Old Max, New Max
Teacher Darin Anderson of Moorcroft High School in Wyoming send us these photographs of some sterling work by his 9th grade class. After reading Middleworld, one of their projects was to create posters comparing how Max changes through the course of the book. Great job guys – you really hit the nail on the head! And we LOVE the little faces. (Click on photos to enlarge them, so you can read their work.)
Summer reading
Excited to discover this video on the Huffington Post featuring the Jaguar Stones series as a summer reading pick! It’s made by Monica Edinger (teacher, writer & critic) and Elizabeth Bird (Librarian – New York public library).
Amazing artwork!
One of our favorite things about school visits is coming face to face with walls of work inspired by the Jaguar Stones books. The students blow us away with their ideas. We’ve been given stories, poems, posters, animations, paintings, collages, postcards Max has sent from the jungle, and wonderful 3-D projects, like models of the characters. One student (see below) even made outfits for each character and hung them on tiny hangers in custom closets. We can’t fit everything in our suitcases, but we love to bring home as much artwork as possible and hang it in the room where we write. Here’s a little taste of the amazing work we saw on our Spring book tour.
This school decorated their halls with posters and sculptures from the Jaguar Stones series. This wall map shows the five sacred pyramids of the Monkey river.
This student made dolls of four characters from our book. Ah Pukuh - Maya god of death (note eyeballs in headdress); Hermanjilio - a Maya archaeologist; Lady Coco - a howler monkey with culinary talents; Lord Six-Dog, Maya king.
This student wrote and designed a hilarious tourist guide to Xibalba, the cold, wet Maya underworld, "a wonderful place full of suffering, misery and sorrow."
This student made little closets for some of the characters in the book with their clothes on hangers. Here are two items from Ah Pukuh's closet.
This student made an ABC book with definitions for each entry. Inside you'll find: A is for archaeologist, B is for Bak'tun, and so on ...
At the Canarelli Middle School the whole class wrote postcards from one Middleworld character to another. This student wrote a postcard from Max to Zia.
This atmospheric acrylic-on-canvas painting is over 3 foot wide and now sits above the doorway in our writing room. It shows the pyramid of Maya rain god Chaak and the underground river.
Max Murphy goes to Bulgaria
Look what we just received in the mail: it’s the Bulgarian edition of Middleworld! Cool, eh? Check out how they spell J&P Voelkel (top left text).
The Turkish version will be out next. Can’t wait!
Parade of Kings
How cool! We received this e-mail from one of our favorite schools and wanted to show everyone the fabulous Maya costumes they made.
Dear Mr. and Mrs. Voelkel,
We thought we would share pictures of our Mayan Lords and Ladies from Edison School. We enjoyed your second book just as much as the first one! And we were inspired to make our own headdresses and breast plates after meeting Lord 6Dog.Please hurry up with Book Three! And don’t forget to visit us again soon!
Edison Book Club
Mighty, magnificent, magical Melissa
When bad weather nixed our evening flight to St Louis at the last minute, we thought our Midwest trip was doomed. But it takes more than a snowstorm to faze Melissa Posten, Children’s buyer and Guru at Pudd’nHead Books (yes it is her official title). Melissa flew into action and rearranged our schedule, so we could fly out next morning and not miss a single thing. She met us at the airport with coffee, and whisked us away on a magical tour through the schools of St Louis. We arrived to find hallways festooned with jungle foliage, students in a frenzy of excitement thanks to Melissa’s advance visits, and school libraries stacked with our books.
But Melissa hadn’t finished working her magic yet. That night at Pudd’nhead, she assembled a wonderful group of young readers, local authors and Maya fanatics – including Anne, a docent at the St Louis Museum of Art. The next day, Anne took us on a private tour of The Fiery Pool exhibit. This jaw-droppingly amazing collection of Maya artifacts includes the never before displayed Altun Ha jade head from Belize which was the original inspiration for the Jaguar Stones.
