By Betsy Byars
Julian Messner, 1992

Summary: As a child, Betsy Byars possessed a fascination with animals, especially snakes. She even wished to become a zoo keeper. Although she luckily outgrew this occupation, she did retain an interest in nature. So when a blacksnake came to visit Betsy's mountain retreat she named him Moon and began a careful series of observations. Interwoven with this story of the snake, Betsy talks about how she writes and illuminates that process with many examples.

Level: RL: 4 IL: 4 - adult

Themes: interest in nature; authorship

Activities

1. Betsy Byars tells us quite a bit about the manner in which she writes and how she gets her ideas for books.

A. Think about how you write. Select a piece from your writing portfolio and make a flow chart or other visual representation of your writing process, start to finish. Staple this to the final draft. With your next writing piece keep a running record of how you worked on that one. During your next teacher or peer conference ask for feedback. Pick and choose anything that might be helpful for you next time and include that in your writing folder. As you are reading The Moon and I, jot down page numbers so you can make a chart of Byar's writing process. Where do the two charts differ? How are they the same? Read the entry about her in Something about the Author. Compare and contrast the two sections. (E.g. Look at her four stages of writing.) Would you agree with her about that gap between the brain and a sheet of paper?

B. Where do you get your ideas for stories? Answer in your reading journal. How does Betsy Byars? For example: How does she get a clear picture of her characters in mind? Think about Marv Hammerman (p. 18). What might have happened if he thought she were slandering him? Find out about state and federal laws concerning libel and slander. Collect this information for your library's vertical file.

C. How does Betsy Byars "keep" ideas until she is ready to use them? How does she collect interesting tidbits of information? How do you? Decide on a plan so that you won't lose your good story starters and act on it. Decide on a plan for keeping juicy news items that might add color to your next piece of writing.

2. Snakes are fascinating animals.

A. List on a wall chart all the facts about blacksnakes that Betsy Byars uses in The Moon and I. (Be sure to include the page number. For example:
Snakes - DEAF (p. 14)
Blacksnakes - strike half distance of their length (p. 28)
Read about how Betsy Byars begins any book topic (p. 27).
Discuss with your class whether or not this makes a book better and, if so, how. Look at other books by Betsy Byars. Write in your journal about the "background you think she researched. Give specific page numbers to show how she incorporated her new knowledge into the book. Discuss how you might employ a similar technique next time you write.

B. SCIENCE: Research snakes and/or blacksnakes. Make a HyperCard stack for others in your class which will present the information that you've found. First make a list of questions that you would like to answer. You may wish to use these: - Are all blacksnakes black? - Are any blacksnakes poisonous? - How have snakes been used symbolically? - What are some superstitions about snakes?

Please include these two "cards."
1. A separate card listing your resources, a bibliography.
2. Develop a card which requests viewer's opinion of your stack. You may which to ask them:

      a.  what they learned
      b.  how easy is was to use the stack.

Click for a partial view of a sample stack.

Idea by Jason Glencross, a fourth grade student at Asa Adams School, Orono.

By researching and connecting the snake icons, to answers the students would would have a great way of demonstrating what they've learned.

3. On page 7, Betsy Byars comments about authors' photographs on book jackets. Ask everyone in class or in your literature group to bring in three samples of author portraits from blurbs. (Daniel Pinkwater usually takes a fascinating portrait!) Brainstorm adjectives that describe each picture and each author. What generalizations can you make about most author photographs? Do you agree with Betsy Byars? Why or why not? Read the text that accompanies the picture. Does it give you any information that supports your opinion of what the author might be like?

4. Betsy tells us one reason she named her pet "Moon." Can you think of any other reasons she may have had? (Write this in your journal.) Look up "moon" in books that give quotations. (Did you find the one by Mark Twain that Betsy mentions?) Write your favorites in your reading journal or post them around your classroom. Pick three from the reference books that would have a completely different meaning if you substitute "Moon" (snake's name) for moon (name of a satellite orbiting about the earth.) (For example: "He made his friends believe the moon to be made of green cheese." Erasmus.) Share them aloud with others in your group for a good laugh! Take a survey of class members and ask for pet names (past and present are both possibilities) and how they came to name them. Display this information in graph from.

5. Several times Betsy Byars writes about being disturbed by disappearances: when Moon leaves (p.4) and when her perfect chapter turned blank on the computer (p. 6). Think about something or someone that you have lost or has disappeared. Use this as the theme for a story. If it were a favorite toy, some possible connections might be: Why did it disappear? What did you do about it? Where did it go? Would a "retrieve key" help you? (Where did Betsy's chapter go? If you are familiar with computers, write her a letter telling her what you think happened to it or share a similar frustrating story. Do you think it was "the only perfect chapter" that she ever wrote? Compare the "perfect chapter" with the piece of blueberry cheesecake at the Newbery Award dinner, SATA, Vol 46.)

