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I went down to YALLFEST with the YA Series Insiders (YASeriesInsiders.com), which is our sister site dedicated to all things series and supporting reader engagement. For those of you who don't know, YALLFEST is an incredible book festival in Charleston, South Carolina that brings together about 65 New York Times Bestselling YA authors and about 4,000 fans for a day and a half of panels and signings. I also did writing panels on the Friday before the YALLFEST events and on Sunday at the Charleston library after the events.
As an author, getting to hang out with readers like this is incredible. You get to see what books mean to teens, and there's nothing more beautiful than a young reader who is literally starry-eyed when speaking about your characters--or those of another author. Readers bring so much to each book they read, and it's fascinating to see what they found within the pages of a book that connected to their own lives.
As authors, we think of books as things we give ourselves, the products of our own creative efforts. But they are more than that. They are gifts we give our readers, and sometimes those readers give back to us more than we could ever have imagined.
That's why we write, isn't it? To connect? To inspire? To let someone feel.
It's impossible not to love the readers who love our books. Meeting even a few of those in person can truly make you remember why you do this. And they make it all worthwhile!
In short, this is a love letter to readers. Thank you for reading my books, or anyone else's. Thank you for bringing characters into your hearts and bringing them to life!
A YA novel with an adventurous (note I did not say "strong") female protag in an unusual place is most often fun. That same YA novel written by a man is intriguing for the simple fact that there aren't as many of those. I didn't know the author's... Read the rest of this post
0 Comments on TURNING PAGES: INTO THE DARK by J.A. Sutherland as of 11/17/2015 6:06:00 AM
It’ll take more than a badge to get her to confess her secrets.
Kit Wainwright only meant to stop the thief making off with his beloved uncle’s ashes. He wants to hang up his gun, become a law-abiding citizen and leave his violent past behind. But the mayor takes notice of his sharpshooting skills, slaps a badge on his chest and puts him in charge of cleaning up this lawless town. Starting with tracking down the notorious Velvet Grace.
Bordello owner Cora Reilly never meant to become a crusader. But after shooting the last corrupt sheriff in self-defense, she’s spent the last few months turning her hastily donned disguise into a local legend to defend the girls in her town from riff-raff.
There’s no way Cora can trust the handsome new sheriff. Yet Kit’s kisses leave her wanting to open her arms—and her bedroom—to soothe his grief. Even if it brings him too close to the truth that could send her to the gallows.
Warning: Contains a reluctant sheriff with a keen eye for a moving target, and a take-no-crap madam who isn’t about to let him get close. Okay, maybe just a little bit closer. Just this once…
Excerpt
The gun, still warm from shooting the sheriff, fit just right against Cora Lynn Reilly’s
ribs, wedged beneath her breasts between her corset and her blouse. Her heart thundered
like a cannonball as she looked for a way to exit the room that wouldn’t require going near the body on the floor, but unfortunately, there wasn’t one. The sound of the blast would likely bring someone upstairs to check on the man, and she couldn’t be caught alone with him.
Balancing on her toes to miss the blood spreading across the boards, she stepped over the first booted leg, her skirt spanning Bill Sidlow’s bloated thighs. She lifted her hem to avoid dragging her petticoat across the man’s torso, now damp and crimson, and set her left foot down with care between his side and his spread-eagle arm.
Don’t look, don’t look. But morbid curiosity got the better of her. She had to be absolutely
certain the bastard was dead, so she glanced down at Sidlow’s face. His sightless eyes stared back at her, familiar enough to make a frisson of terror run down her spine again after he’d cornered her against his apartment wall with demands of sex.
“Shoulda known better,” she scolded beneath her breath. But whether she’d directed her
words at the sheriff or herself, she wasn’t sure.
He gave no response, his flaccid mouth and sagging jowls glistened with spittle—no
different than in life, she supposed. When he’d visited the club earlier that night, he’d pulled her aside to invite her here to his place for a private word, and even then his breath against her ear had been wet and disgusting.
She’d assumed he wanted to talk about business away from the girls and their customers,
because if he’d wanted to make any advances of a sexual nature, where better than the
Willows, the popular social club she owned on the Row? But she’d been wrong. The sheriff had wanted more than to talk. He’d wanted to take, and that was something Cora wouldn’t allow.
