Babe To Teens, Past
A Youth Column
By Beverly Rowe

We have already switched to daylight savings time, and the calendar says it is time for Spring...but here on the Kenai Peninsula in Alaska, it was 10 below zero yesterday, and snowed yet again last night. Where you live kids are competing in track and thinking about little league baseball. The end of school and summer vacation are in sight, and excitement is at a high level. Reading is probably not high on your list of activities right now, but there are some great new books out there. New adventures have been added to your favorite series. Paranormal and fantasy is still high on publisher's lists, but there are also some wonderful new historical novels, and fun books for little kids. Check with your library, go online to your favorite publisher, and ask your friends what they are reading.

I discovered a mesmerizing ghost story mystery, and contacted the author to ask all about the writing of this exciting book. Meet Beth Hodder, the author of The Ghost of Schafer Meadows.

Bev: What made you decide to write a children’s book?

Beth: A friend wrote a children’s book and asked me to edit it. I loved the story, but I thought her sentences might be too complex for the age group. Because I wasn’t sure, I got a Nancy Drew novel from the library. I loved to read them when I was a tweener. They were written for kids my age. While reading the book, I kept saying, "I could write this." Afterwards I thought more and realized I was right. I liked the idea of writing a children’s book. The problem was finding an idea. I live in the country and wondered how I could connect with so many kids who live in cities. One day the idea just came to me. Write a mystery with a ghost, a dog, horses, and the outdoors, all things I thought kids would like. I knew just where to set the story—the Schafer Meadows Ranger Station.

Bev: I love ghost stories, and The Ghost of Schafer Meadows sounds like it might have just the right amount of excitement to keep your tweener fans reading. Tell us about developing the characters for this story.

Beth: The hardest character to develop was Jessie, 12, maybe because she’s the main character. The story starts with her family moving from a city in New Mexico to a remote wilderness in Montana. She has to leave behind everything she knows—friends, TV, cell phones, the Internet, and even electriicity. I wanted a girl who is bold, loves animals, and is willing to accept things when they don’t go her way, although she’ll not accept things easily. Except for her 14-year-old brother, Jed, there are no other kids at Schafer Meadows. Jessie has to accept adults as her friends. At first Jessie feels her young dog, Oriole, is her only friend. Oriole is fun-loving, smart, obedient most of the time, funny, and easy to love. She makes Jessie happy. I wanted Mom and Dad to understand Jessie’s frustrations with moving but not give in to her. Jed thinks living in the wilderness is cool. He and Jessie get along but he’s allowed to do more things than she can because he’s older. A trail crew, packer, and an old station guard make up the rest of the people who live at Schafer Meadows. I wanted them to accept Jessie and make her feel welcome and to be people she could talk to when she needed someone. Two pilots—one nice, one not—and two bumbling men who travel into the wilderness make up the rest of the characters. All have both good and bad effects on Jessie and add to the mystery in the story. Oh yeah, there’s also a ghost at Schafer Meadows, but I didn’t actually create it. People have claimed there’s been a ghost there for years. I made up Jessie’s version of the ghost, wrote stories I had heard into the book, and added some of my own. Just for your information, I never saw the ghost but know people I trust who said they did.

Bev: Did you ever experience life in a remote place like the ranger station? Tell us about your research for this story.

Beth: Schafer Meadows is an actual U.S. Forest Service ranger station within the Great Bear Wilderness of Montana. My husband, Al, worked there from June through September or October for 13 years. I also worked for the Forest Service. Sometimes our dogs and I would visit Al at Schafer on weekends, and sometimes my work took me there. I grew to love Schafer and knew it well enough that I didn’t have to do much research there. However, I talked with Al and other forest workers to make sure that the book was true to Forest Service life at Schafer Meadows. I also learned about airplane tail numbers, using crosscut saws, and a couple of other things I can’t mention without giving away the mystery. Mostly I talked with people, explaining that I was writing a novel and wanted it to be accurate. Everyone was eager to help. I also read newspaper articles and studied the Internet for answers to a couple of questions for which I couldn’t talk with people. And I now have several books about dogs and horses and why they do what they do.

