My forthcoming picture book OUTDOOR FARM, INDOOR FARM (illustrated by Xin Li) started as a challenge to myself: Write a nonfiction picture book in 50 words. It was early 2018 and time for Vivian Kirkfield’s annual #50PreciousWords writing challenge. Mining my idea list for a...
My forthcoming picture book OUTDOOR FARM, INDOOR FARM (illustrated by Xin Li) started as a challenge to myself: Write a nonfiction picture book in 50 words. It was early 2018 and time for Vivian Kirkfield’s annual #50PreciousWords writing challenge.
Mining my idea list for a topic, I found a note about a growing sector in agriculture: indoor, vertical farms, where greens are grown soilless in sterile warehouses, in vast towers of trays lit by LEDs, with water and nutrients misted onto plants’ roots. This method, called aeroponics, was a revelation to me. As the daughter of third-generation Kansas wheat, soybean, corn, and milo farmers, I had grown up stomping through dusty fields and feeling the bump of every dirt clod from the buddy seat of my dad’s Allis Chalmers tractor. I am always looking for ways to give farm kids representation on the page. And like every other book I’ve written, the topic of vertical farms needled me while I sat in the car pickup line at school; while I made dinner; while I dreamed. It wouldn’t let me go.
I sat down to write and realized the key to creating a successful, sparsely worded manuscript would be structure. What if I scaffolded the words in a compare/contrast structure—showcasing not only vertical farms but the wide-open fields I knew best? And what better way than verse to tell a complex story in as few words as possible?
Spoiler alert: I didn’t win the contest or even honorable mention. But I had my 50-word story! Because I had other, more pressing projects in the pipeline, I stuck the story in the proverbial drawer for about a year and a half. Then, in fall 2019 when I needed a manuscript for a writer’s conference critique, I decided to take another crack at those first 50 words and expand them.
I needed a common thread for my manuscript. What was the recipe that pulled both of these farms together? Why feature them both in a single book?
The answer came to me pretty quickly: Science. Innovation. Change. Adaptation. And good, old-fashioned grit.
While our ecosystems undergo the great shift of climate change, it’s farmers who will keep us alive. To do that, they must adapt, reinvent, and persevere. Feeding the world is a noble—even altruistic—pursuit. Consider that Earth has a finite amount of land and fresh water. Plants that have grown well outdoors for centuries will no longer survive in new climates. (My family’s recent decision to stop growing winter wheat in the “Wheat State” is an example, and a saga for another day.) On top of these practical challenges, billions more people will roam the planet, and they will all need to eat.
So how do farms survive? How do we survive? By leaning into agricultural efficiencies, new technologies, and sustainable farming practices. While OUTDOOR FARM, INDOOR FARM offers just a glimpse of that story for the youngest readers, it plants the seed in 162 words of rhyming text—the hardest puzzle I’ve ever assembled.
I’m grateful to the Nerdy Book Club for hosting the premiere of the book trailer created by Pedro Calotte for OUTDOOR FARM, INDOOR FARM. The beauty of my collaboration with the book’s illustrator Xin added a whole new storyline through the illustrations—two friends sharing details about their farms through a pen pal relationship. Our book releases April 9, 2024, from Astra Young Readers and is available for preorder now.
Without further ado, I present the book trailer:
Invite Lindsay for World Read Aloud Day
I’m offering a full day of 20-minute read-alouds of OUTDOOR FARM, INDOOR FARM for schools on World Read Aloud Day, February 7, 2024. I’ll be giving extra-special sneak peeks of the book before its official release. Your students could be some of the first in the world to read it!
I’ll be doing readings between 8:30 am and 3 pm Central Time. Claim your time slot here.
Lindsay H. Metcalf is a former journalist who writes nonfiction and poetry for children. Her books include Beatrix Potter, Scientist, a Mighty Girl Best Book of 2020 and Young People’s Literature Award winner from the Friends of American Writers Chicago; Farmers Unite! Planting a Protest for Fair Prices, a Kansas Notable Book, Friends of American Writers honoree, NCSS/CBC Notable Social Studies Trade Book, and Junior Library Guild selection; and No Voice Too Small: Fourteen Young Americans Making History, a Kirkus and Chicago Public Library Best Book, Notable Social Studies Trade Book, and NCTE Notable Poetry Book. Her latest title, No World Too Big: Young People Fighting Global Climate Change, is a poetry anthology from the team behind No Voice Too Small(Charlesbridge, spring 2023). Forthcoming in spring 2024: Outdoor Farm, Indoor Farm, illustrated by Xin Li (Astra Young Readers), a Junior Library Guild selection. Lindsay lives in north-central Kansas with her husband, two sons, and a menagerie of pets. Learn more at lindsayhmetcalf.com and @lindsayhmetcalf on Instagram, X, Threads, and Bluesky.