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I love your little pig illustration. Perhaps the lighted candle wreath could be found in a swedish import shop online?

soles4soles

I love you fussbusters ideas and want the book!

Thanks for that - I love paper dolls.

It opened up beautifully! What an adorable idea!

You know I put a paper doll on my site and it really brought a lot of traffic. Good luck with yours, she's adorable!

Really, a parenting book?! Today my sweet little girl turns 6 months old and I've been trying to remember all the things you taught me so long ago about babies and kids. I could really use your wisdom in book form to keep me company. (And of could we have the Cheeps on her bookshelf and are anxiously awaiting the arrival of Mimi.) ~Dianey

SO glad everything worked out with your domain name. Sheesh. What a pain.

Hi Dianey!
How wonderful to hear from you -- and how fabulous that you have a six month old. Wow!
Email me at my last name, all run together with no hyphen, at gmail.com. I'd love to hear details and see photos (and I'll update you on my kids and you can see how they've grown).
You were a stellar sitter (and my sanity's savior) so I'm sure you're the best mom in the world.

Congratulations!! Mimi looks wonderful!

YAY!!! I can't wait to get a copy of MiMI!

YaY 3D... did I say that already?! ; )

Mimi looks beautiful, Carol! Congrats!

I'd love to feature you and Mimi in my August children's market column at Authorlink.com. Can you drop me a line at susan at susanvanhecke.com when you get a chance? Thanks!

Hope they call you - the website says that you've been postponed!!

So preteen girl cannot traverse Europe in the middle of World War Two because she's protected by a pack of wolves? Who could have seen that as a hoax?

Rats! I was so looking forward to tomorrow!

Yeah, I was wondering why the living with wolves thing wasn't a red flag when this was published.

I'm reminded of an email a friend sent me about a man who had been dead at his office desk for five days before anyone noticed. I sent my friend the link to Snopes (it's an old hoax) and she replied that it had seemed ironically apt enough to be true. So like that, I think we want to believe that miracles walk hand in hand with horror.

The publishing history explains the acceptance of the book. Small vanity press issues the book in USA, fact of American publication validates it with a European publisher who publishes and sells MANY COPIES; success of the foreign edition gives it credibility here (must be true, it's sold xxx million copies in Europe) So it reurns to USA with mutually assured credibility.

I was interested by the comment in the first link that said that the book sold well oversees, but hadn't sold well in the U.S. because there was no marketing campaign, which sort of implies that marketing campaigns make a HUGE difference in sales. Is that a hoax, too?

Will Max have a Coke in his very own room waiting for him and it was still cold in the next edition?

I'm also waiting for that certain publisher to realease their Oprah Children's book! It's coming right after the Jenna and Laura
Bush one about the boy who didn't like to read!

Man, it is so darn easy to pile on here. I could almost justify the use of product placement, really, but having the cojones to call it "authenticity?" This from the house that Ursula Nordstrom built? Does anyone know if Ms. Nordstrom was cremated? If not, she's rolling in her grave.

"She who for the first time" brings up a good point. Anyone want to defend this "authentic" enterprise?

Your post almost made me spill my Tetley tea all over my Microsoft keyboard!

I think I better go have some Dove dark chocolate and CALM DOWN.

B.

I keep tellin' you, B. There's no money in mass market.

The "balls" tag says it all, Roger, when authenticity=commercialism.

I remember what happnened to Dav Pilkey when Spam (the canned ham stuff) appeared on the cover of the First Dumb Bunny Book. The Hormel Company wasn't amused and they covered it (Spam) up with those silly Too Dumb To Win An Award Stickers. If you have a first edition you have Spam!

With a tip of the hat to M.T. Anderson--
STOP THE FEED!

I remember a few years ago when SpiderMan 2 was coming got, Bud Selig the commissioner of baseball wanted to rent out the base pads. They were going to put spiderwebs on the bases or something like that. Baseballs fans were outraged and spoke out. This idea never came to be thankfully. So maybe HC can learn from baseball. Hopefully if there is enough backlash this won't happen at all or not for long
Doret

And here I was hoping the word was "tween" or "embedded".

More news from the chilit industry: see today's New York Times art section piece on James Patterson martketing campaign. I particularly liked the bit on flap copy style. No mention of product placement yet, but that will come.

As a starving children's author, I could find a smidge of justification in it if the funds for having Mr. Jinx eat Friskies and only Friskies before he saves the world in Mr. Jinx Saves the World (and Friskies) would come to me, but I think we can safely say that isn't going to happen.

