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How To Make An iPad iBook

Follow Shoo [Rayner] as he makes an iPad iBook. He is going to document all the various stages involved including research, reference, sketching, planning, illustrating, design on iBooks Author and integral video production.

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by Ernest Hogan

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I'm not ashamed to admit that on occasion we eat cereal for dinner.  Because one, it's easy.  And second, everyone in my family loves cereal.

I was excited to see that Betty Crocker and Big G Cereals teamed up to bring us tasty new cereal muffins.

We tried the cocoa puff muffins, and I was surprised at how much they tasted like cocoa puffs.  They even had that little crunch at the end.  My girls loved them!

To Buy -
Is your family cuckoo for Cocoa Puffs®? Do they crave Cinnamon Toast Crunch® and Reese’s® Puffs too? Well then get ready to enjoy these flavors in a completely new and exciting way, out of the bowl and straight from the oven! New Betty Crocker® Cereal Muffin Mixes are inspired by Big G cereal favorites Cinnamon Toast Crunch, Cocoa Puffs, and Reese’s Puffs, and are sure to be a fun way to re-mix your morning meal routine.   Click here to get a coupon for $0.80 off a box - http://bit.ly/CMcoupon

To Win - How about a fun cereal inspired gift pack!

 It contains

• Box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal muffins
• Box of Cocoa Puffs cereal muffins
• Box of Reese’s Puffs cereal muffins
• Apron
• Tumbler
• Spoon
• Therm O Snack

To Enter complete any of the entries on the rafflecopter form below!

a Rafflecopter giveaway




“Disclosure:  The product, gift pack, information, and additional sample have been provided by Betty Crocker through MyBlogSpark.” Opinions expressed in this post are strictly my own - I was not influenced in any way. I received no monetary compensation for this post. By entering this giveaway you agree to my giveaway/disclosure guidelines

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Today, family animation distributor GKIDS announced that they will qualify four animated features for consideration in the Oscars Best Animated Feature Film category. The films are Goro Miyazaki’s From Up On Poppy Hill (Japan), Jean-Francois Laguionie’s Le Tableau (France), Joann Sfar and Antoine Delesvaux’s The Rabbi’s Cat (France), and Rémi Bezançon & Jean-Christophe Lie’s Zarafa (France/Belgium).

GKIDS has had an outsized influence in the animated feature category over the past three years, earning three Oscar nominations—Secret of Kells in 2010, and A Cat in Paris and Chico & Rita in 2012. Their strategy has been simple and it doesn’t involve producing a single frame of animation; rather they pick up U. S. distribution rights to foreign animated features that otherwise will never appear in America. It’s a win-win for both GKIDS and the filmmakers.

Even the major film studios benefit from the situation. That’s because the four films that GKIDS will enter this year push the current number of animated feature contenders to 15. A minimum of 16 features is required to have five nominees in the category, and it is very likely that will happen now.

The 15 films currently in contention are as follows:

The Lorax (Illumination Entertainment/Universal)
The Pirates: Band of Misfits (Aardman/Sony)
Madagascar 3 (DreamWorks Animation)
Brave (Disney/Pixar)
Ice Age: Continental Drift (Blue Sky/20th Century Fox)
ParaNorman (Laika/Focus)
Hotel Transylvania (Sony)
Frankenweenie (Disney)
Rise of the Guardians (Dreamworks Animation)
Wreck-It Ralph (Disney)
A Liar’s Autobiography: The Untrue Story of Monty Python’s Graham Chapman
Zarafa (Pathe/GKids)
The Rabbi’s Cat (TF1/GKids)
Le Tableau (Rezo/GKids)
From Up on Poppy Hill (Studio Ghibli/GKids)

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Cartoon Brew | Permalink | 11 comments | Post tags: Academy Awards, France, From Up On Poppy Hill, GKids, Japan, Le Tableau, Oscars, The Rabbi's Cat, Zarafa

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When I first interviewed Donna Freitas in 2010, she had released two novels, The Possibilities of Sainthood and This Gorgeous Game, and contributed to four non-fiction works. Since then, she's released two additional novels, The Survival Kit and Gold Medal Summer, with another YA book due out next year. I recently got the chance to catch up with Donna, and we discussed tumbling, truth, and writing for different age groups.

You have incorporated pieces of yourself into each of your novels. Like the main character in Gold Medal Summer, you too were a competitive gymnast. How old were you when you started gymnastics, and how many years did you train?

I'm not even sure I remember when I first started, I was so little! My mother put me into ballet classes at two and a half, and I think gymnastics started soon afterward. I got serious about gymnastics, though, when I was around six or seven. I know that sounds a bit ridiculous - to say you became "serious" about a sport at such a young age - but that is how things are with gymnastics. The [career] of a gymnast is so short that if you don't start really early, you won't get very far. I was a competitive gymnast for many years, until I was almost sixteen and an injury led to my quitting, or retiring, as many gymnasts say!

What did you love most about it?

What I loved most was beam and floor, because those are the events where you really get to perform, and where my strengths came through - I was a good dancer and I was also very flexible. I loved competitions (when I stuck my routines, that is), since I was a ham and I loved being in front of a crowd on floor especially.

Not that they are reading this interview, but would you like to say anything to the awesome Olympic gymnasts who really DID have a gold medal summer? (USA! USA!)

