CAT TALE
Written and illustrated by Michael Hall
40 pp. Greenwillow Books. $16.99. (Picture book; ages 3 to 6)
Wednesday, October 31, 2012
Sunday, October 28, 2012
Time of Wonder
Awarded the Caldecott Medal as
"The most distinguished American picture book of 1958," Time of Wonder
is the classic story of a never-to-be forgotten summer, here produced
from reoriginated plates to capture all the beauty of Mr. McCloskey's
original illustrations.
Among the islands of Maine you'll
find all that children and about the sea, the shore, and quiet forests
beyond, as well as the excitement of preparations for a hurricane and
the wonder of exploring the trunks, upper limbs, and giant trees felled
by the storm.
As The Horn Book wrote, " The
author has succeeded in transferring his love for the Maine Islands to
the printed page and as you listen to his words and look at his pictures
you feel every day and every season is a 'time of wonder.' This is a
[book] of great beauty."
Thursday, October 25, 2012
Middle School Madness... It Came From the Library!
We recently celebrated Teen Read week at the WFL with an "...It Came From the Library!" themed Middle School Madness event! Free pizza, Halloween candy and refreshments were enjoyed as zombie and monster themed games dominated the afternoon. Prizes were handed out for the best attempt to pin the body part on the zombie, the teens who knew the most monster trivia in our BINGO games, the team "most likely to survive a zombie apocalypse", and finally, to the team who made the best toilet paper mummy! Entries for that last game were too tough to judge so we called it a draw. Check out the photos below of those epic mummies and let us know who you think had the best creation!
Be sure to join us for our next Middle School Madness event on Friday, November 30th in the Quigley Youth Room at 3:30 where we'll be breaking out the board games! We'll be kicking it old school with card games and classic board games, including: Set, Simpsons Clue, Pictureka, and more! If you have a favorite game, feel free to bring it! And as always, free pizza and refreshments will be provided. See you there!
Wednesday, October 24, 2012
A frequent topic of conversation in the children's room at the WFL...
Books in the Home: Reading Up
October 24, 2012 By Leave
a Comment
Like many writers, I had a reading childhood, but I’ve only recently understood how countercultural my mother was about my reading. My brother and sister and I are close in age, so when I was a child there were no big-kid books and little-kid books; no girl books and boy books. All the books belonged to all of us. They were shelved together in the living room, picture books through adult novels, fiction and nonfiction jumbled up in a wonderfully inviting way. My mother read to me extensively until I could read for myself, and then she not only stopped reading to me altogether but stopped supervising my reading. I was let loose to develop my own tastes and check out whatever caught my eye at the library.
When my children were young, I was happy to follow my mother’s lead and not keep books by gender or level or topic. Each of my four children had his or her favorites, and a few, very tattered, books were adored by everyone. When the kids were all younger than ten they moved fluidly among picture books, chapter books, middle grade novels, and nonfiction of all kinds.
Harry Potter was the start of the trouble. My oldest discovered Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone when she was in fourth grade and her youngest sister was just learning to walk. The books quickly became favorites that we passed around and discussed at dinner. We invented yard Quidditch for birthday parties and knitted hats for the house-elf rebellion. By the time the long-awaited final book was announced seven years later, my youngest, Madelaine, was dying to get in on the game, and being read to was not good enough. She wanted to read the last book for herself. Furthermore, she decided to read all six of the previous books in her second-grade year before the last book came out in the summer. I was all for the project, excited to see her so motivated, proud that she was reading independently — and yet, there were problems I didn’t foresee.
A five-pound book doesn’t fit the standard second-grader backpack, and it’s a lot to carry when you only weigh forty pounds. Madelaine enjoyed each book and loved being up to speed on all the characters her siblings had been talking about her whole life. Still, it took her so long to read them, as a new reader, that much of the momentum of the stories were lost in the work of decoding, so she never found them as exciting as the older kids had. Because the characters were many years older than she was and often focused on things that didn’t interest her, she never made an emotional connection with them, either. But she was keeping up with the big kids, and that was all she wanted.
On the midnight of the final Harry Potter release, all six of us went to our neighborhood indie, Annie Bloom’s, for the party. The kids were eight, eleven, fourteen, and sixteen. We bought one book and six bookmarks. We made the usual bargain about not talking about what happens until everyone’s bookmark passed that chapter — a good incentive for not hogging the book. It was a magical week that July when we all shared our long-awaited Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows!
And yet I found my own enjoyment of the book lessened because Deathly Hallows was such a dark story—not inappropriately dark, but grim reading for a child who had just lost her first tooth. From my tree-house office that week I watched Madelaine as she read aloud to our chickens. Periodically, she would slam the book shut and say to them, in complete earnestness, “This is one of the awful parts. I’m not going to read it to you. You’re only four months old. Maybe later — when you are big enough to lay eggs.” And then she would go curl up with her big brother in the hammock and work her way through the “awful part.” She managed. We all did, and, as with all the other books, there was yard Quidditch to play and inside jokes to tell and lots of meaty topics to discuss. My youngest did not suffer nightmares, as I had feared. But I did find some unanticipated consequences to letting her read up.
Not surprisingly, it took Madelaine the entire school year to read the first six Harry Potter books, which meant she read no picture books in second grade. Many of the really great picture books are for school-aged children. Saint George and the Dragon by Margaret Hodges, The Eleventh Hour by Graeme Base, and The Cats in Krasinski Square by Karen Hesse were favorites of my older children. She also missed out on Encyclopedia Brown and Mrs. Piggle-Wiggle and My Father’s Dragon. The first Clementine book by Sara Pennypacker came out that year, and I was longing to have someone just the right age with whom to share it. But it’s not so easy to go back to simpler books when you’ve spent a year filling up on richer fare. Madelaine’s reading improved tremendously in terms of both speed and comprehension, and of all the benefits of reading up, that’s by far the most immediately valuable. And yet I’m sorry to see that the classic characters from longer picture books and early chapter books are not part of the architecture of her imagination in the way they are for me and for her older siblings.
Now that my oldest two are in college and the younger girls are in middle- and high school, I’ve been rethinking my laissez-faire approach to reading up. For instance, my younger two often find YA books a little bit stale. John Green, whom they used to love when they were in grade school, seems a little silly to them now. And that’s a shame. It’s not that the books are lacking in any way. But as precocious readers, they took only a shallow spoonful of what was available in the text. If they were of a temperament to reread favorite books, they might have come to appreciate his work more fully in time. But they chose to move on, remembering the fun of their shared jokes from An Abundance of Katherines but not the substance they glossed over at the time.
There’s a lot of really great YA writing that my girls won’t touch because it seems too young. The writing is right on target for them developmentally, but because they’ve already read extensively in the genre, it simply doesn’t appeal to them in the way I’d hoped it would. In the last few years they have gravitated toward genres they didn’t read in grade school: steampunk, graphic novels, and fan fiction. Overall, though, they spend less time reading than their older siblings did.
Reading up is not as simple an issue as I’d once supposed. I’ve noticed a tendency among people in the book professions to scorn parents who advocate withholding older books from younger readers, painting them as rigid, conservative, and insensitive to the needs of the child. I thought so myself at the start, but now I have some sympathy for the longer view of trying to nurture a lifelong reader and not just a temporarily precocious one.
I’m happy to report that my younger girls do find YA books they like from time to time. They discovered Terry Pratchett at exactly the right moment and are avid fans. Fortunately, their older brother and sister remember the fun of shared reading enough to give The Wee Free Men a try, even though it’s “too young” for them. Now when everyone is home from college and they’re all making dinner together, they are full of inside jokes from the Discworld and have loud arguments in Nac Mac Feegle about whether the recipe calls for Special Sheep Liniment!
I have always thought that the social dimension of reading gets the short end of the stick in our current educational climate, one that puts so much emphasis on measurable results. In my opinion, the conversations that occur because of the book are far more valuable than anything on the page. So do I regret letting my younger two read YA books so early? No, not exactly; but I do recognize that they lost something in their childhood reading that I cannot now replace. It’s true that Madelaine, in a moment of rainy-day boredom, recently picked up Clementine and gave it a read, trumpeting the funny bits out loud as my kids often do. Those funny bits were still pretty funny, even from the lofty view of sixth grade. Clementine could have been a literary soul mate to my quirky and keenly observant girl. But that ship sailed years ago during her Harry Potter summer, and she and Clementine will be only passing acquaintances.
