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1. The art. Collage! It's so very cool, incorporating stamps that author-illustrator Philip Christian Stead has collected since he was a kid, and lots of cut paper, as well as lettering from antique toy letterpress sets. It's equally cool to learn exactly how he does it: at the blog Seven Impossible Things, Stead gives a step-by-step guide that will have aspiring artists headed out the door for supplies. Really, if your favorite kid likes art, share the Seven Imp post with him or her.

2. The theme.  “After all, a big boat needs a big crew," i.e., friends can make all 
the difference. When Jonathan’s parents trade his teddy bear for a toaster, Jonathan takes sail in a Big Blue Boat to find his bear, Frederick, who “could be anywhere in the whole wide world.” On his travels, Captain Jonathan assembles an unlikely crew—a mountain goat, an old circus elephant, and a whale—who each have a unique skill to contribute.

3. The story. Jonathan and the Big Blue Boat makes a good read-aloud, ideally suited to preschool 4's and kindergarten classes.

4. The setting. At sea. On a huge steamship. Oh, those oceanic hues. Lovely.

5. The homage. The illustrations call to mind the work of Ezra Jack Keats. Published almost fifty years ago, Keats' The Snowy Day was the "first modern full-color picture book to feature an African-American protagonist," as the Jewish Museum points out in its current exhibition "The Snowy Day and the Art of Ezra Jack Keats." Jonathan and the Big Blue Boat also features a child of color.

In a new-book display at a nearby library, all the other books with nonwhite main characters concerned grim historical experiences. In an essay about the 2010 year in publishing, some experts at the Cooperative Children's Book Center* asked, "Where are picture books featuring contemporary African American children (Hooray for A Beach Tail by Karen Lynn Williams!) Why are we asking the same questions today that were being asked thirty years ago in terms of stagnating numbers?"

 Jonathan and the Big Blue Boat was my nomination for a Children's and Young Adult Bloggers Literary Award in the fiction picture book cateogry.

*****

Jonathan and the Big Blue Boat
by Philip Christian Stead
Neal Porter/Roaring Brook, 2011
32 pages

*Link to article referenced:  "Thoughts on Publishing in 2010," by Kathleen T. Horning, Carling Febry, Merri V. Lindgren, and Megan Schliesman. CCBC Choices 2011. 

What are the best new children's books you've read this year? Go, nominate them for a Children's and Young Adult Bloggers' Literary Award! The Cybils are taking nominations until October 15th; then, two panelists of judges for each category will choose winners. Anyone can nominate; you don't have to be a blogger. 

Eligibility rules—for the books, ebooks, and apps—are here.

The Cybils were announced early this morning. For the full list of the Children's and Young Adult Bloggers' Literary Awards, go here. You'll find good books for children in many categories and for many ages.

Congratulations to everyone!

Loyal Chicken Spaghetti readers know that I like to take pictures of book displays. (On a similar post last summer, a few others confessed to doing this, too. My people!) Yesterday's family outing to the charming holiday train show at the New York Botanical Garden gave me an excuse to hang around its gift shop, acting like a spy and taking pictures with my shoe phone.

Store displays are great ways to get recommendations. I spotted a mix of fiction and nonfiction, including Big Yellow Sunflower, by Frances Barry; Bugs in a Blanket, by Beatrice Alemagna; The Grouchy Ladybug and The Hungry Caterpillar, by Eric Carle; I Love Dirt: 52 Ways to Help Your and Your Kids Discover the Wonders of Nature, by Jennifer Ward; Snow Is Falling, by Franklyn M. Branley;  The Carrot Seed, by Ruth Krauss; a new edition of The Secret Garden, illustrated by Inga Moore; The Practical Naturalist, by Chris Packham; Blue Potatoes, Orange Tomatoes: How to Grow a Rainbow Garden, by Rosalind Creasy; and NYC books like Old Penn Station, by William Low, and I Love N.Y., by Christoph Niemann.

