In the awesome effort to remember and celebrate Diana Wynne Jones, folks are posting favorite lines from her works at #dwj2012. You can use
Tumblr to share photos and further remembrances This is all the heartfelt brainstorm of Virginia Duncan and Sharyn November. Rock on, ladies! We heart you as well!
On
April 19th, PW had this to say, which included a Rock the Drop recap:
In another instance of fortuitous timing, the Wynne Jones tribute’s April 12 launch coincided with this year’s Support Teen Lit Day, which followers of the Readergirlz blog and others celebrated by taking part in “Rock the Drop,” the guerilla-style book distribution scheme in which YA fans leave copies of favorite books in public spaces for readers to pick up and enjoy.
Diana Wynne Jones books were used in the recent "Rock the Drop" campaign on Support Teen Lit Day.
The past seven days have been busy ones for lovers of children's literature. Here are some of the highlights that kept me blogging and tweeting all week.
Last Sunday I stayed up past my bedtime to watch the Oscars to the end (11:30). Although much was ho-hum, Christopher Plummer and Meryl Streep gave classy acceptance speeches. I haven't had a chance to see
Hugo (it's on my list), but I was still glad it snagged five awards. I did watch
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, a short animated film by William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg, and you can too,
here.
In sad news, Jan Berenstain, who with her husband Stan created the Berenstain Bears series, died last Friday at age eighty-eight.
I can't wait to get my hands on a copy of
A Brief History of Picture Books.
Be sure to check out
February's Carnival of Children's Literature over at The Fourth Musketeer, cleverly tied to Mardi Gras. It has a fantastic roundup from kidlit bloggers, including a post by yours truly.
Publisher's Weekly gives us a sneak peek of some upcoming fall children's books.
Yesterday was
National Pig Day. I have a fondness for pigs (surprisingly smart animals), as does my daughter. Imagine children's literature without pigs. Why, there would be no three little pigs, no Piglet, no Wilbur, no Mercy Watson.
And last, but by no means least, today is the birthday of Dr. Seuss, born in 1904.
Here are seven facts you might not know about the good doctor, courtesy of Huff Post. Back in 1997, NEA started Read Across American and tied it to his birthday. There are tons of events throughout the country.
Check here to see what's taking place in your state. March 2 is also the day the movie
The Lorax debuts. I've found other recent Seuss movies unwatchable (Jim Carey's
The Grinch. Need I say more?), and unfortunately this one might be another, at least according to a
review in today's NY Times.
Who knew that a perfect square could be transformed into so many things? In his stunning follow-up to last year’s MY HEART IS LIKE A ZOO, Michael Hall creates rivers, mountains, and parks out of a single square of paper. The storytime possibilities are limitless: give kids a square of paper and scissors and see what they can create. So often as a librarian, I would create elaborate artwork for the kids to do during storytime but, sometimes, all you need is a single piece of paper.
What’s buzzy about PERFECT SQUARE? It has received FOUR STARRED REVIEWS! Here’s what they’re saying:
“A smart lesson in thinking outside the box (or the square).” ~ Publishers Weekly (starred review)
“Memorable for reading aloud and terrific for inspiring creative play with the simplest materials.” ~ Booklist (starred review)
“As its week progresses, the narrative turn of events in the square’s world encourages page-turning to discover the results. What will the square do next? This is a not-to-be-missed adventure for all young readers.” ~ School Library Journal (starred review)
“Young readers will absorb the visual lessons effortlessly and with delight.” ~ Kirkus (starred review)
Here are some more wonderful links for you:
PERFECT SQUARE (ISBN 9780061915130) is available now.
A quickly assembled home team in the Canadian book publishers industry has claimed victory over the so-called “Toronto multinational book factories” with a deal to bring out another 40,000 copies of The Sentimentalists, Johanna Skibsrud’s largely unavailable, Giller Prize-winning novel.
