How to use this Page

I know it must be just so thrilling! The cover is great...Congratulations!

When you have a minute, stop by my blog - I've given you an award!

Congratulations. Getting those new books out of the box is better than Christmas.

Malcolm

You're right, Malcolm. Opening a Christmas package is a great analogy.

Thanks for the comment!

Zamora's Ultimate Challenge sounds like it's a great book! Good luck on it, MK!

Alyssa
http://www.alyssamontgomery.com
http://amontgomery99.blogspot.com

Talk about time travel! Wow, Gus, you really ARE amazing!

One day I hope to be exactly like you...

Wendel
http://wendelwordsworth.blogspot.com

Go Mary! It's great to see you and Gus zipping through cyberspace!

Regan
http://www.regansrealm.blogspot.com

Great post, Mary!

Alyssa
http://www.alyssamontgomery.com

Thanks, two Blacks and Alyssa!

Gotta step into the 21st century!

I have a sneaking feeling the young girl you described meant all three: she was simply stating a fact; wanting to give you an "FYI," and issuing a challenge.

Oh, to be that confident at that age. I could learn a thing or two from her.

Best of luck, and did you get HER autograph?

Diana
http://wendelwordsworth.blogspot.com

Ha! Confidence is better than shrinking violet I suppose. Well good for them. After all, who will we read in our dotage?

Hi Mary!

Tweens are cool! And they are so smart and creative too. They are uber internet saavy. It's good to have a tween in the house when your seeking information on anything.

They are also expensive. Make sure to have an unlimted texting plan with cell phones...you'll need it.

Unfortunately - one thing has not changed from when I was a tween. They are still sooo self aware of appearances. sigh.

Love your comments, Word! So much has changed, but one thing stays the same..."how do I look?"

Wish we could tell them that it really does matter what's inside! But, they wouldn't listen. We didn't!

I'm not sure. Do I qualify as a tween? I feel like one some days.

But actually I'm a WOOFer who looks at tweens and tries to remember what it's like at that age.

One day they'll look back... and I guess all we as adults really want for them is that they look back with fond memories.

Signed: Tween a rocking chair and a hard mattress.

Tweens are pretty cool. My two oldest are past the tween stage and full on into the teen stage, which isn't always fun. My little one is only 8 and she thinks (and I agree) that the coolest thing in the world has to be horses!

Cheers,
Michele
http://www.michelescott.com
http://www.adventuresnwriting.blogspot.com

Ooooh, two teenagers, Michele. Have fun! And, good luck with the new book on Quake!

http://www.quakeme.com

Thanks for stopping by!

I have tween grandchildren now and I am much calmer and more tolerant about what they do than about what my own kids did. You see, I now know that everything is just a phase and, no matter what they are going through, there's a good life on the other side of the tweenage years.

Wonderful perspective, Fairy Lady.

I believe, as grandparents, we've learned to "pick our battles." Something that was hard to do as parents.

Thanks for stopping by!

That's so interesting to know, Mary! I agree that young children today know so much, compared to what we did at their age.

I was truly amazed, Mayra! I expected to have to explain to them what a record player was and some of them had one!!

Young Milly is the heroine in Julia Alvarez’s Finding Miracles, which was featured as our Tiger’s Choice last month. Born Milagros, and adopted by an American couple from an unnamed country in Latin America, Milly is in many ways a typical high school girl grappling with issues of identity. As Janet points out in her review of the book, “In her journey to learn how to be Milagros as well as Milly, this extraordinary young woman learns that family is an expandable concept.”

Whereas Milly’s tale isn’t “about adoption,” Julia Alvarez sensitively weaves in the theme around the book’s other topics—which makes it a very timely read for National Adoption Awareness Month, when we celebrate adoption as one of the special ways in which families are formed.

