Stranger Things, I credit you with this finally happening.
Let’s think about doing a Girl With the Silver Eyes film next! Thanks to Liz Burns for the link.
Now when I heard that Nieman Marcus was offering 36 Caldecott Award winning picture books for $10,000 . . . *checks notes* I’m sorry. I typed the wrong number there. I’ll begin again.
When I heard that Nieman Marcus was offering 36 Caldecott Award winning picture books for $100,000 (that’s better) I was a bit baffled. Perhaps these would be books that were all signed by their authors and illustrators? Well, they are first printings, or early editions, yes. But one can assume that you could purchase 36 such similar titles for far less money. This is part of Nieman Marcus’s “Fantasy Gifts” collection, and the idea is that they’ll donate $10,000 to their own charity if you buy this collection.
Now the collection of 36 has been curated by Johnnycake Books and E.M. Maurice Books. Here is the video that accompanies it. See if you see what I saw. Click on the image below:
Did you notice the books chosen to appear on this list? I am a librarian, so my take on curation is going to be different from that of a bookseller. That said, I have to wonder how many booksellers today would hand a child a stack of Caldecott books that included problematic titles like They Were Strong and Good. This is not to say that I think the book should be removed from library or bookstore shelves or anything like that. But if you’re looking for books that speak to kids today, then for the love of all that is good and holy switch that book out for something with some contemporary gravitas like Jerry Pinkney’s The Lion and the Mouse. My two cents. Thanks to Sharyn November for the link.
Oo! This is neat. Matthew Reinhart goes in-depth on pop-up books.
Interesting that he cites Transformers toys as being so influential on him. Sorry, Autobots. Thanks to 100 Scope Notes for the link.
This is neat. Kidlit TV created a livestream of the Bank Street Bookfest this year, and now the full series of events is available in full. Would that the Newbery/Caldecott/Wilder Award ceremonies were done in the same way. I dare to dream!
I know some of you out there harbor unkind thoughts about Amanda Palmer. That’s fine. But she apparently has an album out with her dad, Jack Palmer, who has a pleasant Leonard Cohenish quality to his voice, and one of their songs was turned into an animated video akin to the Brothers Quay. I just like the song:
And if you prefer, you could watch this one with the world’s GREATEST sleeping baby. Seriously. He wakes up ONCE in the course of this film (if you don’t count the end). I don’t think that’s a trick. Plus it was filmed with the cast of Welcome to Night Vale. So. Right there.
In terms of this latest Series of Unfortunate Events trailer, my thoughts are that they get two points for including Klaus’s glasses (thereby already improving upon the film) but one point is deducted for Violet’s hair ribbons, or lack thereof. Interesting that they made her SO much older. Not that I wanted a 12-year-old mock-married to Olaf. Ugh.
Zut! I wish I’d seen this next book trailer before Halloween! It would have tied in so beautifully. I tell you, it is hard to come up with an original trailer for picture books in this day and age. Perl knocks it out of the park.
As for our off-topic review of the day, this one’s a no-brainer. There really isn’t a connection to children’s books here, and I should probably save it for Christmas but . . . aw, I just can’t. For the Stranger Things fans out there:
There was a time, oh best beloved, when BookFest (an annual book event with multiple panels, book discussions, speakers, and general camaraderie) was hosted by New York Public Library. Then came the great upheaval of 2008 and its fate was up in the air until Lisa Von Drasek saved it by pulling it uptown to the Bank Street College of Education. One cannot help but think of a ghostly Anne Carroll Moore glaring over at an equally ghostly but far more smug Lucy Sprague Mitchell when that occurred. Ever since then Bank Street has firmly held the BookFest reins. This is all to the good because this year’s fest, held on Saturday, October 22nd, is looking to be a doozy. If you’ve a yen (and a physical proximity to New York City) then here are the details:
Join us for BookFest @ Bank Street 2016 on Saturday, October 22nd!
BookFest @ Bank Street is an event devoted to the celebration, discovery, and discussion of books for children and teens. This event, intended for adults, features luminaries from the children’s literature community. Authors, illustrators, editors, reviewers, and scholars will take part on panel discussions and breakout sessions, which allow participants a closer look at a specific genre or topic in children’s literature.
Tickets: $80.00 ››
9:00am – Arrive, register, and drink coffee
9:30am – Welcome
9:35 – 10:15am – “Reading with Pictures: Visual Literacy Yesterday and Today”
Panelists: Lindsey Wyckoff, Archivist, Bank Street College of Education
Francoise Mouly, Publisher, Toon Books and Art Editor, The New Yorker
Rudy Gutierrez, illustrator, Spirit Seeker: John Coltrane’s Musical Journey
Raúl Colón, author and illustrator, Draw!
