'Shadows of War' tells of the first Memorial Day in Boalsburg

I grew up in Boalsburg, Pa., where it's a known fact - one that I learned as a student at Boalsburg-Panorama Elementary School -  that the tiny historic village is the birthplace of Memorial Day in America. Apparently, however, there are a bunch of other U.S. towns that make that claim to fame.

Setting the record straight in her novel "Shadows of War: Prelude to the First Memorial Day" (Crandall Publishing, 112 pp., 2008) is Boalsburg resident and author Janice Sweet McElhoe, mother of Jennifer McElhoe, a classmate of mine at State College Area High School.

I ran into both Janice and Jennifer McElhoe at BookFestPA in State College on July 14. They were promoting "Shadows of War" in a tent with a number of local authors up behind Schlow Centre Region Library.

"Shadows of War" is a historical novel intended for middle-school students, ages 9 to 12.

Photo of Janice McElhoe in the
BookFestPA tent July 14

"The novel enables young readers to visualize the impact the Civil War had on the small village of Boalsburg, Pennsylvania. It provides them with an understanding of the magnitude of the events that eventually led to the first observance of Memorial Day," wrote Tabitha Berg in a Sept. 2008 article for eNewsChannels.

"Author Janice Sweet McElhoe, Ph.D., has written a story that young readers can relate to. In the novel, brave teens and classmates at the Boalsburg Academy trade their books for guns and march off to war, while the young women in the class are left behind."

Book summary (from Amazon.com):

The reader of "Shadows of War: Prelude to the First Memorial Day" will be able to visualize the impact of the Civil War on one small village in Pennsylvania and feel the magnitude of the events that eventually led to the first observance of Memorial Day. In the story, brave classmates at the Boalsburg Academy - 15, 16, 17 years old - trade their books for guns and march off to the Civil War, while the young women in the class are left behind. This tale is filled with loyalty and compassion for family, community, and country; qualities that continue to have implications for young people today.


The book is available for purchase at the Boalsburg Heritage Museum for $7 as well as on Amazon.com 



Download an audio prelude to book, courtesy of WPSU and NPR, here.
 
About the author (from the BookFestPA website):

JANICE McELHOE

Boalsburg native Janice Sweet McElhoe, author of "Shadows of War: Prelude to the First Memorial Day," has enjoyed a lifetime as an educator, first as a teacher in the public schools of Pennsylvania and later at Wilson College and Temple University, where her duties included teaching a course in children’s literature to future educators. As a child, growing up in Boalsburg, PA, McElhoe heard the poignant stories, of that small village, during the Civil War. It seemed inevitable that the educator from Boalsburg would find a way to share Emma and Sophie’s intriguing story of love, loyalty and compassion.  
McElhoe is also the author of “Sarah’s Story: A History of the Boalsburg Heritage Musuem” now in it’s second edition at the Boalsburg Heritage Museum.

Learn more about Boalsburg's Memorial Day history here.

Ever had the Mixed-Up Morning Blues?

The music of Queen Bee and The Blue Hornet Band's is running 'round my head, at about "90 m.p.h." (pun intended) as I consider the adorable children's book written by one of the State College-based blues band's founding members, Mark Ross.

"Mixed-Up Morning Blues" (Eifrig Publishing, 2010, $17.99 hardcover) comes with a catchy song of its own (the title track) on a CD tucked into a pouch inside the front cover. 

The sweet little book was written by Ross, illustrated by Nathan Mellott, and performed by The Blue Hornet Band.

Ross kindly handed over to me a copy of the book to review here when I ran into him at BookFestPA, held in State College at Schlow Centre Region Library on July 14. 

Ross, a talented musician and music teacher, now adds book publishing to his list of talents. 

The book tells the tale of a boy who wakes up on the wrong side of the bed - all mixed up - one morning. You know, I actually woke up like that this morning, come to think about it.

MARK ROSS
(photo by Madison Flago)

"Mixed-Up Morning Blues" (click here to learn more) is designed so readers can listen to the CD and sing along to lyrics including:

"When I woke up this morning, 

my dog was wearing my shoes. 

My cat was brushing his teeth with my toothbrush. 

Tell me what am I gonna do? 

