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When Scholastic launched its Graphix imprint 10 years ago, graphic novels were a novelty, if you can pardon the expression, in the mainstream publishing world. And kids comics were an unknown quantity—comics shops didn’t want them and bookstores didn’t know what to do with them. In the first wave, there were many miscues and misunderstandings at many houses along the way. But Graphix wasn’t the one making them. Granted, starting out a line with Jeff Smith’sBone is about as much a sure thing as possible—6.9 million copies in print and counting. But picking Raina Telgemeier to do a Babysitter’s Club relaunch and eventually Smile, and Kazu Kibuishi to publish his Amulet series weren’t as sure—but they sure paid off. Along the way Graphix has picked up multiple Eisner Award wins and nominations, a Stonewall Book Award, a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honor, an Edgar Allan Poe nomination, and 14 New York Times bestsellers. They’ve published many more top cartoonists such as Doug TenNapel, Greg Ruth, Mike Maihack and Jimmy Gownley. And there’s more to come.
To celebrate their tenth anniversary—Bone: Out From Boneville was published in 20o5—Scholastic has some cool stuff on tap. To kick things off they’re revealing two covers for the first time:
Craig Thompson’sSpace Dumplins comes out in August. It’s the first kids book by the acclaimed author of Blankets and Habibi, and his first one in full-color, with Dave Stewart adding hues.
And the sister/brother duo of Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm, best selling authors of Babymouse and Squish have a new one as well: Sunny Side Up (August 25, 2015; ages 8-12), which is a semi-autobiographical story, their first.
In addition, 12 Graphix artists have created new art that will be offered as prints throughout the year at events and online. The line-up: James Burks, Nathan Fox, Jimmy Gownley, Matthew Holm, Kazu Kibuishi, Mike Maihack, Dave Roman, Greg Ruth, Jeff Smith, Raina Telgemeier, Doug TenNapel, and Craig Thompson. Events include ALA Midwinter (Chicago, IL), Emerald City Comic Con (Seattle, WA), Texas Library Association (Austin, TX), BookExpo (New York City, NY), ALA Annual (San Francisco, CA), Comic-Con International (San Diego, California), Long Beach Comic Expo (Long Beach, CA), Salt Lake Comic Con (Salt Lake City, UT), and New York Comic Con (New York City, NY).
Finally, on February 24, Graphic will publish BONE #1: Out from Boneville, Tribute Edition, with a new illustrated poem from Jeff Smith and new tribute art from sixteen top artists.
Along with the cover reveal, Graphic has announced some future projects:
Two more installments in the Amulet series
A new graphic novel, as yet untitled, by Kazu Kibuishi
Books 3 and 4 in Mike Maihack’s Cleopatra in Space series
And from Raina Telgemeier, a nonfiction family story in the vein of Smile and Sisters), a collection of short stories, and a fictional graphic novel.
It’s definitely worth giving Graphix and its founder, David Saylor, a tip of the cap. 10 years ago it was a gamble. Today it’s an institution.
4 Comments on Graphix is 10 and reveals covers to new Craig Thompson and Jenni and Matthew Holm, last added: 1/30/2015
I suppose you’re right, Graphix could have failed, but few books are a lock like BONE was, which really started the now widespread children’s comics platform. Saylor should be noted for his foresight, though.
Torsten Adair said, on 1/29/2015 12:51:00 PM
wooHOO! I’ll try and post the posters when I visit ALA Midwinter this weekend!
Bone wasn’t originally created as a kid’s comic. It was sold as single issues in comics shops, to a mostly adult audience. Does it appeal to kids? Sure. But then, so does Walt Kelly’s Pogo…
As for kids comics in book publishing… Graphix may have been the first imprint (followed the next year by Macmillan’s First Second).
BookExpo America had a graphic novel pavillion in 2002 (the same weekend as the first FCBD), and there were juvenile publishers promoting series then (Lerner?). (Not that great, but they at least were trying, and they got better.)
Also in 2002 was the “Get Graphic @ Your Library” preconference at the American Library Association, so Young Adult librarians were actively acquiring books. (DC was instrumental in partnering with the New York Public Library in the 90s to test the demand for graphic novels among teens.)
The juvenile market was harder to crack, as those librarians were more resistant to licensed or media-driven titles. (YA interest was driven by manga.) Slowly, via picture books (such as The Arrival and Toon Books), Juvenile librarians were able to justify acquiring graphic novels for kids.
What’s most interesting… aside from Macmillan, few of the other big publishers have graphic novel imprints for kids.
