UM Exhibit Museum of Natural History

Edmontosaurus in front of mural.

A couple years ago, Cyn and I spoke to a class in Michigan at Oakland University and, as part of the research on THE CHRONAL ENGINE, we stopped by the University of Michigan Natural History Museum (Ann Arbor, MI).

This small museum on the campus of the University of Michigan has an entire floor devoted to vertebrate paleontology.

An Allosaurus is on display next to a stegosaurus "carcass," and an Edmontosaurus is laid out before a huge mural showing "now" and "then" scenes of what paleontologists thought and think its life must've been like. You can also get up close to a Deinonychus and an Ankylosaurus tail club, sauropod leg and hip bones, and see various theropod, ornithopod, and sauropod skulls. Looking up, you can also see pterosaurs and a mosasaur.

Skull of Edmontosaurus

I particularly like the way the displays are laid out. You can get close enough to touch most of them (but you shouldn't :-)) and really get a feel for the size of these creatures, especially the Edmontosaurus, which stretches a good part of the width of the hall.

Deinonychus

Next time you're in Ann Arbor, check it out!

Writers and Dinosaurs

Although publication is not for a while, THE CHRONAL ENGINE is beginning to feel more and more real. My editor just sent me some amazingly cool concept sketches of interior illustrations and the manuscript itself is now off to copy-editing.

To celebrate its upcoming release, I'm starting a blog series called "Writers and Dinosaurs." The idea is to feature children's authors and illustrators in photos with dinosaurs of some kind. These can be realistic dinosaurs or skeletons from natural history museums or theme parks or can be dinosaurs of the more cartoon-y variety.

So if you're an author or illustrator and have a picture and want to be included, leave a comment with your email and I'll be in touch!

Or, e-mail me at greg AT gregleitichsmith.com

WLT YA A to Z Conference!

The YA A to Z Conference: Everything You Need to Know About Writing for the Young-Adult Market, sponsored by the Writers' League of Texas, will be April 15 and April 16 at the Hyatt Regency Austin (208 Barton Springs Road). Cost: $279 WLT Members, $349 Nonmembers (through March 31). Note: conference faculty includes Cynthia and Greg Leitich Smith. The early bird registration deadline is March 31!

Check out the YA A to Z Conference FAQs!

Texas Independence Day! Big giant lizards!

Happy Independence Day!

It's the 175th anniversary of the signing of the Texas Declaration of Independence, so I thought I'd do a post on big giant lizards in Houston.

One of the more entertaining aspects of writing novels, in general, and a Cretaceous time-travel novel, in particular, is the research. With THE CHRONAL ENGINE, I had to (re)create an entire ecosystem, which provided an excuse to, among other things, go to zoos and natural history museums.

While (non-avian) dinosaurs are no longer with us, we still have the descendants and/or relatives of many creatures that survived the K-T extinction, including alligators and monitor lizards (and birds, of course). Above, is a photo of me at the Houston Zoo in front of their komodo dragon, the largest monitor lizard. Although its bite is septic, the komodo doesn't really look all that fearsome, particularly behind three-inch glass. Appearances of course can be deceiving, though, and I really wouldn't want to encounter one in the wild.

It's of particular interest to me, though, for a couple reasons: first, monitor lizards are known from the Cretaceous (dinosaurs weren't the only great big scaly things in the ecosystem back then!).

Second, it's related to the mosasaur, the orca-sized (20-30 feet long) aquatic predator from the North American inland sea of the late Cretaceous. Shown below is the Onion Creek mosasaur, on display at the Texas Memorial Museum in Austin:


Below, I'm still at the Houston Zoo, peering at the albino alligator.


Immediately below is a close-up of the animal's forelimb. It's kind of fascinating, how much you can see of the scales on the white animal.


Below, at the Houston Natural Sciences Museum, I'm standing in front of what I believe is a Nile crocodile.

