Monica Edinger's Blog, page 103

A Grimm Trailer

I haven't been shy about stating my enthusiasm for Adam Gidwitz's A Tale Dark and Grimm. The author is pretty awesome too. He's visited my class already and is coming back over the next two weeks to work with all of our fourth grade classes. We can't wait!  And now his book has an appropriately spooky trailer.

Wise Words from Kirkus Children's Books Editor Vicky Smith

I hasten to add that the Newbery Medal is a bit of a false god. It is extraordinarily difficult for one group of 15 people to anoint The One book that is "the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children," and everyone I know who's ever served on the committee (myself included), has wished it could pick, say, 15 or 20 distinguished contributions. Just because a book doesn't go home from ALA with a sticker on it does not mean it is unworthy of attention or love. This year in particular was a banner year for the traditional Newbery readership of 8- to 14–year-olds, and I urge people interested in exploring beyond the Newbery to take a look at our list of the Best Children's Books of 2010. I think I would've been very happy to see any number of other titles go home with the Newbery.

via And the Winner is… | Kirkus Book Reviews.

Today Show — No Newbery and Caldecott Award Winners?

Please, please don't tell me Snookie bumped the Newbery and Caldecott winners from yesterday's Today Show (as someone suggested to me on twitter when I wondered about the absence).  Hoping they might be on today I did a search, but there is nothing.  Not even something to inform those on the site about the winners.   As clumsy as some of those brief interviews from the past were they sure brought the award and children's books to a much bigger audience than we ever could.

SLJ's Battle of the Kids Books 2011

With yesterday's announcements it is easy to think that we are now done with 2010 books and on to those of 2011.  But not so fast.  This year's Battle of the Kids Books (more commonly known as the BoB) is revving up! The contenders were selected in December, the judges are all in place, a new blog in the works, and an official announcement is forthcoming any day now. Just as there were surprises galore at yesterday's Youth Media Awards press conference, count on a few when the BoB's 2011 list of contenders is unveiled.  While waiting (and it won't be long now, I promise!) do check out last year's blog for more on how it all works.  For example, from the BoB FAQ, here's how we come up with the list:

Each year Monica, Roxanne, and Jonathan start emailing each other in the fall with numerous versions of the list of contenders.  The first year, even before we made up our long list, we spent a lot of time considering criteria.  For example, how would a picture book fare against a YA novel?  Recognizing that there had to be some form of unity among the books on the roster we decided that the "fairest" thing was to select titles for a similar audience (middle grade, middle school, and high school readers). Once that was settled we spent many weeks working on a very long list that was winnowed down to the final 16 contenders in early December.

As to which titles finally are included each year – we won't bore you with the details of the dozens of emails and negotiations between the three of us.  Suffice it to say that we look both objectively and subjectively, considering fan favorites, awards, stars, and our own critical views, keeping in mind that no matter which two books are paired together no single title can be an obvious winner.

Of course, as is inevitable when such a list is made, blood is shed; each of the three of us has had to leave behind favorites on this particular battlefield, but we always end up pleased with the range and diversity of the final list.

The Quiet Before the Announcements

In less than 24 hours members of the 2011 Newbery and Caldecott Committees will be doing one of the coolest things ever — call their winners. And then shortly after that they will be at the press conference where the rest of us will learn of their decisions.  Today everyone involved will try to be nonchalant, try to go about their regular lives, and think of other things.  And tonight — I can only imagine how hard it must be to attempt to sleep with the knowledge that it just might be you that will get that call and then how hard to go on when you don't.  My heart goes out to everyone involved this anxious day.  And my very best to all the writers, illustrators, editors, publishers, designers, marketers, publicists, agents and everyone else who work to create these wonderful books, these wonderful works of art, for children.

The Problem with Protection

Whenever I read about another effort to protect the young from historical nastiness (the latest being the new edition of Mark Twain's The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn with "the pejorative racial labels" removed), I think of Roald Dahl's "Pig" a very creepy story for adults.  In it a child is raised in isolation as a vegetarian and has an epiphany as an adult when first encountering meat.  Wanting to know more about this wonderful new food he goes to a slaughter house and….well, go find and read the story if you want to know what happens.  Suffice it to say it is a cautionary tale about keeping hard realities from children.

The Twain flap also makes me think of Susan Campbell Bartoletti's They Called Themselves the K.K.K., a book for children that is full of those "pejorative racial labels" in the oral histories, interviews, and other primary sources that Bartoletti employs with extraordinary heft and power.

History ain't pretty, but that doesn't mean it shouldn't be known.

Yes!

The winner of the 2011 Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction is One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia, published by Amistad, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers.

via Read Roger: 2011 Scott O'Dell Award.

Anita Silvey's Children's Book-A-Day Almanac

With the start of a new year how about a Children's Book-A-Day Almanac?  This new-kid-on-the-blog-block from children's literature expert Anita Silvey is an elegant and informative site for anyone looking for smart children's book recommendations with a little something extra. As befits an almanac Anita begins each post with an intriguing fact about the day, goes on to provide a concise and clear description of the featured book (and when applicable something about the authors or publishing history) along with a quote or image, and ends with recommendations of related books. For example, she introduced Wanda Gág's Millions of Cats last month by noting that it was Cat Herding Day. I mean, who knew? As for the books themselves, they run a range from those recently published to old favorites.  Picture books, nonfiction, books for a wide range of ages  — Anita offers breadth and depth.  A cleanly designed and easy-to-navigate environment, there is a sidebar with a few more tidbits about the day as well as various ways to search for books of particular interest.

