MO Day #1: Lynne Marie Mines Mentor Texts
Welcome to March On With Mentor Texts and Our Very First Post!
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February 15, 2022 - Registration Post Hello March On With Mentor Texts!
AND NOW, HERE'S OUR MENTOR...
INTRODUCTION: Mentor texts have been an important factor in my own personal success for each and every one of my books, going back to the very beginning! So when Carrie Charley Brown started ReFoReMo along with Kirsti Call, I said “now, why didn’t I think of that?” Such a brilliant idea, right? Because no matter how far along we are in our kidlit careers, we can always use some kidlit industry perspective.
To make the most of this experience, keep a reading journal. While I love writing in notebooks with colored markers, I’ve taken to a google doc so it’s searchable (and won’t ever be lost in a crash. SIGH). Here’s some of the things you should note for the best return from your research.
Title:
Author/Illustrator:
Publisher/Publication Date:
Genre/Subgenre:
Story Starts on Page:
Main Character:
Problem Appears on Page:
Story Ends on Page:
Topic:
Theme:
Unique Characteristics:
Notes:
This will prove useful when searching for Mentor texts / comp titles for future books. I actually keep a running list like that of everything I read. Though I lost my original list in a computer crash last year, I now have my new list safely stored in Google Docs.
HOW TO MINE MENTOR TEXTS:
As an example, here is how I approached mining mentor text with my latest release, The Three Little Pigs and the Rocket Project and its coloring book counterpart. My mission is always to find 50 to 100 books that relate to my focus manuscript. So with Pigs, I read / bought / took out from the library all the books I could on the following topics:
Three Little Pigs retellings
Fairy Tales
Fractured Fairy Tales
Rockets
Building
Overcoming obstacles
Learning from Mistakes
Bullying
STEM Fairy Tales
STEM Fiction Picture Books
However, for the purposes of this post I will focus on The Three Little Pigs Retellings and the planting of my idea to write a unique and fresh version of the story. The Mentor Text Tracker format above helped me keep this information handy and organized.
As I explored these retellings, I looked primarily to see what had been done before so that I would avoid doing that, and thereby start honing in on what had NOT been done before.
Obviously ninjas were out as that angle had been smashed to success by Coren Rosen Schwartz in her book with amazing illustrations by Dan Santat.
Similarly, the "true" story had also been told by Jon Scieszka, and illustrated by Lane Smith, and met with great success. So that presented as another angle to avoid.
I continued my search. I searched for The Three Little Pigs Retellings in my library catalog and on Amazon, and even on Google. I found lots of creative examples of how to spin the story, and that further informed my road map of what path not to take. Unfortunately, pig superheroes had been done!
In addition to discovering super pigs, I found a flip with three little wolves and a big bad pig, yogi pigs, a somewhat bad wolf, cajun pigs, javelinas and a variation with fish and a big bad shark, not to mention Spanish, Mandarin and French versions of the tale, to name just a few! So many creative slants on this idea!
I decided to approach my research in a different way. I researched the origins of the tale and jotted down some ideas to use within the story. But it still wasn't enough. I needed a hook. So I thought about what was popular in kidlit and realized it was STEM. That was it!
My mind quickly raced to a science fair project and how I could use the the original tale to inform the new tale. My pigs would use the remains of their homes for building materials. I remembered how my father used to joke and call us his three little pigs, and how one of those pigs, my brother, had shot a rocket off in the house (too dangerous). Then I remember my daughter's toss rocket science project and it all came together!
So when you research your topic, whether it be fractured tales or another, see what's out there and you will likely be inspired to put just the right thing out there! Best of luck to you!
Lynne Marie is the author of Hedgehog Goes to Kindergarten - art by Anne Kennedy (Scholastic 2011), Hedgehog's 100th Day of School – art by Lorna Hussey (Scholastic 2017), The Star of the Christmas Play -- art by Lorna Hussey (Beaming Books 2018), Moldilocks and the 3 Scares -- art by David Rodriguez Lorenzo (Sterling 2019 and Scholastic 2019), Let’s Eat! Mealtime Around the World -- art by Parwinder Singh (Beaming Books 2019), The Three Little Pigs and the Rocket Project (Mac and Cheese Press 2022), The Three Little Pigs and the Rocket Project Coloring Book (Mac and Cheese Press 2022), American Pie (Dancing Flamingo Press Spring 2022), and There Was a Blue Whale Who Tangled with Plastic (Dancing Flamingo Press Spring 2023). She’s also the Owner and Administrator of RateYourStory.org and a Travel Agent. She currently lives on a lake in South Florida with her family, a Schipperke named Anakin, where she can be found daydreaming and fracturing fairy tales. Visit her atwww.LiterallyLynneMarie.com. Lynne Marie is represented by Marisa Cleveland ofwww.theseymouragency.com Follow her on Facebook here and on Twitter here.
