Shelf Life Takeover︱Jake Burt

If you're a fan of middle grade fiction you are absolutely going to love this episode! Our three eager hosts (Stephanie, Kate and Christy) enjoy an enthusiastic Shelf Life Takeover with local author, Jake Burt. They discuss Jake's writing process, the inspiration behind his dynamic characters, lessons as an educator, and even the eerily predictive nature of Cleo Porter and the Body Electric. Our hosts were buzzing with energy after this episode, you won't want to miss it!

https://www.jburtbooks.com/

Shelf Life Recommendations: Titles by Jake Burt

The Tornado
Cleo Porter and the Body Electric
Greetings from Witness Protection
The Right Hook of Devin Velma
The Ghoul of Windytown Vale

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Transcript

Christy: 0:02

Hello, and welcome to Middletown Strong Looking up With Russell library. I'm Christy Billings, and today is a Shelf Life takeover with Stephanie Rush and Kate McCarthy Bond, and we are really excited today to have a local author of middle grade fiction. Burt who is from Hamden, Connecticut. Welcome Jake. We're so happy that you were able to join us today.

Jake: 0:25

Thank you very much. Happy to be here.

Christy: 0:27

I love so much about, about your stories and your writing. But really it was Stephanie that introduced us to you. She did a title a few weeks ago for our section in shelf life. Stephanie, do you wanna talk a little bit about the title that you chose?

Stephanie: 0:42

Sure. So a couple of weeks ago we were talking about local authors and I had brought The Tornado which was on our Shelf Life and I flipped it open and I realized Jake Burt is a local author. How cool. So I brought that book and talked about it and we really had a great conversation about middle grade fiction, which we love on the show. Listeners will know, we love middle grade fiction, and we had a great conversation about, you know, what it means to write for middle graders and really nailing. Really awkward, tough time. That is middle school. And I loved that about that book. So, Jake, I love to hear about your personal experience that went into writing middle, that writing middle grade fiction, but specifically middle grade fiction about being in school.

Jake: 1:31

Sure. So I have a little bit of a cheat that I have to admit for this. And that is that I never really left middle school even after I left Part of that is because I have the sense of humor of a 10 year old. But also because for the past 22 years, actually last year was my last year in the classroom, I have been a teacher. I started off as a sixth grade teacher in rural North Carolina. And then from there bounced around just a little bit, went to China for a year taught there as well. But then when I came back after I got my master's degree, I went back into the classroom and for the past 12 years or so, I've been a fifth grade teacher here in CT and so those years of experience, both my own years as a middle schooler way back in 19... and all my years in a upper elementary slash middle school classroom, since I hope has allowed me to imbue my stories with some authenticity and make my characters seem that much more real to the readers. And I think all of that insight that I've accrued all of that experience with again, my own life and the kids who I've helped shepherd through those middle school years has allowed me to really hone in on schools as a setting for some of my stories.

Stephanie: 2:51

You can tell it shows, it shows mm-hmm

Christy: 2:54

Very relatable. Yeah. Yeah. So Stephanie, talk about the book that you chose. Yeah.

Stephanie: 2:58

So, the book that I brought was The Tornado and this was a story of these middle schoolers who are really navigating middle school as a, as a place and as a thing on its own, but also navigating what it means to do the right thing and who you're doing the right thing for, which is something I personally love in middle grade fiction that time in your life, where you're figuring out who you are and why you're making the choices that you're making. And I felt that that really shown through in this book, cuz this book is all about choices and this book is all about who we make them for, why we're making them and who is affected by the choices that we make. And I felt that was a huge message in this book that I just loved.

Christy: 3:40

Can you tell us a little bit about your process of writing that particular title, Jake?

