Betsy Bird's Blog, page 309

July 10, 2013

Review of the Day: Battle Bunny by Jon Scieszka and Mac Barnett

Battle Bunny

By Mac Barnett and Jon Scieszka

Illustrated by Matthew Myers

Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers

$14.99

ISBN: 978- 1442446731

Ages 4-8

On shelves October 22nd

Remember Duck Amuck? I am referring of course to that old Looney Tunes short where Daffy Duck came to the realization that his fourth wall is a bit . . . faulty. Watching that short, as Daffy is being rubbed out of existence by an eraser I like to think about those kids seeing the short for the first time. Maybe amongst them there are some kids who feel this is a keen bit of transgression. Maybe some are shocked by the fact that unspoken rules are being broken left and right. Or (more likely) maybe they all just go with it. Kids get over shocks to their systems amazingly fast. But even the most jaded amongst them will have to pause for half a second as they take in the brand new picture book Battle Bunny by Jon Scieszka, Mac Barnett, and Matthew Myers. Talk about forbidden territory! Here we have a book that espouses the freedom to create over the old established (and, quite frankly, achingly poorly written) order. Parents and children have fought the disparate concepts of creativity vs. law & order since the first toddler took a crayon in a chubby little hand and created a masterpiece on the dining room walls. Battle Bunny just cranks that fight up to eleven.

Open this book and you’ll see the following inscription written in a flowery hand. “Happy Birthday, Alexander! To my little birthday bunny on his special day. Love, Gran Gran.” It quickly becomes apparent that Gran Gran’s present to Alex, a poor man’s Little Golden Book-esque bit of schlock called Birthday Bunny was evidently not doing it for her beloved grandson. The entire book looks as though it has been scribbled with a thick black pencil. These aren’t random scribbles though. Oh me, oh my, no. Alex has vastly improved what once was a limp tale about a bunny that thinks everyone has forgotten his very special day. Under Alex’s hand sentences are reworded, illustrations are updated, and the new plot concerns a bunny supervillain bent on world destruction. The only one who can stop him? A boy conveniently named Alex who is the only one with sufficient chops to take the bunny down.

Barnett has always tended to follow in the footsteps of his mentor, Mr. Scieszka, which is to be expected. He burst onto the scene a couple years ago with picture books that worked to upset the standard expectations. Guess Again mocks the guessing game picture book, Count the Monkeys does the same with counting books, and Chloe and the Lion makes fun author/illustrator collaborations. Scieszka himself is the merry jester of the form, taking picture subversion to a whole other level with books like The Stinky Cheese Man and The True Story of the Three Little Pigs. Put the two together and where does that get you? Well apparently what happens is that the two get bored with the whole fourth wall idea. Apparently it’s not GOOD enough for them anymore! They want to go bigger and bolder. They want to incorporate 21st century mash-up culture with this new generation of visual learners so as to make a book that becomes interactive in whole new ways. End result: Battle Bunny.

The selection of Matthew Myers as artist was particularly interesting to me here. He’s not a usual suspect when you think about other Scieszka and Barnett collaborations. Normally those guys are far more likely to be paired with a Lane Smith or an Adam Rex or maybe even a David Shannon. But looking at what Myers has done in the past, the choice makes a certain amount of sense. It was Myers who illustrated Erin Cabatingan’s two Musk Ox books (both titles unafraid to muck with the picture book format right there). Here he creates art that could be best described as Garth Williams meets Dav Pilkey. The meticulous level of detail is honestly insane. Even when you turn the book over and look at the back cover you can see that every single tiny bunny gracing the top of the cover has been gracefully perverted into a killer, a spy, or a fart machine. Even the first shot of the bunny hero of this book, which an initial glance would appear to be free of Alex’s shenanigans, hides a couple “improvements” here and there. Let’s just say Beatrix Potter would not approve.

It’s also hard not to enjoy a book where the creators are having such a bloody good time. What’s evident from the cover onward is how much Scieszka & Co. are enjoying their jobs. First there’s the question of coming up with a picture book plot worthy of tearing into proverbial shreds. As a children’s librarian I can assure you that the old everyone-forgot-my-birthday-oh-wait-no-they-didn’t shtick is as old as the hills and twenty times as saccharine. If Scieszka and Barnett are ever inclined to write a sequel to this I suggest they deface a story about a little bunny that wants to dance ballet but all the forest animals tell him he can’t. That would be the OTHER overdone picture book plot out there. So you’ve the subject matter as well as the actual writing and overwriting itself. The book had to be believable and the overlaid text equally so. THEN they had to get an artist on board with this madness. It had to be someone capable of drawing not just a mockery of ootsy-cutesy bunny tales, but also a realistic kid/stick drawing style. Put all those elements together and the end product works. I did find myself wishing I could see the original “Birthday Bunny” pages first, but them’s the breaks, kid.

All this begs the question: Is this book good in its own right or is this just a case of cleverness for cleverness’s sake? Because clever it most certainly is. Not just the concept itself, but the execution. But is it clever with hope that adults will ooh and ahh over the technical aspects of the form, or will kids “get it” too? According to reliable sources, the best way to read this book aloud is to read the “original” cute sections first, then follow it up with a reading of the Battle Bunny parts. That gives a really good sense of what’s being done on the page. And maybe I’m wrong about this, but this book has the potential to blow their little minds. At its best the book will do precisely what its critics most fear. It will inspire children to “improve” books, websites, photographs, and other forms of media on their own. Directed in the right way this energy could be immensely creative. After all, how far a step is it from the child who updates preexisting narratives to the child to makes up stories of their own. You heard it here first then: Battle Bunny is fan fiction for the elementary school set. Admittedly one wonders how many kids will repeatedly read Battle Bunny after the first thrill. Still, the violent storyline is enticing in its own way and certainly some readers will pore over the changes, marveling at how sentences and scenes could be changed so dramatically.

Not since The Incredible Book Eating Boy has there been a book so prone to accidental weeding in libraries nationwide. Book Eating Boy has a bite taken out of the corner of its cover, and we librarians spent half our days rescuing that title from the discard box thanks to our overly enterprising pages. Battle Bunny is doomed to suffer this same fate. Just look at it. Tell me that those unfamiliar with its cheeky subtext won’t be tossing it in the trash upon spotting it on a shelf. Pity the occasional child who will be interrogated by a clerk about how this book came to be so horribly defaced. Consider too the parents, librarians, teachers, and more who will object to this book on moral grounds. A book that encourages drawing in books? Horrors! Maybe it’s crazy that I don’t feel the same way. I dunno. Reading through it, the lesson I took away was that insipid picture books that talk down to their audiences deserve what they get. If a book doesn’t respect the child reader, kids will know and they’ll resent the book for it. Barnett and Scieszka strike that immensely difficult balance between what kids enjoy and what adults enjoy. They respect their readers’ intelligence and end up with remarkably interesting books as a result. Whether or not Battle Bunny takes off and inspires copycats or disappears without some much as a whisper remains to be seen. At the very least, it’s gonna blow a few minds. And that’s gotta be worth something right there. A pip.

