Heather Kinser
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Halloweensie 2018 ~ Two Contest Entries

10/27/2018

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Update: FEARSOME BREW received an honorable mention in the contest,
for Best Descriptive/Mood Piece!

     October is my favorite month. I love the crisp, sunny weather that reminds me of my mid-October wedding day. My older daughter's birthday is this month. And then there's Halloween! This year I will have two silver-clad alien princess to chaperone around the neighborhood. Lucky me!
     And then there's one of my all-time favorite October events...Susanna Leonard Hill's "Halloweensie" contest. This year's teeny tiny writing assignment was to produce a Halloween themed children's story no longer than 100 words, containing the words shiver, cauldron, and howl. I wrote two entries (one in poetry, one in prose)--for double the fun!
FEARSOME BREW
Costumes. Candy. Spooky scene.
Total darkness! Halloween.
 
Firelight? A pointy shadow?
Trick-or-treater peeks on tip-toe…
 
Witches! See them weary-toiling,
steaming cauldron bubble-boiling.
 
What’s inside? A fearsome brew!
Better run, for when they’re through--
POOF! They’ll put a spell on you.
 
Spooky spirits roaming, prowling.
Wild wolf pack hunger-howling.
 
Don’t just stand there stiff with fear.
Scoot-skedaddle out of here!
 
Run now, kid—and do it fast!
Witches’ spell is nearly cast…
 
“Wing of bat and specter’s shiver.
Wart of toad and chicken’s liver.
Kid, become a CANDY GIVER!”
 
Didn’t run? Well, fine and dandy.
Now the witches have your candy.

THE GRUESOME BREW-OFF
Halloween night! The time was right for the annual Gruesome Brew-Off.
Each hopeful witch made a horrible brew.
At last it was Eensie-Weensie’s turn.
With shivering fingers and knees knocking, Eensie-Weensie stood on tip-toe.
Plunk! She dunked onions into her cauldron.
Plink! She tipped toadstools into her cauldron.
Plop! She dropped dragon fruit into her cauldron (fresh from her garden).
Now what would happen?
Grumble-bumble. Blub!
Rumble-tumble. Glub!
Vile vapors rose.
A mushroom cloud puffed.
A fabulous fiery dragon flared up!
And Eensie-Weensie cried, “ENOUGH!”
The crowd howled…
and filled their bowls…
with dragon fruit-and-veggie dinner.
“Eensie-Weensie is our winner!”

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Yes! It's "Hello Lighthouse"

10/18/2018

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Picture
   I've been looking for this new book from Sophie Blackall, "Hello Lighthouse." When last I checked the online catalog, my library didn't have it yet. But a few days ago, a fly on the wall of my local library might have heard a grown woman (that would be me) utter an audible, triumphant "YES!" when she spotted this book on the shelf.
     I read it with my kids last night, and Yes! Yes! Yes! to "Hello Lighthouse." Gorgeous in every respect, from the rich blue sky and water, to the stylized ocean waves and sturdy hexagonal lighthouse, to the rhythmic poetic words, this book made a deep impression on me. As I read it aloud, I could feel it transporting me and my daughters to another time and place. That's the experience I crave in a picture book!
     I was fortunate to hear Sophie Blackall speak at the 2016 SCBWI Summer Conference and know that she's a collector of "curious and unfinished things." She loves historical objects and imagining the people who used those objects before, or in the case of "Hello Lighthouse," historical places and the lives that were lived there. It must be that kind of curiosity about and reverence for the past that made "Hello Lighthouse" possible, because the book holds so much in so few pages. It holds lives and histories and the passage of time, and presents all this to children with incomparable style and charm.
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October 01st, 2018

10/1/2018

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     Although I haven't read her book yet, I love this quote from writer/editor Calista Brill during her recent interview on The Children's Book Podcast (September 19, 2018). It goes to the heart of creating original work that also succeeds in speaking to an audience.
Picture
"For me, writing picture books is also a way of breaking out of expected territory. As an editor, a big part of my role is taking people's idiosyncratic visions and helping them tailor them so that they're accessible to the widest possible audience. And then when I take that hat off and I work as an author, I'm the one who's bringing an idiosyncratic vision, and I'm the one who's gently pushing back against an editor. [...] It's fun to wear the other hat, and to be the voice of weirdness in that relationship."
~Calista Brill, author, and
executive editor at
First Second Books
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