Jake: 3:44

Sure. The Tornado is for better or worse by far my most autobiographical book that I have worked with. Wow. It is the, the crux of the problem in the story for those listeners who might not have read it or might not be familiar with the book is that the main character is struggling with a bully. And this bully has been tormenting him for the better part of his elementary and then early middle school years. And that torment is the most autobiographical part when I was in middle school there was a guy who bullied me pretty relentlessly. And so what I did after it took me about 30 years to build up the courage to actually write this story is I decided to just go for it. And I made every single thing that the bully does to my main character Bell in the book is something. The guy who bullied me did to me when I was in middle school. Wow. And so it was a very sort of visceral process to write it painful at times. But again I think one of the things that an author, especially of middle grade fiction, but an author of any fiction for kids needs to do. Stay true to the experience of being a kid. And so basically Bell's experience in the book is my truth from when I was that age and the choices that you talk so eloquently about there were, were really what I wanted to hone in on because when you're getting bullied as a kid, or I should say when I was being bullied as a kid, cuz I don't wanna extend my reality and superimpose it on other kids' realities. But what happened to me is that being bullied made my world feel so small. Like I, I couldn't concentrate on anything else, but what was happening to me in those moments at school empathy for others becomes really hard when you're so worried. Your own personal situation. And so it's within that very tight constrained bubble that bell begins this story. A new kid comes to school and Bell's bully starts targeting that new kid. But bell rather than feeling sympathy for that new character at first is just so relieved that he's no longer the target that he makes some. poor decisions along the way that are very, you know, in retrospect for Bell selfish. And when I was a kid, I made some decisions that in retrospect were selfish. I was so glad not to be the one being harmed on a day to day basis that that preserving that safety, that relative safety was more important to me than helping preserve the safety of others. And so Bell makes some of those decisions until finally he has this epiphany and realizes that, you know, the world and who is affected by this bully is bigger than just he is. And so that, that moment for him, that catharsis is, was my way of almost apologizing for my lack of such a moment or experience when I was a kid, cuz I saw the guy who bullied me torturing other kids. And for the most part, I was silent about it because I didn't want his attention to swing right back and land on me again. And so that, that's sort of one of the themes that I explore in the novel.

Christy: 7:17

Well, it's understandable. I think a lot of people are, have been in those same shoes and it's hard to make those decisions to be helpful or to take on that wrath you know, when it's, you've already experienced it. As a teacher, how are you able to navigate bullying, seeing it now from different. Has that been helpful for you or is it more painful for you?

Jake: 7:42

I think so. And one of the things that I hope that I've been able to do for my students when situations like this arise is not to treat that situation with With kid gloves as it were. One of the things that I think is the most important is to have adults, folks who, you know, have some power to affect change in the situation to address the situation for what it is being willing to label bullying as bullying. As soon as you can is, can be difficult. For adults in the situation, because once you label a situation as bullying, then de facto, you are labeling a child as a bully and another child as a victim. And that's a very black and white way to approach it, especially since these situations are often more complex than a simple one time issue. The bullying could have been going on for years or the kid who is the victim of the bullying in one circumstance. Often frequently is the bully in another situation because the, the behavior is learned and children express their frustrations, their anxieties, their concerns in often unhealthy ways. And one of those ways is. You manifest as bully. And you've often seen where a child is abused or bullied at home, and then they transfer that behavior to school and they become a bully because that's the learned behavior in terms of how to socialize that they have learned at home. And so these complex situations. We are often reluctant to place the label of bullying on them, but I think it's important to do so if your gut, as a teacher tells you to do so, because once you do that, yes, it oversimplifies what's likely a complicated issue, but it also allows you to go into some protocols that schools often have in place that will help the victim. You know, it, it. It allows for protection there, it brings in a halo of adults who care deeply about these children. It puts more eyes on the situation, whether it's in the, in the cafeteria or at recess, it raises awareness that there is an issue. If you tip toe around the bullying or you try to mediate between the kids by asking them to, and I'm doing air quotes here, solve the problem for themselves children, especially middle grade children, and then younger, they don't have the tools to, to mediate or or come to a consensus about what's going on there. They need the help of the adults. That's why we're there. And so first calling it, what it is allows us all to move into the vocabulary that will help us talk about and hopefully resolve the situation

Christy: 10:37

and Stephanie's nodding furiously. Yes. Yes.

Stephanie: 10:41

So for listeners who don't know, I used to be a school counselor. and I worked mainly in the K to five age group. So everything you're saying to me is I'm just like, yep, yep, yep. Trusted adults, check, label the bullying check, make sure the kids have the tools checked. great.

Christy: 10:58

Good. one, one of the things that Stephanie and I had talked about just changing topic a little bit was the different covers that we found for this title. So we. I know there's not a lot of input necessarily from the author, either about the title of a book or a cover, but we thought it was interesting. The two different types of covers that we found for this book.

