Melissa Wiley's Blog, page 143
March 7, 2011
We've read all this year's Cybils fiction picture book finalists!
How's your Cybils Shortlist Reading Challenge booklist coming along?
So far, I've read 19 of the 76 titles—most of them in the Fiction Picture Book and YA Fiction categories, the former because I have three picture-book-devouring younguns at the moment (and some of their big sisters have been known to listen in), the latter because I was part of the panel that drew up the list. We're doing pretty well with the beginning readers, too; there's another batch arriving for us at the library any day now.
Since we've now had the pleasure of reading all seven books on the fiction picture book shortlist, I thought I'd do a little roundup here.
A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Philip Christian Stead.
Rilla and I are in love. What a sweet, gentle, quirky story. Amos is an elderly fellow who works at the zoo, where he always makes time to visit with his friends. Chess with elephant, a race with tortoise, a quiet moment shared with a shy penguin. When Amos stays home sick one day, his animal pals (and a floating red balloon) set off to find him. Rilla giggled the whole way through this lovely, quiet book. "Again, again!" she begged the moment we finished. The second time through, she lingered over the pictures, murmuring over winsome details. It was this year's Caldecott Winner, and I see why. The art is delicate and sweetly atmospheric, and full of tiny surprises. I'll be giving this one as a gift, often and often.
Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra Stein.
Fantastic. A chicken lass can't help but chime in when the stories her Papa's reading get tense. Papa keeps trying new fairy tales—Hansel and Gretel, Chicken Little, Little Red Riding Hood—in hopes the little red chicken will settle down and get sleepy, but every time the story gets rolling, the energetic chick catapults herself into the tale and warns the main characters before they stray into danger. Wonderfully funny and absolutely true to life (except, of course, that they're chickens). 2010 Caldecott Honor book and the winner of the CYBIL in this category.
Here's the book trailer if you'd like a peek between the pages:
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A Beach Tail by Karen Lynn Williams, illustrated by Floyd Cooper.
Gregory's dad tells him not to go into the water, and not to stray too far away from the lion Greg has drawn in the sand. Gregory draws the lion's tale longer and longer, veering around a jellyfish and a horseshoe crab, swooping over an old sandcastle and beyond. When he realizes Dad is lost in the mass of beach umbrellas, Gregory follows Sandy Lion's tail back to its body—and there's Dad, watching all the while. Gorgeous art and simple text; both Rilla and Wonderboy took a real fancy to this one. Just now, as I was writing this, Rilla peered over my shoulder at the cover and asked if we could get it back from the library.
I've already written about the other four Cybils picture book finalists here, but I'll paste those notes in this post just to keep them all in one place.
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Jiminy crickets, what art! Amazing expressions on the kids, especially when they're running in terror from the T Rex…Rilla and Wonderboy were transfixed by this one. The magic of chalk that brings drawings to life, the dramatic turn of events, the clever solution. A wordless story, which is something Rilla always enjoys.
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The Cow Loves Cookies by Karma Wilson.
Silly, funny, sweet. Very satisfying for Rilla and Wonderboy. A rollicking rhymed text that isn't torture to read, and the joke at the end went over big. (From this post on Jan. 30, 2011.)
Flora's Very Windy Day by Jeanne Birdsall—that's right, the Penderwicks author has written a picture book!
Rilla and I were quite surprised to find ourselves and Huck in the opening pages of this book. I mean, really, it's like Matt Phelan was peeking in the window. A charming story, quite appealing to the four-year-old big sister in this household. (She wouldn't let Huck blow away either.) Flora is frustrated when baby brother Crispin gets into the paints and ruins Flora's picture. Their frazzled mama sends them outside to play, despite Flora's protests that the wind is too strong and will blow them away. Sure enough, a hearty gust scoops Crispin into the sky, and Flora must abandon her boots and go rescue him. Seems every high-flying creature in the big blue and beyond wants to claim Crispin—who is, admittedly, utterly irresistible in that long-tasseled hat—for a helper. Dragonfly, sparrow, eagle, rainbow, cloud, even the moon! Flora's exchanges with these entities quite enchanted my Rilla. And my goodness, Matt Phelan's art just blew me away.