Now, one mistake and a bullet later, she had to get out of his apartment fast before
anyone found her here.
Tearing her stare away from the sheriff ’s corpse, she set her body in motion for the
door, but the sudden tread of boots on the stairs outside stopped her in her tracks.
“Sheriff? Was that your gun I heard?” Mrs. Murphy, wife of the boarding house owner,
called from a short distance below.
Cora’s pulse raced. She scanned the room again. There was a window, but she didn’t
recall seeing a way down. She was certain no one else had seen her enter the building. She
couldn’t let Mrs. Murphy find her now, for who would believe a bordello madam who’d shot the sheriff with her pearl-handled pistol in his own bedroom?
No way would she allow anyone to hang her for the likes of Bill Sidlow. She’d never shot
anyone else in her life and hadn’t even taken her gun out of its case before tonight. The only reason she’d brought the weapon was in case she was accosted by one of the drunks in the streets outside.
Besides, her girls needed her. Especially now that there would be no one to keep the
town’s worst ruffians from their doorstep, and God knew, Fort McNamara had its share of those.
She swept another glance around the room for something she could cloak herself
in. The bed was stripped to the sheet, but a long blue velvet drapery hung above the lone
window. It would have to do.
A knock sounded at the door. “Sheriff? You all right?” Mrs. Murphy asked again.
Cora vaulted over the body and yanked the heavy fabric from the rod. Returning to
the door, she swirled the drape around her head and shoulders until she’d fully cocooned
herself, then she waited for a chance to escape.
The door metal rattled. When Mrs. Murphy peeked in, Cora threw her weight against
the wood panel, knocking the woman outside off balance, and then barreled past. She
descended the stairs, running as fast as she could in the tight wind of her drapery cloak.
As she reached the front door of the boarding house, she heard the woman’s shriek of
horror at discovering her boarder’s remains. “Murder! Help, the sheriff ’s been murdered!”
Bursting outside into the darkened street, she kept to the shadows, holding the fabric
closed at her neck as she dodged drunken cowboys looking for good times. She averted her face, praying no one would recognize her until she made it back to the bordello.
One thing she knew for certain, after this night, she had better get used to carrying her
Sandra Jones is a multi-published author of historical romances. A former bookseller and librarian, she’s always had her nose in a book.
When not researching or writing her next novel, she enjoys being with family, reading, cooking for her husband, and watching British TV. At home in the South, her house overlooks a river and a farm, where most days you can find her working to the sounds of wildlife and cattle.
More like two kittens in MY new boots! Winter has hit Edinburgh and my old boots weren't cutting it any more. I'm so happy to have some nice new, DRY and WARM boots now! CLICK HERE for more coloring pages! CLICK HERE to sign up to receive alerts when a new coloring page is posted each week and... Please check out my books! Especially... my debut novel, A BIRD ON WATER STREET - winner of six literary awards. Click the cover to learn more! When the birds return to Water Street, will anyone be left to hear them sing? A miner's strike allows green and growing things to return to the Red Hills, but that same strike may force residents to seek new homes and livelihoods elsewhere. Follow the story of Jack Hicks as he struggles to hold onto everything he loves most. I create my coloring pages for teachers, librarians, booksellers, and parents to enjoy for free with their children, but you can also purchase rights to an image for commercial use, please contact me. If you have questions about usage, please visit my Angel Policy page.
We don't often feature books with central male protags, but this one from Jack Gantos also has a fierce senior female, Miss Volker, in the spotlight. And we don't regularly recommend middle grade novels. Yet, why not read outside YA? Isn't it the story that matters, not the age of the main character? Did you read, Dead End in Norvelt? You don't want to miss it. I was literally laughing out loud as I relished each page. I had to read passages to my family which in turn got us all giggling.
Blending truth and fiction, Jack Gantos writes of Jackie who spends the summer helping Miss Volker write the town's obituaries. The original citizens are passing quickly from the scene, even a bit suspiciously. The work brims with memorable characters living and dying in 1962.
