Caroline Starr Rose

picture book and middle-grade author

The Notebook Series: Blue Birds

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I keep a notebook for each book I write. I thought it might be fun to share some of those pages with readers through a series of posts. Today’s post, the third in the series, will focus on my second verse novel, Blue Birds.

Twenty years before Jamestown, another English settlement tried to take root in Virginia and failed. This colony of 117 men, women, and children, started on Roanoke island, 150 miles southeast of Jamestown. All we know about the colony and its inhabitants took place over a five-week period in the summer of 1587. 

The colonists had been promised land in the Chesapeake Bay, perhaps not far from the place that eventually became Jamestown. But throughout the voyage, their leader, Governor John White, fought constantly with ship captain Simon Ferdinando. By the time they arrived in Virginia, Ferdinando was done. He left the colonists at Roanoke, refusing to take them any farther.

This was not the first time the English had visited Roanoke. Explorers had come to the island in 1584, and interactions with the Native population had been positive then. But by the time the colonists arrived in 1587, the English were no longer welcome. Those intervening years included the burning of a Native village because of a missing silver cup, the Roanoke’s growing frustration as English soldiers who’d built a fort on their island insisted the tribe provide for them, and English diseases that decimated many of the Native peoples. Then escalating mistrust between the Roanoke and English led to English leader Ralph Lane’s pre-emptive attack on the tribe, killing Wingina, the Roanoke chief. When, days later, the English left, they knew there was no chance at reconciliation.

The colonists who arrived in 1587 knew nothing of those intervening years. The stage was set for tragedy, and tragic things happened on both sides. I wanted to show this historical truth in Blue Birds, but I also wanted to breathe into the history my own version of hope: Two imaginary girls (Alis, who is English, and Kimi, who is Roanoke) destined to be enemies but choosing friendship instead.

17 English women and 11 boys made the journey to Roanoke. No young girls where on the 1587 manifest. But with both the Dare and Harvie families having babies a few days apart, adding Alis to the Harvie family felt practical. She could serve as a nursemaid to both children.

This was an interesting discovering. Early attempts at a poem in Kimi’s voice…

…and its final form in the book.

The poems in Blue Birds are narrated three ways — poems only in Alis’s point of view, poems only from Kimi’s point of view, and poems told in both girls’ voices. As the book progressed and changed, I made a number of “quilt charts” to help me see how that narration played out. Notice the book’s early name was Secret Sharer, a title I’m still partial to.

A silly aside: Of all my books, none has influenced my office space more than Blue Birds! Below is a piece of fabric I drape over a chair the dog likes to lounge in.

Read the post about May B. here.
Read about Over in the Wetlands here.

The Notebook Series: Over in the Wetlands

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I keep a notebook for each book I write. I thought it might be fun to share some of those pages with readers through a series of posts. Today’s post, the second in the series, will focus on my first picture book, Over in the Wetlands.

In going through the notebook I kept for Wetlands (the same one I used for May B.), I was reminded it wasn’t my first attempt at loosely patterning a manuscript after the traditional Over in the Meadow rhyme. Before Over in the Wetlands came Over in the Bosque. (The bosque is a wooded area found along riverbeds in the southwestern part of the United States.) My manuscript focused on the Rio Grande Bosque, a cottonwood forest that runs from southern Santa Fe to the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge, a winter haven for sandhill cranes.

But I digress! That poor little manuscript never went anywhere, but it lead me to Wetlands, so it served its purpose.

As happens when I write a rhyming picture book, a lot of my notebook is devoted to rhyming words and patterns.

I have absolutely no idea why I thought the rhythm pattern I’ve written above was something that would work. That’s what a notebook is for — experimenting, playing, making lots of mistakes, and finally figuring it out!

I knew a hurricane played a key role in the story (I describe it as the book’s antagonist or “bad guy” when I go on school visits), but I wasn’t sure how to work the storm in. We had a new puppy while I was revising, and one night when she woke me up to be let out, the hurricane’s words came to me in a form that was much more direct and active than anything I’d tried before:

the hurricane stirs, the hurricane crawls.

It’s always interesting to me to see what early ideas make it into the final book — or how one idea inspires the next:

The bayous don’t wind in the final, but they do run. Where the mist creeps ’round became where the silky mist weaves. The cypress don’t stand but they rise.* Where the sun sinks red became where the stillness sighs, / turtles glide under ruby skies.

I really like where the moon rests low. It feels familiar and is a sentiment / image I’m partial to. Have I’ve used something like in another book I’ve published…? I don’t quite remember!

Read the post about May B. here.

*Where the cypress stand is a little joke. Get it?

The Notebook Series: May B.

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I keep a notebook for each book I write. I thought it might be fun to share some of those pages with readers through a series of posts. Today’s will focus on May B.

I remember hearing years ago that an author who wants to write in a particular genre or form should read a hundred books as study. I’d read plenty of middle-grade historical fiction, but I’d only read two verse novels — Karen Hesse’s Out of the Dust and Sharon Creech’s Heartbeat. I’d only read two because I had no idea I’d attempt verse myself until, after trying a bit of prose in my notebook, I was frustrated with the distance I felt between the thoughts in my head and the words on the page. So I returned to one of my research books, hoping for inspiration. The book was a collection of first-hand accounts written by pioneer women. Here’s what I wrote immediately after my reading:

11 October 2007

I think it’s going to be important to tell May’s story as a story in verse. The idea is a challenge and is precise, focusing on the small moments. With the reading I’ve done, the small moments need to tie to the whole. In my reading, so many women’s voices were so real, raw, accessible via first-hand accounts, and while I’m not picturing a journal, the sparseness of such a piece is the aim.* The reader is present. The circumstance clear. No dialogue to distract. We’ll see. Another writing challenge I’ve never encountered which sounds hard, immediate, and authentic. More reading to do. Karen Hesse. Studying about writing in verse.

I want to honor these women of the past by being as close to the bone as possible.

Here was my first (not very poetic!) attempt at verse, written right after the passage above. The picture below is how that poem showed up in the book.

I didn’t end up reading any verse novels while drafting May B. I worried I’d feel inadequate and would quit. That allowed me to not worry if I was following the “rules.” It was joyful work!

*Why so high falutin’??