By: Roger Sutton,
on 10/14/2015
Imperial Russia is the new vampires.
And then there’s this:
And, okay, yes, it’s way-post-Imperial, but also this:
Dasvidaniya, Edward. Privet, Dmiti.
For more 2015 Boston Globe-Horn Book and Horn Book at Simmons: Transformations, click on the tag hbook.com/bghb15.
The post Trend takeaway from 2015 BGHB/HBAS: Transformations appeared first on The Horn Book.
By: Roger Sutton,
on 10/5/2015
Roger Sutton and the Horn Book at Simmons editors panel. Photo: Shoshana Flax.
On Saturday, October 3rd, we held our fifth annual Horn Book at Simmons Colloquium, with the theme “Transformations.” Miss the fun? We’ve compiled a timeline of the day’s highlights based on tweets by our staff and other attendees. See Friday’s ceremony timeline here.
9:07 am: Good morning! We’re ready for a full day of great discussion about good children’s books!
9:10 am: Cathie Mercier: It’s easy to read what we know and like, but how do we push ourselves to read outside ourselves, read “otherways”?
9:14 am: @jescaron: @RogerReads and Cathie Mercier open #HBAS15 with words of wisdom and “grounding”
9:15 am: @RogerReads introducing keynote speaker Susan Cooper
9:19 am: Susan: Transformation in nature is generally cyclical. What about change in our minds? Imagination doesn’t follow any rules
9:20 am: @jescaron: Susan: “Change is an integral part of stories — it is called plot.”
9:21 am: Susan: Can words spark an unpredictable change in the mind?
9:22 am: @ShoshanaFlax: SC clearly read the May @HornBook carefully #swoon
9:24 am: Susan discussing different types of book transformations: retellings, adaptations from other media, making books more accessible
9:26 am: Susan: Fantasy is metaphor… It takes you through the imagination to truth
9:27 am: @jescaron: “People who write fantasy have chosen transformation…finding the magic from the real”
9:30 am: A tumultuous year in Susan’s personal life had profound effects on her writing. “As with writers, so with readers” — we seek escape in words
9:31 am: Susan: When reading, your imagination lives in the book. Reading is creating experience from imagination
9:32 am: Susan: This experience of living in a book can change you
9:33 am: Susan: Letters from readers say, “I read your book, and my world changed a little,” even if readers can’t articulate exactly how
9:35 am: Susan: “The imagination of a reader instinctively takes what it needs from a book and creates a kind of life belt”
9:38 am: Susan: You realize which books had a profound effect on your childhood imagination only by looking back
9:40 am: Susan: An imagination that delights in books as a child grows up and is able to nurture a hunger for books in the next generation
9:43 am: Which books were transformative for Susan in childhood? The Box of Delights and The Midnight Folk by John Masefield
9:44 am: Susan: Nonfiction can be transformative too: “a story is a story”
10:02 am: Nonfiction winner Candace Fleming and editor Anne Schwartz on “Bringing History to the Page”
10:03 am: Candace echoing Jacqueline Woodson’s metaphor of writing as childbirth: you forget how miserable it is and then you’re ready to do it again
10:04 am: Candace writes in longhand on loose-leaf paper — the smell of the ink is reassuring, reminds her of what she’s accomplishing
10:05 am: @jescaron: The Family Romanov went from a light and fluffy book to its final state — transformation!
10:06 am: Anne: As an editor it’s very difficult to ask an author to start over; both author and editor have already invested a lot of work
10:08 am: Fascinating to see original drafts, notes, and editorial letters for what became The Family Romanov
10:11 am: Anne liked the format of text snippets and sidebars, creating a narrative like a tapestry
10:15 am: Anne asked questions Candace “never saw coming,” which made her think about her research and narrative in different ways
10:18 am: Candace: “Anne is the best editor because she questions everything–and that makes me a much better writer”
10:21 am: Going to Russia helped Candace really understand the disparity between the Romanovs and the peasants whose “backs the palaces were built on”
10:23 am: Candace: Stories of peasant lives in Imperial Russia and the Russian Revolution are extremely difficult to find
10:28 am: Candace: Writing good nonfiction requires finding the “vital idea” you want to communicate, not just the facts
10:51 am: An Amazon reviewer called Candace a “vile socialist” for her portrayal of the Romanovs. She’s proud 
11:06 am: Judge Maeve Visser Knoth in conversation with #bghb15 honoree Jon Agee about It’s Only Stanley in “How Do I Make You Laugh, Too?”
11:07 am: Stanley, like all of Jon’s books, started as a doodle in a notebook. If one of Jon’s doodles makes him laugh, he tries to follow that idea and flesh it out
11:10 am: Jon: Writing a picture book is “like fishing” — you start with an idea and “see if you can bring this fish in”
11:13 am: Jon says developing the plot of his picture books comes from a series of “what if” questions
11:14 am: Jon discussing how page-turns work with punchlines
11:18 am: Jon: “Sometimes when you’re working on a picture book, it’s like the story is already there” and you’re excavating it
11:27 am: Lear’s limericks made a big impression on Jon. They were about grown-ups, but grown-ups who were doing ridiculous things
1:08 pm: Great breakout sessions all around! Now @RogerReads is going to moderate editor panel “It’s a Manuscript Until I Say It’s a Book” #HBAS15
1:13 pm: Each editor is sharing a story of the “editorial magic” that helped turn the author’s manuscript into a #BGHB15-winning book
1:19 pm: Editor Liz Bicknell: “Editing is a backstage job. I wear black and sit in the curtains.”
1:20 pm: @maryj59: Liz: “Every writer demands different things of an editor.”