Stephanie: 11:18

We would've picked up both of them

Christy: 11:19

just saying. Yeah.

Jake: 11:22

yeah. I, I love both covers. What you're I think you're referring to as the, the hard back has a very different cover than the paperback. And the reason for that is that my publisher McMillan decided that they wanted a more consistent look for my books. Once it became apparent that I wasn't going to stop writing, they would have to deal with more than a couple of titles from Jake Burt they, they wanted that consistency there and the artist who did the cover art for my. Fourth book, Cleo Porter and the Body Electric. His name is Brian Edward Miller. And we adored his work there. And so they asked, you know, we've got the paperback for my second book, the right hook of Devin Velma, and we've got the paperback coming out of The Tornadp because my fourth book Cleo came out at the same time that the paperback for the tornado released. So we went ahead and asked Brian if he would be willing to shoot us some covers for the other books as well, just to get that consistency of art style listeners, especially kids in the library when they have series that they love. They're probably used to the artwork being similar for each one of those books. And so we wanted that same theme. And so Brian whipped up that artwork of Bell and Daylin standing in the hallway as bell furiously tries to come up with a system to avoid the bully who is in the background of the story. And we adored that cover. I also adore the hard back cover though, because there's so many little sort of Easter eggs symbols that refer to the book in there. And I love covers that you can look at and almost read like its own text. Like, oh, there's a, there's a chinchilla down in the corner. There must be a chinchilla somewhere in this story. Oh, there's a, you know, That sort of thing. So we love both covers. But I think the paperback cover probably has a little bit more appeal for kids, just cuz it's more obvious what the setting of the story is and maybe the main problem of the story.

Christy: 13:21

So that's a great segue, cuz I read Cleo Porter and the body electric. So, and the cover of that as you were just saying is very vivid. Definitely eye catching. And of course, I'm going to ask you the question that everybody asks about Cleo Porter, because it is it was published in 2020, but it happens to be about a girl named Cleo who is in a situation because of a pandemic. She and her parents live in a sealed apartment. There's no windows or doors. Food is dropped off by drones because of a disease that has wiped off many, many people from the face of the earth. And so she's received this package. That was not meant for her. Cleo is a surgeon in training and she recognizes that this is medication and it's going to be the death of someone if they don't get this medication. But drones in this case never make mistakes in their deliveries. So we know this is set in the future, but I have to ask, of course, I mean, you, you must have had an interest in medicine. Because of course Cleo wants to be a doctor. But you talk about socially being socially distant and the spread of influenza D I'd love to know what your thoughts were creating this book, cuz I'm sure you had no future crystal ball didn't know that we were going to be talking about Covid and all this other stuff. But what was your your thoughts in creating. This dystopian

Jake: 14:44

future. Yeah, sure. The first of all, I wish I had not predicted anything with this. I would love to have had this book released with absolutely no pandemic anywhere near it. I am not Nostradamus I don't make predictions. So the genesis of this book in its earliest kernels actually came from. From the drone aspect of things. I saw an article about Amazon considering doing drone deliveries in major cities. And my initial instinct was what? No, that, that would never work. Like you're you have a drone carrying books through the skies of New York city. God forbid it malfunctions and then falls into the middle of. You know, the street and causes a huge accident. The insurance liability alone would, would be prohibitive. But then like a lot of authors, do you know, you can't get that question outta your head, but what if what if it worked and what if it worked so well that we never needed to go anywhere anymore, at least not to, to buy things. And then once you start asking yourself those kinds of questions as an author, then you start building the scenario, the story around it, like what situation would cause humans to not go out anymore and to overutilize drones. And then from there where my mind naturally went. Was to quarantine for a pandemic, not because of COVID 19, but because I mentioned this briefly before I lived in China for a while, the while that I lived in China was 2003, which is when another epidemic. Called SARS hit and SARS wasn't necessarily a huge deal in the United States. But in China it was, we went into lockdown. We were in quarantine for almost a month. We had to report our temperature to the government every day. We had have. Everything delivered. We could not go out. We lived in the teacher's compound there and we could not leave our apartments. We had to have water delivered, everything had to be delivered. And so it was actually that pandemic lockdown experience that informed Cleo's world. The, it was. Not at all gratifying to see how much of what I put into Cleo's story came to pass here when COVID 19 hit including the, what I thought were ostentatious causes of this global pandemic called influenza D in the book. Part of the reason why it spread according to the the little historical narrative that Cleo gets from her virtual teacher. Is that politicians and scientists couldn't come to an agreement on how bad the disease was and what was causing it. And I thought, for sure, that would be the stretch. That would be the moment that, that my editor would say, no, come on, never happen. Right. Everybody will come together and they'll they'll solve the problem. Well, COVID 19 hit and sure enough there was this massive disagreement on a global scale about where the disease came from, what was causing it. And I think we saw, or we can at least look back into the aftermath now that we're, you know, we've got vaccines and everything that there was. There was some natural skepticism and hesitancy at the outset that caused COVID to maybe hit us a little harder than it. Otherwise would've if we did all come together to try to thwart the thing. So again, a prognostication that I wish I hadn't made.