Hey, Roger. I tried my hand at product placement today. I hope it works!

http://kidslitinformation.blogspot.com/2008/02/place-me-and-what-she-said.html

There's a sour taste in my mouth and heart right now.

And think how DATED a book will seem--and it will happen almost instantly. If they think the tweens of 2008 will be carrying the shoes and wearing the same clothes as the tweens of 2010, they are not paying attention.

Ick.

Could she have meant that, by virtue of the author's using the names of real items as seen in real life, young readers will feel the characters actually exist in the real world? Bright Lights Big City for the younger set (sans cocaine). Ho hum.

Anon 4:42 AM (!)

I'm sure that is what she meant, and there is an interesting question in there somewhere about the extent to which our and kids' lives are genuinely tied up with brands and products. But the obvious problem with HC's approach is that when you accept money from sponsors as a way of deciding what products your characters will use for purposes of constructing (a shell of) an identity, then you undercut whatever interesting qualities the idea might have held.

In today's Metro there's a quote from a Kosovo imam explaining his nascent country's version of Islam: "Our Islam is 'lite'--like Coke Lite or Marlboro Light cigarettes." So, yeah, brands are part of our "authentic" discourse. But I'm with the most recent anon. in thinking that auctioning brand placement to the highest bidder nullifies whatever verisimilitude the author was attempting. And if it doesn't matter whether the character drinks Coke or Pepsi, than either name is merely a distraction.

if/thEn. Why can't we edit comments?

Roger, do you honestly think the authors of the tween series Susan Katz describes are going for "verisimilitude?" What does it really matter if a character has hair "the color of potato chips" or "the color of Lays potato chips?"

It sounds to me like this is just one more foray into the well-traveled Land of Dreck. You know Harper will milk money out of an idea in any way it can, and other publishers will be watching to see if it works.

The whole idea could backfire on them completely, though. The tweens who are so brand-name conscious that they care if a character carries a Juicy bag are the same tweens who will mock the character mercilessly for doing so when Juicy goes out of style. They are a cruel and fickle crowd, and the amount of time for a product to go from "What's Hot" to "What's Not" is, hmmm, let's see, about the same amount of time it takes to go from manuscript to reader.

I will laugh my ass off if the brains at Harper are so misguided they think they keep up with tween trends, and end up being ridiculed as just one more group of clueless adults.

Of course RS doesn't really think that. No one does. But it is the line that HC trots out as an excuse, so a critique of it is in order.

I’d like to see this brave new series develop along the lines of the old Choose Your Own Adventure titles:

“That was it, then. If Hendrik and his cousin from the city were going to be at Gerrit’s poetry reading, then Tamara knew what she had to do. She reached deep into the armoire and took a firm grip of her ____ jeans.”

J.Crew, hip-slung, resin-rinsed washed: Go to page 36.

father’s unwashed button-fly 501 Original Levi’s: Go to page 12.

Jordache: Step away from the book.

Live the brand! Live the adventure!

LMFAO @ Brian. I'd actually read that series!

Anybody who buys an American Girl's book knows that they are paying money for an ad, or anyway, they should. Thanks to the size of the series, they usually aren't even shelved with other books. They have their own shelf, or stand out in the middle of the floor next to the most recent celeb picture book.

And anybody who reads the Clique books knows that the product references are part of the atmosphere and expects them.

Anybody who watches television views it with a certain amount of skepticism.

But a middle grade book with branding? I don't want children to have to read books the same way they watch TV, with a little skepticism monitor going all the time. Ask them to do that and it means they will read less, because they will be less involved in the story, because they will HAVE to be less involved, keep a little distance, in order to be wary of being taken in by advertisers.

I only hope HC will have the decency to differentiate these Advertising-Books from real books. I know, small hope, huh?

I'm wondering if they'll put out a call for authors to submit stories with xyz brand? You know, the way magazine publishers have monthly themes-- so you can write to order. :-)

And then they might also want to indicate which books are "high end" and which cater to the cheaper crowd. Audience matters, after all.

Sheesh.

I want to learn how to tag my own blog posts the way you do.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!
I vow to eat more chocolate this year too.
lol

Seriously, wishing you a wonderful year.
xo

For my Catholic news needs, I prefer the National Catholic Reporter. They seem somewhat less inclined to follow the Magisterium's bidding. Here's a link to their GC coverage, FYI:
http://natcath.org/NCR_Online/archives2/2007d/120707/120707s.htm

Take THAT, Roger. And THAT! And THAT! Now, are you STILL proud of yourself for publishing those nasty articles? Well, take THAT!!