Cleopatra in Space - New Year! New Updates! said, on 1/29/2015 6:02:00 PM
[…] year! They have a lot of fun stuff planned as well as an amazing lineup of upcoming books. The Beat reported all the details and announcements this morning but for those who don’t feel like clicking to a new page I will say there will definitely be […]
La copertina di Space Dumplins di Craig Thompson - said, on 1/29/2015 11:00:00 PM
When Scholastic launched its Graphix imprint 10 years ago, graphic novels were a novelty, if you can pardon the expression, in the mainstream publishing world. And kids comics were an unknown quantity—comics shops didn’t want them and bookstores didn’t know what to do with them. In the first wave, there were many miscues and misunderstandings at many houses along the way. But Graphix wasn’t the one making them. Granted, starting out a line with Jeff Smith’sBone is about as much a sure thing as possible—6.9 million copies in print and counting. But picking Raina Telgemeier to do a Babysitter’s Club relaunch and eventually Smile, and Kazu Kibuishi to publish his Amulet series weren’t as sure—but they sure paid off. Along the way Graphix has picked up multiple Eisner Award wins and nominations, a Stonewall Book Award, a Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Honor, an Edgar Allan Poe nomination, and 14 New York Times bestsellers. They’ve published many more top cartoonists such as Doug TenNapel, Greg Ruth, Mike Maihack and Jimmy Gownley. And there’s more to come.
To celebrate their tenth anniversary—Bone: Out From Boneville was published in 20o5—Scholastic has some cool stuff on tap. To kick things off they’re revealing two covers for the first time:
Craig Thompson’sSpace Dumplins comes out in August. It’s the first kids book by the acclaimed author of Blankets and Habibi, and his first one in full-color, with Dave Stewart adding hues.
And the sister/brother duo of Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm, best selling authors of Babymouse and Squish have a new one as well: Sunny Side Up (August 25, 2015; ages 8-12), which is a semi-autobiographical story, their first.
In addition, 12 Graphix artists have created new art that will be offered as prints throughout the year at events and online. The line-up: James Burks, Nathan Fox, Jimmy Gownley, Matthew Holm, Kazu Kibuishi, Mike Maihack, Dave Roman, Greg Ruth, Jeff Smith, Raina Telgemeier, Doug TenNapel, and Craig Thompson. Events include ALA Midwinter (Chicago, IL), Emerald City Comic Con (Seattle, WA), Texas Library Association (Austin, TX), BookExpo (New York City, NY), ALA Annual (San Francisco, CA), Comic-Con International (San Diego, California), Long Beach Comic Expo (Long Beach, CA), Salt Lake Comic Con (Salt Lake City, UT), and New York Comic Con (New York City, NY).
Finally, on February 24, Graphic will publish BONE #1: Out from Boneville, Tribute Edition, with a new illustrated poem from Jeff Smith and new tribute art from sixteen top artists.
Along with the cover reveal, Graphic has announced some future projects:
Two more installments in the Amulet series
A new graphic novel, as yet untitled, by Kazu Kibuishi
Books 3 and 4 in Mike Maihack’s Cleopatra in Space series
And from Raina Telgemeier, a nonfiction family story in the vein of Smile and Sisters), a collection of short stories, and a fictional graphic novel.
It’s definitely worth giving Graphix and its founder, David Saylor, a tip of the cap. 10 years ago it was a gamble. Today it’s an institution.
0 Comments on Graphix is 10 and reveals covers to new Craig Thompson and Jenni and Matthew Holm as of 1/30/2015 6:48:00 AM
Yesterday was the anniversary of the unimaginable events of 9/11 that forever changed the innocence of our children for a generation or more. But how will it be commemorated 10 years or even 20 years from now as memories begin to fade and people that were there at the time pass away.
Just as the men and women that served in WWII are passing away at the rate of about 1,000 per day, the Greatest Generation that saved a world from tyranny will pass from view.
We mark the anniversaries of important events such as births, weddings, birthdays and the like with remembrances of those times with the people we love.We say their names and recall how much they continue to mean to us, despite the passage of time. So long as a name is spoken, it remains alive in memory.
Perhaps, a new tradition can be started to mark the anniversary of 9/11 with your child. Fred Rogers, Peabody Award winner for his much heralded “Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood” on PBS, said that his mother always reminded him as a child that in times of crisis, there will ALWAYS be helpers. “Look for the helpers,” she said to her son.
Let us say to our children, “Model IN the world what you want to SEE in the world!” BE a helper!
May that anniversary each year remind all of us and our children how much we are bound together, not just in times of terrible sorrow, but in small everyday acts of kindness and service TO and FOR one another.
Let 9/11 become a national day of service that reminds our children of the ripple effect of a simple act of kindness – and that IT TOO can change the world one person at a time.
********************************************
If you ARE looking for a book to relate the events of 9/11 with the notion of HELPERS, I refer you to a book by Maira Kalman called “Fireboat: The Heroic Adventures of the John J. Harvey.” It is an inspiring tale simply told of a decommissioned fireboat and the role the refurbished boat and its new owners played on 9/11. It provides a wonderful historical context to the start of the boat’s journey in the 1930′s and how the John J. Harvey ultimately finds itself in a VERY special position as HELPER on 9/11.
In the early hours of the morning on April 15, 1912, The RMS Titanic, mortally wounded after it struck an iceberg, sank. 1,514 people died, and the world has been telling the story of the tragedy every since. Movies have been made about the event, and books have been written. Since the wreck of the Titanic was found in 1985, people have argued about whether it is acceptable to bring artifacts to the surface or whether they should remain on the seafloor. Though the last survivor of the tragedy has died, the stories of the victims and the survivors live on.
