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Just in time for February 14th, when we will be wishing everyone a Happy Year of the Tiger, we at PaperTigers are delighted to be launching a Tiger of our own: one that we hope will find a home in every corner of the globe. And when you have created your personalised tiger, we hope you will send us a photo for us to post here on our blog.

We have talked for a long time about having a “real” paper tiger and we are very grateful to husband-and-wife team, authors Sally and Stewart Walton for giving us permission to reproduce the tiger from their book, Make Your Own: Paper Jungle (A Golden Book, 1994). My children were given this book as a present a few years ago and have made most of the animals several times – they make great gifts for grandparents, who, of course, don’t mind how many times they receive a toucan or a chameleon!

The tiger, in pdf format, comes with complete instructions. On page 1 you’ll find a ready-painted version and on page 2 there are two plain outlines – perfect for those who want to give their imaginations free rein and for making multiple copies…

So get going – and send photos of your Tiger(s) to blog(at)papertigers(dot)org – we can’t wait to see your Paper Tigers and what a great way to see in the New Year! Gung Hei Fat Choy! Xin Nian Kuai Le!

The Storyteller’s Candle/ La velita de los cuentos Children’s Book Press, 2008) is one of the books selected for inclusion in the 2010 Spirit of PaperTigers Book Set, which is part of the Spirit of PaperTigers Project launched yesterday on our website. Set during the early years of the Great Depression (1929-1935), it tells the story of two children, cousins Hildamar and Santiago, who have moved with their families from Puerto Rico to New York and how their lives are transformed by coming into contact with librarian Pura Belpré, whose pioneering work revolutionised the roles of libraries within their communities.

This telling of Pura Belpré’s work through the eyes of children, written by Lucía González, makes a very special readaloud, both to a group of children and cosily at home. As the whole Puerto Rican community of El Barrio joins together to put on a play at the library to celebrate el Día de los Reyes, Three Kings’ Day on the 6th January, the cold outside is forgotten and the library is filled with the warmth not only from the roaring fire, but also from people’s hearts. Then, at the end,

“Ms. Belpré concluded the show in her usual way. “Close your eyes and make a wish,” she whispered as she held the storyteller’s candle.

Lulu Delacre’s gorgeous illustrations (and you can see some of them in her PaperTigers Gallery) are particularly special because she has added collage details to every page using a newspaper from 6th January 1930. I think my favorite, wittily accompanying this illustration of the audience at the library, is a column of thank yous to theatre critics for rave reviews…

Of course, Pura Belpré’s work continues to be commemorated by grown-ups with the awarding of the Pura Belpré medal, whose 2010 winners were announced in January. The Storyteller’s Candle means that children can share in her wonderful story too – and enjoy her legacy of libraries as hubs in their communities.

In our current issue of PaperTigers, Katia Novet Saint-Lot, author of the very special picture-book Amadi’s Snowman, has shared with us her family’s celebration of an expat Christmas, in which she and her family draw in local traditions from the country they are living in at the time. The result is a wonderful evocation of peace and respect across faiths:

Last year, as we built our Nativity scene on the large bottom plank of our Rajasthani bookshelf, a little wooden Ganesh and a small brass Buddha found their way close to the empty spot waiting for Jesus to be born. I don’t remember how they got there, but there they sat, round and happy, amidst all the cotton wool meant to represent the snow. Both my children have grown up surrounded by images of Ganesha, the Remover of Obstacles with his broken tusk, his pot belly, and his friend the mouse. They’ve seen his statues carried on auto-rickshaws and trucks all across the city, and they’ve seen them immersed in the lake. Similarly, we have several statues of Buddha in our home. When our little one was 17 months old, we visited Sri Lanka, and she saw so many Buddhas over there that the word became one of her favorites for a while. She would see the statue of a politician, or of any God from the Hindu pantheon, and cry enthusiastically: “Buddha!” So it was only natural that both Ganesh and Buddha should join us in awaiting the birth of Jesus. What is the spirit of Christmas, after all, if not a spirit of universal love? And shouldn’t love go hand in hand with inclusion, tolerance and respect?

When my husband lived in Mali, a predominantly Muslim country , he picked up the habit of saying “Insh’Allah” (God willing) whenever the outcome of a situation was uncertain. When I met him in New York, he was still saying it. He continued to do so while we lived in the predominantly Christian south-eastern part of Nigeria, and our coming to India has not changed his habit. Some people assume he’s Muslim (he was brought up Christian); others know that he’s not, and smile. One day, the Hindu driver who worked for my husband’s office blurted out “Insh’Allah” as the two of them discussed their concern about a particular situation. When my husband laughed, and called him on it, he just smiled.