Speaking of snowflakes, while I did not see The Secret Life of a Snowflake (Voyageur Press, 2009) at the NYBG, this 48-page Cybils nominee is well worth seeking out. Author Kenneth Libbrecht, a physics professor at Caltech, studies crystal formation and takes stunning photographs. Subtitled "An Up-Close Look at the Art & Science of Snowflakes," the picture book for older readers (about nine and up) offers just what it promises.

I borrowed the cover image at the right from WorldCat.

On Mondays a number of the children’s book blogs offer posts about nonfiction for kids. (See the 11/15/10 roundup of links at In Need of Chocolate.) Because of reading for the Cybils awards, I have given over October and now November to books for tweens and teens. The following are from the list of middle grade/young adult nonfiction nominees; all three are well-documented and indexed, with suggestions for further reading and research.

Prior to this Cybils season, I wasn't that interested in visiting Colonial Williamsburg, but now I'm raring to go and drag the family with me. Reading books about the American Revolution is totally responsible. Margaret Whitman Blair's Liberty or Death concerns slaves who had run away from their owners and joined the British during the Revolution. The author did some of her research at Colonial Williamsburg, focusing on Lord Dunmore's all-black Ethiopian Regiment. All loyalists, including the runaways, were promised land after the war, but the patriots' victory precluded that. Three thousand black loyalists ended up in Nova Scotia and, from there, a smaller group, still in search of their rewards, settled back in Africa, in Sierra Leone, where their descendants live today.

Another military-affiliated book, set nearly two centuries later, is Candy Bomber, by Michael O. Tunnell. This title is a great  way to introduce kids to the Berlin airlift (1948-'49) and the beginnings of the Cold War. Stationed in Germany as part of the American effort to bring food and fuel to West Berlin during the Russian blockade, Air Force pilot Lieutenant Gail S. Halvorsen came up with the idea of dropping small parachutes of chocolate and gum. These were gifts for the children of Berlin, who began to wait for his flyovers and the “bombs” of treats. Many recipients drew pictures and wrote letters to thank him and the others involved in "Operation Little Vittles," and Halvorsen became a hero, not to mention a representative of the U.S. as a friendly, kindhearted counterpoint to the Soviet Union. Halvorsen's ties to the Berlin kids have continued to the present.

The last title today has to do with broncos, not war. Montana resident Sneed Collard III wrote The World Famous Miles City Bucking Horse Sale for children who go to rodeos or want to learn more about them. About the annual event in eastern Montana, the author says, "While other auctions and rodeos have come and gone, the Bucking Horse Sale has helped keep Western tradition and culture alive for more than sixty years." With enthusiam, excitement, and colorful photos, The World Famous Miles City depicts bull riding, mutton busting (in which children ride sheep), and two kinds of bronc riding (saddle and bareback), and more. Needless to say, you won't find much here about animal-rights organizations' objections to rodeo.

The books:

Liberty or Death: The Surprising Story of Runaway Slaves Who Sided with the British During the American Revolution
by Margaret Whitman Blair
National Geographic Society, 2010
64 pages

Candy Bomber: The Story of the Berlin Airlift's "Chocolate Pilot"
by Michael O. Tunnell
Charlesbridge, 2010
110 pages

The World Famous Miles City Bucking Horse Sale
by Sneed Collard III
Bucking Horse Books, 2010
64 pages

The Good, the Bad, and the Barbie:
A Doll's History and Her Impact on Us
by Tanya Lee Stone
Viking, 2010
130 pages

Is Barbie a "destructive force" or a "good role model for girls"?

Neither? Both?

Discuss.

But first you may want to read The Good, the Bad, and the Barbie.

This entertaining new book for teens by Tanya Lee Stone (Almost Astronauts) serves as not only a cultural biography of the slim-waisted, busty American doll but also an introduction to the confident businesswoman Ruth Handler, a Mattel founder and Barbie's creator.

