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By:
Administrator,
on 1/31/2013
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Margo Dill's Read These Books and Use Them!
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Hippo and Gorilla are two loveable characters, (remember The Odd Couple?) who face problems children will be all too familiar with–things like crashing model airplanes (Airplanes), eating too many donuts (Donuts), and a rainy day birthday (Bathroom Beach) . Illustrator and author Bryan Langdo has created cute, humorous picture books for children. But what makes these different than the thousands of picture books at your library?
These are made for your e-readers! Right now, they are best for an iPod Touch or iPhone or iPad with the program iBooks. I didn’t have this (my iPod Touch is a 2nd generation–I can’t get iBooks on it, oh my!), and so Bryan sent them to me for my Kindle and then the MP3 files, so I could listen to the wonderful readings of the stories by Billy Bob Thompson (he does great voices for Hippo and Gorilla!). I listened to them at Panera Bread, and I found myself giggling out loud. What are the people around me thinking?
Okay, so as a preschool/kindergarten/first grade teacher or parent, what should you know about these cute books and how you can use them with children?
1. Brian and I exchanged a few e-mails, and here is what he said, “The bells and whistles are basically the audio narration, sound effects, incidental music, and read-along feature.” (Kids will LOVE this–my daughter at 2 loves ANYTHING on the iPod Touch or Kindle. She actually says this sentence, “I need the iPod Touch.” I’m not sure if I should be proud? 
)
2. Here’s what Brian said about his own series (and by the way, I COMPLETELY agree with him!): “I’m hoping to share with you and your readers my new series of early readers titled Hippo & Gorilla. It’s about two best friends who are total opposites. Hippo is a great friend, but he has a tendency to make bad decisions. He breaks things, he eats too much, and he makes big messes. Gorilla, however, doesn’t do enough of those things. Together, they make a great team!
These eBooks for young readers explore the joys—and the pitfalls—of friendship, using simple vocabulary and sentence structure. Each book contains audio narration along with original music and sound effects. They’re available for iPad, Kindle, and Nook.”
3. GET HIPPO AND GORILLA IN DONUTS FOR FREE! Go to this link. This will only work if you have access to iBooks on your iPad or other Apple device. But here’s the link if you are lucky to have one of these: https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/donuts/id585686738?mt=11
4. There are 5 individual books about Hippo and Gorilla. One is free as stated above, and the others are only 99 cents (again, right now for Apple devices). All 5 stories can be purchased together for $1.99!
5. These are the perfect books to start important conversations with our little ones–in the classroom or at home. You can ask questions like: Was Hippo a good friend? Should Gorilla fly his airplane again? What else could Hippo and Gorilla do on Gorilla’s birthday? How can Gorilla and Hippo compromise? and more.
6. Bryan has a website and blog for you to check out more details. You can see these at: http://www.hippoandgorilla.com OR http://www.hippoandgorilla.blogspot.com/ .
If you have any questions, please leave them in the comments–Bryan can stop by and answer them!
The season of gift giving is here, and I know what all of you TA followers want...a book. Right? And what is our go-to gift for the loved ones in our lives? A book.
I learned early that those square packages that didn't rattle when you shook them were either underwear or a books. A solid thump would eliminate the former and affirm the latter. No matter what other presents I received, Christmas afternoon would find me curled up with my gift book. My beloved
Charlotte's Web was a gift from my father when I was eight. A biography, You Might as Well Live, my junior year of high school began a life long love of Dorothy Parker. My dad was the book giver in my family. He somehow knew just the right book for me, and what I had already read. I suppose I should not have been surprised since he was an FBI agent with excellent powers of observation.
Holiday giving was pretty easy at my house. Both of my parents were non-fiction readers whose tastes ran to non-fiction, particularly political history and biography. They never read fiction. Christmas at my house was books, books and more books (and, from my ever-practical mother, underwear.)
When I had a child of my own, I felt blessed that she loved books as much as I. Every gift giving occasion included at least one new book, that her father or I would read to her.
Then my daughter was diagnosed as severely dyslexic. While her own vocabulary and understanding of what was read to her was far beyond her grade level, what she could actually read for herself did a number on her self-esteem and willingness to persevere. While everyone in her class was reading Harry Potter, my daughter could not read the picture books that I had written about her. It was a frustrating situation, since she still loved books and stories.