You can read her whole Personal View, “A Wish for 2010″ here. Our thoughts are with Katia and her family at the moment as her husband is from Haiti. She is currently preparing a post for her blog “about Haiti, its beauty, and what the country and its people mean to me” – I’ll add a link when it goes live; in the meantime, read what she has to say about children’s books about Haiti, as well as Mitali Perkin’s post, which Katia refers to…

As soon as I spotted the Social Justice Challenge button dotted all over the blogosphere, I knew that I would have to come up with some very good arguments not to take it on… so you will now find said button in our side-bar and here is my first post as an Activist for this month. If you haven’t already, I really do recommend you read this post, which explains the workings of the Challenge much better than I ever could… I will just say that this is a Challenge to do, as well as to absorb…

Launching January’s theme of Religious Freedom, which happens to run parallel to our own current theme of Respect for Religious Diversity, we are asked to answer a few questions:

What is the first thing that comes to your mind when you think of religious freedom?
Peace and harmony – when we all learn to respect the right of each individual to follow (or not) the religion of their choice without fear of persecution, the human race will come close to achieving them. And education also comes to mind – because children (and adults) need to find out about the different world faiths, and learn to value both the diversity and shared values that they have at their heart.

What knowledge do you have of present threats to religious freedom in our world today?
I have some awareness of religious intolerance across the world – but I’m not going to go into it here…

Have you chosen a book or resource to read for this month?
With my sons, I’m going to read Many Windows: Six Kids, Five Faiths, One Community by Rukhsana Khan with Elisa Carbone and Uma Krishnaswami (Napoleon, 2008) and The Grand Mosque of Paris: A Story of How Muslims Rescued Jews During the Holocaust by Karen Gray Ruelle and Deborah Durland DeSaix (Holiday House, 2009), both of which I have already read… I haven’t chosen something new for myself yet… if I hadn’t recently read Wanting Mor (also by Rukhsana) , I would choose that…

Why does religious freedom matter to you?
It is a human right.

Continuing with our current December/January bimonthly theme of Respect for Religious Diversity, we have added two new book reviews:

The Grand Mosque of Paris: A Story of How Muslims Rescued Jews During the Holocaust, by Karen Gray Ruelle and Deborah Durland DeSaix (Holiday House, 2009);

and Let There be Peace: Prayers from Around the World, selected by Jeremy Brooks and illustrated by Jude Daly (Frances Lincoln, 2009), which is also our January Book of the Month.

Both of these are superb books and would be perfect for sharing with children as part of the Social Justice Challenge, whose theme of Religious Freedom for this month happens to coincide with our own – I’ll be posting properly about this demanding and potentially hugely rewarding reading challenge soon…

For a lively, happy bedtime story, look no further than Cora Cooks Pancit by Dorina K. Lazo Gilmore and illustrated by Kristi Valiant (Shen’s Books, 2009). Cora has always had to watch her older brother and sisters helping with the “grown-up jobs” in the kitchen but she’s certainly been taking it all in (well, almost!). And when one day she is alone in the kitchen with her mother, her dreams come true! First she gets to choose pancit for that day’s evening meal – and then she gets to really help, as opposed to just licking spoons… Later, with the family gathered round the table to eat, comes Cora’s moment of reckoning:

“Did she do everything right? Would they like it? Would Mama tell about the accident with the noodles?”

Young listeners will be just as anxious as Cora to find out – and the gorgeous illustration on the next page with a delighted Cora standing on her chair, holding the apron she’s still wearing, says it all.

There is so much love wrapped up in the tone of the writing and the glow of the illustrations (both in terms of the use of light and the expressive faces of the characters) that little ones will fall asleep basking in its warmth – and they’ll also have enjoyed a chuckle at the antics of the family dog, whose pile of soft toys seems to get bigger and bigger as the story progresses.

But as well as being a great bedtime story, Cora Cooks Pancit is likely to find its way into the kitchen so that children can use the recipe provided to make pancit themselves (with the help of an adult, of course: this is indeed “proper” cooking). Unsurprisingly, Jama Rattigan has a wonderful post about the book, including several illustration spreads – and thanks to Jama, I have also discovered Dorina K. Lazo Gilmore’s mouth-watering blog Health-full. The book has obviously touched a chord with pancit-lovers of all ages – I enjoyed reading this, this and this.

Also, with our current focus on the Philippines and the Filipino diaspora continuing until the end of the month, head on over to the PaperTigers website for a full review of Cora Cooks Pancit, as well as an interview with Dorina K. Lazo Gilmore by Tarie Sabido.

And if you have enjoyed reading Cora Cooks Pancit or other similarly themed books with your children, do tell us about it!

Author Rukhsana Khan has talked in the past, though perhaps not in as much detail, about incidents of bullying and racist abuse towards her and her family, following their immigration to Canada from Pakistan. As Anti-Bullying Week in the UK draws to a close, and in the hope that by bringing such instances into the open they may never be repeated, we welcome Rukhsana’s guest post today.

