Corabel Shofner's Blog, page 3
August 8, 2014
From Diapers to Driver’s Licenses
Wild Things: Acts of Mischief in Children’s Literature
by Betsy Bird, Julie Danielson and Peter D. Sieruta
Candlewick Press 2014
Editors, Liz Bicknell and Carter Hasegawa
Agent, Stephen Barbara and Foundry Literary +Media
While speaking at Parnassus Books’ event “Wine with the Author”, Julie Danielson explained the three authors’ goal in writing Wild Things: Acts of Mischief in Children’s Literature. Their idea was to dispel all ideas of sweet, easily dismissed, insignificant “kiddie lit.” All too often children’s literature is romanticized or worse, the object of condescension. Authors Danielson, Bird and Sieruta passionately needed to speak out against these notions. “The one constant truth about children’s literature is the immense influence it has on it’s reader’s lives.” Danielson notes the overlooked fact that children’s literature is the only genre “whose primary audience does a complete rollover in the time it takes to move from diapers to driver’s licenses.”
Just for fun, Danielson suggests, that we ask people what they think of The Giving Tree (by Shel Silverstein.) She describes the book as polarizing and divisive, reading hilarious reactions she has gathered. In the end, however, she explains that adults squirm for many different reasons but children find The Giving Tree strangely comforting. Kids read books differently from parents, and that, she says, is the point.
Books not only accompany social change but often precede it. Danielson reaches back to 1844 Germany when Heinrich Hoffmann, out of frustration, created his own controversial and subversive children’s book referred to now as Struwwelpeter. She also discusses one of her favorite new picture books Gaston, which questions gender norms. Such books can be pivotal. she insists, and important.
Danielson addresses celebrity forays into the genre with a little good natured snark. Madonna reportedly said, “Well there’s, like, no books about anything.” So Madonna did us all a favor by writing one of her own. To this author Jane Yolen responded, “I’m getting out my pointy bra and brushing up on my singing and dancing, because there’s no good pop music out there.”
Danielson found that writing non-fiction required a great deal of attention to detail and care. She also admitted to turning in over 700 pages before cutting the manuscript down to 227 pages. Fortunately for us, the outtakes can be found online at the book’s blog.
Some of her favorite stories that didn’t make the cut are author, James Marshall’s character laden tombstone in Marathon, Texas, and the taxidermied body of Misty of Chincoteague, which is now on display at Beebe Ranch in Chincoteague, Virginia. The stuffed horse has been named an honorary member of the American Library Association and was photographed attending a party in her honor. That absurd photograph was briefly considered as the cover of Wild Thing: Acts of Mischief in Children’s Literature.
Julie Danielson is a nationally known librarian, Kirkus book reviewer, judge and blogger at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast. She is also a sign language interpreter and a much loved Saturday morning story teller at Parnassus Books. She currently lives in Middle Tennessee.
For a review by Tracy Barrett and more in depth information go to:
Also:
Death of the Monoculture
Everybody has an opinion, thank God for that. Without opinions, what would we say at cocktail parties? One of the current debates involves the internet in literature.
When I was a young reader we had one decision 1) hard copy book or 2) no book. If we wanted the book we had one more decision 1) library or 2) bookstore. Since then reading has fragmented: e-books, audible books, cd’s, amazon, overdrive, goodreads, and hard copies. Is this good or bad? Opinions fly.
I asked my son recently if his generation was disoriented by all the chaos. What do you mean? I reminded him that I grew up with 3 television channels and two local papers, but we now have hundreds of channels and that he reads much of his news on a merry-go-round called reddit. Oh, he answered. You mean the death of the monoculture? No, we aren’t bothered at all.
Last night I experienced the best of both worlds. Old and New. Parnassus Books, an independent bookstore in Nashville, hosted a ‘Wine With The Author’ evening. I learned about the event on-line (facebook, webpage, local news) then I texted a friend to join me there.
At the event, I bought several real books and listened to the live author speak. As Carol Burnett said of Broadway — there is nothing like breathing the same air.
Refreshments were themed. Subversive Children’s Literature. The cake was the ever present kiddie lit bunny. Our wine, complements of The Wine Shoppe, was Kung Fu Girl and the Velvet Devil.
The author told good stories. The audience asked good questions. After the event I went on line and easily researched several books that had been mentioned. I pulled up each of the three author’s blogs which included further information, even portions of the book which had not made the cut. Outtakes, if you will. I also read the thoughts of one of the authors who died shorty after turning in the manuscript. Extraordinary really. I wish I had been following him for years.