Both the alligator and the crocodile are much smaller than Deinosuchus riograndensis (found in the Big Bend area):

See, everything is bigger in Texas!

FRONTIER WOLF

FRONTIER WOLF, by Rosemary Sutcliff (Front Street 2008, orig. pub. 1981)(12+). In 343 AD, disgraced centurion Alexios Flavio Aquila is given one last chance to redeem himself and salvage his career. At the intervention of his uncle, he's sent to the wilds of northern Britain to command the "Frontier Wolves," sort of the French Foreign Legion of its day.

He begins to get the feel of leadership on the strange frontier, but when the tribes rise against the Romans, he's faced with the dilemma that cost him his reputation last time: stay and fight or retreat?

FRONTIER WOLF is compelling, richly-detailed, action-packed historical fiction. Flavios is engaging and sympathetic as he struggles with his new command and the conflict between following standing orders and on-the-scene judgment.

Sutcliff is also author of THE EAGLE OF THE NINTH, which was just issued in paperback as THE EAGLE by Square Fish/Macmillan in conjunction with the release of the movie based on the book.

Uncle Beazley gets a facelift.

Who's Uncle Beazley? The Triceratops from THE ENORMOUS EGG, one of my favorite books as a kid. A couple years ago, I did a post on that and some other books I'd read as a child to see how well they'd held up. Here's the entry for THE ENORMOUS EGG:

THE ENORMOUS EGG, by Oliver Butterworth (Little Brown, 1956)(ages 8-12).

What I remember of the story: Nate Twitchell lives on a farm in rural New Hampshire. One of his hens lays the eponymous egg, which hatches into a live Triceratops...which Nate now has responsibility for...

The rest of the recollection: This is another that we owned. I thought this one was terrific -- the idea that Nate got to spend a month at the Smithsonian and spend a good part of it walking a live dinosaur on the Washington Mall was really appealing.

And now: This one has held up surprisingly well. The voice is still fresh and un-self-conscious. Okay, I don't quite completely buy the whole plot arc with the Senate, but the senator himself is (still) absolutely hilarious. The drawings are also still pretty accurate (although the idea of Triceratops posture has changed somewhat since 1956).

Altogether, a fun, sweet, and surprisingly sophisticated read.

So, anyway, I knew there had been a statue made of Uncle Beazley and that it had been on display in front of the National Museum of Natural History. I may even have seen it there when I was a kid, but it wasn't there when Cyn and I went for National Book Festival.

Apparently, Uncle Beazley's permanent home now is in front of a prehistoric garden at the National Zoo. A couple days ago, he was taken off for a much-needed facelift. He returns in mid-March.

Take a look at the pictures and story from NPR here. And here's the official press release.

Texas Swing!

This weekend is the Austin SCBWI annual conference, so writers and editors and agents are descending on the city. Of course, one of the fun things about people coming in from out of town is showing them the city.

Last night, Cyn and I had a great time with Anne Bustard and Janice Scully to happy hour at the Broken Spoke, an Austin institution (Cyn and I, strangely enough, had never been). Tony Harrison and Hot Texas were playing "hot Texas swing." Great music, singing, and stage presence! The band plays every Thursday night.

Later, we headed out to County Line for barbecue and had great conversation about life, books, and everything in-between.

Thanks, guys!

TAKING OFF

TAKING OFF, by Jenny Moss (Walker 2011)(12+). It's late 1985 and Clear Lake, Texas, high school senior Annie doesn't know what she wants to do with her life. Stay in town and marry Mark, who loves her? Go to college? Or write poetry, which she loves, but has never told anyone, including her best friend Lea?

When Annie meets teacher-astronaut Christa McAuliffe, she's fascinated. So much so that she just has to go see the launch in Cocoa Beach...

Annie's story is compelling and should resonate with anyone who has faced the dilemma of "where do I go from here?" In sum, TAKING OFF is a bittersweet coming-of-age story that brings home the 1980s and the events of January 28, 1986, when seven astronauts "prepared for the journey and waved goodbye and 'slipped the surly bonds of earth' to 'touch the face of God.'"