By Rukhsana Khan:

When we first came to Canada from Pakistan in 1965, not only were we children bullied at school but my father, a tool and die maker, was bullied at work. Some of his fellow workers wouldn’t call him by name, they’d call him ‘black bastard’, and he put up with it because he had a wife and four children to feed. When we first arrived, he was making about $7 an hour. That doesn’t sound like much now but back then it was good money. However, within a year of buying our house in Dundas, Ontario, and my little sister and brother being born, he got laid off. He ended up accepting another job for $2.35 an hour. At the end of the month, after paying the bills, we had about five dollars a week with which to buy food; most of the time we ate dill weed and potatoes because it was cheap and filling.

We were the only Pakistani Muslim family in Dundas. The other kids in my class didn’t know much about brown people. When I was in elementary school the other children would tell me and my sisters that they were white because they were clean and we were brown because we were dirty. They said that if we went home and took a lot of baths we’d get white like them. So we tried it. We took five baths a day for about two weeks. When that didn’t work, we tried baby powder and finally, we stopped drinking chocolate milk for a while.

When I got to middle school things got so much worse. Suddenly it really mattered what clothes you wore, and back then it had to be jeans. I didn’t even ask my parents to buy them for me; I knew they couldn’t afford them. Instead I asked for some men’s polyester work pants I saw in the Sears catalogue. I figured they looked like jeans, they just didn’t cost that much. This attempt at trying to fit in was worse than if I hadn’t bothered but I didn’t know it at the time. Also, at school I often spoke out – a big mistake. I was always lucky to have some very supportive teachers, and stupidly I took to heart their encouragement to share my opinions and did so freely. I had very poor social skills. I read tons of books and in the books the kids who were outsiders and very different were eventually seen to possess extraordinary qualities and were valued – kind of like Cinderella. I don’t know what I was thinking, offering opinions and sticking my neck out when everyone else in the class tested the waters to make sure their words jived with the consensus before committing themselves to an opinion. That, coupled with the awkward way I dressed and my skin colour, really set me apart and made me a target for bullies.

Two of the most notorious of my bullies in grade seven and eight were the most popular boys in the school named John and Rick. John was very handsome. Rick was ugly but he had a very nice body so he was popular too. They formed the hub of the ‘in’ crowd. I desperately wanted to be friends with them. I thought I belonged with them. They were smart, witty and cool, and I thought they’d like me once they got to know me. There were other k

In 2008 the Asia/Pacific Cultural Centre for UNESCO (ACCU) began putting more emphasis on programs to ensure cultural diversity, conducting educational activities and building Asia-Pacific networks with the goal of protecting and maintaining diverse cultures around the globe. One of the many events that resulted from their commitment, was the “Artists of Children’s Books in Asia, Africa and Latin America Symposium,” which Corinne blogged about in August.

Among the people invited to present on the realities of books creators and publishers in different parts of the world and the role of picture books in culturally diverse societies was Karina Bolasco, founder of Anvil, a Filipino publishing company. In her paper “The Complicated Pleasures of Children’s Books, she offers that, in her opinion, young Filipino writers, as a result of the country’s history, “have been unwittingly weighed down by a long tradition of moralism and didacticism,” something she believes has led to many moral tales and “issue” books, and not enough stories “children can just read for pleasure and delight in.”

Her views of where her country stands in terms of writing and publishing for children and where it may/should be headed, add depth to our current focus on children’s books from/about the Philippines. For more on the topic, read her article “Towards Homes Filled With Books.” Both her texts help us learn a little more about the challenges publishers, authors, illustrators and promoters of literacy face in the Philippines, as well as the opportunities and possibilities that lay ahead of them.

Last week I wrote about the Filipino non-profit CANVAS and its Romeo Forbes Story Writing Competition. This week I’ll focus on their “Elias Dakila Competition for Children’s Story Writing on Environment and Culture.”

First, let’s give the contest some context. In 1953, French author Jean Giono was commissioned to write a short story about his most unforgettable character. What resulted was the classic eco-fable The Man Who Planted Trees, about a man named Elias Dakila who, through sheer persistence and diligence, brings hope to a once desolate and devastated province (and doesn’t that remind you of Wangari Mathaai’s work?)

“Elias and His Trees,” the very first book published by CANVAS, is an adaptation of Giono’s fable (now in public domain) to Filipino settings by award-winning author Augie Rivera and late artist Romeo Forbes. Its publication, in 2005, inspired Canvas to start  the Elias Dakila Competition. Timely and timeless environmental stories have been brought to life by Filipino talents as a result of it. The first three, The Hummingbird, The King and the Royal Trees and The Star Thrower, have been published as one volume titled Earth Tales: 3 Ecofables for Children; others, such as The Boy Who Touched Heaven and Message in the Sand, are available for sale and/or as downloadable files through CANVAS’ website (make sure you click on the links to see/read/listen to the stories. The flash files may be a little heavy, but the wait is more than worth it).