Moderator: Leonard S. Marcus, children’s literature scholar and Honorary Degree holder from Bank Street College of Education
10:15 – 11:10am – “Artists and Illustrators Talk Visual Literacy”
Panelists: Laurent Linn, author and illustrator, Draw the Line
Hervé Tullet, author and illustrator, Let’s Play!
Angela Dominguez, author and illustrator, Mango, Abuela and Me
Jason Chin, author and illustrator, Gravity
Brian Pinkney, author and illustrator, Max Found Two Sticks
Christopher Myers, author and illustrator, My Pen
Moderator: Susannah Richards, Eastern Connecticut State University
11:10 – 11:25am – Break
11:25am – 12:25pm – “The Whole Book Approach: Reading Picture Books with Children”
Presenter: Megan Dowd Lambert
12:25 – 1:25pm – Book Discussions (DISCUSSION GROUP LEADERS AND BOOK LIST)
1:25 – 2:00pm – Lunch and Book Autographing
2:05 – 2:50pm – “Capturing the Action: Graphic Novels and Visual Literacy”
Panelists: Deb Lucke, author and illustrator, The Lunch Witch
Raúl Gonzalez, illustrator, Lowriders in Space
Jorge Aguirre, co-author and illustrator, Dragons Beware!
George O’Connor, author and illustrator, Olympians series
Moderator: Jesse Karp, Pratt Institute School of Information
2:55 – 3:30pm – Closing keynote: Pam Muñoz Ryan, author, Echo
3:30 – 4:00pm – Autographing in the lobby – books for sale from the Bank Street Book Store team
- We’re diving right in today. Check out this killer poster:
Now if you’re one of the lucky ducks living in NYC, or will be there on the date of 4/16, you now have your marching orders. This is an event held at Bank Street College of Education and in wracking my brains I can’t think of anything more timely. You can see the full listing of the events here. Wish I were there. Go in my stead, won’t you?
- New Podcast Alert: This one sports a catchy moniker that will strike some of you as familiar. Kidlit Drink Night (which would also make a good name for a band, a blog, or a dog) is the official podcast of one Amy Kurtz Skelding. There’s a bit of YA cluttering up the works, but enough children’s stuff is present to make it worth your pretty while. Do be so good as to check it out.
- Hey! Hey hey! The Eric Carle Honorees were named, did you see? And did you notice that amongst them Lee & Low Books was named an Angel? Such fantastic news. A strong year of nominees.
- So Phil Nel shared something recently that I’d like you to note. There is apparently a Tumblr out there called Setup Wizard which consists of the, “Daily Accounts of a Muggle I.T. Guy working at Hogwarts.” Phil suggests reading them in order. I concur. Thanks to Phil for the link.
- I have lots of favorite blogs, but Pop Goes the Page clearly belongs in the upper echelon. Two posts by Dana Sheridan (the Education & Outreach Coordinator of the Cotsen Children’s Library at Princeton University) caught my eye recently. Dana, as you will recall, is responsible for my little toilet paper tube profile picture on Twitter. Well now she’s used her knowledge of all things cardboard to create the world’s most adorable subway system complete with Broadway posters. In a different post Dana, in partnership with The Met Museum’s Nolen Library (the one for the kids), shows a killer display on taking care of your books. It doesn’t necessarily sound interesting, until you see how they magnified a book eating buggy.
- So the other day I’m talking up Evan Turk and his new book The Storyteller, as per usual, and I mention to a librarian that the guy not too long ago did some killer sketches of Chicago blues musicians. Naturally she wanted to see what I was talking about. After all, I practically live in Chicago these days, so if there’s a talented illustrator going about making Chi-town art, it’s well worth promoting. I took her to Evan’s blog and there, beautiful as all get out, is the art. Then I thought I might share it with you as well. This is just a tiny smidgen of what he has up so go to his blog to see more. The sheer talent of it all floors me.
- Do you know who is awesome? Sharyn November, former Viking editor, is awesome. So awesome, in fact, that she has her own brand of tea. You can buy this tea, if you like. I’ll put its description right here:
“sdn tea was created specifically for the punk goddess of children’s publishing, Sharyn November. This deity, who is all sharp angles, quick wit, and extraordinary fashion, is a fiery force of nature–literally and figuratively. She already has her own time zone, so it’s high time she has her own tea. This blend is strong and highly caffeinated. Almost impossibly fruity on the nose, it tastes of warm spice and goes extremely well with a piece of chocolate and a cigarette.”
