Exclusive Deleted Scene: Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team

Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team
by Steve Sheinkin
Roaring Brook Press * January 17, 2017
Nonfiction * Sports * Football
Indiebound | WorldCat
 

Read an interview with Steve Sheinkin on BookPage
Read an additional deleted scene at Fuse Eight/SLJ here. 

About the book: 
Jim Thorpe: Super athlete, Olympic gold medalist, Native American
Pop Warner: Indomitable coach, football mastermind, Ivy League grad

Before these men became legends, they met in 1907 at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School in Pennsylvania, where they forged one of the winningest teams in American football history. Called "the team that invented football," they took on the best opponents of their day, defeating much more privileged schools such as Harvard and the Army in a series of breathtakingly close calls, genius plays, and bone-crushing hard work.

Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team is an astonishing underdog sports story—and more. It’s an unflinching look at the U.S. government’s violent persecution of Native Americans and the school that was designed to erase Indian cultures. Expertly told by three-time National Book Award finalist Steve Sheinkin, it’s the story of a group of young men who came together at that school, the overwhelming obstacles they faced both on and off the field, and their absolute refusal to accept defeat.

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Enjoy this deleted scene: 

[intro] One of the main things I needed to establish early on in Undefeated was the shockingly raucous and violent nature of early day football. This scene describes a famously nasty game between Harvard and Yale in 1894—we wound up cutting it because we get across the same points with Pop Warner’s experiences on the Cornell team.

Everyone knew football was a violent game—but was it becoming too violent?

      The game that brought this question to national attention was the 1894 edition of the annual Harvard-Yale showdown, essentially the Super Bowl of early-day American football. “It was a game in which an unusual amount of bad blood and foul playing was shown,” noted the New York Times.

      And that was saying something.

       Yale captain Frank Hinkey set the tone before the players even took the field. In his team’s hotel the night before the game, Hinkey urged teammates to intimidate the Harvard boys by ignoring their fair catch signals on punts—the signal meant the returner couldn’t advance the ball, but defenders couldn’t hit him.

      “Tackle them anyway,” Hinkey said, “and take the penalty.”

      The next day, at Hampden Park in Springfield, Massachusetts, 25,000 fans roared as the teams as they took the field. Some waved banners of Yale blue; most waved Harvard crimson. Police officers had made the trip from Boston to keep the peace between rival student bodies. But it was action on the field that needed policing.         

      When Yale punted early in the game, the Harvard returner waved for a fair catch. Frank Hinkey launched himself, knee raised, into the returner as the ball arrived, snapping the man’s collarbone. Yale was flagged for roughness. Harvard fans called for revenge.

      A few plays later, a Crimson lineman reared back and punched Hinkey in the jaw.

      “My friend,” Hinkey said, “if you hit me another blow like that, you will break your hand.”

      The battle was on. And keep in mind, the players were not wearing helmets. Or any other protective equipment.

      A Harvard man jammed his finger into a Yale player’s eye, causing blood to flow. Yale’s Fred Murphy broke a Harvard player’s nose with his fist. Harvard then gang tackled Murphy, working him over on the ground. Murphy got up and stayed in the game, but was so dizzy that between plays teammates had to guide him back to his position and point him in the direction of the opposing team. Eventually, he staggered to the sidelines, lost consciousness, and lay on the sideline as play resumed.  

      This was all in the first half. The second half, newspapers reported, was worse. “An ordinary rebellion in the South American or Central American States is as child’s play compared with the destructiveness of today’s game,” commented the Times. “Fully one half of the players suffered injuries of a more or less serious nature.”

      Seven of the twenty-two starters had to be carried off the field.

      Five, including Fred Murphy, were hospitalized.

      Two were ejected for excessive roughness.

      After the game, a 12-4 Yale victory, each school blamed the other. Horrified by what became known as the “Springfield Massacre,” and the “Hampden Park Blood Bath,” officials at Harvard and Yale agreed to cancel their heated football rivalry.

      But it didn’t last. Two years later, they started playing again.

About the author: 
Steve Sheinkin is the award-winning author of fast-paced, cinematic nonfiction histories for young readers. The Port Chicago 50: Disaster, Mutiny, and the Fight for Civil Rights, was a National Book Award finalist and received the 2014 Boston Globe/Horn Book Award for Nonfiction. The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism & Treachery, won both the Boston Globe/Horn Book Award and the YALSA award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults. Bomb: The Race to Build-and Steal-the World's Most Dangerous Weapon was a Newbery Honor Book, a National Book Award Finalist, and winner of the Sibert Award and YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults. Most Dangerous: Daniel Ellsberg and the Secret History of the Vietnam War was a National Book Award finalist and a YALSA Excellence in Nonfiction Award finalist. Sheinkin lives in Saratoga Springs, New York, with his wife and two children.  Found Steve on his blog or twitter.

