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Time for another post that justifies my current job.  As you may or may not know, as Evanston Public Library’s Collection Development Manager I buy all the adult books.  Which is to say, they apparently make them for people over the age of 12 these days.  Who knew?  Happily, there are plenty of connections to the wide and wonderful world of children’s literature in the grown-up book universe.  Here are a couple of interesting recent examples you might enjoy:

Though she’s best known in our world as a mighty successful picture book author (with a killer ping-pong backswing) Rosenthal’s that rare beast that manages to straddle writing for both adults and kids.  The last time she wrote an out-and-out book for the grown-up set, however, was ten years ago (Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life).  This next one’s a memoir of sorts (I say “of sorts” because the subtitle belies this statement).  Here’s the description:

“… each piece of prose is organized into classic subjects such as Social Studies, Music, and Language Arts. Because textbook would accurately describe a book with a first-of-its-kind interactive text messaging component. Because textbook is an expression meaning “quintessential”—Oh, that wordplay and unconventional format is so typical of her, so textbook AKR. Because if an author’s previous book has the word encyclopedia in the title, following it up with a textbook would be rather nice.”

Sorry Permanent Press Publishing Company.  This cover doesn’t do justice the myriad children’s book references parading about inside.  I read all the reviews and tried to find the best description (the official one is lame).  Library Journal‘s was the one that piqued my interest best.  As they said:

“Jonathan Tucker lives with his dog Nip on 20 acres on Long Island, having left his job with a high-powered law firm three years earlier after his wife and two children were killed in a traffic accident. Now his mentor, a senior partner, asks for help. The firm’s biggest client, billionaire Ben Baum of Ozone Industries, has died in London under suspicious circumstances. A descendant of L. Frank Baum of Wizard of Oz fame, Ben had been obsessed with fantasy, in particular the works of Baum, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Lewis Carroll. Attached to his will, he left behind an enigmatic letter, prefaced by runes and filled with puzzles hinting at forces of evil arrayed against him. It’s up to Jonathan and his team to unravel what may be a deadly conspiracy with a host of suspects, each one poised to benefit from Ben’s premature death. . . . Readers may enjoy the kid-lit nomenclature—characters include Alice, Charlotte (who spins webs), Dorothy, Eloise, Madeline, Herr Roald Dahlgrens (a “peach of a man”), Frank Dixon (the Hardy Boys), Peter Abelard, and the Baums—and may not mind the sometimes too-evident craft, e.g., characters who “tell their story” at length and dialog laden with exposition.”

Admit it.  It sounds fun.  But that cover . . . I mean, did they just hire someone who just read the title and found the nearest Getty Images of crows?  No points there.

I feel like it’s been a while since one of these round-ups included a book about a picture book author/illustrator.  This one counts.  In this story, said picture book creator has lost her inspiration.  Other stuff happens too, but with my tunnel vision that was pretty much all I picked up on.

Um.

Moving on.

Part of the joy of my job is buying the “cozies” i.e. sweet little murder mystery novels (usually in paperback).  You would not believe the series out there.  There are quilting mysteries, yoga mysteries, jam mysteries, bed and breakfast mysteries (that one makes sense to me), you name it.  The newest series I’ve found?  Little Free Library mysteries.  I kid you not.

As for other mysteries . . .

Now I know what you’re thinking.  You’re wondering if this is actually a book about a murder that occurs at Misselthwaite Manor.  And the answer is . . . . it’s not.  No, it takes place at a book-themed resort where a secret garden has been created for the guests.  How do folks die?  Deadly herbs!!  That gets points from me.

Oh ho!  This one almost sneaked past me the other day.  I read the review, dutifully put it in my order cart, and just as I was moving on to the next book my eye happened to catch the name of the author.  Marjorie?!  The same Marjorie who writes those magnificent yearly round-ups of Jewish kids in books at Tablet Magazine at the end of each year (to say nothing of her posts throughout the other seasons)?  That’s her.  The book’s getting great reviews too, so go, Marjorie, go!

So here’s the problem with this book.  It should be in the humor section alongside the Amy Sedaris title Simple Times: Crafts for Poor People.  Instead, it somehow ended up legitimately with a “Craft” Dewey Decimal Number, a fact I’m going to have to rectify at work tomorrow.  Not that you couldn’t actually do the crafts if you wanted, but the book’s far funnier than it is practical.  No one knows what to do with the thing when they see it, of course.  So why am I including it here?  Because darned if the author isn’t Ross MacDonald, the author/illustrator of fine picture books everywhere.  I did my due diligence to make sure it was actually the same guy.  Yup.  It sure is.  So Macmillan, about that DD# . . .

And finally, just because I thought it was cute . . .