The book won the Newbery in 2012 and the Scott O'Dell for Historical Fiction. Here are a few reviews:
A bit of autobiography works its way into all of Gantos’s work, but he one-ups himself in this wildly entertaining meld of truth and fiction by naming the main character . . . Jackie Gantos.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review
“A fast-paced and witty read.” —School Library Journal
“A more quietly (but still absurdly) funny and insightful account of a kid’s growth, kin to Gantos’s Jack stories, that will stealthily hook even resistant readers into the lure of history.” —BCCB
“This winning novel, both humorous and heartwarming, takes place during the summer of 1962, when narrator Jack Gantos turns 12 and spends most of his days grounded. Jack’s main ‘get out of jail free card,’ and one of the novel’s most charming characters, is Miss Volker. The blossoming of their friendship coincides with the blooming of Jack’s character.” —Shelf Awareness Pro
* “There’s more than laugh-out-loud gothic comedy here. This is a richly layered semi-autobiographical tale, an ode to a time and place, to history and the power of reading.” —The Horn Book, starred review “Gantos, as always, deliver rs bushels of food for thought and plenty of outright guffaws.” —Booklist
* “An exhilarating summer marked by death, gore and fire sparks deep thoughts in a small-town lad not uncoincidentally named ‘Jack Gantos.’ The gore is all Jack’s, which to his continuing embarrassment ‘would spray out of my nose holes like dragon flames’ whenever anything exciting or upsetting happens. And that would be on every other page, seemingly. . . . Characteristically provocative gothic comedy, with sublime undertones.” —Kirkus Reviews, starred review
Find this funny, poignant book, rgz, and get ready to laugh.
I’ve been sick the last week, but I’m nursing myself with ginger and lemon and cayenne and meds, because I MUST get on that plane to Minneapolis. I’d love to see you there! Either at my signing at the Chronicle book, on 11/20 from 2-3, or at my panel that morning…
The Power of Passion Driven Research
Deb Perryman, Jennifer Vincent, Kate Messner, Laura Purdie Salas, LeUyen Pham, and ME! FRIDAY 9:30 AM – 10:45 AM in Minneapolis Convention Center, L100E
From baseball to ballet, Minecraft to marshmallows, favorite topics paired with authentic research opportunities unlock a love of learning in students. Two educators, three authors, and an illustrator share experiences with passion-driven research in and out of the classroom that promotes creativity, motivation, and engagement.
0 Comments on WILL I SEE YOU AT NCTE? as of 11/16/2015 10:00:00 PM
I'm thrilled that parents and kids are reading Rickshaw Girl together this month, thanks to a recommendation from Girls' Leadership, a wonderful organization with this mission:
Girls Leadership teaches girls the skills to know who they are, what they believe, and how to express it, empowering them to create change in their world. Please join us on December 2nd (8 p.m. EDT, 5 p.m. PDT) for a live video chat about the book.
Take a look at Publishers Weekly (PW) editors' choices of 2015 best books to discover outstanding new titles. The lists include picture books, middle-grade, and young adult books.
The picture books range from well-known authors such as Drew Daywalt (The Day The Crayons Came Home) and Dave Eggers (This Bridge Will Not Be Gray) and Mordicai Gerstein (The Night World) to debut authors such as Guojing (The Only Child), who writes about growing up under China's one-child policy.
Middle-grade books include bestselling author Jodi Lynn Anderson (My Diary from the Edge of the World) and the amazing Brian Selznick (The Marvels).
Young adult titles range from a nonfiction title by M. T. Anderson (Symphony for the City of the Dead: Dmitri Shostakovich and the Siege of Leningrad) to Chicago-area writer Laura Ruby's new novel (Bone Gap).
For more information visit PW or click on any of the above links.
0 Comments on Publishers Weekly Picks Best Children's Books 2015 as of 11/16/2015 6:14:00 PM
I don't know about you, but I am SUPER HYPED for the release of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 2 in just a couple of weeks! The Hunger Games movies have been some of the best book-to-movie adaptations ever done (in my opinion!) and I can't way to see Katniss and Gale and the rest of the team on the big screen again.