Guest Post by author SF Said

Today author, SF Said, drops by to talk about his new book Phoenix (Candlewick, October 2016) and share about his love for science fiction. 

I was 10 years old when the first Star Wars film came out.  It was a life-changing moment for me, as for many of my generation.  As I looked up in awe at that first starship filling the screen, I remember thinking that I wanted to write a story as big as that one day.  I wanted to write a book that contained an entire galaxy.

I loved science fiction.  I grew up watching Star Trek and Doctor Who on TV, and wishing there were more children's books set in space.  There weren't many, even then; film and TV were boldy going where publishing was not.  But I wanted to see a sci-fi space epic for young readers – so I finally sat down and wrote one myself. 

When Phoenix was published in the UK in 2013, it stood more or less alone.  British children's literature had seen waves of books about wizards and witches, vampires and werewolves, post-apocalyptic dystopias – but somehow, not space.  The prevailing wisdom was that it wouldn't work, despite occasional books in which space was an ingredient, like Frank Cottrell-Boyce's Cosmic.  Space stories had yet to take off.

But a new wave of science fiction is rising in children's literature.  In the last three years, we've seen big sci-fi titles from some of the UK's leading children's authors, such as Philip Reeve (Cakes In Space, illustrated by Sarah McIntyre, for younger readers; Railhead and Black Light Express for older ones), Malorie Blackman (Chasing The Stars), and Paul Magrs (Lost On Mars and The Martian Girl). 

I've seen booksellers and librarians make fabulous displays from all the new space-themed children's books.  Many authors have told me they're now writing one too, and the next few years will see the field expand still further.  Sci-fi is even being mixed with other genres; I recently shared a panel discussion with writers of sci-fi thrillers (Kat Ellis, Purge) and romances (Lauren James, The Next Together). 

It makes sense, when you consider the resurgence of public interest in space itself.  NASA's Mars missions have restored a sense of discovery.  Astronauts like Chris Hadfield and Tim Peake have used social media brilliantly to spread the wonder of space exploration.

Meanwhile, breakthroughs in astronomy have revealed a truly awe-inspiring universe.  We now believe there are 2 trillion galaxies, each with hundreds of billions of stars.  The incredible images captured by the Hubble telescope have only amplified the awe people have always felt when looking up at the stars.  Such images are thrilling to young people, who are also enthusiastic followers of figures such as Neil deGrasse Tyson.  His new Cosmos series means as much to young people today as Carl Sagan's original Cosmos meant to people like myself.

I have to admit, though, Phoenix is not exactly 'hard' sci-fi.  It's a story about a human boy and an alien girl who have to save the galaxy.  Its scientific plausibility matters less to me than its metaphorical resonance.  I've certainly tried to write a story that taps into all the things I find electrifying about space: the science of stars, black holes, dark matter.  But I'm also interested in the mythic dimension; the sense that there's something transcendent about the stars.

They pose the biggest questions imaginable, making us consider our place in the universe, and what it means to be alive in it.  We now know that the atoms in our bodies were created in the hearts of exploding stars: something that feels closer to ancient myth than astrophysics.  That's one reason why Phoenix contains as much mythology as science, and why I'm as comfortable calling it 'mythic fiction' as 'science fiction'. 

But I think the same is true of Star Wars.  So when I visit schools to talk about Phoenix, I always start by telling kids about seeing that first Star Wars film, so long ago.  They know exactly what I mean; they've felt the same awe with each new Star Wars film.  It belongs to them as much as it does to me – even if they never believe me when I say it wasn't called "Episode IV: A New Hope" back then, but just "Star Wars"!

It's been wonderful to see that young readers in the UK are thrilled by the idea of space and hungry to read stories about it.  I hope readers in the US and beyond will be open to it too, and will enjoy flying through the stars with the new wave of children's science fiction.

