Tag: The Great Connecticut Caper

School Visits, a Book Launch, and Dr. Seuss’s Birthday!

March 2, 2016 / Katie L. Carroll

What better day than Dr. Seuss’s birthday than to celebrate how I’ve been living a creative life? And though I haven’t been writing in the drafting-a-new-book sense (my favorite kind of writing), I’ve been immersing myself in the creative life in other ways.

The reign of school visits ended last week. In less than three weeks, I taught eight writing workshops to more than 200 students, ranging from grades 4 to 7. This particular workshop is about where story ideas come from and includes a guided writing/thought exercise where the kids come up with their own story ideas. They never cease to amaze me with their thoughtfulness and creativity. The workshop is about inspiring kids, but I always come out inspired by them!

After one session, a 6th-grade girl walked down the hallway with me and shared a poem she had written about herself. It was lyrical, had a great cadence, and optimistic, a beautiful portrayal of herself. After another, nearly the entire 4th-grade class lined up with their scraps of papers and waited in line for my autograph, totally making me feel like a celebrity. Connecting with young readers and writers is 20160302_132004 magical! Plus, talking with the librarians and teachers who teach these kids everyday is informative and inspiring.

Monday the Connecticut Humanities and the authors and illustrators of THE GREAT CONNECTICUT CAPER celebrated the hardcover and audio release of the book at a local library. It’s always fun to catch up with my Caper collaborators. I haven’t listened to the whole audio version yet, but what I did listen to was brilliantly narrated (listen to the Caper audiobook here).

Of course, I’ve been reading a lot. In particular, I’ve been stepping out of my comfort zone of YA and reading adult books and non-fictions. And always, always, always reading to the boys. Last week I squeezed in visiting The Boy’s pre-school class for World Read Aloud Day. I’ll leave you with some of our favorite Seuss books.

Find a Clue, Leave a Clue: Wrapping Up THE GREAT CT CAPER with Stacy DeKeyser

June 7, 2015 / Katie L. Carroll

It’s with great excitement and a little sadness that I announce the final chapter of THE GREAT CT CAPER is here! What an amazing adventure it has been both helping to write the Caper and reading along. While the family and I are enjoying the Mystery Solved event at Gillette Castle today, you can catch up with Stacy DeKeyser, author of chapter 12 of the Caper. Welcome, Stacy!

Find a Clue, Leave a Clue: Wrapping Up The Great CT Caper

by Stacy DeKeyser

Lucky me, assigned the last chapter of The Great Connecticut Caper! I’d never done anything like this before—tying up all the loose ends that 11 other authors had unraveled. But I told myself it would be a fun challenge. And it was!

I started by reading the first 10 chapters of the story. (I’ll talk about Chapter 11 later.) As I read and re-read the story (6 or 7 times?), I hunted for clues that the other authors had hidden in their chapters. These would be the seeds I’d use I to write the final chapter. I added my own notes to the very detailed story chart compiled by the Caper’s editor, Theresa Sullivan Barger.

Next, I listed the things that HAD to happen by the end of the story. Our heroes, Li-Ming and Thomas, had to defeat the dreaded Lady Hallow, for one thing. And of course, Gillette Castle had to be found. But how? I jotted down a few possibilities.

One goal of the Caper is to get kids excited about visiting Connecticut’s historical and cultural landmarks. The story had already incorporated a few of them, and I wanted to keep that theme going. So I decided that the final chapter would include one more Connecticut landmark. But which one?

Once more, I studied the clues that were already hidden in the Caper. And those clues led me to the perfect setting for the end of the story. One more very special (and very secret) Connecticut landmark.

Things were coming together! I was almost ready to start writing.

One cool feature of the Caper is that each author could write his or her chapter only after reading the chapters that had come before. But Sarah Albee (the author of Chapter 11) and I were given a bit of leeway. Since Chapter 11 is actually “The Ending, Part One,” Sarah and I needed to work together to plan the final series of events. As it turned out, we both had similar ideas for the climax of the story. And so Sarah only needed to tweak a couple of details in her chapter so they would point to the resolution (and the secret Connecticut landmark) I had in mind.

Screen Shot 2015-03-11 at 4.30.35 PM Now I was ready to visit the secret landmark myself, to hammer out the details of the final chapter. Armed with notebook and cell phone camera, I soaked in the atmosphere and asked lots of questions. I took photos. By the time I was done, I knew that this setting would work perfectly.

Back at my desk, I studied all the photos I had taken at Gillette Castle. More ideas came, and Chapter 12 took shape.