1:25 pm: Rosemary Brosnan: As an editor, “I like to feel that if I’ve done my job well, no one knows I exist”
1:39 pm: Nancy Paulsen: Editing is about “finding the writing that sings to you” as an individual reader — it might not be for everybody
1:34 pm: @jescaron: Editors muse on advice to younger selves — Don’t be so rash
1:36 pm: @jescaron: Editors muse on advice to younger selves — Try to get a good picture of the marketplace
1:38 pm: @jescaron: Editors muse on advice to younger selves — Have confidence that you will eventually figure it out
1:39 pm: @jescaron: Editors muse on advice to younger selves — Don’t stay out so late 
1:40 pm: @ShoshanaFlax: @nancyrosep & @lizbicknell1 both cite editor’s role to stand in for readers
1:52 pm: Nancy: “We all have the same goal…to make the best book possible.” Rosemary: “Sometimes we have to remind the author of that!”
1:44 pm: @maryj59: Rosemary: “An idea is just an idea. It’s the execution that matters.”
2:06 pm: Gregory Maguire in conversation with #BGHB15 judge Jessica Tackett MacDonald about Egg & Spoon in “Bringing Baba Yaga Home”
2:10 pm: Gregory: A story can have any number of inspirations. It’s not a one-to-one ratio
2:16 pm: Gregory discovered different roles for Baba Yaga in Russian folktales: the scary witch, the kindly crone… “That made her human”
2:17 pm: Gregory: “I had to get out of Baba Yaga’s way… It sometimes felt like channeling the devil”
2:20 pm: A theme of Egg & Spoon is “What can we little ones do” in the face of problems? What we older ones can do is give little ones courage
2:21 pm: Gregory: “I don’t write [specifically] for adults or for kids. I write for people who like to read Gregory Maguire books”
2:23 pm: Gregory quoting Katherine Paterson: “The consolation of the imagination is not imaginary consolation”
2:17 pm: @deirdrea: Gregory on why he loves Baba Yaga: “What we look like and what people think we are is NOT who we are.”
2:26 pm: Gregory showing us inspirational objects — including a tiny Baba Yaga house — he kept on his desk while writing Egg & Spoon
2:30 pm: @RogerReads asks, Are today’s readers well-versed enough in fairy tales & folklore to know the references Gregory is asking them to engage with?
2:32 pm: Gregory Maguire: Maybe Egg & Spoon is a reader’s first introduction to Baba Yaga, but he hopes it won’t be their last introduction
2:37 pm: @RogerReads has nothing to do with the BGHB judges’ choices, but “the happiest news I got this year was the announcement that The Farmer and the Clown won BGHB Picture Book Award”
2:40 pm: Marla Frazee & editor Allyn Johnston discussing The Farmer and the Clown in “Do I Need Words with That?”
2:41 pm: Love seeing Marla and Allyn’s work spaces — and the real-life boys (their sons!) — from A Couple of Boys Have the Best Week Ever!
2:46 pm: A Couple of Boys… started as an illustrated thank-you note from Marla, James, and Eamon to Allyn’s parents for the boys’ nature camp trip
2:54 pm: Original title: “A Couple of Boys Go to Nature Camp (Sort Of)”
3:02 pm: Whoa, neither Marla nor Allyn had done a wordless book before The Farmer and the Clown!
3:07 pm: Marla: Part of The Farmer and the Clown illustration process was soaking the art in the bathtub between pencil and color!
3:19 pm: Really interesting backstory for Marla’s upcoming book with Victoria Chang, Is Mommy?
3:26 pm: #BGHB15 committee chair Barbara Scotto speaking with Neal and Brendan Shusterman about Challenger Deep in “When Life Provides the Story”
3:30 pm: Barbara: Did writing Challenger Deep change the meaning of the experience of facing mental illness for Neal and Brendan?
3:32 pm: Neal’s own tumultuous emotions — deep depression followed by euphoria — during a hospitalization for a blood disorder contributed to the novel as well
3:34 pm: Brendan: Mental illness is something we need to talk about. It’s easy to feel that you’re alone
3:37 pm: It was important to Neal to show Caden’s strength in facing and managing his illness, despite fact that it will never go away entirely
3:38 pm: Brendan’s original art is all in color; helped him to express what he was feeling during an episode. There’s a huge volume not included in Challenger Deep
3:39 pm: Much of the narrative of Challenger Deep was inspired by Neal’s interpretations of Brendan’s art
3:42 pm: Neal: the changes made to the manuscript in the editing process were small but extremely precise
3:46 pm: Neal: “When I submitted this manuscript, I was terrified…I had no idea if it even worked…As a writer you always need to be on that edge”
3:50 pm:@RogerReads asks, What was it was like for Neal when his fictional story started to diverge from Brendan’s real experience?
3:51 pm: Neal: it was easiest to write the pieces that did diverge, challenging to dovetail the 2 so readers wouldn’t be able to tell the difference
3:56 pm: Neal: “I look back at my body of work, and I feel that I everything I have written helped me to write this book”
4:01 pm: Cathie Mercier of @SimmonsCollege wisely and wittily recapping our day. How does she do that?!
4:03 pm: Cathie: “The writer lives two lives: the life lived, and the life unfolding on the page. The reader lives those dual lives too”
4:13 pm: Cathie: Who are the readers we leave behind? What are the topics we avoid due to discomfort? How can we transform literature itself?
4:14 pm: Cathie: Will we be able to transform ourselves to join young readers in the reading future?
4:15 pm: Thanks so much for a fantastic weekend at #BGHB15 and #HBAS15! See you next year!
More on the Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards and the following day’s Horn Book at Simmons Colloquium, “Mind the Gaps: Books for All Young Readers,” is coming soon! Follow us on Twitter for updates on all things Horn Book.
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