Maybe you have a reluctant reader or one, who like my daughter, has so much difficulty reading that it is an ordeal rather than a pleasure.
1. Magazine subscription--My husband swears that the only reason he ever read as a child was that his parents gave him a Sports Illustrated subscription every year from third grade on. My dad, the Wizard of Gifts, didn't miss a beat when he learned his granddaughter would never be a reader. He added up her love of nature, travel and her talent as a photographer...and renews her subscription to National Geographic every Christmas. Today, Lily is a National Arts Honor Student in Photography. Her career goal? To be a National Geographic photographer, of course.
2. Don't overlook the e books and magazines. I know I know...there's nothing like a book. However, for a kid, there is nothing like convenience. When I was a librarian, I noticed that if a student had a choice between the same book in hardcover or paperback, they would always choose the paperback. They were already lugging around pounds of textbooks; a paperback could fit in their pocket or purse, always ready for a spare minute's reading. The same goes for our kids and their various electronic gadgets. There is nothing more convenient than a download to an electronic reader or tablet. (E formats can be downloaded to computers as well...but not so convenient.)
As I mentioned in a previous post, Lily took to the Kindle immediately because there are a variety of applications that can provide voice-activation. Be sure to check when ordering an e-book that voice-activation is available for that particular title. For instance, both of my middle grade novels Yankee Girl and Jimmy's Stars are voice enabled. The one books Lily is dying to read, To Kill a Mockingbird, is not even available as an e-book. (And no, the movie is not the same thing. We saw it again as a family at Thanksgiving and those of us who have read it agree that as wonderful as Gregory Peck is, it is not the same experience as Harper Lee's lyrical prose.)
As for e-magazines, it would be easier to list those not available electronically. You can download a subscription to everything from Sesame Street to Seventeen to Sports Illustrated.
One word of caution. Picture books derive much of their meaning from their arrangement of pictures and text. Even though there are a number of picture books that are available in e format, the print to screen layout is not always the same. There are books designed specifically as e books (Lulu's Brew by Elizabeth Dulembe immediately comes to mind.) The same is true of verse novels and books of poetry. As much as I love Ellen Hopkins' YA novels, a great deal of their meaning is derived from the way the verse is arranged on the page...something which does not always turn up in the version.
3. Audio books--I love being read to. So does my husband. When we were first married and our car did not have a tape player, I would read to him on long car trips. You know you are in love if you are willing to spend an 18 hour car trip reading a corporate history of the Anheuser-Busch company, aloud.
By the time our daughter came along we had upgraded to cars with tape and then CD players. We made a lot of long car trips. Enter the audio book. Both Lily and my husband ( see item one) enjoyed hearing Henry Huggins, the Ramona books, The Chronicles of Narnia, and the Percy Jackson Series.
(We are still awaiting an audio version of To Kill a Mockingbird.)
Two words of wisdom in buying reading material for anyone. One...if you don't know the person well enough to know they will be interested in your gift selection, don't give a book. If you have to ask a bookseller, "What are 12-year-olds (fill in the appropriate age) reading?" then you don't know this child well enough to give them a book.I learned this the hard way from my husbands nieces and nephew who were not readers. For years they would open my present with a fake smile and an unenthusiastic "Oh, it's a book." I also have observed the wrath of some parents whose child was given "what 12-year-olds are reading," (usually by a grandparent), only to find that the parent found the book inappropriate. When in doubt...give a gift card to their local (independent, if possible) bookseller.
Two...just because you loved a book doesn't mean your child will. The only audio book that was spurned by both Lily and my husband, was Charlotte's Web! Sigh. It happens to the best of us.
Happy (book giving) holidays, one and all.
Posted by Mary Ann Rodman
By:
jrpoulter,
on 9/28/2012
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Hi Everyone! 
Lists can be extremely useful, especially when they are constantly being updated!
Here are two such.
The first, compiled by the enterprising and enthusiastic Brain Grove, is a list of US publishers who are currently accepting submissions for children’s books – http://j.mp/SVbnCk – he also, very helpfully, adds links toeach entry to take you straight to the site. I also recommend his ebook on query /submission letter writing.