Now someone go out and write a picture book of the same name for all our budding scientists out there.

I consider myself lucky that Ross MacDonald illustrated Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman. 

He was exceptional to work with and is now a friend.

 

But the book came out in 2008. Why interview him now?

Because I should have done it then. With respect to Bill Finger, I often say “Justice has no expiration date.” Same is true with good content.

Besides, the book is still a book... 

What attracted you to illustrating Boys of Steel? 

It’s a great story about the guys—boys, really—who [created] arguably the first, and certainly the most iconic, superhero.

I had grown up reading the Superman comics of the ‘60s. They were fun when I was young. The art in those was clean and accomplished, but a little bland. [But] the stories had devolved (degenerated?) into these convoluted yet simplistic plots involving time travel, Superman trying to keep Lois from finding out his secret identity, Mr. Mxyzptlk, and an ever-expanding rainbow of Kryptonites.

As an adult, I came to really appreciate the artwork and storylines of the early, dark comic books and Sunday comics of the ‘40s. Joe Shuster’s art and the dark gripping plots of the early Superman comics came as a huge revelation. 

You used brown for Jerry Siegel’s clothes and green for Joe Shuster’s. Did you incorporate any other recurring visual motifs? 

Jerry is kinda tubby and Joe was rail thin. But they almost looked like brothers in many ways. Both had similar glasses and hair, and like every single male American of the time, they wore suits. All the time. They even have the same initials, so keeping their names straight is difficult, too.

They looked similar enough that just making one heavy and one skinny wasn’t quite enough to tell them apart. So I gave them each their own color scheme. That was something you saw in the old comics—the characters often only had one suit (I guess that was probably true in real life at the time, too), and it helped make the comic panels a quicker read. Villains often had purple or orange suits, and Clark Kent’s was always true blue.

Another thing I tried to do was to make the illustrations that showed Joe and Jerry’s real life have a nice muted color scheme but the scenes they imagine are bright, pulpy, comic colors. 

What is your favorite piece of art from Boys of Steel? 

Much as I liked drawing Superman, my favorite piece is Joe sketching on the back of wallpaper scraps in the unheated kitchen of his mother’s apartment while she washes dishes in the background. 

What piece of Boys of Steel art was the most challenging to create? 

Another fave—Jerry sitting at his typewriter in front of his bedroom window while the neighborhood kids play outside. 

What was the most annoying request I made? 

Any particularly memorable feedback you’ve gotten for your work on the book? 

Charlie Kochman, formerly an editor at DC Comics, now at Abrams Image, really loved the book. It felt good getting praise from someone who worked at the house that published Superman comics from the very beginning. 

Anything else about the experience you’d like to add? 

Great working with you on this, and it was fun helping to tell the interesting creation story of one of my childhood heroes.

While the Los Angeles Review of Books won’t officially launch until late 2011, the literary criticism publication unveiled a preview site today.

The site opened with “The Death of the Book” by Ben Ehrenreich. The site will be updated with daily content, including Geoff Nicholson writing about silent film star Buster Keaton, Jane Smiley exploring the work of novelist and biographer Nancy Mitford, and Jefferson Hunter writing about private detective novelist Ross Macdonald and oil spills.

Here’s more about the new site: “The complete Los Angeles Review of Books site, launching in late 2011, will be much more complex and multidimensional, featuring reviews and essays, reader discussion forums, video of author interviews and events, an IMDB style archival reference database for the book world, and much more, taking full advantage of the latest web technologies. Reviews of fiction, nonfiction, poetry, memoir, philosophy, art, science fiction, young adult, children’s and more, will have multiple links leading through the site, allowing readers to follow their inclinations into new territories, finding new books, authors, and genres.”

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

On 2/4/11, at the Society of Illustrators awards gala in New York, Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman illustrator was given the gold. Congratulations, Ross!

Four of his illustrations were chosen for inclusion in their annual competition, Illustrators 53. All four are from the wickedly non-kid-friendly book In and Out with Dick and Jane: A Loving Parody, co-written by Ross and “the mighty” James Victore, and due out 4/1/11 from Abrams Image.

Here's “Now Billy can concentrate,” the illustration that got the gold:

After the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators panel I sat on last month, the Coordinator of Youth Services from the Ferguson Library in Stamford, Connecticut, came up to me and shared fun news.

As I understood it, inspired by Ross MacDonald's art for Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman, the library commissioned him to create the centerpiece images to promote their summer reading program. The theme is "Super Readers Summer."

For something else super, compare the endpaper of Boys of Steel with this first drawing:

All images courtesy of (and not to be used in any way without permission from)
Ferguson Library, Stamford, CT, and Ross MacDonald

Just over a month ago, Ross MacDonald told me that one of his illustrations from Boys of Steel was selected to appear in American Illustration 27, out in November.

