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In response to a recent Times article author Tommy Greenwald read, he drummed up a little fodder for our blog:

Patricia O’Brien had five novels to her name when her agent, Esther Newberg, set out to shop her sixth one, “The Dressmaker”… A cascade of painful rejections began… Just when Ms. O’Brien began to fear that “The Dressmaker” would be relegated to a bottom desk drawer like so many rejected novels, Ms. Newberg came up with a different proposal: Try to sell it under a pen name.

Written by Kate Alcott, the pseudonym Ms. O’Brien dreamed up, it sold in three days.

            -THE NEW YORK TIMES, FEBRUARY 23, 2012

Dear Readers:

I sympathize with Ms. O’Brien completely. The publishing world is a jungle, and I’ve never been particularly fond of jungles, what with the mosquitoes and humidity. So when it came time to publish my modestly successful children’s book, CHARLIE JOE JACKSON’S GUIDE TO NOT READING, I too decided to use a nom de plume (which is French for “unlisted number”).

I went with Tommy Greenwald because I thought it had a nice ring to it, plus it’s a name that makes you think of a kind, humble, extremely handsome person.

But if I’m not Tommy Greenwald, who am I really?

I’m not quite prepared to tell you.

I will, however, give you a hint: My actual identity is one of the following five people. Please examine the following choices carefully, then decide for yourself who you think I am. You may well be right. And if you’re not right, please be at least assured in the knowledge that you’re wrong.

Here are the possibilities:

MITT ROMNEY – I had to change my name because no one would believe I would spend time on something that would yield so little income.

JEREMY LIN – I had to change my name because people would expect a better vocabulary from someone who went to Harvard.

THE GUY WHO STARS IN “THE ARTIST” – I had to change my name because people think I can’t form actual words.

BARBARA KELLERMAN – I had to change my name -- even though you don’t know who I am -- because I’m Tommy’s mother, and I’m so desperate for him to be successful, I wrote the book in his name.

J.K. ROWLING – I didn’t have to change my name – I don’t have to do anything for anyone, as you well know – but I’m tired of people telling me how bloody brilliant I am all the time, and if I had to go on one more publicity tour (you know I love you, Oprah, but enough is enough), I may well have clobbered someone.

So those are your choices. What do you think? Who am I? And perhaps more importantly… did I really write this Op-ed piece?

Come to think of it, this would make a great mystery! Someone should write a book about it.

Cammie Bliss, the protagonist of my first young adult novel, The Stalker Chronicles, is a teenage girl who routinely, almost pathologically goes too far in pursuit of love.  Because of this, her classmates have labeled her a “stalker,” and while it’s not a name she enjoys, Cammie realizes that she’s earned it.  But when a new boy named Toby moves to her small town, Cammie—with the help of her best friend Rosie and a sympathetic teacher—hopes she can change herself and win his love. 

My interest in creating a character like Cammie was initially very personal.  I’d written a long prose poem about five years ago, entitled “My Friends and Enemies” which was published in the journal Fence.  This poem was my attempt to create a catalogue or imagistic list of all of the people from my childhood, quite literally my friends and my enemies (not that I had all that many of the latter!).  I suppose I was interested in mini-histories, in how a list can somehow create stories.  But I was also struck by how many of those stories, for me, were about embarrassment, or moments in which I felt misunderstood or couldn’t quite speak my mind.  I thought of all the boys I’d had crushes on, and how many of those boys I scared away because I was a little bit too aggressive or a little bit too out there.  I wanted to tell some of those stories, and a young adult novel seemed like the perfect venue.  But of course, Cammie is not entirely me, and I’ll leave it to readers to decide which things in the book I may or may not have actually done.  But the flashback format is there.  Cammie remembers the boys she stalked so that she can figure out how to stop.

