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They pop up on the internet every year, on bulletin boards or else group blogs like Huffington Post. Sometimes they go viral, thanks to Twitter and Facebook and even good old-fashioned email forwards. They’re collections of book covers, for children’s books that are “creepy” or “bizarre” or “hilarious,” and if you do anything related to children’s books for a living, you’ve probably had links like this one and this one sent to you dozens of times, from acquaintances who think you’ll find them extra funny.
Ah, yes. There they are yet again: the book about poop, and the self-published book about drugs, and the therapeutic book about abuse, and the book where it kind of sort of almost looks like the animals on the cover are doing something indecent with each other, especially if you turn it sideways, and the book about Uncle Somebody, because let’s not forget that cliche about uncles being vaguely inappropriate towards children, haw-haw, and also that book called I Wish Daddy Didn’t Drink So Much. Oh, the hilarity.
Sigh.
Yes, sometimes our older issues books turn up on these lists. Though it’s worth noting that continued sales have also kept them in print all these years. And sometimes the books on these lists approach difficult subjects in ways that might seem a little dated now. (Though, again—often these books are still in demand, which means someone finds them effective.)
But you know what’s “creepy”? When people see children’s books as only one kind of book. And when people are so uncomfortable with the notion that a kid might need a book on a serious topic that their first reaction is to single it out as “bizarre.” If there’s one thing that the recent challenge to My Mom’s Having a Baby! has made clear, it’s that a book that’s appropriate for one child might not be appropriate for another child.
There’s nothing creepy about a world of children’s books that tries to serve as many needs as possible. And there’s nothing funny about snap judgments.
0 Comments on Enough with the “creepy” already! as of 1/1/1900
Yesterday, Dori Hillestad Butler appeared on Fox & Friends with a Texas parent/babysitter who is challenging her book My Mom’s Having a Baby!
We are so proud of Dori! In less than 24-hours, she did some ad-hoc media training (by phone with me and in person with her friends) and raced across Iowa in the pre-dawn hours to sit for 3-minutes in a studio talking to people in NYC and Texas who already had their minds made up.
Here’s the link.
Wasn’t she great! Strong and confident; clear in her thoughts and intentions; a credit to her profession.
She blogged a bit about it last night.
My favorite quote: “A library is not a day care center. It’s not the librarian’s responsibility to supervise the children who come in. It’s not the librarian’s responsibility to make sure every child only picks up books that are ‘appropriate’ for them. How could it be? What’s appropriate for one child is not appropriate for another child.”
We also want to thank Dori’s friends (and fellow authors):
At the table (from left, clockwise): Katherine House (Lighthouses for Kids: History, Science and Lore with 21 Activities, Chicago Review Press, 2008), Wendy Henrichs (I Am Tama, Lucky Cat: A Japanese Legend, Peachtree Publishers, August 2011), Dori Hillestad Butler (hero of the day) and Kellye Crocker (aspiring YA author, former journalist, and bringer of the camera) having breakfast at The Café in Ames, Iowa, after the “debate.”
They came through for all of us BIG TIME. Part-time media trainers, part-time media escorts, and full-time friends. Thanks.
Like everyone else in the book business these past few months, we’d been wondering about the fate of Borders—whether the whole company would go under, completely taking out one of the major bookstore players. We knew there’d be a big announcement soon, and we’d been waiting for the shoe to drop.
So this week’s news—that Borders has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and is closing about a third of its stores—wasn’t worst we were expecting, but it’s pretty bittersweet. Galleycat and other sites posted lists of the stores slated to close, and this week on Twitter we watched as the lists circulated and the news hit closer to home—lots of homes, all around the country.
Reading over the list of stores from Illinois, my heart sank as one by one, I recognized the locations. Goodbye to the store on Lincoln Avenue that was such a convenient stop on my way home from work; farewell to the Evanston store that my fiance and I loved to browse after seeing a movie at the Century; so long to the store in the gorgeous old terra-cotta building in Uptown. And goodbye and best wishes to all the dedicated booksellers who worked at all these stores that are soon to be shuttered. Hope they find other opportunities in the world of books soon.
Here in the Chicago area it appears that the store in Oakbrook, Border’s oldest Illinois location, will stay open. I have good memories from that store, too: it was the first Borders I ever visited, just after I got out of grad school. After six years of university life I wasn’t looking forward my stint of living with my folks in the suburbs while I searched for jobs, but that Borders was a terrific oasis for me and helped remind me that people who love books are everywhere.
No matter what happens in the book business, that’s still true.
There are some key places and activities I remember very clearly from my earliest days — going to the library every week; sledding down the biggest “hill” Long Island could manage; waiting at the bus stop in the near dark; and…voting on election day!
No, I wasn’t sneaking in on a very well-made fake ID. My parents, who now vote early in the morning (or even earlier in the week), waited until evening so they could bring us. We’d wait on the line (which, in retrospect, must have driven my mother crazy) and then I’d go into the booth with one parent and my sister with the other. We’d get to pull the big red lever and then watch and listen as they voted. I don’t remember specifics, but I’m pretty sure they always cancelled each other out – Carter-Ford, Reagan-Carter, etc. But I thought it was amazing.
