Mitali Perkins's Blog, page 24

Kid/YA Book News and Notes

For those who don't follow me on Twitter, here's a roundup of interesting links I shared recently:





Literacy, Reading, and Education


You gave away one million books to low-income young readers in just 10 days? Congratulations, First Book !



"Share your love of reading to help us get books in the hands of kids who need them most," says Reading is Fundamental, launching Book People Unite . 




“Why do we have to read poetry?” whines a 9th-grader. A wise English teacher responds in the Philadelphia Inquirer.



What makes a children's book a classic?" asks the Guardian. 





E-books



"Has Kindle Killed the Book Cover?" The Atlantic explores how designers are responding to e-readers.



"Amazon's weaknesses. What can publishers and ebook retailers do? What should Amazon do?" asks Baldur Bjarnason, a UK resident researching eBooks and interactivity.





Book Awards



In the UK, the newly-launched Guardian Hot Key Books Young Writers Prize seeks the "next generation of writers of children’s fiction."



Minnesota Book Award in YA Fiction goes to Brian Farrey for WITH OR WITHOUT YOU (Simon Pulse).




Minnesota Book Award in Children's Fiction goes to Laura Purdie Salas for BOOKSPEAK! POEMS ABOUT BOOKS (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt).



Amazon



David versus Goliath: a children’s book publisher pulls titles from Amazon.




“Amazon is squeezing everyone out of business. I don’t like that. They’re a predator. We’re better off without them," declares Randall White, CEO of Educational Development Corporation.

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DEAR TEEN ME: Authors Write Letters To Their Teen Selves

I'm happy to be a contributor to Dear Teen Me along with 70 other authors who wrote letters to our teenage selves. Some of us provided diary entries, others submitted letters, and
a few graphic novelists turned their stories into visual art. The anthology, edited by Miranda Kenneally and E. Kristin Anderson, was inspired by their blog and releases October 31, 2012 from Zest Books. Check out the participating authors:




1. E. Kristin Anderson—Want.
Take. Have

2. Jessica LeeAnderson—Contents Under Pressure

3. Tom Angleberger—Shhhhhh!

4. Sean Beaudoin—Frame Me
and Nail Me to the Wall

5. CharlesBenoit—Reinventing Me

6. Robin Benway—9 Things You
Need to Know

7. Ilsa J. Bick—The Knife

8. Marke Bieschke—Dance
Dance Revolution

9. Joseph Bruchac—First Kiss
. . .ish

10. Jessica Burkhart—Trust
Is as Important as Love

11. Josh A. Cagan—Thank You,
Oily Pizza

12. Riley Carney—Nothing's
Impossible

13. Tera Lynn Childs—The
Future Isn't Everything

14. Jessica Corra—The
Principal's Office

15. Heather Davis—Raising Me

16. Daniel Ehrenhaft—Getting
Stood Up

17. Laura Ellen—Losing Your Sight Shouldn't
Mean Losing Your Rights

18. Beth Fantaskey—I Hope
You Dance—to the Theme from Bonanza

19. Caridad Ferrer—Jekyll
& Hyde

20. Michael Griffo—Be Honest
with Yourself

21. Janet Gurtler—The Skinny
Girl

22. Kersten Hamilton—It's
About to Get Worse

23. Bethany Hegedus—Going
All the Way

24. Geoff Herbach—You Are
the Electric Boogaloo

25. Faith Erin Hicks—No
Calls from Spielberg Yet

26. Nancy Holder—When Dance
Was Your World

27. K. A. Holt—Lois Lowry
and the Space-Time Continuum vs. Boys

28. P. J. Hoover—Seeping
Through the Cracks

29. Ellen Hopkins—Finding
Your Voice

30. Stacey Jay—Who Needs
Luck?

31. Carrie Jones—Seizures

32. Mike Jung—Regarding Your
Commendable Decision to Live

33. Stasia WardKehoe—Getting Past the Fear

34. Tara Kelly—Bad Girl

35. Miranda Kenneally—Pick
Up the Phone and Call Him Back. Right. Now.

36. Stephanie Kuehnert—He
Broke More Than Your Heart

37. Mary Lindsey—Hope Until
the Last Second

38. Nikki Loftin—The
Ramifications of Mouthing Off to Cute Boys

39. Katherine Longshore—The
Best Days of Our Lives? Really?

40. Ken Lowery—Winging It

41. Kekla Magoon—The
Balancing Act

42. Mari Mancusi—What the
Bully Stole

43. Gretchen McNeil—All the
World's a Stage

44. Jodi Meadows—The Pursuit
of (Moments of) Happiness

45. Saundra Mitchell—This Is
Not Your Story

46. Hannah Moskowitz—Get
Better

47. Jenny Moss—What I Really
Want

48. Sarah Ockler—Dancing with
the Dead

49. Lauren Oliver and
Elizabeth Miles—Best Friends Forever (for Real)

50. Stephanie Pellegrin—Just
Be Yourself

51. Mitali Perkins—First
Kiss

52. Cheryl Rainfield—Keep
Hold of Your Strength

53. Dave Roman—Special
Delivery from Your Excellent Future

54. Jess Rothenberg—Stop
Obsessing, Kiss That Guy, and Party Like It's 1999

55. Jennifer Rush—All Roads
Lead Somewhere

56. Amy Kathleen Ryan—Smile!

57. Tom Ryan—Sing It Out

58. Leila Sales—I'm Not
Going to Give You Any Good Advice

59. Cynthia Leitich Smith—
Friends in Dark Places

60. JessicaSpotswood—Finding Him

61. Erika Stalder—Boys,
Boys, Boys…

62. Rhonda Stapleton—Chunky

63. Mariko Tamaki—Keeping
Quiet

64. Don Tate—Stolen Jeans,
Smoke Rings, and Self-Esteem

65. Melissa Walker—You're So
Right But So Wrong

66. Tracy White—100% True,
Guaranteed

67. Jo Whittemore—All Kinds
of Sexy

68. Sara Zarr—What Is a
Friend?

69. Jennifer Ziegler—Facing
Facts: Makeovers Don't Change a Thing

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Lent Reads 38, 39 and 40: I Did It!

A zesty story about roti-making and the joys of intergenerational storytelling, written by F. Zia and illustrated by Ken Min (Lee and Low).





The joy and grace of a peaceful, worshipful Sunday (with a sweet, understated interracial friendship) are perfectly portrayed in this picture book written by Michael McGowan, illustrated by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher (Random House).





It felt right to end my 40 days of reading with Nikki Grimes' beautiful collection of poems telling the story of Holy Week, illustrated by David Frampton (Eerdman's Books for Young Readers). My favorite? The heartrending lament of Mary, letting her son go into God's arms with The Last Goodbye: "You gave me some sway in his beginning | Why not his end? | Look at him. | I could never kiss away | half those bruises."

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Lent Read 37: ORCHARDS by Holly Thompson

Holly Thompson masterfully offers two of my favorite distinctives in an excellent literary novel: a rich sense of place and a protagonist so real you've acquired her as a friend by the end of the story.



In ORCHARDS (Delacorte), we're transported to an orange grove in rural Japan with all five senses engaged. We explore layers of grief, anger, courage, and hope in a world shattered by suicide through the sometimes funny, sometimes heartbroken, always honest voice of half-Japanese, half-Jewish American eighth-grader Kana Goldberg.



I enjoyed the confidence Kana displayed when describing her mixed cultural heritage: "They seem to think |
I can just switch |
one half of me |
on |
and leave the other |
half of me |
off |
but I'm like |
warm water |
pouring from a faucet |
the hot |
and cold |
both flowing |
as one." Thompson isn't Japanese but has lived there for years, so the novel's take on the culture from the perspective of an outsider with insider relationships and privileges rings true.