On the other hand, my kids feel a deep and lasting camaraderie over their shared reading, even as school and college and adult life pull them in different directions. They have grown apart in their talents and aspirations. They have their own circles of friends and will probably never all live in the same town again. And yet I do hope that the stories they loved together will be their common ground, just as Narnia and Earthsea and Middle-earth are the childhood homes my own siblings and I continue to share.
From the November/December 2012 Horn Book Magazine
The Doll People
Passed down from one generation to the next, the Doll family has lived in the same dollhouse, located in the same room of the Palmer family's house, for 100 years. While the world outside has changed, their own lives have notDwith two significant exceptions. First, Auntie Sarah Doll suddenly and mysteriously disappeared 45 years ago, when the Doll family belonged to Kate Palmer's grandmother. More recently, the modern, plastic Funcraft family has moved into Kate's little sister's room. Following the time-honored traditions of such well-loved works as Rumer Godden's The Doll's House, The Mennyms by Sylvia Waugh and Pam Conrad's and Richard Egielski's The Tub People, Martin and Godwin inventively spin out their own variation on the perennially popular theme of toys who secretly come to life. By focusing on Annabelle's and Tiffany Funcraft's risky mission to find Auntie Sarah, the authors provide plenty of action and suspense, yet it is their skillfully crafted details about the dolls' personalities and daily routines that prove most memorable. Selznick's pencil illustrations cleverly capture the spark of life inhabiting the dolls' seemingly inanimate bodies. The contemporary draftsmanship frees the art from nostalgia even while the layout which presents the illustrations as standalone compositions as well as imaginatively integrated borders and vignettes reinforces the old-fashioned mood of the doll theme. Doll lovers may well approach their imaginative play with renewed enthusiasm and a sense of wonder after reading this fun-filled adventure. Ages 7-10.
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.
t
From Booklist
Gr. 5-8. It was exciting when the 100-year-old, dollhouse-dwelling
Doll Family met the modern, "real pink plastic" Funcrafts in The Doll People (2000),
a thoroughly charming exploration of the fantasy that dolls are
secretly alive. In this action-packed sequel, things heat up even
further after Annabelle Doll and her best friend Tiffany Funcraft dive
into the human girl's backpack and get hauled off to school. They end up
in the wrong kid's backpack and in the home of the meanest doll in the
world! Will they bravely take on Mean Mimi, who is determined to expose
the sacred secret of dollkind? And, how will they get home? Selznick's
pencil drawings are winningly expressive, and the clever title-page
progression, spelling out "The Meanest Doll in the World" in several
pages, is not to be missed. There are inspiring moments of fortitude
here as the dolls show readers how to live with integrity and without
fear. Though the authors provide background info, readers will want to
start with the first novel. Karin SnelsonCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
From School Library Journal
Grade 3–5—A mysterious package addressed to Grandma Palmer's grandfather arrives at the Palmer home while they are on vacation. Kate's doll, Annabelle, and her sister's doll, Tiffany Funcraft, deduce that the package contains the Doll family's missing baby. They open the package to find that Matilda is indeed Annabelle's lost sister. But how do they keep the family from sending her back? Since the package is not addressed to the Palmers, they might not open it, and the baby will be lost forever. Annabelle decides the only solution is to run away with her new sibling to save her from this fate. Annabelle, her brother Bobby, Tiffany, and her brother Bailey join the adventure and find themselves lost in the woods and then trapped in a toy store. The adventure takes a dangerous and mysterious turn when dolls begin to disappear from the store each night. The story opens with Selznick's 12-page illustrated, wordless prologue, and his art moves the story along throughout the book. This fun, magical entry in the series is just as engaging as the previous books.—Debra Banna, Sharon Public Library, MACopyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
A Halloween favorite from Susan Meddaugh!
From Publishers Weekly
In a highly original Halloween tale, Meddaugh ( Tree of Birds ; Too Many Monsters ) again evinces a gently humorous, delightfully skewed imagination. As Helen, in a witch costume, and her dog Martha, dressed as a cat ("Witches have cats, not dogs. Everybody knows that") set out for trick-or-treating, the woman ahead of them drops a piece of paper. Hurrying after her to return it--a coupon for a free broom--Helen and Martha hesitate when she disappears behind a door marked "Trespassers Will Be Sorry." Peeking inside, Helen announces, "It's just a supermarket!" and the pair ventures in. But this is no ordinary food store--its counters display such fare as"Apples with Worms," "Cran-Spider" drink and "Shake 'n Bake Snake." When the light finally dawns for Helen, readers, of course, will be way ahead of her--thanks not only to the book's title but to its hilarious, none-too-subtle illustrations. This knowledge only adds to the fun, however: the giggles begin early, and by the chaotic escape scene, develop into full-scale belly laughs. Definitely in the "treat" category. Ages 4-8.Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Friday, October 19, 2012
What we're reading (and loving) right now...
From Cynthia Lord's website :
http://www.cynthialord.com/index.htm
RULES FOR DAVID
If the bathroom door is closed, knock! (especially if Catherine has a friend over).
Say thank you when someone gives you a present (even if you don't like it).
Don't stand in front of the TV when other people are watching it.
A boy takes off his shirt to swim, but not his shorts.
Some people think they know who you are, when really they don't.
No toys in the fishtank.
Winner of:
Newbery Honor Medal
Schneider Family Book Award
Mitten Award (Michigan Library Association)
Great Lakes Great Books Award (Michigan)
Maine Student Book Award
Dorothy Canfield Fisher Award (Vermont)
Kentucky Bluegrass Award
Great Stone Face Award (New Hampshire)
Buckeye Children's Book Award (Ohio)
“A heartwarming first novel.” Booklist
New York Public Library's 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing
“Catherine is an appealing and believable
character, acutely self-conscious and torn between her love for her
brother and her resentment of his special needs. Middle-grade readers
will recognize her longing for acceptance and be intrigued by this
exploration of dealing with differences.” Kirkus Reviews
KidPost Book of the Week, Washington Post
"The appealing, credible narrator at the
heart of Lord's debut novel will draw in readers, as she struggles to
find order and balance in her life.... A rewarding story that may well
inspire readers to think about others' points of view." Publishers Weekly
Notable Children's Book in the Language Arts (NCTE)
"This is a story that depicts the impact of a
needy child on an entire family very realistically. One of the treats
in this book is that David echoes words rather than generating his own
and he frequently speaks in lines he remembers from Arnold Lobel's Frog
& Toad." Children's Literature - Joan Kindig, Ph.D.
Book of the Week, Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC)
"Catherine is an endearing narrator who
tells her story with both humor and heartbreak. . . this sensitive story
is about being different, feeling different, and finding acceptance. A
lovely, warm read, and a great discussion starter." School Library Journal
Editors' Pick, HW Wilson Standard Catalog
"This is an absorbing tale about valuing
people even when it's difficult, and it may encourage readers to
consider the benefits and challenges of their own families and friends." Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
Accelerated Reader (AR) Title
"This is not only a great read, with a nice
rhythm and easy style, but it is an important book that siblings of kids
with special needs need to read." Kid Lit: Books and More For Kids and Teens
ALA Notable Children's Book
"The first-person narrative is very
engaging, and readers will identify with Catherine's struggles and cheer
for her at the end. This is a great book to help students gain some
understanding about autism, while also providing a good read. The author
is the mother of an autistic child. Recommended." Library Media Connection
Read On Wisconsin, Middle-School Pick
"[A]n honest and frequently funny portrayal of
what it's like to have a sibling with autism at an age when being
accepted is so important." Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Nominated for state Kids' Choice Awards in:
Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia,
Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maine, Maryland,
Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire,
New Jersey, New Mexico, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pacific
Northwest (voting together: Alaska, Alberta CA, British Columbia CA,
Idaho, Montana, Oregon and Washington), Pennsylvania, Rhode Island,
South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia and
Wyoming.
BEHIND THE BOOK.
In 2000, I decided to write a middle-grade
novel, and I followed the advice of "write what you know." I have two
children, one of whom has autism, and RULES explores that family
dynamic.
David is based loosely upon my son when he was a young
child. Some incidents in the book came from real experience: I was always
rescuing toys from our fishtank and my son did love Arnold Lobel’s Frog and
Toad books and used to repeat lines from those stories to communicate.
However, most of the events, details, and characters in RULES came from my imagination.
Jason was inspired by a boy I saw one day and have
never forgotten. I was waiting for my son to finish an appointment, and a boy
came into the waiting room. He was in a wheelchair and used a communication
book. I glanced up and made assumptions that were blown apart seconds later,
when he and his mother had the most amazing and witty conversation. She spoke
out loud; he communicated by touching his pictures.