Christy: 18:15

Mm-hmm absolutely. So you mentioned a little bit about that you were a teacher, were things virtual was there something like Ms. Vain, Ms. Vain is Cleo's virtual adaptive instruction network teacher. She's an AI simulation of a teacher. I love that she wears a lavender cardigan, so she's kinda like slash teacher librarian person But so were you teaching virtually in, in like a zoom type setting?

Jake: 18:42

Not back in China though. I have certainly have plenty of experience with that since that back in China. They shut down classes. And I was able to email with my students, but the technology back in 2003 to hold a, a virtual class just wasn't in place. Mm. So we all just did our shelter in place kind of thing, and and waited for it to, to pass. And, you know, we were checking the news every day, certainly. And the amount of rumors. Flew around about SARS who spread it, who caused it how you could thwart it. One of the big rumors was that smoking cigarettes would help kill SARS in your lungs. Oh man. So and so, so that, you know, smoking was prevalent in China anyway, and doubly, so as a result of that rumor, whether or not it was started by the cigarette companies who knows, but. But it, it was just that sort of thing that we were left to kind of stew in our apartments and, and wonder and read the news and hope it would blow over. So I didn't get a chance to teach then, but like I said when COVID hit you know, our school went into went remote and we taught that way for a good long while.

Christy: 19:55

So, Ms. Vain tries to stop Cleo from going outside. Cleo has never been outdoors. And I believe she tells her the story of little red riding hood and Cleo takes it in a different light. She decides that little red riding hood went out and went in the woods, went to grandma's anyway, despite the wolves. And she has the courage to do it anyhow, which was certainly not the, the type of story that Ms. Vain was trying to tell her. Do you find that sometimes teachers are teaching something to students and they take it in an entirely different light? and. What are, what are the kinds of things that have surprised you about the way students sort of acclimate or, or take in information?

Jake: 20:37

I think it's cliche to say that, you know, the teacher learns as much during the year as the students do, but it's cliche for a reason. It, because it's true. And it's one of the reasons why I absolutely love working with kids and. Where the, the kernel of that moment in the story comes from because with 18 to 25 nascent perspectives in your classroom every day anything that you present to them is going to be viewed through that many different lenses of experience of creativity, of you know, of background, whether it be social, emotional, or. Or in terms of their heritage or in terms of race or in terms of socioeconomic status, you've got in that one classroom, thousands of different factors contributing to perspective and the. Like just an example that I'll never forget is back when I lived in North Carolina we gave a standardized test, like so many teachers give standardized tests and this was the big, you know, for the money test to determine whether or not you moved from sixth grade to seventh grade. And one of the questions on the test in the math section asked about. The relative size differentials between different kinds of ships, right? A is a cruise ship bigger than a dinghy. And. Over half of my students didn't have the perspective of knowing how big a cruise ship was and, and I could not help them. So the, and you know, me being an adult, and even though I grew up in Ohio, this was, this was not coastal North Carolina. This was the Piedmont. This was the smack dab in the middle of North Carolina. And there were kids who had never left that county. Let alone, you know, gone to the coast or done anything like, or seen a cruise ship. So it's that type of perspective they're bringing to me. I didn't even view it as ignorance. I just viewed it as they have a different look on. On the world and in their purview of things, a math question about the relative size differential between a cruise ship and a dinghy means nothing and irrelevant and why should it? So, right. So that sort of interpretation of the question is what fascinated me. Not whether or not they knew it. Yes or no, because the next day I could just show them. Pictures of a cruise ship versus a dingy. But that perspective on the test as a whole, Hey people, your test is not valid for me. Cuz what you're testing here is my math knowledge, not my, you know, nautical knowledge. And so Cleo has a very particular lens with which she views the world. It's incredibly concrete. Everything is based off. What she is obsessed with, and that is the human body. And so she views everything through that lens. And also through the lens of a caregiver, her mother is a surgeon Cleos in training to be a surgeon it's who she feels she is. And so she looked at little red riding hood, not as the ignorant girl wandering through the woods where she shouldn't be, but little red riding hood is taking medicine to someone who needs it. Cleo viewed it. She is a caregiver. And so that's the lens through which she views little red riding hood. And it was a really fun exercise for me as the author to put myself into Cleo's Headspace and then interpret that story from that, from that platform.