Flora & Crispin will join Max & Ruby and Maggie B. & James in the company of great big sister-little brother pairs in children's literature. (From this post on Feb 22, 2011.)
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Shark Vs. Train by Chris Barton, illustrated by Tom Lichtenheld.
A perfect picture book, I tweeted the day I read it. "A perfect marriage of art and text" is a reviewer's cliche but by golly it's no overstatement in this case. Two little boys run for a toybox and brandish their selections in triumph and challenge. Shark vs. train—who wins? It depends…what's the competition? Pie-eating? Diving? Marshmallow roasting? The stakes keep escalating, to hilarious effect. Rilla and Wonderboy sit and pore over the art, which is sharp and comic and enchanting. I find myself wishing my nephews and nieces hadn't all grown up so much: this would be my birthday book of choice this year. (From this post in September 2010.)
March 6, 2011
Splitting the Pea
Jane takes a chemistry lab class once a week and last week she casually informed me that they had extracted DNA from split peas in class.
Me: Bwah?
Jane: Yep, with a blender.
Me: …
She told me how it worked and it sounded extremely cool and I asked for the directions. She found the experiment written up here, at the University of Utah's Genetic Science Learning Center (but warned me, as I shall now warn you, that the background color is an assault on the eyes).
What you need:Salt
Water
A small glass
A long toothpick or wooden stick
Detergent
A DNA source (split peas)
Contact lens solution
A blender
A measuring container
Rubbing alcohol
A test tube (optional)
Click through for instructions.
Mind: Blown
Wonderboy, inquiring about my evening plans: What will you do at twelve o'clock?
(We've already covered nine, ten, and eleven o'clock.)
Me: I'll go to bed, probably.
Rilla (gasps): Twelve o'clock at night?
Me: Yup.
Rilla, incredulous: You mean there are minutes in the night??
March 5, 2011
Saturday Links
• Home of Baggott & Asher & Bode: Glenda Baggott Tries to be a Tiger Grandma.
Her advice going off to grad school was this, "Don't fall in love with a poet." (I did so immediately.)
• McSweeney's Internet Tendency: An Open Letter to Madeleine L'Engle.
Please let me sit at your table in writer heaven, if I make it in. I'll bring tea—we'll read Henry Vaughan together, and I'll catch you up on all the scientific discoveries you missed. I'll show you where my novel gives a big shout-out to you, Ms. L'Engle.
• Betty Boop decision: Copyright trumps trademark | The Beat.
"This is actually pretty major. In recent years, Warner has used the active trademarks on Looney Tunes characters to quash third parties' reissues of PD 1930s/40s Looney Tunes content (of which there is a lot). If the Betty decision is not reversed on appeal, then Warner is stripped of its strongest weapon against the public domain. "
• Swati Avasthi on Getting the Male Voice Right
The power of imagination has been losing value on the stock market of ideas in this post-modern, post James-Frey, reality TV, search-for-credible-information age, where we focus on the writer's background. We ask, "What standing does the writer have to write their fiction?"
An actor once told me that when he used his imagination to get into his character, he would think of a piano: We all have the same 88 keys. The variations are infinite, but the notes are all the same. You just have to think about what notes this person plays loudest in their lives.
We use our imaginations, our ability to empathize, in order to bridge the gap between the known and the unknown. We find the notes in ourselves that we don't use and explore them.
• Another Princess Story — Knitting the Wind
She moved into the magician's castle, and they grew a beautiful garden, and used magic and courage and fiestiness to heal the ills of the kingdom as much as they could, and the princess would say later, in all honesty, that the magician was not handsome, and he had a terrible singing voice, and she'd had to do a lot of work on his communication skills – talk to me, don't just loom a black cloud over me, for heaven's sake – but all in all he was thank goodness interesting.
Terrible news.
Gratuitous morning walk photo:
March 4, 2011
Just the FAQ, Ma'am
Bet I'm the eleven thousandth person to make that (very weak) joke. Ah well, it's Friday night after Shakespeare Club and my brain is off duty.