About the book: 
Lucky lives a relatively normal life on a remote moon of the planet Aries One, safe from the turmoil and devastation of the interstellar war between Humans and Aliens. Lucky has seen images of the horned, cloven-hooved Aliens before, but he’s never seen one up close. Then one night, he dreams that the stars are singing to him—and wakes to evidence suggesting that he is not so normal after all. When Lucky’s mother sacrifices herself to help him escape an elite Human military force called the Shadow Guards, he must rely on the Alien crew of a ramshackle starship, where he finds that humanity’s deadly enemies seem surprisingly Human up close. In fact, they may be more Human than Lucky himself, who has a dangerous power that could change the course of the war and the fate of the galaxy—if he can learn how to use it. Star Wars fans seeking another saga to love need look no further than this epic middle-grade adventure from SF Said, illustrated by Dave McKean with remarkable white-on-black spacescapes.

A boy with unprecedented power must turn to the terrifying Alien enemies of humanity to discover his true nature and bring peace to a galaxy at war.

About the author:
SF Said is the award-winning author of Varjak Paw and The Outlaw Varjak Paw. His new book Phoenix was chosen to represent the UK on the IBBY International Honor Book List, and was shortlisted for the Guardian Children's Fiction Award.  It is published in North America by Candlewick Press. You can find him on twitter: @whatSFSaid

Waiting for Snow Blog Tour: Waiting and Patience and Dreams - Oh, My!

Waiting for Snow
by Marsha Diane Arnold; Illustrated by Renata Liwska
HMH Books for Young Readers (November 1, 2016)
Fiction * Nature * Weather
Audience: Preschool to 3
Indiebound | WorldCat
 

About the book: 
Badger loves snow and he just can’t wait for it any longer! Patience does not come easily to Badger. He bangs pots and pans and shouts, “Wake up, Sky! It’s time to snow.” His animal friends, Hedgehog, Rabbit, Vole, and Possum, try to help by using other tricks and superstitions, but snow is taking its time. Sensible Hedgehog explains that everything has its season and all that’s required is waiting. But what can they do while they wait? Be a friend?

Waiting and Patience and Dreams - Oh, My!

I’m just going to blurt it out. I love anthropomorphic animals, absolutely love them. Indeed, I like anthropomorphic plants, rocks and dishes (especially that one who ran away with the spoon.) Deep inside me, I believe all things are sentient, just as small children do. So writing about Badger and his friends was an absolute delight. Indeed I followed Waiting for Snow with two more Badger stories, which may someday find their way into book form...with a little bit of patience.

Waiting for Snow is about seasons, a second Badger story involves searching for sunshine, and a third is about seeds. Obviously, my Kansas farm girl roots are showing. There’s no doubt my father’s influence is in Waiting for Snow. As a farmer it was his job to understand the earth and the rhythm of each season. “Everything in its time,” he often said. As a nature-lover, he knew every wild flower in the county. He often consulted the Farmer’s Almanac, which might have been a good idea for Badger too.

But why did I write about patience? Perhaps because I am so lacking in it myself! A friend of mine once traveled the country in two “gypsy” wagons along with about twenty animals: donkeys, goats, and chickens.  He parked his wagons in what he called “the margins” along the sides of the road. When he found a new friend willing to share their water, he would carry the water in buckets with a yoke, from source to his twenty-some animals. If anyone required patience, John did. I can hear his words in my mind still:  “You have to take your time and do things right. If you hurry, you just mess things up.”

Badger and his friends tried to hurry snow. It didn’t work well. They were rained on by pebbles, got sore feet, and wore uncomfortable pajamas to bed. Though it was hard, it was better to wait – to play together, cook, read, and knit a warm hat for a friend until the snow arrived.

How lucky I am to have my editor Kate O’Sullivan and illustrator Renata Liwska as teammates for this story. Years ago, when I was a California gal, I was in a writing group with Deborah Underwood during the time she was writing The Quiet Book. Deborah waxed poetic about her amazing editor and illustrator. It was then I put a wish in my heart that someday I would work with these two shining stars. But honestly, I didn’t hold out much hope. I would never have expressed my wish outloud.  So when it did come true, it was like a wonderful surprise present.

Here I am, some 8 years later, with a book edited by Kate O’Sullivan and illustrated by Renata Liwska! Of course, the dedication had to be: “For Kate O’Sullivan and Renata Liwska, a dream editor and illustrator worth waiting for.”

Renata Liwska’s vision for the art in Waiting for Snow is so brilliant. She added things like the classroom, the telescope, and the disco ball. Although I often have images in my mind for my stories, I can’t recall having a lot for Waiting for Snow. The text came to me almost as a meditation: “The sun comes back every day,” said Hedgehog, “and the stars every night.”