6. Betsy Byars employs a considerable amount of humor in this book. Did you chuckle out loud? Pick your favorite and share it with the class. (Could it be the chapter title, "Moonstruck" or the image of Ms. Byars toppling over like a toddler in the same chapter?) Find out the name for three of these literary devices. (You might wish to browse through Using Picture Storybooks to Teach Literary Devices. Choose one of these literary devices and read the picture book which illustrates it. Try using it in your next story.

7. SCIENCE & SOCIAL STUDIES: Betsy also loved airplanes; she has a pilot's license. Find out what the requirements are for getting a license. Have they changed over the years? One chapter of The Moon and I tells about a barnstorming trip she and her husband took. What exactly is "barnstorming?" Make a list of all the crucial things that they should pack. Plot out their route, choosing the most interesting landscape to fly over. Make up three math problems involving this flight. (For the numbers that Betsy Byars gives the reader, see chapter 15 "Popcorn and Planes.") Exchange these with some else in your class and solve them. Write comments on each math paper about the process you went through to solve the problem. (e.g. Did you friend give enough information?)

8. Read some of Betsy's other books. Watch a movie based on a book. Note the credits: did Betsy Byars help to write the screenplay? How were the movies different from the book?

RESOURCES

Bartlett, John. Familiar Quotations. Little, Brown, 1980.

Commire, Anne. Something About the Author. Gale Research, Vol. 46.

Evans, Bergen. Dictionary of Quotations. Bonanza, 1968.

Hall, Susan. Using Picture Storybooks to Teach Literary Devices: Recommended Books for Children and Young Adults. Oryx, 1990.

Themed Book Lists

FLIGHT

Burleigh, Robert. Flight. Illus by Mike Wimmer. Intro by Jean Fritz. Philomel Books, 1991.

Maurer, Richard. Airborne: The Search for the Secret of Flight. Simon and Schuster, 1990.

Tesendoff, K.C. Barnstormers & Daredevils. Atheneum, 1988.

SNAKES

Arnold, Caroline. Snakes. Photographs by Richard Hewett, Morrow Junior Books, 1991.

Cole, Joanna. A Snake's Body. Photographs by Jerome Wexler. William Morrow, 1981.

Hess, Lilo. That Snake in the Grass. Scribner's, 1987.

Johnson, Sylvia. Snakes. Lerner, 1986.

Lambert, David. Snakes. Franklin Watts, 1986.

McCarthy, Colin. Reptile. Knopf, 1991

Stidworthy, John. Snakes of the World. Grosset and Dunlap, 1971.

OTHER BOOKS BY BETSY BYARS

After the Goatman. Viking, 1974.
The Animal, the Vegetable, and John D. Jones. Delacorte, 1982.
Beans on the Roof. Delacorte, 1988.
Bingo Brown and the Language of Love. Viking, 1989.
Bingo Brown, Gypsy Lover. Viking, 1990.
The Blossoms and the Green Phantom. Delacorte, 1987.
The Blossoms Meet the Vulture Lady. Delacorte, 1986.
Blossom Promise. Delacorte, 1987.
The Burning Questions of Bingo Brown. Viking, 1988.
The Cartoonist. Viking, 1978.
The Computer Nut. Viking, 1984.
Cracker Jackson. Viking, 1985.
The Cybil War. Viking, 1981.
The Eighteenth Emergency. Viking, 1972.
The Glory Girl. Viking, 1983.
Go and Hush the Baby. Viking, 1971.*
Golly Sisters Go West. HarperCollins, 1986. *
Good-bye Chicken Little. Harper a& Row, 1978.
Hooray for the Golly Sisters. HarperCollins, 1990. *
The House of Wings. Viking, 1972.
The Midnight Fox. Viking, 1968.
The Night Swimmers. Delacorte, 1980.
The Not-Just-Anybody-Family. Dell/Yearling, 1986.
The Pinballs. Harper & Row, 1977.
Seven Treasure Hunts. HarperCollins, 1991.
The Summer of the Swans. Viking, 1970.
The T.V. Kid. Viking, 1976.
Trouble River. Avon, 1969.
The Two-Thousand Pound Goldfish. Harper & Row, 1982.
Wanted...Mud Blossom. Delacorte, 1991.
The Winged Colt of Casa Mia. Avon, 1973.* indicates picture book

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* picture book

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Prepared by Abigail Garthwait, Asa Adams School, Orono

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