All those threads of experience began weaving themselves
into a story. The first line I ever wrote on the first blank page was: “At
our house, we have a rule,” and the story, the characters, the title, all sprang
from that seed.
I took the story as far as I could, and after many
polishing passes and feedback from my critique partners, I looked through the
Children’s Writer’s and Illustrator’s Market to see who might be a good
publishing match.
I paused at Scholastic’s entry. When I was growing
up, my teacher would hand out Scholastic Book Clubs fliers, and my mother let
me order 3 books each time. I remember the excitement I felt: the coins rolling
back and forth in the envelope as I walked up to hand it to the teacher, and
those glassy-smooth covers and the crackling newness of the books when they
came. I still have some of the books I bought as a child through those book
clubs, with my name written in big, loopy handwriting on the inside cover.
But the line “1% of books by first-time authors” in
the market book for Scholastic, was daunting. My husband shrugged when I showed
him and said, “Well, someone has to be that one percent, why not you?”
In November 2001, I got the phone call every writer
dreams of receiving. It was an editor at Scholastic saying she’d like to buy
my book. I was too excited to remember much about that call, but I think I
said mostly intelligent things like, “Oh, um, wow! Yes, uh, OK.”
Getting the call may sound like “The end,” but that
was also a beginning, a corner-turning to a new hallway. The revision process
is a time of refining, of letting go and holding on, of re-imagining characters
and events to bring them into sharper focus.
It’s been a long road from that first “At
our house, we have a rule” to this moment, but it’s also been a glorious discovery,
a journey I am both humbled and amazed to have taken.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
Babymouse for President!
A Cupcake in every locker! It's election season and if anyone knows what
this country . . . er, what the student council needs, it's Babymouse.
The only trouble is, everyone else is running for President, too—even
Babymouse's locker! Will Felicia Furrypaws turn out the meangirl
coalition? Does Babymouse have what it takes to become the voice of the
people? Find out in Babymouse for President! Remember, a vote for
Babymouse is a vote for cupcakes!
City Chickens by Christine Heppermann
Chickens in the yard, chickens in the shower. Chickens upstairs and
downstairs, in the kitchen and under the couch. What are farm animals
doing in the city?
In Minneapolis, if you follow the sounds of crowing, you will find an inner-city shelter for (you guessed it!) chickens. Many of the feathered guests at Chicken Run Rescue have been found wandering the city streets. Maybe they escaped from backyard chicken coops or from illegal cockfighting rings, or maybe they began their lives as fuzzy chicks in a classroom incubator. Whatever the reason, these incredibly smart, gentle, and friendly animals need help.
Over the years, Mary Britton Clouse and her husband, Bert, have given hundreds of homeless birds a safe place to rest until they can be adopted by caring families. Come along and meet Yeti, Henrietta, and other guests, and find out why lovable chickens are actually “the ones who need friends the most.”
Author Christine Heppermann
There are so many reasons to tell you about this new book City Chickens (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) by Christine Heppermann:
1. It's non-fiction (one of the main topics of this blog)--the story of a woman who lives in Minneapolis and runs a shelter for abandoned, lost-- or found-- chickens. And this story makes us glad that our wondrous world does contain at least one person who wants to give chickens a safe, comfortable home.
2. It's about chickens. I love chickens, real and invented. Fictional chickens are the utility infielders of the children's book world. They show up in all sorts of situations (even in my Chicken Joy on Redbean Road --illustrated by the super Melissa Sweet; Houghton Mifflin, 2007).
3. Christine loves chickens, too. And she is a very talented writer, who writes essays and reviews for the Horn Book, and has published a number of poems. I should also add she is a former student and a good friend. But I would tell you about this book if I had never met Christine because it is a wonderful non-fiction story, carefully researched, well-told, with striking photographs by Chris's husband, Eric Hinsdale.
I want Christine to tell you about the book. So I asked her some questions.
CH: You know, the real-life characters are so compelling, I never once considered fictionalizing them. I love the challenge of taking actual people and events and trying to be true to them while at the same time constructing a narrative with all the literary qualities of fiction. At one point I worried because I didn’t have any child characters in the story, but then I found an actual child, Alison! (She and her family have adopted multiple birds from CRR.) And Alison had an actual rooster, Billiam, with more personality quirks than any character I could possibly have made up.
In Minneapolis, if you follow the sounds of crowing, you will find an inner-city shelter for (you guessed it!) chickens. Many of the feathered guests at Chicken Run Rescue have been found wandering the city streets. Maybe they escaped from backyard chicken coops or from illegal cockfighting rings, or maybe they began their lives as fuzzy chicks in a classroom incubator. Whatever the reason, these incredibly smart, gentle, and friendly animals need help.
Over the years, Mary Britton Clouse and her husband, Bert, have given hundreds of homeless birds a safe place to rest until they can be adopted by caring families. Come along and meet Yeti, Henrietta, and other guests, and find out why lovable chickens are actually “the ones who need friends the most.”
Author Christine HeppermannCity Chickens
There are so many reasons to tell you about this new book City Chickens (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) by Christine Heppermann:
1. It's non-fiction (one of the main topics of this blog)--the story of a woman who lives in Minneapolis and runs a shelter for abandoned, lost-- or found-- chickens. And this story makes us glad that our wondrous world does contain at least one person who wants to give chickens a safe, comfortable home.
2. It's about chickens. I love chickens, real and invented. Fictional chickens are the utility infielders of the children's book world. They show up in all sorts of situations (even in my Chicken Joy on Redbean Road --illustrated by the super Melissa Sweet; Houghton Mifflin, 2007).
3. Christine loves chickens, too. And she is a very talented writer, who writes essays and reviews for the Horn Book, and has published a number of poems. I should also add she is a former student and a good friend. But I would tell you about this book if I had never met Christine because it is a wonderful non-fiction story, carefully researched, well-told, with striking photographs by Chris's husband, Eric Hinsdale.
I want Christine to tell you about the book. So I asked her some questions.
1. JBM: What attracted you to this story?
CH: I’m always drawn to stories about people
with uncommon passions or perceptions. Also to stories that show me something
ordinary in an entirely new way. Most of us view chickens as commodities,
valuable for what they give us—their meat and their eggs. But why shouldn’t we
see them the way Mary and Bert at Chicken Run Rescue do—as living beings
deserving of the same level of care and compassion that we give to dogs and
cats? Truthfully, Jackie, your Snowflake
Bentley stayed in my mind the whole time I was writing and researching City Chickens, because Wilson Bentley
and Mary and Bert have a lot in common. Bentley
took an amorphous mass of white stuff and showed us the beauty of each
individual flake. Mary and Bert want people to recognize the beauty and
uniqueness of each individual bird.
2 JBM: Why tell this as nonfiction instead of
fiction?
CH: You know, the real-life characters are so compelling, I never once considered fictionalizing them. I love the challenge of taking actual people and events and trying to be true to them while at the same time constructing a narrative with all the literary qualities of fiction. At one point I worried because I didn’t have any child characters in the story, but then I found an actual child, Alison! (She and her family have adopted multiple birds from CRR.) And Alison had an actual rooster, Billiam, with more personality quirks than any character I could possibly have made up.
3 JBM: What was one of the really hard parts of
writing this story?
CH: Choosing which chickens to feature. Because
most every “guest” I met at Chicken Run Rescue had such a fascinating
backstory. Originally I started the book
with Gody, a little black hen who, for a time, lived in a St. Paul, Minnesota
elementary school science classroom. The teacher acquired Gody after a
friend-of-a-friend, a woman in Minneapolis, heard a cat yowling in her
driveway. She went out to investigate
and found Gody, panicked and shivering, hiding in a corner of her garage! But
Gody had already come through Chicken Run Rescue and been adopted out to a
family by the time I started my research, and there weren’t any good photos from
her days in the classroom. Sadly, I had to deny her a starring role.
. JBM: How does your interest in poetry show up in
City Chickens?
CH: Certainly I chose words carefully and paid
attention to the rhythm of the language, just as I do when I’m writing a poem.
But more than that, I believe Mary and Bert are doing exactly what the best
poets do: they are allowing us to see something through fresh eyes. They are
saying, look at these creatures you’ve always taken for granted, aren’t they
extraordinary?
***
Thanks, Christine. I think this book will change the way we see
chickens. It will be much harder to think of chickens as "egg factories"
after reading about Chicken Run Rescue. We will see more. And isn't
that one thing we are about--helping each other to see...more.
City Chickens - The Book: Chicken Run Rescue Video
City Chickens - The Book: Chicken Run Rescue Video: Here's a nice video introduction to Chicken Run Rescue. Welcome to Chicken Run Rescue from threedog on Vimeo .