- Do school librarians yield higher test scores? You may have always suspected that was the case but a recent study out of South Carolina now has some facts so that you can put your money where your mouth is. Are you a school librarian in need of justifying your existence to your employer? You can’t afford not to read this SLJ piece.
- I dunno. I get Neil Patrick Harris playing Count Olaf in the new Netflix series of A Series of Unfortunate Events. That makes sense to me. It’s Dr. Horrible without the songs. Sure. But Patrick Warburton as Snicket? Last time we had Jude Law, and I’m pretty sure that was the right move to make. Puddy as Lemony Snicket seems to lack the right panache.
- In America we have our Newbery and Caldecott Medals. In England it’s all about the Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Awards. And unlike the States, they create shortlists. Those shortlists have just been released for 2016 and (also unlike the States) they nominate books outside their nation. So Canadians like Jon Klassen and Sydney Smith have a fighting chance. I agree with Travis Jonker, though. The alternate title for Sidewalk Flowers was a surprise.
- On the old To Do list: Meet Jan Susina, the Illinois State English Professor who also happens to be an expert on children’s literature. In a recent interview he produced this marvelous mention of Beatrix Potter: “Potter once said, ‘Although nature is not consciously wicked, it is always ruthless.’ Peter Rabbit is a survival story, not a cute bunny story.” How perfectly that quote could have worked in Wild Things. Ah well. The entire interview is well worth your time, particularly his answer to the question, “What is the greatest secret in children’s literature?” The answer will surprise you. Thanks to Phil Nel for the link.
- This Saturday I’ve a Children’s Literary Salon at 2:00. Yet a couple months ago I hosted Jeff Garrett who spoke about his work with the Reforma Children in Crisis Project. You can imagine how pleased I was to hear that ALSC will be donating $5,000 to the project as well. Fantastic news.
I was dumpster diving in the donation bin this week when an old book caught my eye. Hate to say it, but this thing seriously disturbs me. They just don’t make ’em like this anymore (phew!).
Run, girl, run!! Or rather . . . skate, girl, skate!
There are some days when you are so utterly floored by delight that all you can do is throw up your hands and say to the universe, “I’m out!” That was yesterday. I’m out, folks. I hit the top. It’s all downhill from here. And I’m so young! It’s sad when you peak at 34.
The source of this joy/woe is Allie Bruce at the Bank Street School for Children’s library. As you may know, if you attended my Children’s Literary Salon on Alternative Children’s Librarians, Allie is Bank Street’s children’s librarian and a more talented young ‘un you could not hope to find. She asked me if I could come in one day to speak to some of her sixth graders about book jackets. And since that is a topic I could talk about all day and night, I readily agreed.
Oh. And while I was there, Lemony Snicket/Daniel Handler and Jon Klassen would stop by to do their very first dual presentation of their new book The Dark.
But wait. There’s more.
Neil Gaiman would also be stopping by. And Mr. Handler’s wife Lisa Brown. And Jon Scieszka might come along. As well as Kerlan Collection guru Lisa Von Drasek (newly appointed as a National Book Award committee judge).
So . . . there was that.
That morning I headed on over with my handy dandy FlashDrive, forgetting to bring my camera. Luckily everything in my purse is a camera these days. My phone is a camera. My iPod is a camera. My lipstick, extra shoes, and hairbrush may all well have cameras in them, for all I know.
My presentation seemed to go all right. Allie was nice about it anyway, and though I was mildly unnerved when Lisa Von Drasek appeared, taking a picture with an iPad (it is hard to stay calm in the face of a large flat surface aimed at your head) I didn’t panic once. For the record, the kids assured me that none of them liked the old cover of Okay for Now and did prefer the new paperback jacket. They also agreed with me that the British cover of Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos is heads and tails more interesting than the American one. Duh.
When I was done I got to flit about. In my flitting I saw that the Bank Street library’s children’s librarian’s office contains an ancient Jon Scieszka mask of yore. The kind of mask that reminds you of Eraserhead more than anything else. The mask is Lisa Von Drasek’s by right, and she had a fascinating story about when it was made and its original purpose. Apparently when it first came out it was handed to a roomful of librarians. Jon knew nothing about it and he walked in to see his own visage staring back at him from hundreds of faces. “It was like Being John Malkovich“, he said. Allie assured me that the kids who see it are fascinated. Sometimes they commune with it on a near spiritual level.