The second, a veritable database, is continuously being updated by the very proactive authors, Delin Colon and Lisa Kalner Williams – http://bit.ly/writerinterviewopps …
If you haven’t joined www.jacketflap.com, I highly recommend it – an excellent networking site for all things related to children’s literature and books.
Get busy and good luck!
Nice to see Mousey is getting around. I discovered this website in India with a nice Mousey picture on the front page... right next to Bruce.
I'd say Mousey is nearly famous. It's an especially long way to go for a very short mouse to travel. And it's not true that elephants are afraid of mice... that's just a myth.
http://www.firstpost.com/topic/product/itunes-fun-ipad-kids-app-mousey-the-explorer-video-FqQjdaClm0M-51421-1.html
From Shelf-Awareness.com:
Print books are preferred over e-books by parents as well as children when they read together, according to a new study from the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop that found 89.9% of iPad owners read “mostly print books and some e-books” with their children, 7.5% read both formats equally with their children, and 2.7% read “mostly or exclusively” e-books.
Almost 75% of the responding parents said they prefer co-reading print books, with more than 50% of their children agreeing. Fewer than 10% of parents or children prefer co-reading e-books exclusively.
The center noted “these preliminary findings suggest that many parents likely perceive children’s print books and e-books differently, particularly in terms the experience and expectations of co-reading. Moreover, in practice, e-books may be playing a different role in homes than print books are. Print books appear to serve as iPad owners’ preferred co-reading medium even in homes where e-books are available. E-books, on the other hand, may play supporting roles for developing kids’ literacy skills particularly when a parent can’t be around to read to them or when families are outside of the home.”
By:
JD Holiday,
on 9/13/2012
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JD'S Writers Blog
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The Spy GameEddie would love to have a puppy to play with. A puppy would pull on a rope. Catch a ball and lick your face. But his Uncle brings Eddie an older dog named about a famous spy.
What can you do with an old dog? It probably couldn't learn new tricks, and the only thing this dog did was stare. It's what they find to do together that makes them the best of friends!
By:
Aline Pereira,
on 8/24/2012
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PaperTigers
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Author and educator Sylvia Vardell has just announced some exciting news on her blog Poetry for Children! She and her friend/author Janet Wong have collaborated on another wonderful project: The Poetry Friday Anthology.
The Poetry Friday Anthology is a new anthology of 218 original poems for children in kindergarten through 
fifth grade by 75 popular poets including J. Patrick Lewis, Jack Prelutsky, Jane Yolen, Margarita Engle, X. J. Kennedy, Kathi Appelt, Guadalupe Garcia McCall, Georgia Heard and Nikki Grimes and many more.
The book includes a poem a week for the whole school year (K-5) with curriculum connections provided for each poem, each week, each grade level. Just five minutes every “Poetry Friday” will reinforce key skills in reading and language arts such as rhyme, repetition, rhythm, alliteration, etc.
Thanks to the lovely blog world of the “kidlitosphere,” I’ve been a fan of “Poetry Friday” since the beginning (in 2006). The idea of pausing for poetry every Friday is so appealing to me, maybe because Friday has always been my favorite day of the week. I think it is a natural fit for busy teachers and librarians who can build on that Poetry Friday tradition by incorporating a weekly poetry break into their regular routines. That’s the first “hook” in our book– the idea of sharing a poem every Friday! (More often is even better, but Friday is the hook!)
The other hook is the call for connecting with the new Common Core standards (and in Texas where the Common Core was not adopted– don’t get me started– connecting with the TEKS, Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills). We’ve always had curricular standards of one kind or another, but poetry hasn’t always been an explicit component. It is now! Of course this worries me a bit as poetry may also be abused and butchered in the name of test preparation. But the challenge is to provide guidance in sharing poetry that respects the integrity of the poem, celebrating the pleasures of language, while reinforcing the necessary skills. That’s the second book “hook”– we’ve tied every poem in The Poetry Friday Anthology to the Common Core standards (and TEKS standards in Texas) for poetry.