Ever since I started reviewing books for young readers, I have been reading and reviewing books about the Titanic. You can see these titles on the TTLG Titanic Feature Page. One of my favorite titles, "Polar the Titanic Bear" is about a stuffed animal, a polar bear toy, that survived the tragedy. The story is told from the point of view of the bear, and it is interesting and, of course, very touching.
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My latest New York Times Magazine mini-column is on London’s taxi drivers, who memorize 25,000 streets and 20,000 landmarks to obtain a license; they emerge from the training with a larger hippocampus. In the smaller city of his day, Charles Dickens also mastered the roads — to avoid being overcharged. But eventually, as he explains in an essay published in 1860 in All the Year Round, an interview with one man left him with “a more charitable view of the business and trials of cab-driving.”
My wife, accompanied by a servant, and our first-born, an infant, aged three months, had started, one November afternoon, to visit a relative at the other side of London. The day was misty, but when the evening came, the whole town was filled with a dense fog, as thick as soup. I gave them up at an early hour, never supposing that they would attempt to break through the black smoky barrier, and accomplish a journey of nearly nine miles. In this I was mistaken, for towards eleven o’clock the door-bell rang, and they presented themselves muffled up like stage-coachmen. The account I received was, that a four-wheeled cab had been found, that they had been three hours and a half upon the road, that the cabman had walked nearly the whole way with a lamp at the head of his horse, and that he was now outside awaiting payment.
I felt a powerful struggle going on within me. The legislature had fixed the price of cab-work at two shillings an hour, or sixpence a mile, but it had said nothing about snowstorms, fluctuations in the price of provender, or November fogs. There was no contract between my wife and the cabman, and she had not engaged him by the hour, so that, protected by the Act of Parliament, I might have sent out four-and-sixpence for the nine miles’ ride by the servant, and have closed the door securely against the driver. Actuated, perhaps, as much by curiosity, as a sense of justice, I did not do this, but ordered the man in, and gave him the dangerous permission to name his own price. He was a middle-aged driver, with a sharp nose, and when he entered the room, he placed his hat upon the floor, and seemed a little bewildered by novelty of his situation.
“If I am to, I am,” he said,” but I’d my rather leave it to you, sir.”
“This is a journey,” I replied, “hardly within the meaning of the act, and whatever you charge, I will cheerfully pay.”
“Well,” he said, with much deliberation, “I don’t think five shillin’s ought to hurt you?”
On this day in 1969, human beings walked on the moon for the first time. As millions of people watched, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon and took those first incredible steps. Over the years I have been lucky enough to review some wonderful books about the moon landing and you can see my reviews on the Through the Looking Glass Book Review website in the Man goes to the Moonfeature. There are some wonderful titles in this collection, and I hope you find a title or two that you would like add to your library.
The approach of St Patrick’s day brings to mind once again the ambivalent relationship that historians have with festivals and anniversaries. On the one hand they are our bread and butter. Regular commemorations are what keep the past alive in the public mind. And big anniversaries, like 1989 for historians of the French Revolution, or 2009 for historians of Darwinism, can provide the occasion of conferences, exhibitions, publishers’ contracts, and even invitations to appear on television. On the other hand, historians are trained to look behind supposed traditional observances for the discontinuities and inventions they conceal. They also see it as an important part of their role to point up the gaps between myth, whether popular or official, and what actually happened. All this tends to cast them in the role of spoilsport. When the emphasis is on commemoration, who wants a curmudgeon in the corner pointing out that Britain’s Glorious Revolution was really an evasive compromise that evades the great issues of political principle that were at stake, or that William Wallace was not really Scottish?
Where Ireland is concerned, these issues are all the more familiar, because there anniversaries retain a political significance that elsewhere they have largely lost. In 1991 the Irish government was attacked for its failure to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the rising of 1916. Later in the decade, with republican violence in Northern Ireland suspended and the economy booming, there was a greater willingness to embrace a frankly nationalist version of the Irish past. Events to mark the sesquicentenary of the outbreak of the Great Famine of 1845-51 got stridently under way in 1995, with a renewed emphasis on the crisis, not as a natural disaster, but as a wrong done to the Irish people. Next came the even more enthusiastic celebrations accorded to the rebellion of 1798, presented as a time when Catholic and Protestant supposedly united behind shared national and democratic goals, and hence as a blueprint for post-ceasefire Ireland.
Since then, the urge to commemorate has abated somewhat. The centenary of the act of union (2000) was a muted affair, while the anniversary of Robert Emmett’s insurrection in 1803 was perhaps a victim of the overkill of 1998. Today, however, we can see, looming ahead of us like icebergs out of the fog, a succession of further centenaries to which we will have to find an appropriate response: 1912, when Ulster Protestants, through the mobilization of the Ulster Volunteer Force, took command of their own destiny but also set Ireland on the road to civil war; 1916, the actual centenary (as opposed to the questionable seventy-fifth anniversary) of the Easter Rising; 1920 and 1922, the foundation of two states within a divided Ireland.