How about sending her a nice thank you note for returning the check and adding, just under your signature, "Matt. 6:1-6"

--m

All right, yes, she sounds as though she might have the letter more than the spirt of the thing. But... eh... does this really warrant a public airing? I feel a little like this post is trying to goad readers into coming out and making fun of the annoying kid in the class, you know?

I can't wait for the Jenna Bush Book! Oh, and she has another- With her Mother- Coming in The Spring! God Bless Harpercollins!
(And the Horn Book,too)

I must agree with anonymous number 3, and wonder, would you have posted this if the subscriber had been Hindu? Buddhist? Muslim? Jewish? Or do those religions warrant more consideration?


SR

This post may be intemperate (like that's never happened before) but my irritation came not from the fact that the subscriber was a Christian (as am I) but from her completely gratuitous mention of that fact. Had we published something that she objected to on religious grounds that would have made sense, but, as it was, she was implying that any Horn Book discussion of scrotums or sexuality or censorship were an attack on her religion, which they aren't. I was also bothered by the arrogance of her assumption of the moral high ground, that a Christian would of course do the right thing in returning the money, as if a Jew or Muslim or Buddhist wouldn't. Similar moral preening on the part of any of the latter would be met by me with the same attitude.

Well, I have been hearing the praises of this publication, and upon the recommendation of my fabulous local librarian, I logged on to check you guys out. She couldn't say enough about the quality of the articles, and the professionalism she appreciated therin.

I must say this blog post came as a bit of a shock.

I guess I will simply read the periodical at the library instead. This blog is a little too personal for me. I guess that is what blogs are, anyway.

Megan Krejci
Egana

Mr. Sutton, I see your point about the moral high ground. Thank you for the clarification. One of the reasons I enjoy this blog is that you are always willing to explain.

But you are wrong about Kathy Griffith. She is never funny.

SR

I go back and forth on KG. Gotta be in the right mood.

I think she was simply admitting that without Christianity, she wouldn't be able to perform the simple acts of basic decency that some of us manage to do without reference to religion. I admire her humility.

Your incessant ridiculing of Christians grows old. Can your satisfy this hunger of yours by publicly badgering someone else for a while? Cat lovers? Left-handed people?

Ah, does RS pick on Christians or not? Can we move on, right now, before we all end up way the hell/heck off to the side of why we're checking out the Horn Book blog?

Next topic, please!

Also, note that the sinistrals get plenty of grief already.

I am a left-handed Christian so please don't make me start with the self-hate! Cats, however . . . but yes, let's move on.

The utter humorlessness of the "religious" folk is what always gets to me. I bet Jesus was a lot more fun to hang with.

Me too! I'll take water into wine any day! Man, I really do love that guy.

Aww...she's cute, Roger. What a great quote. And, she'll probably grow up to be a great editor, you know.

I've been arguing this for years! I was a bookseller for a time, and whenever someone asked for Junie B. Jones I would give a heartfelt speech and point them in the direction of Cam Jansen.

hurrah! perhaps this will create a NEW topic - time to drop the endless POTTER discussion











hurrah for a NEW TOPIC! Maybe we will be spared more of the Potter discussion - at last!








1

Two of my four kids have been exceptionally fond of Junie B. in kindergarten and first grade, and both were perfectly able to appreciate the humor in Junie B.'s grammar.

People overreact. And hearing a seven-year-old read Junie B. aloud is one of life's true joys.

Though maybe not for Roger.

Thought the article was completely ridiculous. Heaven forbid a kid actually likes a book-it might actually lead them to like reading! Great idea to get upset and steer them away from it.

I’m just going to sit back now and wait for someone to post that if “runned” is what she’s using, then “runned” must be correct. Don’t let the Man tell you how to conjugate!

Yes, Anon4. Just as I suggest in an earlier post that reviewers should take a wait-and-see attitude before publishing a review, now you've got me thinking that we should perhaps spare everything from review on the grounds that somebody might like it.

Did the current misuse of the word "literally" come from a series we all read years ago, I wonder? I heard it twice today. On a repeat episode of project runway, Nick said "Literally, my heart was in my throat." Then Al Trautwig, commentating on the Tour de France, said "The greatest dishonor is to literally have the maillot jaune ripped from your body, which is what happened to Michael Rasmussen yesterday." Actually, that's not literally what happened. He was told he wouldn't be allowed to compete in the rest of the race.