Adoption added complexity and depth to Milly’s journey of self-discovery, as it did to Joseph Calderaro’s personal quest in Rose Kent’s Kimchi & Calamari, about a Korean teen who was adopted as a child by Italian-American parents. Whereas Finding Miracles and Kimchi & Calamari don’t deal exclusively with issues of adoption, by portraying well-rounded, well-adjusted adopted teens they emphasize the true, positive nature of adoption and help dispel the stereotypes that abound in literature and the media. For these and many others reasons, I highly recommend them.

Click here for ideas on how to celebrate and advocate for children who have yet to find a loving family to be a part of, and check out Marjorie’s The Ties of Love post for more book ideas and resources on the theme. You don’t need be a member of the adoption community to appreciate and enjoy this celebration!

Today the PaperTigers is thrilled to be part of Katia Novet Saint-Lot’s virtual book tour for her wonderful book, Amadi’s Snowman (Tilbury House). From her home in Hyderabad, India, Katia is spending this month visiting blogs around the world in interviews and photos, discussing her life as a writer and global nomad, and providing photos and drawings from children who have fallen in love with her irrepressible and insatiably curious creation, Amadi.

The drawings that preface our interview with Katia come from students in two fourth grade classes whom she met during a Hyderabad school visit.

These are children fluent in English, with Hindi and Telugu taught as second languages, who were quite interested when Katia told them that Amadi and his classmates are English speakers as well.

And as their delightful drawings plainly reveal, they became immersed in the Nigerian world of the small Igbo businessman and devoted reader in the making, Amadi!

PaperTigers: Your life has been a tapestry of living in many cultures—in France, Spain, England, the United States, Nigeria, India. How has this helped you as a writer? Katia: This is an interesting question. How does life in general help and/or affect us as writers? I would say every experience shapes us, and what [...]

In 1995 the Texas State University College of Education honored distinguished alumnus Dr. Tomas Rivera, by developing the Tomas Rivera Mexican American Children’s Book Award. This award honors authors and illustrators who create literature that depicts the Mexican American experience. It helps keep alive Dr. Rivera’s legacy in literature and works towards sustaining the vision he saw for the education of Mexican Americans in the United States. In addition it raises conscious awareness among parents, teachers, and librarians of this distinguished literature so these books can inspire, entertain, and educate all children both at home and at school.

The 2008 winner of the award is Los Gatos Black on Halloween by Marisa Montes and illustrated by Yuyi Morales. Written for children in grades K -5, Montes weaves Spanish words into the rhyming text and tells the story of black cats, witches, skeletons and other spooky creatures that march to a haunted casa on Halloween night. Once there the creatures enjoy a fiesta with music and dancing until there is a “RAP! RAP! RAP!” at the door. This causes the frightened spooks to hide, for “The thing that monsters most abhor/Are human niños at the door! Of all the horrors they have seen/ The WORST are kids on Halloween!”

Marisa and Yuyi were kept busy last week with Tomas Rivera Book Award ceremonies and book signings! On Thursday, October 30th, they were honored at a special luncheon held at the university president’s home where they received their award prize and plaque. Later in the day, accompanied by a mariachi band, they attended the Author/Illustrator Presentation on campus.

The next day, as part of the Texas Book Festival Reading Rock Stars Program, the Tomás Rivera Committee selected a public school in Austin and bought every student a copy of Los Gatos Black on Halloween with the award seal on the cover. Yuyi and Marisa did a presentation at the school and the students were thrilled to get their books signed.

The whirlwind weekend of festivities continued on Nov 1st, when Montes and Morales participated in the Texas Book Festival by giving the Tomás Rivera Award reading session and then signing books for festival attendees. Click here to watch it on Youtube !

PaperTigers will continue to celebrate Hispanic Heritage Month until mid November.

Tonight I read Shin-chi’s Canoe by Nicola Campbell, illustrated by Kim LaFave to my daughter.  The story is a follow-up to Campbell’s earlier book Shi-shi-etko which narrates the story of a young aboriginal girl, Shi-shi-etko, as she is separated from her family at the age of six to attend a residential school.  In Shin-chi’s Canoe, Campbell returns to the same family but now it is time for Shi-shi-etko’s brother, Shin-chi to go to the same school with his sister.  Shin-chi is given a little carved canoe as a parting gift from his father and the boat will serve as a reminder during the cold cruel months ahead of a request Shin-chi has made of his father: namely, to build a dugout canoe for him when he returns home at the beginning of summer.

