Christopher Bodmann's Blog: Adventures in Middle Grade - Posts Tagged "middle-grade-fiction"
Hello World!
Hi readers!
I'm excited to get started sharing my adventures as a middle grade author.
My newly published book, The Goodwin Chronicles, is a great starter for young readers.
The Goodwin Chronicles: Legends of Traumwelt
But enough shameless self-promotion! Please keep an eye out for future posts. I'll wax philosophic on a number of topics that you hopefully will find helpful.
My focus will be on helping to build strong readers.
Middle school is a powerful time for reading. Students are mature enough to understand complex topics, they are a sea of confusion and emotion (not to mention hormones), and forging strong ties to reading in middle school will serve these kids far into adulthood.
If my writing can make a difference for one child, it's worth it to me.
So buckle up and join me on this fun ride!
I'm excited to get started sharing my adventures as a middle grade author.
My newly published book, The Goodwin Chronicles, is a great starter for young readers.
The Goodwin Chronicles: Legends of Traumwelt
But enough shameless self-promotion! Please keep an eye out for future posts. I'll wax philosophic on a number of topics that you hopefully will find helpful.
My focus will be on helping to build strong readers.
Middle school is a powerful time for reading. Students are mature enough to understand complex topics, they are a sea of confusion and emotion (not to mention hormones), and forging strong ties to reading in middle school will serve these kids far into adulthood.
If my writing can make a difference for one child, it's worth it to me.
So buckle up and join me on this fun ride!
Harvest Season Preview
Please enjoy this free preview of Harvest Season. Harvest Season
Prologue
How do you tell a story that’s meant to save the human race? I’m not much of a storyteller, so I may not tell you all the important parts. And what’s important to me may not be what you want to hear about. I’m not so sure it is obvious that the human race is all that saveable. I certainly haven’t gotten the best humanity has to offer. We’re fed on a diet of promises by those in power - democracy, social mobility, opportunity. Just opiate for the masses, right? On the other hand, the masses get what they deserve. They’re stupid, lazy, self destructive, violent, and petty. Most of them couldn’t take advantage of opportunity even if it did exist. So why should humanity be spared? Well, maybe we deserve a chance to show the universe what we can be. A chance to fulfill our potential. To prove we can do better. Maybe even the worthless ones can redeem themselves by showing they can grow and improve. Or maybe, just maybe, the handful of good people on this tiny speck of dirt outweigh the worthlessness of everyone else. I’m not sure.
Before I get too far, I guess I’d better introduce myself. That’s always a good way to get this kind of thing going, isn’t it? My name is Marigold Miller. I’m 14. I live with my dad in a tiny apartment in a crappy building that’s falling apart. We don’t have a lot of money - Dad is on permanent disability and Mom is gone. I manage to take care of stuff around the house, though a lot of nights I go to bed hungry. I don’t tell you that to make you feel sorry for me - just to let you know that my view of humanity is from the bottom rung. So I can pretty much see the entire spectrum stretched out above me. That’s what they call “perspective.”
I like to hack things. I take them apart, figure out how they work, then make tweaks - improving the functionality or changing it to fit my needs. The building Dad and I live in is no exception. It’s a modular construction thing, pre-fabbed blocks that stack on top of each other. Cheap and fast construction for a rapidly growing population. The buildings never really fit together perfectly, so they frequently have leaks and power outages and stuff. But the way they were built, they left all these access tubes going throughout the building, between the walls and floors, for maintenance access, I guess. I found these tubes one day when our water got shut off for non-payment and I was looking for a way to turn it back on because Dad hadn’t taken a bath in weeks and was really stinking up the apartment. I managed to figure it out, and after that day, I was hooked. I spent most of my free time exploring the tubes and finding ways to hack the building. They were just big enough to walk through, though as I got older I had to hunch over a little bit. Along with getting our water for free, I bypassed the electrical, boosted our WiFi bandwidth, and gave myself a backdoor remote connection to the elevator system (which was great when the elevator was working).
The tubes were my private wonderland - the place I went to when I needed to be alone or escape the difficult things in my life. I had a little workshop setup in the tube near my bedroom, where I tinkered on various projects. But I spent just as much time wandering through the passageways, listening in on the conversations of the people who lived near us. This furthered my perspective because it let me see how other people had problems, too. Mrs. Jameson on the 18th floor lived alone with at least six cats and had terminal cancer and no one to take care of her. Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy on 23 were fighting every time they were together, it seemed, but Mr. Kennedy cried when he was alone, often looking at a picture of a bride and groom. And Mr. Ferguson on 31 was close to being evicted, having not paid his rent in many months. Everyone in the building, it seemed, had a sad story.