It was the perfect end to a perfect visit. 
Live from New York
We had a blast presenting at the New York Public Library as part of their KidsLIVE series. The professionally shot video and was just posted on the NY Public Library’s website. You can watch the action by clicking on this: link
First stop: New Jersey
Our 6-week (yikes!) End of the World Club book tour kicked off with school visits and a very fun store event with Watchung Booksellers in Montclair, New Jersey. Guest of honor at the store was our Twitter friend and blogger extraordinaire, Trina of www.booklovingboys. Here’s her take on the evening: Link
A Mexican Road Trip
Our daughter Charlotte, aged 14, wrote this blog for RoadTripsForFamilies.com. It really encapsulates our last research trip to Mexico.
My parents write books about the Maya, so for February break they decided to take me, my brother (aged 17) and my little sister (aged 8 ) on a research trip down to Mexico. This is my blog of the trip…
The beach at Zamas
It was pouring with rain when we landed in Cancun. After getting the rental car (an ordeal which took the good part of an hour) we drove south about two hours to a place called Zamas, on the coast at Tulum. It had stopped raining by then and we were happy to peel off our traveling clothes and don the much anticipated shorts and t-shirts. After a delicious fresh fishy dinner on the beach, we headed back to the room and finished the night Swiss Family Robinson style, reading, writing, and drawing under mosquito nets in our thatched hut on stilts.
Early morning at Tulum
Early next morning we headed off to the Maya ruins of Tulum, hoping to beat the crowds. Tulum is one of my favorite sites as it is right on the magnificently blue ocean and looks picturesque and not entirely inhospitable. Afterwords we went back to the hotel for breakfast. After we’d devoured fruit and omelettes and been sufficiently chased by a local dog on the beach, we got on our way. After hours of driving we stopped at a site called Chacchoben, where it helpfully began pouring with rain again. We were the only visitors. After photographing all the trees and my parents in front of all the pyramids, we tried to buy ice cream from the custodian, but he told us the fridge was locked till Tuesday when a cruise ship would be visiting. We found almond magnums (mmm) at a gas station and drove to our next hotel, Puerta de Calakmul. We went to our sleeping hut (I say hut, but screenporch would be more accurate) and discovered that the electricity was out. Lit by three tea lights, we gathered the essentials, and headed to the dining hut where they had an emergency generator and, to my tweeting mother’s delight, wifi! After sending off a math paper, I had cream of carrot soup, which I promise tastes a lot better than it sounds. We attempted to stretch out our meal as much as possible in order to put off returning to our dear dark screen porch. As we sighed at our inevitable darkness, the electricity came on!
On top of the world at Calakmul
Worst night’s sleep of my life. The bed was rock hard and the jungle was unexpectedly cold. Also, a travel tip to keep in mind would be to try not to travel with sickly parents – our room was snore and cough central. After breakfast we went off to the ruins of Calakmul. It is located in a biosphere reserve which means that it takes an hour of driving down a bumpy, winding road through the rainforest to get there. Some of us could not handle it, and my sister puked. The drive felt really long after that, but eventually we arrived to a welcoming committee of wild turkeys. We went into the site and climbed some very tall pyramids, some of the tallest in the Yucatan. Later we were taken to a restricted location in the forest where there’s a very deep cave at the bottom of a very deep cenote (sinkhole). Inside that cave live millions of bats that stream out at dusk in a massive twisting cyclone. It was the most incredible thing I have ever seen. As they come out you get hit with an wave of sulfur. (To see bats on youtube click link)
DAY 4 – MONDAY
This morning we had to wake up at six o’clock to take a nature walk. We saw all sorts of plants and animals such as orchids, strangler figs, crocodiles, brown jays, woodpeckers, and parrots. We all tasted live termites which supposedly have 500 calories to the handful. This makes them the ultimate survival food, plus if you put an old termite’s nest on a fire it will keep the mosquitos away. Though certainly not my favorite thing, they tasted sort of peppery and woody. We also visited an abandoned papaya plantation, a hot spot for toucans. We then went back to the hotel for breakfast and headed off to, surprise surprise, more Maya sites. One (Xpujil) had a hidden staircase. It was coffin-like, claustrophobically tight and, once at the top, it dramatically dropped off in a terrifying plummet.