I'm sure all librarians have a go-to set of read-alikes for The Hunger Games books, and I wanted to offer some newer releases to help update that list! So here are some standalones and series that would be perfect to offer to your Hunger Games fans after they finish Mockingjay for the 5th or maybe 50th time.
Imagine a world where your destiny has already been decided...by your future self. It's Callie’s seventeenth birthday and, like everyone else, she's eagerly awaiting her vision―a memory sent back in time to sculpt each citizen into the person they're meant to be. A world-class swimmer. A renowned scientist. Or in Callie's case, a criminal. In her vision, she sees herself murdering her gifted younger sister. Before she can process what it means, Callie is arrested and placed in Limbo―a hellish prison for those destined to break the law. With the help of her childhood crush, Logan, a boy she hasn’t spoken to in five years, she escapes. But on the run from her future, as well as the government, Callie sets in motion a chain of events that she hopes will change her fate. If not, she must figure out how to protect her sister from the biggest threat of all—Callie, herself.
Kristen Simmons has created an eerily realistic dystopian world, then thrown her characters into the toughest situation they could imagine, and they fight for their freedom harder than anything. The Glass Arrow is a masterpiece of feminist fiction that teens and adults will love. I highly recommend this standalone novel for anyone looking for a strong story with a kickass female protagonist!
NIL is a story of survival and self-discovery. When Charley is mysteriously transported to the unmapped island of Nil she must learn the rules and survive a year of deadly animals, gate-hunting, and new romance. Nil is a beautiful island paradise, haunted by the ghosts of those who have gone before and the howls of whatever dangerous beasts have been dropped in by gates. Charley is taken into Nil City by Thad, the current Leader, and initiated into the tribe of teenagers Searching for their personal gates out of there. NIL was a fast-paced page-turner that kept me up late at night until I finished it. I very highly recommend it! Lynne Matson's debut is a masterpiece of survival science fiction!
THE CAGE is the first in a compelling new science fiction series from popular YA author, Megan Shepherd. ALIENATED (Melissa Landers) meets NIL (Lynne Matson) in this sci-fi romance survival adventure. With exquisitely crafted world-building, a tantalizing romance, and thrilling character dynamics, THE CAGE is a page-turning intro to a series that YA readers will fall in love with.
Told in dual perspectives, NOW THAT YOU'RE HERE is the first book in a duology called "Duplexity" - in which one of the protagonists is transported from one parallel world into another. Teens looking for a new and interesting outlook on paranormal romance will love the first book in the Duplexity series. The contrasting points of view and hints of Danny's alternate reality will keep readers turning the pages.
In WHILE YOU WERE GONE Nichols turns the tables and we get the story from Danny's point of view. Discover the secrets of the alternate dimension Danny is sucked into and how the political turmoil in that world will affect the safety of all possible worlds.
Eden Grey is the Young Adult Programming Librarian at the Erlanger branch of the Kenton County Public Library system, the busiest branch library in the state of Kentucky. Eden is a contributor to Teen Services Underground, and reviews books for YABC and School Library Journal. When she is not herding cats -ahem, teens- at the library, Eden can be found reading, knitting, sewing, cosplaying, and playing Pokemon. You can always find her on Twitter (@edyngrey), and Blogging Between the Lines.
On Homecoming Saturday, in the Kelly Writers House on the Penn campus, I spent 75 minutes in conversation with Buzz Bissinger. It was a dialogue of many dimensions and much quiet—and authentic—self reflection.
That conversation can now be watched in its entirety here.
0 Comments on my wide-ranging conversation with Buzz Bissinger, at Kelly Writers House as of 11/16/2015 3:44:00 PM
Lisa Dalrymple is the author of Skink on the Brink and many other books for children. She loves to travel. In Thailand, she shared her bath towel with a gecko that thought it was his bed. Lisa now lives in Ontario with her husband and three kids–but no lizards.
Synopsis of A Moose Goes A-Mummering, written by Lisa Dalrymple, illustrated by David Sturge (Tuckamore Books):
A Moose Goes a-Mummering is a Newfoundland “Twelve Days of Christmas.” In it, Chris Moose loves to go mummering–donning his disguise, visiting each of his neighbors, and sharing the Christmas festivities. But, as his getup grows more elaborate, will Chris ever keep everyone from seeing through his crazy costume?