I’ve also always been intensely fascinated by the horrors of high school and the ways in which outsiders—nerds, punks, skaters, Goths, LGBT kids, theater and band geeks, you name it—cope with the daily humiliations of being different.  When I briefly taught high school in New York City, a colleague and myself asked our freshmen to perform monologues or scenes from Julius Caesar.  These performances were wonderful!  I remember one young woman in particular, who was as awkward as awkward can be—she had frizzy hair, a whole lot of orthodontia, and a very excited, high-pitched voice that sometimes cleared the room, but she was very comfortable in her own skin.  She was a bit of exhibitionist, actually, and her performance was particularly good.  We all gasped as she pulled a fake sword out of its sheath!  She was totally invested in her character!  She made me think about the difference between my students who could own their awkwardness and the ones were devastated by it.  Cammie Bliss is very much in the middle of that struggle.  Can she change?  Does she even want to?

I think we live in a culture that encourages us to be voyeuristic, and girls in particular can be easily embarrassed or even choose to embarrass themselves as a way to establish community and closeness with other girls.  I wrote my dissertation about Seventeen magazine and one of my chapters was about a column in the magazine, “Traumarama!.”  In “Traumarama!”, girls submit short, embarrassing stories about daily humiliations.  I became a student of this column, and obsessed with its repetitive, stylized, and heavily edited stories.  The Stalker Chronicles, in some small way, was an attempt to make some of those stories more real, more hu

You may have heard of Tintin because a movie starring him came out recently, but I know Tintin from his comics. Tintin comics are the best. Tintin is the reason I have always wanted to be a reporter. I don't actually know what a reporter is, but if Tintin is any indication, it's the best job in the world. In his comics, Tintin gets to travel the world, fly airplanes, fight drug-runners, overthrow governments, solve mysteries and in one very weird adventure, meet up with aliens.

My local library had about half of the 23 Tintin books and I checked them out in an endlessly repeating loop. I have large chunks of The Shooting Star impressed onto my brain. Unfortunately, the library didn't seem to take my suggestion (which I helpfully wrote down and shoved in their suggestion box) to buy “MORE TINTIN,” leaving me no choice but to ask for all the Tintin books I didn't have for Christmas. (The Library did take my suggestion to buy “MORE HORSE BOOKS” and “MORE NANCY DREW,” so I can't be too mad at them.)

Asking for Tintin books for Christmas was a desperate move. Christmas is for getting toys! Books and clothing are down at the weak end of the gifts spectrum. Once my dad returned home from a trip and brought me a book as a present. I was outraged. A book? What was this nonsense! The book ended up being a comic book version of The Black Stallion and I read it until it fell apart and it was THE BEST BOOK EVER. (Besides Tintin.)

So I asked for all the Tintin books I didn't have for Christmas. King Ottokar's Sceptre. Flight 714. The Calculus Affair.

Christmas came, and my parents got me all those Tintins and more. My brothers and I read them until the spines broke and the pages fell out and I memorized practically every line. I don't remember many of the toys I got at Christmas, but I remember the year I got the Tintin books.

I never ended up becoming a reporter like Tintin, but I make comics for a living, so it's pretty close. I get to draw people going on adventures, running through forests, fighting zombies, being stalked by ghosts ... I think Tintin would be proud.

 - Faith Erin Hicks' first book, Friends With Boys, is on sale 02/28!

When the plot for “Take What You Can Carry” first came to me, specifically the idea of setting half the story in an internment camp, I was excited about exploring this little known chapter of America’s past. While I was familiar with some of the history of how more than 100,000 Japanese, many U.S. citizens, were relocated and held in makeshift camps during World War 2, I had always been interested in knowing more. As I expected, much of what I found directly influenced my story. I have often set my graphic novels in real places, or at least versions of them but this was the first time I’d set one in a place and time I’d never directly experienced.

As I suppose one would expect for a cartoonist, I started by researching what the camps looked like. I was surprised to find that two great American photographers, Dorothea Lange and Ansel Adams had both taken pictures of the camps and the often harsh and imposing landscapes they were built in. I had originally planned to set the story in a composite camp in order to have it reflect the wider experience of all the internees. But then I saw, in both Lange and Adams’ photos, the large mountain that overlooks the camp in Manzanar, California. Somehow, imagining what it would be like to be looking up at that huge mountain, after having had one’s life uprooted by indifferent and powerful forces of history, seemed to resonate with some of the emotions the internees must have felt. So from that moment on, my story would be set in Manzanar.

