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I’m not sure how or why but I’ve still got many of the board books of my childhood and now, those from my daughter’s early learning days. Their very construction may have something to do with standing up to the test of time. Maybe, I just can’t bear to part with them because of what […]

"...the hairs on your arms have to stand up."

A plethora of picture books about Christmas are published each year. Some are froth and bubble, as unsatisfying as cheap tinsel. Others are excellent, and should be shared with children and families in the lead-up to Christmas Day or join the collections of  avid Christmas book collectors. Some standouts for 2014 that are already available […]

A couple thoughts on that video. First off, it is sung by author Deborah Underwood (whatta pretty pretty voice, eh?) and editor Arthur A. Levine (whatta pretty pretty voice, eh?) at what Vimeo calls an “agency retreat in Brandon, Vermont”. So I had to wonder what precisely an “agency retreat” really is.  Well, there’s a perfectly logical explanation for it right here.  I wouldn’t mind having the chance to go on a retreat but what I really want is to be in a band.  Anyone wanna start one with me?  I can’t play any instruments but I do know all the word to “Shoop” by Salt n’ Pepa.  Does that count for anything?

And now, ladies and gentlemen . . . . why we love LeVar Burton.

Thanks to Jules for the link!

Our Kickstarter video of the day (since we always have at least one per Video Sunday these days) is a good one.  Remember the Slate article that came out earlier this year called “This Is What a Librarian Looks Like”?  Well the fellow behind the piece wants to go to ALA and do something with a huge swath of librarians.  And for a modest sum of $3,000 too.  Granted he’s already doubled his goal, but no reason why he shouldn’t triple it, eh?

Oh my! A hat tip as well as a big thank you to Travis Jonker for locating this video of author/illustrator John Hendrix. As a big time fan of his work, I found this a real treat.

Thanks to 100 Scope Notes for the link.

I wasn’t able to make Book Expo this year and, by extension, wasn’t able to attend the BEA Children’s Breakfast.  So this Mem Fox speech at said breakfast is NOT persuading me that I wasn’t missing anything, people.  Doggone it.

And for your off-topic video of the day, ain’t nothing hotter than women who make classical musical funny and incredibly difficult all at the same time.  Love this stuff.

Reading Magic: Why Reading Aloud to Our Children Will Change Their Lives Forever (updated and revised) Mem Fox

So, this isn't a book for teens or kids or with kid or teen appeal, but it is a book on child literacy and how to make kids readers, so I think it's still a good Nonficion Monday fix.

At work this week, I wrote an informational sheet for parents about why reading aloud to your kids is super-duper important and really good for them. When I was googling around for some sources to back up the things I've been taught in my youth services career, I found a lot of references to this book. I read the first two chapters on Google books and then went to the bookstore on my lunch break to just buy it. (I would have purchased immediately if it were available as an ebook, but alas and alak.)

I KNOW reading aloud is important to kids. You don't need to convince me. In those first two chapters I had the info I needed for my project, so why did I feel compelled to buy the book to tell me something I already know?

Well, as you hopefully already know from books such as Where Is the Green Sheep?, Fox is a really good story teller and writer. I wanted to read more.

Her basic premis is that we need to read aloud to our kids all that we can and that if we do, they will easily learn to read and become life long readers. Sadly, there's a lot of "research shows..." "experts say..." "studies prove..." but NO SOURCE NOTES. No bibliography. Nothing. There's also no real data, just lots of story after story about her own daughter, her editor's son, some neighborhood kids, and other kids she's come across in her work. Fox was an early literacy prof for a number of years and as she says in her introduction, "I speak with the authority of an international literacy consultant and the intensity of a writer, but I'm most passionate when I speak as an ordinary mother" and that shows. I don't doubt the studies and experts and research exist, but I want sources (mostly so I can follow up and read that research! Because I am a literacy nerd and I need data when I talk to parents about the best way to prep their kids for school.)

Because the evidence is all anecdotal, I think she oversells the benefits of reading aloud. Although she qualifies it at the end that "most children don't learn to read at home. They learn soon after they start school..." during most of the book, her case reads that if you read to your kids a lot, and play literacy games with the text, your kid will teach themselves to read at age 3. And that's not the case. Some will (Dan did) but not all. I mean, her chapter called "The Proof" is only one story about a kid named Justin who could identify his favorite books at 6 months and sit for an hour reading 20 books in a row and at 21 months he had a speaking vocabulary of 500 words and could sight read 20 words. Fox has never met Justin, his mom just emailed her via her website.