My first big election was in 1988. I was in college and we had all sent in for absentee ballots. In early October, a large group sat around the big table in the common area and filled in our ballots together — for Dukakis (I should mention that we were the creative and performing arts dorm and only allowed one or two Republicans per semester to live there.). It was fun and then very exciting to join an even larger crowd in the TV room on election night.
Over the years, there have other election days and other election night parties. I’ll be going to one tonight in the hopes of celebrating a “Yea” vote on my local library referendum.
My point: just as readers beget readers; voters beget voters. My sister and I are readers, in large part, because our parents are readers. They “modelled” reading, as the experts say. And they modelled voting as well. They didn’t make it seem important and fun; They made it important and fun. It wasn’t a right or even really a duty. Voting is something you do as a member of society and you should have joy in doing so.
As an adult, when I try to talk people into voting (rarely, since I tend to hang out with like-minded people), I talk about it as a duty, but also that if you don’t vote – shut up for the next 2-4 years! I do believe that an abstention is a legitimate vote. However, to abstain, you must go to your polling place, sign in, and walk into the booth. You can leave everything blank. Or maybe just vote “Yes” on that library referendum and leave the — I’ll admit — sometimes sickening choices at Senate and House blank. Your choice. And isn’t that great!
Albert Whitman & Company publishes a couple of election related picture books: If I Ran for President, by Catherine Stier, illustrated by Lynne Avril; and If I Were President both by Catherine Stier, illustrated by DyAnne DiSalvo-Ryan.
1 Comments on Hot Topics: Vote!, last added: 11/2/2010
By Dori Hillestad Butler
A few years ago, I wrote The Truth About Truman School, a novel that deals with cyberbullying. In the book, a girl named Lilly Clarke is harassed online—on a website the whole school reads, an anonymous classmate posts photos and accuses her of being gay.
She starts to avoid school, and then one day, she disappears altogether. The book is also the story of her classmates who witness the bullying and don’t know how to respond.
You may have heard that it’s Bullying Prevention Week—or Month. This year the National Center for Bullying Prevention has expanded the event to cover the whole month of October.
It’s a strangely timely decision, considering all the recent stories about bullying-related tragedies. Special reports on bullying are appearing on the websites for CNN.com, Cartoon Network and People magazine this week. Some of the stories will break your heart. You wonder what you can do—if you can do anything at all.
I want to tell you about a school visit I did last spring. I spoke to 4th and 5th graders, and after one of my presentations, this girl came up to me. She waited until all the other kids were lining up to go back to their classrooms and I was getting set up for the next presentation. She said, “Can I tell you something?”
I said, “Sure.”
She looked around, then leaned in close and whispered, “I’m being cyberbullied.”
At first I just stood there. I expected her teacher to call her over any second. But when that didn’t happen, I said, “do you want to tell me about it?”
Her eyes filled with tears. Then she said, “my friend is spreading rumors about me. She has a website and she uses it to write mean things about people, just like in your book. Now no one will talk to me. Everyone in this whole school hates me.”
She told me she and that girl had been friends since they were four. Their moms were friends, too. But now because the girls weren’t getting along, neither were the moms.
I ached for this girl.
I wondered whether she had told anyone at school about what was happening. Her teacher? A counselor? She said, “they won’t do anything because my friend’s mom helps at school a lot.”
I found it interesting that this girl kept referring to the other girl as her “friend.” She didn’t sound like much of a friend to me. She sounded like a manipulative little—okay, I probably shouldn’t say that when I’m a guest on my publisher’s blog.
I asked her whether it would be okay if I told her librarian what she’d just told me.
She wiped her eyes and said, “Just forget it. It doesn’t matter. Nobody ever does anything anyway.” Then she ran off to join her class.
I did say something to that librarian. All I could do was describe the girl since I didn’t get her name. But the librarian thought she knew who I was talking about. She said “That girl has quite an imagination. I’m sure she read your book and made up that story just so she’d have something to say to you. I don’t believe any of it is true.”
I was stunned. Those tears weren’t real?
Of course the librarian knows the girl and I don’t. She could be absolutely right.
But what if she was wrong?
It’s hard to believe some kids are bullies, but sometimes it’s hard to know when a kid is a victim, too. Which is all the more reason why it’s important to take bullying seriously—in every instance.
Yes—it would’ve bothered me to find out the girl was playing me. But it would bother me a lot more to see this girl’s picture in the news.
I hope it never comes to that.
0 Comments on Friday topic: Dori Hillestad Butler on Bullying as of 1/1/1900
They pop up on the internet every year, on bulletin boards or else group blogs like Huffington Post. Sometimes they go viral, thanks to Twitter and Facebook and even good old-fashioned email forwards. They’re collections of book covers, for children’s books that are “creepy” or “bizarre” or “hilarious,” and if you do anything related to children’s books for a living, you’ve probably had links like this one and this one sent to you dozens of times, from acquaintances who think you’ll find them extra funny.
Our local Borders here in Pittsburgh is slated to close. I’ll be sorry to see it go.