Parts of New York slowly return to normal

Meanwhile, residents in Lower Manhattan still without power



Three days after Hurricane Sandy made its devastating East Coast landfall on Monday, desperate people were still being rescued, countless homes had been destroyed, millions remained without electricity, and my New York City neighborhood was slowly coming back to life.

As a life-long Manhattan resident, I had experienced other disasters, but Sandy was my first hurricane. The wind whistled and slammed our building with 80-mile-per-hour gusts. We heard flying debris crashing and scraping outside and the sound of glass breaking somewhere in the darkness. And though our windows were shut tight of course, the wind still got in with invisible drafts blowing open my bedroom door no matter how many times I shut it, like a Halloween haunted house. Throughout the night, our nearly 100-year old apartment building held strong and didn’t flood, but millions of other people weren’t so lucky.

The next morning, my own neighborhood, the Upper West Side, was eerily deserted, even without the devastation seen in so many other areas. Local banks, pharmacies, restaurants, and other businesses were completely shuttered. A sign in the darkened post office said simply, “This branch is closed.” Schools were also closed and most importantly, so was the New York City subway system, the largest in the world, crippled by Sandy’s flood waters.

If you don’t live in New York City, it’s hard to understand how much we rely on public transportation here. In Manhattan, approximately 75 percent of households don’t even own a car. Instead, in order to get to school, work, and every place in between, we walk, ride city buses, take an occasional taxi (the most expensive form of transportation), and overwhelmingly ride the subway, which carries 8.7 million people on week days.

Without the subway, many of the people who work at the banks, businesses, restaurants, and other jobs in my neighborhood and many others simply can’t get there. Lots of store shelves are now empty, and places that are open have limited hours. No subway has also meant no school this entire week for the 1 million-plus New York City public school students and their teachers.

When limited bus and subway service started up again in some parts of the city yesterday, it was impossible to squeeze even two inches onto the buses, which were immediately more overcrowded than ever, and traffic was gridlocked on every street that wasn’t covered with water.

But at a busy Broadway intersection, I heard the undying spirit of New York, wafting above so much difficulty and sadness. A subway musician — locked out of our local subway station still closed off with police tape — was standing outside, playing his music. The musician said he didn’t feel he would do a good job volunteering at a shelter, so he was doing what he knew best: making music to lift people’s spirits. “I wanted to do something to bring some normalcy back to New York,” he said.

That night was Halloween, and in yet another Sandy-related disappointment, trick-or-treating was cancelled in many parts of New York and New Jersey. I didn’t mind, though. I was so grateful to be spared from Sandy’s destruction it didn’t feel like Halloween anyway. It felt like Thanksgiving.

—Kid Reporter Grace McManus

Photo: Lower Manhattan was still dark on Wednesday, November 1, as residents and businesses wait for power to be restored. (Dante A.Ciampaglia/Scholastic)

The fantastic Ms. Streep

Recognizing a movie star on the street — or any place other than onscreen — can be a thrill. But being recognized by a movie star — when you're just a regular kid — is a different story.

I went to Carnegie Hall on June 1 to cover the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards and interview some of the winners.  I also had the opportunity to interview three-time Academy Award winning actor Meryl Streep, who was the special guest speaker. I was so excited!

Ms. Streep had been my first interview ever three years ago as a new Scholastic News Kid Reporter, covering the red carpet premiere of the film Fantastic Mr. Fox in New York City. I was 9 years old at the time and had no idea that a red carpet assignment is pretty much the opposite of glamorous.  You're assigned to stand for hours in a space the size of a Kleenex — usually on a busy sidewalk in the snow or 100-degree summer heat — while an army of adult reporters and camera crews keep shoving you just so they can get a better shot or shout "Who are you wearing?!" to every star who walks past. As a kid reporter, you're always the smallest person in the press line — easily trampled and frequently ignored.

But at the Fantastic Mr. Fox red carpet, Ms. Streep walked right over to me, shook my hand, gave me great quotes, complemented me on my interview questions, and then rushed off to get inside the theater for the premiere of her movie. She only spoke to a few reporters, and I was the last of them, so all the adults in the press line who had been shoving me minutes earlier were suddenly super friendly, asking to "borrow" my quotes and urging me to take their business cards.

I owed that first journalistic success to the graciousness of Meryl Streep, but I didn't expect her to remember me now, three years later, backstage at Carnegie Hall.