On shelves October 22nd.

Source: F&G sent from publisher for review.

Notes on the Summary: Many picture books today contain one-sentence summaries of their plots on their publication pages. These are, if I am not too much mistaken, written by the fine upstanding folks at The Library of Congress. Pity then whatever poor soul it was who had to summarize this book in a single sentence. Honestly, I think they did a pretty dang good job when they wrote the following: “Alex, whose birthday it is, hijacks a story about a Birthday Bunny on his special day and turns it into a battle between a supervillain and his enemies in the forest – who, in the original story, are simply planning a surprise party.” Phew! Well played, sir or madam.

Like This? Then Try:

Once Upon a Cool Motorcycle Dude by Kevin O’Malley

Chester by Melanie Watt

Bad Day at Riverbend by Chris Van Allsburg

Interviews: Mac and Jon head on over to Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast to explain their thought process on this one.

Misc: Monica Edinger presents an alternate way of reading this book with kids at Educating Alice.

Video:

Not even out yet and already it has its first fan video. Impressive.

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Published on July 10, 2013 01:00

July 8, 2013

American Library Association Annual Conference Thoughts and Recaps: 2013 Edition (Part Two)

In which our heroine discovers the true price of donning the outwear of men

and takes horrendous advantage of a blood relation

Saturday morning bloomed bright and clear. The perfect weather for lugging yourself out of bed at an ungodly hour. At past ALAs I’ve eschewed publishers’ breakfasts since they have a tendency to occur earlier than I prefer to rouse myself. This year, however, I was just as moved by the prospect of a tasty muffin or two as I was by the fact that because I have a book out this spring with Harper Collins I was now obliged to wear my author cap and sing for my supper. Fortunately the breakfast was just across the river from my hotel room so I stumbled over in shoes that were cutting into my feet in entirely new and exciting ways. The breakfast went swimmingly and I got a chance to meet, albeit briefly, the notorious (in the best sense) Colby Sharp. He is like a minnow, he is! Darting about faster than you can blink. As I waded through a delicious breakfast that may or may not have included more than one chocolate muffin (mum’s the word on that one) he appeared in a scant second, introduced himself, and then *poof* disappeared before I was able to form my sleepy tongue into so much as a coherent blurg. The only conclusion I can reach from this is that I am truly terrifying in the early morning. I now have evidence to back this up.

Harper Collins was not obliged to, but they kindly gave me a quickie ride to the conference center where I was slated to sign my book that morning. I was signing at the same time as Mo Willems and a couple other luminaries, so I was prepared to just chat up the passersby. In fact (and this is true) it has been a secret desire of mine to chat up passersby at a desk at ALA for years. How fun would it be to just have a desk somewhere where lots of people can come and talk to you? I half want to have my own booth at the next conference with a big banner reading, “TALK TO A MATERIALS SPECIALIST FOR FUN” and me planted firmly beneath it. Can you tell I miss reference work?

Anyway, I planted myself at my little signing desk and promptly managed to knock a very large bottle water over so that it proceeded to soak the conference floor carpet. My poor editor rescued it, but not before I managed to create a little swampy pool that undoubtedly was going to swallow up whosoever was so unlucky to step there next. Despite that, however, I had a lovely signing. I sold out of my books (woot!) and started pulling galleys of it out of my bag to sign for fun. I also had my first signing flub, where I messed up someone’s name. But even then, someone bought THAT copy, and cleverly suggested I turn the flub into a little drawing. Whatta gal!

After that I finally had a chance to do the conference floor for myself. It was a good year. I already had a lot of the books on display so I was free to just flit about like a little butterfly. In this way I managed to procure:

A button of Buster Keaton as a child, compliments of Matt Phelan’s booth in Artist’s Alley.
A copy of Tim Tingle’s How I Became a Ghost: A Choctaw Trail of Tears Story which recently received a star from Kirkus but was on backorder at both Ingram and Baker & Taylor. I was assured there were plenty of copies in stock. Phew!
A copy of The Other Side of Free by Krista Russell from Peachtree Publishers. You will recall my earlier post this year about the shocking lack of male black protagonists in 2013 middle grade fiction. This is one of the few I didn’t know about and it concerns the too little known fact that around the early 1700s slaves would escape south to the Spanish territories.
Other assorted ephemera.

I mostly hung out with the smaller publishers since they’re so much fun and come up with some really great stuff, if you’re willing to track them down. I couldn’t hang out too long, however, since I was slated to lunch with Little, Brown. I did manage to swing by Paul Pope’s table, of course, for a signed galley of Battling Boy. Mm. Then it was over to the shuttle buses and to a steakhouse. It would have been a crime against man to spend all this time in Chicago and NOT eat some form of cow. At least that’s how I sold it to myself. It was a lunch with Peter Brown, Jerry Pinkney, and Jon Klassen so . . . yeah. Kind of fabulous. All three talked about their respective 2013 books (The Dark, The Tortoise and the Hare, and Mr. Tiger Goes Wild). In doing so they pointed out aspects to the books you’d never notice on your own. For example, you know that moment in The Dark where Milo holds up the lightbulb? Well, apparently if you turn the page that same lightbulb is plugged into the wall as a nightlight and were you to cut one lightbulb out it would take out the other. They are precisely on the opposite page of one another.

I worked in a little more conference floor work and, amongst other things, witnessed James Kennedy and his 90-Second Newbery talk. Beautiful stuff. It was standing room only for the Kennedy man, as well it should have been. I was able to acquire a newfound appreciation for The Story of Mankind too. I always liked the video, but . . . well, you just have to see it for yourself.

Then it was off to a Chronicle cocktail party. And not just any cocktail party, mind you. Chronicle, you see, has just turned 25, so they wanted to celebrate in style. To do so they commissioned a whole slew of fantastic artists ranging from Herve Tullet and Nina Laden to Tom Lichtenheld and Taro Gomi to draw a version of their glasses logo. Then we were each given a ticket to place in the bowl of whichever art we preferred to win. I admittedly went for the Sophie Blackall because even out of context it was a beauty. However, I do not win things usually and this time was no exception. I WAS happy to see Mary Ann Scheuer of Great Kids Books win the Melissa Sweet stuff, though.

After that a delightful dinner with Bloomsbury with the chance of meeting and getting to talk to Megan Frazer Blakemore. You may recall that I’m quite over the moon with her The Water Castle. The dinner was delicious and the company charming, though I worry I may have bored my tablemates senseless with an explanation of the name of this blog. It involves a 1989 Buick Century. I’ll tell you about it someday.