I think the two most popular series with me as a kid were the Bobsey Twins (I did learn a lot of incorrect words from their stereotypical Black maid, including "stuffocated") and Alfred Hitchcock and the Three Investigators. And now that I think of the Three Investigators books, Jupiter Jones (wasn't that his name? Wow! Amazingly similar to Junie) seems to me to be a prototype for le Carre's George Smiley. Physically unprepossessing but literally smart as a whip. But I digress...

I love the reference in the article about the woman who won't give away the books, because she doesn't want anyone else to read them. Now who's acting like a five year old?

From the article:

“But that’s O.K. I’m reading a really good book about a boy whose parents think some of his video games are inappropriate,” Mollie said. “It’s called ‘Diary of a Wimpy Kid.’ ”

My word! Is censorship the only thing parents approve of these days? My mother would let little me read the book on how babies were made for hours on end and National Geographic with pictures of naked tribeswomen because I simply needed to read. Nowadays she'd probably be arrainged for corrupting a minor or something.

Well, I think we should get rid of the first chapter of The Sound and the Fury, because it is ungrammatical.
Marian

I think, actually, if I remember something of my early childhood education classes, she's quite too old to NOT be using English "correctly" UNLESS she were living in a family around grownups and a culture where English is NOT used correctly.

That grammar thing, young children don't have to wait to be taught that. They can absorb the rules and regularities of English that they HEAR spoken very early on, and by two and three years old, they will be running words together in sentences with correct grammar usage, depending on the individual child, his/her abilities, and his/her environemnt.

So, my opinion is that, when I read the Junie books, this is a little girl who is DELIBERATELY misusing the language in the never ending struggle to self actualize as an individual that we all go through as human beings that get normally socialized.

Of course, as a copy editor nyself and having to spend large volumes of my adult life in untangling adult grammar of well-educated folks who ought to have gotten through graduate school knowing better (I do not possess such a thing myself, sigh...) just to earn my bread, the bad grammar in Junie irritates me. Quite a bit. It's rather like eating red hot pepper curry to read the books. You enjoy it, but oh! The brief fierce sting at first!

However, I find nothing startling in her other behavior either nor anything shocking in that she would use this bad grammar deliberately to get attention, distinguish herself as an individual, test rules and boundaries out as a five-year-old. She's just going through a phase, to me, and believe me, folks, I have been through the mill with other folks' two, three, and five year olds! In class and out! I like young children and have done a lot of caretaking of them in my time. And there is huge variety in their personalities.

The stuff Junie does pales besides the stuff I've seen real-life children do at that age!

I've had three-year-olds in class for example that could swear more expertly and longer than anyone on this blog...of course, they then expertly and quickly taught the other children in class to do the same...the parents got really ruffled up and all upset...what's a poor teacher to do in a situation like that? She can hardly put a gag on the little rascals who are more than smart enought to figure out that they can sit in a chair and make teacher wring her hands and pull her hair...

So, in comparision to real-life experiences, Junie's misbehaviors and misused grammar lapses seem awfully mild.

BTW! I DO NOT ON PRINCIPLE COPY EDIT MY COMMENTS ON ROGER'S BLOG!! I need some place to relax and stay a bit sane.....from a hard day's work.

It's like dressing up. I can do it when it's necessary and really do it well...but who would wnat to when one can run around in old sloppies and have fun instead...

“Sure, maybe Junie B. isn’t everyone’s cup of tea. But when she does things wrong or says things incorrectly, it provides an opportunity to talk about how things should be.”

This is the quote from the article I most agree with. I really enjoy the books, and I really appreciate Junie's bad grammar because, from a read-a-loud perspective, it helps me find a great and distinctive voice for Junie, and there's nothing my students (who do read things other than Harry Potter, I sweaar!) enjoy more than that.

They're all at least 7, and so old enough to know Junie's grammar (and behavior) is something to laugh at, not emulate, but I think they all remember the days before they knew grammar and just had to make it up for themselves and like seeing Junie doing the same.

And I do a GREAT Junie voice, so I am all in favor of them.

Elizabeth -
WOW! Flashback. I hadn't so much as had a passign thought of the Three Investigators until I read it in your post and all those book covers flashed immediately in my mind, taking me back to the Dedham Public Library (the old Oakdale branch). Thanks! I wonder whatever happened to my copies of those books....maybe my older brother stole them.

On the subject of irregular verbs: Yesterday my four-year-old said she "puck" a flower.

I just had to say that.

But Cassandra inadvertently points out my problem with the series. Readers are supposed to recognize that Junie's grammar is incorrect; that's why it's funny. That's a variant on the aren't-kids-cute kind of humor that already plagues children's books. We hate it when picture books make jokes for adults at the characters' expense; how is this different?

