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Today my assistant Lorraine is in the kitchen doing mysterious things to obtain beeswax from slumgum, and I am mostly on the phone copy-editing The Graveyard Book.

Anyway. Free books. I started thinking about times we've used this principle in paper books -- using the free thing to spread the author or the idea, and, if you ignore the five fingered discount (remember, in the UK you can add Terry Pratchett to the "four authors who are flying off the shelves and don't forget the graphic novels" list) then you still have things like Free Comic Book Day. And before there was ever Free Comic Book Day, there was Sandman 8.

It was 1989. I wrote Sandman #8, Mike Dringenberg drew it, and the editorial and marketing departments at DC Comics got enthusiastic about it. I went out and got three pages of quotes from fantasy and horror authors about Sandman, wrote a "The Story So Far". DC Comics overprinted Sandman #8 and sent each retailer an extra 25% above what they'd ordered, for free, and told them that they could do whatever they wanted with them.

Some stores simply sold them.

The smart stores gave them away. Some of the smart stores even went back to DC and asked for more. The stores that gave them away were the stores who, a year or so later, found it very easy to sell Sandman trade paperbacks to their customers. And then to sell Sandman hardcovers. And some of them are now selling the Absolute Sandmans.

(And a few people have written to let me know that ABSOLUTE SANDMAN Volume 3 is now up at Amazon, with the extra 5% discount for pre-ordering it bringing it to 42% off.)

Anyway. There weren't any grumbles that we were somehow devaluing other comics, or that this was Marxism in action, or that this was going to put comics retailers out of business or anything like that. It was about expanding the readership, about convincing people that it was safe to try something new.

(I just called Brian Hibbs at Comix Experience who put labels with his store's name and address on his free comics and then left them at barbers' shops and on buses and anywhere else he could, bookcrossing style -- he said he passed out about 400 copies of Sandman 8 and got 100 readers back, who bought every copy of Sandman, and the collected editions, and some of those people are buying Absolute Sandmans from him now -- and then he pointed out that it wasn't just Sandman that those people bought, but lots of them discovered comics and bought everything...)

...

Rachel McAdams says she would like to be Black Orchid on the screen -- I'd like to see that too. I didn't know what I was doing when I wrote Black Orchid, and it shows, but there's some dialogue I'm still really happy with, and a wilful attempt to avoid cliche that I'm still proud of. And Dave McKean created an entire school of realistic superhero art (one he's still apologising for). It was our first full-colour baby.

I wish her luck.

...

How does he come up with the cover images? Dave I mean. Does he just make it up out of his head like writing? Or is there a HarperCollins committee that says, "We would like a blue cover with a knife. And perhaps a black one with some mist...no no, more swirly please."


Can you ask him? And if he answers, can you post it?


Thanks Neil!

-Miriam

I can answer this -- I was there and watching it. The first cover Dave did was done to a Harpers request (they sent him a sketch of the kind of thing they wanted, and he painted that). With the more recent ones I posted, Dave had simply read the book (which I was still writing when he did the first one) and then sketched a bunch of potential covers and handed them in.

Hi Neil,

Can I ask what happened to the much more finished graveyard book cover that you posted a few weeks back? I have a feeling that Dave might be someone that hands in finished pieces on a whim sometimes, but had he just done that for promotion etc, or was it just an early version? I know what it is like to do covers several times, not just as roughs but also finished pieces, and I think the rough sketches you posted might be stronger than that one, but I just wondered...

-Joel Stewart

Well, it exists, and it might be used in promotion, or turn up in the back of the Subterranean Press Edition or as a colour Frontispiece to the Bloomsbury limited edition, but it probably won't be a book cover (unless there's a foreign publisher who wants it, I suppose).

It was done to order, but it really didn't reflect the book I wrote, which was why we went back to Dave and said, "you don't have to worry any longer about doing a book cover that looks like it's for young readers. Just do a book cover."

And yes, I think most of the ones he came back with are stronger than that was.

And yes, it's not at all unknown for Dave simply to do finished art and hand it in. On Sandman he did it after he was removed from the book, as we started The Doll's House. He was told that he was off Sandman so that he could concentrate on finishing Arkham Asylum -- he simply went home and did the next three Sandman covers and sent them off to DC...

...