Under the terms negotiated between tiny Gaspereau Press of Nova Scotia and Vancouver-based publisher Douglas & McIntyre, the Friesens Corp. of Altona, Man., has agreed to print a new paperback edition by this Friday. “Because of the urgency of the situation, we will pull out all the stops,” Friesens sales manager Doug Symington said.
The deal brings “three proudly independent Canadian entities” together to solve the crisis that emerged when Skibsrud’s unheralded debut novel won Canada’s most prestigious literary award, according to publisher Scott McIntyre. “With our sales, marketing and distribution system onside, an exceptional novel will quickly reach the wide audience it deserves,” he added.
The books should be available for sale early next week, according to McIntyre. Printed in paperback with a pumped-up cover image and the signature red sticker of a Giller Prize winner (as well as the Douglas & MacIntyre Book Publisher imprint on the spine), they will sell for $19.95 compared with the original edition’s $27.95 cover price.
Booksellers snapped up the entire new edition within hours of its being announced, according to McIntyre, and Friesens is reserving paper stock to print another 20,000.
Gaspereau Press made headlines across the country last week when it turned away Toronto publishers eager to bring out more copies of the award-winning book, which it had hand-printed in an edition of 800 copies and was reproducing at a rate of 1,000 copies a week even after it won the award. But even as the company attempted to justify the go-slow approach, calling the Giller win “an interesting opportunity to slow the world down a hair and let people realize that good books don’t go stale,” Gaspereau co-publisher Andrew Steeves was negotiating a new deal with Douglas & McIntyre.
“D&M had always been my back-pocket doomsday scenario,” Steeves said yesterday, adding, “I was as surprised as anyone when we actually won.” He added that the company will continue producing its deluxe edition with a wrapper printed on a hand-cranked letterpress.
Both publishers emphasized the advantage of the new deal to Skibsrud, who had remained quiet last week while her publisher vowed not to compromise its principles by selling large quantities of her novel to an eager public.
It was patience well rewarded, the author wrote yesterday in an e-mail to The Globe and Mail from Istanbul, where she is vacationing. Admitting that she “doesn’t have much knowledge or interest in the business end of things,” Skibsrud said she was “so glad that a solution has been arrived at that allows the books to be distributed widely without sacrificing any of Gaspereau Press’s practices and ideals, which make them so unique and special to work with.”
Even Friesens, a $70-million, can-do book manufacturer, is sympathetic with the Nova Scotians. “I get where they’re coming from and I can also somewhat understand the Toronto-versus-the-rest-of-the-world mentality that they’re showing,” Symington said, adding that Friesens and Gaspereau are a good philosophical fit.
“We’ve been around for 103 years, we’re employee-owned, we’re a privately held company, so all the staff out here has a high concern and a high regard for books,” he said. “We’re big, but we’re not so big, so to speak.”
The book is such a “cause célèbre it will just shoot out of the gate,” McIntyre predicted, saying that opinion on the matter
ABC Baby Me! will be out and available tomorrow! Yay!
I already have my copies with me and let me say.. it is such a beautiful book! I am very proud and couldn't be happier..
Here is a review from Publisher Weekly!
Also my wonderful friends, the
PBJ's, are throwing me a Book Party Celebration! So stay tuned for that. We will be celebrating ABC Baby Me! all week. We will have reviews, a little behind the scenes from the making of the book, pictures, a post about the author Susan B Katz, and of course a giveaway to win a copy which I will more than gladly sign and mail your way.
So make sure to visit the
PBJ's blog the week of Oct 11-Oct 17 and leave a lot of comments to enter in the giveaway. Feel free to spread the word too! :o)
Children of the Waters
Carleen Brice
One World/Ballantine
2009
In ancient Chinese culture, the yin yang symbol—with its contrasting white and black halves—symbolizes the interconnectedness of life. In Carleen Brice’s second novel, Children of the Waters, the seemingly different characters, both black and white, blend together to create an unforgettable story of love, family, and the ties that bind. Children of the Waters is the story of two sisters, Trish and Billie, separated by a family secret threatening to keep them apart.
