Newspaper Page Text
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 21, 2007
THE JACKSON HERALD
PAGE 7C
Laugh Lines
Who saw ihe
Brontosaurus enter
the restaurant?
The diners saw!
- “BEET RIPPLE BOCK EVf H'
What
did one dinosaur
fossit say to the other?
'7 haven t seen you
in ages! "
Wacky Facts
I The first widely released fully animated cartoon
was 1 Genie the Dinosaur ” made by Windsor
McCay in 19 L4.
Stegosaurs had bee it extinct for SO million years
before the Tyrannosaurus Rex and Apatosaurus
appeared! — World Almanac for Kids
Pijm bimd fcy MoCUiiOhy-TritLifig
James Gurney’s "Dinotopia” books lake readers to a lost
island where humans and dinosaurs live together. Cool idea,
huh ? Gurney’s detailed ii lustrations make the imaginary world
come alive. The fourth hook in the series, “Dinotopia:
Journey to Chandararecently hit hooks lores.
'rime For Kids talked to _ . .. ,
„ . .. . . . a Bv anna Maltsy /
Gumey about lus inspiration,
his favorite childhood hooks
and how to create an imaginary
world of your own.
TFK: Can you tell me about
how the “Dinotopia” books got
started? Where did the idea come
from, and where did you start?
GURNEY: 1 stalled as an
illustrator for fantasy and sci
ence-fiction paperback books,
and did Lots of paintings of cas
tles and dragons and spaceships
and aliens. At the same lime. I
was doing illustration work for
National Geographic magazine.
My job for them was to create
realistic pictures of ancient
cities that no longer exist. They
would send me to the locations
of these archaeological sites to
meet wiih the archaeologists.
Those folks have the best imagi
nations in the world li
occurred to me that I could do
paint ings of worlds front my
imagination, so 1 started off by
doing a series of si and-alone
paintings. ... It occurred io me
in the J990s that 1 could weave
all these pictures together by
drawing a map and coming up
with the name for an island. I
came up wilh ihe name
“Dinotopia” as a shortened ver
sion of "dinosaur utopia.” The
concept of the dinosaurs really
grew oul of the science of
dinosaurs that was changing all
around me in ihe ’SOs and ‘90s,
TFK: What made you decide
to write a new ‘'Dinotopia”
book?
GURNEY: 1 wanted to return to the original journal of Arthur
Denison who is the Victorian explorer who was shipwrecked on
the island of Dinotopia, according to the journals that we find in
the first book. I Wanted io continue lu explore the island through
his eyes, since he’s someone from the mid-19th century. His
way of making pictures and his way of writing is very much in
rune with the early explorers of our world when There were still
large areas of Ihe globe that were unexplored. That whole peri
od fascinates me. If we’re
to imagine that there’s an
island like Dinotopia, it’s
mast fun to imagine it din
ing tltai era, when explor
ers might come back wilh
accounts of a land that no
one has ever heard of, in
this case an island where
dinosaurs survived to the
present day, and where
people have been ship
wrecked on the island over
the centuries, bringing
James Gurney takes readers w[lh lhcm lhdr culcuf6?
to a lost island where humans and their architecture and
and dinosaurs live together. their costumes
TIM UFOR K IDS.COM
TFK: Whin is the hardest pan of pulling together the
‘ Dinotopia” books?
GURNEY: At evciy stage. ! try to put as much effort as l can.
Doing the actual paintings lakes the longest, and in some ways
it's ihe biggest challenge, because it involves a Lot of research
and a lot of lime doing the paint
ings. In some ways ihe writing,
which comes last in the process, is
the easiest. At every stage, T try to
do a lot of research. ... It’s hard hut
it’s also fun because it’s a chance to
Learn about new things. In the new
hook, there’s a cutaway of a wind
mill tliat shows how windmills
work on ihe inside. Every time l
was working un a new sequence in
the book, 1 would go to my local
public library and come home with
a stack of books about 2 feet high
to try to pick up new information to
weave into the book. I wanted to
show what each of the villages
looks like on the inside, with a cut
away view, to show where you
sleep, where the food is kept, etc.
TFK: How are the dinosaurs
and humans in “Dinotopia” able to
work together so well?
GURNEY: The humans help the
dinosaurs in some ways, and die
dinosaurs help the humans in other
ways. I wanted to have some
dinosaurs acting like modem farm
animals — there’s a dinosaur
pulling a plow in the village where
the windmill is. But I also wanted
to have some people who help
dinosaurs in other ways, like musi
cians who play music for them. Or
there's one scene toward the end
of the hook that has people
haihing dinosaurs, kind of washing
them down, to make it a reciprocal
relationship, so it’s not all a one
way street.
TFK: What kinds of books did
you like to read as a kid?