Red Cat, Blue Cat and Cat Tale --- NY Times
Children's Books
Two or Three Cats
‘Cat Tale’ and ‘Red Cat Blue Cat’
From “Cat Tale”
By PAMELA PAUL
One book features three cat friends. The other is about two cat rivals.
One offers inspired nonsense. The other deals with a (relatively)
realistic situation. But with eye-poppingly bright and friendly
illustrations, winning stories and clever execution, these two new
picture books stand apart from the rest of the cat pack.
RED CAT BLUE CAT
Written and illustrated by Jenni Desmond
40 pp. Blue Apple Books. $16.99. (Picture book; ages 4 to 8)
From “Red Cat Blue Cat”
“Cat Tale” is a twisty, imaginative story, told in homonyms, about three
cats — Lillian, Tilly and William J. — who, “from word to word” make
their way in the world, whether they plane a board or board a train.
Some of the wordplay may fly over the heads of younger children and
even, possibly, confuse them. (“They shoo a truly naughty gnu” is not
likely to be grasped by most 3-year-olds.) But then the cats themselves
become confused:
Oh, dear.
The words are jumbled!
They’ve lost their way –
Lillian, Tilly and William J.
But it’s all O.K. because the vividly hued and boxy, collage-style
digital illustrations, which recall Eric Carle and recent work by Marc
Brown, will engross younger readers while older readers catch on to the
double meanings. And children of all ages will appreciate the cats’
attempts to bear some hail and hail a whale. A step up in linguistic
difficulty from “Chicka Chicka Boom Boom,” this latest from Hall
(“Perfect Square,” “My Heart Is Like a Zoo”) nonetheless captures some
of that classic’s tumble-bumble rhythm and “read it again” magic.
Feline foes and rivalries masking secret jealousies are not new
subjects. Nonetheless, the warring yet endearing cats in Jenni Desmond’s
“Red Cat Blue Cat” are welcome company. Their travails aren’t so
different from our human ones. Red Cat, you see, “wished he were as
smart as Blue Cat, and . . . Blue Cat wanted to be fast and bouncy like
Red Cat.” And so, just like people, “they fought and they hissed and
they wished, all day long.”
When Blue Cat decides to be more like Red Cat, he eats a crab, some
cherries and rose petals, among other items. “Guess who was spying on
him the whole time?” Desmond slyly asks. Red Cat, in turn, is inspired
to try “blueberries, bluebells, a blue fish, blue pudding and certain
cupcakes.” Thus begins an escalating conflict between the two cats as
each tries to imitate, match and outdo the other.
Desmond’s captivating drawings combine intricate pen-and-ink and
charcoal lines and childlike splotches of color to depict the best and
worst in what will be highly recognizable cat behavior. The story, with
its nod to “Little Blue and Little Yellow” and other tales of friendship
and differences, hits all the familiar beats. But it does so with a
generous dose of humor, adept storytelling and spot-on detail.
Wednesday, October 10, 2012
2012 National Book Award nominations are in!
http://www.nationalbook.org/nba2012.html#.UHWeLa4QPx0
YOUNG PEOPLE'S LITERATURE
FINALISTS:
William Alexander, Goblin Secrets (Margaret K. McElderry Books, an imprint of
Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing)
Carrie Arcos, Out of Reach (Simon Pulse, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing)
Patricia McCormick, Never Fall Down (Balzer+Bray, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers)
Eliot Schrefer, Endangered (Scholastic)
Steve Sheinkin, Bomb: The Race to Build—and Steal—the World's Most Dangerous Weapon
(Flash Point, an imprint of Roaring Brook Press)
Young People's Literature Judges:
Susan Cooper, Daniel Ehrenhaft, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Gary D. Schmidt, Marly YoumansThursday, October 4, 2012
Do you use a Nook to download ebooks from the library?
If you use a Nook to download your favorite kids and teens (or any other) ebooks from the library, it just got a whole lot easier! Check out our catalog of downloadable ebooks and audiobooks at digital.minlib.net.
Borrowing eBooks and audiobooks from the library just got a
whole lot easier for users of the NOOK HD, NOOK HD+, NOOK Tablet™ and
NOOK Color™. Last week, Barnes & Noble added the OverDrive Media Console app to the NOOK Apps™ storefront. This NOOK app enables users to wirelessly borrow eBooks and MP3 audiobooks from the library.
All NOOK devices—including NOOK 1st Edition,NOOK Simple Touch and NOOK Simple Touch with GlowLight—have always enabled users to read eBooks borrowed from libraries and schools, but the process required sideloading the files from a computer using Adobe Digital Editions and a USB cable. Now users of NOOK HD, NOOK HD+, NOOK Tablet and NOOK Color can borrow eBooks and audiobooks wirelessly using the OverDrive app.
Users can visit the NOOK Apps storefront to install the free OverDrive Media Console app. The app enables users to locate a library or school nearby, browse or search their eBook and MP3 audiobook collection and, after entering a valid library card or school ID, check out and download the title for a lending period of one to three weeks (depending on the library or school’s policies). At the end of the lending period, the title simply expires.
The version of OMC available in the NOOK Apps storefront is OMC for Android v2.5, so any instructions found on library help pages related to OMC for Android will apply to the NOOK app. While the app is free, users will need a valid NOOK account in order to download the app.
Michael Lovett is Public Relations and Social Media Specialist at OverDrive.
OverDrive App Comes to NOOK®
October 2nd, 2012
All NOOK devices—including NOOK 1st Edition,NOOK Simple Touch and NOOK Simple Touch with GlowLight—have always enabled users to read eBooks borrowed from libraries and schools, but the process required sideloading the files from a computer using Adobe Digital Editions and a USB cable. Now users of NOOK HD, NOOK HD+, NOOK Tablet and NOOK Color can borrow eBooks and audiobooks wirelessly using the OverDrive app.
Users can visit the NOOK Apps storefront to install the free OverDrive Media Console app. The app enables users to locate a library or school nearby, browse or search their eBook and MP3 audiobook collection and, after entering a valid library card or school ID, check out and download the title for a lending period of one to three weeks (depending on the library or school’s policies). At the end of the lending period, the title simply expires.
The version of OMC available in the NOOK Apps storefront is OMC for Android v2.5, so any instructions found on library help pages related to OMC for Android will apply to the NOOK app. While the app is free, users will need a valid NOOK account in order to download the app.
Michael Lovett is Public Relations and Social Media Specialist at OverDrive.
Thursday, September 27, 2012
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Wellesley resident’s book teaches value of daily good deeds
Liz Suneby with her new children’s book .
Wellesley resident’s book teaches value of daily good deeds
Photos from the American Girl Tea Party
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Hey! Look at us in Wellesley Weston magazine...
Good old Mariah, as mentioned in Wellesley Weston magazine.
http://wellesleywestonmagazine.epubxp.com/issue/78488/103
Monday, August 20, 2012
From Esme Raji Codell, a bit about classroom discipline
What also comes to mind is a passage from Farmer Boy by Laura Ingalls Wilder, describing a situation in a frontier classroom:
"These big boys came...to thrash the teacher and break up the school. They boasted that no teacher could finish the winter term at that school, and no teacher ever had. This year the teacher was a slim, pale young man. His name was Mr. Corse. He was gentle and patient, and never whipped little boys because they forgot how to spell a word. Almanzo felt sick inside when he thought how the big boys would beat Mr. Corse. Mr. Corse wasn't big enough to fight them."
The
story continues, describing insolence and disruptive behavior in the
one-room schoolhouse by the band of boys, led by the teenager "Big
Bill," and it is revealed that these boys have caused death to teachers
in the past. The other children cannot concentrate on their work, or
complete their lessons, in anticipation of the inevitable
confrontations. Little Almanzo confides in his father, "I wish I was big
enough to fight 'em!"
"'Son, Mr. Corse was hired out to teach the school,' Father answered. "The school trustees were fair and above board with him; they told him what he was undertaking. He undertook it. It's his job, not yours.'
'But maybe they'll kill him!' Almanzo said.
'That's his business,' said Father. 'When a man undertakes a job, he has to stick to it till he finishes it. If Corse is the man I think he is, he'll thank nobody for interfering.'
....Big Bill tore off his coat, yelling, 'Come on boys!' He rushed up the aisle. Almanzo felt sick inside; he didn't want to watch it, but he couldn't help it.
Mr. Corse stepped away from his desk. His hand came from behind the desk lid, and a long, thin, black streak hissed through the air.