They so had a gold medal summer! I love that. I can't believe I have a book out about gymnasts called gold medal summer at the same time as the US Olympic team winning on so many different levels. I'd say a huge congratulations, of course, but I would want to compliment the young women on their poise throughout. The media covering the gymnastics was so in their faces and so melodramatic - it was awful, I thought. But they kept themselves together the whole time, and that was really impressive.

Gold Medal Summer was written for a slightly younger audience than your other novels. Was that a conscious choice on your behalf, due to the age of your protagonist and/or a desire to write a middle grade book instead of a YA novel?

A bit of both. I knew that if I was going to write a gymnastics novel, that the target audience would be girls around 9-13 or so, partly because I think that's the age when all girls are into gymnastics, even if they don't do the sport, and for those girls who are gymnasts, it's such a make or break age - it's really the time when you decide you are serious or when you pull back in order to prioritize other things (like boys and having a life).

Back when I was that age, I lived and breathed gymnastics, and I devoured all-things having to do with gymnastics. Gold Medal Summer is the novel that I would have died to read back when I was twelve, but could never find. And Scholastic did such an amazing job with the cover (I would have ran to grab that book off the shelf) and the drawings inside, so it was really exciting that on top of getting to write the dream-gymnastics-novel of my twelve-year-old self, they designed it for someone like her, too!

That's fantastic. (Kudos to Kyle T. Webster for the endpaper illustrations!) How does your writing process change when you write for pre-teen readers as opposed to older teens?

I'm not sure my writing process changes really. You just write the novel that fits your protagonist.

I think the only thing I worried about when I was writing Gold Medal Summer was whether or not there could be a kiss! I always have a kiss (or twenty) in my YA novels and romance is a huge part of all my YA, especially my most recent one, The Survival Kit. Writing romance is one of my favorite things, and there's definitely a romance in there for Joey Jordan, my protagonist for Gold Medal Summer. But could I have a kiss in there, too, if it was for Middle Grade? In the first draft there wasn't one - almost, but not quite. Then my wonderful editor, Cheryl Klein gave me the go ahead and said it was okay if Joey kissed her crush. So [Spoiler Alert!] I went ahead and wrote a makeout scene in a backyard pool! Cheryl liked it, but advised that I might want to tone it down a bit, since it was kind of steamy, so I did. I still think it's a good kissing scene though.

What can you tell us about your next novel?

I'm doing a trilogy with HarperCollins which I'm really excited about. The first novel is called Unplugged and it's book one of The Wired Trilogy. It's about a girl named Laia (pronounced Lie-ah), who has been raised virtually in a place called the App World. At age 16, all citizens of the App World are required to "unplug" and live 100 days in the Real World, without any access to technology, in order to then decide which world they want to live in permanently. Until she unplugs, Laia has never eaten real food or seen the real sun or touched another person's skin - or even her own. When she wakes up there are many surprises that await her, including what she really looks like (she's never seen herself before - only her virtual copy). It's been a really exciting novel to work on, since I'm pretty opinionated about how technology is changing our lives, and not all for the better!

That sounds very cool. When will the series be released?

Unplugged is scheduled for Winter 2014, with Books 2 and 3 to each follow a year later. I can't wait.

Best of luck with the new school year, Professor Freitas! Wait - are you teaching this year?

I'm taking some time off from teaching to write my trilogy, and finish up a nonfiction book I have coming out in the spring of next year. But until recently, I was teaching a Great Books first-year seminar in the Honors Program at Hofstra University, where I had some truly wonderful students.

When you aren't writing, reading, teaching, or researching, what do you like to do?

I love spending time with my friends, especially over good food. I love to eat! I'm a total foodie, so I love trying new restaurants and eating at old favorites, cooking food, going to markets to find exciting foods, especially cheeses. So I guess a lot of my life revolves around socializing with food. And wine. Gotta have the wine.

Anything else is new in your world you'd like to share?

I've been traveling a lot, which has been fun. And I'm excited that the foreign rights of a lot of my novels have been sold recently, in various countries, and my first book in German just came out on August 27th - The Survival Kit. Then The Possibilities of Sainthood comes out in February, and the same publisher just bought my trilogy. It's been really fun getting letters from booksellers and people from all over. I love it.

Thank you for having me on your site! It's been wonderful.

Related Posts at Bildungsroman
Interview: Donna Freitas (2010)
Review: This Gorgeous Game by Donna Freitas
Review: Gold Medal Summer by Donna Freitas

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Going with today’s theme, I’m mostly imitating each book’s own voice/style for my commentary.  And sometimes I’ll just let them speak for themselves.   Marilyn Nelson.  Sweethearts of Rhythm: The Story of the Greatest All-Girl Swing Band in the World.  Illus. Jerry Pinkney.  New York: Dial Books, 2009. THE PAWNSHOP BLUES  A poem by Nerija [...]

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This illustration was sent in by Nicole Tadgell. She is an illustrator who loves drawing and painting children of all races, celebrating the journey of growing up. I featured Nicole in 2011 on Illustrator Saturday You can also visit her blog at:  www.nicoletadgell.blogspot.com/ I’m very happy that Nicole sent in something for our enjoyment.  Thank you, Nicole.

Here is our guest blogger David L Harrison author of over 80 children’s books and all around nice guy.

To Theme or Not to Theme

by David L Harrison

When I began writing poetry for young people, I was unaware of the need for themes and unconcerned about supplying them. I accumulated a collection of poems over a three-year period – 100 in all – and sent them in mass to Bee Cullinan, poetry editor-in-chief at Boyds Mills Press. 

