New Mexico’s fifth-grade social studies and English language arts content* and Common Core Standards.** Click through to find a free Educator’s Guide as well as a Lost Colony Timeline.

I would love to visit your school or Skype with your readers! Read on to learn more.

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In-School Events

The following presentations work well with classes or BoB groups who’ve read Blue Birds. Each presentation runs fifty-minutes long.

Poetry 101: This introduction to poetry helps kids understand poetry is accessible, fun, and not just about love and flowers. Students will learn poetry basics, experience a variety of poetry, and create color poems. (grades 3-8)

The Lost Colony: What Really Happened?: Learn about the real history behind Blue Birds and what might have happened to the Lost Colony of Roanoke. (grades 5-8)

If you would like to see all the presentations I have available, including several for younger grades, please refer to my Author Visits page.

In-School Events Rates

one fifty-minute presentation (small group or large):

  • $250 (in Albuquerque only)

three fifty-minute presentations (small group or large), lunch with the author, and book signing:

  • $600 inside Albuquerque’s sixty-mile radius
  • $800 outside Albuquerque’s sixty-mile radius plus mileage and accommodations, if necessary

Online (Skype) Visits

An easy, affordable way for your readers to connect with me is through a virtual visit. Please click through to learn more.

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Our new superintendent, Raquel Reedy, has excellent taste in books!

School visits and Skype sessions aren’t only limited to schools and book clubs within New Mexico and don’t have to focus on Blue Birds alone. Stop by my Author Visits and Books pages to learn about other presentations and become familiar with my work.

Here’s to an excellent school year for your young readers. I’d love if you’d spread the word!

 

 

*History strand 1-B and 1-C, ELD standards 2 and 5

** CCSS 5.RL.3, CCSS 5.RL.4, CCSS 5. RL.5, CCSS 5.L.4, CCSS 5.L.5, CCSS 5.W.3, CCSS 5.W.7, CCSS 5.RI.9, CCSS 5.SL.1

Blue Birds is the 2016 Jefferson Cup Award Winner for Young Readers!

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blue birds paperback

This June I was in Santa Fe with my dear friend Anna and took a moment to check my phone. I opened an email that began like this…

Hi Caroline,
Congratulations! BLUE BIRDS has won the Virginia Library Association’s 2016 Jefferson Cup for Young Readers! This award honors a distinguished biography, historical fiction, or American history book for young people.

Anna took one look at me and asked if something was wrong. I must have had a strange expression on my face because I know for a fact I didn’t comprehend what I was reading. What was the Jefferson Cup Award? I figured Blue Birds had made some sort of special list, but certainly hadn’t won an award. When and how and where and why would that happen?

I babbled something to Anna, who immediately said, “Call Dan and your mom!” Anna then searched for the Jefferson Cup website and read to me what she found there:

The Jefferson Cup honors a distinguished biography, historical fiction or American history book for young people. Presented since 1983, the Jefferson Cup Committee’s goal is to promote reading about America’s past; to encourage the quality writing of United States history, biography and historical fiction for young people and to recognize authors in these disciplines.

The committee has nine members: a chairperson (selected by the previous year’s committee), one person from each Virginia Library Association region (total of six persons) selected by the current chair, the chair of the previous year’s Jefferson Cup Committee, and the chairperson or outgoing chairperson of the Youth Services Forum. All committee members are members of VLA.

I spent the rest of the day in a giddy state enhanced by the fact that one of the very people who’d inspired the friendship portrayed in Blue Birds was right by my side.
In October I’ll fly to Virginia to receive the award along with verse novelist Melanie Crowder, whose book Audacity won the Young Adult division. It has not gone unnoticed that both Melanie’s book and mine are verse novels. I feel like this is a statement to the form’s ability to relay history in an accessible, meaningful way.
As for that email I read in Santa Fe, it also included this:
The story of The Lost Colony is well known to most of the Jefferson Cup Committee members, since that event was a precursor to the settling of Jamestown, Virginia.  Roanoke Island is quite familiar to me, as the Outer Banks of North Carolina are approximately an hour away from my home.  Committee members found the beautifully written fictional story of Kimi and Alis, meeting during those tumultuous months on Roanoke Island, to be plausible and in agreement with theories of what became of the residents of the Lost Colony.
 
Ms. Rose’s beautifully descriptive writing, the research, historical notes, and the glossary of Algonquin words impressed us all.  As the Jefferson Cup for Young Readers winner, Blue Birds will be among books highlighted at the upcoming Virginia Library Association’s Annual Conference.  Blue Birds will be prominently featured on the Jefferson Cup Award website and in the annual Jefferson Cup Award brochure that is widely disseminated to librarians at the state and national levels.
Thank you, Virginia Library Association. I’m beyond honored that you’ve chosen Blue Birds for this year’s award.
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