Renata’s characters and images, like the mushrooms on Hedgehog’s back, bring the story to a wonderful kid-friendly level. Indeed, my three-year old granddaughter’s favorite image in the book is the first page with mushrooms sticking on Hedgehog’s back. Look carefully at Hedgehog later in the story. Renata has now whimsically painted him with quills holding yarn for knitting. Hedgehog quills are so useful!

I hope my readers don’t have to wait long to find Badger and his friends in their bookstore or library.  But if they have to wait a bit, I hope they find as many fun things to do during that time as Badger and his friends did. 

About the author: 
Marsha Diane Arnold is an award-winning author with over one million books sold. Waiting for Snow is her 14th book with four more coming soon.

Her popular Writing Character-Driven Picture Books course can be found here: http://www.childrensbookacademy.com/writing-character-driven-stories.html. There’s a special going on in November in honor of Waiting for Snow’s birthday!

Follow the blog tour: 
October 31st, Monday - Cynthia Alaniz, Librarian in Cute Shoes  
Nov 1st, Tuesday - Alyson Beecher, Kid Lit Frenzy
Nov 2nd, Wednesday - Dylan Teut, Reading with Mr. Teut 
Nov 3rd, Thursday - Mia Wengen, Pragmatic Mom 
Nov 4th, Friday - Margie Myers-Culver - Librarian’s Quest 
Nov 6th, Sunday - Matthew Winner - The Best Book Ever (This Week) 
Nov 7th, Monday - Niki Ohs Barnes, Daydream Reader 
Nov 8th, Tuesday - Bridget and the Books 

Gertie's Leap to Greatness Blog Tour & Guest Post by Author Kate Beasley

Gertie's Leap to Greatness
by Kate Beasley; Illustrated by Jillian Tamaki
Farrar, Strauss and Giroux (October 4, 2016)
Fiction * Family
Audience: Ages 8 to 12 years
IndieBound | WorldCat

Description from GoodReads: 
Gertie Reece Foy is 100% Not-From-Concentrate awesome. She has a daddy who works on an oil rig, a great-aunt who always finds the lowest prices at the Piggly Wiggly, and two loyal best friends. So when her absent mother decides to move away from their small town, Gertie sets out on her greatest mission yet: becoming the best fifth grader in the universe to show her mother exactly what she'll be leaving behind. There's just one problem: Seat-stealing new girl Mary Sue Spivey wants to be the best fifth grader, too. And there is simply not enough room at the top for the two of them.

Thank you Kate Beasley for stopping by and sharing about preparing for your first school visits and the many inspirations behind GERTIE'S LEAP TO GREATNESS. 

I’m about to go on a school visit tour for Gertie’s Leap to Greatness. This is a big deal for me and a huge honor. I’ve been preparing in every way I can think of. Buying travel-sized toothpaste, taking pictures of my desk to show students where I work, and planning writing exercises. I know the students will ask me what my inspiration was for this book, and I’ve been trying to think of an answer.

The difficulty of the inspiration question lies in the fact that it wasn’t one thing that inspired me to write Gertie. It was a thousand. It was details of my own childhood, scenes from books and movies, newspaper articles, children I saw in Wal-Mart, song lyrics, nature, things, so many things: bug zappers, books, laundry baskets, and pencils—and feelings, too, of injustice, curiosity, fear, and hope above all.

All of the above inspired in me a sense of fascination and wonder, and these feelings were so big and good that I couldn’t keep them to myself. I needed to transform this fascination into a story that someone else could read. I wanted someone else to see and smell and feel all that I did.

Why do we tell other people about the dreams we had last night or the plots of movies we saw or about that thing the man in the checkout line said? It’s a compulsion, isn’t it? We have to tell. We have to reach out and share. I think that one part of it is that we’re trying to make sense of things, seeking to understand. I fear that another part of it is narcissism; we want to validate our own voices and experiences. But I believe that the biggest and best part of the compulsion is love. Love for life and memory and experience; we relish life. “We write to taste life twice,” Anaïs Nin said. And love, too, for other people. I love my readers. Even though I haven’t met them yet. Even if I can’t meet them all.

I’m still not sure what I’m going to tell students during Q&A. What inspired me to write this book, Gertie, in particular? What inspires me to write anything? I don’t know. I do know that life is weird and difficult, but endlessly good and interesting. And I wanted you to know that.