Which reminds me -- it's been a very long time since I posted a link to http://gaimanmckeanbooks.co.uk/ -- there are some very wonderful Dave McKean screensavers and ecards and suchlike there... Read the rest of this post

DIZZY
Written by Jonah Winter
Illustrated by Sean Qualls
Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic, 2006

Winter begins the story of Dizzy’s life by explaining how he was born into a poor family, how other kids beat him up because he was so small, and how he learned to fight back. Dizzy’s father also beat him often. Dizzy tried to be tough. He was often angry. One day a music teacher gave him a trumpet. Dizzy played that horn like crazy—blowing out the anger he felt inside. His music wasn’t pretty at first—but playing the horn made him feel good.

Dizzy kept practicing until he was the best musician in his small southern town. He became bored with just playing music that was written on a page. He wanted to play jazz, to break the rules, to invent new rules with his music. He headed for Philadelphia.

Dizzy was quite a prankster. While on stage, he’d fall off his chair, play practical jokes on other musicians, push the piano player off the bench and then play the piano with his left hand while holding the trumpet in his right hand. The older musicians didn’t care for his antics. Dizzy didn’t care. He wanted to be noticed.

In time, Philly seemed like small time to Dizzy—so he took off for New York, a city that was alive with jazz all night long. He began playing trumpet with a big name band—and clowning around again. He KNEW he had to do something to make himself stand out—even though it cost him his job. But that was okay. Dizzy was a man with a mission. He wanted to change jazz into something new, something cooler—a crazy kind of jazz that’s called bebop!

“BEBOP.”

That’s what Dizzy called
this CRAZY kind of jazz
that he had invented just
by having the courage to be himself
until the very thing that had gotten him into trouble
so much—
being a clown, breaking the rules—
had become the thing that made him great,

his ticket
into Jazz Heaven
where, on certain nights,
Dizzy Gillespie
Still shoves the Angel Gabriel out of the way
And shows him how to play

Bebop

In an interview in School Library Journal, Jonah Winter states: “I have always been a fan of Beat Generation poetry. I know it has its limitations, and is easily parodied, but it's fun—and that style seemed perfect for getting across the Dizzy Gillespie story.” Winter is right—he sets the perfect tone with his “beat generation” text for his biography of a jazz giant. And with his illustrations, artist Sean Qualls captures the jazzy, beat essence of Winter’s text and Dizzy and his music. Qualls’ stylistic mixed media pictures, which were done in acrylic paint, collage, and pencil, evoke the intensity of the trumpeter wrapped up in making music with his horn.

I’ll quote what Jonah Winter said about Qualls’ art for Dizzy in his SLJ interview: “I had never worked with Sean before this, and I didn't see the illustrations until they were pretty much all done, but I will say—they are so surprising, subtle. The cool palette he uses provides such a nice counterpoint to the crrrrrrrrrazy text. It really gets across the tension between what Dizzy Gillespie and his cohorts were doing with their music (which was explosive and cool at the same time) and that oh-so-hip/cool exterior which totally changed the image of how jazz musicians were perceived.”

Dizzy is an outstanding biography that tells about the life and music of one mighty cool bebopper! It’s a picture book in which both the text and illustrations work in perfect harmony

Dizzy Gillespie-Bebop Reunion—Diz, Kai, Monk

Dizzy Gillespie & Louis Armstrong—Umbrella

Dizzy Gillespie on the Muppet Show

The Buzz About Dizzy: Jonah Winter, an interview with Jonah Winter about his book Dizzy from School Library Journal (9/20/2006)

ELLA FITZGERALD: THE TALE OF A VOCAL VIRTUOSA
Written by Andrea Davis Pinkney
Illustrated by Brian Pinkney
Jump at the Sun/Hyperion, 2002

The narrator of Ella Fitzerald is Scat Cat Monroe. In the book, Scat Cat is pictured as a cat dressed up in a suit. He tells us the story of Ella Fitzgerald’s life in four parts, which focus on some of the most important periods/events of her life.

Track 1: Hoofin’ in Harlem
Track 2: Jammin’ at Yale
Track 3: Stompin’ at the Savoy
Track 4: Carnegie Hall Scat

Track 1: When Ella was young, she dreamed of becoming a dancer. She even taught herself to tap-dance. But when she entered a talent contest at the Apollo Theater in 1934, she got cold feet. She just couldn’t dance—so she started singing.

At first, her voice came quiet as a whisper.
A measly little hiss, soft as a cricket. But when the
band joined in, Ella rolled out a tune sweet enough
to bake. She won the contest straight up, kicked her
dance dreams to the curb, and pinned all her hopes
on being a singer.