I trust what she's saying, I don't doubt her overall point... BUT.

I think the chapter on *how* to read aloud to kids is great. New parents are freaked out about everything and tend to overthink it. The chapter does as good of a job as possible explaining vocal inflection in an entirely written medium. They're things I don't think about a lot as I've always been very good at reading aloud (probably because I was read to so much as a child) but it's a great chapter that I'd also recommend for new youth services librarians who do programming. (I had to read a story as part of my job interview. It's a skill you need to have!)

Her take down of phonics as a reading instruction method is WONDERFUL and while it's not totally applicable to the thrust of this book, I'd LOVE to hear to talk about programs like Accelerated Reader.

There are some great new-to-me points as well. She completely convinced me to never answer "well, why don't you try to sound it out" when asked what a word is. I'm not sure that's something I'd do as a librarian, but I'm sure I would have done it as a mother. But, as Fox explains, when you stop to sound it out, you lose your flow in reading. You forget the rhythm and language, plot and characters of the story. Stopping for that one word makes the rest of the book that much harder. Having someone *give* you the word lets you continue at speed.

Despite my issues with the scholarship involved, I did really enjoy the book, even though I already knew and preached the importance of reading aloud to young children (I mean, Dan read aloud to the Kung Fu Princess before my epidural wore off. Her first read-aloud experience was The Economist.) I think the anecdotes-as-proof style reads more easily/less academically to the lay person (especially as this is targeted at new parents who are probably very sleep deprived) BUT, a few pages of source notes at the end would have been most beneficial.

I don't regret buying it though. It was an easy, fast read and has me all jazzed up about why I do what I do.

Check out today's Nonfiction Monday roundup over at Wrapped in Foil. Be sure to check it out!

Book Provided by... my wallet

Links to Amazon are an affiliate link. You can help support Biblio File by purchasing any item (not just the one linked to!) through these links. Read my full disclosure statement.

I know that some authors count revisions. They will claim, as Mem Fox once told me in an interview, “I did 49 drafts for KOALA LOU before the book was ready to be published.”

My first thought was, “Wow, she counted.”

Second thought, “Man, that’s one of my favorite picture books of all time.”

Nowadays with computers and instantaneous edits, combined with the way I work, it’s impossible for me to put a number on it. I can rarely read anything I’ve written without wanting to make changes. So I revise as I go, constantly; I backtrack as I move forward, even if though some advise against it. I usually avoid printing out the ever-changing manuscript. Because I’d only have to do it again, and again, a pointless exercise and a waste of trees.

Nonetheless, over time, various versions do get printed, sent out, revised, and so on, to the point where I eventually accumulate a stack of old pages.

A while back I made my final corrections on BEFORE YOU GO (July, 2012). It’s due out in a month and I’ve got to live with whatever mistakes remain. In this photo, I sit with a pile of old versions, notebooks, scribbled ideas, rough drafts, grocery lists, typed revisions . . . along with an uncorrected Advance Reader’s Copy in my left hand.

A photo that I figured it might an impress a student somewhere. It’s the same old lesson though: You want anything in life, you’ve got to work for it. I guess in today’s lottery culture you’ve got to say that out loud every once in a while.

This colouring/activity page is for you to print out and give to children - yours, someone else's or to use in a school or library. All I ask is that it is not used for commercial purposes.

Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge by Mem Fox, illustrated by Julie Vivas.

This may just be my favorite picture book ever. I discovered it during grad school when I worked at a children’s bookstore, and it was love at first read. I don’t think I have ever once read it without tearing up. When I read it to the littles yesterday, Scott had to step in near the end when I was too choked up to speak. It’s a beautiful book, and true in the way that sometimes only fiction is.

Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge is a little boy who lives next to an old-age home. He is friends with all the residents and loves to visit them. When he hears his parents say how sad it is that his favorite resident, 93-year-old Miss Nancy, is losing her memory, Wilfrid Gordon quizzes all the other old folks about what a memory is exactly. “It’s something warm,” one tells him. “Something from long ago.” “Something that makes you cry.” “Something that makes you laugh.” And so on.