It was a blacksnake ox-whip fifteen feet long. Mr. Corse held the short handle, loaded with iron, that could kill an ox. The thin, long lash coiled around Bill's legs, and Mr. Corse jerked. Bill lurched and almost fell. Quick as black lightning the lash circled and stuck and coiled again, and again Mr. Corse jerked."
illustration by Garth Williams
In this frontier memoir, Mr. Corse
wins the battle and the war, and regains classroom control in a society
where the parental attitude was "if the teacher has to thrash you again,
I'll give you a thrashing you remember." The problem of insanely
brutal threats to classroom management are not new in the American
classroom, nor are the extreme responses of educators.
From the Horn Book: Reading Along the Gender Continuum
Reading Along the Gender Continuum
August 20, 2012 By Leave a Comment
Having grown up in the Free to Be generation, I’ve tried as a parent to steer clear of limiting gender norms in raising, and reading to,
my son. We’ve read about boys and girls of all types, and (just as
Hilary Rappaport describes in her May/June 2012 Horn Book article “On the Rights of Reading and Girls and Boys”), his preferences never seemed to hinge on the gender presented on the covers or through the characters. We’ve loved stories in which characters cross gender boundaries, such as Horace and Morris but Mostly Dolores and The Princess Knight and the classic William’s Doll, as well as stories that seem to ignore gender, such as my son’s one-time favorite, Ten Minutes till Bedtime, complete with discussions about which pronoun we should use for the main character.
I had never heard of the Rainbow Magic books (Scholastic) when my son, then five, announced that he wanted to read them; it soon became apparent that they were the new “in” books with his friends at school (kids with names like Emily and Ava and Sophie). So we borrowed Ruby the Red Fairy from the library, and he loved it: the good kids and the bad villains, the magic, the predictable formula, the tidy resolution. We moved on from the Rainbow Fairies to the Weather Fairies, and I told my partner it was his turn to read the next set (there being only so much trite writing I am willing to endure for the sake of crossing gender borders). As our son became an independent reader, we told him that if he wanted to read more Rainbow Magic books, he’d have to read them to himself, and read them he did.
One day when he was getting ready for a playdate, he said he wanted to hide his fairy books so no one would tease him. He didn’t think there was anything wrong with liking them, but he was beginning to recognize that some other kids might. The books were hidden for a while, and then when I started teaching children’s literature and asked if I could bring them in to work to show in my class, he said “sure.” He had moved on, continuing to devour books as he raced through the Littles and Humphrey the hamster, Little Wolf and Ramona, Hank Zipzer and of course the Magic Tree House. There weren’t “girl books” and “boy books.” There were just books.
He switched to a new school in first grade, and since then the books he has brought home from the school library seem to be very gender-typed: Justice League; Big Nate; several iterations of Star Wars. He tells me which kids checked the books out before him, and which ones are waiting to get them next (kids with names like Jack and Connor and Joaquin). He does enjoy these “for boys!”–blazened titles, despite the narrowing focus of the type of reading he is supposed to like. Though part of me mourns this loss, knowing there are many less-obviously-boy-oriented books that would appeal to him too, he is still reading passionately. But how is he being socialized to fit into gender categories? And what if a kid wants (or needs) to fight the categories? How much conviction does a second-grade boy need to carry a book with a pink cover out of the library?
My interest in the presentation of gender in reading materials has shifted over the past three years as I’ve begun to contemplate literary gender roles not just from a parental perspective but also from a professional one, teaching children’s literature to future teachers. Recently, one of my college students wrote a paper referencing The Secret Garden, and as I looked for a copy of the book in the library catalog I saw cover after cover that seemed designed to appeal to a specific category of readers: bookish girls. I do believe that we should work to change society so that we don’t have these gender limitations, and indeed we should not judge books by their covers (even though we know kids do, and will continue to do so). Yet by having images and colors that play into gender norms, aren’t book covers (or the publishers who select them) judging their readers? By putting a sparkly pink cover on a Rainbow Magic fairy book, has it been preordained that only girls need bother picking it up? By highlighting the fairies and jewels and glitter, do we inadvertently approve and promote the idea that boys won’t read about girls?
I have fallen into this trap, too. When I check books out for my class, if I think they might interest my son, I put them in his room until I need them; books I think are too old for him or not to his taste I set on my desk. One day he saw The Doll People on top of my pile and asked about it. Of course I said he could look at it, and in a matter of minutes he was immersed. In a couple of days it was read, as were the others in the series as quickly as we could borrow them. What had influenced me to sort that book into the desk pile? Was it the cover art (dolls, dollhouse, even a heart-shaped lock)? The flourish-filled font? The female authors? The word doll in the title? What if it had said mini-figure instead? The subconscious notions of my adult mind didn’t speak to the real child in my house. The avowed feminist had fallen for the old stereotypical assumptions.
Yet even more layers of assumptions are inherent in this discussion, identifying children as gender normative, boy or girl. On the rare occasion when titles like 10,000 Dresses or I Am J come out in which main characters identify as transgender, these books are praised—and rightly so—for providing bibliotherapeutic relief for young people who are transgender or questioning whether they may be. But our response to books portraying transgender characters reveals that we are once again falling into old patterns of categorization. Sure, we’ve added another perspective on gender, but we still want to separate people into clear-cut groupings: either you’re transgender, or you’re not. We believe we can embrace transgender children and a male/female dichotomy simply by reassigning these children to the appropriate gender role — swapping Captain Underpants for Babymouse.
The reality, however, is that many children are gender variant (with interests and behaviors persistently outside of typical cultural gender norms) and at different points in their lives might be living or exploring at various places along the gender identity continuum (see, for example, Ruth Padawer’s article “What’s So Bad About a Boy Who Wants to Wear a Dress?” in the August 12, 2012 New York Times Magazine). Assigning labels to these places isn’t as important as having a rich understanding of the ways gender is presented in books; a rich understanding of how kids may be presenting and exploring their gender and gender identity; and the skills to connect the two.
To gain that understanding and those skills, we need to remember not to judge children by the “covers” they present. One child may be presenting as a boy only because no other option is permitted in that family. Another may present as a “girly girl” in a phase of experimentation, but may want to both wear pink and study science. Maybe we have to realize that there can be many paths to the same summit, and some of them might involve a detour through an obsession with Disney Princesses and Barbie (and the narrowed roles they suggest), as was the case for one transgender girl I know.
So I would propose that we modify our language, speaking not of “Girl Books and Boy Books,” but of books across gender. To the advice contained within the section of the same name in Roger Sutton’s essay in A Family of Readers (Candlewick), I would offer a modification (in italics below): “The best thing you can give to a would-be, could-be reader, regardless of gender, gender identity, or gender presentation, is access to a wide variety of reading possibilities among which he or she can find what seems just right, labels be damned.” And yet, peer pressure is a mighty force with which to contend, particularly for gender-variant or transgender children, who are routinely targeted for teasing and bullying. A boy who otherwise aligns with gender stereotypes may be given a pass for reading Ivy + Bean, but one who is already ridiculed for being effeminate may find taking such a risk much more dangerous.
So where do we find good books for the children along the middle of the continuum? What do we suggest to the child who feels like a girl but is called a boy (or vice versa), the kids who are exploring gender, or the ones who want to understand a friend who is exploring gender?
It’s not enough to have content with gender-diverse appeal; packaging matters too. Some authors deftly manage to weave rich characters of diverse genders into their books only to be faced with the loss of potential readers through covers that invite just one segment of the gender spectrum, such as the misleading suggestion of romantic fiction on the cover of Phoebe Stone’s engaging historical mystery, The Romeo and Juliet Code. Occasionally publishers make changes between editions, as happened with Linda Sue Park’s Keeping Score: the paperback edition sports not only a new font and image (a dog and a baseball) on the cover but a new subtitle as well, all significant improvements over the cursive lettering and girl-centric picture on the hardcover.
Gender variant girls in many ways have it easier; in my work in the schools, they are comfortable picking up Diary of a Wimpy Kid and adore the Harry Potter books with no reservations. But let’s make sure it stays that way, while opening doors for boys to explore diverse genres. Let’s damn the labels, but let’s actively try to defy them too. There are lots of great examples with titles and cover art that don’t play into the trappings of gender. Books with girls as main characters should appeal to many kids, and titles such as Rules and Out of My Mind (both with goldfish on the covers), When You Reach Me (with its clever display of symbols), and Zebrafish (with a diverse group of kids pictured) are excellent models of inviting potential readers rather that prescribing them. The Judy Moody and Stink books serve as positive examples as well, with their neutral book covers and mix of central characters. The Hunger Games series demonstrates the potential for strong sales with packaging that appeals to all readers. We do want all kids to read more, regardless of how they identify along the gender continuum. And ideally all kids will feel safe to explore gender through their reading, in order (as Roger Sutton put it in his September/October 2007 Horn Book editorial) “to independently and privately assume whatever (not whichever) genders [they] like.” And then maybe, through access to the perspectives these books provide, they can come closer to finding an authentic gender identity and, in the best-case scenario, finding an identity as a reader as well.