Because the plot of the book revolves around petty theft, one of the first things I needed to find out was if it had occurred in the camps. Had it not, I would have had to restructure the whole story to reflect the historical reality. I read several books and came across references to how many aspects of the camps, like group dining and the separation of fathers from the family had lead to a breakdown in traditional social restraints but nothing that referenced theft directly. I contacted a painting teacher I studied with in college who had lived in the camps as an infant and he was able to confirm that petty theft was a reality and pointed me towards a book that provided many details. I ended up using one of the specific incidents mentioned, where the boys steal fresh fruit that only the hospital staff had access to.

Without a doubt the most bountiful gift from the research was the discovery of what one scholar refers to as “the art of gaman.” “Gaman” is a Japanese term of Zen Buddhist origin which means "enduring the seemingly unbearable with patience and dignity." Saddled with forced idleness and an industrious nature, many of the internees fashioned exquisite art objects out of scavenged materials like scrap lumber and burlap potato sacks. They made a wide variety of useful objects such as furniture, baskets, and teapots as well as purely artistic things like wall hangings and jewelry. Knowing the context for the creation of these objects infuses them with both an admirable nobility and a stoic sadness. Of all the objects, I found myself most drawn to the carved birds, which struck me as a hopeful symbol of escape through the transformative power of art.

Ultimately, nearly all the depictions of daily life in Take What You Can Carry come directly from historical sources. The hanging of blankets to provide privacy, the stuffing of paper in between floorboards to keep the silty sand out, people gathering at night to listen to records in the moonlight, all ca

Attention students, teachers, and librarians: Check out this news from Winding Oak about an awesome Avi contest!

Children’s book author Avi, winner of a Newbery Award and multiple Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards among his many other high honors, is hosting an “American Idol” style video contest for young readers in fourth through ninth grade. The videos are to be inspired by Avi’s 2011 title City of Orphans (Richard Jackson Books), which has already garnered multiple starred reviews in journals such as Booklist, Publishers Weekly, and Kirkus Reviews.

Any teacher or librarian is eligible to submit a City of Orphans video for a student or classroom in fourth through ninth grade. Options include formats such as live action, documentary-style, readers’ theater, costumed theater, and book trailers; the format is not as important as the entrants’ demonstration of creativity and their interpretation of City of Orphans.

An online voting process will help determine the winners, who will receive prizes ranging from an in-person visit and lunch with Avi (one Grand Prize) to Skype visits by Avi (nine Finalists). Five contest voters are eligible to win autographed copies of City of Orphans. Video submissions begin on Avi’s website or Avi’s Facebook page on March 1, 2012 through March 31, 2012. Videos will be shown on Avi’s website and Facebook page so that online visitors have the opportunity to vote on their favorites during the month of April 2012. The winners will be announced on May 7, 2012 at noon.

Kirkus Reviews gave City of Orphans, the latest of Avi’s over seventy titles for young readers, high praise in their starred review: “An immigrant family tries to survive crime, poverty and corruption in 1893 New York City. …Heroic deeds, narrow escapes, dastardly villains, amazing coincidences and a family rich in love and hope are all part of an intricate and endlessly entertaining adventure. Terrific!”

The idea of an online contest was inspired by the popularity of Avi’s Skype classroom visits. “Because of the technology now available, I’m able to interact directly with more of my readers than ever before,” says the author, whose first book was published in 1970. “Kids have tremendous insights about my books; they always ask great questions. This contest is a way to continue that dialogue by inviting them to demonstrate how one of my books has inspired them to be creative.”

Downloadable discussion and reading guides are available at http://www.Avi-writer.com for educators who want to use the book in their classroom. A poster is downloadable for schools, libraries, and local bookstores can post to encourage online voting.