For more on the topic of environmental stories for children, check out Carmelita C. Ballesteros’ essay for PaperTigers, Helping Children Make Sense of Climate Change, in which she focus on her book, Annie D. Ant.

Award-winning poet Lara Saguisag introduces her Personal View, written for PaperTigers last year, with the rather unpromising line:

I must confess: as a child I didn’t like poetry very much.

That perception might have continued had she not been blown away by listening to poet Valerie Bloom - read Lara’s article, where she muses on this transformation and “The Many Possibilities of Children’s Poetry“.

I have yet to lay my hands on a copy of Lara’s Children of Two Seasons: Poems for Young People (Anvil, 2007) so instead, as we in the north of England move towards sharp, chilly mornings, I direct you to the poem “Frost” by Valerie Bloom - and make sure you listen to Valerie’s own exquisite reading of it too. It’s taken from Valerie’s The World is Sweet (Bloomsbury, 2001).

I’m not sure where this week’s Poetry Friday round-up is taking place - when I found out, I’ll update the link…

Our focus on Filipino children’s book authors and illustrators wouldn’t be complete without a mention of the Romeo Forbes Story Writing Competition. Established in 2005 by CANVAS, a non-stock, non-profit organization committed to promoting awareness of and appreciation for Philippine art, culture and the environment, the competition was named after the young and highly accomplished illustrator of CANVAS’ first book project, who passed away in 2006 at the age of 24.

The idea behind the contest is simple: a Filipino artist, officially designated as CANVAS Fellow of the Year, is commissioned by CANVAS to create an original, large scale painting. The painting then becomes the “inspiration piece” of a writing competition (in English or Filipino) open to Filipino writers anywhere. The selected winning entry is illustrated as a series of large scale paintings by the same artist and published as a full color children’s book, with the original paintings showcased as a major solo exhibition for the artist.

This year’s winner, announced in April, was Fernando Gonzalez (this was his second time winning the competition), whose story “Mga Huni sa Loob ng Kawayan” was inspired by an untitled oil painting by artist Juanito Torres (details about the 2010 competition will be announced on January 1, 2010 at Looking for Juan, the official blog of CANVAS).

Previous winners include, among others, Palanca awardee Becky Bravo, whose story “The Rocking Horse” was based on a painting by Elmer Borlongan, and Eline Santos, whose “Doll Eyes” was inspired by the work of Joy Mallari.

In 2006, CANVAS partnered with Ang I.N.K. to launch the “Elias Dakila Story Writing Competition,” based on the theme of environment and culture. The winning story, “The Boy Who Touched Heaven,”published in partnership with Adarna House, was written by first time writer Iris Gem Li and illustrated by Sergio (Serj) Bumatay III (see his gallery feature on PaperTigers). The published book went on to win the National Book Awards as the Best Children’s Book of 2008.

Discovering CANVAS and the stories and artwork they help bring to life through the Romeo Forbes and Elias Dakila competitions as well as other projects, has really opened my eyes to the riches of Filipinos writing and creating art for children. I hope it will do the same for you.

My next post about CANVAS will focus on their series of eco fables (of which The Boy Who Touched Heaven is one example). There’s so much to spread the word on in relation to CANVAS that I couldn’t possibly do it all in one post, so… stay tuned!

In 2008 Ballet Manila staged a three-part production inspired by some of Lola Basyang’s tales. Penned by Severino Reyes, Lola Basyang’s granny figure is one of the most beloved characters in Filipino literature. The three stories chosen for the ballet were published by Anvil Publishing, retold by Christine S. Bellen and illustrated by Frances Alcaraz.

A forum, “Pages to Pirouettes: Exploring Visual Literature in Ballets,” was also held in connection with the ballet opening. I asked Frances Alcaraz, whose gallery feature is currently highlighted on the PaperTigers website, to tell us a little bit about the project and her involvement in it. These pictures and words are what she shared with me:

The “Tatlong Kuwento ni Lola Basyang” ballets were the first theatrical adaptation of the books that stayed faithful to the source. The director of Ballet Manila, Lisa Macuja-Elizalde, and her production team chose three books from the 15 books in the series. All three books happened to be illustrated by me and since dance is also very a visual art, they asked if I would be involved in the process.

To help promote the ballets, we held a forum and exhibit at the Ateneo De Manila University. The speakers at the forum discussed the visual process of translating the books into ballets. I talked about the process of illustrating the books. Macuja-Elizalde, who was also one of the choreographers, discussed the considerations of translating the works into ballets and Jonathan Janolo, the production designer, discussed the challenges involved in staging the ballets.