But once again, I was pleasantly surprised — shocked, really — by Meryl Streep. Waiting outside her dressing room, I saw her step out of the elevator, surrounded by helpers and publicists telling her who I was and what I was there for. She swept them aside and came straight toward me.

"It's nice to see you again," she said warmly, smiling at me. She remembers me? I thought. Suddenly, my excitement turned to nervousness. Seeming to read my mind, Ms. Streep put her arm around me just like a mom, calmed my nerves, and steered me toward the dressing room where our interview would take place.

She pulled out two chairs for us, but before I could sit down, she said, "Hang on a moment. You've grown."

"I'm wearing heels," I replied, blushing.

"You've still grown," she insisted. She was right — I'm about four inches taller now than when we first met.

I had been told beforehand that I would only have five minutes with Ms. Streep. I got nervous again. What if I said the wrong thing? What if I took up too much of her time? What-ifs whirled around in my head. Calm down, I told myself sternly. You'll only make her uncomfortable if you keep stalling.

I asked my first question. Somehow, the words came out in the right order and sounded fine. She answered thoughtfully. I surprised myself by forgetting my nervousness, becoming absorbed in the interview, and asking follow-up questions with ease. It all ran smoothly. At the end of the interview, I asked her to describe in one word how she felt to be there that night.

"Nervous," she said. What? I thought. Meryl Streep, world-renown, award-winning, famous actor is actually nervous?

"Why?" I asked her.

"I'm going on stage at Carnegie Hall!" she exclaimed, referring to the speech she was about to make. "It's nerve-wracking!"

I was surprised. "But you've been in so many films with so many stars," I said.

"I know! You'd think it'd go away!" she exclaimed, smiling.

After the formal interview was over, Ms. Streep talked with me for a few more minutes, about my reporting and her movies. I realized I had been there for much longer than five minutes. Yikes! I stood up to leave and Ms. Streep said the nicest thing a Kid Reporter can ever hope to hear: "It was great seeing you again. I'm sure I'll be seeing you forever and ever."

I smiled, thanked her again, and hoped she was right.

—Kid Reporter Grace McManus

Photo: Meryl Streep laughs during her interview with Kid Reporter Grace McManus before the 2012 Scholastic Art & Writing Awards celebration at Carnegie Hall. (Photo: Dante A. Ciampaglia) 

Actors in real life at the Hugo press conference

When you see actors in movies, they almost seem unreal, up on a big screen, usually playing fictional characters.

But when you see actors — movie stars! — at a press conference, they’re sometimes very different. And sometimes, what they say is really interesting because it’s unscripted. 

I covered the press conference for the new movie Hugo, directed by Martin Scorsese and based on the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. The story centers on a 12-year-old orphan named Hugo who lives through an adventure in the 1930s in a Paris train station.

When I walked into the press conference, I was shocked at how many chairs were set up for reporters (and how many were already filled). "Are there really going to be that many reporters here?" I wondered. I felt pressured. What if I don’t get to ask any questions? What if the stars don’t notice me because I’m just a kid? 

What-ifs chased each other round and round in my head.

When the stars finally arrived, I felt ecstatic. There they were, right in front of me! Sacha Baron Cohen, Emily Mortimer, Chloe Grace Moretz, Sir Ben Kingsley, and Asa Butterfield. They looked so different in real life — no make-up and, in the case of Hugo, no “period” costumes.  And of course, Asa and Chloe are a bit older now. 

A reporter asked Asa, as an actor, to describe his relationship to Hugo, the orphan he played in the movie. In other words, was it difficult for a non-orphan to play an orphan?

“I found it quite hard to relate to him because of all the hardships he’s gone through in his life,” Asa said. “So I just had to come up with a false past for him that was similar to mine and relate to him in that way.” 

Relating to a character was also a challenge for Sir Ben Kingsley, who played the role of Georges Melies, the film’s mean and dour shopkeeper with a secret past who is saved from sadness by Hugo (Asa Butterfield). Unlike the film’s fictional characters, Melies was a real person, a star actor, dancer, and director of early silent films, whose brilliant career was ultimately crushed and forgotten.

Sir Ben was asked by a reporter how he got into Melies’s character?

“In a sense, I worked in reverse,” he explained. “What I focused on was how glorious his life was, and then I had an appreciation of the loss of that glory. So my preparation was in his body, how his body had to let go of being basically an athlete and a dancer." 

Finally I was called on to ask a question to American actress Chloe Grace Moretz, who also plays a child orphan in the film.  When she tried out for her role, Chloe had faked a British accent and fooled director Martin Scorsese into thinking that she was British — and therefore perfect for the role. I asked her how she was so convincing.  