Complete contest details are available at http://www.avi-writer.com or Avi’s Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/pages/Avi/216078981815167

February 13, 2012 marks the 50^th Anniversary of the first publication of A Wrinkle in Time. On February 11, 2012 the Macmillan Children’s Publishing Group is hosting a special anniversary celebration at Symphony Space in New York City with readings, performances, and celebrity guests, including Rebecca Stead, author of When You Reach Me, Lois Lowry, author of The Giver, R. L. Stein, author of the Goosebumps series, and Jane Curtin, who appeared in the television show 3^rd Rock from the Sun.

Tickets can be purchased at http://www.symphonyspace.org/event/7056-thalia-kids-book-club-a-wrinkle-in-time-50th-anniversary-. For those unable to attend the live event, we will be simulcasting a livestream of the celebration here: http://live.todocast.tv/template.ma-top.php?EventNumber=TDC-E1570

if you’d like to host a party of your own in your school or library. We will also be archiving the show so that it can be viewed at any time. We expect that the show will be available in March.

If you would like to host a Wrinkle in Time celebration in your classroom or library, please contact us at [email protected] to order free 50^th Anniversary posters and bookmarks while supplies last. Be sure to send us any photos of your celebration and we will post them on our Wrinkle in Time Facebook page at www.facebook.com/wrinkleintime.

Caldecott-winning illustrator Erin E. Stead and debut author Julie Fogliano will be on the road at the end of this month to promote their first collaboration and new book, And Then It's Spring

Here are the dates and times so far:

February 23 at 10:30 AM at Politics & Prose

February 25 at 1:00 PM at Bank Street Books

If life brings you to DC or NYC on those dates, please stop by to meet these talented women!

FUGITIVES author Alexander Gordon Smith is coming to the US to tour!

Here are his upcoming events:

•    March 5, 2012: Third Place Books (Lake Forest Park, WA), event at 7 PM (with Robin Wasserman)

•    March 12 or 13, 2012: Books, Inc (San Francisco, CA) “Not Your Mother’s Book Club” event at Time TBD

•    March 15, 2012: Public Library Association Conference (Philadelphia, PA), “Young at Heart: YA with Adult Crossover Appeal” panel

•    March 17, 2012: Children’s Book World (Haverford, PA), event at time TBD

•    March 19, 2012: New York Public Library “Teen Festival”, event at 5:30 PM

We tend to think all of our books are winners and if we could sticker them all we would. But in some special cases, our books get shiny gold and silver medals given by people OTHER THAN US. Today, the ALA announced the 2012 Youth Media Awards, and our books showed up for the occasion! Below is a list of the books, authors, illustrators, and their accolades. Enjoy!

 John Newbery Medal:  Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos

John Newbery Honor:  Breaking Stalin’s Nose by Eugene Yelchin

Randolph Caldecott Honor: Grandpa Green by Lane Smith

Coretta Scott King Illustrator Award: Underground by Shane Evans

YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults: Notorious Benedict Arnold by Steve Sheinkin

Pura Belpre Honor: Hurricane Dancers by Margarita Engel

I’m exhausted after the Thanksgiving holiday, but happy to be back home. We arrived home from Florida to find a nice cold front was blowing in—34 degrees! It’s great to cozy up by the fireplace and settle back in to writing. This fall we’ve had a whirlwind of visits from authors and illustrators, but things are slowing a bit now. We do have two events in the area this week, one in town and one out in Brenham!

Please remember that this information is from the bookstores that are hosting the events. For the latest, most accurate information, please visit their websites, or better yet, their stores.

December 3, 3:30 PM
Katy Budget Books
C.C. Hunter, Author

Come celebrate the release of C.C. Hunter’s exciting AWAKE AT DAWN, the sequel to Born at Midnight.
C.C. Hunter will be reading an excerpt from the book, answering questions and signing copies. She’s a talented and hilarious speaker so you won’t want to miss a minute. Seating is limited. Come early!
There will also be snacks and an opportunity to get your copy of Awake at Dawn autographed.