For “Mahiwagang Biyulin,” the choreographer wanted a gigantic version of the book to be the background, so I recreated the book without the characters. At the finale, all three book covers appeared on stage along with some pages from inside the book.

Comparing these photos, from “Kapatid ng Tatlong Marya” (The Brother of the Tree Marias) and “Mahywagang Biyulin” (The Enchanted Violin), with the ones shown on Frances’ gallery, we see how beautifully her illustrations came to life on stage! Thanks for sharing these images and words with us, Frances, and congratulations on your and Ballet Manila’s fantastic work!

photos: ©Ballet Manila

Now, more than ever, other countries and customs affect our everyday lives, wherever we live, making it crucial to teach our children about the wealth of cultures our world is home to.

This time, our newly added website features focus on the Philippines, whose unique history and complex cultural amalgamation have created a rich legacy borne out in its children’s literature.

By paying tribute to both old and new narratives in English from and about the country, and to the talented writers and illustrators who bring them to life, we hope to encourage readers to explore the bigger—much bigger!—picture of children’s literature from the Philippines and the Filipino diaspora.

Please keep in mind that we will continue to explore the topic here, on the blog, through the end of November, so make sure to stop by again to join in the conversation! We are counting on your feedback—and really appreciate your help with spreading the word on these features, too.

Heartfelt thanks are very much in order to Filipino editor and English teacher Tarie Sabido, who blogs at Into the Wardrobe, for her interviews and book review contributions. Thanks a million, Tarie!

Prompted by my reading of exiled Argentinian children’s writer, Jorge Lujàn’s essay in the recent issue of PaperTigers, I went to my library to take out his books.  I found three: Sky Blue Accident Accidente Celeste, Rooster Gallo and Colors ¡Colores! In reading them to my daughter, I was immediately enchanted. The stories were palpably poetic.  In Sky Blue Accident, for example, a boy crashes into the sky and puts the broken pieces into his pocket.  In Rooster, when the rooster opens its beak, the sun comes up, opens its hand and gives birth to the day.  In Colors, night has a black gown in which stars — the ‘eyes of the universe can shine more brightly.’  Some of you may recognize at once the magical realist quality of these stories for which Latin American writers are particularly renown.  Personifying colors and natural elements like the sky and the day without being stereotypical takes a special creative knack and Lujàn has that knack in spades, so to speak.  And of course, such creative and perceptive views of the world are an illustrator’s delight.  These books have different illustrators with their own unique style.  Sky Blue Accident and Colors are illustrated by Piet Grobler whose style is captivatingly quirky as in Sky Blue Accident or breezily ephemeral as in the watercolor swathes found in Colors.  Rooster is illustrated by Manuel Monroy.  The bird is painted a speckled blue; it’s body is a metaphor for the sky.  I liked how the speckles flew off as stars at one point in the book, and how the rooster eats a star with a star gleaming in its eye on the next page.

Lujàn’s books are bilingual in Spanish and English.  Although I’m not particularly familiar with Spanish, I enjoyed reading the Spanish text aloud to my daughter.  We learned Spanish words a la Lujàn in a totally new and delightful way!

The Playing For Change Foundation is “dedicated to connecting the world through music by providing resources (including, but not limited to facilities, supplies, and educational programs) to musicians and their communities around the world.”

They have recently opened their first music school, the Ntonga Music School, in Gugulethu, near Cape Town, in South Africa. Watch this inspirational video:

Help Connect the World Through Music from Doug Kenney on Vimeo.

and then take a look at the amazing Playing for Change journey that has been travelling around the world since 2005:

Over the course of this project, we decided it was not enough for our crew just to record and share this music with the world; we wanted to create a way to give back to the musicians and their communities that had shared so much with us…

Now, musicians from all over the world are brought together to perform benefit concerts that build music and art schools in communities that are in need of inspiration and hope. In addition to benefit concerts, the Playing for Change band also performs shows around the world. When audiences see and hear musicians who have traveled thousands of miles from their homes, united in purpose and chorus on one stage, everyone is touched by music’s unifying power.

… and browse through the various episodes featuring musicians from all over the world who have taken part in Playing for Change. I especially like this one.

PaperTigers most recent issue focuses on music.  In the Illustrator’s Gallery is featured the work of Satoshi Kitamura — an artist who has a ‘gift for illustrating poetry.’  In the gallery, one can see images from the book The Carnival of the Animals: Poems inspired by Saint-Saëns Music. As the title states, the book contains an array of poems (edited by Judith Chernaik) on the various animals featured in Camille Saint-Saën’s musical piece.  A CD accompanies the book.

