I thought you might like to see the T-shirts I designed for the Friends of the Library 5K I ran last Saturday. Here I am faux-modeling them with my friend Carin Siegfried, an independent editor here in Charlotte.
Carin and I were 5K teammates for the local Women’s National Book Association chapter. If you’re in the area and are a booklover, it’s a great place to meet people and network. We have book industry professionals as well as folks who just love books, and actually, you don’t need to be female.
Just this week I got lots of encouragement and excellent ideas for my nonfiction project from another of my WNBA friends (yes, that’s the acronym–no, we don’t play basketball). WNBA meets monthly for all manner of book-related events. In October we host our annual Bibliofeast event, which is a fantastic dinner with a full slate of authors. Details on that event and everything else here.
If you don’t live in Charlotte but are interested, there are Women’s National Book Associations in Boston, New York, Detroit, Nashville, San Francisco, Seattle, and D.C.
I’ve been neck-deep in my nonfiction research this week. Feels great! It finally seems to be moving forward. Hope you have a great weekend.
The Women’s National Book Association (WNBA) has awarded the biennial WNBA Award to novelist and journalist Masha Hamilton (pictured, via). She will be receive the award at the Center for Fiction/Mercantile Library on Saturday.
In 2009 Hamilton founded the Afghan Women’s Writing Project, an organization dedicated to promoting intellectual conversation between American female authors and Afghan women writers. In 2007 Hamilton founded the Camel Book Drive, a camel-born lending library based in northeastern Kenya which provides access to books for rural villages.
Hamilton has written four novels: 31 Hours, The Camel Bookmobile, The Distance Between Us, and Staircase of a Thousand Steps. As a journalist, she has worked in Russia, Kenya, and Afghanistan.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
This month marks the second annual celebration of book groups as the Women’s National Book Association launches National Reading Group Month. Across the United States, publishers, bookstores, libraries, authors, and readers are all coming together to show their appreciation of the act of shared and thoughtful reading.
At PaperTigers, we are excited and happy that book groups are receiving the attention that they deserve, and that blogs all over the country are providing helpful tips for successful meetings and lists of suggested titles. We hope, as we all pay attention to book groups, that we pay particular attention to book groups for young readers.
It’s easy for reading to take a back seat to all of the other activities and preoccupations that usurp our free time, and for no one is that more true than for children. By making reading a sociable and scheduled activity, we give it a special priority that assures that it won’t get lost in the shuffle of daily life, and by coming together to discuss what we have read in a group of friends, we find ourselves reading more slowly, more thoughtfully, and with great pleasure. What better way is there for our children to spend their time than to share what they have read with friends who have read it too?
We at PaperTigers have our own book group, The Tiger’s Choice, where adults and children come together online to read and discuss a book that all ages can read with equal pleasure. Over the past ten months, we have explored different cultures and different countries from Cambodia to Germany during World War Two. We read with the desire to bring the world closer, and to make multicultural literacy a global undertaking, not merely a national one. We believe that children who learn to appreciate and understand the cultures of other countries will grow to be people who will live harmoniously and respectfully in the world.
As we celebrate National Reading Group Month, we invite you to join our own reading group, and ask you to let us know what reading groups you offer for children. What are you reading? What has worked for your reading group and what has not? Let’s talk!
We haven’t sung De Colores yet but I’m sure we will and
meanwhile, the words and pictures are as warm and bright as the music will be.
And we have all fallen in love with Jorge Luján’s whimsical poem, which is definitely to be savoured and re-read – even at the same sitting. It makes a lovely, gentle bed-time read and sends the imagination floating away towards the land of dreams. Jorge, let us know if it is ever turned into a video like Tarde de invierno / Winter Afternoon!
1. Beacon Hill Boys by Ken Mochizuki (Written for older readers, this novel explores teenage rebellion, parental expectations, and racial stereotypes with humor and perception. This is a perfect book for boys who are reluctant readers–by the end of the first page they’ll be hooked.)
2. On Thin Ice by Jamie Bastedo (Through entries in Ashley’s diary that she keeps while visiting family in an Inuit village, this book addresses the issue of climate change in Arctic Canada, where the polar bears are coming far too close for comfort.)
3. Woolvs in the Sitee by Margaret Wild (Who are the “woolvs” who terrify Ben and keep him sequestered in a place where he is safe from them? This is another title for older readers, and one that will keep them reading.)
4. Kira Kira by Cynthia Kadohata (Winner of the Newbery Medal, this is a novel that takes a serious look at serious issues, through the lives of an extended Japanese-American family who are struggling in tough times.)
5. Cinnamon Girl: Letters Found Inside a Cereal Box by Juan Felipe Herrera (The tragedy of 9/11 as seen through the eyes and voice of thirteen-year-old Yolanda, whose uncle had “inhaled Twin Towers of dust,” while delivering flowers at the moment that the planes struck.)
6. The Boy in the Striped Pajamas by John Boyne (This is a book group selection for all ages, and when we chose it for our own book group, the discussion was thoughtful and lively–much to think about in this slender little volume.)
And there is our baker’s half-dozen–what suggested titles would you add to this little list? Let us know!