Summer Survival Guide ☀️
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Episode 106 Description
We are kicking off our Summer Survival Guide.⛱️ Keep listening in all summer long for tips and tricks for long summer days.☀️ First up, get into a spooky adventure story with Claribel Ortega's Ghost Squad. 👻 Hear about what books she loved growing up and what inspired her writing. 📚 Get our top summer picks for beach reading, no beach required! 📰 From the headlines: Ocean storms and a fire? 🔥 Test your summer knowledge in today’s Trivia on the Ten! 🧐
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Sources for this episode: To Be Updated
TRANSCRIPT:
Various Voices 0:00
10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1
Bethany Van Delft 00:06
I'm Bethany Van Delft. And this is The Ten News -- where we get the lowdown on what's up in the world. It's Thursday, July 8.
Bethany Van Delft 00:15
Have you found yourself saying the words "I'm booooored" much more than usual lately? Never fear, The Ten News is here. Today, get ready for the first episode in our Summer Survival Guide series. All summer long, we're giving you the best tips and tricks on how to get through your summer days. We'll come at you with things like summer photo tips, how to cook the perfect smores, and even how to keep mosquitoes off your back!
Bethany Van Delft 00:46
So let's spice up your summer with Summer Survival Tip Number 1: Curling up with a good book. Let's dive right in.
Bethany Van Delft 00:57
Summer is prime beach reading season. Beach reads are books that you can read in the summer sun without worrying if you get a little sand in them. The thing is, you don't have to be at the beach to enjoy a good book this summer. A great story can transport us from the city to the seaside from Planet Earth to an alien world. Or even from the present to the past. I got a chance to talk with author Claribel Ortega about how she became a writer and about writing Ghost Squad, her spooky action packed novel.
Bethany Van Delft 01:32
Thank you so much for joining us. This is amazing.
Clarabelle Ortega 01:35
Thank you for having me. I'm a big fan of the show. My name is Clarabelle Ortega, and I write books for kids. My first book "Ghost Squad" came out last year. And it's a spooky Halloween adventure about a girl named Sally Luna, who accidentally unleashes on of some evil spirits on her city of St. Augustine and has to send them back into the underworld, with her best friend Sid, a fat cat named Chunk and a witch named Babette before the full moon on Halloween.
Bethany Van Delft 02:06
Spooky. So I'm guessing a lot of our listeners know you from "Ghost Squad." Where did the idea come from? And is there a relationship between you and the material in the story?
Clarabelle Ortega 02:18
The idea for "Ghost Squad" came from a couple different places. I'm a huge fan of, sort of adventures centering kids, I loved The Goonies growing up and Hocus Pocus. So I always wanted to write something that felt that way to me. And then "Ghost Squad" is very much based on my Dominican culture and mythology that says, or folklore rather, that says that fireflies are the souls of the lost loved ones watching over us. I thought that was always such a beautiful thing. It's such a really comforting idea. And I wanted to incorporate it into a kid's story, both to help people who are navigating grief and loss and also to sort of preserve this word of mouth thing that I've been taught when I was a child and I wanted to share it with other people.
Bethany Van Delft 03:08
Oh, wow. So that, oh my goodness, that gives me like 18 questions. So I, it's so awesome that "Ghost Squad" integrates Spanish throughout the story.
Clarabelle Ortega
My my background is Puerto Rican.
Bethany Van Delft
So that's that is so it's so lovely to see cultures represented, how do you feel that you represent your family specifically, and maybe your upbringing in your work? And why is that important to do so?
Clarabelle Ortega 03:38
So there is a certain amount of pressure that comes with it. But mostly I'm just honored to be able to help children who who didn't get to see themselves ever in books be able to do that. And also even adults, like myself, who, you know, I didn't really grow up with books that spoke about, you know, Caribbean households in the way that "Ghost Squad" does in a way that's not like an issue book, right? It's just an adventure, and the kids happen to be Dominican and the kids happen to be black. And I think that's really beautiful. And it shows that everyone is capable of being a hero in a story.
Bethany Van Delft 4:29
How do you pick and choose which of your experiences will go into a story or will be turned into a book?
Clarabelle Ortega 03:38
So for me the story really comes first. With "Ghost Squad" it was interesting because it was sort of like a combination of things. I mentioned before that the book is that sort of light exploration of grief. I don't Delve too deep into like the dark side of it. But I do talk about it and in a way that I feel is, can open up kids to questions. To be able to talk about it. And the reason why was because I lost my brother to cancer. And I had a really hard time navigating that loss because sometimes we get afraid to talk about those kinds of things. But I think they're really important for kids to talk about, especially when they're seeing it on the TV every day anyway, and to help them process those kinds of things. I think books can do a lot in that arena. So that was part of it. And then the other part of it was sort of like the adventure part of it right? The story came to me. I always like watching The Goonies. I grew up in the South Bronx, so seeing kids ride bikes, like that far away from their house was like, What? I was allowed to go to the corner store and back, my mom had to be able to have eyes on me at all times. So just that having that sort of like independence and distance and was so appealing to me, because it's something I never really got to experience.
Bethany Van Delft 04:13
Who were some authors who inspired you when you were our listeners age?