Anyhoo (FAQ to my website, replacing the one that used to be part of my Books page. The new one is aimed more at kids, answering the most common questions I get in the mail (both kinds, e and snail), including "Are you related to Laura Ingalls Wilder?" and "Is Loch Caraid a real place?"
The Books page will be changing, too, in the months to come. I have three new books in the works: a beginning reader, a middle-grade novel, and a YA. The first two are written and with their editors now. The YA is in my head still, mostly, but is beginning to fall out onto the page. It's a stage of writing I enjoy very much (there are stages I don't like a bit, but they're usually where the best writing happens), the breathing-in part, that fraught moment just before you begin the long exhale.
Back to the FAQ (just the faq, Lissa, you promised!), if you have any Qs you would like me to A, fire away in the combox.
March 3, 2011
"Every audience gets that."
Just arrived from the library: Leonard Bernstein's Young People's Concert series, which aired on CBS from 1958 to 1973. Backed by the New York Philharmonic, playing to a packed house of children in Carnegie Hall, Bernstein conducts and chats his way through the marvels and mysteries of music.
Scott watched this series, bit by bit, years ago in our New York days. He recently discovered our library owns it, so we've got plans to immerse ourselves in these DVDs for the next few weeks.
The fun Mr. Bernstein has with the music and the audience reminds me of this wonderful Bobby McFerrin moment, which I think I've linked to before.
Moment :43 and the swell of laughter that follows is pure, real, unexpected joy. I'm thinking about it and it's hard to find examples of a crowd of adults reacting with such spontaneous and childlike delight. It's like the first time a baby takes up a crayon and makes a streak of color upon the paper or the wall. Magic just happened!
Mashup
I asked Rilla which book she wanted me to read to her: Interrupting Chicken or A Sick Day for Amos McGee.
She studied them for a moment, then jabbed one with her finger.
"I want An Interrupting Day for Chicken!"
(We read 'em both. Twice. They're both wonderful books—selected because of the Cybils Shortlist Reading Challenge—both were finalists; Interrupting Chicken took the prize—and also because Amos won the Caldecott medal and Chicken won an Honor. Don't miss them, even if you must do them one at a time.)
Rillabook and Daily Links
• How Do Dinosaurs Say Good Night? by Jane Yolen & Mark Teague. From our Rillabooks list. Technically it was Jane who read this one—11 times in a row—to her insistent little sister. That Jane, she's a keeper.
• How to write a sentence « Farm School. Becky's back, therefore I bookmark. And my TBR pile grows.
• A Year of Reading: Be Careful What Behaviors You Extinguish.
I let her keep doodling while I read, as a "consolation prize" for all the "incomprehensible English that was washing over her."
NOT.
March 2, 2011
More Fabulous than Movie Stars
From a delightful letter by two sixth-grade girls in Ohio:
"We are collecting autographed pictures of our favorite book people. Mrs. E[.] says people who make books are more fabulous than movie stars. We would go crazy if you sent us one for our author/illustrator 'Wall of Fame' we are creating, if it is not too much trouble."
It most certainly is not too much trouble. I'll be honored to share space on that wall with other fabulous folks! (And please tell Mrs. E. I really like her outlook.) 
March 1, 2011
Links to Share
• On deck « Farm School. For the TBR pile: The Semi-Attached Couple & The Semi-Detached House. Becky writes: "As the late great Noel Perrin wrote in his blurb on the back, 'The Semi-Attached Couple is the answer to a good many prayers. It is the book you go on to when you have run out of Jane Austen's novels.' "
• The right way to cook bacon in a pan – Boing Boing.
• Winners of the 2010 Cybils Awards. At School Library Journal: short summaries of all of this year's winners.
• Stacked: Why the Cybils Matter by Kelly Jensen, with whom it was a pleasure to serve on the 2010 YA fiction first-round panel.
• Mo Willems Doodles: WE ARE IN A BOOK! recieves 2011 CYBIL AWARD! Elephant and Piggie react to the news. 
• Gratuitous morning walk photo:
"It was sure nice to meet that lion."