It's different because (unlike the vast majority of children's books, where kids prefer to read about characters who are at least their age, or older) the series is aimed at children a year or two older than Junie. They enjoy the humor for the same reason adults do--because they are older and know better.

That's right, and it's always easier to laugh at one's inferiors than it is at oneself. To laugh at somebody who doesn't know any better always has a streak of sadism.

I haven't thought about Jupiter Jones and the Three Investigators in a very long time (literally, heh). Wow. Now I'm going to have to try to find one or two.

Most kids who, at ages three & four, were speaking "correct" English, conjugating properly etc., still go through a phase of grammatical confusion around ages five & six. They become conscious of the rules of language & over-apply those rules to new and even familiar words.

Younger and same age kids also enjoy Junie B. because of the situations represented. The bad grammar may make it funny or irritating (or both) to the adults reading the books, but the younger kids seem to respond to the predicaments the character creates.

I stopped reading the series because the adults are uniformly mean and nagging. Probably that's what makes it enjoyable from a kid's pov!

Oh, honestly, are you really calling all of the kids who love to read the Junie books sadists? Please. They aren't laughing to be cruel. They are laughing because they can relate.
Marian

a welcome change from the endless Potteristics! but seriously, folks, don't you recognize that this is simply what a childless adult thinks a cute little kid sounds like? the author would do the same sort of thing with a black or asian character. if kids enjoy being patronized LET THEM READ THE BOOKS. (in other words, GROW UP !)

I think kids laugh at Junie B. in the same way adults laughed at Lucille Ball. Is that sadistic?

Roger, do you think AMELIA BEDELIA is sadistic? CURIOUS GEORGE? Or any of the other umpteen well-loved books in which small children have the rare opportunity to laugh at someone who doesn't know as much as they do?

Anon, do you know anything at all about Barbara Park and her books? Or are you just mouthing off?

there is a cutesy style that would-be professional chilit writers adopt - any reader of unsoliciteds can spot it - and many successful professionals have it, too. has nothing to do with age,sex, or number of offspring

Just to add, after thinking about Roger's comments, I do think the Junie books are not all they could potentially be mainly, not because of the bad grammar which in and of itself is mildly irritating/maybe pleasurable, but because Junie does not always experience consequences for her behavior that are serious enough to make her grow as a character, and that element, in the Ramona books, I do appreciate. Ramona can be awful, but she does change, does grow. She's a real person, not cutsy-cutsy all the time, and the cutsy-cutsy part, I do find annoysome (ha! new word there)with Junie B.

I am not sure that the character, series, books are sadistic, strictly speaking, but I do think the writing genius of Cleary is very evident to me in contrast. She has done both, made an enduring series with a very popular character that younger children like to read about who is both funny and who also grows! Like children are supposed to do.

The writer of Junie is a clever, talented writer, but she is not at all on Cleary's level.

I think laughing at someone for being stupider than oneself does have some cruelty in it, yes. (There's a lot of sadism in I Love Lucy.) Humor is generally at the expense of someone, and that doesn't in itself offend me. What I don't like about Junie B. is the way it's packaged as cuteness. I'm reminded of the discussion re "feisty" we had a while back--Junie's sauciness and her cute way with words are meant to be adorable and thus completely lacking in any real power. Unlike Ramona, she is not a creature to be reckoned with.

Can we discuss Harry Potter again?
Pwetty pwease wif sugar on top?

Cock-a-doodie friggin no!--Annie Wilkes, hitting Anonymous in the knee with a two-by-four.

I think the new Ramona is not Junie B., but Clementine (who is also amusing without meaning to be).

Rebuttal?

Disagree where I Love Lucy is concerned! The gal always came out on top (in her own way) in the end, and there lies the difference.

Yes, I will take up your rebuttal, nw.

I found Clementine to be full of the cutsey-ness factor. For my taste, there was far too much winking at readers over Clementine's head. In almost every instance, the humor came from Clementine's own lack of understanding, and a more mature reader's ability to decipher the true dynamics of her situation.

In response to an earlier commenter: I would say that Amelia Bedilia is a very different case, because the character in question is an adult. It's the child reader who has the satisfaction of understanding what the adult does not... in that case I don't think it's sadistic; it's subversive.

Just to add to the above: I suppose it would be nicer, too, if AB weren't a housekeeper...

But Roger, you're much older than nine! :)

Reading Junie B. wears me out in the same way that talking to a hyper 5-year-old for that long wears me out.

But the kids like her. Boys will read her without blinking. Teenagers sneak back into the children's section and check out bunches of them for "um, my, um, my, ummmmmmmmmmmmmm, cousin! Yeah! They're for my cousin!"