This book is first and foremost a quality anthology of 218 original poems for children written by 75 of today’s most popular poets. Children in any state (or country) can enjoy, explore, and respond to these poems. However, we have also come to realize that educators, librarians, and parents are looking for guidance in how to share poetry with children and teach the skills within the curriculum as well. Thus, this book offers both. It’s part poetry collection and part professional resource guide– quality poetry plus curriculum-based suggestions for helping children enjoy and understand poetry more deeply.
You’ll find more information about the book at the PoetryFridayAnthology blog here. Our official launch date is Sept. 1 when we hope to offer an e-book version of the book as well– projectable and searchable! But the print version of the book is available NOW to help jumpstart the school year with poetry. I’ll also be posting a few nuggets from the book here in the near future– as well as more about our new joint publishing venture, Pomelo Books.
This week’s Poetry Friday is hosted by Dori Reads so head on over and see what treasures are in store.
For the first time ever, actual science can be derived from reading habits.
Thanks to e-books, companies like Amazon and B&N now know
whether people are actually reading the e-books they buy. Better yet, they even know where in books people are leaving off, which books are most likely to be read all the way through, and the speed people are reading them.
As
Mike Shatzkin points out, this is important knowledge that the e-booksellers have and publishers do not. It could be more important to know whether people finish a bestselling book than how many copies it sells. If people stop reading and start reading something else instead, it could be a sign people might not be as enthusiastic for that author's next book. And if people read something very quickly it could be a sign of enthusiasm.
The possibilities don't stop there. Could authors improve if they knew at which spots in their book people are dropping off?
Needless to say, this frontier is not without its controversy. Readers may not like to have their e-reading habits snooped, even if it's done anonymously. Authors may be frustrated to be confronted with yet another backwards-looking tool that can pigeonhole them based on their past books without considering whether the new one is really good. And publishers may be frustrated that Amazon and the other e-booksellers possesses this competitive advantage.
I'm excited to have any new insight available, provided this information is made available to authors. It hardly seems fair if this information is hoarded by the e-booksllers if it's being used to make decisions about whether and how an author is signed or promoted. And, of course, care must be taken to ensure that reader privacy is protected.
What about you? Would you want to know where people are leaving off in your book? Is this new technology exciting or intrusive?
Art: The Librarian by Giuseppe Arcimbolo
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By:
David Thorpe,
on 8/5/2012
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An Awfully Big Blog Adventure
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Are you e-experienced? Until a week ago I wasn't. But, in the last three weeks I have made and published my first e-book.
It feels a bit like giving birth to, I don't know, some kind of strange mutant mongrel beast, some hybrid child whose destiny is unknown, who may grow up to mock me, betray me, give me glory (but only by leave of the wayward capriciousness of viral flukeiness) or, even worse, disappear completely without trace in the infinitely absorptive sponginess that is the e-thernet.
Anyway, for what it's worth, I thought I would share my experience. Some of you may be teetering on the edge of this mysterious pool of brave new publishing opportunities, debating whether to take the plunge. I expect many of you already are e-experienced swimmers with Olympian credits. If so, you can poke fun at my ineptitude.
I kindled thoughts of these waters for a long while. Some of my books had been converted into ebooks by my publishers, but they were like the offspring of alcohol-obscured one night stands; unknown and unclaimed. The publishers didn't even tell me they had been born, I only found out by accident, and I don't have a clue about sales figures.
In a tentative way, I had previously offered PDF downloads of one or two stories or chapters for sale through my websites, but they had languished as forlorn and undownloaded as an unfertilised dandelion in a meadow of opium poppies.
I own no e-reader; nothing I cannot read in a bath without fear. Every work of fact or fiction in my library looks dissimilar from every other, and I like it like that.
What persuaded me to dip my sceptical toe in these waters was partly the persistent encouragement of a local publisher, Cambria Books, whose manager, Chris Jones, is passionate about their new business model.
OK, I said. But I wasn't sure what content to offer first. Then, an old colleague and the series editor of some of my non-fiction, suggested that I republish an old novella of mine. (Thank you, Frank.) This seemed a perfect way of testing out the market, since I knew it would have an existing audience, and that there'd be a new one to which I wanted to introduce it. All I would have to do was find those readers. (The expected readership, by the way, is YA, most likely readers interested in humour, politics, science fiction, and comics/graphic novels.)
