By Lynne Hendricks
NEWBURYPORT — Though the city's upcoming celebration of literature doesn't officially kick off until Friday, students of the Nock Middle School celebrated the event a little early with a Literary Festival-sponsored visit from award-winning children's author, Kathleen Benner Duble of Byfield.
The writer of well-known "middle reader" novels such as "Pilot Mom," "Quest" and "The Sacrifice," Duble spent all of Friday with fifth- through eighth-grade students, showing them how she mines for story ideas through her own life experiences and comes up with characters that are based on family members and friends she's encountered through the years.
Students prepared for her visit weeks in advance by first reading one of her seven books and then developing special projects and plays based on the novel concept or main idea.
Fifth-graders who read Duble's account of two young sisters accused of witchcraft in 1692 ("The Sacrifice") either wrote letters to Duble or responded to writing prompts expounding on how the book's main question — What would you sacrifice for a family member? — made them feel.
Sixth-graders who also read "The Sacrifice" developed small plays centered on another main theme of the dramatic novel.
"They developed their own skits about what it would feel like to be accused of something unfairly in this day and age," said librarian Ellen Menesale, who organized the daylong event.
Seventh- and eighth-graders who read either "The Sacrifice" or "Quest" were asked to identify with the 17-year-old son of Henry Hudson, who perished but left behind a shoebox under his bed filled with the few worldly belongings that were near and dear to him. They placed in a shoebox important belongings someone might find under their bed if they were similarly lost at sea.
"Because it's about a quest, they did a story board about their lives and were asked to think about how they would be remembered through the contents of their shoeboxes," Menesale said.
Seventh-grade student Jon Gray included in his shoebox an 1877 whaling log written by his "great times 5" grandfather, who was a captain of the Nantucket-based whaling ship The Arethusa. Others included medals and small trophies they've earned as stand-out athletes or for academic accomplishments.
Steven Simpkins constructed a life-sized replica of "the stocks," where the 10-year-old main character Abigail of "The Sacrifice" was forced to spend six hours for lifting up her skirt to take part in a race. That was a penalty that really bothered students, according to Menesale, and several of them chose to research for their project the various crimes that might have earned one a trip to the stocks in the Puritan culture of the 1600s.
"Back in those days you didn't run, and you certainly didn't show your ankles," Menesale said.
This is the fourth year Menesale has organized a signature Literary Festival event around the students, but she said in past years the event was held on site for eighth-graders of the five area schools.
"This year I chose to bring in more of the middle school students and decided to open it up to just our schools," said Menesale, who adds that fifth-graders from Molin were included because the Salem witch trials are of enormous interest to children in this age group.
Menesale had introduced middle school children to the Salem witch trial story earlier this fall, and when she saw how taken the students were with the two sisters and their mother's sacrifice to save them from hanging, she knew their story would resonate with the younger set. And that factored heavily into her decision to highlight Duble for this spring author-in-residence event.
"The fifth-graders were so fascinated with the story of "The Sacrifice," I thought what a wonderful author to have come to the Literary Festival," Menesale said.
Duble met with the entire student body early in the day, then met with them in small groups throughout the rest of the day, answering their questions and teaching them how to recognize things from their everyday world that would make an excellent addition to their own stories.
"Has anything scary or crazy ever happened to you?" she asked them. "What's the best prank you ever pulled? What is the funniest thing you ever did because you didn't understand directions you were given? Did you have any colorful relatives growing up?"
She told students that the question "What would you do if you had to stay with your grumpy old grandpa for your summer vacation?" framed the story line of her recent novel, "Bravo Zulu, Samantha," and it was based on her own beloved but crotchety father.
"Is there anyone you remember who had annoying habits?" she asked, leaving kids with a directive to ask lots of questions of their parents and family members.
"Every person has a story to tell. What's yours?" she asked them, offering additional words of encouragement from her unique perspective as an award-winning author who from an early age loved to read books.
"Try to find something you're passionate about," Duble said. "If you're good at something, it probably means you like it."
The fourth annual 2009 Newburyport Literary Festival kicks off Friday with an opening ceremony at the Firehouse Center at 6 p.m. A number of children's book authors and illustrators will be participating in the weekend series of events, sponsored by the Institution for Savings and the Newburyport Five Cents Savings Bank.