Q. Could you please take a photo of something in your office and tell us the story behind it?
Chocolate! Not just any old chocolate. Swiss Army emergency rations for those extra-desperate writing days!
Q. What advice you have for young writers?
There’s a lot of talk about whether, as an author, it’s important to write what you know. I’d like to think, if there’s something I need to understand in order to write a convincing story, there are many ways I can hope to learn it (well except maybe, in my case, something like spoken Mandarin or quantum physics!) The more important concern for me is to write who I know–the protagonist and secondary characters in my story.
This doesn’t mean my main character always needs to be someone similar to me, but I do try to write a character I can understand. For example, I seem to identify well with 10-year-old boy characters and not so well with 40-year-old women. (I’m not sure what this means: Am I a 10-year-old living in a 40-year-old body?) I try to spend time getting inside the head of my protagonist and understanding where he is coming from. It’s through his awareness that my readers are going to experience the story–including those factual details I may have had to learn in order to write it.
Q. What are you excited about right now?
For as long as I can remember, I have wanted to be an author. In Grade 6 I began writing chapter books and sending them to publishers. Nobody wanted to publish them–although I did receive many very lovely rejection letters. Over the past few years, I have written 9 books for younger readers–both fiction and non-fiction picture books. But I can now announce that Orca Book Publishers is going to publish my first middle grade novel. The dream I’ve had since Grade 6 is coming true! The book will be out in the spring of 2017. It has no title yet, but it's a ghost story set in the Amazonian jungles of Peru. It features the spirit of El Tunchi, more than a few funny moments, and a kid named Potato.
If you're like me, you probably spent some portion of the last six months watching your online acquaintance slowly become consumed with (or by) something called Hamilton. And then when you looked it up it turned to be a musical playing halfway around the world that you will probably never see. But something strange and surprising is happening around Hamilton--a race-swapped, hip-hop musical
We are deep into our season of gratitude here on Teaching Authors. The series started off with Carmela giving thanks for insights gained through the loss of her kitchen. Esther thanked the Chicago Cubs for a season of hope, with April appreciating good health. And now it's my turn.
Five years of Thanksgiving posts. here on Teaching Authors. Each year I struggle to write our traditional thanku, our many blessings, in haiku form. Each year I've had to be thankful outside of the five syllables-seven syllables-five syllables structure. So this year (among many other thing)...I'm grateful for mastering the thanku! (You can tell me if I really have when you send your own thanku.)
If you have read this blog for awhile, you know that my year is divided into three seasons--"the holidays" (which now kicks off on Labor Day, chugging relentlessly through to January 6th, the last of the Twelve Days of Christmas, in my religion), post-holiday (January and February are the dreariest months, no matter how many "national holidays" there are.) And then there is Camp Season, which for me, begins in April, when the redbud blooms, and I start planning this year's activities for my Young Author's Camps in June and July.
Writer up a tree!
"Camp Season" is checking rosters for returnees, as well as sibs of former campers, and new writers. It's studying the composition of each week's camp. How many girls? How many boys? The campers are (supposedly) ages 9 to 14 (with some birthdate slight-of-hand by some parents on the registration). Is this group mostly rising fourth graders? All sixth graders? Or a lovely balance of ages. (That's happened twice in ten years!) I tailor the weeks to suit the age and gender makeup. In my advanced classes of returnees, I am careful not to repeat activities and exercises (except for the Traditonal Writer's Walk.)
Our writing HQ (in winter), a converted carriage house.
Just thinking about those steamy June and July days, full of creative young minds, instant friendships and...juice boxes...excites me on a blue-and-gold-autumn morning, crispy enough to require my cuddly chenille lap robe as I compose this post. I am ever thankful for my students, who inspire me to improve my craft so I can inspire them in return. The days are long and hot, but always fun for us all.