I still am sceptical, so I'm going to be watching sales with interest.
The whole process of preparing the content from start to finish took two weeks, which itself is very attractive: contrast this with the swimming-through-jelly tempo of traditional publishing - two years start to finish?
Here are the stages it went through:
 |
| One of the illustrations, by Rian Hughes |
- Scanning in the original book using OCR (optical character recognition) software. I used ABBYY. The software is remarkably accurate but does need a bit of an eagle eye for spotting 1s that should be Is and Os that should be 0s.
- Scanning in the 12 illustrations, which different comics artists from Dave McKean to Simon Bisley had contributed to the original edition. This was the fun bit.
- Designing the cover, which included colourising in Photoshop a black-and-white illustration that had been on the inside. That was fun too.
- Adding a short story on the same theme to give extra value, that had been published elsewhere in another collection but not widely seen.
- Writing a new afterword. This involved a nostalgic and enjoyable expedition into overgrown verges along the side of my personal memory lane. I took my butterfly net for effect (a butterfly effect) to catch those extra special chaotic moments.
- Completing the whole thing in Word. Word, the software, is not my friend, although Word, the archetypal personification of language, is. But sometimes you have to dance with the Devil, since the e-book conversion process requires a Word file. How did Microsoft sew that one up?
- Making sure all the prelims were hunky-dory and accurate. That included researching and writing up short biographies of all the artists, updating them from the previous edition, and making sure I thanked everyone.
- Then I thought I ought to add some adverts for some of my other books at the back that readers might be interested in. Why not? 70-90 years ago, most books had adverts in the back - and the front, sometimes, just like magazines. Perhaps this is the way to go to finance this new form of publishing? Interactive ads for acne-banishing face creams in the back of YA novels, anyone?
- Then I got carried away and added a real ad from the 1940s for a chemistry set for boys that included real uranium! Most people don't believe that I didn't make this up.
I sent the file to the publisher, who checked it over, made more corrections, added the ISBN and converted it into the .mobi format, which Amazon likes.
I chose to go with Cambria Books, but there are many other companies offering similar deals. It may be worth shopping around, but I didn't bother. Some of them offer print-on-demand as another option. This may be worth considering as well. If you want to get reviews you should have a few print copies to send to reviewers. Also, if you don't think you will sell more than 1000 print copies, print-on-demand is generally cheaper than a conventional print run. Over this number, you should go down the conventional printing route.
The publisher then sent the e-book file back to me to check. I was horrified. I had designed it in Gill Sans font, which I love, and it came back in a frankly disgusting, evil, serifed font. All my lovely formatting was strewn about like weatherboard in a hurricane, and my unique work was reduced to the same common denominator as everything else that you see on a Kindle.
I had to resign myself to the fact that there is little you can do about this, except to control where some page breaks go. It's a bit like designing for the web, except you have even less control. That's the nature of this homogenising beast.
Then, holding a stiff drink, I muttered: “Go!" The publisher uploaded the file to Amazon and it was
live - for sale - in less than 24 hours! Wow.
However, I didn't just want to sell it through Amazon and merely contribute to their increasing domination of the market. I wanted people to be able to read it on something other than a Kindle.
So the nice publisher also gave me a version in the .epub format, which works with other e-readers.
Cambria Books also made a
Facebook page and a
webpage on their company website for the title, to promote it alongside all of their other titles. For all of this Cambria charged £200, which includes £50 for the ISBN. The book is for sale at £1.84. So, I need to sell, bearing in mind the cut that Amazon takes, just 125 copies to get my money back.
I could also have chosen to do all of this myself, but I'm lazy, and I figured that it's worth it, especially since this was my first time.
But I wasn't finished yet.
I then chose to make the files available on my own website. I already sell books on my website through PayPal. Selling e-books is slightly different, because there isn't a physical product to ship, and you need to create a place where buyers can download the file, after PayPal has checked that they have paid for it successfully.
This place has to be completely inaccessible to search engines, otherwise people will just grab the files for nothing.
Here's what I did:
- I made the webpages holding the downloads, one for each format, which just need to be very simple, and put them together with the files in a folder on the server. At the top of the web pages is this text: <meta name="robots" content="noindex" />.