I Am J (Little, Brown, 2011) by Cris Beam [High School]
The World According to Humphrey (Putnam, 2004) by Betty G. Birney [Primary, Intermediate]
Be Who You Are (AuthorHouse, 2010) by Jennifer Carr; illus. by Ben Rumback [Primary]
Beezus and Ramona (Morrow, 1955) by Beverly Cleary; illus. by Louis Darling [Intermediate]
The Hunger Games (Scholastic, 2008) by Suzanne Collins [Middle School, High School]
Out of My Mind (Atheneum, 2010) by Sharon M. Draper [Intermediate]
Peter H. Reynolds and FableVision Present Zebrafish (Atheneum, 2010) by Sharon Emerson; illus. by Renée Kurilla [Intermediate, Middle School]
10,000 Dresses (Seven Stories, 2008) by Marcus Ewert; illus. by Rex Ray [Primary]
Born to Fly (Delacorte, 2009) by Michael Ferrari [Intermediate]
The Princess Knight (Scholastic, 2004) by Cornelia Funke; illus. by Kerstin Meyer [Preschool, Primary]
Hoot (Knopf, 2002) by Carl Hiaasen (also Flush (2005), Scat (2009), and Chomp (2012)) [Intermediate, Middle School]
Operation Yes (Levine/Scholastic, 2009) by Sara Lewis Holmes [Intermediate, Middle School]
Horace and Morris but Mostly Dolores (Atheneum, 1999) by James Howe; illus. by Amy Walrod [Primary]
Pinky and Rex and the Bully (Atheneum, 1996) by James Howe; illus. by Melissa Sweet [Primary]
Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Amulet/Abrams, 2007) by Jeff Kinney [Intermediate, Middle School]
Rules (Scholastic, 2006) by Cynthia Lord [Intermediate]
The Doll People (Hyperion, 2000) by Ann M. Martin and Laura Godwin; illus. by Brian Selznick [Primary, Intermediate]
Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life (Little, Brown, 2006) by Wendy Mass [Intermediate, Middle School]
Judy Moody (Candlewick, 2000) by Megan McDonald; illus. by Peter H. Reynolds [Primary, Intermediate]
Stink (Candlewick, 2005) by Megan McDonald; illus. by Peter H. Reynolds [Primary]
The Littles (Scholastic, 1967) by John Peterson; illus. by Roberta Carter Clark [Primary]
Ten Minutes till Bedtime (Putnam, 1998) by Peggy Rathmann [Preschool]
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Levine/Scholastic, 1998) by J.K. Rowling; illus. by Mary GrandPré [Intermediate]
Bluefish (Candlewick, 2011) by Pat Schmatz [Middle School]
When You Reach Me (Lamb/Random, 2009) by Rebecca Stead [Intermediate, Middle School]
Little Wolf’s Book of Badness (Carolrhoda/Lerner, 1999) by Ian Whybrow; illus. by Tony Ross [Primary, Intermediate]
Countdown (Scholastic, 2010) by Deborah Wiles [Intermediate]
Parrotfish (Simon, 2007) by Ellen Wittlinger [High School]
Peace Locomotion (Putnam, 2009) by Jacqueline Woodson [Intermediate]
William’s Doll (Harper & Row, 1972) by Charlotte Zolotow; illus. by William Pene du Bois [Preschool, Primary]
I had never heard of the Rainbow Magic books (Scholastic) when my son, then five, announced that he wanted to read them; it soon became apparent that they were the new “in” books with his friends at school (kids with names like Emily and Ava and Sophie). So we borrowed Ruby the Red Fairy from the library, and he loved it: the good kids and the bad villains, the magic, the predictable formula, the tidy resolution. We moved on from the Rainbow Fairies to the Weather Fairies, and I told my partner it was his turn to read the next set (there being only so much trite writing I am willing to endure for the sake of crossing gender borders). As our son became an independent reader, we told him that if he wanted to read more Rainbow Magic books, he’d have to read them to himself, and read them he did.
One day when he was getting ready for a playdate, he said he wanted to hide his fairy books so no one would tease him. He didn’t think there was anything wrong with liking them, but he was beginning to recognize that some other kids might. The books were hidden for a while, and then when I started teaching children’s literature and asked if I could bring them in to work to show in my class, he said “sure.” He had moved on, continuing to devour books as he raced through the Littles and Humphrey the hamster, Little Wolf and Ramona, Hank Zipzer and of course the Magic Tree House. There weren’t “girl books” and “boy books.” There were just books.
He switched to a new school in first grade, and since then the books he has brought home from the school library seem to be very gender-typed: Justice League; Big Nate; several iterations of Star Wars. He tells me which kids checked the books out before him, and which ones are waiting to get them next (kids with names like Jack and Connor and Joaquin). He does enjoy these “for boys!”–blazened titles, despite the narrowing focus of the type of reading he is supposed to like. Though part of me mourns this loss, knowing there are many less-obviously-boy-oriented books that would appeal to him too, he is still reading passionately. But how is he being socialized to fit into gender categories? And what if a kid wants (or needs) to fight the categories? How much conviction does a second-grade boy need to carry a book with a pink cover out of the library?
My interest in the presentation of gender in reading materials has shifted over the past three years as I’ve begun to contemplate literary gender roles not just from a parental perspective but also from a professional one, teaching children’s literature to future teachers. Recently, one of my college students wrote a paper referencing The Secret Garden, and as I looked for a copy of the book in the library catalog I saw cover after cover that seemed designed to appeal to a specific category of readers: bookish girls. I do believe that we should work to change society so that we don’t have these gender limitations, and indeed we should not judge books by their covers (even though we know kids do, and will continue to do so). Yet by having images and colors that play into gender norms, aren’t book covers (or the publishers who select them) judging their readers? By putting a sparkly pink cover on a Rainbow Magic fairy book, has it been preordained that only girls need bother picking it up? By highlighting the fairies and jewels and glitter, do we inadvertently approve and promote the idea that boys won’t read about girls?
I have fallen into this trap, too. When I check books out for my class, if I think they might interest my son, I put them in his room until I need them; books I think are too old for him or not to his taste I set on my desk. One day he saw The Doll People on top of my pile and asked about it. Of course I said he could look at it, and in a matter of minutes he was immersed. In a couple of days it was read, as were the others in the series as quickly as we could borrow them. What had influenced me to sort that book into the desk pile? Was it the cover art (dolls, dollhouse, even a heart-shaped lock)? The flourish-filled font? The female authors? The word doll in the title? What if it had said mini-figure instead? The subconscious notions of my adult mind didn’t speak to the real child in my house. The avowed feminist had fallen for the old stereotypical assumptions.Yet even more layers of assumptions are inherent in this discussion, identifying children as gender normative, boy or girl. On the rare occasion when titles like 10,000 Dresses or I Am J come out in which main characters identify as transgender, these books are praised—and rightly so—for providing bibliotherapeutic relief for young people who are transgender or questioning whether they may be. But our response to books portraying transgender characters reveals that we are once again falling into old patterns of categorization. Sure, we’ve added another perspective on gender, but we still want to separate people into clear-cut groupings: either you’re transgender, or you’re not. We believe we can embrace transgender children and a male/female dichotomy simply by reassigning these children to the appropriate gender role — swapping Captain Underpants for Babymouse.
The reality, however, is that many children are gender variant (with interests and behaviors persistently outside of typical cultural gender norms) and at different points in their lives might be living or exploring at various places along the gender identity continuum (see, for example, Ruth Padawer’s article “What’s So Bad About a Boy Who Wants to Wear a Dress?” in the August 12, 2012 New York Times Magazine). Assigning labels to these places isn’t as important as having a rich understanding of the ways gender is presented in books; a rich understanding of how kids may be presenting and exploring their gender and gender identity; and the skills to connect the two.
To gain that understanding and those skills, we need to remember not to judge children by the “covers” they present. One child may be presenting as a boy only because no other option is permitted in that family. Another may present as a “girly girl” in a phase of experimentation, but may want to both wear pink and study science. Maybe we have to realize that there can be many paths to the same summit, and some of them might involve a detour through an obsession with Disney Princesses and Barbie (and the narrowed roles they suggest), as was the case for one transgender girl I know.