Carlen Brice’s fluid prose allows the reader get to know both sisters in alternating chapters. Trish, the white, divorced mother of a brown teenaged boy, isn’t happy with her life. Raised by her strict grandparents after the supposed accidental death of her mother and half-sister, Trish feels that something is missing. Although she loves her job, taking care of animals, she is afraid of falling into the same lonely pattern of her bitter grandmother. When she begins finding jigsaw puzzle pieces throughout the city, she refuses to believe her dead grandmother, an avid puzzle maker, is trying to send her a message. Trish struggles to create a family for herself and her son, Will. But after a run-in with mall cops threaten to turn Will against all white people, including his mother, Trish begins to search her family history for the answers to her grandmother’s puzzle.
Unlike her half-sister Trish, Billie seems to have it all: a family that adores her, a lover who is protective and giving, and the comfort of her African ancestors’ guidance. After being diagnosed with Lupus years ago, Billie takes impeccable care of herself—teaching African dance, practicing yoga, and subscribing to a strict diet. Raised in a well-to-do family, Billie is cultured, educated, and confident in her skin, all the things Trish is not. Billie’s family, a beacon of African-American success, has given her the strength and the love to overcome any obstacle. But after finding out she is pregnant, her perfect world starts to unravel, and she is confronted with a past she never knew existed.
In Children of the Waters, Brice candidly tackles the complicated issues of race, class, and family secrets in such a way that everyone can relate. Through the story of Trish and Billie, we see just how connected we all are, despite our differences. In the age of Obama, when America is patting itself on the back for being “post-racial,” Children of the Waters gives us a sobering, yet hopeful look at how far we’ve come and just how far we’ve got to go.
________________________________________________________________
The Prisoner's Wife is a teacher, mother, and writer. She writes about life, love, books, and her experiences raising her son alone on her blog, The Prisoner's Wife.
Art and the Economy:
Laurel Snyder, PW and NY Times...
On her blog today, author Laurel Snyder offers some interesting comments on art and poverty as prompted by the recent economic downturn and how it's affirming to writers and other creative types. Here's a snippet:
See, to pursue a writing life, to really make literature and art the center of things, you have to accept a certain amount of uncertainty, poverty, etc. You decide you’ll be a waitress forever, and never own a fancy handbag. You live in a studio apartment, eat cheap. Ideally, you do this (not because you’re selfish and singleminded, but) because you’re choosing to prioritize art and social commentary and intelligent community and the life of the mind BEFORE handbags.
Click here for the full post.
I've always admired writers who choose to pursue their art and all the sacrifices that go along with that. It makes it all the more exciting when contracts are gotten, awards are won, bestseller lists are made. I'm not sure that pursuit is something I could handle myself. I need the steady paycheck, the paid vacation, and the boss.
There was some good news in terms of the economy and children's books offered recently in PW. In a piece on wholesalers and the holiday season, they report that "Nearly all wholesalers expect children's books to be strong this year..." Click here for the full story.
My favorite economic news reported recently is about the Lipstick Index, what The New York Times calls "that frivolous financial barometer that says cosmetics sales rise in direct relation to free-falling finances." Cosmetic sales have gone up 40% in the last few months.
Books are just as cheap as cosmetics. How do we get everyone to put down that makeup, step away from Sephora, and go spend that $25 at a bookstore?
Best Books of 2008 Lists from PW and Amazon...
It's that listy time of the year...
Publishers Weekly recently compiled their list of best books of the year in numerous categories. Here are the first five on each of their lists of best books for young readers. Click here to read all the lists complete with descriptions of each of the books.
Children's Picture Books
- In a Blue Room, by Jim Averbeck, illus. by Tricia Tusa (Harcourt) (Yay Jim who use to live in the Nati!)