- Just to be safe, I also uploaded a text file to the folder named robots.txt, which simply contains the following:
User-agent: *
Disallow: /
- Both of these little tricks should prevent search engines from indexing and making public the content of this folder.
- The next thing to do is to get an account with PayPal, if you haven't already got one, and, once logged in, go to the Buy Now Button-making page (if you can't find it just type those words into the search function), which allows you to create a button for a single item purchase.
- All you need to do here, is to put in the name of the e-book, a product code that you make up, and its price. There is, of course, no shipping cost. You probably want to check the button that says “Track profit and loss".
- Then you come to Step 3, subtitled “customise checkout pages". This is the important bit. Answer the questions the following way:
- “Do you want to let your customer change order quantities?" No, because they won't order one more than one e-book.
- "Can your customer at special instructions in a message to you?" No, there's no need for that.
- "Do you need your customer's shipping address?" No, because messages will go to their PayPal e-mail address.
- Check the box saying “take customer to a specific page after checkout cancellation" and type or paste in the full website address for your shop page.
- Check the box saying “Take customer to a specific page after successful checkout". Here is the really, really important bit: type or paste in the full website address for the page they go to download your e-book. Make sure this is right! This is the complete address for the page that you made earlier and uploaded, the one at the otherwise secret place.
- All you have to do now is click “create button" (don't worry, you can go back and change things if you made a mistake, as I did), and, when happy, copy the code and paste it on your page exactly where you want the button to be.
- Save your page and upload it to your website.
That's it!
The things writers have to do these days.
But I still hadn't quite finished. I had to write a news item publicising the e-book for the front page of my website, in which I included a link not just to the page where people can buy my books, but to the
exact part on the page where they can buy that e-book, to make it super-easy for them.
On that page, I include all the options for them to make the purchase: a link to the Amazon page, because most people will be comfortable doing that; and the two buttons for both formats that I made using PayPal.
You can see the news item on the front page of my website
here.
I then wrote a post on my blog promoting the book, which you can read
here.
Of course, I also had to promote it on Facebook, on both
my own page and
the page made for the book itself, and on my
Twitter account.
And, I launched the e-book at what was billed as the UK's first festival for e-books, in Kidwelly last weekend. My publisher had a stand there.
Unfortunately, this event was poorly promoted and badly attended (having it in a more accessible place would have helped), but there were many
excellent speakers, not to mention, for children, our own Anne Rooney, plus Simon Rees and Mary Hooper, Clive Pearce and Nicholas Allan.
Several speakers told their own experiences of publishing e-books. Notable for me was Polly Courtney, who confessed her lamentable experiences with HarperCollins that made her realise that self-publishing was a far better route than being with one of the big five, and Dougie Brimson, who has sold over one million self-published e-books, because he knows his audience really well.
Listening to the speakers gave me confidence that it really is okay to do it yourself and publish ebooks. It doesn't mean you have to give up working with mainstream publishers. You can do both. But given that we all nowadays have to spend at least 25% of our time marketing ourselves and our books, in practice it is not that much more work.
As one of the speakers said, most readers don't care who the publisher is, as long as the book is good.
Did I leave anything out? Is there a better way of doing this? Perhaps some of you will share your experience. After all, I'm just a beginner, but at least I'm no longer an e-book virgin.
By:
jrpoulter,
on 7/25/2012
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Click to view slideshow.Books are created from the imagination and inspiration of authors and the insightful vision of illustrators. They are then crafted. The authorial crafting may be right brain with a touch of editing or slow and laborious left brain plotting. For an illustrator, it may be inspiration flowing like rivers from brush or stylus or it may be storybook or dummy creation then rethinks, scrap some ideas, adapt others. Eventually, a book emerges that is then ‘ready for submission’. These days, that may mean adding animation and audio to make the book a digital production for app developers like Utales or Flying Books, or for YA, formatting it for Kindle or Nook e-publishers. It may mean self publishing on Createspace or Lightningsource, Smashwords or Lulu. Or it will mean the long road via submission to traditional publishers.