So I would propose that we modify our language, speaking not of “Girl Books and Boy Books,” but of books across gender. To the advice contained within the section of the same name in Roger Sutton’s essay in A Family of Readers (Candlewick), I would offer a modification (in italics below): “The best thing you can give to a would-be, could-be reader, regardless of gender, gender identity, or gender presentation, is access to a wide variety of reading possibilities among which he or she can find what seems just right, labels be damned.” And yet, peer pressure is a mighty force with which to contend, particularly for gender-variant or transgender children, who are routinely targeted for teasing and bullying. A boy who otherwise aligns with gender stereotypes may be given a pass for reading Ivy + Bean, but one who is already ridiculed for being effeminate may find taking such a risk much more dangerous.
So where do we find good books for the children along the middle of the continuum? What do we suggest to the child who feels like a girl but is called a boy (or vice versa), the kids who are exploring gender, or the ones who want to understand a friend who is exploring gender?
It’s not enough to have content with gender-diverse appeal; packaging matters too. Some authors deftly manage to weave rich characters of diverse genders into their books only to be faced with the loss of potential readers through covers that invite just one segment of the gender spectrum, such as the misleading suggestion of romantic fiction on the cover of Phoebe Stone’s engaging historical mystery, The Romeo and Juliet Code. Occasionally publishers make changes between editions, as happened with Linda Sue Park’s Keeping Score: the paperback edition sports not only a new font and image (a dog and a baseball) on the cover but a new subtitle as well, all significant improvements over the cursive lettering and girl-centric picture on the hardcover.
Gender variant girls in many ways have it easier; in my work in the schools, they are comfortable picking up Diary of a Wimpy Kid and adore the Harry Potter books with no reservations. But let’s make sure it stays that way, while opening doors for boys to explore diverse genres. Let’s damn the labels, but let’s actively try to defy them too. There are lots of great examples with titles and cover art that don’t play into the trappings of gender. Books with girls as main characters should appeal to many kids, and titles such as Rules and Out of My Mind (both with goldfish on the covers), When You Reach Me (with its clever display of symbols), and Zebrafish (with a diverse group of kids pictured) are excellent models of inviting potential readers rather that prescribing them. The Judy Moody and Stink books serve as positive examples as well, with their neutral book covers and mix of central characters. The Hunger Games series demonstrates the potential for strong sales with packaging that appeals to all readers. We do want all kids to read more, regardless of how they identify along the gender continuum. And ideally all kids will feel safe to explore gender through their reading, in order (as Roger Sutton put it in his September/October 2007 Horn Book editorial) “to independently and privately assume whatever (not whichever) genders [they] like.” And then maybe, through access to the perspectives these books provide, they can come closer to finding an authentic gender identity and, in the best-case scenario, finding an identity as a reader as well.
Books with Gender-Diverse Appeal
Anything but Typical (Simon, 2009) by Nora Raleigh Baskin [Intermediate, Middle School]I Am J (Little, Brown, 2011) by Cris Beam [High School]
The World According to Humphrey (Putnam, 2004) by Betty G. Birney [Primary, Intermediate]
Be Who You Are (AuthorHouse, 2010) by Jennifer Carr; illus. by Ben Rumback [Primary]
Beezus and Ramona (Morrow, 1955) by Beverly Cleary; illus. by Louis Darling [Intermediate]
The Hunger Games (Scholastic, 2008) by Suzanne Collins [Middle School, High School]
Out of My Mind (Atheneum, 2010) by Sharon M. Draper [Intermediate]
Peter H. Reynolds and FableVision Present Zebrafish (Atheneum, 2010) by Sharon Emerson; illus. by Renée Kurilla [Intermediate, Middle School]
10,000 Dresses (Seven Stories, 2008) by Marcus Ewert; illus. by Rex Ray [Primary]
Born to Fly (Delacorte, 2009) by Michael Ferrari [Intermediate]
The Princess Knight (Scholastic, 2004) by Cornelia Funke; illus. by Kerstin Meyer [Preschool, Primary]
Hoot (Knopf, 2002) by Carl Hiaasen (also Flush (2005), Scat (2009), and Chomp (2012)) [Intermediate, Middle School]
Operation Yes (Levine/Scholastic, 2009) by Sara Lewis Holmes [Intermediate, Middle School]
Horace and Morris but Mostly Dolores (Atheneum, 1999) by James Howe; illus. by Amy Walrod [Primary]
Pinky and Rex and the Bully (Atheneum, 1996) by James Howe; illus. by Melissa Sweet [Primary]
Diary of a Wimpy Kid (Amulet/Abrams, 2007) by Jeff Kinney [Intermediate, Middle School]
Rules (Scholastic, 2006) by Cynthia Lord [Intermediate]
The Doll People (Hyperion, 2000) by Ann M. Martin and Laura Godwin; illus. by Brian Selznick [Primary, Intermediate]
Jeremy Fink and the Meaning of Life (Little, Brown, 2006) by Wendy Mass [Intermediate, Middle School]
Judy Moody (Candlewick, 2000) by Megan McDonald; illus. by Peter H. Reynolds [Primary, Intermediate]
Stink (Candlewick, 2005) by Megan McDonald; illus. by Peter H. Reynolds [Primary]
The Littles (Scholastic, 1967) by John Peterson; illus. by Roberta Carter Clark [Primary]
Ten Minutes till Bedtime (Putnam, 1998) by Peggy Rathmann [Preschool]
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (Levine/Scholastic, 1998) by J.K. Rowling; illus. by Mary GrandPré [Intermediate]
Bluefish (Candlewick, 2011) by Pat Schmatz [Middle School]
When You Reach Me (Lamb/Random, 2009) by Rebecca Stead [Intermediate, Middle School]
Little Wolf’s Book of Badness (Carolrhoda/Lerner, 1999) by Ian Whybrow; illus. by Tony Ross [Primary, Intermediate]
Countdown (Scholastic, 2010) by Deborah Wiles [Intermediate]
Parrotfish (Simon, 2007) by Ellen Wittlinger [High School]
Peace Locomotion (Putnam, 2009) by Jacqueline Woodson [Intermediate]
William’s Doll (Harper & Row, 1972) by Charlotte Zolotow; illus. by William Pene du Bois [Preschool, Primary]
Friday, August 17, 2012
Planning on wearing a sunsuit on the first day of school?
Timothy is very excited about starting school—until he meets Claude. Claude sits next to him, and he wears all the right clothes, says all the right things, and garners all the praise from his teacher and classmates. Timothy is feeling down, until he meets a girl who's having the same problem with her seatmate...
"Children will easily relate to this tale, in which humor and realism effectively mesh." —Booklist, starred review
Thursday, August 16, 2012
Give 'Em Helvetica: Picture Book Type
Give ‘Em Helvetica: Picture Book Type
August 15, 2012 By 8 Comments
Type — the formal language of the printed word — speaks to us in mysterious ways. It’s not always clear just what type is saying, or how our reading experience is enhanced or undermined, however subtly, by slight variations in point size (the overall dimensions of the type), or the thickness and proportions of an ascender or terminal (particular elements of certain letterforms). But at a minimum, type is one of the major ingredients in the creation of a visual environment that is favorable to reading, and a book designer must always be thinking about how to achieve this result in a given situation. In the case of picture books, there seems to be widespread agreement among design professionals that the best type is most often the one that calls the least attention to itself.Not long ago, Claire Counihan, director of art and design at Holiday House and a type devotee from her student days at Pratt Institute, was planning a new series of easy readers to be illustrated by a variety of artists. Among Counihan’s first decisions was to select a sans serif type for the entire series. “Older, more accomplished readers,” she explains, “are better served with serif faces, which help the eye travel more swiftly from word to word by making a series of visual connections. But for new readers, word recognition, not speed, is the point. My editor, Grace Maccarone, and I considered the usual suspects: Gill Sans, Helvetica, Futura. In the end we picked Report School because it has a nice high x height (the height of the lowercase letters) and the letterforms are simple, with the a, d, and g, for example, formed from just a circle attached to either an ascender or a descender.”
On Holiday House’s inaugural I Like to Read series list was Paul Meisel’s See Me Run. Counihan continues: “Paul studied graphic design at Yale before turning to illustration, so type is always a big part of our discussions. Because Paul’s text was just eighty words long, we agreed that the initial point size I had chosen should be increased to better counterbalance the art. I kept the leading — the space between lines — the same, however. Too much leading and your eye plunges from line to line! For display, I picked Wild Ketchup, a typeface as bouncy and wacky as the dogs that run through the book.” See Me Run won a 2012 Theodor Seuss Geisel Award Honor.