Bev: Winning the Independent Publisher Book Award silver medal had to be exciting—tell us about that.

Beth: I got an email from the Jenkins Group who sponsors the awards telling all of us whose books were nominated to contact them if we found our name on the list. I was disappointed not to see my name. About a week later, I got a second email with more of a "congratulations" message. I still didn’t see my name. The third email showed me my name and said I had won a regional silver medal for fiction. I was shocked, stunned, and thrilled. I felt as if I had won an Academy Award. I was invited to an awards ceremony at the City Club on the Hill in Los Angeles. Al and I packed up our dog, Dusty, drove from New Mexico, where Al now works, and attended the ceremony, which was on the 57th floor smack in the middle of downtown L.A. Driving was daunting, and I got a stiff neck looking at the skyscrapers that surrounded us, but we had time to walk Dusty in a little park next to the building. I think she was the only dog in all of L.A. that day. Most people smiled at her and wanted to pat her. At the ceremony, I saw people whose books were published by university presses like Harvard and Yale. I was astonished that my own book received an award next to theirs. I received a medal that looks like a heavy Olympic silver medal, a certificate, and some silver seals to put on my books. Today I have the medal draped over the book cover illustration hanging on the wall in my home office. It reminds me that dreams do come true and that all things are possible.

Bev: I understand that there is a sequel in the works. Do you know the publication date yet? Tell us a bit about that book. Will Jessie and her lovable dog be stars in it too?

Beth: I hope to have the book printed by this summer. If so, the publication date will probably be October or November. Jessie and Oriole will once again solve a mystery at Schafer Meadows, only this time they will have two friends, Will and Allie, to help. Jessie briefly met them in The Ghost of Schafer Meadows. The three friends and Oriole unwittingly end up hunting for whoever is poaching wildlife in the wilderness. People come and go—four backpackers,, a lone horseman, and a lost single backpacker. Suspicion surrounds each of them as the three young friends and Oriole get pulled deeper into the mystery.

Beth: I gather ideas for stories and write them in a small notebook. Then I start thinking of a plot, characters, and the setting for one of the stories that especially intrigues me. I had a very rough idea for Ghost. I knew what I wanted to happen and had a general idea for the ending, but nothing was finalized before I began writing. Fortunately the story mostly worked. A few times I had to go back and change part of the plot because it didn’t make sense. But I never made any huge changes. I find that I don’t like outlines. They stifle my creative thoughts. The story in Ghost took me places I had no intention of going, and it changed the outcome. It was my first book, though, and I learned while writing it to be a little more specific about the plot and where it was going before I began writing. When I started the sequel, I still had no outline, but I wrote the major parts of the plot on a piece of paper. I still changed it somewhat, but it took less time to write.

Bev: What has been your favorite experience as a writer?

Beth: A few things come to mind. First, it’s amazing to me to watch a story that comes from my head unfold, grow, and then end in a pleasant and unexpected way. Having boys and girls, I wrote The Ghost of Schafer Meadows for them to be excited about, and the book made all the hard work worthwhile. I am not a person who likes being in the spotlight, so I didn’t think I would enjoy going to bookstores to autograph books. But I find people to be warm and fun to talk to, and if they have already heard about the book and came to the store just to buy it, I am once more thrilled.

Bev: Do you have any advice for the budding writers among your fans?

Beth: Write. Don’t be like me at your age and think you can’t write. If you have a story, let it come out. If you don’t like it, change it. Ask your parents or friends or teachers or someone you trust to give you an honest critique of your writing. You don’t want someone to say "I like it," you want them to say, "I like it but..." or "You have a good idea but it needs help here..." or whatever. Don’t be afraid of criticism. It’s meant to help and only makes your writing better. Take a writing class if you can. Enter contests. Read about writing. But whatever you do, write. You need to write in order to learn to write.