Our screen porch
The main attractions of the second site (Becan) were the moat, the archways and a massive mask protected by a temperature-controlled casing. Afterward we went back to the hotel and enjoyed one more night in our dear old screen porch. Of course it wouldn’t be quite right if everything was all comfy cosy – don’t worry, the shower was an icy dribble of water. Mmmm, jungle comfort.
DAY 5 – TUESDAY
Archway at the Hacienda
Enjoying the view at Edzna
With much regret, we left the Hacienda and continued on our journey. First stop was a site called Edzna. It was incredibly hot (finally!) and we tromped up and down a plethora of low stepped temples. My parents wanted to visit one more site before the next hotel. “It’s on the way,” they said. Unfortunately Santa Rosa Xtampak was incredibly hard to find and both our maps were wrong, so it took forever on hilly roads like roller coasters. When we finally got there, we were all terrified by an old man who appeared out the jungle brandishing a machete at us. (He turned out to be friendly.) Again our maps let us down and it took hours longer than expected to get to our next destination, Casa Hamaca in Valladolid. Only an audiobook of Bill Bryson’s ‘At Home” made the drive bearable. But Casa Hamaca is very cool, run by a guy who knows a lot about the Maya, and the town of Valladolid is beautiful.
Flamingos at Rio Lagartos
We drove to the coast at Rio Lagartos and rented a boat to go see the birds on the salt flats. It took an hour of winds whipping our faces, but it was worth it. We saw all sorts of wildlife, including hundreds of bright orange flamingos, herons, pelicans, cormorants, eagles, even a huge crocodile. It was certainly a sight to see. That night my parents had to unexpectedly give a talk about their book, so we had a most unMexican dinner from Domino’s. I spent the night eating pizza and writing an essay for school.
Helping to make tortillas
After breakfast we set out to visit a Maya woman whom we first met a few years ago. Sofi lives at the end of a dirt road on the edge of her village. Her house includes a thatched hut with a concrete floor for cooking and a single floored cement house with two rooms, one large and one tiny. There is next to nothing in this room except for the family’s hammocks and a small bench holding bits and bobs. Sofi is married with seven children, four of whom are living at home. My parents interviewed Sofi and her oldest son about their lives. After the interview we went to the local elementary school. The moment we walked in, kids gawked at the strange tall family who’d come to visit. Lessons were in Spanish and Yucatec Maya. The principal said it was his aim to teach proper elocution and etiquette. After taking pictures and talking with the kids, we went back to Sofi’s house for chicken stew, spicy radish salsa and homemade tortillas. I tried to help her make them, but sometimes its just better to let the professional handle it…
From here we went to visit a guy my parents had met the previous night. He’d got sick of the consumerism in America so he’d moved to a traditional Maya village. His house was easily recognized, as it had a five story tower he’d built himself, the inside of which was almost entirely mosaic. The tower also includes a solar water heater, observation deck, herbal plant garden, circular windows, spiral staircases, and other impressive additions. The two Maya sisters next door had kindly made a meal for us of be’ek kik’en (beans and pork) and a scrambled egg and sausage dish.
The weaver sisters
Maize ice cream
DAY 9 – SATURDAY
This morning we walked to the local cenote, which was absolutely beautiful. Then we drove back to Cancun airport and were back in the ice and snow before we knew it.
Rocking the New York Public Library
We were invited to present at the main branch of the New York Public Library as part of their Kids Live author series. It was a real honor and what a great venue! We had a blast.
Some in the audience weren't too sure about eating the meal worms
Lord 6 Dog makes a surprise appearance