The tagline on the American Illustration (and American Photography) site is "The Books To Be In." I learned that this hardcover annual is the definitive source for creative directors looking for art talent.

Ross's work has been in the book each of the past 20 years. Of the Ross pieces submitted this year, only the Boys of Steel one made it in. And that piece is a personal favorite. It's the two-page kinetic centerpiece of the story—and the only part of the book that is a visual tribute to the medium Superman debuted in.

After his mother died, Nicholas Vargas stopped bothering. (I want to know that Nicholas is going to be okay.)

Sometimes
I can still feel my right hand,
like a best friend;
weighted,
warm. (Ooh. Intrigues me and makes me care about the main character, all at once.)

Micah’s breath scraped in and out of his lungs; his feet were clodded with road-mud. (I like the feel of this sentence, and I like that it uses a semicolon. How many times have you found a semicolon in a first sentence?)

Three blind and tail-less mice catapulted through the cat door, skidded over the linoleum kitchen floor, and collapsed in a furry heap at Julie's feet. (I can already tell that fairy tale adventures will ensue.)

Freddie Rooke gazed coldly at the breakfast-table. (The tone of this sentence is the tone of the entire book. I can almost tell who the author is just by the familiarity of this line.)

This is a story about something that happened long ago when your grandfather was a child. (It has a cozy curled-up-on-the-couch-in-front-of-a-fire feel.)

Either this will ring bells for you, or it won't. (What will?)

I am huge in Mati's womb, straining her wide tunic. (The unique - to say the least - perspective gets your attention.)

Gordon Edgley's sudden death came as a shock to everyone--not least himself. (Dry humor, which the book is full of. Yay.)

My lady and I are being shut up in a tower for seven years. (One of the best first lines ever. Classic in the making!)

Slim pickings last month, as far as good first sentences go. (At least compared to November when it was all I could do to narrow down the top five.) All the same, I managed to scrounge up a few:

"Please tell me that's not going to be part of my birthday dinner this evening." (You want to know what "that" is. And the character's voice is already apparent.)

I don't think I'm abnormally obsessive. (Makes me smile.)

I met the Queen of the Foxes in 1972, when my family moved from Connecticut to California. (I want to know who/what the Queen of the Foxes could be.)

None of this that I'm about to tell you would have happened if my mother hadn't found that squirrel in the toilet. (The voice is humorous.)

The halls of Mount Olive school were quiet that afternoon, completely deserted. (Sort of ominous . . . which, if you read a few paragraphs further, you will discover why. . . .)

Ingrid Levin-Hill, three weeks past her thirteenth birthday, sat thinking in her orthodontist's waiting room. (I like the setting. And the name.)

Until the age of twelve, I led what most people would consider an unexceptional life. (So what happened at twelve?)

In my 'hood
battles is fought everyday (Like I said, the voice grabs you.)

When I was little, my uncle Pete had a necktie with a porcupine painted on it. (It promises quirky, and the book delivers.)

For a wonderful moment, Ryan thought Josh was going to make it. (This is my favorite of the bunch. It's tantalizing and promising.)

Time for another top five opening lines!

Once upon a time, before pizzerias or Taco Bells, there was a troll named Rumplestiltskin who began to wonder what a human baby would taste like. (Makes me laugh.)

My personal stretch limo, very pink of course, and decked out in plushy velvet seats, is pulling up to the crowd of fans and photographers outside the theater. (Anyone who knows me well will understand why I adore this sentence. Minus the pink, though.)

The day I decided to steal a dog was the same day my best friend, Leanne Godfrey, found out I lived in a car. (So much conflict in only the first sentence! You have to keep reading.)

I was supposed to play piano. (I dunno...something about the simplicity of this one gets me. You can already hear the narrator's voice in it.)

If you think a school for girls is simply a place to wear ribbons in your hair and expose your dimpled knees, you've never been to Our Ladies of Sorrows. (Very promising. The sort of beginning I love.)

I'm starting a new monthly feature: Top Five Firsts. At the end of a month I will look over the first lines of the books I read that month, pick five of them that I especially liked, and post them. In parentheses is why I liked the sentence, and if you click on each sentence it will take you to the book that it's from.

Strange things had happened at Innisfree before. (Implies that another strange thing is about to happen.)

In the history of the world there have been lots of onces and lots of times, and every time has had a once upon it. (Love. This. One. Such a great sentence.)

A big man in brown, sitting behind a table. (I like how it places you, the reader, in the present action right away.)

When my father died, I thought the world would come to an end. (Makes me care about the main character.)

Coraline discovered the door a little after they moved into the house. (A door, hm? Intriguing...)