My daughter and I recently had the opportunity to try the book and the CD out on our son’s brand new computer.  Using Windows media player which plays the music with accompanying graphics, we listened while flipping through the book.  The CD contains the poems read aloud followed by the musical pieces.  My daughter enjoyed anticipating which animal would come up next by looking at the pictures collected on the front page of the book and guessing through elimination which animal was next.  It was fun to see how image, text and music combined to create an overall effect or sense of the featured animals.  Sometimes, the poems were a reversal of the stereotypical image of an animal.  In “Tortoise” for example, poet Chernaik writes of a tortoise who “dreams of twirling on tabletops,/turning cartwheels,/kicking up her heels at the Carnival ball.”  My daughter disagreed with this picture, but I could see where the music might have inspired the poet’s notion of a tortoise as a dancer, say, in a slow but elegant waltz.  Here’s a video link to the poem and music: Carnival: Tortoise

Animals make wonderful inspiration for all kinds of art — music, poetry and drawing.  Carnival of the Animals is a great book for combining all these art forms to give a child a unique experience of text, image and sound.

This week’s Poetry Friday host is Wild Rose Reader.

Amy Bowllan at Bowllan’s Blog has a series of posts titled “Writers Against Racism,” in which she asks authors about their experiences of racism and their opinion on the ways in which literature can be used to combat its effects. The ongoing series so far includes interviews with Zetta Elliot, Mitali Perkins, David Yoo, Neesha Meminger, Tanita S. Davis, and many more. In one of the August installments, Bowllan interviewed children’s literature specialist—and PaperTigers contributor/consultant—Laura Atkins. Laura’s views on the topic are very interesting, and partly informed by years of working in the children’s publishing industry developing multicultural picture books (her insightful paper “What’s the Story? Reflections on White Privilege in the Publication of Children’s Literature,” has recently become available online).

Laura says on her blog of the “Writers Against Racism” series: “The questions and answers reveal how the personal and the political are intimately linked. Each person has their own experiences, their own stories to tell—and all of us have connected to and through literature as a way of combating racism.” I can’t imagine a more effective weapon than literature in this worthwhile battle. Can you?

“Music has a way of finding the big, invisible moving pieces inside our hearts and souls and helping us figure out the position of things inside us,” says Dr. Karl Paulnack, pianist and director of the music division at the Boston Conservatory, in a beautiful speech from 2004 that has now made its way through the internet. And the same could be said—has been said—of good literature. So now imagine the effects of literature and music combined!

To help children begin to explore this powerful pairing, I suggest you take a look (if you haven’t yet done so) at the features currently highlighted on our website. I also recommend reading Paulnack’s speech on the value of music in its entirety. Here’s another excerpt, as way of enticement:

“I have come to understand that music is not part of “arts and entertainment” as the newspaper section would have us believe. It’s not a luxury, a lavish thing that we fund from leftovers of our budgets, not a plaything or an amusement or a pass time. Music is a basic need of human survival. Music is one of the ways we make sense of our lives, one of the ways in which we express feelings when we have no words, a way for us to understand things with our hearts when we cannot with our minds.”

With September now upon us, we are continuing our focus on Music in Children’s Literature with a new Book of the Month, over on the main PaperTigers website: A Song for Cambodia by Michelle Lord and illustrated by Shino Arihara (Lee & Low, 2006):

…the painful but inspiring true story of how music literally saved the life of Arn Chorn-Pond, founder of Cambodian Living Arts, a World Education project.

An orphan of the Khmer Rouge genocide in 1975, nine-year-old Arn was sent to a children’s work camp, where he was underfed and overworked, under the constantly watchful eye of armed and threatening soldiers. When volunteers were called for to play propaganda songs, Arn, who came from a family of musicians, raised his hand. He and five other children were chosen to learn the khim, a traditional Cambodian string instrument. Arn excelled… but once he had learned to play, his teacher and all but one of his fellow students were executed…

Read the complete review

Michelle has also contributed an insightful Personal View, Music as Inspiration and Survival: a Cambodian Journey - definitely worth reading!

Also new on the website, we are delighted to present an interview with husband-and-wife team Guo Yue and Clare Farrow, authors of the powerful and moving illustrated middle-reader, Little Leap Forward (Barefoot Books, 2008). In June I blogged about its powerful stage adaptation and in the interview Yue and Clare talk about it, as well as other aspects of the book.