December 5, Monday, 3:00 PM
The Book Nook, Brenham
Marci Peschke, Author

If your child/grandchild/niece/neighbor reads Junie B. Jones, Magic Tree House, Ivy Bean, or Ramona Quimby books, then this book series will be just right for them! Marci Peschke’s KYLIE JEAN series of chapter books launched earlier this year with four titles:
Kylie Jean, Rodeo Queen; Kylie Jean, Blueberry Queen; Kylie Jean, Drama Queen; Kylie Jean, Hoops Queen

The Book Nook will open early on Monday with special hours just for this event— from 2pm to 5pm. Marci Peschke will be signing from 3pm to 5pm. So bring the kids over after school to come meet a real live school-librarian-turned-author!
Check out The Book Nook’s Facebook page for details.

Last Wednesday, the 16th of November, was the Public Librarians of Victoria Network Conference.

The main topic up for discussion: what to do for the National Year of Reading? Here are some great ideas that the participants on the day workshopped together!

SHP BASED TOTALLY AROUND BOOKS AND READING, WRITING AND ILLUSTRATION, WORKSHOPS, AND BOOK GIG!

Intensive festival/ Holiday program:

• Book gigs/ theatre – use local theatre groups of Vic Youth Theatre
• Writing Workshop (examples Paul Collins)
• Illustration workshop (examples comics, manga)
• Book Production (examples cover designs)
• Book Selection evening
• Competitions

Mini festival

READING TREE

Families:

• Members of the family’s favourite books
• Favourite books on display for each person in a family tree

Make a tree/ Use a tree in a pot:

• Find an author you like
• Than other books you like that are similar (series, authors, books)
• Use a leaf as a star review system

Children’s Area:

• Wall pictures/ image of a tree
• Branch for different books
• Children put up authors on the tree, pictures of favourite characters, etc
• Write on a leaf why they like/recommend a book
• Different size leaves for grades/ genres or themes
• Make a special reading corner

Favourite/ comfortable reading areas:

• Use tree to start conversations about ‘where do you like to read?’

Use the image/ symbolism of growth, strength to start creative writing from a seed to a story:

• How does it develop?
• Grow?

What a tree does:

• A forest, filled with: crime tree/ mystery tree/ romance tree, etc

Environmental issues:

• How we need trees, different species of trees, uses of trees, etc

THEATRE IN THE LIBRARY

Theatre:

• Students from local secondary schools
• Workshops over the school holidays
• Culminating in a performance for the public

LOCAL SOURCING

Contacts:

• Database of local contacts
• Using local contacts
• Database contacts for state-wide access
• Finding contacts

AUTHORS/PRESENTERS

Issues:

• How to entice writers/presenters to travel
• Issues for regional and outer suburbia
• A database of author’s who a willing to travel regional

BRANDING

National Year of Reading:

• Using National Year of Reading branding to make activities more visible and use this as an enticement
• Would add funding
• Also a draw card for the presenters

COMMUNITY POST SECRET

Art and Writing community project:

• Originated with an idea from an American artist, Frank Warren, who asked for ‘secrets on a postcard’.
• A secret (funny, sad, moving, happy secrets, etc)
• Have the community do their own post secret
• Have them displayed in the library
• Alternatively there is ‘six word memoirs’

YA READERS VOTING FOR FAVOURITE BOOK/ SERIES (WITH WINNERS IN A FEATURE DISPLAY)

Suggest books:

• Have an already established shortlist
• Creative ways to vote- posters, old fridge, car doors, etc
• Cork Board – with suggestions/ questions and post-it notes for people to make direct response/ dialogue
• Utilise skills/ skilled people in the community
• On-line pdl/ questions of the day (multiple choice, yes or no)
• To suggest books/ series or not

Favourite Aussie authors

Encourage diversity in reading by asking reading question ‘where do we find Dogmatix’?