Christy: 24:26

I loved that. I, I just really thought that was interesting. Yeah. And all the surgery is done via drones. No one actually touches a body. It, it, it's such a fascinating book and I appreciated the chance to, to read it and to talk to you a little bit about the process, but I wanna have time for Kate because Kate read,

Kate: 24:44

I read Greetings From Witness Protection and I loved it.

Jake: 24:48

Thank you.

Kate: 24:48

And I love the, the, the characters in there, especially Nicki and Harriet and Jackson are just these these interesting characters that have so much history and so much of their own emotions. Into the story and the reasonings behind it. And I wanted, I have two questions. I'm gonna ask my second question first, because Christie was talking about you were talking about, you know, you really kind of got into the story. It was an interesting exercise for you. So. Greetings From the Witness Protection has a lot of topics that are relevant to today, bullying family issues and standing up for what's right. Which we talked about in The Tornado. Exactly. Right. A lot of the books have these similar themes and weaved them all together. So seamlessly. What was the biggest challenge you found to writing this story?

Jake: 25:40

The biggest challenge in writing greetings from witness protection was it's gonna seem over obvious, but it's that I was dipping my toes into a number of realms that I had no knowledge about prior to that. And so research was a huge facet of writing that book. For example, I had no clue how the witness protection program actually works. Mm. And as point of. To be totally honest. I still don't right. right.

Christy: 26:09

Yes. I think that's the point, right? Right.

Jake: 26:12

It's it's not like they're forthcoming with their secrets on how they relocate people. So what I ended up having to do is consume a lot of fictive media. I had to watch movies and read other novels about the witness protection program. So that at least my version agrees, witness protection would read to my equally ignorant audience as what they expected witness protection, to be like. So it only seems authentic because the whole world of creators is making this stuff up. You know, it's not like somebody in the witness protection program was like, oh, you're writing middle grade fiction. Sure. I'll sit down for an interview and blow my cover for this. Another thing I knew, nothing about was pickpocketing. I didn't know any techniques for it. I didn't know how it worked. I'd never been the victim of it. Thank goodness. So I had to, this was a lot of fun. I had to watch a ton of YouTube videos of pick pockets doing their thing. Oh, wow. To, to give Nicki that expertise. So that was the most challenging aspect of this for me. What would've been the most challenging aspect, I think is writing an authentic 13 year old girl. Fortunately I, you know, I have my daughter here and I have my wife and and a whole network of incredibly strong women who happen to also be willing to be my second readers for my books. Who, who advised me in all things, Nicki.

Kate: 27:39

Well, I love I love Nicki. And I love your characters. I love Nicki is the description. First of all, the description of the of one of the the agents who comes, she says he makes me nervous. He's wearing a black short sleeve polo shirt despite the cold. And it's got a star, like a Sheriff's badge stone into it, black belt, black pants, black. Looks all uniformly uniformy I love that word and what's more hooked to his belt is a holster and she just goes on and it's just like, she's so threatened by this guy. And she's like, have you seen the dude? And so I, I really love the, the US Marshals as particularly Janice because she become. She's she comes as in as what? Nicki calls the file longer, I think. Yep. And they have this like really stiff relationship in the very beginning. And over time you can see their relationship develops into something a, a little more gentle and So I, I love just the relationships between the people in Nicki's life that that are surrounding her particularly Harriet and Jackson, she seems to have the most emotional relationships with them. Jackson is dealing with his own feelings and emotions and about their situation. And Harriet, she's a mom and she really loves Nikki. And so Nikki herself is a girl who is dealing with loss. She's trying to find her place in the world. And then she's faced with some choices that have a ripple effect for her and those around her. I love that she's tough and she's courageous and her and she's got some vulnerabilities, which she hides fairly well. And I think. The one thing is her hands, her hands are really important to her and she can't handshake. She can't cover them. And that be, that's a source of sensitivity for her. What or who was the inspiration behind her and why?

