Art With Heart–Art Buddies

This weekend, I took a four hour Art Buddy training session with Art With Heart.

Art With Heart’s mission is to empower youth in crisis through therapeutic books and programs that foster self-expression. One of their journal books, Chill and Spill, is a fabulous resource to use with teens and tweens.

The Art Buddy program trains artists, writers, and designers to volunteer with kids in their community for a period of time (say 3-6 months, two hours a week) in order to help youth access their creativity in order to foster self-expression.

If you live in Western Washington and you are an artist/writer/designer, I’d highly recommend taking the Art Buddy training!

Sniplits

I’m pleased to announce that my tween short story, “I Believe” has been published with Sniplits as an audio story. To find the story, go to www.sniplits.com and then look under my name in authors, the story title, or the category of tween stories.

Enjoy!

Books For Boys

If you’re looking for a great list of books for young adult and middle grade boy readers, check out G. Neri’s list. And while you’re there, add Chess Rumble to your list of books for boys!

Chess Rumble

I’ve been wanting to read Chess Rumble, a young adult novel written in verse by G.Neri and illustrated by Port Townsend artist, Jesse Joshua Watson, since I heard Jesse speak at the Seattle SCBWI Fall Inside Story. Last night, after dropping off a few of the Denney Juvenile Justice Center Poetry books at the Snohomish Library, there was a copy of the book waiting for me!

The story, told in verse, is about Marcus whose sister has died and his father has left. He’s an angry kid, and is about to be kicked out of school when he meets CM, a chess master who teaches him to think about his next three moves.

I loved the book for numerous reasons.

1). The story telling structure works. As a writer, it’s a good example of how to build a character based story with a satisfying resolution. Plus, it’s told in verse and is a great example of a story told in verse.

2). The characters are real. Marcus is angry and this covers his feelings of loss. The story is about him trying to find power and self-identity. It’s a story I could easily recommend to the teens in juvie and know that they would “get” each other.

3). Similar to Chris Crutcher’s sports books dealing with troubled teens and sports, Chess is being used as a way to help Marcus find a way out of his troubles. Chess is original and works.

4). We see a positive adult character….CM who has had some trouble himself in the past, but shows up as an adult mentor who understands kids like Marcus.

Young Writer’s Websites

The Writer’s Digest 101 Best Websites for Writers have been announced.

Two websites for young writers of particular interest are:

http://noodletools.com/debbie/literacies/basic/yngwrite.html

http://www.youngwriterssociety.com/

Also of interest to young writers is Kid Magazine’s List Of Markets for Young Writers