But, there's a difference between not liking a book and reviewing it badly, and not letting your children read it. A *huge* difference. I read a lot of stuff my mother did not approve of (mainly, the collected works of Christopher Pike) but she let me read them. Thank goodness for that.

I agree with Jenni-I think the article said there were over 40 million copies of the books in print-Junie might annoy some parents (obviously), but that's stil a huge number of kids reading them and loving them. To me, that's a miraculous thing-any books that get kids (esp. reluctant readers as Junie often does ) engaged and excited about reading deserves applause, b/c that book-Junie or Amelia Bedelia or even an Archie comic just might change that child's life and turn him/her into a reader. Getting angry b/c the main child doesn't use perfect English, seems incredibly petty and is missing the point.

Okay, I don't mean to single out Anonymous here, but can someone just explain to me, once and for all, the logic behind this argument about reading? I've never gotten it. Why does the act of reading justify that which is read? Why does the fact that someone (only a young someone?) is *reading* forgive-- and even defer criticism of-- a book's flaws? Don't we care about reading, at least partly, because of content... or is reading itself a sacred thing, separate from the text?

(Or, is this argument founded in a developmental approach... i.e. the young reader will develop a love of reading so as to move on to other, better books?)

I don't mean these questions at all facetiously... I really am curious.

I don't get it either, Ruth. Harry Potter aside, our bestseller lists are currently dominated by James Patterson, who I think is a terrible writer. Lazy, too. People may agree or not with me on that point, but they don't get all huffy that I've insulted public taste. When it comes to kids' books, though . . . .

Anon here-my argument is based on the development approach-ideally finding a book that they love/that's not 'work' assigned by an adult but just pure fun, has the potential to open a door for that child and lead them to a future of more and perhaps better books. It's based on growing up with kids who didn't love reading and who always thought of books as school work, things they had to read for school and hated. Those kids always made me so sad, and I blame it partly on the books they were reading. There parents weren't giving them books, so it was up to the teachers. In hs I remember reading Billy Bud, which I'm sorry to say I hated. I'm an avid reader, so that didn't turn me off reading. But no wonder a lot of the kids I grew up with didn't get the reading bug-they couldn't relate to Billy Bud and it definitely didn't make reading feel like a fun, appealing pleasure time option. And I really do think that's key-if you find a book that makes reading fun-whether it's Junie or James Patterson-that can change your whole life. There's something magical about that. Maybe it's a socio-economic thing. I see where you all are coming from and respect that viewpoint, but I stand behind my belief that anything that gets a kid reading is a wonderful thing.

Whoops, and yes that should be 'Their' not 'There', I'm a terrible copyeditor (or perhaps have read too many Junies.)

Well, don't keep us in suspense--IS his nose bigger than his dick? It may affect my decision to pick this up come October.

Are we supposed to consider this good writing? Why would I want to read that? Why would a company --- any company --- want to publish that?

Actually, compared to some of the utter shite that's been published recently (see: Pretty Little Liars, The Celebutantes on the Avenue), that almost has a kind of poetry to it.

The crappy teen girl fiction seems to get crappier (and sluttier) every year.

Alas, Brian, Jinx and her chum tire of the sport and go off to down some E and jump in the ocean.

Now I understand why my novels aren't selling the way they used to! Thanks for the information.

Whoosh.

Jane

Are you waiting for us to write the next line?

Wikitrash?

Hey, yes, let's write one of those "jump" novels that are trying to be the next New Thing. It's where a bunch of writers take turns contributing chapters but we could just go one sentnce at a time. For a twist, we could impersonate favorite writers as we go:

"Nobody cares about your stupid-poopid nose OR dick," went Junie B. Jones, as she draggded Jinx away from the stewey-pewey boys.

If I must write literary sewage to get published, I won't get published.

Is that really catagorized as TEEN fiction?!

Yikes.

P.S. - The spoof jump novel sounds fun, however.

OK, I thought it was funny. Quite funny, in fact.

There are many different kinds of books, and sometimes, this kind is fun. It is not literature. It is the book equivalent of a box of cheap chocolates. There's a place for that.

Can I contribute a paragraph instead of a sentence?