And since all of THAT could not be enough it was off to the Simon & Schuster dessert party. A hopping joint if ever there was one I was happy to mingle with some folks I hadn’t seen in a long time. I would say that the highlight was Walter the Giant kissing my hand but that high point was trumped at the very last minute by three young women. Sleep deprived and packed to the gills with pudding I had some difficulty figuring out who they were. Whosoever they might have professed to be, they informed me that not only did they love my picture book but that they had read it aloud to the UPS guy. As far as compliments go, that’s pretty much as good as it gets. I was walking on air the whole way home. Later research revealed that one of them was Melissa of The Classroom Library Company. So Melissa, please pass along my compliments to your pretty companions and yourself. You made my conference right there.

The next day was Sunday and that could mean only one thing: The Newbery/Caldecott Banquet.

Faithful readers will recall that in the past I’ve gotten a bit creative with my clothing choices. Whether it was tattoos (a band of covers on one arm one year (I find it’s more fun to watch if you turn the sound off), then two arms and the chest with photos of the winners involved, and then circles of covers on arms and legs and slinky words down an arm causing me to look like nothing so much as the victim of some highly literary splotchy disease) or Shrinky Dink jewelry, I’ve made a point of getting a bit complex with my ideas. And this year the bar was very high indeed. With the Caldecott hitting its 75th birthday I was faced with the prospect of showing up in a room where everyone else was wearing as much kooky fare as myself. My response? Time to tone everything down. As much as I still would like to wear a dress made out of those ribbons they hand out on the conference floor (I say I’ll do this at every single conference, but I have yet to collect any at all for this purpose) or a gown of discarded card catalog cards, now was not the time. Now was the moment to class up the joint. In short: To tux it up.

Turns out, if you are a woman and walk into a Men’s Warehouse asking for a tux, they do not even blink twice. You get measured, sign all the appropriate forms, and that is that. So it was that I found myself in possession of a tuxedo on Sunday. What I did not have, was a hat.

You see, my entire idea was to wear something that represented each of that year’s current crop of Newbery winners. That meant an outfit consisting of:

A tuxedo…

For One Cool Friend

A creepy carrot in the lapel…

For Creepy Carrots

A pair of tiger gloves

For Sleep Like a Tiger

And for Green, Extra Yarn, and This Is Not My Hat? For those, I figured I’d get all three in one blow. Just go over to etsy and buy myself a green knit fascinator (that’s the name for those tiny hats out there). Nothing could be easier, right?

Wrong. Turns out I must have seen those fascinators sometime around St. Patrick’s Day. When I looked again recently they were nowhere to be seen. In fact, I had a devil of a time finding what I needed. And then . . . I saw him.

He’s described as “Ironic Steampunk Hipster Octopus Crochet Fascinator Headband”. Could anything be more perfect? Okay. Admittedly if he were a fish he’d be better. But at least an octopus is an underwater denizen. Trouble is, he was handmade and, worse, wouldn’t arrive in my home before I left for Chicago. The solution? Well… did I ever tell you that I have a brother? A brother who lives in Chicago? A brother who lives in Chicago who is willing to trek over to a hotel downtown in spite of the fact that he lives all the way over in Andersonville to deliver to his sister an octopus hat? And for all that all he got a signed Paul Pope graphic novel that wasn’t even inscribed to him.

And that wasn’t even the worst thing I made the poor guy do. But more on that later.

Sunday consisted of meeting with publishers like Marissa Moss, Claudia Zoe Bedrick, and going over edits with co-writer Jules Danielson. Then lunch with Schwartz & Wade and a quick pop over to the convention center before the sound check at the Newbery/Caldecott Banquet. Hat? Check. Tux? Check. Spectator shoes that I love more than life itself? Check and check.

You’ll recall from my video with Jim Averbeck that along with author Kristin Clark we would once more be doing the Red Carpet interview series. This time it was with the full blessing of ALSC and a jazzy as all get out backdrop. I learned the following facts while getting changed:

Women’s bodies are different from those of men. When wearing a tux you can get the pants on over your bee-hind just fine, but those white button up shirts are no good. They do not allow for hips. And the coats do not expect you to have anything going on in the chest area whatsonever.
Ties are the work of the devil himself. And me without even an adam’s apple. Poor fellers.
When the nice woman at Men’s Warehouse asks if you want suspenders you say yes. Even with a full set of hips I had a hard time keeping those darn things from slipping downward

A pretty darn good recap of all the outfits on display at the banquet can be found here. I’m fairly easy to find here:

And here’s a more flattering shot of the hat itself:

Its sole flaw was that folks kept asking me if I made it myself. I have no such skills in this arena. So no. Disappointing, I know.

Then it was time to interview. Initially I was just slated to do four, but I had the innate advantage of knowing who folks were, so more often than not they’d toss me somebody huge. My first person? Patricia Polacco. So right there that set the tone. I had to keep everything to five minutes, and thanks to my stellar librarian training I was able to meet the goal pretty close to the mark. We’ll be editing the interview footage soon, so I’ll be able to tell you who all I spoke to later. I do know that I must have spoken to Sheila Turnage:

Thanks to Kathy Dawson for the images.

And there was a moment with Paul O. Zelinsky:

Thanks to Alison A. Ernst for that one.

And Rocco Staino:

Thanks to Ed Spicer for that one.

After a surprisingly fast cocktail hour I realized that I was slated to sit at the Harper Collins table but had no idea where it actually was. This can be a bit of a problem since walking into the Newbery/Caldecott Banquet you are instantly struck by the sheer size of the room. So many tables. So many industry types. My brain realized that since the Newbery winner that year was Harper Collins, the chances were good that they’d be somewhere at the front of the room. Indeed as I stumbled towards the head table I met the eye of the aforementioned Mr. Zelinsky. He indicated the chair next to him which just so happened to have my name on it. Bonus! So it was I whiled away a pleasant night with him, some charming Newbery committee members I hadn’t known before, my editor Virginia Duncan, Kevin Henkes and (I believe) Laura Dronzek.

What can I say about the awards that hasn’t been recapped for you elsewhere? At the lunch the day before Mr. Klassen had wondered what sort of hat he should wear to the banquet. I was surprised then to see him there at the head table without a hat in sight. Fortunately this was remedied when he stood up to give his speech and doffed a Blackhawks cap along the way. The speech had me scared at first, since he began by thanking his best beloved. “Is it just going to be thanks and nothing more?” I wondered to myself. No fears. The talk transitioned smoothly into a lovely speech, peppered with real honest-to-god humility at his great good luck (though one might point out that talent had a bit to do with it as well).

Jon’s speech was followed soon thereafter by Katherine Applegate for the Newbery. As she spoke she had the distinction, not of being the first Newbery winner to write romance novels (I know of at least one other), but of being the first to read the particularly egregious parts aloud in her acceptance speech. As she spoke she brought up some of the mass produced products she’d helped write over the years, including Sweet Valley High and Animorphs. She gave a shout out to The Nerdy Book Club, which I’m sure pleased them immensely, and like Jon her speech was topped off with emotion. In fact, that was the #1 thing folks had to say about this year’s speeches. They had more heart than we’d seen in a while. It was very nice.