Whether describing the late Mrs. Handler's childhood or what others think of Barbie's many incarnations over the toy's 51 years (Nascar driver, Presidential candidate, Fashion Queen, etc.), a strong sense of girl-power runs through the book. Stone writes,

"It is easy to jump on the bandwagon and say that Barbie must be sold as a pilot and not only a stewardess, or a surgeon and not only a nurse, but it's also important to remember that the word only can be just as limiting to girls. If a nurse is what you want to be, then a nurse you should be! It is Choice—with a capital C—that women have fought to have. It doesn't matter what the choice turns out to be, as long as it is your own."

The Good, the Bad, and the Barbie has been nominated for a Cybil award in the middle grade/young adult nonfiction category.

Lafayette and the American Revolution
by Russell Freedman
Holiday House, 2010
96 pages

How did Seigneur Marie-Joseph-Paul-Yves-Roch-Gilbert du Motier, marquis de Lafayette, a "boy general who had never fired a shot in battle," go on to become one of George Washington's closest aides—and a bona fide hero of the American Revolution? Russell Freedman, one of the best nonfiction writers for kids, deftly lays out a fascinating account of the teen-aged French nobleman who volunteered for the cause, our cause.

A fine choice for history buffs sixth grade and up, Lafayette and the American Revolution was nominated for a Cybil award in the middle grade/young adult nonfiction category. So was Freedman's longer book The War to End All Wars, which I mentioned here and here.

The Salmon Bears: Giants of the Great Bear Rainforest
by Ian McAllister and Nicholas Read
Photographs by Ian McAllister
Orca Book Publishers, 2010
96 pages

This good book from a Canadian independent press follows grizzlies, black bears, and spirit bears (an all-white mutation of black bears) through four seasons in British Columbia's Great Bear Rainforest. Highlights include full-page color photographs, many pull-out facts about the big mammals, and a strong case for preserving a remarkable stretch of wilderness. Source notes and a longer list for further reading would have been helpful for kids who want to learn more.

While the focus is on the animals and their environment (rather than on the humans working to preserve them), The Salmon Bears will appeal to fans of Houghton Mifflin's Scientists in the Field books, not to mention National Geographic's Face to Face with Animals series. The creative team was also responsible for The Sea Wolves—Living Wild in the Great Bear Rainforest.

Salmon Bears was nominated for a Cybil award in the middle grade/young adult nonfiction category. Readers can preview the book at www.salmonbears.com.

"On the Western Front alone, more than a half million men lost their lives in 1916. Second Lieutenant Alfred Joubaire, serving with the French 124th Regiment at Verdun, made the following entry in his diary on May 23, 1916: 'Humanity is mad! It must be mad to do what it is doing. What a massacre. What scenes of horror and carnage! I cannot find words to translate my impressions. Hell cannot be so terrible. Men are mad!'

That was the last entry in Alfred Joubaire's diary. That day, or possibly the next, his life was ended by a German shell. He was twenty-one."

from The War to End All Wars: World War I, by Russell Freedman, Clarion Books/Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2010. 192 pages.

Freedman's first-rate, must-read history of the First World War is a nominee in the Cybils' middle grade/young adult nonfiction category. Recommended ages: 12 and older.

Describing the silent-film star's hardscrabble early years, the following is an excerpt from Sir Charlie Chaplin, the Funniest Man in the World, by Sid Fleischman (Greenwillow/HarperCollins, 2010). This is the point in which Chaplin follows his brother's footsteps into acting.

"If Charlie had heard of Faust, who made a pact with the devil to exchange his soul for recaptured youth and other yearnings, the Cockney would have been glad to make the trade. All he yearned for was a change in luck and maybe a kidney pie. The change arrived, anyway, and haggle free."

Sir Charlie Chaplin, the Funniest Man in the World is for ages 9 and up, according to the publisher.

Writing at the publisher's blog, Under the Green Willow, librarian Susan Erickson said, "Sometimes I think [Sid Flesichman] wrote as much for his own enjoyment as for his young readers; his great skill as an author allowed him to do both." For this not-so-young reader, the curlicued writing style distracted me so much from the story that I stopped halfway through.