Jon Klassen and Daniel Handler were slated to start signing a bunch of copies of their book but until they did we figured we’d hang out in The Quiet Room (which proved to be a bit of a misnomer). I don’t own a clutch. Not really. So in lieu of one I tend to carry around a book. Thus it was that the galley of Merrie Haskell’s Handbook for Dragon Slayers got lugged, poor thing, hither and thither, as I stuffed an interesting assortment of business cards, flyers, and Starbucks napkins into its pages. Apparently I was worried that I’d have nothing to do and would need some entertainment. Oh, the wrongness of little me.
Jon, Daniel, the remarkable Lisa Brown, her thoroughly enjoyable offspring (who had written one helluva graphic novel illustrated by his mom), Victoria Stapleton in shoes I should have caught on film, and a whole host of other folks flooded in. Before long it was lunch. Picture, if you will, what it is like to eat lunch across from Scieszka and Handler with Lisa Brown at your side and Lisa Von Drasek heading the table. I am not particularly good at socializing when overwhelmed. I tend to get giggly. And loud. And I make strange little jokes that feed off of references that make sense only in my own head. So while I was not particularly interesting at this gathering, the rest of the folks were superb. In the future I’m taking my little audio recorder with me to capture this kind of situation on tape for the benefit of future generations. See if I don’t.
So then Neil Gaiman comes in. That was nice. He’s a bit beardy right now. Much with the stubble, which has a pleasant graying sheen to it. Shocker: He wore black. I’m not shy around famous folks, but Gaiman is a tricky one. He’s a very kind famous person. If you introduce yourself to him he’ll look you dead square in the eye, shake your hand, and seem interested in whatever babble proceeds to emanate from your mouth. But famous people on his level are a bit difficult to converse with casually, and because they are at a distinct disadvantage to you (you know who they are, but they meet hundreds of people every day and can’t remember you as well) you can’t rely on them remembering any past conversations you might have had. So I just skipped the whole meet Gaiman part of the day and chatted with Jon Klassen instead. And Jon is a true doll. The kind of guy you’d try to weasel yourself into sitting next to at a dinner party. I’m trying to pin down exactly what his personality reminds me of, but it’s hard. In any case, I lamented with him that he’d used such great material on his Boston Horn Book Globe Award speech now that he had to write a Caldecott one (he’s almost done with it, Roger, don’t worry!).
Then it was time for the presentation! We proceeded to the Bank Street auditorium, which was apparently built on the side of a mountain. It’s one of those auditoriums where you get the distinct feeling that if you tripped and fell down the stairs they’d have to pluck your various limbs out of the four corners of the room post-landing. We sat up top, the kiddos sitting beneath us, closer to the stage. And what lively kiddos they were too! I suspect they were fresh off of lunch and had had their fill of pudding pops or whatever it is kids eat today (Note to Self: Check and see if pudding pops still exist . . . ditto Hydrox cookies). They were bouncy. Very bouncy. Tres bouncy. Handler played some background music for them which, interestingly, did not seem to affect them one way or another. And so the fun began.
Now Daniel and Jon had never presented together. Their PowerPoint presentation had not even been finished as of the night before. And here they were, with Gaiman, ready to wow a room on a brand new book for the very first time.
Ladies and gentlemen, let us discuss the nature of comedic chemistry. Think of all the great pairings of the past. Mel Brooks and Carl Reiner. Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin. Tina Fey and Amy Poehler. Now think of the great comedic children’s book pairings out there. Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith. Mac Barnett and Adam Rex. Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld (they get extra points for playing ping pong while they present). But on this day we witnessed something new. Something unique. We witnessed, ladies and gentlemen, the greatest comic picture book pairing the world has ever seen. I mean this honestly.
For you see, Mr. Handler had noticed something about Mr. Klassen. He is a world class straight man. A good straight man is exceedingly difficult to find. You need someone who enjoys the spotlight but hasn’t the kind of ego that demands that they grab it away from their partner. They need to be willing to be made a fool of, but the wit and cunning to turn it all around on their partner by the end. In short, you need a Jon Klassen.
The entire schtick hinged on the idea that Mr. Handler (who proclaimed repeatedly that he was not Lemony Snicket to the pained cries of the delighted audience members) had zero respect for Mr. Klassen’s work on their book together. In the course of their talk he disparaged Mr. Klassen’s clothes and talent. Klassen, for his part, played along beautifully. They alternated seemingly random slides of varying importance. It was fairly clear that the slides were a combination of Handler’s old standbys (he’s in an old photograph phase right now that’s doing very well by him) with Klassen’s (in which he shows various important pieces of art from his youth, including a shot of Frog & Toad, and repeats how frightened he was of them when he was a child).