“I was fully British from meeting Marty to the end of the audition, where I went back to my American accent,” she explained. “The whole time he totally thought that I was a British actress because he had never seen any of my other movies. So by the time that I left, I was like, ‘Okay, thanks, Marty. See you.’  He was like, ‘Whoa.’  He was, ‘So you’re American?’” Chloe also told me that when she worked on her British accent, she tried to mimic Asa, who actually is British.  It paid off. “You fooled me, kid,” Scorsese said. 

All-in-all, it was a good press conference for a great movie.

Check out Kid Reporter Grace McManus' report from the red-carpet premiere of Hugo! 

—Kid Reporter Grace McManus

Photo: Director/Producer Martin Scorsese (center) discusses a scene with Asa Butterfield (left, as Hugo Cabret) and Chloë Grace Moretz (right, as Isabelle) on the set of Hugo, from Paramount Pictures and GK Films. (Credit: Jaap Buitendijk, © 2011 GK Films, LLC. All Rights Reserved.)

My Glamorous Life On The Red Carpet

When people see red carpet coverage on TV, they think it’s utterly and superbly glamorous. But the reality is very different, as I experienced when I was assigned to report from the red carpet premiere of the last Harry Potter movie, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2.

The event was held outdoors at Lincoln Center in New York City, on a sweltering hot July afternoon. It was a mob scene! Thousands of fans swarmed the area around the red carpet, which was barricaded off for the movie’s stars, while hundreds of reporters lined the red carpet, pushing, shoving, and vying for the stars’ attention. 

I was the only kid on the red carpet, and I can tell you, it was anything but glamorous. Each media outlet — PBS, ABC, CNN, and scores of other print and video reporters — was assigned to stand in a space the size of a piece of printer paper. For three hours. Sweating. Thirsty. Bigger than their piece of paper. 

And so they started pushing.
 
To borrow a literary theme from Harry Potter, it was Good vs. Evil, and I was playing the role of Good. To my left, Evil’s cameraman, soundman, and producer elbowed me hard—right into Evil’s 7-foot tall Potter-blogger on the other side of me. I was shoved again, only to find Evil #1 occupying most of my paper marker. “Hey,” I thought. “I’m just a kid. Give me a break!”

I had covered a red carpet event before — the movie premiere of Fantastic Mr. Fox. It was also chaotic, but nowhere near as crazy as Harry Potter. Meryl Streep — who played the voice of Mrs. Fox — came right over to me and gave me a great quote for my article. She also let me take a picture with her. It was so easy. It was also 60 degrees cooler.

Back at the hot, sweaty Potter press-pack, I waved and yelled at Rupert Grint, and pleaded with his publicist to ask one question. And then he started walking toward me. Hooray! I asked him how he felt about the end of playing Harry’s best friend, Ron.

“It really is like saying goodbye to a friend,” Rupert told me. “Ron is kind of—I’ve been playing that same character for so long, a character I already felt quite close to. We’ve become this kind of same person, like this Ron-Pert kind of thing,” he said, coining a new name right there in front of me. “It’s gonna be weird not playing him, but he’ll always be a part of me, I think.”

Finally, I got a great quote! It took three hours of sweating and being squeezed to a pulp, but just like in Harry Potter, Good triumphed over Evil! Even in a red carpet line. 

—Kid Reporter Grace McManus

Photo: Grace McManus at the red-carpet premiere of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows — Part 2 in New York. (Photo: Kristen Joerger)

Pottermore is revealed!

On Thursday, June 23, Harry Potter author J.K. Rowling held a press conference at the Victoria & Albert Museum in London and announced that Harry’s wizarding adventures were going digital on a new, interactive, free-to-use website, Pottermore.com.

Pottermore is a place where Harry Potter fans can explore the entire famous series, starting with Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone.  Choose your magic user name, then navigate through the books, clicking on interactive illustrations called "moments” which bring the scenes to life.

As you make your way through the books, you can read exclusive new writing from Rowling, and even join Hogwarts, just like Harry!  You can visit all the cool places mentioned in the books, mix potions with Professor Snape, and learn to cast spells along with Ron, Harry, and Hermione. Pottermore will also reveal for the first time the questions asked by the Sorting Hat.