When this book arrived at our house, my daughter was immediately taken by it.  She and her classmates were all building boats to be launched at a nearby creek.  Can I show this book to my teacher?  She asked right away.  But we haven’t read it yet, I said.  We’ll read it tonight, I promise. At bedtime we curled up into bed and read Shin-Chi’s Canoe.  My daughter remained silent through the reading and at the end, she made a comment that struck me.  While I concentrated mostly on the social injustice of the aboriginal residential school experience, my daughter remembered instead the request Shin-chi made of his father, namely, the promise that he would have his own canoe by the end of that first year away at school.  See, his Daddy’s making the canoe just like Shin-chi asked, my daughter said.  Quite frankly, caught up as I was with the bigger social issue presented by the book, I had forgotten that simple request. I was amazed and humbled by my daughter’s observation. Truly, children have their own unique perspective.  That is why reading to them at bedtime can be so hugely rewarding.

Incidentally, November is National American Indian Heritage Month in the United States.  The story of Shin-chi and Shi-shi-etko is a great way to start educating young people about the history of aboriginal childrens lives in North America.

Readers of our blog may have noticed a new name as a byline for Books at Bedtime–one whom we are delighted to have as one of our PaperTiger team. Sally Ito is a Canadian poet, novelist, book reviewer, teacher, devoted children’s literature aficionada, and mother of two children whom she reads to regularly.

Sally will alternate with Marjorie in writing this popular PaperTigers feature, and in the weeks that she doesn’t present Books at Bedtime, she will chat with us about poetry for children, books that she loves, and –perhaps– how she has turned her family into a book group!

Welcome to the PaperTigers Blog, Sally–we’re so happy that your talent has been added to our ranks.

Sometimes the simplest remark can be the most transforming. “Perhaps, sir, you will come back with books,” a Nepalese headmaster said to John Wood, a vacationing Microsoft employee, as they stood in a school library that had twenty books that “were all backpacker cast-offs.” Haunted by the thought of children who might never know the joy of reading, Wood returned home and spent a year gathering children’s books. He went back to the headmaster with 3,000 volumes and a new direction for his life. John Wood decided that bringing books to children who have none was his vocation and Room to Read was born, as he tells readers in Leaving Microsoft to Change the World.

Wood put together an organization with staff who share his dream and his passion, aided by a fundraising network of more than 3,000 people. The core programs of Room to Read are the Reading Room which has built 5,600 libraries,  Local Language Publishing which publishes and distributes books written both in English and the local language, the School Room which works with local communities to build schools with 444 in use, the Room to Grow Girls’ Scholarship that enables 4,000 girls to complete their secondary education, and the Computer and Language Room which builds computer and language labs.

Found in India, Sri Lanka, Zambia, South Africa, Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia, Room to Read is vitalized by donations and volunteers, who have discovered how they can help by going to www.roomtoread.org. All share a common goal—to have built 10,000 libraries by 2010.

Scheduled half-day visits to a Room to Read site are welcome with advance arrangement.

One man, one dream, 3,000 books– one optimistic remark changed a life and consequently thousands of lives are being changed through the power of reading and the joy of literacy, all over the world.

Sounds fun!!!

You look GREAT, btw!! Have you lost weight? Different hair? Something...
:-)

Lost weight?? Must be an illusion, Chris! LOL!

Thanks for the comment! These two sisters were adorable.

Hi Mary,

Just stopping out to say hello! Looks like you had a good time and those two adorable girls - well - that's what it's all about.

Chris is right - you do look great!

Yay you!!

Word

Oh - I did a crit for you out at the cafe - not sure if you saw it or not.

Thanks, Word! It was so much fun!!