When Mr. Snicket starts to read the book with Mr. Klassen illustrating alongside him, the tension escalates. Handler denies Mr. Klassen the shiny red apple he’d really like to eat. He blindfolds him and makes him draw sans eyes. He brings on Gaiman and claims he’s now going to read the book in his best Neil Gaiman imitation (Klassen makes fun of the “imitation” continually). And then, when everything is reaching a crescendo . . . Klassen turns everything on its head and Handler runs off screaming. I won’t give away why. Bank Street recorded the whole thing and I’ll post it here when I can.
The kids, for the record, ate this thing up like it was a (perhaps nonexistent) pudding pop. They laughed. They screamed. Mostly they screamed. I’m not entirely certain if Handler and Klassen (and Gaiman for that matter) were ready for the level of identification the kids made with poor Mr. Klassen. Handler told his blindfolded illustrator that both of them would blindfold themselves and then read and draw without their eyes. This was, of course, a lie and the kids could not help but scream to Mr. Klassen that Mr. Handler was welching on his half of the deal. There was an interesting level of desperation to their cries. Handler’s an old hand in dealing with child panic and outrage, but Klassen dealt with it beautifully as well. It was very satisfying to watch. You should have heard les enfants terrible when Handler started eating Jon’s apple.
When the video is up and running I will let you know. It’ll make your day. Meantime, a big thank you to the folks at Little, Brown for bringing these heavyweights together and to Bank Street for hosting them. And thanks, of course, to Allie Jane Bruce for inviting me and allowing me to report on what, without a doubt, was the highlight of the year. Methinks I’ll go off and relive it a couple times just for kicks.
Jenny Brown living the dream with Allie Bruce close by.
So I’m tooling around in my library’s shelves containing ancient children’s books of yore yesterday, which happens to be a lot of fun. Nothing puts the current world of publishing in perspective quite like waltzing through decades and decades worth of out-of-print gems. At one point I was going through the autographed book section when I stumbled on a familiar name. “Lucy Sprague Mitchell”. It rang a distant bell in the old noggin but I was hard pressed to remember why. Later at home I cracked open my copy of
Minders of Make-Believe (the go-to tome for all things simultaneously historical and children’s literature related) and there she was. Mitchell. The woman behind New York’s Bureau of Educational Experiments (which wasn’t half as terrifying as the name implies). Mitchell paved the way for progressive education and that little bureau she founded would go on to become
The Bank Street College of Education.
Why am I telling you this? Because Bank Street is a vital, contributing member of the children’s literary world, dagnabbit. In fact I was just there last week when Candlewick presented their upcoming fall list (but more on that another day). And while I was there I also learned of the release of their newly revisited, revised edition of Best Books to Read Aloud with Children of All Ages. Written by Lisa Von Drasek, Linda Greengrass (awesome name) and Jennifer M. Brown the book looks like one of those necessary tools for folks new to the readaloud game and others who need a quick pick-me-up. Actually Lisa put it better than I in a recent email exchange:
“This past Monday morning, I had the opportunity to observe a story time for toddlers in a tiny rural public library. The woman leading the story time was delightfully engaging, she sang, the children played maracas, rang bells, danced and did simple yoga stretches. (I will be stealing not only her song, but also her yoga ideas for my preschool classes.) Unfortunately she lost most of their attention every time she read aloud. Her choices weren’t great for the age group. As a children’s librarian, I often forget how hard it is to make developmentally age appropriate choices. The Children’s Book Committee at Bank Street has provided a neatly curated collection of titles, some new, some classics arranged by age group and searchable by theme in the Best Books to Read Aloud.”
The result is an eBook. Yep. A $2.99 eBook. So I figured I’d buy one. I’m no Mr. Moneybags but I can shell out three bucks. Apparently it’s also available through a nook app, Amazon and soon Google Books with links to Indie Bound.
Normally I don’t shill others’ wares as directly as I am here but this is the kind of thing I tend to believe in. Of course Lucy Sprague Mitche
But doesn’t Violet use the hair ribbons when she needs to think, chew over something? I don’t recall her wearing them all the time. I’m guessing they will appear when called for.
Also, I work in a middle school and 12 year-olds come in a remarkable range of sizes. This Violet looks plausibly the correct age to me:)
“See if you see what I saw.”
I don’t know what you saw, but I heard him say Arthur Lobel’s Fables is about some of the best know fables. Mr. Lobel made up his own fables because he thought some of the traditional ones were boring!
Oh, and it is Arnold Lobel! Not Arthur. He and I made the same mistake
Perhaps the Brett Helquist art has turned my head on the matter.