I read through this lovely novel in verse in one setting, and so will most teen readers. I wasn't at all surprised to discover in the author's note that the novel reflects the nuanced, culturally-savvy editorial skills of Random House's Françoise Bui (who edited my own Monsoon Summer and Secret Keeper). ORCHARDS won the 2012 APALA Asian/​Pacific Award for Literature and received a starred review in School Library Journal.

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Lent Reads 35 and 36: BEN AND THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION and GRANDMA COMES TO STAY

In BEN AND THE EMANCIPATION PROCLAMATION (Eerdmans), Pat Sherman and Floyd Cooper transport readers straight into the days of slavery with the true story of Benjamin Holmes, a boy who teaches himself to read despite that fact that reading is a forbidden activity for slaves. When Holmes reads the words of Lincoln's proclamation to other freed slaves, hearts are bound to be stirred.





From the UK's Frances Lincoln Children's Books comes this pictorial story of a family in Ghana by Ifeoma Onyefulu. Children growing up with stereotypes about life in Africa will be pleasantly surprised by the similarities between their own homes and families and the home and family of three-year-old Stephanie, who eagerly awaits the visit of her beloved grandmother.

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Lent Reads 33 and 34: UNDERGROUND and WALKING HOME TO ROSIE LEE

Spare, tense, and ultimately joyful, Shane W. Evans masterfully paints the vigilance and fear of travelers escaping slavery via the underground railroad.





A, LaFaye and Keith D. Shepherd continue the story of emancipation with a depiction of the desperate search for family members after freedom.

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2012 IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Award

The IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Award , initiated by the International Board on Books for Young People and sponsored by the Japanese newspaper company, Asahi Shimbun, is given every two years to two groups or projects making a lasting contribution to reading promotion for children and young people. The 2012 awards were announced on March 19th at the
Bologna Children's Book Festival, and the winners are:



Abuelas Cuentacuentos (Storytelling
Grandmothers), Argentina. This program is aimed at inspiring a love of reading in the country's poorest children. Elderly people visit schools, orphanages, and hospitals to read stories aloud to children. These volunteers, mainly unemployed women between the ages of 50 and 70, delight in this new and productive way of sharing their time, affection, and talents as storytellers. 





SIPAR, Cambodia. During the regime of the Khmer Rouge all books had been destroyed and their creators killed. No publishing houses existed in the country. In 2000,
SIPAR (already working to build libraries across the country) started training workshops for publishing, writing, and illustration, mostly for children's books. Today SIPAR has a small Cambodian-run publishing department which has published 70 titles and printed 130,000 free copies for the 200 SIPAR libraries and students at teacher training colleges.






Here are all seventeen wonderful projects nominated for the 2012 IBBY-Asahi Award:



Abuelas Cuentacuentos : Grandmother Storytelling Programme, Argentina, proposed by IBBY Argentina
New Education Kids' Reading Promotion Plan, China, proposed by IBBY China
SIPAR, Cambodia, proposed by IBBY France and supported by IBBY Switzerland
Room to Read, proposed by IBBY Germany
Aikaterini Laskaridis Foundation and Library, Pireaus, proposed by IBBY Greece
PaanPoee Vachanalay, Pune, proposed by IBBY India
Give us Books, Give us Wings, Iran, proposed by IBBY Iran
Nati per Leggere / Born to Read, Italy, proposed by IBBY Italy
Sod Nomun / Nomadic library, Mongolia, proposed by IBBY Mongolia
Kelompok Pencinta Bacaan Anak / Society for the Advancement of Children's Literature, Indonesia, proposed by IBBY Netherlands
Institución Educativa Parroquial Cristina Beatriz, Lima, proposed by IBBY Peru
Slovene Reading Badge: Crossing Boundaries to All Kinds of Minorities, proposed by IBBY Slovenia
Llibre Obert, Spain, proposed by IBBY Spain
White Elephant / Domrei Sor, Phnom Penh, Cambodia, proposed by IBBY Sweden
Book Aid International: Book Corners, Kenya and Tanzania, proposed by IBBY UK
Dagdag Dunong Project, Manila, Philippines. proposed by IBBY USA
Lubuto Library, Zambia, proposed by IBBY USA and supported by IBBY Zambia

The next award will be in 2014 with applications due spring 2013. If you know of a project you would like considered or would like to read more about this award, go to your national section of IBBY. For those in the United States, contact members of the USBBY Asahi Reading Promotion Award Committee. I'm on the committee, so you can contact me or better yet, send an email to Pamela Jewett, chair of this year's committee. You may also download an application from the University of Arizona School of Education's Worlds of Words website.