GURNEY: i liked ‘"Treasure
Island.” and Mark Twain’s “Torn Sawyer” and “Huckleberry
Finn.” Td( be honest, I wasn't a huge reader as a kid. I was
much more of an amateur archaeologist, much to my mother’s
dismay, because 1 would go in the backyard and even iltnugh
we lived in suburbia. 1 was convinced tliere was a
Lost city in my backyard. So 1 was always digging
and looking for things. After a while the kids in
my neighborhood wcren’l allowed to play
with me because they'd always come home
with their pockets full of dirt. I spent a lot
of time building models and miniatures.
TFK: Do you have any advice for kids
who want to become authors or illustrators?
GURNEY: I think if someone is
interested in creating a world of their
own. I really recommend starting by
drawing a map and putting some
rivers in it and some mountains
and some cities. For some reason
that has a way of getting you into a
world and getting you imagining where
the places miglrt be and what sort of
adventures might happen.
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I didn’t win!
DEAR AMERICAN GIRL: /love cheerleading. ! want
ed to be captain more than anything. When the day
came to choose the captain. I had the biggest smile on
my face. But 1 wasn’t chosen! 1 still had the smile, bat l
could hear my heart break. Sadder Every Second
■ Not being chosen as captain must
hurt, but it doesn't mean you can't
he an awesome cheerleader. Think
about all the reasons why you love
to cheer in the first place — long
before you ever dreamed of becom
ing captain. Now try to focus on the
fun while keeping a great attitude
and team spirit. In time, your heart
will mend and you’ll prove to every
body that you’ve got what it takes to be a top
cheerleader — officially or not.
DEAR AMERICAN GIRL: / was in a track
program with my friend Iasi year. ! beat her in
every race. This year she is beating me in every
race. 1 know l should congratulate her. but l can’t!
Instead I get mad. — Bad sport
■ When you run a race, try not io measure yourself
against your friend. Instead, set your own goals —
try to beat your last finishing time. Give yourself
lots of encour- . ,
yo™™r ' Au r American Girl
right! I’m two-tenths of a second faster' than Iasi
week!” 11’you get mad. coo! off in private. Then
congratulate your friend the way you’d want to be
congratulated.
Visit americangiri.com to get or give advice.
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GEOGRAPHY QUIZ
Hotv skvarp are yOLr geography skills? 5ee if
you can identify ths following stace shapes.
Mape are not to scale
DELAWARE
IDAHO
ILLINOIS
INDIANA
NEW MEXICO
NORTH CAROLINA
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Help! 1
Puzzle Play
A chat with author/illustrator James Gurney
.School’s been open fur a while — friend
ships are formed and sports and activities
are in full swing.
Bui some kids can feel left out, or con
frontations hetween kids can get scary.
“Now can be when things start
boiling over, but instead of let
ting it simmer, it’s time to con
front the problem.” says Kimber
Bishop-Yankc. founder of Girls
Empowered.
Her organization’s goal
is to empower, which
means giving kids the
power to put meanness
and hollies out ihe door.
Bishop-Yanke recently
begun Kids Empowered to
include guys.
We visited an empow
erment session for girls
just before school started.
Don’t be a meanie!
Simone Butler, 7. who attends
Brookfield Academy in
Bloomfield Rills,
Mich., said she
learned that “if
somebody’s being
mean, don’t be
mean hack.”
Jurdan McGee, 9,
of Berkley, Mich., says
she hates it when girls
“sometimes spread
rumors around,”
She has learned
that if that hap
pens , you can be
the one to “tell
them to stop it.”
SYDNEY FLSCHE CUBAN
JOSE MERCURY H£WS
HANDLING CONFLICT
When conflict happens. Bis hop-Yanke
shares these rules to deal with it. "Conflict is
normal. It is how we deal with it that mat
ters,” site says.
1 ■ Share: Sharing can help buth people
end up happy with die way things worked out.
2. Take turns: Sometimes a conflict can
he resolved by letting each person having
his or her own way for a while.
3. Chance It: When you have a dis
agreement over who goes first or whose idea
to go with, you may let chance decide (flip a
coin, mil Lhe dice, pLay rock/paper/scissors).
Both must agree to accepi the answer.
4. Compromise: Conflict is not solved by
tug-of-wiir; instead, if you take bolli ends of
ihe rope and are willing to come together to
make a circle, both are winners. Stop pulling
in opposite directions and work together.
5. Apologize: This can help when some
one gets hurt from a conflict or disagree
ment. Say you are sorry if you are at fauli. If
you feel you didn’t do anything wrong, it can
still help to say, ‘Tm sorry that we have got
ten into this argument.”
6. Postpone: When one or both of you
become angry or tired while resolving con
flict. put off dealing wilh the conflict until
another lime when you have cooled down.
7. Humor: Sometimes we can look at our
pi oh I cm s with a little humor nr laugh and
not lake ad of our problems so seriously.
8. Get help: When in distress wiih con
flict, seek help. '1’his could happen when you
have tried many ways to seiile the conflict
and have been unsuccessful. Go to a person
who can be counted on for a fair decision.
— fty Cushy Colllsort, Detroit Free Press