About the author: 
Kate Beasley holds a Masters in Writing for Children and Young Adults from the Vermont College of Fine Arts. She lives with her family in Claxton, Georgia, with two dogs, one parrot, lots of cows, and a cat named Edgar. Gertie's Leap to Greatness is her first novel. Find her on Twitter 

Nonfiction Picture Book Challenge: Antsy Ansel Guest Post with Cindy Jenson-Elliott

Antsy Ansel: Ansel Adams, A Life in Nature
by Cindy Jenson-Elliott; Illustrated by Christy Hale
Henry Holt and Co. (September 6, 2016)
Audience: Ages 5 to 9
Nonfiction * Biography * Art
IndieBound | WorldCat
 

Description from GoodReads: 
You may be familiar with Adams's iconic black-and-white nature photographs. But do you know about the artist who created these images?

As a child, Ansel Adams just couldn't sit still. He felt trapped indoors and never walked anywhere--he ran. Even when he sat, his feet danced. But in nature, Ansel felt right at home. He fell in love with the gusting gales of the Golden Gate, the quiet whisper of Lobos Creek, the icy white of Yosemite Valley, and countless other remarkable natural sights.

From his early days in San Francisco to the height of his glory nationwide, this book chronicles a restless boy's path to becoming an iconic nature photographer.

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Thank you Cindy Jenson-Elliot for stopping by and talking about your new book Antsy Ansel: Ansel Adams, A Life in Nature. 

            If we have had the good fortune to view some of Ansel Adams’s iconic black and white photography, our chief memories are of both the massive spectacles and tiny wonder of the natural world. But Adams’s development as an artist came, in part, from the contrast he experienced between life in early industrial era schools, and the wonder of the outdoors.

            Imagine being stuck in a school like this:

            “It was a dismal three-story building, dark brown on the outside, dark brown and tan on the inside; everything, including its atmosphere, grimly brown. The students acquired this pervading mood of depression from the teachers, and the teachers must have caught it from the building: big square rooms, wide noisy staircases, grimy windows, ink-stained desks, smudged blackboards, and crummy toilets. The janitor dour, the principal grim, and the playground dirty!” (Ansel Adams: An Autobiography, p. 16)

            Not only was Adams’s school a depressing place, the teachers and administrators did not know what to do with a child like Ansel, who, in his own words, was “hyperactive.”

“Each day was a severe test for me, sitting in a dreadful classroom while the sun and fog played outside…Education without either meaning or excitement is impossible. I longed for the outdoors, leaving only a small part of my conscious self to pay attention to schoolwork.” (Ansel Adams: An Autobiography, p. 17)

After a final incident of misunderstood misbehavior, Adams’s father took him out of school. Between tutors, free access to the outdoors, and a season ticket to the San Francisco World’s Fair, Ansel Adams discovered his true love for learning.

In 2011 I had the good fortune to hear Richard Louv, author of Last Child in the Woods: Saving Our Children from Nature Deficit Disorder, speak about his book The Nature Principle. Louv spoke about people who had been saved by their connections with nature – and people who had been lost because of their broken relationship with the natural world. He mentioned Ansel Adams and his father, and immediately the words “antsy Ansel” flashed through my head. I went home and began to research his life.

Connection Children to Nearby Nature

As an outdoor educator and teacher, I have witnessed countless tiny, profound moments of connection between children and nature. These are not National Park moments found only in a special place at a special time. The natural connections that sustain and strengthen us are ordinary day-to-day moments when we connect with nearby nature, in our own back yards or school yards, and fall in love.

My heart leaps when I hear my favorite phrase echoed by a student: “Oh, wow! Look!” I want to write books to reach beyond my own students and connect the world to those moments of wonder. In writing Antsy Ansel: Ansel Adams, a Life in Nature, I wanted readers to feel what it was like to be in Ansel’s head and body: to be bombarded with stimulus, to feel stuck in a classroom, and to finally be released into the freedom of the natural world. Thirty-five drafts later, the book found its way to editor Christy Ottaviano, and into the arms of illustrator/collage artist Christy Hale, whose meticulous research on-site in Ansel Adams’ home turf gave the book deep roots.

My hope is that this book will encourage teachers, parents and children to see the outdoors as a resource for teaching and learning, and will open the door for people of all ages to develop a relationship with nature in their own back yards.

About the author: 
Cindy Jenson-Elliott is a teacher, environmental educator and the author of 17 books of nonfiction. She currently teaches writing programs to children through Words To Go in San Diego. Find her author page online at www.cindyjensonelliott.com, on twitter at @cjensonelliott, and on her blog at http://naturexplorer.wordpress.com. 

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