"I want to give something back to the fans that have followed Harry so devotedly over the years and to bring the stories to a new digital generation," Rowling stated at her press conference. "I hope fans and those new to Harry will have as much fun helping to shape Pottermore as I have. Just as I have contributed to the website, everyone will be able to join in by submitting their own comments, drawings, and other content in a safe and friendly environment.”

Pottermore will be fully open in October 2011. But fans who tried to register their email addresses at the site today in anticipation of the opening had a long wait because the site was swamped by would-be visitors. Including me!

In the meantime, check out the Pottermore website to watch Rowling’s Pottermore announcement and you’ll see beautiful paper pop-up creations come alive from the pages of her books.

As a long-time Harry Potter fan, I love the very idea of Pottermore.  I think it’s a true Harry Potter revolution. 

—Kid Reporter Grace McManus

Photo: A screenshot from the Pottermore experience available starting in October. (Pottermore.com)

Inspired to create at the 2011 Art & Writing Awards

It was the second time I was at Carnegie Hall covering the Scholastic Art and Writing Awards at Carnegie Hall, and I was bouncing off the walls. 

Every year, the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards honors teenagers from around the country for their art and writing. But they also present the Alumni Achievement Award, which honors older writers for what they have accomplished in their lifetime. It's one thing to see the art of a well known artist, and another to meet the artist himself. And on Tuesday night, I actually got to interview the artist, an experience I found very interesting.

This year's Alumni Achievement Award recipient was John Baldessari. He's a world renowned conceptual artists whose work includes painting, photography, and film. When he was a teenager, he won a Scholastic Art and Writing Award, and now at 80, he has won the Alumni Achievement Award. My favorite piece of art that he's done is a photograph called "Beethoven's Trumpet".  His art is full of wonderful, whimsical ideas. For example, "Beethoven's Trumpet" is a giant ear with a big funnel connected to it. The ear is Beethoven's, and the funnel is his trumpet. The piece of art hangs on the wall, and the viewer can walk up to it and shout into the trumpet. But because the ear and trumpet are so large, it makes the normal-sized person look very small. Works like these have sold for millions of dollars.

When I sat down with him, I was pleasantly surprised. He was very down to earth, as well as being a kind, gentle, man, willing to share the high points in his career with me. It was like talking to an old friend.

"Your only competition is yourself," he told me, his voice sounding like an oboe. "And all of art history."

I also met and talked to Victoria Ford, a high school senior from Memphis, Tennessee. She won two gold medals for her poetry and nonfiction writing. One of the things that struck me about her was her childhood. It wasn't as a childhood should be. Her mother had been convicted of drunk driving three times and was in prison. Her father, a former state senator, had been charged of taking a $55,000 bribe and was also in prison. Her home was going to be foreclosed on, and she and her three siblings were about to be placed in foster care. But at the last moment, an extremely kind aunt saved them. 

When asked how she felt when she writes, she told me her feelings were mixed. "Sometimes I am crying," she revealed.

I get inspired by stories like Victoria's and thinking of all she had been through. The hardest thing in my life is my math homework. But the hardest thing in her life is much bigger than that. When I look at these artists and how much they have been through and achieved, I am more determined to create something, or make something happen. Whether that means putting another painting in the world or writing an essay, I want to be make the world a better place, just like these artists have.

—Kid Reporter Grace McManus

Photo: Kid Reporter Grace McManus interviews artist John Baldessari backstage at Carnegie Hall, May 31, 2011. (Photo: Scholastic)

Best Assignment Ever — Interview Taylor Swift!

When I first got the call to do a new assignment, I was so excited. I was going to interview Taylor Swift, my favorite singer of all time! She was taking part in a webcast hosted by Scholastic, Read Now with Taylor Swift, focusing on how amazingly important reading is in life. It's not every day you get to meet your idol. It was a dream come true. 

But then suddenly, I was afraid I would mess up. Sneeze in her face. Do something I wasn't supposed to do. Taylor Swift is huge. She makes headlines every day, it seems. She's a real star. 

So there I went, skipping school for the day and on my way to the Scholastic offices in New York. I was completely oblivious to everything other than meeting Taylor Swift. When I got to Scholastic, I was basically bouncing off the walls. "Stay calm." I told myself. "You're on the job, not a fan just stumbling in here and saying 'Oh, I think I'll see Taylor Swift. Yeah, okay.'"

I went to the Scholastic Auditorium where the webcast would take place and waited for the event to begin. I got a front row seat! Soon, the webcast started. Nick Cannon, the host, started the by saying how important reading is, which I agree with. "WHERE'S TAYLOR?" I thought.  