If the latter is chosen, the publisher will often require more editing, changes and perhaps more changes. My own book, started under contract to one publisher, was already well underway with the inimitable Sarah Davis as illustrator. We were having a ball creating our book. Then our publisher was taken over and the new publisher wanted to institute changes. At first, the major change – ‘get rid of the dead bird’ – seemed straight forward. Then we realised the book needed the bird but, to keep it, we had to make some big adjustments. An injured bird can’t just disappear in a children’s book, it has to get better and be released, which, in our picture book, meant its story had to be woven into the fabric of the main story seamlessly. No problem, a few days and Sarah and I had nailed it! As book creators, you have to be flexible and, especially if going the traditional publisher route, you can’t be too precious about your creation.
SO! This exhibition is about the journey numbers of wonderful children’s and YA books took from creation to bookshelf! Each book has a different creation story to reveal - something the public doesn’t see, it’s behind the scenes. Now the reader can take a peek backstage, behind the scenes to how it all came together!
THE SET UP
Setting up was not straight forward. The spaces has to be utilised to best advantage and the items displayed needed to be seen from as many angles as possible given I had a two shelf rectangular glass case. I didn’t end up using everything I brought with me. It would have been too cluttered. Last minute inclusion, bulldog clips, proved life-savers! They held the photographic prints in place.
I had never ‘hung’ a painting before at an exhibition and that proved ‘interesting. Sarah Davis sent up her wonderful original painting via kindly courier, Peter Taylor, but it was unframed. I had no time to find a frame. Fortunately, I had one around the house that was a good match colour-wise though not quite the perfect size.
Given my exhibit was about my close collaboration with Sarah, the items displayed needed to reflect the two minds working together to make a new creative whole – our book! Sources of inspiration, stages in text change, changes in images, cover and trivia relating to the characters, objects and places in the book all combined to make a successful ( I hope you agree) exhibit!
Click to view slideshow.
THE LAUNCH
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Journey of a Book – children’s literature creation under the microscope as of 1/1/1900
by Scott Rhoades
I've posted about my gradual conversion to e-books before, but it's been a while. I now feel like I've read enough of them to be able to write somewhat coherently about the (nonsensical) battle of the book vs the e-book.
First of all, let me say that I no longer draw a line between e-books and "real" books like I once did. The words are the same regardless of the medium, and the experience of consuming the words is similar enough, that any thoughts I once had about e-books somehow being less real have vanished. As far as reading goes, they are just as real as paperbacks or hardbacks.
When I started the year with my new Nook Color, a Christmas present from my wife, I expected to read about 35-40 books in 2012, based on my reading history over the past few years since I started keeping track. I read 42 last year, 15 of them on my iPad. The rest were printed.
Right now, I am nearing the halfway point of my 31st book of the year. I think four of those have been printed books. The Nook is a major reason why I've read so much. It's easy to have around and comfortable to hold, especially for big books. I can carry an entire library with me, between the Nook's memory and its memory card. I've even switched my favorite magazine to a digital subscription. It's easy to read without losing the sense of the magazine's design, and I don't have to deal with piles of past issues. I can read with the lights out (although I don't do that much). I can adjust the font size for more comfortable reading, and adjust the brightness of the screen for comfort in whatever lighting I'm sitting in.
That last bit shouldn't be underestimated. One of my friends, who used to be an avid reader, had all but given up on reading because his aging eyes required perfect lighting and a reasonable font size. He bought his wife a Nook Color, tried reading on it, and ended up buying another one for his wife because he took hers over. Now he reads a lot again.
Clearly, this little device has its advantages, But what about disadvantages?
I'm sure there were people who complained when mass-produced books from printing presses replaced the carefully and lovingly made manuscripts of yore. Book lovers (and I consider myself one of them) always talk about how they prefer the feel of a book, the smell of the pages, the tactile pleasures of the printed book. You don't get that from a reader. I have a leather cover for mine that gives it a cozier feel than the hard plastic of the bare e-reader. It helps, but it's not the same. While the Nook is more comfortable to read in bed than a thick book or a large-format book, it can't compete with most books in the coziness battle. This has really become obvious to me in recent months after I inherited some books that belonged to my grandmother and my aunt, who both died in the past year. I pick up those books, several of which were read to me when I was very small, and I can smell Grandma's house. Those books are treasures, for reasons far beyond the wonderful words they contain. Nobody is going to get excited about inheriting my e-book collection when my time comes. Some of my printed books might mean something to somebody, though.