Against this uninspiring background St Patrick’s day stands out as a more benign event. Ireland’s patron saint, it is true, has not always been an uncontentious figure. Over several centuries ecclesiastical historians engaged in a frankly partisan debate over whether what Patrick had established was a faithful part of papal Christianity or a proto-Protestant church independent of the authority and doctrinal errors of Rome. Today, in a more secular age, these controversies are largely forgotten. Instead 17 March provides the occasion for a good natured round of parading, celebration and the flourishing of shamrocks and shillelaghs, whose observance extends well beyond Ireland itself. Indeed it is one of the curious features of the event that it is in Washington, rather than Dublin, that senior members of the Irish government are generally to be found on their country’s national day.
Perhaps the most interesting recent developments in the history of St Patrick’s Day have taken place in Belfast. 17 March,
0 Comments on 17 March and all that as of 1/1/1900
On this day in 1904 Theodor Seuss Geisel came into the world. In honor of his birthday I would like to share a profile of this great man with you:
Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known to the world as the beloved Dr. Seuss, was born in 1904 on Howard Street in Springfield, Massachusetts. Ted's father, Theodor Robert, and grandfather were brewmasters in the city. His mother, Henrietta Seuss Geisel, often soothed her children to sleep by "chanting" rhymes remembered from her youth. Ted credited his mother with both his ability and desire to create the rhymes for which he became so well known.
Although the Geisels enjoyed great financial success for many years, the onset of World War I and Prohibition presented both financial and social challenges for the German immigrants. Nonetheless, the family persevered and again prospered, providing Ted and his sister, Marnie, with happy childhoods.
The influence of Ted's memories of Springfield can be seen throughout his work. Drawings of Horton the Elephant meandering along streams in the Jungle of Nool, for example, mirror the watercourses in Springfield's Forest Park from the period. The fanciful truck driven by Sylvester McMonkey McBean in The Sneetches could well be the Knox tractor that young Ted saw on the streets of Springfield. In addition to its name, Ted's first children's book, And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street, is filled with Springfield imagery, including a look-alike of Mayor Fordis Parker on the reviewing stand, and police officers riding red motorcycles, the traditional color of Springfield's famed Indian Motocycles.
Ted left Springfield as a teenager to attend Dartmouth College, where he became editor-in-chief of the Jack-O-Lantern, Dartmouth's humor magazine. Although his tenure as editor ended prematurely when Ted and his friends were caught throwing a drinking party, which was against the prohibition laws and school policy, he continued to contribute to the magazine, signing his work "Seuss." This is the first record of the "Seuss" pseudonym, which was both Ted's middle name and his mother's maiden name.
To please his father, who wanted him to be a college professor, Ted went on to Oxford University in England after graduation. However, his academic studies bored him, and he decided to tour Europe instead. Oxford did provide him the opportunity to meet a classmate, Helen Palmer, who not only became his first wife, but also a children's author and book editor.
After returning to the United States, Ted began to pursue a
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On the 8th of December 1542 Mary, the daughter of King James V of Scotland, was born. Just a few days after her birth, Mary's father died and the infant Mary became the Scottish queen regnant. Nine months later she was crowned queen, but she did not become the acting queen until many years later. At the tender age of five Mary was sent to France where she was educated and groomed to become the future queen of France. When she was sixteen she was married to the Dauphin Francis, and for a short time Mary was queen of France. Then her husband died and Mary returned to Scotland to take her rightful place as the queen. Unfortunately it was not a role that she understood, and her rule was complicated by political and personal problems that brought about her downfall. Young readers can learn about this fascinating woman by reading the books reviewed on the TTLG Mary Queen of Scots page.
Queen Kristina of Sweden
On December 8th 1626, princess Kristina of Sweden was born. Kristina was a very unusual woman, who created quite a stir when she decided to live her life as she chose, rather than live her life as she was supposed to do. Carolyn Meyer has written a wonderful book about this ruler in her book Kristina: The Girl King, Sweden 1638.Add a Comment
Early on Sunday December 7th, 1941 Japanese fighters attacked targets on the island of Oahu. The fighters chose as many 'high value targets' as they could, and ended up sinking and damaging numerous ships and planes. 2, 386 Americans were killed and 1,139 were wounded.
This event made a huge impression on Americans, and many books have been written about that fateful day, including some excellent titles for young readers. On the TTLG Attack on Pearl Harbor feature page you will find reviews of several titles, both fiction and nonfiction, that tell the story of the attack on Pearl Harbor very well.
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On this day in 1832 Louisa May Alcott was born. Louisa May was an American novelist who is best known for her novel Little Women, which is set in the Alcott family home in Massachusetts. Little Women was loosely based on Louisa's childhood experiences with her three sisters, and it was published in 1868. I have reviewed a wonderful biography about Louis May Alcott which is calledBeyond Little Women: A Story About Louisa May Alcottand you can also read my reviews of the four Little Women books on the Through the Looking Glass Book Reviews website
Sixty-six years after the birth of Louisa May Alcott, Clive Staples Lewis was born in Ireland on November 29, 1898. Commonly referred to as C. S. Lewis and known to his friends and family as "Jack", was an Irish-born British novelist, academic, medievalist, literary critic, essayist, lay theologian and Christian apologist. He is also known for his fiction, especially The Screwtape Letters,The Chronicles of Narnia, and The Space Trilogy.