I got the mixed-up morning ....

I got those mixed up morning blues."

Mark's lyrics are such that kids (of all ages) can't help but respond and relate to them. Kids know waking up in the morning can be a struggle, and the book acknowledges and makes light of that. 

Ross incorporates a catchy tune that references family pets, parents, and cars and includes and enthusiastic choruses featuring kids' voices. It's super-cute and kind of contagious. I kept playing the CD hoping it would magically turn into a full Blue Hornet Band album!

The colorful illustrations by Nathan Mellott are colorful and whimsical. At the end of the tale, there's a preview of "Skinny Little Bug," Mark and Nate's next book. There are also some seek-and-find games at the end of the book that kids will love.

Notably, "Mixed-Up Morning Blues" was awarded the 2011 Independent Book Publishers Association Children's Audio Book of the Year silver medal.

Normally I give my review copies away to a reader, but this one's going to my niece Sarah, 6, who I believe (like her Auntie Shell) often has trouble getting herself up out of bed in the morning. She's the daughter of a reader, my sister Jennifer, who, incidentally was fortunate to have Queen Bee & The Blue Hornet Band play her wedding reception in 1994 in State College. That was a fun, highly danceable reception with fantastic and cool live music (if I do say so myself)!!

Mark Ross with fellow State College author Doc Wilkerson
at the BookFestPA tent behind Schlow Centre Region Library
on July 14.

When I saw Mark Ross at BookFestPA, he actually remembered that two-decades-ago gig and asked about my sister. How about that? he must not have been mixed up that morning at all. Mark is no stranger to mys family - he also knows my mom, Pat.

Thanks for the book, Mark! I showed my mom and she was tickled. My niece Sarah will be, too.

About the author (from the publisher):

Mark Ross, the author of "Mixed-up Morning Blues," first began combining his musical talent and his love of children in the early 1980s at the Rainbow School in State College. Ella Jenkins, Hap Palmer, and Patty Hild were his biggest influences. Mrs. Hild encouraged Mark to write songs and use his guitar to teach as well as to entertain. This is what he did for six years, before leaving the classroom behind to spend the next 14 years as a founding member of Queen Bee and the Blue Hornet Band, a popular blues group that toured the Mid-Atlantic, Europe, and Canada, with whom he wrote and recorded six records. During that time Mark, continued to do his brand of music for kids wherever and whenever possible. If he met preschool teachers at a gig and could make their next morning class he was there. After becoming a dad, Mark changed careers. He opened a guitar shop in downtown State College, started an amplifier business, and in 1998 accepted a position as the Children's Music Specialist at the Penn State Child Development Laboratory, where he continues to hone his craft. Ross is also vice president at Apache Music and a partner in SRC Barker Amplifiers.


Check out Mark's website.

Looking for Lincoln: Doc Wilkerson's novel

It's been 25 years since I was his student, but it only took me a second to recognize the friendly face of Roland H. "Doc" Wilkerson Jr. as I entered the tent for BookFestPA at Schlow Centre Region Library in State College on July 14.

Doc, whose challenging World Cultures class I took and much enjoyed while a sophomore at State College Area High School, recently published a novel, "Looking for Lincoln: Today's Crisis in America" (Eifrig Publishing, April 2012, 352 pp., $16.99)

Doc, who I suspect is long-retired from teaching, was one of those gifted teachers who could not only get a bunch of motley 15-year-olds to listen, but also to share his passion for history. He's a great storyteller. 

Doc and his wife, Doyle, led European tours for students some summers. My sister Jennifer was his student a few years before I was, and went on one of Doc's famous summer trips with students to Europe. While it was my goal to do, say and wear absolutely everything my sister did growing up, I never made it on the Europe trip. So many years later, I can't remember why not ... Ski camp? Too busy lifeguarding? What a waste! And I still haven't made it to Europe. But I digress...

State College authors Mark Ross and Roland H. "Doc" Wilkerson
under the tent at BookFestPA

In my brief exchange with Doc last week, during which I felt a little starstruck (here was one of the most inspiring teachers of my high school career ... it was a bit like running into a rockstar), he explained that his novel is about how America needs another Abraham Lincoln. 