And so Wilfrid goes off and collects a box of treasures for Miss Nancy—a warm hen egg, a funny puppet, an old medal…

It’s what happens when Miss Nancy handles the gifts that always makes me cry. Perfectly lovely, and Julie Vivas’s tender colored pencil drawings are as lovely and moving as the story.

My son received this book as a gift last year. I'm not normally drawn to straight, realistic collage illustration such these by Steve Jenkins. After many slow reads with my son, the book and art have grown on me. It's a simple story, sort of an exploration of baby animals that ties back to a human baby. Mem Fox's light text reads aloud so well, and the illustrations are large and focused on just the animals. You really get a chance to lose yourself in the details here.

Author: Mem Fox (on JOMB)
Illustrator: Pamela Lofts (on JOMB)
Published: 2005 Harcourt (on JOMB)
ISBN: 9780152163181

Amidst mauve and pink Australian sunsets, this lyrically told and beautifully illustrated tale reminds us of the underrated pleasures of simply loving.

Other books mentioned:

• Elizabeti’s Doll

We’d love to hear your thoughts on a favourite children’s book. Leave a voice message on our JOMB listener hotline, +1-206-350-6487, so we can include your audio in our show.

I just picked up an amazingly cool book from the library this weekend; “Reading Magic: Why Reading Aloud to Our Children Will Change Their Lives Forever” by literacy expert and children’s author Mem Fox.

Here’s an excerpt from Chapter Two that struck a chord with me:

“Because words are essential in building the thought connections in the brain, the more language a child experiences – through books and through conversation with others, not passively from television – the more advantaged socially, educationally, and in every way that child will be for the rest of his or her life. Conversely, the fewer words a child experiences, learns and uses before school, the more stunted that child’s brain will be.”

She goes on to talk about television being a passive learning experience that has some value, but not the same as the back-and-forth interactivity that enforces a connection with language and ideas.

I agree completely. In both books and TV, the focus should be on getting a child to be an active participant in the story. 

Blue’s Clues is the perfect example of the participatory kid’s TV experience, a show I had the good fortune to be involved in. Every time we created a new episode, we had a blast thinking up visual gags and new character designs, but at the core of each of those early meetings was the understanding that our ultimate goal was to get the kids actively thinking and responding to what they saw on screen. It wasn’t enough to simply entertain. Our job (not an easy one) was to get the viewers to want to help Steve and Joe so much that they just couldn’t help shouting at the screen. It was better suited for developing problem-solving than vocabulary skills, but it was incredibly successful in getting kids’ minds active.

Books should accomplish the same thing and even more so with vocabulary and language skills.

When I read to my 1-year old, he goes between listening quietly and jabbering and pointing. Personally, It’s much more interesting for me to have him be active because we tend to read the same books over and over. After 1,000 reads of “All by Myself” by Mercer Mayer, I’m ready for some conversation from the little dude.

As an early reader, I enjoyed getting lost in books. It was a solo activity for the most part. However, what got me started and most involved was the teachers and librarians who read to the class, then asked us what we thought. It was a like a book club without the coffee and wi-fi hotspot.

Reading for entertainment is a luxury my older kids indulge in quite often. They don’t really think about what it’s doing for them from an educational standpoint. I would be worried if they did (I mean, they’re kids for cryin’ out loud). But my wife and I know what’s happening. We wonder if they hadn’t had that early interactive relationship with books from being read to, would they still be reading now just because they like it? Would their writing skills be as advanced?

Mem Fox’s book really hit home when I think about creating illustration for children’s books. More than just making pretty pictures, it’s got to be about getting all those circuits firing in a kid’s brain. A cute picture of a bunny is nice and fluffy and all, but to be successful in supporting a story visually, it’s got to prompt a strong enough reaction to make a kid point and speak. It’s got to “Change their lives forever.”

That’s quite a challenge. I better get back to it.

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“If you are not a writer, you will not understand the difficulties of writing. If you are not a writer, you will not know the fears and hopes of the writers you teach.” – Mem Fox Interpretation of the Quote: Right before Winter Recess, I gave three of my students a printout that included the URL of this [...]

not really. They were at The Bank Street Center for Children's Literature

Earlier this week, two titans of children’s picture books, author Mem Fox and author/illustrator Helen Oxenbury, were in town for a special appearance to discuss the importance of reading aloud to your children and to celebrate the publication of their best-selling new book, Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes.