Now during the course of Ms. Applegate’s speech I became aware that I was seated next to her family’s table. And then it occurred to me that the man directly next to me was probably Michael Grant. Michael Grant is one of the rare fellows in this business that has the ability to make me feel a stabbing pain of guilt in my gut every damn time I hear his name. You see, I interviewed Ms. Applegate for SLJ and . . . ah . . . may have referred to her husband as Michael Scott. This was corrected in the online edition but as for the print . . . *sigh* So I did not reveal myself to him. It would probably detract from the proceedings to remind the honoree’s husband that I confused him with the author of The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel series (not the antihero of The Office, despite what he may suspect).

Katherine Paterson was the winner of this year’s Laura Ingalls Wilder Award, and of course she had to go and blow us all out of the water with her speech. The woman, as you might recall, can write. Better still she mentioned that the first Newbery/Caldecott Banquet she attended was in 1978. I was born in 1978. For some reason I took this as a good sign. Then I recalled that I’d interviewed her on the red carpet not an hour before. Wonder what I asked her. Guess we’ll have to check the tapes.

Afterwards it was back to work. While others stood in the receiving line to shake the hands of the winners, Kristin, Jim and I wandered up and down interviewing the folks we found. The fine tradition of taking the only partially drunk bottles of wine and placing them in the lobby for general consumption was continuing unabated. But eventually I couldn’t take it anymore. I had to get out of that danged tux. A quickchange in the bathroom was in order. As I did so I honest-to-god heard people talking about me in the stalls, albeit briefly. I’ve always sort of wanted this. It’s a rite of junior high and high school passage I’ve never personally experienced, though it appears in 40% of the MG novels I read in a given year. In this particular case the folks were just discussing the fact that they’d tried to figure out what to wear based on some post I’d written. Woo-hoo!

I was asked if I’d had the dress on underneath my tux all this time, which made me feel like a kind of superhero. If I have any superpowers at all, however, it would be the ability to lurk. I planted myself firmly behind Laura Amy Schlitz, who may be the winner for Best Outfit of All Time. It was luminous. Iridescent. The kind of outfit you’d kill for. In any case, behind Laura was our agent Stephen Barbara and there is no better place to be at a cocktail party than beside Stephen. Not that I didn’t meet a couple other really charming agents at the bash (you know who you are) but Stephen is the best of the best in my book.

After that it was time to retire. I said my goodnights and managed to remember to drag my tux home. The next morning I’d be flying back to NYC. So all’s well that ends well, right?

Except . . .

Remember that tux? Well somebody didn’t. Me. That’s right, I checked out of my hotel merry as you please, boarded a subway bound for the airport, checked my bag, went through security . . . and came to the horrid realization that I’d left my tux in the hotel room closet. Worse still, both of my roommates had already checked out by the time this occurred to me. You know what that meant, don’t you?

My poor brother. Not only had he hand delivered a hat, but now I was calling him in a panic to (A) Go to that same hotel in the downtown area to ask for my tux from the hotel’s lost & found and (B) walk up Michigan Avenue to return it to Men’s Warehouse. So basically I owe this guy big time. Big big big time. He didn’t even complain. Just sighed a little and then texted me that I wouldn’t have to worry about anything. So yeah. I’m scum. But I’ve got a great brother and that’s the long and short of it.

By now my mother is reading this and horrified at this news (which I have conveniently forgotten to tell her until now). Rest assured that Ben has been compensated in some fashion, mamar. It was a doofus move on my part, but otherwise the conference was a hit of a hit of a hit. Thanks to everyone who attended and who took the time to meet with me. And if you’d like to read a recap by my roomie Jules, you may do so here.

See you in Philly next?

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Published on July 08, 2013 01:00

July 7, 2013

Video Sunday: Proverbial cookies happen to go very well with axiomatic milk

Dwell not on the fact that you were unable to attend the Newbery/Caldecott Banquet whilst your fellows caroused to all hours of the night (or so I assume . . . I left when I felt sleepy, party animal that I am). Now you can feel like you were there in the supple flesh all thanks to TeachingBooks.net. They concocted this little video for the celebration and have just made it available to the happy public. Huzzah!

For the record, it is mighty weird to watch this video as you sit next to one of the artists featured. Surreal even.

Next up, the video I was completely going to begin with until that Newbery/Caldecott upstart mucked with my order. That’s okay. What we have here is a glimpse into the current Mo Willems showing at the Richard Michelson Galleries in Northampton, MA. It’s in conjunction with his Carle show and his book Mo Willems: Don’t Pigeonhole Me. I, for one, am grateful because I didn’t even know this book was in existence and now I can buy it for my system. FYI, folks.

And now, the video I am the most pleased to almost round-out. I feel so special! I done been grabbed!

It was Travis at 100 Scope Notes that turned me on to this interview with Maurice Sendak conducted with Newsweek in 2009 and animated today. Travis has more info on this PBS series. All I know is that it made my day.

Now remember how I kept hinting that Aaron Becker’s upcoming picture book Journey was a Caldecott contender? Ever wonder why? This book trailer should clear things up some.

It’s a little kooky to me that it took me this long to get the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award announcements from BEA up and running on this blog, but sometimes that’s the way the proverbial cookie crumbles.

I’ve harbored a crush on actor Hunter Davis for a couple years here. He’s the beamish boy who does that dead on Ian McKellan impression. Here he attempts other Shakespearean actors as he reads The Cat in the Hat. Whether or not you find him successful, you must be pleased with his McKellan. Tis his bread and butter.

Finally, our off-topic video happens to contain LeVar Burton so who knows how off-topic-ish it is. I’ll have to discuss that with the Off-Topic Enforcers next time they’re in town. In any case, this has been flying about the Facebooks. Enjoy.

Thanks to Kate for the link.

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Published on July 07, 2013 01:00

July 5, 2013

Review of the Day: Courage Has No Color by Tanya Lee Stone

Courage Has No Color: The True Story of the Triple Nickles, America’s First Black Paratroopers

By Tanya Lee Stone

Candlewick Press

$24.99

ISBN: 978-0-7636-5117-6

Ages 10 and up

On shelves now

If I were able to sit down with my small, childhood self to render advice about the world, I’d probably just hand myself a series of thoughts about subjects I was forced to learn about in school. For example, I would probably mention right off the bat that though my textbooks made it infinitely clear that American history consists only of a series of distinct separate moments in time (Pilgrims, Colonial American, Revolutionary War, etc. etc.) history is not a static thing. We are always learning more. Heck, there are elements and angles to it that go well and truly beyond what they’re able to cover in school. So those kids that once only ever learned about Ellis Island are now learning and hearing about Angel Island as well. We might learn about the accomplishments of our Founding Fathers, but we’re finally getting a better sense of the fact that they were slaveholders as well. And then there’s WWII. I don’t know about you, but usually my history class sort of raced over WWII when we learned about it. You had your Allied Forces, Hitler, Pearl Harbor, atom bomb, and that was that. So in the midst of all this I can be nothing but pleased with Tanya Lee Stone’s Courage Has No Color. Having already established herself as capable of giving voice to missed historical opportunities, Stone turns her attention to a core group of brave professionals that risked everything and managed to do a great deal of good in spite of the obstacles they encountered along the way.

