Kimberly Hirsh

I have recently published my Master’s Paper here in my portfolio.  This paper won the Dean’s Achievement Award for Best Master’s Paper.  I will soon revise it for submission to School Library Media Research.

The Transformational Leadership Practices of National Board Certified School Librarians in North Carolina

 Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon’s new historical action novel, The Secret Journeys of Jack London: THE WILD, hits stores today.  The authors and illustrator Greg Ruth will be touring blogs every day for the next couple of weeks to share their stories.

I asked Tim to share a bit with us about his research process.  Here’s what he had to say:

For me, one of the most enjoyable aspects about writing this book was the research.

I usually don’t research that much.  The book I’m writing right now is a fantasy novel, so I get to make stuff up.  On the island of Skythe there are birds called merrows, herd creatures called hat-hat, fire-breathing creatures called lyons, stinging things called stark blights, and a god named Aeon.  That’s all made up stuff, and the world I create is inhabited by creatures and people that require no research … because none of them are real.  At least, until I’ve finished the novel and it’s published, whereupon I hope they come across as real to the readers.  That’s one of the great pleasures of writing a fantasy novel––the geography, flora, fauna, and sometimes even the rules of nature and physics are mine to do with as I will.  As I often like to say about my first fantasy novel, Dusk, I can have sentient tumbleweed without having to explain why.

That wasn’t the case with The Wild, of course.  And I discovered that I enjoyed the research process far more than I’d anticipated.

First, I had to start reading a load of Jack London material.  He’s a superb writer, so that was   a pleasure rather than a hardship.  It took me back to my teens, which was the last time I’d read The Call of the Wild. And I discovered books that I hadn’t read before, such as John Barleycorn, and enjoyed reading Jack London biographies.  But the real pleasure came from researching the period and place where the book was set––Alaska, and the Yukon, during the Gold Rush.

I knew a little about those times, but not much.  I had visions of people travelling comfortably into the wild, making huge gold strikes, and then returning home with their fortunes and futures secure, luggage loaded with gold and their skins a healthy sheen from the bracing weather.

The reality was far different, and far grimmer.  The journey itself to the site of the gold strikes was terribly harsh, taking months for most people to make their way across mountains and through forests, along rivers and across lakes, all the time struggling to survive the worst that nature could throw at them––drenching rains, snow, ice, and temperatures that would freeze your spit before it hit the ground.

Camps were set up along the trail, such as the landing place of Dyea and the inland town of Dawson, and many people only made it this far.  They were lawless places, where the law of gun and knife ruled.  Beyond, along trails like the Dead Horse Pass––so named because its treacherous slopes were littered with the bodies of hundreds of horses that had fallen and been left to die––men and women ventured into the Yukon in search of their fortunes.

Thousands of people formed the Gold Rush, but the sad truth of it is that few struck lucky.  Many died on their way to these base camps, and many more starved or froze to death in the wild.  Scurvy was rife, as during the frozen months food was scarce.

Jack London himself almost died during his time in the Yukon.  He returned with gold dust worth less than five dollars, loose teeth, a malnourished body, and memories and scars that would last him a lifetime.  His time in the wild informed the type of man he became, and although it was probably one of the harshest times of his life––in later life he would become wealthy from his writing, and live very comfortably indeed––it was also the most inspirational.  Much of his greatest work is about the land he found when he went in search of gold.  And who is to say he didn’t find more than he revealed?  Maybe he truly did bear terrible secrets about his time there, in the inhospitable, brutal landscapes of the Yukon.  The wild.

Thanks for sharing, Tim!

The Secret Journeys of Jack London Blog Tour For the next two weeks, authors Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon will be traveling through the blogs of YA/kidlit bloggers who are also teachers, librarians, and/or adventurers. Each tour stop will offer an exclusive piece of art from Greg Ruth, whose stunning illustrations give life to the characters, locations, and beasts throughout the book. Follow the tour:

Monday, February 28th Little Willow at Bildungsroman

Tuesday, March 1st Kiba Rika (Kimberly Hirsh) of Lectitans

Wednesday, March 2nd Kim Baccellia from Si, Se Puede! and Young Adults Book Central

Thursday, March 3rd Melissa Walker, author of Small Town Sinners

Friday, March 4th Justin from Little Shop of Stories

Monday, March 7th Rebecca’s Book Blog

Tuesday, March 8th & Wednesday, March 9th Martha Brockenbrough, author of Things That Make Us [Sic]

Help spread the word about this exciting new series. Download the electronic press kit for THE SECRET JOURNEYS OF JACK LONDON.