"Now let me introduce you to the wonderful Taylor Swift!" Nick finally said. The crowd roared. And screamed. At the top of their lungs. It was deafening. Once everyone got over the excitement of seeing Taylor Swift walk 20 paces to her chair on stage, Nick asked her a couple questions that had been submitted by kids in advance. 

One of the questions that really struck me was, "Did you always know that you wanted to perform music and write poetry, and those types of things?" Taylor answered that she fell in love in second grade — with poetry! Her answer really surprised me because I also fell in love with poetry in second grade. Taylor and I had a connection I never knew about. It was really cool. 

After the webcast, I got to meet Taylor and ask her a question for my Scholastic report. I asked her what she hoped her fans would learn from the webcast. I loved the way she answered — thoughtful, kind, and yes, poetic. 

As I was leaving Scholastic, I thought, "This is by far the most AMAZING day I will ever have as a kid reporter." 

                                                                                                              —Kid Reporter Grace McManus

Kid Reporter Grace McManus talks with Taylor Swift after her Read Now with Taylor Swift webcast at Scholastic headquarters in New York. (Photo: Dante A. Ciampaglia)

The Man in Charge of School Lunches

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack talks about nutritious—and delicious—food at school

We keep hearing: You can’t learn if you are hungry. That’s why the federal government started breakfast and lunch programs for public schools.

So why aren’t those lunches healthy? And more important, why don’t they taste better?

Kid Reporter Grace McManus asked Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, the person in charge of the school lunch program nationwide, about his job and what he’s doing to make things better in your school cafeteria.

Click on play to find out what he had to say.

And send in your comments about your school lunch? Is what you eat everyday nutritious and delicious? How would you improve things if you could?

VIDEO: Courtesy Scholastic Inc.

How to Use an iPod for School

Change your thinking about schools and get students excited about school again!

Milton Chen wrote a book called Education Nation. The title is now being used for an education conference put on by NBC News, Scholastic and others. Chen, who is head of the George Lucas Educational Foundation, was part of a panel about how technology can help improve education.

"My fantasy school doesn't look much like a school, I wouldn't even call it a school," Chen said. "I would call it a learning center. and it would be open all year around."

Click on the play button to find out what Chen means by a community-based, year-around school! He may change your way of thinking about schools.

—Grace McManus

 

VIDEO: Scholastic, Inc.

 

 

Nutritious and Delicious!

At Education Nation, it’s all about helping kids learn.  But kids can’t learn if they don’t have nutritious food.

When I went to the Education Nation summit at NBC’s Rockefeller Plaza, I found out that there was going to be a cook off to find the healthiest — and tastiest —  school lunches. Four past competitors from the reality cooking show Top Chef were given a budget of $1.31 — the price of a regular, unhealthy, school lunch — to spend on the ingredients of healthier, tastier alternatives. Four children from local New York schools were appointed as judges. After all, kids are the ones who will be eating the food! Their names were Maya, Lila, Ryan, and Maliq.

"My first thought was that I wasn’t going to like it, but I was going to try it anyway, and if I didn’t like it, I’d probably feel like vomiting," said Maya.

Lila said that after she first saw the food, she thought, "it looks not so healthy and very disgusting. But it tastes good, and it’s very healthy." 

I also interviewed Tom Vilsack, Secretary of Agriculture. He was at the competition because the Agriculture Department is responsible for making sure kids in public schools get nutritious lunches while at school. As part of his job, he has committed himself to making sure every student in America has access to great tasting, healthy lunches.

"Thirty-one million children, every day go to the school lunch room for school lunch," Secretary Vilsack told me after the contest. “A lot of children today don’t get the right kind of food for lots of different reasons, and we need to improve on our school lunch program."

"It’s helping youngsters eat well, so they can learn well," he added.

The dishes the kids taste-tested were chicken stir-fry, vegetable pizza, meatloaf sandwich, and Mexican chicken.  After trying the food, the kids voted and in the end the chicken stir-fry won. It was made by Ariane Duarte, and she won $1,000 to donate to a charity of her choice.

The school lunches competition was a lot of fun! And when it was over I learned that — to quote mothers around the world — even if the food looks bad, eat it anyway!  It could be delicious, and even healthy!

                                                                                                            —Kid Reporter Grace McManus

PHOTO: The kid taste testers bite into the four school lunches created by past Top Chef contestants. (Photo: Dante A. Ciampaglia)