Little Leap Forward is based on Yue’s childhood during the Cultural Revolution in China. His father, a professional erhu (two-string violin) player, died when Yue was very young; when Yue was seven, he began receiving flute lessons from one of his father’s friends, a musician who lived in the same small courtyard; then, at the age of seventeen, he joined an army music ensemble as a flutes soloist for the People’s Republic of China. With the help of one of his sisters, Yue left China in 1982 to take up a scholarship at the Guildhall School of Music in London. He now plays all over the world - and by following some of the links in the interview side-bar, you can listen to some examples of his beautiful music…

I have always loved hats so I couldn’t wait to get my hand on a copy of Satoshi Kitamura’s latest picture-book, Millie’s Marvellous Hat (Andersen Press, 2009) - and indeed, it is a joy from beginning to end. It seems a simple enough story: but the resonance of its message, the power of imagination to transcend reality, means that children will never tire of hearing it read to them over and over again as they pour over Satoshi’s uncluttered but detail-filled illustrations.

Millie spots a beautiful hat in a shop window on her way home from school and goes in to buy it - there’s just one problem: it’s hideously expensive and in her purse Millie has… nothing. Hmmm. That could have been the end of the story but no, because the very proper, besuited shop assistant fetches just the hat for Millie from the back of the shop:

“This is a most marvellous hat, Madam, ” said the man.
“It can be any size, shape or colour you wish. All you have to do is imagine it.”

I know this is only a story, but I could have hugged him! And as Millie walks out of the shop wearing her new hat, her imagination takes flight.

Then she discovers that she’s not the only one with a special hat: as she looks around her, she notices that everyone else has one too. There are delightful parallels between what people are doing and the hats they are wearing - and a very special moment occurs when Millie smiles at an old lady whose hat is a “dark, murky pond”: birds and fish “leapt out of her hat and onto the old lady’s”, who we then see striding through the park reenergized with a lovely smile on her face. The final illustration of Millie sitting at the supper table with her parents is an absolute treat too, and will have both children and adults chuckling: but also imagining all the possibilities behind it.

As children turn the pages, their own imaginations will take flight and I can definitely see a new Marvellous Hat game emerging. It would work well on long journeys… So what does your hat look like? And what kind of hats are the people around you wearing?

We are delighted to be featuring Satoshi in our current Gallery, which includes this exuberant illustration from Millie’s Marvellous Hat; and do read Satoshi’s recent interview with Booktrust, in which he talks about Millie and says that he is working on a follow-up - hooray!

Last month’s PaperTigers issue featured illustrator Allen Say.  I reviewed one of his picture books Music for Alice for a previous post; this time I would like to take a look at a book of his aimed for a young adult audience, The Ink-Keeper’s Apprentice.  In this autobiographical novel, a Japanese boy of thirteen, Kiyoi, decides to apprentice himself to a master cartoonist in Tokyo named Noro Shimpei.  The story is set in post-war Japan when life was difficult, especially for aspiring artists.  Noro Shimpei is an eccentric but generous master; he takes on not only Kiyoi but Tokida, a street-savvy boy from Osaka who has ran away from home to study with him.  The two boys make an odd pair — Kiyoi from a genteel family, Tokida from a rough-and-tumble one — learning from a master who regularly moves studios and has odd teaching techniques.

The Ink-Keeper’s Apprentice is a coming-of-age story.  Kiyoi struggles with his secret desire to be an artist — an occupation he knows his family will not approve of, especially his guardian grandmother who is very conscious of the family’s class and status.  Kiyoi also begins to become aware of his sexuality.  When he goes for the first time to a life drawing class featuring a nude model, he remarks wryly:  No matter what Tokida said, staring at a grown, naked woman on a platform wasn’t natural.  It was exciting.  I began to think perhaps I should become a painter so I could have models in my studio.  The thought made my ears hot.

It’s Kiyoi’s tone-of-voice that I particularly liked in this novel.  Mature and reflective, and at the same time playfully aware of a younger, wonder-filled self, Kiyoi is a compelling narrator of his circumstances.  Although Allen Say may be better known as an illustrator, I think he is a fine writer as well.   The Ink-Keeper’s Apprentice is a very good read.

The threads of a little boy’s life are drawn together and lead to a happy ending, thanks to the wisdom of his grandfather, in this beautifully written and illustrated picture-book: Babu’s Song by Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen and illustrated by Aaron Boyd (Lee & Low, 2003). Set in contemporary Tanzania, Bernardi lives with his grandfather, Babu. They make a living from the toys which Babu makes and Bernardi sells at the market. Bernardi shares a love of soccer with the other boys his age and he wishes he could afford to go to school like they do…. and he longs for the new football he sees in a shop window.

One day Babu gives Bernardi a musical box he has made from an old tin: it plays a song that Babu used to sing to him, which makes it extra special as Babu lost his voice after an illness several years earlier:

Bernardi hugged Babu, and together they listened to the music. That night for the first time in many nights, Bernardi fell asleep listening to Babu’s song.