The 2012 jury:






Jury Chair
Mingzhou Zhang (China), Marilar Aleixandre (Spain), Hasmig Chahinian
(France), Wally de Doncker (Belgium), Jehan Helou (Palestine), and
Kiyoko Matsuoka (Japan).




The prize money of US
$10,000 for each winning project will be presented at the 33rd IBBY
Congress in London, UK, at a special festive occasion on Thursday, 23 August 2012 at Imperial College London.

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Favorable Odds to Jumpstart your Kid/YA Writing Career!

Tired of huge conferences? Try this intimate class of ten or so at the Highlights Foundation's wonderful new retreat center, with editors Alvina Ling of Little Brown and Stacy Whitman of Tu Books/Lee and Low, authors Donna Jo Napoli, Kathy Erskine, and me. The odds are ever in your favor, people.



One-on-one critiques and guided writing workshops are included, and the drive from Boston or New York isn't bad at all. The chance of a lifetime to jumpstart your career! I know the tuition's steep, but there is financial aid, and you've got to invest in yourself somewhere, right? Here's our tentative schedule to entice you:













Creating
an Authentic Cultural Voice

April
26-29, 2012

Workshop
Leaders: Donna Jo Napoli and Mitali Perkins

Special
Guests: Alvina Ling, Stacy Whitman, and Kathy Erskine




Thursday,
April 26, 2012

5:30 PM                      Hors d'oeuvres

6:30
PM                      Dinner and
Welcome, Mitali Perkins




Friday, April 27

7:30 AM                     Breakfast        

8:30 AM                     The Pillars of Writing Culturally with
Mitali Perkins

10:00 AM                   Writing exercise with Donna Jo Napoli

12:00 PM                    Lunch 


1:00 PM                      One-on-ones

4:00 PM                      Writing exercise TBA

5:30 p.m.                     Hors d'oeurves

6:00 p.m.                     Dinner, Stacy Whitman, speaker




Saturday, April 28

7:30 AM                     Breakfast        

8:30 AM                     Who Has the Right to Write
Multiculturally with Donna Jo Napoli

10:00 AM                   Writing exercise with Alvina Ling

12:00 PM                    Lunch 


1:00 PM                      One-on-ones

4:00 PM                      Writing exercise TBA

5:30 p.m.                     Hors d'oeurves

6:00 p.m.                     Dinner, Kathy Erskine, speaker and book signing




Sunday, April 29

7:30 AM                     Breakfast        

8:30 AM                     Writing exercise with Mitali Perkins (dialog)

11:00 AM                   Final Comments from faculty

12:00 PM                    Lunch and Departures

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Lent Read 31 and 32: YOU CAN BE A FRIEND by Tony and Lauren Dungy | YASMIN'S HAMMER by Ann Malaspina, Illustrated by Doug Chayka

An inspiring story about a Bangladeshi girl who wants to go to school but must work as a bricklayer. Thanks to hard work and a loving family, Yasmin's dream comes true. I hope with all my heart that she is representative of the children we'd see in Dhaka working from dawn
to dusk. A wonderful read; highly recommended.





Finally! A picture book featuring a suburban African-American family that has nothing to do with slavery or racism. The message about friendship is beautifully told.

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Lent Read 29 and 30: WILL YOU BE MY FRIEND? and POLLY HOPPER'S POUCH

Last week was full of speaking and preparation for a weekend retreat, so my kind son dashed to the library, grabbed a few picture books, and kept my Lent practice alive. Here are the first two he chose:





"What in the world is this thing? Oh, now I get it."



Bird needs a nest. Bunny to the rescue!

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