How to use this Page

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!

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

Ach. You leave NYC, you deal with the consequences. No BookFest for me this year. Some of you, however, might be a bit luckier. It’s worth it.  I mean, did you see that they have Laura Amy Schlitz with Jeanne Birdsall in conversation?!?  Right there.  Here are the details:

Saturday, October 24, 2015

BookFest @ Bank Street 2015
Bank Street College Center for Children’s Literature
Saturday, October 24, 2015 from 9:00 AM to 4:00 PM (EDT)

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: $75.00 ››

9:00am – Arrive, register, and drink coffee

9:30 – Welcome

9:35 – 10:15am – “Teachers as Writers”: Adam Gidwitz, Bank Street GS ’08, A Tale
Dark and Grimm, Elizabeth Bluemle, Bank Street GS ’98, Tap! Tap! Boom! Boom!,
and Cynthia Weill, Columbia Teachers College, Bank Street Writers Lab, Opuestos/Opposites.
Moderator: Leonard S. Marcus, children’s literature scholar and Honorary Degree
holder from Bank Street College of Education

10:15 – 11:00am – “Artists and Mentors: Book…Making…101″: Christopher Myers (Jake Makes the World; My Pen), Shadra Strickland (Bird; Please, Louise), Raúl Colón (Draw!), and Sara Varon (Robot Dreams; Bake Sale).
Moderator: Joe Rogers, Jr., Founder & Facilitator of Total Equity Now

11:00 – 11:15am – Break

11:15 – 12:15pm – “Young Women in the (Plot) Driver’s Seat”: Laura Amy Schlitz (The Hired Girl), Jeanne Birdsall (The Penderwicks in Spring), Kat Yeh (The Truth about Twinkie Pie), and Liz Kessler (Emily Windsnap and the Ship of Lost)
Moderator: Monica Edinger, The Dalton School

12:15 – 1:15pm – Book Discussions (Discussion Group Leaders and Book Lists)

1:15 – 2:00pm – Lunch and Book Autographing

2:05 – 3:00pm – “Pushing Narrative Boundaries in Teen Literature”: Tim Wynne-Jones (The Emperor of Anyplace), Beth Kephart (One
Thing Stolen), Daniel José Older (Shadowshaper)
Moderator: Vicky Smith, reviews editor, Kirkus Reviews

3:00 – 3:30pm – Closing keynote: Rita Williams-Garcia (Gone Crazy in Alabama)

3:30 – 4:00pm – Autographing in the lobby – books for sale from the Bank Street Book Store team

The Fifth Annual Multicultural World BookFest will be held at the Camarillo Community Center on Saturday, November 1, 2014 from 10am-3pm.
I’ve been selected as one of the children’s book authors to present at the event at 11:00 AM, followed by book signings and readings.

• We will have six storytents representing: Asia; Africa; Latin America, North America, Europe, and Australia & New Zealand.

Location: Camarillo Community Center 1605 E. Burnley Street.
Take the 101fwy exit at Carmen Drive. Going north turn right @ light. Going south make 2 left turns; go over fwy. Continue on Carmen past City Hall to 4 way stop which is Burnley. Turn right then left into parking lot. Event will be inside the gated Community Center Room

Please join us for a day of books, readings, food trucks, fun and culture.

Hope to see you there!

Tonia Allen Gould/Author
Samuel T. Moore of Corte Magore

Jodi Moore – author of When a Dragon Moves In - attended the Central Pennsylvania Festival of the Arts’ Bookfest on July 13th, 2013 along with the dragon himself, made from recyclable materials by Jodi’s son, Steve.

Here are some pictures from the event!

Sadly, I was unable to go to Book Fest at New York Public Library. But my friend Nicki went, and agreed to allow her report to be posted in full here at Pop.

Nicki reports:

I had the pleasure of attending Bookfest at the New York Public Library’s Humanities and Social Sciences Library on 42nd street this past Saturday. Librarians, publishers, and teachers gathered in the Celeste Bartos Forum for a light breakfast at 9:30 am (at which time I consumed too many scones to mention).

After a brief welcome, M.T. Anderson [Tobin] took center stage as the keynote speaker. I was surprised to learn he received his MFA from Syracuse University… my alma mater.

Though Tobin claims to feel faint at the task of speaking publicly, he eased into his speech after only a brief reliance on his notes. His speech focused on the genre of Historical Fiction and history’s role in educating today’s youth.

He opened by reading two notes written by teenagers for their peers: one a gossip piece passed around a contemporary classroom and the other a picnic invitation written and shared many years past. The notes revealed a gap. While they were equally vivid and accomplished their intent, the note from the past appeared quaint.

Anderson suggested authors should “lean into the past” through detail — that the real interest, and the hook, lay in accurately detailing the world past. Tobin also discussed the use of rhetoric, pointing out that U.S. texts, regarding the revolution and events afterward, are mostly mythical. Citing examples, he illustrated that the rhetoric undercut factual history. He also noted glaring absences from historical texts, such as the role of African Americans during the Revolutionary War.

He then posed, “In what ways are historical novels effecting us all? What are the mechanisms of the genre?”

Historical novels effect us privately, either through Direct Identification — binding readers to the text as in Chic Lit novels for example, or through Empathetic Relation — rechanneling information… a simulation. Fantasy genres do this. In the case of a historical novel, teens might identify with the slaves because both feel objectified and undervalued.

Historical novels also effect us politically, through Genealogical Relation where there is a direct cause and effect (a situation in a novel directly effects today’s atmosphere, such as the civil rights movement), or through Analogical Relation which uses analogies (satires for example or 1984 by Orwell and The Time Machine by H.G. Wells).

Anderson concurs that the emphasis on ambiguity in literature is rightly praised but points out that books do contain messages/lessons and encourages authors who know what they stand for to include messages in their writings, asking “Why is there a necessity to disavow?” His impetus, “The world is on the brink of crisis… an age of ease is coming to a close… current systems are malfunctioning.” The children need to be prepared for the future, their inheritance. He briefly mentions resource consumption, global warning, the demand for resources leading to war, etc.

He ended with some powerful lines:
We cannot escape history.
We are all mired in our own circumstances, a single unit in a huge trend we cannot see until it becomes the past.
Literature in time of war is different than literature in times of peace. We are at war. In difficult times, writing cannot be neutral.
We cannot ignore that we are on the brink of disaster and must explore the complexity and understand the long term consequences.
We must question invasive, misrepresentative media!

He then recommended a few excellent titles, many not nearly as heavy as his recent book (and National Book Award winner), The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing. Two mentioned were Fever by Laurie Halse Anderson, and When my Name was Keoko by Linda Sue Park. He also mentioned The Magic Circle by Donna Jo Napoli as a book that draws you in only to find some ways through you are SMACK in the middle of a very familiar story.

Things wrapped up at this point and people headed to their book discussion groups. I was very fortunate to be in Young Adult II, in which we discussed Octavian Nothing at great length as Tobin was on hand to answer questions. Other books discussed, briefly, were Saint Iggy by K.L. Going, Firestorm by David Klass, Undine by Penni Russon and The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl by Barry Lyga.

All returned to the Celeste Bartos Forum for a snack box lunch before launching into the Go Graphic! afternoon panel discussion. I didn’t stick around for this section but heard it was entertaining (”cute”) and informative (esp. publisher Calvin Reid, Co-Editor of PW Comics Week).

Cross posted at Dog Ear.

Thank you, Nicki!