Lewis was a close friend of J. R. R. Tolkien, and both authors were leading figures in the English faculty at Oxford University and in the informal Oxford literary group known as the "Inklings.” According to his memoir Surprised by Joy, Lewis had been baptized in the Church of Ireland at birth, but fell away from his faith during his adolescence. Owing to the influence of Tolkien and other friends, at the age of 32 Lewis returned to Christianity, becoming "a very ordinary layman of the
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To celebrate the 50th anniversary of Dr. Seuss’s classic Green Eggs and Ham Random House Children’s Books and Dr. Seuss Enterprises, L.P. have launched the Add a Comment
Old age aint no place for sissies. - Bette Davis
I turned 32 today. It's kind of odd to think back to ten or fifteen years ago and what I had planned to do with my life, and how, really, none of those plans or dreams are even the same now. I mean, I've wanted to be a professional artist or author in some capacity since I was a child, but at 23 I don't think I would have ever imagined I'd be
3 Comments on Time - It Keeps On Slipping, last added: 8/27/2010
Happy Birthday Kris! I'll be 42 on Thursday and plan on eating some ice cream also. (and hopefully some other tasty edibles) It is interesting how our plans and dreams change over the years. There is definately some truth in what you said. When I was younger, I enjoyed reading and playing video games and I have to say I'm still doing that now.<br /><br />Cheers mate!
Mark turned 30 today. I am 4 years young so it is great. I can give him a hard time about it. But, I still think life in the 30's is a great time because you are into a real life but still have time to change it if you want.
Yknow, I wished you a happy b-day here, but it didn't show up. I guess I hit the wrong button! Oh well!<br /><br />Have a happy one! May the next 365 days be better than the last!
On this day in 1896 a party of travelers led by a man called Skookum Jim Mason discovered gold in Bonanza Creek in the Yukon. It all happened when Skookum Jim was heading north down the Yukon River looking for his sister Kate and her husband George Carmack. In addition to Skookum Jim, the group included Dawson Charlie and Patsy Henderson. The group found George and Kate fishing for salmon at the mouth of the Klondike River.
It is not clear who made the actual discovery, with some accounts saying that it was Kate Carmack, while others credit Skookum Jim. George Carmack was officially credited for the gold discovery because the actual claim was staked in his name. The group agreed to this because they felt that other miners would be reluctant to recognize a claim made by an Indian, given the strong racist attitudes of the time.
News of the discovery soon spread, and it wasn't long before people of all kinds were flooding into the region. Through the Looking Glass has reviewed an interesting collection of children's titles about this event. Take a look here to see the TTLG Klondike Gold Rush Feature. Add a Comment
I have to confess that I didn't know much about Rachel Carson until I moved to the United States in 1992. Since then I have read and been inspired by her books. Here is a review of a book that I read this week.
When Rachel was a little girl, she lived in Springdale, Pennsylvania, “a town once as lovely as its name.” She had a deep love of books, and through them she developed a interest in the sea. Though writing was what she loved, Rachel studied biology in college. She finally got to see the sea in person and she fell in love with its moods and its stories. Later Rachel wrote about the sea in her first book, Under the Sea-Wind.
All this time Rachel’s once lovely hometown in Pennsylvania, was being poisoned. The rivers were filthy, “the air was choked with smoke,” and poisonous agricultural sprays were killing animals of all kinds. Hearing about this terrible development, Rachel decided to write a new book. This new book, Silent Spring, angered a lot of people, but it also helped many others to see that it is important to protect the environment, and that we all have to do our part to safeguard our planet.
In this truly beautiful picture book, a lyrical and powerful text is perfectly married to Thomas Locker’s gorgeous paintings. Readers will get a memorable picture of what Rachel Carson was like and how important her legacy has been for all of us.
I grew up on the island of Cyprus in the Mediterranean, and though I was lucky enough to get my hands on a selection of children's books that were published in the United States, some American titles never got to my part of the world at all. These included the books by Beverly Cleary, the author who created the characters Ramona Quimby and Henry Huggins, among others. I ended up reading these books when I was an adult, and I have to say that I have enjoyed every single one of them.
Almost three years ago I moved to Oregon, the state where Beverly Cleary was born, and where so many of her stories are based. People here are incredibly proud of Beverly Cleary, and if you go to Portland you can even visit The Beverly Cleary Sculpture Garden in Grant Park where you can see the statues of Ramona Quimby, Henry Huggins, and Ribsy - some of the characters that Clearly brought to life in her books.
Today is Beverly Clearly's birthday and I would like to share her story with you:
Beverly Cleary was born in McMinnville, Yamhill County, Oregon. She was raised on a farm in McMinnville, and grew up in Yamhill, with no local access to a library. Beverly’s mother felt that this was a disadvantage for the students at the small farm school, and she made arrangements to have books sent there from the State Library. As a result, Beverly grew to love books.