Their friend Lucky just smiled. The day before she had sat eavesdropping as this very boy told members of the local Narcotics Anonymous Group his own rock bottom story. His name was Chase, and as the summer heat blazed up from the concrete sidewalk, drawing out pools of sweat from behind Lucky's knees, he had told of how he liked to chase his dose of E with a little bit of cocaine or crystal meth. He only wanted to live up to his name, he said to his NA group-- letting out a laugh that told Lucky he was gathering himself up to get to the good part... the part about how he finally got as low as he could go, and then came to find his higher power. The part about how he overdosed on one of those same cocaine chasers, and then went on to meet a snake that had developed a taste for people-- a snake that had moved on to its own higher calling-- and lost what he held most dear. And, remembering that story now, Lucky's smile widened. "Don't worry, Jinx," she called after her friend. "He may talk like he means it, but when it comes down to business, our buddy Chase here doesn't have the balls."

No doubt there's too much crappy fiction out there aimed at teenagers. But I enjoyed the Pretty Little Liars books (I reviewed them both for the Guide) and Celebutantes wasn't bad either. They're actually a lot smarter than much of their ilk -- the writing is taut, dialogue crisp, and there's a tongue-in-cheek quality about them.

SEE?
FIRST it's the American Girls, and now THIS.
hehehe

I just visited one of those all girl schools just outside London(I'm not just blogging) and I asked the girls what they were reading- NEVER an American Author was the Response.

However, Paris Hilton was on the cover of every newspaper in London. I can't wait for Paris to write her kids/teen thriller book. I bet those girls will read that American Girl Author. The Higher Power of Paris indeed!

[sniff... sniff...]

Sorry, folks. Still smells like sewage.

"...we pay for the product not the process..."

Huh? Obviously, one could not exist without the other. It would be silly to say that when you go to purchase a car, you are only paying for the vehicle itself, not for the cost of its maunfacture. Certainly, I get your point that you would want to see the finished product before handing over your money, but I also agree with your friend that the product may never exist without funding for its research and development. To extend the metaphor too far.

I'm not sure what I think of the project, but I do like the notion of calling into question some of our assumptions about the market place, particularly as they relate to art. And, by your argument, our tax dollars-- the resources of us comsumers-- shouldn't go to fund grants supporting artists in their creative endeavors... not without first having seen the finished result.

I don't think I could live with that kind of economy.

Ruth

Perhaps it would work if you combined the two ideas: a dollar a word and help my child live.

Something along the lines of: Doctor Bleathertags walked away from Little Curly Grintooth's sick bed and said:

"There's no hope." > $25

"She needs to visit the seashore." $26-$49

"The fever's broken!" $50 to $99

"She's fine AND this good luck charm she was holding is a priceless antique. Now we can get Mr. Grintooth out of debtor's prison!" $100+

I see your point about grants, etc., Ruth, and hadn't thought of it in that way. But I don't think your car analogy holds up very far--obviously the consumer is paying for all the r&d and labor and materials that went into the thing, but the manufacturer would never ask us to pay on the basis that we might like the car when it's finished.

What you are speaking to instead is funding via sponsorship (fellowships, etc.) as opposed to funding via investment (there's a thought for writers!) or sale. I guess I can see that. I am fairly lukewarm on the idea of public monies being distributed to individual artists, not because I have any particular faith in capitalism but because I don't trust the government's taste in art.

This is a truly fascinating question...I was thinking about the Renaissance to give myself some historical perspective on the whole question.

Artists then had patrons, the church, rulers of this and that domain, wealthy merchants; it was more of a mixed bag then maybe, rather than just ye olde U.S. Government dishing out the bucks, although when push comes to shove, investment dollars come from folks with investment dollars!!! Seems to have been that way through the years.

I think the greatness of some of those artists was how much many of the truly great ones pushed against the barriers, limits, confines of their patrons and yet still satisfied their patrons but also did their thing, too, expressed what they ultimately wanted to express AND what is so fascinating to think about they CREATED so productively, so magnificently within those confines! The conflict between Michaelangelo and the Pope in the painting of the Sistine chapel is classic.

Sometimes, I fret when I feel I don't have time to complete something, especially when I'm quilting, about the limits, lack of equipment, materials there I have compared with my guild members sometimes, and yet, and yet, it is within the very limitations that I again and again find myself expressing myself with the most intense pleasure, getting the best "stuff" out. Would I do better stuff if I were being invested in? Maybe, I would start catering more to others' wishes and tastes and end up with not so good stuff rather than you know really expressing myself and what I deeply, most ardently want to "say." And being happy deep down when somethting comes out well.

And I'm saying this with scraps of expensive materials all in pieces and a lot of it "wasted" in the process..sigh, sigh, sigh... on the floor in the waste bin, so I don't say this at all lightly. What if I die before I say what I wanted to express in a quilt because I didn't have enough time to complete it or enough materials?
Rather haunts me a bit. The unfinished work.