Sir Charlie Chaplin, the Funniest Man in the World was nominated for a Cybil award in the middle grade/young adult nonfiction category.

Don't miss Colleen Mondor's excellent list of nonfiction books that haven't yet been nominated for the Middle Grade/Young Adult Nonfiction category of the Cybils. You'll find 10 great suggestions for new nonfiction for older-kid readers. The subjects of these books include Cleopatra, Civil War spies, and an underwater science station.

For even more nonfiction ideas for this age group, look at all the books that have been nominated!

Everyone can nominate a book for the Children's and Young Adult Bloggers' Literary Awards (the Cybils) at the website. You do not have to be a blogger to nominate.

Books published between October 16, 2009, and October 15, 2010, are eligible.

Celebrate children's books! Nominations close October 15. Head on over to the Cybils site now.

I am happy to help out again with the annual Cybils awards, which honor children's books. As the organizer for the Middle Grade/YA Nonfiction category, I'll introduce the two panels that will help select the best older kids' nonfiction of the year. I'm including the panelists' Twitter feeds, marked with an @, too; follow them and keep up with book news and conversation.

Panelists (Round I Judges):

Karen Ball, Mrs. B's Favorites

Sarah Mulhern Gross, The Reading Zone @thereadingzone

David Judge, Adventures at Wilder Farm

Jessica Leader, Jessica Leader @JessicaLeader

Susan Thomsen, Chicken Spaghetti @C_Spaghetti

Judges (Round II):

Edi Campbell, Crazy Quilts @crazyquilts

René Colato Laínez, René Colato Laínez, La Bloga @renecolato

David Gutowski, Largehearted Boy @largeheartedboy

Colleen Mondor, Chasing Ray, Bookslut @chasingray

Sandhya Nankani, Literary Safari, Sepia Mutiny @litsafari

The panelists in many other categories are being announced over the next week, too. See the Cybils blog for details.

The 2010 Children's and Young Adult Bloggers' Literary Awards (the Cybils) need you! Here is the call for judges from administrator and co-founder Anne Levy.

Yes, it's that time of year, when we ask kidlit bloggers around the world to stop what they're doing and join us. It's going to be another crazy contest year, so we're again reminding everyone:

1. judging is loads of fun work. For which we pay you tons nothing. 
2. you should skip skim read every word of this post here. 
3. you'll also find an explanation of the secret handshake rules there too.
4. The deadline to sign up is September 15th.

Hey, it's me, Susan, again. This is what you do: email us at cybils09 (at) gmail (dot) com with the specifics mentioned in Step #2. Please read the post linked in Step #2 to find out all the details. That post explains it all way better than I can!

I am looking forward to the awards this year, and am once again coordinating the Middle Grade and Young Adult Nonfiction judging. So many good books!

 The winners of the Children's and Young Adult Bloggers' Literary Awards (the Cybils) were announced this morning. Yay! See the announcement here. 

That's right. The finalists for the 2009 Cybils awards were announced this morning. Congratulations too all the authors, illustrators, editors, designers, and everyone else involved in creating the books!

The New York Public Library's Children's Literary Café presents a panel discussion on the Cybils: the Children's and Young Adult Bloggers' Literary Awards.

Who: Children's book bloggers Pam Coughlan (MotherReader), Anne Boles Levy (one of the Cybils founders), Elizabeth Burns (A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy), and me. Moderated by Elizabeth Bird (A Fuse #8 Production), of the New York Public Library.

When: Saturday, November 7th, at 2

Where: New York Public Library, Fifth Avenue at 42nd Street, in the Children's Center, Room 84 

The New York Public Library notes, "The Children’s Literary Café is a monthly gathering of adults who are fans of children’s literature. Professionals, librarians, authors, illustrators, publishers, booksellers, teachers, and anyone else interested in the field are welcome to attend our meetings. The Literary Café provides free Advanced Readers galleys, a rotating series of talks with professionals in the field, and great conversation. This program is for adults only."