She liked them, accepted them, and began at once to sort the poems by themes. School accounted for maybe fifteen poems. Family made up another dozen or so. Under Bee’s guidance, I wrote enough additional poems to complete SOMEBODY CATCH MY HOMEWORK. The family collection was published as A THOUSAND COUSINS. 

But that was about as far as my accidental themes stretched. Everything else was a hodgepodge of subjects that caught my fancy during the three years of writing. Between HOMEWORK and COUSINS we brought out one theme-less collection as THE BOY WHO COUNTED STARS. In it were some of my most whimsical poems but the book laid an egg and I learned my lesson. 

Adults who buy books for kids like to know what a book is about. Parents may choose based on their sons’ and daughters’ interests. Teachers and librarians keep that in mind, too, but they are also aware that school is the office where children go to work. Their job description is to learn and those charged with helping them learn find it convenient to break down the job into categories such as math, science, language arts, and social studies. If you want to appeal to buyers, and who doesn’t, it’s just good business to understand how the market works.

Most good books possess some element that qualifies for a beginning-middle-ending or at least an overall arc that moves the narrative from a logical beginning to a logical conclusion. This is true of nonfiction, fiction, and books of poetry. In CONNECTING DOTS, I followed my memories from earliest to current. For ALLIGATOR IN THE CLOSET, I began with a house at night, took my readers on a general tour of my home (though often purely fictional), and ended by saying there’s really no place like whatever we call home. VACATION is the tale of Sam and his family, who leave home on a driving vacation to the ocean, get there, play there, and return home. For PIRATES, I started with an explanatory poem about the squalid waterfronts of filth and discontent that spawned many of the young men who turned to crime on the seas and ended with pirates being captured and some of them hanged. Most recently I took the reader of COWBOYS from two wranglers signing up for another cattle drive, up the Chism Trail to Abilene, and ended with two cowboys on horses trying to outrun a train, which was, of course, a metaphor of how the trail drives eventually came to an end. 

These days I like to settle on a theme, list numerous possibilities for poems or vignettes or episodes, write a few good examples, and send my proposal to a potential editor. On rare occasions I just begin by asking an editor if she/he might be interested in seeing a book about this or that before deciding whether or not to develop the idea further.

Kathy, many thanks for inviting me to your blog. I hope some of these ideas prove useful.

David, thank you for taking the time to share your expertise with us. 

You might want to check out David’s website:  www.davidlharrison.com or go directly to his blog: www.davidlharrison.wordpress.com That is where all the poets hang out.  You might want to get involved and try your hand at a few poems.  Also every Sunday, David posts a poem from one of his many books.  Enjoy!

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy

Filed under: Advice, demystify, How to, inspiration, poetry, writing Tagged: David L Harrison, Nicole Tadgell, To Theme or Not to Theme

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So, not book-related, but anyone who loves story (and especially if you were too young or "too old" and missed its heyday) should check out the ol' Nickelodeon TV series The Adventures of Pete & Pete. It is arguably the best children's television dra-medy ever.

I went to the reunion show hosted by Cinefamily last night at the Orpheum Theatre in Los Angeles, and it was SO fun. They had the set dressed like the lawn from the opening credits and included not just the main characters but also some of my favorite secondary characters.

Best of all, Polaris, the band whose theme song for the show used to send me into fits of air guitar as a teenager, reunited for one night only and played fan favorites such as "Saturnine", "Summerbaby", "Waiting for October", and "Hey Sandy". They totally rocked!

I wish I hadn't gotten that last thing of beignets at Umamicatessen next door because the theatre was also serving adult "Orange Lazarus" and frosty treats from Mr. Tastee :/ I was too full! I will have to make some Blue Tornado Bars before summer is over.

If you're intrigued, check out the DVD sets for Seasons 1 & 2. Even with the horrible production quality of the recording (it looks like someone taped it off their TV in the mid-90s and they recorded it again while it played it on another TV) you can't beat the mix of "funny, sad, strange, and beautiful" stories that Will McRobb and Chris Viscardi produced.

My friend Katie had a really great seat up front thanks to our friend Christina (who is a huge fan and supporter of Cinefamily) and took these great photos.

I'm glad she did that because we were up in the mezzanine and I couldn't even have gotten a decent picture of the back of Teddy's head (Dave Martel) up there. It was dark.

I took this one, as did about 300 other hipsters

The Adventures of Pete & Pete ran from 1993-1996 and starred Hardy Rawls (Don Wrigley aka Dad), Judy Grafe (Joyce Wrigley aka Mom), Allison Fanelli (Ellen Hickle), and Toby Huss (Artie), with Michael Maronna and Danny Tamberelli as the titular brothers Pete.

Aside from the show's creators, director Katherine Dieckmann, and the main players, guest stars Syd Straw (Math Teacher Miss Fingerwood), Rick Gomez (Endless Mike Hellstrom), and Damian Young (Bus Driver Stu Benedict) spoke during the reunion panel.
The third season has not been released due to issues at Paramount, but episodes can be found on YouTube. For more on Pete & Pete check out the fan-made site at http://pnp.norecess.org/.

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It’s said that J.K. Rowling had the whole of the Harry Potter series in her head before she started. If you’re in the JKR camp, read no more. You’re way ahead of me. On the other hand, if you’re not a long-range planner, my experience may be of use.