WON TON: A CAT TALE TOLD IN HAIKU

Guest review by Mercury.

MROWRR! Pardon the language, but my person refuses to open the food can until I finish this recommendation. I freely admit that this is manifestly a peril of lacking opposeable thumbs, perhaps the only evolutionary deficiency in Felidae (It's all I can do to type -- the can opener is much more difficult [composure grooming]).

WON TON: A CAT TALE TOLD IN HAIKU, by Lee Wardlaw, ill. by Eugene Yelchin (Henry Holt 2011)(ages 4-8 [human years]).

WON TON is the story of the eponymous cat -- a Burmese, I believe -- who meets his boy in a shelter. He goes to his new home and, at first and understandably, investigates the underneath of the bed and is unwilling to partake of the victuals. Nevertheless, in the end, he decides that, perhaps, the boy is worth keeping, although he is not a fan of the name the boy insists on bestowing upon him.

I will confess that I, myself, discovered my people at a shelter in Chicago. WON TON elegantly captures the experience, with just the right amount of feline insouciance (and I congratulate Won Ton for his mastery of haiku -- human rhyming metrical schemes are somewhat difficult for both Felis and Panthera, although the latter would never admit it.). The drawings are handsome and expressive and nicely evoke Won Ton's stoic appraisals of, and reactions to, his circumstances.

Thank you. Now I must eat.

Cynsational BLESSED tour!

Despite the wintry weather, Cyn leaves tomorrow for the northeast on the BLESSED tour! Here's her schedule:

Sunday, 2/6/11

1 p.m. to 3 p.m. - Books of Wonder - reading/Q&A/signing to public with Another Pan author Daniel Nayeri (PUBLIC EVENT)

18 W. 18th St., New York, N.Y.

Monday, 2/7/11

10 a.m. to 11:34 a.m. Francis Lewis High School

6 p.m. Borders Bookstore - reading/signing (PUBLIC EVENT)

Borders Columbus Circle
10 Columbus Circle, New York, N.Y.

Tuesday, 2/8/11

4 p.m. to 5 p.m. New Brunswick Free Public Library - reading/Q&A/signing (PUBLIC EVENT)

6:20 p.m. to 9 p.m. Rutgers University -- guest lecture, "Materials for Young Adults" -- room 203

School of Communication and Information -- 4 Huntington St., New Brunswick, N.J.

Wednesday, 2/9/11

10 a.m. NYPL Mulberry Branch - visit with schools

10 Jersey Street (Between Lafayette & Mulberry Streets) New York, N.Y.

8 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. New School Creative Writing Graduate Class - guest lecture

66 West 12th Street, between 5th and 6th Avenues

Thursday, 2/10/11

11:15 a.m. to 12 p.m. Brooklyn Public Library - Professional Development Day

Central Library, 10 Grand Army Plaza

4:00 p.m. to 4:45 p.m. Brooklyn Public Library - Will You Be My Paranormal Valentine Party (with teens)(PUBLIC EVENT)

Central Library, 10 Grand Army Plaza

Friday, 2/11/11

2:15 p.m. to 3 p.m. Little Red School House & Elisabeth Irwin High School Visit

Little Red School House & Elisabeth Irwin HS, LREI

272 Sixth Avenue, New York, N.Y.

7 p.m. The Voracious Reader - "Will You Be My Paranormal Valentine?" event with Another Pan author Daniel Nayeri (PUBLIC EVENT)

1997 Palmer Avenue, Larchmont, N.Y.

Saturday, 2/12/11

1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. Mercer County Library Event -- West Windsor Branch (PUBLIC EVENT)

333 North Post Road, Princeton Junction, N.J.

6:30 p.m. Barnes & Noble, Cherry Hill, N.J. (Greater Philly area)(PUBLIC EVENT)

911 Haddonfield Road, Cherry Hill, N.J.