The blog tour for The Secret Journeys of Jack London: The Wild kicks off today with an interview with the authors over at Bildungsroman.

The Secret Journeys of Jack London Blog Tour For the next two weeks, authors Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon will be traveling through the blogs of YA/kidlit bloggers who are also teachers, librarians, and/or adventurers. Each tour stop will offer an exclusive piece of art from Greg Ruth, whose stunning illustrations give life to the characters, locations, and beasts throughout the book. Follow the tour:

Monday, February 28th Little Willow at Bildungsroman

Tuesday, March 1st Kiba Rika (Kimberly Hirsh) of Lectitans

Wednesday, March 2nd Kim Baccellia from Si, Se Puede! and Young Adults Book Central

Thursday, March 3rd Melissa Walker, author of Small Town Sinners

Friday, March 4th Justin from Little Shop of Stories

Monday, March 7th Rebecca’s Book Blog

Tuesday, March 8th & Wednesday, March 9th Martha Brockenbrough, author of Things That Make Us [Sic]

Help spread the word about this exciting new series. Download the electronic press kit for THE SECRET JOURNEYS OF JACK LONDON.

Are you ready to take a journey into the wild?

Bestselling authors Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon have teamed up to create THE SECRET JOURNEYS OF JACK LONDON. Jack certainly lived a wild life, which inspired Golden & Lebbon to create this new book series based on his real-life travels. They’ve taken his true stories and his fiction and mixed in urban legends and myths of the time. While THE SECRET JOURNEYS series is fiction, not biography, the books are extremely well-researched, and spooky elements add another level of intrigue to the richly detailed stories.

The first book, THE WILD, will be released on Tuesday, March 1st. When seventeen-year-old Jack London travels to Alaska to join the Klondike Gold Rush, the path he treads is not at all what he expected. Along the way, he encounters kidnappers, traders, traitors, and a mysterious wolf. Jack must face the wild head-on in order to survive.

The buzz for THE SECRET JOURNEYS OF JACK LONDON just keeps getting louder. 20th Century Fox has acquired the film rights to the series. Garth Nix, author of the Abhorsen Trilogy, declared: “A masterful mix of gold, cold, supernatural creatures, and dread magic makes this a great action adventure story.” Mike Mignola, creator of Hellboy, calls THE WILD “A great old-school adventure novel and the best use of the Wendigo legend I’ve ever read.”

Authors Christopher Golden and Tim Lebbon will launch a blog tour the day before the book’s release, beginning at Bildungsroman on Monday, February 28th and traveling through the blogs of YA/kidlit bloggers who are also teachers, librarians, and/or adventurers through Tuesday, March 8th. Each tour stop will offer an exclusive piece of art from Greg Ruth, whose stunning illustrations give life to the characters, locations, and beasts throughout the book.

Here’s the full schedule:

Monday, February 28th Little Willow at Bildungsroman

Tuesday, March 1st Kiba Rika (Kimberly Hirsh) of Lectitans

Wednesday, March 2nd Kim Baccellia from Si, Se Puede! and Young Adults Book Central

Thursday, March 3rd Melissa Walker, author of Small Town Sinners

Friday, March 4th Justin from Little Shop of Stories

Monday, March 7th Rebecca’s Book Blog

Tuesday, March 8th Martha Brockenbrough, author of Things That Make Us [Sic]

Download the electronic press kit for THE SECRET JOURNEYS OF JACK LONDON.

Publishing details: THE SECRET JOURNEYS OF JACK LONDON: THE WILD Written by Christopher Golden & Tim Lebbon Illustrated by Greg Ruth On sale: March 1st, 2011 Published by HarperCollins Childrens ISBN: 9780061863172

http://www.christophergolden.com http://www.timlebbon.net

My column in the January 2011 issue of School Library Monthly, entitled “Resolving the Quiet Crisis: Reading Apprenticeships in Middle and High Schools” and co-authored with Katelyn Browne and Elizabeth Koehler, is now available.

I have recently added a unit plan as an example of the type of instructional planning services I offer.

I created this monthly report for the school library media center where I completed my field experience:

Here are two video resources I created during my field experience:

Here are two more videos of me telling stories in my storytelling class. The volume in both is very quiet, so you’ll need to turn it up on your computer to get the full effect.

Welcome to my new home, here at my own domain.  LiveJournal was just not doing what I needed it to do anymore, and thus we have the new lectitans.

If you’re looking for posts on a particular topic, please check out the tag cloud at the right.  I haven’t settled yet on whether I’ll be using categories for new posts, so tags are the best way to navigate topically for now.

Coming soon: reviews of The Spymaster’s Lady and Rebecca.