- The Girl in the Castle Inside the Museum, by Kate Bernheimer, illus.by Nicoletta Ceccoli (Schwartz & Wade)
- The Day Leo Said I Hate You!, by Robie Harris, illus. by Molly Bang (Little, Brown)
- Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes, by Mem Fox, illus. by Helen Oxenbury (Harcourt)
- A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever, Marla Frazee (Harcourt)
(Note the three titles by Harcourt--have I mentioned the brilliance of
Allyn Johnston, now head of S&S imprint Beach Lane Books?)
Children's Fiction- Chains, by Laurie Halse Anderson (Simon & Schuster)
- The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume 2: The Kingdom on the Waves, by M.T. Anderson (Candlewick)
- The Penderwicks on Gardam Street, by Jeanne Birdsall (Knopf)
- Masterpiece, by Elise Broach (Holt)
- Graceling, by Kristin Cashore (Harcourt)
Children's Nonfiction - The Year We Disappeared: A Father-Daughter Memoir, by Cylin Busby & John Busby (Bloomsbury)
- What the World Eats, by Faith D'Aluisio, photos by Peter Menzel (Tricycle)
- Our White House: Looking In, Looking Out, by the National Children's Book and Literary Alliance, intro. by David McCullough (Candlewick)
- The Trouble Begins at 8: A Life of Mark Twain in the Wild, Wild West, by Sid Fleischman (Greenwillow)
- We Are the Ship: The Story of Negro League Baseball, by Kadir Nelson (Hyperion/Jump at the Sun)
Amazon has all sorts of best books list, including customer favorites and editor favorites and best book trailers (
topped by John Green's simple-yet-hilarious Papertown video).
Check out all the Amazon lists here.(And remember--it's never too early to start holiday shopping for your literate loved-ones.)
Ginee Seo Resigns from S&S...
Publishers Weekly reports:
Ginee Seo, v-p and editorial director of Ginee Seo Books, an imprint of Atheneum Books for Young Readers at Simon & Schuster, has resigned from her position with the publisher, according to an internal memo sent earlier this week by Atheneum v-p and publisher Emma Dryden.
The short PW piece recalls some other recent changes in editor-driven children's imprints:
The past year has seen several changes at editor-driven children’s imprints at major houses, including the resignations of Laura Geringer and Joanna Cotler from their eponymous imprints at HarperCollins, as well as the formation of two new imprints, HarperCollins’s Bowen Press, headed by Brenda Bowen, and S&S’s Beach Lane Books, with Allyn Johnston at the helm.
Here's the link to the full article.
Yep, Monday, Monday. Finished negotiating the deal points for one contract, did some initial subs for a new client, talked to a potential client. All in a day's work.
Now that our submission period is closed (gotta wait til March my little beasties), I can start plowing through the ones I haven't read yet and start deciding on who to sign, who to ask for fulls, and who must be sadly rejected.
Yes, we spent the first few months sending personal rejections. Like most agents, we are now too busy to do this, yet I wish I had the time. I can say that the bulk of rejections I've sent thus far are due to one of three things--
1. inappropriate word count for genre.
2. Not something we represent.
3. Writing that needs more work. For help with this, check out my post on common writing mistakes.
I just love WOTY week. It seems to fly by so quickly! Next week is Thanksgiving and I am looking forward to relaxing with some good books and eating a lot of food. The couch and my sweatpants will become inseparable! Until then here are some fun links.
RF went to school in A but is from NJ and now lives in NYC. Sometimes she goes by her initial B and she does edit a B for a living…
What not to buy the kids this holiday season.
I guess being married to an author did nothing for Padma’s vocabulary.
One of my co-workers has been having back problems from sitting at her desk too much. I suggest one of these solutions.
Stone Age feminism? That’s why I order take-out.
Congratulations to the National Book Award winners!
Almost titles.
John Oliver explains the writer’s strike.
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Fantastic, Ali! Your work is so lovely. :-)
Thank you Jen!! I really appreciate your sweet words... xo