When Beverly was six years old, her family left the farm and moved to Portland, Oregon, where she attended elementary and high school. Her struggle with reading in this new school setting was blamed partly on her dissatisfaction with the books she was required to read and partly on an unpleasant first grade teacher, Mrs. Falb. Also, after six years of living in the country, on a farm, the city life in Portland took a toll on Beverly's health, and in her first-grade year she was frequently ill, which set back her schoolwork and reading skills even further.
In the second grade, Beverly studied under her favorite and most-beloved teacher, Miss Marius, and by the third grade, she had greatly improved her reading ability and found a new enjoyment from books. She read The Dutch Twins by Lucy Fitch Perkins, and became a frequent visitor to the library.
March 31st has an interesting collection of anniversaries. On March 31st in 1732 composer Franz Joseph Haydn was born. I remember going to visit his birthplace when I was ten years old and then hearing some of his music performed in Vienna. It was a wonderful opportunity to get a sense of what Haydn's world was like. To this day I still love his music, in particular the The Farewell Symphony. I have reviewed a wonderful book about this piece of music here on Through the Looking Glass Book Review. You can hear part of the symphony below as performed in 2009 by the Youth Artists Symphony.
The next anniversary of note is the birthday of Cesar Chavez, the labor leader who changed the lives of countless farm workers in America. You can see the books I have reviewed about Chavez here.
Last but by no means least, on this day in 1889 the Eiffel Tower was completed. I have reviewed an excellent book about this much loved piece of architecture here on the Through the Looking Glass Website. This wonderful has come to epitomize France and many people cannot think of France or Paris without thinking almost immediately of the Eiffel Tower.
On this day in 1874 a very singular person came into the world. His name was Erik Weiss, but when he was a young man he took on a different name, a name that he felt would better suit his career as a performer; he called himself Harry Houdini.
Houdini began his career as a magician, but he soon focused his energies on developing exciting escape acts. He broke out of handcuffs, jumped off bridges with chains wrapped around him, and he was even able to escape from a milk can full of water. No one knew how he did these amazing feats, and he was soon famous all around the world.
I have reviewed a selection of books about Houdini, which you can view here on the TLLG website. I particularly liked The Houdini Box by Brian Selznick. In this title, Selznick beautifully combines fact and fiction to give readers a story that is both fascinating and thought provoking.
For young readers who like a good mystery there are the Houdini and Nate Mysteries. In these titles, a young boy - with Harry Houdini's help - solves some thrilling and often dangerous mysteries.
On this day in 1904 Theodor Seuss Geisel came into the world. In honor of his birthday I would like to share a profile of this great man with you:
Theodor Seuss Geisel, better known to the world as the beloved Dr. Seuss, was born in 1904 on Howard Street in Springfield, Massachusetts. Ted's father, Theodor Robert, and grandfather were brewmasters in the city. His mother, Henrietta Seuss Geisel, often soothed her children to sleep by "chanting" rhymes remembered from her youth. Ted credited his mother with both his ability and desire to create the rhymes for which he became so well known.
Although the Geisels enjoyed great financial success for many years, the onset of World War I and Prohibition presented both financial and social challenges for the German immigrants. Nonetheless, the family persevered and again prospered, providing Ted and his sister, Marnie, with happy childhoods.
The influence of Ted's memories of Springfield can be seen throughout his work. Drawings of Horton the Elephant meandering along streams in the Jungle of Nool, for example, mirror the watercourses in Springfield's Forest Park from the period. The fanciful truck driven by Sylvester McMonkey McBean in The Sneetches could well be the Knox tractor that young Ted saw on the streets of Springfield. In addition to its name, Ted's first children's book, And To Think That I Saw It On Mulberry Street, is filled with Springfield imagery, including a look-alike of Mayor Fordis Parker on the reviewing stand, and police officers riding red motorcycles, the traditional color of Springfield's famed Indian Motocycles.
Ted left Springfield as a teenager to attend Dartmouth College, where he became editor-in-chief of the Jack-O-Lantern, Dartmouth's humor magazine. Although his tenure as editor ended prematurely when Ted and his friends were caught throwing a drinking party, which was against the prohibition laws and school policy, he continued to contribute to the magazine, signing his work "Seuss." This is the first record of the "Seuss" pseudonym, which was both Ted's middle name and his mother's maiden name.
To please his father, who wanted him to be a college professor, Ted went on to Oxford University in England after graduation. However, his academic studies bored him, and he decided to tour Europe instead. Oxford did provide him the opportunity to meet a classmate, Helen Palmer, who not only became his first wife, but also a children's author and book editor.
After returning to the United States, Ted began to pursue a career as a cartoonist. The Saturday Evening Post and other publications published some of his early pieces, but the bulk of Ted's activity during his early career was devoted to creating advertising campaigns for Standard Oil, which he did for more than 15 years.