Bev: Do you have any other thoughts you would like to share with us?

Beth: One message I hoped to bring out in The Ghost of Schafer Meadows is that life doesn’t have to center around computers, cell phones, and the comforts we find in city life, like grocery stores, roads, and TVs. Get outside. Enjoy the outdoors. Your generation is the first in our nation’s history to become detached from the outdoors. As you read Ghost I hope you feel excited about the beauty of wild places and will want to spend time there.

New Books for Tweeners

Falling In
by Frances O'Roark Dowell Isabelle Bean falls into another world...a sort-of medieval place where she meets her "healer grandmother," Grete. Isabelle must convince the other world’s children that her grandmother is not a wicked witch. Then when Grete is accidentally poisoned by a small boy, the plot really gets exciting. This story will appeal to readers who love fantasy and those who prefer realism.
Grades 4-7

Barnaby Grimes and the Legion of the Dead
by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell
Did you love the first two books in the Barnaby Grimes series? Here is number three, and this time the tick-tock hero has to deal with an army of Victorian zombies. From the gruesome cover to the decadent descriptions of rotting corpses, this book will keep young horror lovers glued to the pages. Very entertaining.
Grades 4 to 6.

Coming Soon....(April 20th)

This Means War!
by Ellen Wittlinger
Fifth-grader Juliet lives near a growing military base, which has brought in an influx of new kids, including the rowdy Patsy. Set against the backdrop of the 1962 Cuban missile Crisis, this exciting story will introduce kids to the Cold War and sneak in a little history. Juliet’s best friend Lowell has abandoned her to hang out with boys, including the bully, Bruce. It's an all-out battle of the sexes when Bruce devises a nine-day competition that tests the strength and bravery of girls versus boys, and Juliet and Patsy are ready to take on the boys. Juliet’s daily prayers, including "Dear God, please don’t let the world end today," add just the right touch of inspiration.
Grades 5-8

New Books for Teens

Every Little Thing in the World
by Nina de Gramont
No one doubts that Sydney Biggs will go far in life. Sixteen-year-old Sydney Biggs is a "good kid"—smart, pretty, self-aware. Sydney's mother worrries that she is wandering down the wrong path. When Sydney and her best friend, Natalia, "borrow" a car to go to a party and then get escorted home by the police, their parents pack them up and ship them off to a hard-love wilderness camp to stop this behavior before it gets out of hand, before things go too far. The problem is, they already have...Sydney the "good kid" is pregnant.

In the wilds of Canada, time is ticking, because Sydney isn't sure what she wants to do about this baby. And she certainly isn't expecting the other issues that will confront her as she forges new friendships. There is a guy who makes it no secret that he is a major thug, and a teen television heartthrob with a secret of his own, and her own best friend—who is very adamant about what Sydney should do. Teens confronting real life problems in an exciting story for every young girl.
Ages 14 & up.

Keep Sweet
by Michele Domingues Green
Alva Jane has never questioned her parents, her faith, or her future. She is content with the strict rules that define her life in Pineridge, the gated Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints community in which she lives. She lives with her father, his seven wives, and her twenty-eight siblings. This is the only world Alva has ever known, and she has never thought to challenge it. Her mother is the favorite of her father's seven wives, and that means a nice home and plenty of food for her and her siblings, even if she has to contend with her father's spiteful first wife and her sister.

But everything changes when Alva is caught giving her long-time crush an innocent first kiss. Beaten, scorned, and now facing a forced marriage to a violent, fifty-year old man, Alva suddenly realizes how much she has to lose—and how impossible it will be to escape. A thrilling look at life in a different kind of community.
Young Adult.

Tips for Writers

So you have your manuscript ready. You have polished it until every word is perfect. Now you only need a publisher. Here, John Bard gives a crash course on submitting your jewel to a publisher.