Congratulations,  Marie Kelly!  You are the winner of the first giveaway book for last week's episode: THIS IS MUSIC: HORNS.  Please send me a mailing address to tonnyefletcher at gmail dot com. I hope you enjoy the book and please remember to review it if you enjoy it, share it out on social media, give the title to folks who would enjoy it and request it at your library!  These are all great ways to thank the authors who come and share!

Stay tuned for the second giveaway!

BUILDING AN ORCHESTRA OF HOPE tells the story of an ordinary man who does extraordinary things for a village built atop a landfill in Paraguay.  He gives a precious gift to this community -- the gift of music.  Published by Eerdmans. Books for Young Readers, and illustrated by Luisa Uribe, this book tells the beautiful story of Favio Chavez and his "Recycled Orchestra."  It is, indeed a story of hope and music and ingenuity and perseverance and. . . .obviously it is a multi-layered book full of many beautiful thoughts and ideas.  Join this man and these young people on the journey of a lifetime -- from the landfill in Paraguay and around the world!

This song is from the documentary Landfill Harmonic.  The video shows the creation of some of the instruments, and the lyrics are in Spanish with English subtitles, so it would invite lots of conversation about many layers of the book as well as the larger story. 

Carmen created a lovely document (which you can download below) with accompanying pictures and book covers. I've uploaded the file below if you'd like to see it as she intended.  The bare text version appears here for those of you who may not be able to download the pretty version with visuals. . . 

Three Tips to Becoming a Successful Writer

By Carmen Oliver

What makes a successful writer from an unsuccessful writer? Here’s a few tips that I think separates the successful writer from the unsuccessful writer.

Write About What Interests You

Write about what you are interested in. Or something important that happened to you. Or maybe it’s something you care about like family, or a cause, or an injustice. Use your voice to tell the story you want to tell. It develops confidence. It unleashes your imagination. It gives you some control. It makes you more invested in the storytelling.




When I’m visiting schools, students often ask me where I get my book ideas. This is always one of my favorite questions because the answer taps into one of my passions in life and leads me to my second tip about being a successful writer.

Read, Read, and Read Some More!

My grandmother instilled a love of reading in me. She was my favorite reading buddy. She would read to me for hours. She would answer my questions about what we were reading. She would read the same book to me over and over again until I felt confident that I could ahem, “read” it on my own.  She and my mother were both avid lovers of wild animals and they opened my eyes to animals from all corners of the world with their magazine subscription to National Geographic. I loved looking at the pictures and they would tell me fun facts about each animal. They purchased subscriptions for me to book clubs and magazines like Highlights for Children (often found in school and public libraries too).

Reading is the cornerstone to becoming a successful writer. Honestly to becoming successful in whatever you want to do. Books have so much to teach us. We learn about pacing, word choice, the five senses, emotion, tension, voice, setting, and problem solving. Sparks fly when we read. Imaginations burst open. We empathize and understand more. And we get ideas for our own stories from what we read.



When I was doing research about spirit bears for the book A Voice for the Spirit Bears: How One Boy Inspired Millions to Save a Rare Animal), my daughter was a fifth grader and was going to be a reading buddy at her school. I thought to myself what if the kindergartner she was assigned to didn’t want to be her buddy? Because she already had her own reading buddy. And what if that reading buddy was a bear? A real bear. What could happen? That was the spark for the idea for Bears Make the Best Reading Buddies.  Imagine what would have happened if I’d been reading about camels!

Butt-in-Chair

There’s an old saying we writers like to use called “Butt-in-Chair.” It means you have to sit there and do the work. Period. Show up. Stay late. No running to the kitchen for a snack every 5 minutes. Or texting. Or surfing the web. No one is going to do the work for you. I tell writers all the time that everyone has their own unique stories to tell. Each of them has experiences I’ve never experienced before. They all have something important to say but if they don’t sit in a proverbial “chair” and drop or type the words onto the paper/screen – we’ll never hear it.  It’s hard work to ignore a chocolate fudge brownie craving or a morning matinee, but sitting in your chair, writing sentence after sentence gets it done. It’s hard work, but it’s worth it! 

 

What makes a successful writer? It’s ordinary people who show up every day and do the work. They don’t talk about being a writer, they write about it. And they don’t give up until they get it right. It’s really that simple; interest+reading+Butt-in-Chair = Writer.