Martha Rago’s approach to typography is rooted in classic design principles learned in the 1980s under mentors Nanette Stevenson, Atha Tehon, Riki Levinson, and Cynthia Krupat. Rago, executive art director at HarperCollins Children’s Books, believes that a successful book design “brings order and cohesion to the whole work” while also “matching the book’s emotional content.” As the designer of Night Driving, the first picture book illustrated by Peter McCarty, she noted the spare, poetic, and nostalgic tone of both John Coy’s text and McCarty’s pictures as well as the emotional impact of the story they told — a reminiscence of a boy’s nighttime drive in the company of his father. McCarty’s “shaded, tonal black and white images, rendered in grainy, textual graphic, and featuring round, sculptural forms” were, she says, “both warm and refined.” They referenced period cars, clothing, landmarks, and other details suggestive of the 1940s or early 1950s. With this in mind, Rago chose Gill Sans Light for the text, a sans serif font that had been designed by Eric Gill in 1931. “It is a humanist font, with warmth in its round forms, but also with an elegant, no-nonsense quality, especially in its lighter weights. I used fairly open leading to keep it readable and accessible, with a generous negative space around the blocks of text on each page, to face images framed in a margin of white. The display, Umbra, is also from the 1930s, a cut that relates to the forms of Gill Sans but with sharper verticals, and has a shadow effect that echoes the glow of light and shadow through the book’s imagery.”
While harmoniousness and understatement are clearly among the watchwords in picture-book type selection and design, the element of surprise also has a role to play. Lee Wade, vice president and publisher of Schwartz & Wade Books, recalls with delight her decision to set the copyright notice for Velma Gratch & the Way Cool Butterfly in the shape of a butterfly. She admires the boldness with which the great American graphic designer Paul Rand, in the picture book Sparkle and Spin, broke with the typographic scheme of the book to create a dedication page to remember. “The dedication,” Wade says, “appears in black hand-lettering in the top right-hand corner of the first page of the book. And since it is the only hand-lettering in the whole book, and seems to have been drawn with a black felt-tip pen, it looks like a personalized message to each reader — a design surprise for sure!”
The picture book has a long-standing tradition of hand-lettering, motivated (one assumes) by the basic desire cited by Wade to connect with young readers in the most intimate way possible. Examples from the 1920s and 1930s include William Nicholson’s Clever Bill, Wanda Gág’s Millions of Cats, and Jean de Brunhoff’s The Story of Babar (as originally published). More recently, Vera B. Williams’s “More More More” Said the Baby and Chris Raschka’s Yo! Yes? have continued in this vein. David Saylor, vice president and creative director of trade publishing at Scholastic, observes that a combination of hand-lettering and idiosyncratic type decisions that skew in the direction of hand-lettering are among the factors that define the special visual impact of Margaret Wise Brown and Clement Hurd’s Goodnight Moon.
“The design of Goodnight Moon,” Saylor notes, “is not complicated, but you can tell that careful thought went into it. You can see this in the decision to add color to the type on full-color pages; the sizing of the type so as to sit well on the page without competing with the artwork while still holding its own.
“The text font,” he says, is “a solid, very friendly sans serif (Martin Gothic Bold, I believe), not typical of the classic picture books that relied on serif fonts for some sort of authority. And the hand-lettering of the title type adds a nice warmth and almost casual feeling to the book. It all looks effortless — and inevitable.”
 | Playing NiceDonald Crews has always turned to the same font—Helvetica—for the titles and texts of his now-classic picture books for toddlers and preschoolers. Asked about this, he responds—half in rapture and half in disbelief at being called upon to state the obvious—with a question of his own: “What would we do without Helvetica? Helvetica lets us create simple and beautiful words, phrases, and paragraphs that meld perfectly with the geometric, iconographic imagery in modern design solutions. It conveys the essential information but doesn’t overwhelm the overall page, poster, or book. It plays nice.” |
The path to reaching that nirvana of ultimate design integration is, of course, maddeningly different for each and every book. As the art director for Stephen Savage’s first picture book, Polar Bear Night, Saylor sensed the need for a strong sans serif to match the monumental feel of Savage’s linoleum block illustrations. “I wanted the type to feel definite and confident, the same way the bear cub feels as she ventures out to explore the world.” The font Saylor selected, Neutraface Text Bold, was inspired by letter designs of the twentieth-century American architect Richard Neutra, and it served to accentuate the retro flavor of Savage’s art.
Given the inherent playfulness of the picture book as a genre, it was inevitable that type would one day assume a more kinetic and central role than the supporting one usually assigned to it. Iconoclastic artists of the last century, from French poet Guillaume Apollinaire to American painter Jasper Johns, produced modernist magic by shining a maverick light on the letterforms in a quixotic quest for the message embedded in the medium. And while news of their experiments was slow to reach Children’s Book Land (surprise, surprise), when it finally did make an impression — most notably via the typographic high jinks of The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, designed by Molly Leach — designers took note of a picture book that had clearly opened up new territory for everyone. As Laurent Linn, art director at Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, observes, type in The Stinky Cheese Man not only harmonized with the art but also became “an integral part of the illustrations.”
It was significant, he says, that Leach selected Bodoni, a classic font, for the body type, rather than a showier or more outlandish choice. “Using a single, well-known font established a solid foundation, which in turn helped to ground the overall design within which the illustrations were quite energetic and zany. But the real creative genius lies in how the type was manipulated and placed to create real emotion and energy and humor. You don’t need to read a word to understand what each particular character means to say.” For a pre-reader, Linn adds, the type becomes almost as big a part of the visual experience as the illustrations.
A picture book Linn himself recently designed shows how design ideas, including those learned from The Stinky Cheese Man, can travel and morph to suit the unique challenges posed by a very different kind of project. For I, Too, Am America, Linn wanted a way to signal poet Langston Hughes’s contrasting vision of the prejudiced time in which he lived and the future that he hoped would bring racial equality. In addition to what became an exhaustive search for a single typeface that felt appropriate for both the historical and contemporary scenes evoked by Hughes and depicted by illustrator Bryan Collier, Linn wished to draw a clear graphic distinction between the two time periods through a contrast in the type presentation.
“For the first [historical] part, I set the type in white, framed boxes within the illustrations. I also placed the art itself in a similar, traditional frame. Then, for the second half of the book, I got rid of the frame around the art and had the illustrations go fully to the paper’s edge, so that we no longer see the book’s world through a frame, but are fully in it. I also eliminated the text boxes. In this part, the text flows freely, curved and floating on pieces of paper that swirl through the air, each incorporated into the art. The type goes from being outside of the action to being a part of the action, just as the reader does.”
And as readers of The Stinky Cheese Man have been doing now for years.
All Types of Type
Goodnight Moon (Harper & Row, 1947) by Margaret Wise Brown; illus. by Clement HurdNight Driving (Holt, 1996) by John Coy; illus. by Peter McCarty
Freight Train (Greenwillow, 1978) by Donald Crews
Harbor (Greenwillow, 1982) by Donald Crews
The Story of Babar, the Little Elephant (Random, 1933) by Jean de Brunhoff
Millions of Cats (Coward-McCann, 1928) by Wanda Gág
I, Too, Am America (Simon, 2012) by Langston Hughes; illus. by Bryan Collier
Velma Gratch & the Way Cool Butterfly (Schwartz & Wade/Random, 2007) by Alan Madison; illus. by Kevin Hawkes
See Me Run [I Like to Read] (Holiday, 2011) by Paul Meisel
Clever Bill (Doubleday, Page & Co., 1926) by William Nicholson
Sparkle and Spin: A Book About Words (Harcourt, 1957) by Ann Rand; illus. by Paul Rand
Yo! Yes? (Orchard, 1993) by Chris Raschka
The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales (Viking Penguin, 1992) by Jon Scieszka; illus. by Lane Smith
Polar Bear Night (Scholastic, 2004) by Lauren Thompson; illus. by Stephen Savage
“More More More” Said the Baby: 3 Love Stories (Greenwillow, 1990) by Vera B. Williams
From the September/October 2012 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.
About Leonard S. MarcusLeonard S. Marcus is the author of Minders of Make-Believe (Houghton), The Annotated Phantom Tollbooth (Knopf), Show Me a Story! (Candlewick) and Listening for Madeleine: A Portrait of Madeleine L’Engle in Many Voices (Farrar).
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