We could use more heroes, that's for sure. 

Thanks for being one of mine, Doc!

Here's the book summary from the publisher's website:

For young Tommy Wall from the shady little town of Mill Gate, Pa., America is baseball. Pinch hits and outs, best friends, an honest game, and the grass around the diamond make his world. But when Thomas Wall is forced to confront the reality in America around him as an adult, it is not so simple.

This is a controversial novel about the politics and culture reigning in the USA today. It will initiate discussions and debates on the historical decline of empires and the malady the USA currently finds itself in.

About the author (from his bio on the publisher's site):

"DOC"

Roland H. Wilkerson, Jr., known as Ron to his friends and “Doc” to his students, has been a lifelong student and teacher of the meanings of history. He has lived in State College, Pa. with is wife Doyle since 1969, and using the world as a tool of learning they have traveled hand in hand for nearly 50 summers. He was educated at the University of Dayton and Miami University, and earned a doctorate from the Pennsylvania State University. He is currently working on a review of contemporary American culture.

Here's a link to Doc's Facebook page.

For more information about "Looking for Lincoln," or to purchase it online, click here.

Author Sara Shepard a speaker at BookFestPA

Author Sara Shepard

Author Sara Shepard spent some of her elementary school years in State College, she told the BookFestPA crowd gathered to hear her speak on Saturday at State College Presbyterian Church. Shepard is author of the "Pretty Little Liars" YA series (now six published books) as well as 2 books intended for adults, "The Visibles"(2009) and "Everything We Ever Wanted" (2011).

I am sorry to say I left my camera/phone in my car while hurrying toward this event, attempting free street parking several blocks away ... SO, I did not get a photo that day of the ebullient Shepard, neatly dressed in a fashionable kelly green sleeveless dress accessorized by a chunky brown bead necklace, her long straight light brown hair cut with bangs worn down, despite the 95-degree heat outside. The photos I use here are borrowed from the Internet.

Clearly Shepard is practiced at telling her story to groups. She appeared to be quite comfortable in the pulpit, as it were, talking animatedly about her work and how she came to be a novelist. There were maybe 70 of us in the audience.

"Writing books was always what I wanted to do as a kid," she said. When she was halfway through her Master of Fine Arts program at Brooklyn College, Shepard said she "got in touch with" Alloy Entertainment, which produces books for teens and pre-teens.

"I crashed their Christmas party and begged them to give me any writing job they had," Shepard said with a wry smile. "They needed ghostwriters."

The job, though it paid nothing - as entry-level publishing jobs are know to do - turned out to be a really "great way to write a book," Shepard said. For Alloy, she wrote three books in a series of six about samurai girls."They were not my characters, not my plot."

At the time Shepard also had a day job. "As a writer, you just don't think you're going to have a job doing this," she said.

Growing up, she was a big fan of the spooky TV series "Twin Peaks," which was an inspiration for the "Pretty Little Liars" series.

But years later now, with several novels under her belt, Shepard has made it to full-time novelist.

Shepard noted that writing about what you know is always advisable ... however, she added, "I never had a stalker named 'A' or a stalker at all (as in the PLL series); I never had a car accident and then forgot who did it to me. But I have a lot in common with these characters. The characters were all sort of based on my life ... though I never had an affair with a teacher!"

She said sometimes it's hard to plot the PLL series books, to keep it all straight. The series started out as doing 8 chapters on spec, which turned into four books, which turned into 8, then 12, and is up to 14 - where Shepard says she will stop. She's writing "The Lying Game" along with the "Pretty Little Liars" books.

"'The Lying Game' is more about class than "Pretty Little Liars," Shepard said. The live twin who takes over a dead twin's body was a foster child, and the dead twin was rich and popular," the author said. "The Lying Game" is set in Arizona, where Shepard lived until recently returning to the Philadelphia area.

"Writing YA is something I did not plan to do, but sort of fell into it and I'm really happy to do it," Shepard said, noting her two adult books haven't gained as much acclaim.

During a brief Q&A period, Shepard said if the had to pick a favorite PLL character, it would be Hanna. She said her favorite authors include Wally Lamb, Margaret Atwood, Alice Hoffman and Jeffrey Eugenides. As a teen, she liked Lois Duncan and V.C. Andrews. "I tend to like books with young characters," Shepard said.