As World War II approached, Ted's focus shifted, and he began contributing weekly political cartoons to PM magazine, a liberal publication. Too old for the draft, but wanting to contribute to the war effort, Ted served with Frank Capra's Signal Corps (U.S. Army) making training movies. It was here that he was introduced to the art of animation and developed a series of animated training films featuring a trainee called Private Snafu.
While Ted was continuing to contribute to Life, Vanity Fair, Judge and other magazines, Viking Press offered him a contract to illustrate a collection of children's
I think Dr. Seuss books are excellent BOTH because they are appealing to children (humor, rhymes, illustrations, wild characters and action, etc.), AND because they help kids develop.
The books have controlled vocabularies, and this allows young readers to grow in their ability to read. The books are also highly creative, developing in children a taste for creativity that will serve them well when they choose books later in life. And, as you say, they also communicate many worthwhile messages (Green Eggs and Ham: “Try it, you might like it!”; The Grinch: “Christmas is not centrally about presents”; The Lorax: “Care for the environment!”), which shape the character of children in positive ways.
It’s this combination of subjective appeal and developmental value that sets Seuss’s books apart, in my view. Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss!
On this day in 1685 George Frederic Handel was born. I can still remember going to a concert of his Music for the Royal Fireworks when I was quite young. The performance was outdoors, and the music was accompanied by a real fireworks display, which was coordinated to compliment the music. It was wonderful. While I was driving around in my car today my local public radio station was playing Handel's Fireworks in honor of his birthday, and I was reminded of that concert and how much I have enjoyed Handel's music over the years.
I have reviewed two books about Handel that you can view on the Handel feature page. I hope you enjoy the reviews.
Here is a video Handel's Music for the Royal Fireworks - with fireworks!
On this day in 1890 a young reporter ended an amazing journey around the world. Her name was Nellie Bly (her real name was Elizabeth Jane Cochran) and she was determined to prove that she could travel around the world in less than eighty days. People all over the world watched to see if this pretty young woman could break the record of Phileas Fogg, Jules Verne's ficticious character who traveled around the world in eighty days by boat and train in Verne's famous book Around the World in Eighty Days. Nellie's journey began on November 14th, 1889, and it ended "seventy-two days, six hours, eleven minutes and fourteen seconds after her Hoboken departure."
I have read several books about Nellie and her incredible journey, and you can read my reviews here on Through the Looking Glass Book Review.
You can find more information about Nellie Bly and her remarkable career here on Wikipedia.
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Merry Christmas Baby, by Pepe, the King Prawn
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December Sixth was my wife's twenty-fifth birthday. We celebrated it in rare style, getting off work, heading home, feeding the pets, falling asleep on the couch. I made breakfast burritos for well... brunch, really. Then we fell asleep on the couch again. When we awoke, we gathered a few things together and went to bed.
0 Comments on Rock & Roll Lifestyle as of 1/1/1900
It was fifteen years ago to-day that Angela Chase dyed her hair. Television
drama was never the same again. It was real. Not some la-la-la land where
everyone was happy all the time. Not some far-off place where things were
packaged into 43-minute chunks, everyone knew their place, and everything was
neatly resolved.
And pulls out an old set of questions:
Which character to you most identify with?
Why?
Which character would you most want to bang?
Why?
Favorite Episode?
What would you have Corey Helfrick paint on your shoes if given the chance?
I’ll throw out a question of my own: What moments of the show do you experience the most differently today, compared to when you first saw it? (Whenever that was… sometime during the MTV years, for most of us.) And what parts do you think you will always view the same way?
My own answers later.
Posted in Shades of My So-Called Life
4 Comments on Angela Chase is fifteen years old — today and forever., last added: 8/26/2009
Ooh! I love all things MSCL. But you probably already knew that since we’ve had this discussion. So, the questions.
1. Which character to you most identify with?
Hmmm. Probably Angela.
2. Why?
Because I felt so much like I didn’t know who I was and sometimes tried to define myself by who I hung out with, and was pretty introverted and thoughtful. Though I was actually a lot older by the time I saw this. I still think Angela’s very easy to relate to.
3. Which character would you most want to bang?
Can I be sick? Graham…
4. Why?
NOT because I have daddy issues…I just thought he was hot. And he was smart and he could cook. I thought that Patty didn’t appreciate how good she had it.
5. Favorite Episode?
This is hard. I think either the Substitute because it was actually way less cliched than I thought it would be…I mean, Mr. Racine inspired them but he was pretty flawed. Oh, and I also really love Life of Brian because I think Brian’s an awesome, really well done character.
6. What would you have Corey Helfrick paint on your shoes if given the chance?
Strawberries because they look pretty.
Anyway I only saw the show after it aired, like…last year, actually, so I don’t have too many differences.
Wendy said, on 8/25/2009 7:11:00 PM
1. I definitely identify with Angela the most, probably like most of us… but I’ve got some Ricky and maybe even a little Brian in me too.
2. Angela always had such a hard time showing who she was on the inside to everyone else, I think?
3. I was devoted to Jordan Catalano, but even as a teenager I thought Graham was hot (I was happy when Rayanne acknowledged that).