Like most writers, I have antennae that alert me to the Good Idea that might make a Good Story. My first image for the mystery series that starts with Dying in the Wool was of a man, a father, unable to return home. Someone needed to find out who and where he was. Step forward Kate Shackleton, sleuth extraordinaire. I then knew I wanted to go on writing about Kate, and so I had an eye towards her longevity. That’s as much planning as I did. For me, starting a series was like any other writing, a combination of characters, setting and plot.

GIVEAWAY: Frances is excited to give away a free copy of her novel to a random commenter. Comment within 2 weeks; winners can live anywhere in the world. You can win a blog contest even if you’ve won before.

 

 

 

     

Guest column by Frances Brody, who lives in the north of England,
where she was born and grew up. Frances started her writing life in
radio, with many plays and short stories broadcast by the BBC.
She has also written for television and theatre. Before turning to
crime, she wrote sagas, winning the HarperCollins Elizabeth Elgin
Award for most regionally evocative debut saga of the millennium.
Four books in the Kate Shackleton Mystery series: Dying in the Wool,
A Medal for Murder, Murder in the Afternoon and A Woman Unknown.
A Medal for Murder will be available from Minotaur in February 2013.
Visit Frances online at www.frances-brody.com. She is also happy
to be contacted through Facebook, on Twitter.

 

 

 

There were certain givens. Kate would need to be at home in different social circles, and to be independent so that she could take off at a moment’s notice. An investigator needs the right sort of people around her. Kate is adopted. Her adoptive father is a police superintendent; her mother an aristocrat who married for love. In book three, Kate meets her birth sister who is from a very different background. This creates a wide social spectrum for possible stories. It’s the 1920s. Although much has changed for women, there are still many restrictions and difficulties. Kate would struggle without her sidekick, Jim Sykes, who can go to places that would be closed to women.

A sense of place is particularly important in a mystery novel. Readers have to believe that these events are happening in this particular spot, at this time. Early on, I visited locations and went house-hunting for Kate. Places and road layouts have changed a lot since the early part of the last century. Old maps became essential. I have a collection of maps. (The ones I don’t have, I find in the library). Whether Kate is walking, driving her 1913 Jowett motor, or riding the tramcar, I can trace her journeys. Time spent working out her route, and how long it takes to reach her destination, is additional thinking time for me, as if I’m tagging along with her. This also helped as I planned and wrote the subsequent books. Kate has her patch: Yorkshire, the largest county in England.

Recently I came across the advice that you should read around the genre you plan to write. Find out what’s on publishers’ lists; analyse the market. It didn’t occur to me to do this; although I do read widely, including crime fiction. I had a brilliant idea and wanted to get on with it right away, not spend time analyzing where my story might slot in, or to even think about genre. If I had read around my sub-genre (horrible term!) perhaps a stylistic trick or two might have lodged in my subconscious and a reader would say, Oh, she’s a bit like Author X. So I’m glad I jumped straight in and pressed on.

This approach has a disadvantage. When I showed Dying in the Wool to my agent, she liked it but was a little impatient. ‘It’s a crime novel. You have to have a body by page one hundred.’

I went to a library event to hear Robert Barnard, an author with a list of crime novels as long as your arm. When it came to questions, I asked, ‘Did anyone ever tell you that you should have a body by page one hundred?’ ‘No,’ he said, ‘but I always have a body by page sixty.’

In my second novel, A Medal for Murder, Kate finds the body by page thirty. And in Murder in the Afternoon … but you get the idea.

Sometimes, practical tips are best. Here are mine. When starting work on a novel, I buy two A4 spiral-bound notebooks, for research, characters and story. I take a camera when I visit locations. Reading for background research is useful, but it doesn’t beat meeting the experts, and they are usually willing to help. I am never happy with my first drafts but save them. To avoid the confusion of a bleary-eyed start on the wrong draft, I highlight abandoned versions and give them a colour. At the end of each day I email work to myself, so if the house burns down while we’re out, or a burglar strikes, my manuscript lives on in cyberspace. Not very high tech, but this works for me.

Good luck!

GIVEAWAY: Frances is excited to give away a free copy of her novel to a random commenter. Comment within 2 weeks; winners can live anywhere in the world. You can win a blog contest even if you’ve won before.

 

 

Hook agents, editors and readers immediately.
Check out Les Edgerton’s guide, HOOKED to
learn about writing fiction to pulls readers in.

 

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Literary agent Mary Kole has run webinars for us for years, and she is our most in-demand presenter and critique expert. Her webinar on Thursday, September 6, 2012 is called “Picture Book Craft Intensive” (and includes a critique of your book!). Since Mary has sold many picture books (lots of debuts) in the past three years, she knows her stuff. Keep reading to learn more.

 

 

 

 

DETAILS

The whole thing goes down at 1 p.m., EST, on Thursday, Sept. 6 , 2012, and lasts 90 minutes. Each registration comes with access to the archived version of the program and the materials for 1 year. You do not have to attend the live event to get a recording of the presentation or ask the presenter questions or get the critique. Sign up here.