Asked how she names her characters, Shepard said she tends to choose names she has no connection to. But once, she used the name Ezra Fitz for a character. That name belongs to a schoolmate at Corl Street Elementary in State College. In her book, Fitz is a teacher who sleeps with a student, Aria. The real Fitz contacted her after the book was published and luckily was flattered to be included, though there was no behavioral connection to the real Fitz, who is also a writer, and the fictional Fitz, Shepard laughed.

She advised those who want to write books to a living to "move to New York!" for the connections.

She added: "You really need to read a lot and find someone who will read it and constructively criticize your work. Have a thick skin if you're trying to get published, because you're going to get rejected A LOT. Don't pay attention to reviews. Network, go to conferences. Get an agent who works for you.

"If you just love to (write) anyway, you're halfway there."

Shepard's books:

The "Pretty Little Liars" series includes:

• Pretty Little Liars (October 3, 2006). 
• Flawless (March 7, 2007). 
• Perfect (August 21, 2007).
• Unbelievable (May 27, 2008). 
• Wicked (November 25, 2008). 
• Killer (June 30, 2009).
• Heartless (January 19, 2010). 
• Wanted (June 8, 2010).
• Twisted (July 5, 2011). 
• Ruthless (December 6, 2011). 
• Stunning (June 5, 2012). 
• Burned (December 2, 2012). 
• Pretty Little Liars: Pretty Little Secrets (January 3, 2012).

Her subsequent YA series, "The Lying Game":

• The Lying Game (December 7, 2010). 
• Never Have I Ever (August 2, 2011). 
• Two Truths and A Lie (February 7, 2012). 
• Hide and Seek (July 31, 2012).
• Cross My Heart, Hope To Die (February 5, 2013)

Both YA series are now popular TV series on ABC Family.

"I don't have very much to say about the shows," Shepard said. "A lot of people were mad about the girls who were cast because they didn't look like the girls on the covers ... but it didn't matter to me."

About the author 

Sara Shepard graduated from Downingtown West High School in 1995 (she's younger than I am!) and got her undergraduate degree from New York University. She got her MFA at Brooklyn College and now lives outside Philadelphia with her husband and dogs. She says she lives in suburban Philadelphia, on the Main Line, though she did not offer a town. Perhaps I'll run into her in Ardmore or Wayne sometime!

Learn more about Shepard on her website.

Next up: Tawni O'Dell's keynote presentation at BookFestPA.

About my visit to BookFest PA ...

Per the advice of Penn State Press Publicity Manager Danny Bellet (thanks Danny!), I took some time last Saturday, July 14, during my yearly trek to the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts in my native State College, to visit BookFestPA. I left the crowded, heated downtown streets filled with thousands of Arts Fest visitors to duck into a cool church pew at State College Presbyterian Church and listen, along with several dozen attendees, to presentations by two best-selling authors with ties to Happy Valley.

Old postcard of State College Presbyterian

While BookFestPA is anchored at downtown State College's Schlow Centre Region Library, the speakers were scheduled at the lovely stone church about a block away.

State College Presbyterian Church was, incidentally, the site of a youth group I attended - and loved - during high school, called Fellowship In Senior High (FISH). Though they happened years and years ago, I still vividly recall the Wednesday night spaghetti dinners and meetings my FISH friends and I shared in the hall below the church. And of course the annual camping trip to Assateague Island. But I digress ...

My next few posts will describe BookFestPA speakers Sara Shepard, author of the "Pretty Little Liars" YA series, and Tawni O'Dell, author of (Oprah's Book Club pick) "Backroads" and "Coal Run," among other novels.

Schlow Centre Region Library

I also visited the 3rd Annual BookFestPA tent behind Schlow after O'Dell's presentation, and was floored to see some local State College authors set up, promoting and selling their own works. These included, to my surprise and delight, my 10th grade Advanced World History teacher Doc Wilkerson, talented musician and family friend Mark Ross, and Boalsburg historian Janice McElhoe. I will also be talking about their new books.

That's a lot to digest so I'm breaking this up into several posts ... please read on!