4. Oh, he’s just so beautiful and needy.
5. It’s a little bit fluffy compared to some of them, but I really love the one where Patty and Graham go away for the weekend and Rayanne gets handcuffed to their bed.
6.Trees. Subtle ones.
7. It’s hard for me to watch Ricky now; I feel so scared for him. At the time–and I watched these in real time, and was exactly their age–it just seemed normal, like this is how it is when you’re gay in high school, but it’s way too painful to look back on. And now I totally get–did not even cross my mind when I was a teenager–why Angela’s parents would totally have been right in thinking that it was a bad idea for her to go out with Jordan. What will I always see the same way? Angela’s initial fascination with Rayanne’s mom… the moment when Jordan tells Angela that having sex is what people do.
Gretchen said, on 8/26/2009 1:05:00 PM
1. Definitely Angela.
2. She was just so ME. (Wasn’t that the point?)
3. Back then…definitely Jordan. (Although I, too, thought Graham was hot. But at the time, I thought that was kind of weird of me. I guess not.) Now? None of them, I think.
4. I had my own Jordan in life back then, which explains not only why I lusted after the character, but also why I identified so heavily with Angela. Jordan Catalanto is his own archetype.
5. I really don’t even know! But I will say that my favorite character was Rayanne. I love her.
7. Most of it is different for me now. It’s like looking back fondly at the person I used to be. Also, I have a lot more sympathy for the characters now and the mistakes they made, and none of the judgement I sometimes had at the time. Like, I’d be pissed at Rayanne for doing drugs, or at Angela for being quite that mooney over Jordan (although I loved her for it at the same time), but now I think it’s a painfully beautiful part of who they are. I think it’s because I feel more maternal toward teenagers now that I’m older, yet I still remember what it was like to be one.
Brian and Ricky are the two characters that I still feel the same about. I loved them, and had a lot of empathy for their respective challenges.
Sadako said, on 8/26/2009 8:18:00 PM
I felt the same way about Ricky. Though I was older when I first saw it so my reaction was just to feel so bad for him. He was such a great kid and he had the worst family situation out of all of them. I hated his never seen aunt/uncle for the way they treated him–how could anyone not adore a boy like Ricky?
Wow! Two years doing a blog now! It's become an integral part of my art production, encouraging to make more art, to challenge myself and to seek out other artists who blog to learn from them and enjoy their work.Thanks to everyone for visiting and commenting.As part of a burgeoning tradition I'm re-posting the first image I posted.
22 Comments on Happy Second Blogaversary!!, last added: 8/22/2009
Happy blogaversary, Eric! And what a beautiful image to repost :D I love the style of your clouds and your water, it's so great. I can't find a word to describe it, it's almost whimsical, either way, this piece is one of my favorites :)
I really, really appreciate your visits and comments, it's made things so much better in those long isolated days.Thanks to both of you for inspiring me!!
Two hundred years ago tomorrow both Abraham Lincoln and Charles Darwin were born. In honor of these two extraordinary men I reviewed quite a few books about them during the month of February. You can see these reviews on the Abraham Lincoln featureand the Charles Darwin feature on the Through the Looking Glass Book Review website. I thought that the following books were particularly notable:
Charles and Emma: The Darwins' Leap of Faith - A splendid non-fiction title that explores how Charles and Emma Darwin were able to overcome their differences and form a solid marriage bond that lasted many years.
Abraham Lincoln Comes Home - A very moving picture book that describes what it was like to see Lincoln's funeral train go by.
The Tree of Life: Charles Darwin- A non-fiction picture book biography that shows readers what Charles Darwin's dreams were and what he was like as a man.
Many people all around the world are celebrating these birthdays in unique ways. Enjoy remembering the lives of these two men who gave so much to do what they thought was right.
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I suppose you’re right, Graphix could have failed, but few books are a lock like BONE was, which really started the now widespread children’s comics platform. Saylor should be noted for his foresight, though.
wooHOO! I’ll try and post the posters when I visit ALA Midwinter this weekend!
Bone wasn’t originally created as a kid’s comic. It was sold as single issues in comics shops, to a mostly adult audience. Does it appeal to kids? Sure. But then, so does Walt Kelly’s Pogo…
As for kids comics in book publishing… Graphix may have been the first imprint (followed the next year by Macmillan’s First Second).
BookExpo America had a graphic novel pavillion in 2002 (the same weekend as the first FCBD), and there were juvenile publishers promoting series then (Lerner?). (Not that great, but they at least were trying, and they got better.)
Also in 2002 was the “Get Graphic @ Your Library” preconference at the American Library Association, so Young Adult librarians were actively acquiring books. (DC was instrumental in partnering with the New York Public Library in the 90s to test the demand for graphic novels among teens.)
The juvenile market was harder to crack, as those librarians were more resistant to licensed or media-driven titles. (YA interest was driven by manga.) Slowly, via picture books (such as The Arrival and Toon Books), Juvenile librarians were able to justify acquiring graphic novels for kids.
What’s most interesting… aside from Macmillan, few of the other big publishers have graphic novel imprints for kids.
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