1. Mary sells multiple debut picture books a year and knows her stuff. She is a kidlit guru, and will be dissecting successful picture books to analyze what they did right. In this market, you also need a commercial premise that’ll immediately spark the imagination, and multiple sales hooks. Learn what the picture book audience is looking for, what agents and editors like to see in this marketplace, and how you can capitalize on these needs. You’ll also learn how to make your project and pitch irresistible so you can take the next step toward publication. Other things you’ll learn:

• The essential elements of books written for young child readers
• How your kid reader thinks about picture books and what they want
• What agents and editors look for in terms of pitch, writing, and book premise
• The specific guidelines of this market
• Examples of great picture books from today’s shelves
• How to handle illustrations and how to format your submission
• How to make your hook absolutely irresistible
• What separates an aspiring writer from a contracted author in this field

2. The critique! All registrants are invited to submit the full manuscript of their picture book (up to 1,000 words) after the event, though you are encouraged to revise your manuscript first, based on what you learn. All submissions are guaranteed a critique by instructor Mary Kole. Mary reserves the right to contact any attendees by e-mail following the event if a manuscript is of the highest quality. Sign up here.

3. Ask Mary questions. Do you have a concern that’s not being addressed? A question you can’t find an answer to? Ask Mary! In all WD webinars, no question goes unanswered.

 

 

INSTRUCTOR

Mary Kole (kidlit.com, @kid_lit) is a Senior Literary Manager with Movable Type Management (movableTM.com). She’s also on the hunt for exceptional picture books, especially from accomplished author/illustrators. She has sold books to HarperCollins, Simon & Schuster, Penguin, Random House, Marshall Cavendish, and Arthur A. Levin’s imprint at Scholastic, among others. Mary reads submissions for tween and teen novels all day long and will tell you exactly what works and what doesn’t when you’re approaching this exciting, creative, and fulfilling niche in publishing.

Questions? Contact writingwebinars@fwmedia.com.

Sign up here!

 

 

 

 

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In 2008,  I was producing a radio program on youth obesity when a guest,  Dr. Ben Danielson of Seattle Children’s Hospital,  said,  ”You can’t teach an unhealthy child, and you can’t keep an uneducated child healthy.” Another guest,  a nutritionist,  pointed out that the “achievement gap” does not reflect a learning problem among children,  but a public health problem with obesity,  hunger and cheap foods.

I had been a children’s book publisher for nearly 20 years but never made the connection between learning and eating until then. How can children learn if they’re on a sugar rush from breakfast or hungry from skipping it? A key problem is that many children and families lack a basic knowledge about what and how we eat. In other words, they don’t have food literacy.Many children don’t know where their food comes from or what it looks like outside its packaging. Families are eating on the run, with 19% of meals consumed in the car and 45% of eating taking place alone. This is why my wife and I started READERS to EATERS in 2009 to promote a better understanding of our eating habits by connecting good eats and good reads. READERS to EATERS started as a popup bookstore, selling books about food at farmers markets, educational conferences, and community food events. We also partnered with King County Library System to create educational programs and community food events such as One-City Read programs.

This year, we launched our own publishing program with Our School Garden!, written by Seattle school librarian Rick Swann and illustrated by Christy Hale, about a boy who experiences the garden across different seasons and curriculum. In September we’ll publish Feeding the Young Athlete, a food shopping and cooking guide for middle and high school players, parents and coaches. In November, we’ll have Sylvia’s Spinach, a picture book about a picky eater and how growing food at school changes what she eats.

Next year we will publish Farmer Will Allen and the Growing Table, by Jacqueline Briggs Martin, who wrote the Caldecott winning Snowflake Bentley, about the Milwaukee urban farmer, former basketball star, and MacArthur “genius.” These books allow children to understand and experience food in ways that are fun and relevant to their everyday lives.

It’s exciting to see libraries taking a role in promoting food literacy. Public libraries such as San Francisco, Oakland and Berkeley lend out seeds and gardening tools. Libraries in Madison, Alabama and Grand Fork, North Dakota have children’s gardens. The Northern Onondaga Public Library in Upstate New York is a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) pickup spot. Davis Bilingual Elementary School in Tucson, Arizona uses aquaponics to raise fish in its library. There was a “What’s Cooking @ ALA Cooking Stage” at the convention this year to connect good eats and good reads.

More and more, public institutions such as libraries, schools and parks are taking a greater role in growing a food community by creating gardens, partnering with food banks and farmers markets. The Baltimore Reads Literacy Garden addresses the needs of food deserts as well as literacy deserts by offering free books AND fresh seasonal produce and/or herbs.

The harvest season is coming up. September is Food Literacy Month and October is National Farm to School Month. October 24th is Food Day. It’s a perfect time to use books to engage young readers to learn about good food and stories behind where it comes. As author and librarian Rick Swann wrote in Our School Garden!, “Being in a garden is like reading a good book: You’re never sure what is on the next page, but you can’t wait to get there and find out. So what are you waiting for?”

***************************************************************

Our guest blogger today is Philip Lee. Philip is the co-founder of READERS to EATERS, based in Bellevue, Washington, and the co-founder and former publisher of Lee & Low Books. He was also a host and producer of the radio program, Voices of Diversity, on KBCS in the Seattle area. More about READERS to EATERS is at www.readerstoeaters.com.

If you’d like to write a guest post for the ALSC Blog, please contact Mary Voors, ALSC Blog manager, at alscblog@gmail.com.