Jake: 29:43

This is gonna sound really strange, but bear with me on this one. The inspiration for Nikki is actually Arthurian Knight. From Arthurian legend. In particular, the hand thing in medieval Arthurian romances, whether you're talking about lands lot, or you're talking about Galahad, you're talking about Arthur himself Galway a little bit of more background on this. My undergraduate and graduate degrees are both in medieval English history with a focus on literature. So so Nicki was derived from those heroes because in the cases of all of those heroes, they are flawed heroes. In fact, that that's the whole point of the larger narrative. They're all looking for the grail and none of them can attain it because they're all flawed in some way. Mm-hmm And so Nicki's flaws Manifest as they would in, in the modern sense, she doesn't pick up a sword and shield and go chasing after dragons or, or beasts or things like that. But her hands in particular are the derived from the same sort of symbolism because they knight the single most important thing to these knights in terms of their. Abilities were their hands. And so often in Arthurian legends, you see characters who have flaws, who are unable to attain the purity or the perfection necessary to either be a true Knight or to attain the grail, which is just the McGuffin, the symbol of, of purity. They are afflicted with hand injury. And, and so Nicki's obsession with her hands is I viewed it as a heroic trait when viewed through that sort of that narrative tradition. And then without getting too spoilery on the book, a hand injury plays a prominent role in her story and and forces her to come to. Forgive this terrible pun, but come to grips with of the aspects of her personality that are not so that are not so shining, even though her, again, symbolic here, her armor is her intelligence and her snarkiness mm-hmm that, you know, her bluster is how she, she gets away with things and she's incredibly skilled. She's one of the top pick pockets in the world. And she uses that. As sort of her sword where the snarkyness is her armor. But ultimately you're absolutely right. She is. Despite the fact that she seems like one of the strongest characters in the narrative, she is by far the most vulnerable character in the mix.

Kate: 32:11

Right. Yeah. And I think it's interesting. My, just my final thought, cause I don't wanna take up too much more time, but it it's interesting not she uses her skill. Against somebody who's very close to her as, and she's not sure why, but I think she ends up using, she just ends up using that pick pocketing skill, I as just a way to test the waters or send a message. I'm not really sure, but I think it's very interesting that no, she doesn't really use that skill in within her family. Except for through Harriet. And I just found that another interesting part of their relationship.

Jake: 32:53

I, I know the chapter you're talking about yes, it is what gives, right. exactly. It is. It remains through all the books that I have written the chapter that was the hardest to write emotionally and my favorite. Yeah, it just that moment. And cuz that's, you know, continuing with the symbolism, that is the double edged sword of Nicki's ability. It is a anxiety coping mechanism for her. And so ironically, the, the place she felt safest expressing that anxiety in her unique way was with her mother and right. And it ends up and of course it's a, it's not a positive thing that she does. And so it, it ends up getting her into that trouble, which, which requires that sort of epiphany moment in the story and that, that coming ahead of the of that particular narrative thread.

Christy: 33:52

Can you tell us Jake, what you're gonna be working on next? Could we get a peek into a, a book in the future?

Jake: 33:58

Absolutely. I've written the first two chapters of and have completely outlined my next book, which is going to be a modern fantasy. I can't say too much about it, except that the sort of tagline is what do you call a kid with three wishes? And the answer to that question is the single greatest threat to global security the world has ever known.

Christy: 34:21

Wow. There you go. That looks, that sounds wonderful. And we'll have to so fun. We'll have to have you back after that comes out so we can talk more about that. Would love it. Thank you so much for taking the time to be part of our Shelf Life takeover on Middletown Strong. And so from us here at Russell library. Thank you. Thank you.

Jake: 34:39

You're welcome. My pleasure.

Christy: 34:41

Have a great day.

Jake: 34:42

Cheers.