When I thought about these problems, when I listened to what other people were going through, my own problems seemed to shrink in comparison. And bringing my problems down to a manageable size gave me the hope I needed to keep going.
So that’s me. One lone girl from the planet Earth. I’m not particularly exceptional, but that’s kind of my point. Everyone deserves a chance. Everyone deserves to be an exception. That’s what I hope you can see. At any rate, this is my story, for better or worse. You’ll have to decide if I got it right. Our fate is in your hands - and on your conscience.
Prologue
How do you tell a story that’s meant to save the human race? I’m not much of a storyteller, so I may not tell you all the important parts. And what’s important to me may not be what you want to hear about. I’m not so sure it is obvious that the human race is all that saveable. I certainly haven’t gotten the best humanity has to offer. We’re fed on a diet of promises by those in power - democracy, social mobility, opportunity. Just opiate for the masses, right? On the other hand, the masses get what they deserve. They’re stupid, lazy, self destructive, violent, and petty. Most of them couldn’t take advantage of opportunity even if it did exist. So why should humanity be spared? Well, maybe we deserve a chance to show the universe what we can be. A chance to fulfill our potential. To prove we can do better. Maybe even the worthless ones can redeem themselves by showing they can grow and improve. Or maybe, just maybe, the handful of good people on this tiny speck of dirt outweigh the worthlessness of everyone else. I’m not sure.
Before I get too far, I guess I’d better introduce myself. That’s always a good way to get this kind of thing going, isn’t it? My name is Marigold Miller. I’m 14. I live with my dad in a tiny apartment in a crappy building that’s falling apart. We don’t have a lot of money - Dad is on permanent disability and Mom is gone. I manage to take care of stuff around the house, though a lot of nights I go to bed hungry. I don’t tell you that to make you feel sorry for me - just to let you know that my view of humanity is from the bottom rung. So I can pretty much see the entire spectrum stretched out above me. That’s what they call “perspective.”
I like to hack things. I take them apart, figure out how they work, then make tweaks - improving the functionality or changing it to fit my needs. The building Dad and I live in is no exception. It’s a modular construction thing, pre-fabbed blocks that stack on top of each other. Cheap and fast construction for a rapidly growing population. The buildings never really fit together perfectly, so they frequently have leaks and power outages and stuff. But the way they were built, they left all these access tubes going throughout the building, between the walls and floors, for maintenance access, I guess. I found these tubes one day when our water got shut off for non-payment and I was looking for a way to turn it back on because Dad hadn’t taken a bath in weeks and was really stinking up the apartment. I managed to figure it out, and after that day, I was hooked. I spent most of my free time exploring the tubes and finding ways to hack the building. They were just big enough to walk through, though as I got older I had to hunch over a little bit. Along with getting our water for free, I bypassed the electrical, boosted our WiFi bandwidth, and gave myself a backdoor remote connection to the elevator system (which was great when the elevator was working).
The tubes were my private wonderland - the place I went to when I needed to be alone or escape the difficult things in my life. I had a little workshop setup in the tube near my bedroom, where I tinkered on various projects. But I spent just as much time wandering through the passageways, listening in on the conversations of the people who lived near us. This furthered my perspective because it let me see how other people had problems, too. Mrs. Jameson on the 18th floor lived alone with at least six cats and had terminal cancer and no one to take care of her. Mr. and Mrs. Kennedy on 23 were fighting every time they were together, it seemed, but Mr. Kennedy cried when he was alone, often looking at a picture of a bride and groom. And Mr. Ferguson on 31 was close to being evicted, having not paid his rent in many months. Everyone in the building, it seemed, had a sad story.
When I thought about these problems, when I listened to what other people were going through, my own problems seemed to shrink in comparison. And bringing my problems down to a manageable size gave me the hope I needed to keep going.
So that’s me. One lone girl from the planet Earth. I’m not particularly exceptional, but that’s kind of my point. Everyone deserves a chance. Everyone deserves to be an exception. That’s what I hope you can see. At any rate, this is my story, for better or worse. You’ll have to decide if I got it right. Our fate is in your hands - and on your conscience.
Adventures in Middle Grade
In which I discuss my thoughts about middle grade fiction, why forging good readers in middle school is so important, and other random thoughts.
- Christopher Bodmann's profile
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