The history of African-Americans serving in the military has always had its pitfalls and problems. Yet one of the stories too little known concerns The Triple Nickles and their work during the war years. In 1943 Walter Morris, a black serviceman in charge of an African-American unit, could see that his troop’s morale was dangerously low. In light of this he got permission to train his men the same way the white paratroopers at Fort Benning, GA were being trained. In time, their work paid off and President Roosevelt’s order to create an all-black paratrooper unit fell on them. All would have been right as rain but instead of being sent into battle they were instead told to fight fires on the west coast. Little did they suspect that this seeming busywork was actually fighting an enemy closer at hand than anyone had ever suspected. Peppered with art from artist and serviceman Ashley Bryan, Stone’s book takes its cues from original primary sources, interviews with the subjects themselves, and produces one of the finest looks into these heroes too little lauded in their day.

It’s not entirely facetious to say that Stone distinguishes herself by specializing in the art of the unfulfilled. Put another way, how on earth does one go about writing about dashed dreams and promises that never came to be without writing a narrative dipped up to its ears in depression? Courage Has No Color is hardly the first book for young people about military groups of black individuals that faced prejudice both on and off the battlefield. The Harlem Hellfighters When Pride Met Courage and Unsung Heroes of World War II The Story of the Navajo Code Talkers both immediately come to mind. What distinguishes The 555th Parachute Infantry Battalion is that they were never given a chance to perform in battle. Much like the women of her Almost Astronauts, these men trained and were denied their moment of glory. But rather than make this book a depressing account of what these men didn’t get a chance to do, Stone takes the time to instead show everything that they accomplished in the course of their lives. Not just their work as fire fighters, but also how their sacrifice paved the way for future battalions and future paratroopers.

When I tell people that the bulk of my historical knowledge comes from all the children’s books I read, I’m not really kidding. I kind of wish I was, of course, since books for kids can only cover a very limited slice of any given historical moment. That probably accounts for why I like works for kids to do their own research. Once in a great while you’ll encounter a nonfiction book for kids that produces information you simply cannot find in titles for adults. Stone’s book probably counts for this. As she says in her backmatter, “Tiny bits and pieces of this story have been scattered in obscure places for decades. There have been articles written about the Triple Nickles, as well as one slim book by Bradley Biggs, which is primarily an autobiographical perspective, but putting all the events, perspectives, and the complete story together in historical context has never been done.” The end result is a series of personal narratives that will be much desired in this age of Common Core learning. Not only that, Stone also works in facts and elements to this book that until very recently went unknown. I’ll confess that I first heard about the Japanese balloon bombs in the middle grade novel Jump Into the Sky by Shelley Pearsall (a great fiction companion to this book) but it took Stone writing about them in Courage Has No Color to really get me to believe.

Says Stone of herself in this book’s little biographical section, “One of my goals is to help fill in some of the missing pieces in the fabric of our history and encourage readers to think not only about what happens, but the how and why it all unfolds the way it does.” Our nonfiction authors can only give our history meaning if they have the talent and scope to do so. When I was a child I remember my mom telling me that while in hindsight significant moments in history might seem obvious, to the people living those moments it’s never quite so clear. Stone’s great strength lies in her ability to cull a narrative from seemingly disparate elements. These weren’t everyday heroes. These were real men, denied their chances to prove their worth. And yet, they proved themselves in other ways. Consider this a fine bit of research and history that deserves praise and honors galore. Well played, Stone. Well played.

On shelves now.

Source: Galley sent from publisher for review.

Like This? Then Try:

Jump Into the Sky by Shelley Pearsall

Almost Astronauts: 13 Women Who Dared to Dream by Tanya Lee Stone

The Harlem Hellfighters: When Pride Met Courage by Walter Dean Myers

Unsung Heroes of World War II: The Story of the Navajo Code Talkers by Deanne Durrett

Professional Reviews:

A star from Kirkus
A star from Publishers Weekly
Horn Book
The Washington Post

Interviews: The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

Misc:

Here’s a teacher’s guide for the book.

Listen to an audiobook sample.

Read a sample chapter here.

Video:

The 90-Second Book Trailer:

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Published on July 05, 2013 01:00

July 4, 2013

American Library Association Annual Conference Thoughts and Recaps: 2013 Edition (Part One)

Howdy. Well, by this point we’ve all settled back into our daily routines just in time to take a day off for July 4th. What better opportunity than now to finally tackle the question of “How was ALA?”. AL Direct recently released their Top Ten tweets of the ALA conference. I was mighty pleased to see that our own Travis Jonker made the cut. His thoughts are my own on the matter:

“ Trying to figure out how to retweet an entire weekend.”

—Travis Jonker, July 1

That pretty much sums it up for me.

This year I’m going to recap by talking a bit about the things I heard and saw and witnessed that stood out for me in two parts. Go to enough conferences and there is a danger of them blending together in some manner. This is particularly true in cities where the conference reappears often. That said, ALA Annual 2013 is unlikely to blend with any other memories soon. It stood out for a number of reasons.

First and foremost, anyone who attended will tell you that the joint was hopping. This conference was packed to the gills with attendees. How to account for the numbers? Well, the location had much to do with it. Though Chicago is hardly an ideal city when you consider the location of the convention center itself (which is miles and miles away from the bulk of the restaurants and hotels) what it lacks in local convenience it makes up for in geographical convenience. As a librarian from the east coast I am 90% more likely to visit a convention if it’s in the middle of the country than if it’s on the west coast. I am sure I have west coast librarians who feel much in the same way when it comes to eastern locations. As for the folks in the middle, they’re fairly lucky anyway. I wouldn’t begrudge them a conference that’s a bit closer to home.

Then there’s the fact that we librarians are social creatures. We like one another. We like to talk about issues. I had a great little conversation with a materials specialist at my Newbery/Caldecott Banquet just about collection management, and that was only one of many. I don’t think conference attendance had much to do with how we’re being paid, but at the very least it might have had something to do with our need for inter-occupational support.

I arrived at the conference on a Thursday and thought I’d treat myself to an airport shuttle, since I was feeling fancy. Fancy I may have felt but the shuttle took a good hour and a half from the airport. This didn’t bother me particularly since I was supposed to be done with editing a manuscript and had only finished 20% by the time the plane landed. Finally arriving at my hotel I found it was one of those durn fancy affairs where you open your room door by merely waving your card in front of a panel. I am looking forward to the future option of opening a room with a retina scan. Waving cards? Too hard!

Jules Danielson of Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast and Allie Bruce of The Bank Street College of Education’s library were my roommates. Not one to miss a beat, Allie tweeted the following that night:

Clever girl.