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Barneys New York has partnered with Disney for their Electric Holiday campaign, set to debut at Barney’s Madison Avenue flagship store on November 14th. Part of this promotion includes a film “about Minnie Mouse’s fantasy to attend Paris fashion week”. In it, Mickey Mouse will be dressed in Balenciaga, Minnie Mouse in Lanvin, Goofy in Balmain, Daisy Duck in Dolce & Gabbana and Snow White in Nina Ricci. Nice – for characters created during the Depression, this is quite a step up. But must they follow the emaciated super-model look (above) in a pathetic effort to be trendy? Maybe these are gag promotional pictures? I hope so.

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Meanwhile, Popeye the Sailor has been hawking healthy Spinach products for decades. Now Taylor Farms is starting a new line of Popeye branded “Superfoods” with a license from King Features/Hearst. Notice anything different? Popeye no longer has his pipe! Not on the packaging, not in any of their promotional materials. I get it, it’s unhealthy to smoke – but this is getting ridiculous! His pipe is part of his character! Toot! Toot!

(Thanks, David Alvarez and Fred Grandinetti)

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Cartoon Brew | Permalink | 24 comments | Post tags: Daisy Duck, Goofy, Minnie Mouse, popeye

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(Not the large-scale process, from editorial letter to line-edit to copyedit; but what happens in your brain, letter by letter, word by word, if you too have the editorial bug.)

1. Notice that something feels off to you. It may be a dangling modifier; it may be a mistake in the chronology; it may be as big as the fact that the main character is turning out to be a smarmy jerk or you're bored at a point where the action ought to make you excited; it may be as tiny as an "an" where the author should really have a "the." In any case, like Miss Clavel, you sense that SOMETHING IS NOT RIGHT.

2. Reread the passage and confirm the presence of wrongness. Look at it again. Is the feeling still there? Or did you just misread the sentence? Oh yeah, it's still there.

3. Identify the problem and the principle it's violating. "A problem well stated is a problem half solved," said Charles Kettering, and indeed zooming in on the problem is half the battle. If it's a spelling, grammatical, punctuation, or style error, the answer is often pretty obvious; you've known those rules for years and you have Merriam-Webster's 14th New Collegiate Dictionary and the Chicago Manual of AWESOME* to back you up. If it's a plot or character problem, you can measure it against Freytag's triangle and other editorial principles inculcated in us over decades, often even without our knowing it:  Protagonists should be interesting people, generate energy, and take action; we should see a change in both the character and his or her circumstances from beginning to end; the child character must solve the problem; the climax needs to be the culmination of all that came before it, and so on and so forth.

But sometimes a sentence just sounds wrong. Why? Uh . . . Hrmm. Is the thought coming out of nowhere? Coming in at the wrong time in a paragraph? Are all the words used correctly? Would it be better in active as opposed to passive voice? Is it repeating a word or thought or phrase or sentence rhythm you read (heard, really) in the last two pages or so? Is it just your taste vs. the author's style? Is the sentence actually a violation of the author's style in some way and so you should push him on it? Sometimes it's not until I change the sentence or paragraph to what sounds right to me that I can figure out why something sounds wrong. Until that point, I just stare at it, which is one of the reasons my personal editorial process is extremely slow.

(You can run this whole process on illustrations too, by the way; you just then have to know your visual principles as well as your verbal and narrative ones.)

* This is an in-joke with one of my authors, who prefers to call it the Chicago Manual of Boring.

4. Weigh the problem. Is this worth bringing up with the author? Well, that depends on the nature and severity of the problem, the importance of the principle it's violating, the work that would be required to fix it, where you all are in the editorial process, how much the reader would be likely to notice the problem and care, the other things you're already asking the author to do in this round (and those things might be a higher priority for now, so you could pick this one up in a later draft if it's still an issue then), your understanding of the author's revision capabilities (can she do both small revisions and large-scale ones at the same time, or is it better to save the small ones for later with her? Can he fix plot problems but is utterly hopeless at deepening his characters?), the strength of your authority here (Does the author appreciate your comments or resent them? What if Chicago and Words into Type conflict?), what the author's vision of this book is and whether correcting this would serve that, your knowledge of your personal editorial irritants (because every editor has that one thing that drives them crazy and nobody else, which is then often not worth asking about). . . . Editors truly consider all of these things -- many of them subconsciously in about 2.5 seconds -- in choosing what to query with an author.

5. If it is of sufficient weight:  Articulate the problem in a manner tailored to the author and manuscript. Having half solved the problem by stating it clearly for yourself, you now have to state it for the author in a manner that he can appreciate and which will inspire him to take action. Name the problem and the principle it's violating clearly and nonjudgmentally; it's not a personal failure of the author, it's a simple mistake in the manuscript, and mistakes can be corrected. Just as in disagreements in relationships, it's often useful to put things in terms of your own emotional reaction ("Because of [X factor in the manuscript], I felt [Y negative feeling]"), which can again be changed if X factor in the manuscript is changed. Remember that just as the author needs to show-not-tell the story to you, you have to show-not-tell the problems to her, and thus it's useful to back up your assertions with solid examples from the manuscript. Sometimes a series of questions is the best way to show that there's a problem, even if you fear you'll sound stupid; I sometimes call myself the Designated Dumb Lady within a ms. if I'm not getting what's going on, and that frees me up to ask the dumb but necessary questions. Suggest a strategy for a fix (or multiple options for a fix) if you think the author will be open to it and find it useful, but remember it's always the author's choice whether and how to fix it, not yours. (If the author is repeatedly making bad fix choices, from your point of view, then you may not be a good editorial match. Or you may just be too persnickety or egotistical; that's always a possibility worth staying aware of.)