I’m working with a client on a Synopsis Overhaul right now. Quick plug: If you haven’t checked out my freelance editorial website in a while, I have added this new service, as well as Reader Reports. I won’t bulk up this post by describing them here, but they’re two great options for getting feedback on your novel’s development as or before you write it (in the case of the Synopsis Overhaul) or getting my eyes on your entire manuscript, along with comprehensive notes, but without the investment of a Full Manuscript Edit. Check them out!
There’s a proposed scene in my client’s outline that doesn’t quiiiite work. Of course, she is free to write it and see if she can make it work as she develops her draft, but I had a reservation about it. Basically, her protagonist, let’s call him Sam, does something illogical. The issue is, he has been planning this illogical move for a while. He’s a smart kid in a heavily guarded environment, and, for a smart kid in a heavily guarded environment, the plan makes no sense because he should know better, and he would get caught immediately.
But in the manuscript she’s planning, he completely ignores common sense and does his plan anyway. I told her in the synopsis edit that I didn’t buy it. The plan is so foolhardy and out of character, and so improbable in his environment, that I really would struggle believing its feasible. I called it the Improbable Thing.
In writing fiction, we create the fictive dream, right? We create a world and a character and a set of circumstances and actions that function with a certain logic. There’s enough logic there that the reader can suspend disbelief and “go there” with the story. Here, I was having trouble “going there” because my own logic kept calling out that this was too far out to believe.
My client is really attached to this plot point, and she doesn’t want to remove it from the story, which I completely understand. First of all, I’m not going to tell her to axe it at this early juncture. When I work with clients on developing a novel outline, I don’t rule anything out. They are free to write a draft of the novel as they wish, and see if it works. It’s tough to work with just an outline, because I don’t get to really see the manuscript in question. I just get to see its bones. Who knows how the final version could flesh out? But that’s what makes synopsis work exciting! It’s all about possibilities and tweaking things so that the actual manuscript comes into sharper focus.
So, if it’s not fair to say, “Yeah, cut it, it’s a disaster” at this point, then what? How do you work around a plot point or character development that seems improbable? In writing her back about whether or not to axe her beloved plot point, I had a great idea for this post.
If you’re faced with an instance in your story that people aren’t “buying” (or you’re worried they won’t buy), it’s time to think about the context. The present may still be good, but what if you put it in a different wrapper? A brilliant potential solution.
What if, in this case, Sam doesn’t plot the Improbable Thing in advance? He wants to accomplish XYZ, but he doesn’t think that it’s possible. Then, he is in the right place at the right time, and the opportunity to do an Improbable Thing comes up. He only has an instant to think, and so he thinks, “What if this is crazy enough to work?” This could be just the new context my client needs. It accomplishes two things:
First, it adds a layer of impulsiveness to the Improbable Thing. It wouldn’t have worked as a plan, because it makes no sense as a plan (too many holes). But it could totally be sold as a last-ditch, impulsive, emotional effort, and I’d buy it because if Sam is being impulsive, then he’s not thinking clearly.
Second, if Sam is right there saying, “This is too crazy to work, but I have no other choice,” then the reader feels reassured. We see him questioning it, right as we’re questioning it, so the reader and protagonist are on the exact same page! We’re a team! Nobody thinks this could work, which opens up the possibility that…well…maybe it could! It’s that leap that will help the reader suspend disbelief. And then I’m “going there” with Sam instead of rejecting the Improbable Thing.
If there are moments in your manuscript that you’re really struggling to sell, if you think they’re too far out there to make sense with plot or character, but you like or need them, think about context. By changing the wrapper, you can still give the reader the present, it will just be surrounded by a different situation or motivation or expectation. It’s up to you to create that experience and make it believable.
Of course, some things are just not going to be a good fit, no matter how hard you try. But others might just be, well, crazy enough to work, as long as you frame them right.
As of November 10, 2015, BORROWED TIME (the sequel to CHRONAL ENGINE) is now available in bookstores everywhere as well as online (in hardcover and ebook)! Signed copies are available from BookPeople.
In an article titled, 'Borrowed Time' mixes paleontology and fantasy, Saturday's Austin American-Statesman had a great review of BORROWED TIME, stating it's "a slam-dunk for dinosaur aficionados and will appeal as well to those who are fans of literary time travel and outdoorsy adventure."