Jules had been kind enough to secure an invitation for me to a Lemniscaat dinner. If you are unfamiliar with this family-owned Dutch publisher, they’ve been around a number of years and specialize in beautiful little books. In this particular instance we got to see such elegant titles as the fantastic Jumping Penguins by Jesse Goossens, illustrated by Marije Tolman. It’s this exceedingly cool little nonfiction picture book that tells you some utterly bizarre facts about animals, accompanied by little watercolors of their accomplishments. That was one treat. Another was the presence of songwriter and singer Janis Ian. Ms. Ian is probably best known for her song “At Seventeen” (which I have difficulty hearing without thinking of a particular Simpsons episode . . . but that’s neither here nor there). Ms. Ian has a picture book coming out with Lemniscaat called The Tiny Mouse, with accompanying sheet music and a CD. She sang us the song, and then sang us “At Seventeen”. As I said at the time, “Way to raise the bar too high. Now the rest of the conference is just downhill from here.”

Friday I sadly was unable to attend the Pre-Conference which was filled to the gills with children’s librarians and wonderful speakers. On the plus side, I was able to meet with the fantastic Teresa Mlawer. Basically, if you need a Spanish translation of a children’s book, you go to Teresa. She regaled me with stories of working with Dr. Seuss and Maurice Sendak, and we had a really fantastic conversation about a host of translation issues facing children’s literature today. I fully intend to nab her for a Children’s Literary Salon in the near future, so FYI.

Of course what Friday was most notable for was a tribute held for Peter Sieruta. Peter, as I’m sure many of you know, was the genius behind the Collecting Children’s Books blog, and he was my co-writer on a Spring 2014 book Jules Danielson and I wrote for Candlewick Press. We were touched by the number of people who came to pay tribute to Peter, including his brother John who gave one of the best memorial speeches I’ve ever heard. After he started us off, many folks offered their own memories of Peter over the years. Full credit for the event truly goes to my agent, Stephen Barbara, who was the one who pushed it through in the first place.

We had received a couple cancellations for this event from folks who had heard that the Blackhawks celebration was going to be hell on earth to get through. As it happens, this assessment was 100% correct. For those of you who are anything like me, the Blackhawks are apparently a hockey team. A hockey team beloved of Chicago. I didn’t know a city in the States could even BE that into hockey as a sport, but Chicago proved this to be the case. The streets were filled to the brim with throngs of people wearing loose red jerseys. There was a parade which ended, insofar as I could tell, at my hotel. I say this not because I’m being facetious (though there is an element of that) but because when I reentered my hotel later in the day I found it packed wall-to-wall with Blackhawks fans and, in the lobby, a Stanley Cup. Yep. I’ve seen the Stanley Cup. A sight wasted on eyes such as mine. I can tell you that it is shiny and silver. That’s the long and short of it there.

After dinner with the charming Eric Carpenter, the illustrious James Kennedy, Jules and Stephen it was time for the Macmillan Dessert Party. Dessert parties are interesting conference affairs. They are designed to occur after the official dinners have already taken place, and the Macmillan one is probably one of the best. This is because not only do they pack the room with authors, but somehow Macmillan has figured out how to find spaces large enough that you can speak to someone else without screaming at the top of your lungs. Would that everyone followed their lead in this. I was a little tired at this point so I didn’t stay too long. I did, however, get a nice long glimpse of Paul Pope’s chest. Most people got the same sight. It was the highlight of the conference insofar as I could tell. He also smells good. True fact.

By the way, one of the ALA Top Ten Tweets was probably inspired by me:

“ You can tell the people who didn’t carefully think through their conference footwear by the number of Band-Aids on their feet.”

—Danielle Johnson, June 30

You would think I’d learn by now.

More later!

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Published on July 04, 2013 01:00

July 3, 2013

We Return. We Recoup. We Recuperate.

This is as close to an approximation of my full Newbery/Caldecott Banquet outfit as you’ll be able to find. I believe many a photo was snapped but so far only Ed Spicer was able to get one online at this moment in time (thanks for the pic, Ed!). I think you can make out the six representative elements of all the 2013 Caldecott Award and Honor books here, but if you can’t I will explain. I’ll also have a more thorough recap of the event in the coming days. Consider this just a mere taste of things to come.

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Published on July 03, 2013 01:00

July 2, 2013

Review of the Day: A Song for Bijou by Josh Farrar

A Song for Bijou

By Josh Farrar

Walker Books for Young Readers (an imprint of Bloomsbury)

$16.99

ISBN: 978-0-8027-3394-8

Ages 9-12

On shelves now

Now let us discuss the middle school book. It is, arguably, the most forgotten book of its kind on a library and/or bookstore shelf. The book written for your average everyday denizen of junior high has no place in this world. It is too old for the children’s section, seething as it is with budding romance and a general distrust of authority of every stripe. It is also, by the same token, too young for the teen section, feeling far too young for a place where you can encounter sex, drugs, and in general very splattery violence. Yes, the middle school book is an unloved object, doomed to drift between two very different worlds, acting as a bridge with no home. And yet, one has to understand that the middle school book is a necessary creation. It is in middle school that we lose whole swaths of readers. Where the children that are more than happy to plunk down with a book at the end of the day find themselves in the throes of a hormonal change without a literature to serve them in their hour of need. So it is with mixed feelings that I approach A Song for Bijou by Josh Farrar. At once familiar and unexpected, Farrar’s pseudo-Romeo and Juliet styled romance set in contemporary Flatbush and Ditmas Park may have some difficulty locating its audience at first, but those that go in for the ride will find themselves rewarded a hundred times over. What a great little book.

Cue the soundtrack, the stars, the explosions, and the confetti. When Alex Shrader lays eyes on Bijou Doucet, it couldn’t be called anything but love at first sight. A kid who normally just bumbles his way through his day, Alex is suddenly thrilled with the prospect of finding out more about his sudden crush, and with a bit of research he has some answers. Bijou Doucet: Relatively new transfer from Haiti to St. Cat’s (the sister school to his own St. Chris) and mystery woman. Alex doesn’t know anything about her family (or her culture for that matter) but he is determined to learn more. Bijou, meanwhile, at first wants nothing to do with the strange but sweet boy that looks at her like she’s the sun, the moon, and the stars. In her family boys and girls don’t date or even hang out, but there’s something about this guy’s dogged persistence she begins to take to. Told in alternating points of view, Farrar dives into first crush situation where success seems utterly impossible, but maybe worth fighting for just the same.

I’ve been sitting here, writing this review, wracking my brain to come up with other examples of middle school literature where a boy dedicates himself to a crush as thoroughly as Alex does in this particular book. I know that they’re out there. I accept that they exist. Yet more often than not, a book containing a storyline where a boy crushes on a girl usually makes that fact secondary to the overall plot. It’s not usually in the forefront of the action itself. Alex, however, is the kind of guy you believe in. In fact, Farrar has his character down cold. It takes a little more effort on his part to render Bijou as warmly, particularly since the beginning of the book is marked pointedly with her indifference. Fortunately you come around to her, just as you come around to their core group of friends.