Now you can read the entire story. You can find out how the mystery of Gillette Castle is solved, and discover the identity of the secret landmark! I hope you’ll agree that it’s the perfect place to end The Great Connecticut Caper. And I hope now you’ll be itching to visit that place, and Gillette Castle, to look for the clues that Li-Ming and Thomas left behind. Because the clues are there. All you have to do is find them.

About the Author:

Stacy DeKeyser is the author of five books for children, including ONE WITCH AT A TIME and THE BRIXEN WITCH (S&S/McElderry). Her books have been included in the Chicago Public Library’s Best of the Best, the Bank Street College of Education Best Books of the Year, Amazon Editors’ Picks, KIRKUS REVIEW’s New and Notable Books for Children, and various state award lists. She lives in Simsbury. Visit her website at stacydekeyser.com.

Meet Sarah Albee Author of Chapter 11 of The Great Connecticut Caper

May 25, 2015 / Katie L. Carroll

Chapter 11 of The Great Connecticut Caper is here! That means only one more to go! It’s been a wild ride. In honor of the mystery (almost) being solved, the Connecticut Humanities is hosting an event at Gillette Castle on Sunday, June 7 from 2-4 pm. It’ll be a great opportunity to meet some of the authors and illustrators and to participate in some fun events (I heard there will be bookish type prizes!). In the meantime, today you can get know Sarah Albee, author of chapter 11, a little better. Welcome, Sarah!

What was your approach to writing chapter 11 of The Great CT Caper? Given that it was the second-to-last chapter, how much did you feel you had to wrap up in order to set up the ending for the author of the final chapter?

I actually worked pretty closely with Stacy DeKeyser, my fellow Caper author who was slated to write the final episode. Together we hatched a plan to wrap up the various plot threads and resolve the story in our two remaining installments. There was quite a bit of back-and-forth and she had some great ideas that I incorporated into my chapter. I think the combination of brain power was a great way to work!

What were your expectations coming into writing a collaborative, serialized story for young readers? Had you written anything like this before?

I have written books that include lots of chapter cliffhangers and that have very controlled word counts, but never in collaboration with other writers. It was fun, but challenging, because my predecessors have wonderfully wild imaginations and took the story onto some wild tangents. I was in the role of “batting cleanup,” and I enjoyed the challenge.

What kind of research did you do for the project?

I visited the Castle and took a whole lot of pictures, so I felt I had a good grounding with the setting.

The Great CT Caper’s target audience is children in grades four through seven. What were some of your favorite books when you were that age?

I loved books with magic in them, like the Narnia chronicles and Edward Eager’s books (Half Magic, Magic by the Lake, etc.). I also loved detective stories, and devoured Sherlock Holmes stories and Agatha Christie mysteries.

What’s the best writing advice you’ve ever received? What one piece of advice that you didn’t get but wished you had gotten?

I love Stephen King’s admonition in his book On Writing, where he says, “The road to hell is paved with adverbs.” In other words, write with simplicity and clarity.

The advice I wish I’d gotten? Ignore people who say “Write what you know.” I love finding stuff out. I love not knowing about something and learning about it. It’s the best part of being a nonfiction writer!

If you were stranded on a desert island and could only bring two books and one movie, what would you bring?

I’d bring the collected works of P.G. Wodehouse, the collected works of Shakespeare (is that cheating??), and a Pixar movie. Every one of them is ingenious, but I guess I’d say Monsters Inc. No, Toy Story. No, The Incredibles. Ok. Monsters Inc.

Where else can readers find your writings? What’s up next for your writing career?

My latest book, which came out in February with National Geographic, is called Why’d They Wear That? Fashion as the Mirror of History. My next book, slated for 2017, is about poison in human history.

And finally, what is something funny/weird/exceptional about yourself that you don’t normally share with others in an interview?

After college, I lived for a year in Cairo, Egypt, where I played on a semi-professional women’s basketball team!

About the Author:

Sarah Albee is the New York Times bestselling author of more than 100 books for kids, ranging from preschool through middle grade. Her latest nonfiction middle grade title Why’d They Wear That? is about crazy fashions in history (National Geographic, 2015). She enjoys writing about topics where history and science connect, including Bugged: How Insects Changed History (2014) and Poop Happened: A History of the World from the Bottom Up (2010). When she isn’t writing books or visiting schools in person or via Skype, Sarah blogs about offbeat history at http://sarahalbeebooks.com.

Poop Happened coverBugged