In the middle of the night I went on Amazon and sent a copy of the book to my friend in Seattle. Then, I went to bed with my real hard cover, page turning book and read myself to sleep. Sometimes I get put out with all the tech—which is not second nature to me—but last night the two worlds, old and new, worked well for me. They enriched one another. Still, I know this much, I don’t want to live in a city without a bookstore. Thank you Parnassus Books.
July 19, 2014
You Said Whatever I Want: I Want To Go To Antarctica
Where’d You Go Bernadette?
By Maria Semple
Little Brown and Company, 2012
Editor, Judy Clain
Agent, Anna Stein Aitken Alexander Associates
Here’s a mother-daughter story with the unlikely combination of agoraphobia and Antarctica. It is a satirical send up of the young professional and family scene in Seattle — a modern epistolary tale told in email, letters, FBI documents, psychiatrist’s records and even emergency room bills.
When fifteen year old Bee Branch receives straight S’s (for “Surpasses Excellence”) from the Galer Street School— “a place where compassion, academics and global connectitude join together,” Bee calls in her chit. Her parents had promised her anything she wanted.
What Bee wants is a family trip to Antarctica.
What her mother does is disappear.
Bernadette Fox, a thwarted creative genius, left her architecture behind in LA when she moved to Seattle with her husband, Elgin Branch, a Ted talking, Microsoft rock star. Bernadette’s Seattle world is populated with virtual assistants in India, other parents (gnats), nasty neighbors, and every modern techno, athletic and eco fad happening in Seattle.
Despite flashes of humor which move the story along at a steady clip, there is an underlying sadness in Bernadette’s misery and Bee’s heartfelt search. Few of the characters in Where’d You Go Bernadette? are “likable,” yet Bee strives to love them and this gives a poignant underbelly to the satirical humor.
Maria Semple lives in Seattle with her family. Before writing novels, she was a television writer on smart shows such as Arrested Development, Mad About You and Ellen. She taught herself to write novels by reading John Gardner’s The Art of Fiction. Her more traditionally structured first novel, This One is Mine, did not do as well as she hoped, but from her disappointment rose the frustrated artist, Bernadette Fox. While Seattle was disturbing when Maria Semple first moved, she has adjusted and reports that none of the parents are ‘gnats,’ in fact, they are hearty fans of the book Where’d You Go Bernadette?
More Information and Interviews:
Popcorntheblog: Author Maria Semple on Publishing, Parceling Writing Time, and Profanity
Entertainment Weekly: Author and TV writer Maria Semple talks ‘Where’d You Go, Bernadette’, ‘Arrested Development’, and the ‘Bernadette’ movie
July 3, 2014
Cinderella Is Not All She’s Cracked Up To Be
The Stepsister’s Tale
by Tracy Barrett
Harlequin Teen 2014
Editor, Annie Stone
Agent, Laura Perkins
Move over Cinderella, that stepsister you so easily convinced us was EVIL, has a different take on you and your daddy. In The Stepsister’s Tale, Tracy Barrett turns the Cinderella fairy tale on its ear by changing the point of view. Barrett, an intelligent writer, well versed in the classics, has long been interested in how “our point of view colors our perception of events.” Indeed.
When Jane Mountjoy tells her story, we feel the dirty reality of the poverty she lives in with her sister and deluded mother. As in so many gothic tales, the house itself is a primary character. The past, the ruin, the burden are all very real, yet the social delusions do more damage than the reality. The sisters must do all of the heavy work, while their mother, Lady Margaret, fantasizes that real ladies mustn’t lift a finger.
Into their dingy, desperate world arrives hope in the form of Lady Margaret’s new husband, the tall, balding and supposedly wealthy, Harry and his spoiled daughter, Isabella. Their hope is dashed of course as the tale unfolds under Barrett’s careful eye. The house is hopeless, the woods are dangerous and the social norms are cruel. Fortunately, unlike in fairy tales, Barrett’s characters grow and change in this richly developed story.
Tracy Barrett was born in Cleveland Ohio, grew up in New York State and taught Italian, Women’s studies, English and Humanities at Vanderbilt University before resigning to pursue writing full time. She has “a husband, grown daugher and son, and old Jack Russell terrier and a new puppy!” Barrett currently lives in Nashville, Tennessee. The Stepsister’s Tale is her 20th book.
More Information and Interviews:
Kirkus Reviews: The Stepsister’s Tale
Chapter 16: Cinderella Revisited
BookPage: A Different Perspective