Tag Line: 

Carmen Oliver is the author of many award-winning picture books for children including A Voice for the Spirit Bears: How One Boy Inspired Millions to Save a Rare Animal, a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard, Building an Orchestra of Hope: How Favio Chavez Taught Children to Make Music From Trash, a Junior Library Gold Standard (Oct 25, 2022), and The Twilight Library (Sept 6, 2022). She’s also the author of the Bears Make the Best Buddies series (Reading, Writing, Math, Science). She also teaches writing at the Writing Barn and The Highlights Foundation and loves speaking at schools, conferences and festivals. She lives with her family outside of Austin, Texas. To connect or learn more about Carmen and her books visit www.carmenoliver.com or Twitter or Facebook.

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Pinterest board with videos, printables, and all sorts of things related to this topic.
YouTube playlist with videos of the orchestra playing, trailers for the documentary and more!
Creating recycled instruments:
27 ideas
52 ideas

Below is an informational coloring sheet for Paraguay.  It has the flag, a map of Paraguay, the national flower and the national instrument.  I'm using it in my classroom this week as a station learning activity.

These little Protein Bites/Power balls/Energy Balls or whatever you'd like to call them make the perfect snack before or after rehearsal or program!  Full of protein and energy -- relatively healthy and nutritious make these an encore performer that really hit a high note, and are sure to be an audience pleaser!

Sarah Meade, You are the winner of a signed copy of RAJA'S. PET CAMEL!!!  I know you and your kids will love this book! 

Nikki Walker, You are the winner of a Zoom read-aloud session with Anita Amin!   I'll connect the two of you via email to arrange a time that is mutually good!

Congratulations to BOTH of you and thanks to everyone who left comments and is supporting PBJamz!  You guys all rock!

When you get two musicians together to talk music and two authors together to talk reading, books, literacy and writing, you might as well settle in. This one is a bit longer, but there are so many beautiful connections to family, culture, and voice, in addition to chatting about the importance of valuing music in front of our students, modeling, and lots of discussion of brass and woodwinds -- and paper towel tubes and noisemakers, oh, and car horns!  Check it out!

This second installment of her THIS IS MUSIC board book series does not disappoint!  With fun and vibrant illustrations, and a surprising amount of content, Rekha introduces young (and maybe not so young) readers/listeners to the world of horns, and then shares some incredible cultural horns, including the vuvuzela, and some horns you MAY not think of when you consider making music! From traditional to nontraditional, with musical vocabulary and the continuing thread that anyone can make music, along with giving them the tools to do so (whether that's a brass or woodwind or a paper towel tube or a conch shell), this book fulfills its promise to redefine music in very accessible ways.

This song starts with a drum, just like Rekha's board book series, and then introduces several horns in the marching band and ends with cymbals.  This is a fun song set to a possibly familiar tune (When the Saints Go Marching In).  It would be fun to do movement activities, marching, imaginative play with various instruments, playing drums, non-traditional horns for pretend play, identifying various instruments by their image and sound, introduction to marching band, contrasting marching band with orchestra, categorizing instruments further into woodwinds and brass and percussion, etc.  Full of humor and fun!

Words with multiple meanings:
horn -- a musical instrument, part of an animal, part of a car that makes noise, etc.
blow --movement of the wind, pushing air through your lips, etc.
play -- A story acted out, to use an instrument to make music, to enjoy an activity for fun, etc.
brass -- a shiny metal, an instrument made of metal with a cup-shaped mouthpiece, officers/someone in charge

Different kinds of horns -- Venn diagram, T-charts, lists, etc.

Onomatopoeia  (throughout the book). Listen to different horn sounds -- how would you write an onomatopoeia for each sound?

Features of text -- size/color/font

Adjectives -- shiny, three, different, loud, etc. (adjective hunt, what other adjectives could you use? )  Great companion book LISTEN TO MY TRUMPET by Mo Willems

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YouTube playlist with samples of various horns, performances and horn songs.
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These little PBJ Blondie Bites or Cups remind me of brass mouthpieces, so I chose them to be our highlighted snack for this week!  They sound absolutely delicious, and I look forward to trying them.  If you try them, let me know in the comments!   You could certainly sub out different flavors of jam/jelly for the centers.  You can find the recipe here.  Enjoy! And check out lots of other delicious recipes at https://www.thisisnotdietfood.com/