Clarabelle Ortega 04:19
So my number one, a huge fan girl of RL Stein, I loved Goosebumps, I could not stop reading his books, so definitely RL Stein. I also was a big fan of the Babysitters Club. I loved the House on Mango Street by Sandra Cisneros. I read that book about 7 billion times when I was a kid. Um, and then, you know, I read a lot of older books and I don't really remember the names of the authors now but we would go to the library and they would sell really old old books when I was a kid for like 50 cents so I used to just buy those and and I don't remember the names of it, but I just read anything I could get my hands on but definitely RL Stein was, was my favorite. I loved him and I still do to this day. I think he's fantastic.
Bethany Van Delft 05:15
Oh my gosh, thank you so much for for being with us.
Clarabelle Ortega
Thank you for having me as super fun.
Bethany Van Delft 05:15
Oh my gosh, thank you so much for for being with us. Thank you for having me is super fun. I feel little authors popping up everywhere is good. Thank you for stopping by Claribel, I can't wait to read some spooky ghost stories this summer.
Bethany Van Delft 05:39
Are you someone who won’t survive summer without a good book? How do you choose from so many? It’s tough to know where to turn next. That’s where we come in. The Ten, has picked out three awesome books for all you summer readers to enjoy--no beach required.
If you love Minecraft … Trade pixels for paper and check out the official Minecraft novels. Get ready to binge on blocks, because there are now a whopping nine titles! Start with Minecraft: The Island and end with the latest release Minecraft: The Dragon.
If you love magic … open up Amari and the Night Brothers by B.B. Alston, where magicians, fairies, and even aliens--it turns out--are all real! Secret organizations, evil magicians, an awesome heroine … for fans of magic and fantasy this book has it all.
And finally, if you love poetry by the pool … Starfish by Lisa Fipps may be the book for you. Bullied because of her weight, this is a novel in verse about a girl who--with the help of some important people--is working on finding her fabulous self, starting in her swimming pool.
Looking for more Summer Survival Book ideas? Head to our website at www dot the ten news dot com for more reading recommendations from us!
And don’t forget to tune back in all summer, because we will be bringing you the hottest tip for your summer.
Bethany Van Delft 07:23
Now let's look at what else is up in the world.
Bethany Van Delft 07:33
Last week, a gas leak from an underwater pipeline in the Gulf of Mexico caused the ocean to ignite in a blazing boiling fire. A video showing the fiery whirlpool of water went viral over the weekend with people comparing it to an “eye of fire.” Fortunately, it's now under control and an investigation into what happened is underway. [SFX: Oh geez]
Bethany Van Delft 07:57
Tropical Storm Elsa made landfall in Florida and hit some of the southeastern US states like Georgia and the Carolinas. Elsa is the fifth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season. [SFX: Okay, that's bad]
Bethany Van Delft 08:09
On Sunday, Joey Chestnut beat his own hotdog eating record during the annual Fourth of July competitive eating contest. He chowed down on 76 hotdogs in just 10 minutes. That's one hot dog more than his old record. He’s now won the men's eating contest 14 times. [SFX: unbelievable]
Bethany Van Delft 08:32
After being canceled last year because of the pandemic, the Spelling Bee is back. The 11 finalists will compete today at Walt Disney World in Florida. The competition this year should be interesting - two years ago the Bee ended in an eight way tie. So this year, organizers have added tougher words, vocabulary questions, and a lightning round to ensure one winner emerges victorious. [SFX: victorious vi c. t o r i o u s. Winner]
Bethany Van Delft 09:06
Okay, it's time for.. [SFX:What? What's the big idea? Trivia on the Ten.]
Bethany Van Delft 09:15
Speaking of summer, last week, we officially entered the “dog days of summer.” What does that mean? Is it A) it refers to the star Sirius’ position in the sky? B) It's time for your dog to get a haircut, or C) it's too hot out even for the dogs.
Bethany Van Delft 09:45
Did you guess it? The answer is … A! While some people joke that summer’s “dog days” are the time where our pets go a little cuckoo, the dog days are an actual astronomical phenomenon.
In ancient Greece and Rome, the dog days marked the time of year when our Sun was in the same part of the sky as the star Sirius, also called the dog star. They noticed that in July, Sirius started rising in the sky before the Sun. Sirius is a very bright star so they thought that it was adding to the Sun’s heat--making summer days even hotter! That’s not really true, but the term has lived on. So throughout the summer, be on the lookout for the dog star rising!
Bethany Van Delft 10:35
Times up! But before you go, here's a quick note for the grownups.
Thanks for listening to The Ten News! Look out for our new episodes on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and extras on Saturdays. You can go deeper into today’s stories by visiting the ten news dot com.
“The Ten News” is a co-production of Small But Mighty Media and Next Chapter Podcasts, and is distributed by, iHeart Radio.
The Ten News creative team is practicing their spelling and includes Kate Hale, Tracey Crooks, Pete Musto, Anya Schultz contributed to this episode.
Our Production Director is Jeremiah Tittle, and our Executive Producers are Donald Albright and show creator Tracy Leeds Kaplan.
I’m Bethany Van Delft and thanks for listening to The Ten News.
Bethany Van Delft 11:19
And all this time I thought the Dog Days meant the days where we eat a lot of hot dogs. Learn something new every day.