Now there’s a lot of talk these days about the Common Core standards by which our kids will soon be taught. As a result, I’m always on a lookout for books that not only work in details from a variety of different cultures, but have the depth and research to pull it all off. In this particular novel, Farrar sets much of his action in Flatbush, a diverse area of Brooklyn where a large and thriving Haitian community exists. It’s not a part of the world where we see many books for kids set. In his Author’s Note, Farrar explains that after watching the 2007 documentary The Other Side of the Water: The Journey of a Haitian Rara Band in Brooklyn, he was inspired years later (and after the Haitian earthquake) to take a devastating event far away and ground it in a place already near and dear to his heart. A white author, Farrar says that while writing Alex’s part came relatively easily, to ground Bijou’s story in something better than mere guesswork he spoke at length with Haitian and Haitian American women, attended second language classes for Haitian students, and learned some hand-drumming techniques with musicians in Prospect Park. Every book written for children by authors about kids from another culture is subjected to a certain level of scrutiny on the part of reviewers like myself. Name whatever standards you like, though, and you’ll find that Mr. Farrar’s book passes the litmus test for great writing with flying colors.

I was also pleased that the book gave a certain level of depth and weight to the decisions and personality of Bijou’s Tonton Pierre. It would have been the easiest thing in the world to render Bijou’s hard-nosed rule-obsessed and ultimately (perhaps secretly) frightened uncle a parody of himself. However, he wears his heart on his sleeve, and while most child readers won’t spend more than a second of thought on him beyond the page, Bijou’s brother Jou Jou may allow a couple of them the chance to appreciate that this guy has a heart somewhere. It just happens to be buried in the thick of his misplaced intentions. Tonton Pierre is a real guy to the reader. That’s more than can necessarily be said for the bullies in Alex’s school. They occasionally show hints of interesting meanness, but generally speaking they’re just your standard brainless baddies. Foils for the action, if you will. And after Tonton Pierre you expect more.

The fact of the matter, and this is not giving anything away, is that there are no easy answers to Alex’s predicament. I say “Alex” specifically because I get the sense in this book that while Bijou is vaguely interested in this sweet gawky guy, his particular feelings are the crux of the novel itself. As such, I was mighty relieved that while his solution at the end of this story may bring him (and perhaps even Bijou) a certain level of inner peace, it’s not really going to change much of anything. It makes for a great capper on the story, but since we’re dealing with middle schoolers here, neither kid is going to suddenly go crazy and break the rules of family and society.

I call this book “middle school” but aside from the first crush storyline and the oblique reference to “getting some” (its innocent speaker is referring to kissing alone, so that’s pretty indicative right there) there’s nothing here that couldn’t be found in any middle grade novel. Ultimately I decided the children’s section was the best place to put A Song for Bijou, a decision I’ve not regretted one iota. Presenting a story that’s been told in different versions before, but never with this particular setting, Farrar ends up making something ultimately pretty original in spite of its traditional background. A fine, fair little novel that will hopefully find its audience someday.

On shelves now.

Source: Final copy sent from publisher for review.

Notes on the Cover: A pickle. Truth be told I rather like it. The fact that the publisher opted to hire an artist to draw them a jacket rather than telling the art director to simply cobble one together from various Getty Images indicates that they were okay with skewing the readership younger. That said, I’ve been told by some folks that the cover looks too young for its intended readership. Still when you compare it with the loads of other first love titles out there, A Song for Bijou is refreshing in its straightforward attitude. What you see is what you get. There’s a certain level of relief in that, don’t you think?

By the way, for a behind-the-scenes look at what went into the cover’s creation (including a rejected initial sketch) check out Cover Stories: A Song for Bijou. I love that Moonrise Kingdom was an influence.

Like This? Then Try:

Behind the Mountains by Edwidge Danticat – If you like stories of Haitian kids finding a home in New York City.

Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen – If you like straight up middle school romances.

Drita, My Homegirl by Jenny Lombard – If you like kids from wholly different cultures becoming good friends.

Other Blog Reviews:

Finding Wonderland
Welcome to My Tweendom
Secrets & Sharing Soda
Random Musings of a Bibliophile
Librarian of Snark
Ms. Yingling Reads

Professional Reviews:

Kirkus
Publishers Weekly

Interviews:

Corrective Lenses (which wins the Best Interview Title Award for its “Zou Bisou Bisou, Bijou”)
Melissa Walker

Misc:

Have a book club? Would you like to Skype with the author? Then maybe now’s the chance to check out the Bijou Book Club link.

Video:

Watch as author Josh Farrar reads from his book at Book Court in Brooklyn:

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Published on July 02, 2013 01:00

June 29, 2013

The ABC of It: New York Public Library gives a children’s literary exhibit its all

It is a truth universally acknowledged that when you have easy access to amazing things the relative value you place upon those things diminishes significantly after a surprisingly short amount of time. Case in Point: When I worked across the street from the MOMA for several years it was apparently too difficult for me, even with a discounted pass, to actually cross the street to see what people were flying in from around the world to experience. Another very similar case would be when I worked in the main branch of New York Public Library (a.k.a. big ole stoney lions out front). While my current office is no longer in that location, when I worked there it was surprising how often I might fail to be impressed by the sheer scale of the place. The marble. The gilt. The stonework. The exhibits too, to a certain extent.

Nonetheless, even in my jaded state I always made a point to look at every exhibit NYPL put on. Some were about maps. Some were about food. And while I might not have a real interest in cartography or anything but a sustenance-based approach to edibles, I appreciated the exhibits. So maybe it’s the topic itself that makes me say this, but having come from seeing NYPL’s latest exhibit The ABC of It: Why Children’s Books Matter as curated by Leonard Marcus, there is no doubt in my mind that this is the best presentation I have ever seen NYPL commit to. Bar none.

You may have already read the Publishers Weekly encapsulation of the exhibit or even the New York Times and their take. Even Flavorwire has gotten in on the act. For my part, I attended the exhibit on the first day in tandem with a nice little group of children’s literary enthusiasts. Monica Edinger, in fact, has already written up her take from that day in After Seeing The ABC of It where you can see a photograph of me looking jaunty/smirky (it could go either way).

But let’s give you a sense of the space. I’ll use my foggy camera phone pictures when possible. Maybe it’s best that they don’t do the thing justice. These will just have to act as a lure more than anything else.

You walk in and Leonard begins with the earliest history of American children’s literature. To help highlight this process you are confronted with a replica of pages from various books of the time period.

Within the cut-outs you can see the earliest books and read them yourself. In fact the whole exhibit places various treasures of the collection against fantastic backdrops and well-designed spaces. It’s a thrill to walk through since no two rooms ever feel quite the same, and yet there’s something thematic that ties the whole exhibit together.