Curious to know more about the project I asked Anita a few questions:

What gave you the idea for doing an almanac?  It is a terrific structure, but challenging in that you have to post every day.

The Children's Book-A-Day Almanac was entirely the brainchild of Simon Boughton of Roaring Brook Press. He was considering a very ambitious book proposal of mine and also looking at almanacs for children. It occurred to him that the two ideas could be combined. Simon suggested that I post my essays on line as I developed them. As any journalist or blogger knows, daily publication forces you to read, research, write, and edit every day – no time for indecision or dallying. To some degree all my reference books – Everything I Need to Know I Learned from a Children's Book, 100 Best Books for Children, and 500 Great Books for Teens – have demanded a rigorous schedule. But in the case of the Almanac, I must produce a coherent essay each day.

The daily facts are fascinating — where do you find them?  Do you start with a particular book and then look for a daily fact to go with it or vice versa?

All kinds of data bases exist for holidays; as any good reference librarian can probably guess, I keep a copy of Chase's Calendar of Events by my desk. Sometimes the events of a day or month suggest a book to me; I also have scores of titles that I want to work into the Almanac during the year.

I'm loving the range of books, especially those good and decent ones from not-that-long-ago that may be a bit overlooked today.  Books like Andrew Clement's Frindle.  What is your thinking behind these book choices?

I always stress the classics because I don't want children to miss them. But I am keeping my eye out for great titles of the last twenty years. I have already taught, lectured about, or written about many of my selections; however, sometimes my thoughts about a book appear for the first time on the website. My passion for these books remains the consistent factor; I love every one of them.

I'm interested in your definition of "children." So far the books featured seem directed toward ages ten and younger. Any thought about also doing books for kids at a slightly older age, say that tricky "through fourteen" criteria that the Newbery award uses?

I am selecting books for infants through age 14. Each month I make sure that each age group – babies, preschool, elementary, and middle school — has suggestions for reading.

Is there anything you want to point out about the site for new visitors?

My mantra throughout my forty professional years has been Walter de la Mare's quote, "only the rarest kind of best in anything can be good enough for the young." I just hope that readers of the website enjoy learning about these books and the amazing people who created them.

Anita Silvey's Book-A-Day Almanac

With the start of a new year how about a Book-A-Day Almanac?  This new-kid-on-the-blog-block from children's literature expert Anita Silvey is an elegant and informative site for anyone looking for smart children's book recommendations with a little something extra. As befits an almanac Anita begins each post with an intriguing fact about the day, goes on to provide a concise and clear description of the featured book (and when applicable something about the authors or publishing history) along with a quote or image, and ends with recommendations of related books. For example, she introduced Wanda Gág's Millions of Cats last month by noting that it was Cat Herding Day. I mean, who knew? As for the books themselves, they run a range from those recently published to old favorites.  Picture books, nonfiction, books for a wide range of ages  — Anita offers breadth and depth.  A cleanly designed and easy-to-navigate environment, there is a sidebar with a few more tidbits about the day as well as various ways to search for books of particular interest.

Curious to know more about the project I asked Anita a few questions:

What gave you the idea for doing an almanac?  It is a terrific structure, but challenging in that you have to post every day.

The Children's Book-A-Day Almanac was entirely the brainchild of Simon Boughton of Roaring Brook Press. He was considering a very ambitious book proposal of mine and also looking at almanacs for children. It occurred to him that the two ideas could be combined. Simon suggested that I post my essays on line as I developed them. As any journalist or blogger knows, daily publication forces you to read, research, write, and edit every day – no time for indecision or dallying. To some degree all my reference books – Everything I Need to Know I Learned from a Children's Book, 100 Best Books for Children, and 500 Great Books for Teens – have demanded a rigorous schedule. But in the case of the Almanac, I must produce a coherent essay each day.

The daily facts are fascinating — where do you find them?  Do you start with a particular book and then look for a daily fact to go with it or vice versa?

All kinds of data bases exist for holidays; as any good reference librarian can probably guess, I keep a copy of Chase's Calendar of Events by my desk. Sometimes the events of a day or month suggest a book to me; I also have scores of titles that I want to work into the Almanac during the year.

I'm loving the range of books, especially those good and decent ones from not-that-long-ago that may be a bit overlooked today.  Books like Andrew Clement's Frindle.  What is your thinking behind these book choices?

I always stress the classics because I don't want children to miss them. But I am keeping my eye out for great titles of the last twenty years. I have already taught, lectured about, or written about many of my selections; however, sometimes my thoughts about a book appear for the first time on the website. My passion for these books remains the consistent factor; I love every one of them.

I'm interested in your definition of "children." So far the books featured seem directed toward ages ten and younger. Any thought about also doing books for kids at a slightly older age, say that tricky "through fourteen" criteria that the Newbery award uses?

I am selecting books for infants through age 14. Each month I make sure that each age group – babies, preschool, elementary, and middle school — has suggestions for reading.

Is there anything you want to point out about the site for new visitors?

My mantra throughout my forty professional years has been Walter de la Mare's quote, "only the rarest kind of best in anything can be good enough for the young." I just hope that readers of the website enjoy learning about these books and the amazing people who created them.

Boring or Not?

To get to the conference, Jo Lee took an hour's train ride from the seaside town of Brighton. She said it was worth it because her own idea of fun is to take photographs of random marks left on walls and of chewing gum stuck under desks.

"We're all overstimulated," said Ms. Lee. "I think it's important to stop all that for a while and see what several hours of being bored really feels like."

Boredom Enthusiasts Discover the Pleasures of Understimulation – WSJ.com.