If Mike's work was good enough, I don't see why he couldn't convince a publisher to invest in his writing a book on spec. It seems to me if his work was selling, publishers would be eating up the prospect of more words...I mean hasn't some famouns author here and there done that already....

Okay, now off to the quilting...I really, really have a deep desire to do a Madonna of the Roses somehow...deep blood reds...but soft curves....all sort of violence and sweetness and sensuaousness all together somehow, someway....bye! For a bit....

there are already adventuruous editors who will give an advance to a promising writer even is he does not yet have a manuscript

I think your definition of "adventurous" is pretty generous, Anon.

On the topic of money and art:

I can't help noticing that a certain percentage of my peers in books [I am an author] don't need to support themselves. Not to get all Class War about it, but the labor intensive and mostly low paying field of children's books favors people with strong monetary support from sources such as family or partners.

Nothing new about this, I know, and it is certainly not unique to children's books. Though I can't help but wonder about how insidiously the advantages play out in terms of allowing some people a continual edge throughout their careers, and also how it impacts who will be able to stay in the business in the first place. What I mean by an edge are things like time, resources, materials, workspace, overall environment, and so on.

I was thinking about this the other morning when I got woken up by a neighbor screaming "he stole my paycheck to buy crack!"

R

well, "adventurous" but also with a good track record and the trust of their employers

Okay, everybody, R has been a valuable contributor to this blog and I think we all need to chip in and give her a fellowship to move to a better neighborhood!

Thanks!

Well, on the bright side, at least it wasn't me screaming that someone stole my royalty check for crack!

Seriously though, I think I'll be able to get out of here soon.

R

in the children's book field, it is the artists who support themselves with their work - the writers have private incomes

and the artists' materials are much more expensive than the writers'

Oh God, where to begin?

I’m intrigued with the idea of these adventurous editors who will give contracts to unknown authors who haven’t written a word. Assuming the author isn’t someone in the national news, on what is the editor basing the contract? Charm of the sales pitch? (Ask me to tell you my Paul Michael Glaser story.) Cuteness of the author? Having gone too long without getting laid?

And even more intriguing, who are the generous bosses of these editors? And how did the editor get a good a good track record and trust of his boss while buying unwritten manuscripts from unpublished authors?

I think the bosses must be those relics of a bygone publishing era: the trust fund publisher. I’ve never noticed the children’s authors who don’t need money that anonymous refers to, but I’ve always heard rumors about the gentleman’s profession that publishing used to be. Though I never saw it, even at Viking in the mid 80s when I started. In those days we were all going across the street on the Wednesday before payday to get the $1 slice of pizza.

But back to the idea of children’s writers not needing to earn money the way children’s illustrators do. All I can say is, after 22 years in the business I don’t see any evidence of that. Off the top of my head I can think of 20 children’s authors who were able to give up their day jobs once they started earning enough from their writing (Bruce Coville has a great story about that). But I believe we’ve all seen the opposite problem from time to time. A favorite writer becomes very successful, perhaps gets a big movie made or wins a cash prize, and their output slows to a trickle. Every house has a few bestselling or award-winning authors with long overdue contracts, and I suggest that in some cases, its because the author no longer has the motivation of needing to make the mortgage payment.

re "adventurous editors": Their credibility is based on numbers of previously acquired successful complete mss. (Bosses say, "well, he was right about X and we only paid xx dollars for that, so let's take a chance ...") Sales pitch does of course include the new writer's physical appearance and TV viability and maybe smart agent. And, as you say, the bosses are saving a lot of $$ on editorial salaries ( that of this particular editor AND all his fellow workers) Remember what Freddy Warburg's mother asked!

Can I get a clarification here? Are there actually editors who will sign up an unpublished writer without even a partial manuscript in hand?

TV viability? He must not be a children's author then.

didn't this whole discussion begin with the plan of a novelist to find subsidy. why has it ended up with the assumption that only JUVENILE writers are involved. or perhaps RS is being sarcastic? George Tenet? Paris Hilton? etc etc. actually it was Mrs. Warburg's friend who uttered the immortal query: "Is publishing an occupation for gentlemen, or is it TRADE?"

Children's books or not, I wouldn't call George Tenet or Paris Hilton "promising writers" not their acquiring editors "adventurous." Unwritten celebrity books--whether for children or adults--don't get signed because the editor thinks she has a hold of something "promising"; it's because they are meant to sell on the basis of the celebrity's notoriety or insider knowledge. That can be profitable publishing, to be sure, but I would hardly call it adventurous.