But wait, you say. That sounds like something an adult might enjoy, but if this is a whole exhibit about children’s literature, where are the kid-friendly elements? Well, let me try to rack ‘em up for you. First off, NYPL went and bought a load of new children’s books (I’d love to know why they chose what they did but that’s neither here nor there) for a room where kids can just sit down and read them. The room itself may look a bit familiar to you…

IMG 20130621 154721 500x373 The ABC of It: New York Public Library gives a childrens literary exhibit its all

Walk a little further and you can either duck into a little rabbit hole that will lead you to another room or you can watch as the books that make up Alice’s neck move up and down unexpectedly:

There are copious videos to watch throughout the exhibit, including some talks by Eric Carle. Some are of the Disney version of Mary Poppins and compare it to the book. But there are also chances to hear nursery rhymes or books read aloud, sometimes by the authors themselves. Care to hear E.B. White read the first chapter of Charlotte’s Web? It’s an option.

Or you might like to ride in a replica of Milo’s car from Phantom Tollbooth. Or pet the furry Wild Things doorway that looks like a monster burst through. That’s fun.

Then there are the hidden details that only a kid might notice. The topiary that makes up The Secret Garden section has little hard to see pockets where copies of the original book are secreted away for readers. Then there are the comic books found on shelves beneath the comics on display. Keep your eyes at kid-level as well. Otherwise you might miss this tribute at the base of The Wizard of Oz wall.

For the adults there’s plenty to amuse as well. The Banned Books room is sufficiently terrifying. Imagine this stack of books reaching from the floor to a ceiling that’s easily at least 12 feet tall. It’s an alcove that’s easy to miss but necessary if you’re gonna do this exhibit right.

Michael Patrick Hearn was in attendance with my crew and more than once you could hear him say “Anne Carroll Moore would have hated this. Anne Carroll Moore would have hated that.” He was referring to the Goodnight Moon room, the Little Golden Books display, and the Stratemeyer Syndicate wall, which is a lot of fun if you’re a Nancy Drew fan.

As for the man of the hour, Leonard Marcus himself, the exhibit does him proud. Both he and the NYPL designers have done a stand up and cheer job. Something that everyone everywhere can enjoy on some level. The exhibit is free and running until March 23rd, so there is plenty of time for you to stop on by and check it out.

IMG 20130621 163311 e1372436484634 373x500 The ABC of It: New York Public Library gives a childrens literary exhibit its all

Wouldn’t it be nice if you could speak to Leonard about his exhibit like this anytime you came in?

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Published on June 29, 2013 01:00

June 27, 2013

Fusenews: Rules of Summer in November

As you read this I am winging my way to Chicago, IL. Land of Great Lakes, windy winds, and hot dogs that carry unconscionable stigmas for logical edible combinations (ketchup ONLY works on hot dogs, people). Blogging, if my schedule is to be believed, is due to be a bit spotty for the next few days. I shall endeavor not to let you down in any case. While I do that (or rather, fail to do that) enjoy this week’s round of non-ALA related fare (a relief to those of you not coming along, I’m sure).

The biggest news this week came to me in the form of an itty-bitty tweet. Some of you may be familiar with the great musician Sxip Shirey. Skilled beyond measure he’s also the nicest fellow you’d ever a chance to meet. Case in point, years ago I found myself at a concert, hanging out with a different musician’s husband and friends while she signed various things. The musician was Amanda Palmer and her husband was Neil Gaiman. Along the way I was chatting with Sxip and the conversation turned, as these things do, to Shaun Tan. Sxip was a big fan of the man’s work and since I’ve communicated with him off an on over the years I had an in. I was so pleased that I actually had something to offer (an email address) when along comes Neil mentioning that (A) He had some Shaun Tan original art and (B) He could hook Sxip up with Tan if he wanted. I was this close to screaming, “Damn it, Neil! This is all I HAVE!” In any case, years and years pass and then I see this tweet:

Say what now?

Apparently this is indeed true. There’s a new Shaun Tan book on the horizon (possibly November). And it makes sense the Tan would be interested in apps. He conquered print and film so what worlds are left to him? Here’s the cover to prove all this is true:

Phantom Planter and part time children’s author gets in trouble with Washington D.C.’s Metro transit system. Film at 11. Thanks to Davin Coburn for the link.

Me stuff. It seems only appropriate that it should be Chicago me stuff too. Andrew Medlar, the guru of Chicago Public Library (as far as I’m concerned) did me a heckuva favor by recommending old Giant Dance Party on WBEZ Chicago’s Afternoon Shift. Thanks, man! In other news, I was interviewed by Shelley Diaz of SLJ about the book . If ever you wanted to delve into my hidden nerdy past, now’s the time.

There are cover reveals and then there are cover reveals. And this, ladies and gentlemen, is how you do a friggin’ cover.

Boo-yah. That’s what I’m talkin’ about. Hit that Congress. Hit it, I say!

Your Required Reading of the Day: You know who you need to start watching a little more closely these days? Minh Le. I tell you, I’ve a second sense about that guy. He is going places and fast. Anyone who has ever read his Bottom Shelf Books blog knows what I’m talking about. In the meantime, however, Minh has written a response to the recent Lee & Low blog post “Why Hasn’t the Number of Multicultural Books Increased In Eighteen Years?”. Minh’s piece Coloring Outside the Lines: The Diversity Gap in Children’s Literature addresses something I brought up in the Lee & Low piece myself. Specifically, “we need to officially address how we feel about white authors and illustrators writing books about people of other races. Is it never okay? Sometimes okay? Always okay?” Minh gives some much needed perspective to the question at hand. Great stuff.

Sometimes my husband’s blog makes me laugh. This is one of those times.

This one’s good for the old film files. Apparently they adapted Tomi Ungerer’s The Moon Man into an animated 96-minute film. Yup. I certainly didn’t see this one coming. Wouldn’t mind seeing this thing. Anyone want to do so with me? Thanks to Marjorie Ingall for the link.

Daily Image:

A lot of reasons for me to love this one. It’s a bird constructed out of typewriter parts by Jeremy Mayer.

Thanks to BoingBoing for the link.

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Published on June 27, 2013 01:00

June 26, 2013

ALA Chicago 2013: What’s There to Do?

This isn’t going to be quite as comprehensive as it might be, but I tried to put together a little info sheet for folks trying to figure out what’s going on where in the children’s literary realm at this week’s American Library Association conference in Chicago. Here’s something I’ve cobbled together, though it’s missing a lot of the sessions on the floor. Still and all, if you’re looking to plan your time away (particularly your evening activities) here’s a place to start.

Friday, June 28

7:45 am – 4 pm - ALSC Preconference: A Wild Ride: 75 Years of the Caldecott Medal
4:30 – Celebrate the Life of Peter Sieruta
7:30 – 9:30 pm – Chicagoland Kidlit Drink Night

Saturday, June 29