Plot and character stuff usually belongs in an editorial letter; it's extremely useful to know which one is the author's greatest strength or primary interest, if one or the other, so you can couch your argument for making the change in terms of that strength, which might make her feel more excited and capable of doing it. Ditto for the usefulness of knowing what the author's goal for and/or vision of this manuscript is, whether to explore the idea of death or make a reader fall in love with the character or write a really breakneck adventure; you can then phrase your argument for this particular change in service of that (if it truly is; authors are smart and can see when you're going back to the same well too often, so you shouldn't overuse any of these strategies). With mechanical stuff, which you should be saving for the copyediting and proofreading stages anyway, you can usually just say something like, "Hey, Chicago says we should capitalize 'Princess' here--OK?", or the even briefer "Cap as per CMOS 6.24."** Paragraph- and sentence-level stuff is always basically the effort to explain why "an" vs. "the" is so very important (one is a new or random reference; the other refers to something we've already seen in the text) or the equivalent, or what you as a reader WANT to be feeling at this point in the text and why you aren't and how if we can just cut this sentence, please oh please, you will be.

If you are an editor who does multiple passes through a line-edit, like I do, then it's often wise to save your argument for a change for the second or third pass through, so you can reread your suggested change outside the heat of the moment and see whether it's really a problem or if you were just in a weird editorial mood. That happens.  

** This reference number not verified in the Chicago Manual.

6.  Make sure the author knows you're open to conversation to help them better understand the problem or brainstorm solutions.

7. Hope for a response that fixes or removes the problem in the next draft. If that doesn't happen, then repeat steps #1-6, perhaps making your argument in #5 from a different angle. If it's a small thing, or a thing that is mostly a matter of your taste vs. the author's taste, then consider just letting the issue go. But that depends on what you weighed in #3 (and also how careful you know the author is; some authors get distracted easily and might just have missed a query they'll gratefully address later).

8. Read the next line. If necessary: Repeat. 

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The new school year has arrived, and with it comes the fantastic book Eighth Grade is Making Me Sick: Ginny Davis's Year in Stuff by Jennifer L. Holm, illustrated by Elicia Castaldi. This follow-up to 2007's Middle School is Worse Than Meatloaf does not disappoint. Once I started reading it, I didn't stop, turning pages all through breakfast until I reached the final page.

Ginny's life is as busy as ever. Her eighth grade year starts with her family - that includes her mother, her stepfather, her two brothers, and their dog - moving into a new house. Her school schedule includes first period P.E. (yuck!), dissections in science class (assisted by her friend Brian), and an enthusiastic Language Arts teacher who assigns original poetry prompts every Friday. Ginny does well in some classes and struggles in others, tries out for the cheerleading squad, and tries to stomach her stepfather's uber-healthy dinners. She has hobbies - reading, watching movies, and drawing - and likes making to-do lists. She also really, really dislikes how her family's holiday portrait turned out. As things keep changing around her, one thing's for sure: this is a school year Ginny will never forget.

The book is a series of letters, photographs, scribbles, and sketches, chronicling Ginny's correspondence with friends and family members. There are notes stuck on the fridge at home and on her locker at school, postcards and emails from her Grampa Joe, IMs with her best friend, Becky Soo, and text messages to and from family members.

There's more to Eighth Grade is Making Me Sick than meets the eye. Not only will you see something new every time you look at a page - Castaldi's attention to detail is wonderful! - but the story itself is layered. Ginny and her family have their fair share of ups and downs, some serious, some humorous, always handled delicately and realistically. Even the title has a great payoff.

I'd love to see what happens to Ginny next. I hope the authors follow Ginny through high school. This series will appeal to reluctant readers just as much as it will appeal voracious readers. This is some really, really good Stuff.

My favorite images appear on page 21, page 44, and page 24, just to name a few. Want to see what's in the pictures? You'll have to check out the book!

Check out this behind-the-scenes video of Elicia Castaldi hard at work on the book.

Related Posts at Bildungsroman
Poetry Friday: A Big Waste by Jennifer L. Holm (from Eighth Grade is Making Me Sick)
Review: Middle School is Worse Than Meatloaf by Jennifer L. Holm, Elicia Castaldi, and Matthew Holm
Interview: Jennifer L. Holm

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A study in disaffected youth, Green Girl is awash in the apathy and angst of today's directionless 20-somethings. Ruth, a young, beautiful American working as a "shopgirl" in London, wanders aimlessly from job to job and man to man. She sees her life as meaningless and can articulate only that she needs attention. Casting about [...]

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Ruth Krauss and Crockett Johnson on their front porch, 1959. Image courtesy of Smithsonian Institution. Reproduced courtesy of the New Haven Register.

 

Last week at Kirkus, an abbreviated version of a Q&A I conducted with author, professor, and blogger Philip Nel was posted over at the Kirkus Book Blog Network. We discussed his latest book, a double biography, titled Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss: How an Unlikely Couple Found Love, Dodged the FBI, and Transformed Children’s Literature.

This week here at 7-Imp, I’ve got the interview in its entirety, along with some images from the book. Many thanks to Phil for taking time from his busy schedule to chat with me about this fascinating book.

Let’s get right to it …

Jules: Part of your book’s sub-title is “How an Unlikely Couple…Transformed Children’s Literature.” Given their influential work across multiple disciplines (children’s lit, comics, graphic design, fine arts), what do you think their most enduring contributions are to the field of children’s literature?