I love my bookshelves. I have shelves in three rooms, all overstuffed with books, too many to fit standing upright, so there are
Andrea has gotten it spectacularly right! The CEO of Tell Me a Story launched 10 new titles on 30th June, this year. I was privileged to be guest speaker at an event that had even seasoned politicians, Ian Rickuss, MP Lockyer, and Steve Jones, Mayor, Lockyer Valley Regional Council, commenting on attendance numbers!
Assembled authors, illustrators and guest panelists with Andrea Kwast
Muza Ulasowski [Panelist] and Guest Speaker, J.R.Poulter
The audience was rapt. I have seldom been at a publishing event where everyone’s eyes shone! Andrea has the devoted support of her very wide community of readers and growing. She also has the good fortune to have a very devoted group of assistants in administrator, Rel, and local photographer and budding author herself, Jenni Smith.
Research and innovation, preparedness to think out of the box, are hallmarks of Andrea and her team. She believes stories are lurking everywhere and it just takes the right determination, editing and dedication to bring them out. That she is succeeding over and above expetaction is more than demonstrated by the sellout and reprint, within the first few weeks since the launch, of no fewer than 3 titles!
Hearty Congratulations Andrea and Team and to all her authors – keep writing!
Click to view slideshow.
0 Comments on Wow of a launch results in 3 titles in reprint already! as of 1/1/1900
Hippo and Gorilla are two loveable characters, (remember The Odd Couple?) who face problems children will be all too familiar with–things like crashing model airplanes (Airplanes), eating too many donuts (Donuts), and a rainy day birthday (Bathroom Beach) . Illustrator and author Bryan Langdo has created cute, humorous picture books for children. But what makes these different than the thousands of picture books at your library?
6 Comments on Nicola’s Monsters! An interview with illustrator turned author, Nicola L. Robinson, last added: 5/30/2012
Mary, this is a sweet post, filled with good advice, but also personal about your daughter's challenges in reading. Isn't it great to have the e-readers for whomever needs them, or enjoys them too? And the audio books are wonderful to me; with long commutes, I have enjoyed many books. As for using other paths to learning, my school is an independent school that celebrates the differences of each of our students, who learn by working at their own topic, with their own curriculum written by the teachers. I imagine your daughter would have flourished here. And, we've had quite a few study photography through the years. Thanks for the good advice, especially NOT to buy a book for someone you don't know well. I hate to leave them out, but there are some who would not appreciate even the thought!
This was a wonderful post! I laughed out loud about knowing you are in love via reading aloud to your husband in the car. how I wish I could read in the car or on a train without feeling nauseous!
As for giving books to unenthusiastic readers, I can't help myself! I like to mark my favorite passage or chapter with a bookmark and ask them to read that section if nothing else. Hopefully that will hook them!
such great ideas...and they really should release an ereader version of to kill a mockingbird. such a beautiful story.
Wow, thank you all for such heartfelt commentary. Linda, I too wish I could have found a better educational situation for Lily. You would think a city the size of Atlanta would have had more options. The only one we found would have taken us hours and hours of driving (or moving into a neighborhood we couldn't afford...and mean hours and hours of driving for my husband), plus a tuition that would have wiped us out.
Valerie--I too am puzzled by the lack of diverse formats for TO KILL A MOCKING BIRD. I was hoping that after the hoopla of the books 50th anniversary a couple years ago that the publisher would loosen up and come up with more formats. Maybe if we all write the publisher:)
After I wrote yesterday, I realized that the perfect present for my perpetually traveling husband (he's in Australia this week, Miami the next)....his own Kindle! I used to loan him books until he left one on a plane ("You wanted it back? But you already read it." Grrr.) I will start him off with a new Sports Illustrated subscription (his has lapsed since his father died.)
Bildebok, I like your idea for tagging your favorite chapter or passage. I may have to swipe it!
Still, books are as personal as scent. Just as I would never buy Lily perfume without studying her current favorites and what she already has on hand, I would never buy a book for someone I didn't know really, really well.