The following Saturday, Bernardi sells the music box to an insistent tourist and decides he will buy himself the football. However, he finds that he cannot buy it and, filled with guilt, he hands the money over to Babu. Babu leaves Bernardi for a while, then returns with three surprises: a school uniform, because he has paid the fees for Bernardi to go to school; a soccer ball he has made; and an old lard tin to make another music box.

Babu’s Song became an immediate hit in our household and, since it arrived a few months ago, we have read it many times. I’ve included it in my Personal View for our current music theme; and it is definitely one of the books Steve Adams of the Willesden Bookshop would have been referring to when he spoke to me about children’s books about Africa and India starting to reflect a modern urban setting. The illustrations here really help to get that across.

All in all, there’s plenty of food for thought and this is exactly the kind of story we need to get children thinking at an early age, even if subconsciously to start with, about the distribution of world wealth. For parents reading this book with their children, it is a wake-up call: a tourist paying, albeit generously, for a hand-made souvenir makes it possible for a child to attend school…

Little Brother read this as his African book in our Book Challenge so I’ll leave him with the last words:

There are some sad bits and some happy bits, which makes it a heart-moving story.

Southeast Asia’s literature is as rich and diverse as the region itself, but unfortunately, there’s still a derth of books for children by Southeast Asian authors translated into English. Even when they are written in English by Southeast Asian writers, such as the books by Singaporean Shamini Flint and Malaysian Margaret Lim), they rarely find their way into the US or other English speaking countries. It’s fairly easy to find factual books or folktale retellings, but the majority of the books in English related to the region are written by European or American authors.

PaperTigers this week joins many other bloggers on a virtual tour of children’s literature from/about Southeast Asia by pointing readers to reviews and blog posts written by our team:

Former PaperTigers blog contributor Janet Brown has looked closely at the book Happiness of Kati, by Thai writer Jane Vejjajiva. Aimed at 12+ year-olds, the book was the first children’s book to win the S.E.A. Write Award, given to the best literature by Southeast Asians. Read Janet’s three posts about the book (1, 2, 3), as she gets deeper into the beautifully layered story of a Thai girl and her family. And for an interesting look on the world of children’s books in Thailand, read the transcript of a paper by Jane Vejjajiva, presented at the IBBY Congress, in 2008.

Reviewed by Charlotte, The Killing Sea (Simon & Schuster) by lifelong Bali resident Richard Lewis is a fictionalized account of the impact of the 2004 Tsunami in Aceh, Indonesia, particularly in the lives of two teenagers caught up in the tragedy. Lewis’ The Flame Tree, also set in Indonesia in post 9/11, is another important title, as it helps dispel stereotypes, especially common since then, about the Islamic world.

The Bee Tree

The round-up of the Southeast Asia blog tour, with links to all participating posts, will be posted at Chasing Ray on Wednesday, 08/12 (which means bloggers still have time to send in their posts!). We are looking forward to finding out what others have contributed to the feast!

For our new issue of PaperTigers, whose theme is Music in Children’s Books, Argentinian Mexican poet, Jorge Luján has written a very special Personal View, “Voices on the Air: Writing Poetry and Songs for Children“.

Here is an extract, in which he describes his relationship with poetry:

Poetry is a kind of vertigo for me. A challenge that frequently knocks me down, makes me feel trapped within my limits, and keeps me isolated from grace… but occasionally, drives me to horizons of astonishment, pleasure, and growth. I’m convinced that, if we are open to it, poetry can envelop us in a rare, subtle atmosphere. And poetry is not only to be found in poems, but is also present in the endless forms of nature or in the touching gestures, words and acts of people.

As a songwriter and a singer, I love the experience of the voice taking to the air like wings taking flight. Composing words and music together is a complex experience of joy and sorrow, but one which also implies building bridges between people.

I urge you to read the whole article. I found it very moving - and interesting too, for Jorge has introduced me to the work of some Latin American poets I’m slightly ashamed to admit I didn’t know…

This week’s Poetry Friday is hosted by Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect… Head on over!

The new issue of PaperTigers, focusing on “Music in Children’s Literature,” is now live!

Music is central to the human experience and has been bound up with poetry and storytelling since time immemorial. We have brought together an international array of writers and artists whose lives and work have been touched by music; and whose work, in turn, reaches out across geographical boundaries to touch their audience.

As the final words of the opera Naomi’s Road say, “We’ll always carry with us these three things. Gift of music. Gift of words. Gift of love.”

We hope that you’ll find inspiration for all three of these gifts among our website’s new features, which include interviews with Joy Kogawa and Matt Ottley; gallery features of Lulu Delacre and Satoshi Kitamura’s work; essays by Jorge Luján and Michelle Lord, and more. Through September, we’ll continue to explore, here on the blog, the ways in which music features in children’s and young adult literature, so read the new features and let us know what you think by leaving a comment on this or any of our upcoming music-related posts!