The Reading Connection, one of my favorite local nonprofits, sponsored the wonderful evening at the Washington Post, which included a book signing afterwards.

Since both of these lovely authors are based overseas, this was truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see them speaking and signing together. They regaled the capacity crowd with wonderful stories of their collaboration and how the book came to be under the gentle guidance of former Harcourt editor, Allyn Johnston (who now has her own imprint with Simon & Schuster). Their warmth, humor, and obvious love and respect for both children and the craft of writing and illustrating made for a truly memorable evening!

For more information about this terrific artistic collaboration, check out the recent Publishers Weekly interview with the authors.

Allyn Johnston Leaving Harcourt...

I've known since last week that Editor-in-Chief Allyn Johnston was leaving Harcourt after 22 years there. The news just broke in PW Children's Bookshelf yesterday. Today is Allyn's last day at Harcourt. Over the years she's worked with authors and illustrators the likes of Jane Dyer, Lois Ehlert, Mem Fox, Cynthia Rylant, Debra Frasier and Marla Frazee.

Allyn wrote a wonderful piece for me focusing on picture books for the 2009 CWIM, finishing it up soon after she was let go. Reading her piece, feeling her love of picture books, getting a glimpse of what an insightful editor she is, made me sad to think that someone who it seems was put on this earth to edit picture books could be let go as a result of a corporate merger (Houghton with Harcourt).

Here's a excerpt of her CWIM piece:

“Authors and illustrators are our most important resource. Without them none of us would be here. Our primary job in the editorial department is to maintain—and build—strong, trusting, collaborative relationships with them so they keep bringing their projects to us. And when those projects are wonderful, great. The editorial development process is relatively smooth. But when talented folks bring us weaker ideas—or ideas that don’t quite make sense yet—we must try our best to help them figure out how to make the project work and to coax it out of them without being discouraging.
I think our biggest role, then, is to believe in our authors and illustrators, to believe great things can happen.”

Good literature promotes literacy. Reading to children promotes literacy. Promoting a love of books through the example of reading promotes literacy. And sharing a story together, at the end of the day especially, offers a moment of harmony and oasis in family life, which sometimes has to be safe-guarded from the encroachment of action-packed schedules. So all in all, a bedtime story is a win-win scenario, whichever way you look at it!

It can, however, be a daunting prospect for some parents, so today on Books at Bedtime I’d like to focus on two resources which offer parents some tools to help make storytelling a joy for all concerned.

The first is the Storytelling Bibliographies page on The Center for Children’s Books’ website. These booklists encompass stories from all over the world which make great readalouds, arranged by themes such as Phases of the Moon, Tales about Fools, Latino Folktales, Native American Tales… The links to Storytelling Websites offer rich scope and I especially like thie process advocated here for using a book as a springboard for someone to tell a story; and for listeners then to extend that storytelling experience. Such activities will lead children to love books and to love words themselves… the next generation of storytellers and writers?

And the other resource is Australian writer Mem Fox reading extracts from her book Reading Magic – her web-page And Do It Like This offers a step-by-step guide to reading stories aloud to children. She also has her 10 Read Aloud Commandments – here’s number 10 :

Please read aloud every day, mums and dads, because you just love being with your child, not because it’s the right thing to do.

And you can hear her putting all these hints and pieces of advice into action herself, reading three of her stories, including her avowed favorite Koala Lou: and she reads them beautifully.

Still thinking about my list of twelve books every kid should read (see post below). All day there’s been a list of my favourite children’s books scrolling through my head. I haven’t narrowed it to a list of twelve yet, but I’m getting closer. In the picture book category, I’d love to include Ca-a-r Ca-a-a-a-r by Geoff Havel, because it’s the book I most often recommend to people. It is simply

The West Australian newspaper today devoted its whole page three to articles related to children’s books – hip hip hooray! As well as a piece about what JK Rowling is up to, and another about Paddington Bear, the big feature of the page is titled 12 books your kids must read before they turn 12. You can read the article online by clicking on the link, but unfortunately the online version does