Philip: Crockett Johnson’s Harold and the Purple Crayon is the most succinct and profound distillation of imaginative possibility ever created. Understandably, it’s inspired many other children’s writers.

 

Crockett Johnson. Harold “kept his wits and his purple crayon.” From Harold and the Purple Crayon (Harper, 1955). Text copyright © 1955 by Crockett Johnson. Copyright © renewed 1983 by Ruth Krauss. Used by permission of HarperCollins Publishers. Reprinted with the permission of the Estate of Ruth Krauss,
Stewart I. Edelstein, Executor. All Rights Reserved.

 

(more…)

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Tomorrow is new Thicklebit day! Sometimes this parenting gig is just…baffling.

A review of The Prairie Thief at Jen Robinson’s Book Page. “…a delight from start to finish.” *beams*

Day one of “A 365-day daily documentation of the mysterious creatures known as The Folk, by the equally mysterious artist, Jacob Oh.” Charming.

And this art, oh, I’m swooning. Kay Nielsen’s Stunning 1914 Scandinavian Fairy Tale Illustrations.

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This post is later than usual because I’ve been working long hours at my software geek job and packing for my trip to Italy! :)

We leave on Friday and will be gone all next week! I’m so excited! I’ve been working so hard lately at the day job that I’m going to relish this time away in Rome. I’m going to stuff my face with as much gelato, bread, and pasta it can hold. It won’t count if I walk it all off right? Right? Ha, ha.

I’ll be posting pics on both Instagram and Twitter. Just follow me at KarenMusings.

One of the things I’m most excited about is the reading I’ll be able to do while traveling to Europe. This is what I dislike most about 2012: Not. Enough. Reading.

I have a good chunk of e-books on my Kindle, but my good writer friend, Anne Leone, told me that I should also take some paperbacks with me for those times when electronics can’t be used. So I found two dark fabulous reads. This is Not a Test by Courtney Summers and Shade’s Children by Garth Nix. Here is a pic I posted on Instagram of my paperback spoils:

I must admit, I haven’t done any pleasure reading in a while. I sometimes wonder as writers if that’s even possible any more?

What about you guys? When you go on vacation do you take books? Do you usually read something in the same genre that you write? Or do you tend to go for a guilty pleasure? Or are you like me and tend to read novels that are bloody and dark?

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The winners of this year’s Ned Kelly Awards for Australian Crime Writing have been announced in Melbourne.

Pig Boy by J C Burke (Woolshed Press) was selected as the winner of the best fiction category.

The Cartographer by Peter Twohig (Fourth Estate) won the best first fiction category.

Sins of the Father by Eamonn Duff (A&U) was the winner of the true crime prize.

The S D Harvey Short Story Award went to A J Clifford for ‘Summer of the Seventeenth Poll’.

Congrats to all the winners.

More information about the Ned Kelly Awards can be found here…

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By Bianca Schulze, The Children’s Book Review
Published: August 29, 2012

Bug Makes a Splash!

Story by Amy Novesky; illustrated by Hanako Wakiyama; foreword by Ellen Pritchard Dodge, MEd, CCC-SLP

Reading level: Ages 2-7

Hardcover: 32 pages

Publisher: Plushy Feely Corp., creators of Kimochis®; October 10, 2011

What to expect: Animals, Emotions, Bravery, Swimming

A delightfully illustrated and inspiring picture book that is perfect for children afraid of trying new things.

Bug, a thoughtful but extremely cautious critter, is afraid to swim (and fly, for that matter). On a day that is perfect for a swim, “that is, if you like to swim,” Bug reluctantly joins his friends for a dip in the pool. Author Amy Novesky takes readers on Bug’s journey of facing his fears, spreading his wings and flying. The text simply and eloquently highlights that being brave only comes from being afraid—bravery is trying anyway.

““It’s okay to be afraid,” sang Lovey Dove. “Only then can you be brave.””

Through adorably animated facial expressions, Hanako Wakiyama’s bright and happy pastel illustrations rendered in oil gently display Bug’s range of emotions, evoking compassion and understanding from young readers. As part of the Kimochis® line—a range of toys and books that work on “building confidence and character in kids, one feeling at a time”—there is a 13 inch plush toy Bug that compliments the book (or the other way around) by offering a tactile experience and encouraging further exploration and discussion of feelings. The 13 inch Bug is sold separately and comes complete with three feelings tucked away in his front pouch: happy, brave and left out.

The plush Bug and picture book combination make for a brilliant educational tool for any parent, teacher or caregiver trying their best to raise emotionally intelligent children. Of course, the book alone can be admired for its warm-hearted charm, too!

Add this book to your collection: Kimochis® Bug Makes a Splash!

Related items: Kimochis® Bug Box Set and Kimochis® Mixed Feelings Pouch -Loved, Jealous, Grateful, Scared and Shy

For more information, visit: www.kimochis.com

Nina Rappaport Rowan, Producer of the Academy Award Winning Short film “Bunny” & Executive Director of “Despicable Me”, discusses how she was inspired by the Columbine Incident to help end school violence and teach kids to become better emotional communicators through the creation of Kimochis®… The Toys With Feelings Inside.

Original article: Review: Kimochis® Bug Makes a Splash!

©2012 The Childrens Book Review. All Rights Reserved.

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