Sunday was the launch party at BookPeople! I had great fun doing a presentation discussing the connections between the book, Charles Umlauf, dinosaurs, Johnny Weissmuller, and me (really).
The dinosaur standees for the photo booth were a hit, as were the refreshments including water, soft drinks, wine and cheese, and crackers. (The wine, from the Languedoc region of France, is made from grapes grown in Cretaceous clays where dinosaur fossils have have been found).
But the real eye-opener was the mosasaur cake by author/cakelustrator Akiko White. About two feet high, it featured a mosasaur sculpted from modeler's chocolate on a chocolate cake base with buttercream frosting! She'll be doing a youtube video on the making of it soon (and I'll link when it's available). Suffice to say that still pictures don't do it justice -- it was mounted on a motorized turntable and illuminated with a blue strobe that made it look like it was underwater!
Here are the pics:
Me and cake
Carmen Oliver and T.rex
Akiko assembles! (photo courtesy Akiko White)
Presenting (photo courtesy Akiko White)
Cake!
Refreshments
Signing
Frances Hill and Lindsey Lane (photo courtesy of Shelley Ann Jackson)
Shelley Ann Jackson and Lindsey Lane (photo courtesy Shelley Ann Jackson)
What do you get when you combine one energetic, enthusiastic little boy with his sleepy but tolerant dog? Unconditional love.
Using simple words and spare illustrations, My Dog Is the Best celebrates the special bond that exists between a young child and a beloved family pet. It's the heartwarming story of two best friends. . . told by a boy with a very active imagination.
Children's librarian Martha Ashenfelter and I created ballots with four voting categories. I thought it might be fun to share how we're teaching our committee to vote.
1. Excellence
We examine each book - its design, how the pages feel, the endpapers, the copyright page.
We try to figure out the art medium used, whether fancy research was done, if the art is consistent, stunning, unique.
"In a Village By the Sea" by Muon Van, illustrated by April Chu
We noticed the book "A Fine Dessert" by Emily Jenkins and Sophie Blackall, a book about blackberry dessert, is partly painted with blackberry juice. That's a pretty tasty detail.
Nikki McClure's book "In" is made from paper cuts.
Vincent X. Kirsch's illustrations in "Gingerbread for Liberty" are made to look like gingerbread. More deliciousness.
In - by Nikki McClure
2. Appropriateness
We consider how well the art and the text work together to fill up the story. Is there a tone or mood to the words, and do the pictures complement it?
We look at layers - we ask ourselves what that story is really about, and then, what else is it about?
The Bear Ate Your Sandwich - by Julia Sarcone-Roach
3. Importance
By "reading" the book first without words, we figure out if the illustrations give us clues, if they tell some of the story.
Then we read it a second time with words, scrutinize how the text is represented, if the pictures and words are perfectly matched, or if they give too much away.
We look for details, hints, clues within the story and pictures that might add to the wow of the book.
If You Plant a Seed - Kadir Nelson
4. Appeal
And then we ask if we'd want to pick the book up, if we think it would appeal to kids. How much do we love that particular book? Voters score books from 1-5 in each category, and slip their ballot in its book envelope.
I have my favorites, but I have to keep mum.
Here is the library's Caldecottmobile.
Each of our nominees will be displayed in the library and available for voting
until January, when our top finalists will be announced.
At that time, our committee will debate for favorites,
vote on the final few, and, drumroll....
Announcements!
Awards Party!
Letters to Authors and Illustrators!
Some of our nominees:
Finding Winnie: the true story of the world's most famous bear - by Lindsay Mattick, illustrated by Sophie Blackall Sidewalk Flowers by JonArno Lawson, illustrated by Sydney Smith It's Only Stanley by Jon Agee Water is Water by Miranda Paul, illustrated by Jason ChinIn by Nikki McClure If You Plant a Seed by Kadir Nelson Gingerbread for Liberty by Maria Rockcliff, illustrated by Vincent X. Kirsch The Night World by Mordecai Gerstein The Bear Ate Your Sandwich by Julia Sarcone-Roach
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