Track 2: In 1935, the Harlem Opera House signed Ella as a featured singer. A man named Bardou Ali, who was the master of ceremonies for the Chick Webb Orchestra, saw her perform one night. Bardou thought Ella would be perfect for the orchestra—but Chick was a hard man to please…a perfectionist. Chick said he’d let Ella try out when the orchestra played at a dance at Yale University. Well, Ella had those “Yalies jammin’.” Chick welcomed her into the band that very night.

Track 3: Ella sang with the Chick Webb Orchestra at the Savoy. “The place was crammed full of folks who’d come to shake their tails to the orchestra’s sound.” And what of Ella who had once dreamed of becoming a dancer? Why, after she finished singing, she’d get down off the stage and dance with the patrons!

Chick saw Ella’s talent and helped her learn how to deliver a song…how to grab hold of a melody and wrap her voice around it. The two of them had a real chemistry and made beautiful music together. In May of 1937, the Chick Webb Orchestra took on the Benny Goodman Orchestra in a battle of the bands. Ella was on fire:

Her voice was quick-fired rhythm, with a brassy
satin twist.

She sizzled with Chick’s cymbals.
Busted loose with his bongos.

She sang like tomorrow wasn’t ever gonna come.

Track 4: Ella’s star continued to rise. She helped lift the orchestra to new heights. With Al Feldman, one of the other members of the orchestra, she wrote and recorded a song entitled “A-Tisket, A-Tasket,” which was a smash hit. (You can hear Ella perform it in a YouTube video. Look for the link below.)

When bebop became the “hot” music, Ella got on board. Dizzy Gillespie asked her to join his band. She started scat singing—using nonsense syllables instead of lyrics to carry a rhythm. In September of 1947, she and Dizzy “headlined a sold-out performance at Carnegie Hall.”

In A Note from the Illustrator, Brian Pinkney explains how he was inspired by some Harlem Renaissance artists, including Aaron Douglas and William H. Johnson, who worked during the days when Ella “came of age in Harlem.” He says he was also inspired in his use of colors by those that were in style during the Art Deco movement (1925-1940).

Pinkney’s illustrations, which were done in scratchboard, dyes, and acrylic paints, get into the free-spirited rhythm of jazz. Some of his compositions even touch on the surreal: Chick Webb’s “swinging” band swings on swings in the sky, Ella and Chick fly over the city above the Savoy, and Ella and Dizzy soar above the moon on a giant trumpet. These musicians have gone beyond the bounds of traditional music…to where they are free to improvise and really take wing with their jazz and scat and bebop. As in Dizzy, the art and text in Ella Fitzgerald work together in perfect rhythm to tell the story of a “vocal virtuosa.”

Ella Fitzgerald: One note samba (scat singing) 1969

Summertime—Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong

Ella Fitzgerald—A-Tisket, A Tasket

OFF TO SCHOOL, BABY DUCK!
Written by Amy Hest
Illustrated by Jill Barton
Candlewick Press, 1999

FRANCINE’S DAY
Written & illustrated by Anna Alter
Greenwillow/HarperCollins, 2003

Francine is having a contrary day. She doesn’t want to do anything that she is expected to do. She doesn’t want to get out of bed…or take off her pajamas. She does not want to go to school…or find her desk in school…or sing the morning song…or recite a poem in front of her classmates…or sit at the snack table…or sit at the art table…or go out to the school playground at the end of the day. No, she’d prefer to have a picnic at home with her mother—and to sit on her porch and draw pictures all afternoon.

Francine’s Day has a very spare text. Much of the story is told through Anna Alter’s pen-and-ink and watercolor illustrations. For example, the text tells us that Francine doesn’t want to recite a poem—but it doesn’t tell us that she does. She is, however, shown in a two-page spread standing at the front of the classroom. It’s easy to infer that Francine DOES recite a poem.

Francine may not WANT to do the things she is expected to do—but she does them anyway. She sits at the snack table when Mr. Wendell, her teacher, sets her a place…and she sits at the art table when he pours out bright, colored paints and hands her a brush…and she goes out to the playground when he tells her that it won’t be long before her mother meets her at the bus stop.

That night, Francine recites a poem and sings a song to her stuffed animals—just as she was asked to do in class. It appears that Francine is enjoying herself playing school. In fact, she does not want to climb into bed.

But Mother pulled back
the covers, kissed her
good night, and turned off
the lights in her bedroom.

“It is time to close your
eyes and go to sleep,”
said Mother.

And she did.

There is nothing in Alter’s text that tells us that this is Francine’s first day of school. Still, Francine experiences the reticence that many young children do before they set off for school for the very first time.

Alter’s uncluttered illustrations focus on Francine…lying in bed, looking at her fall clothes folded on the rocking chair, sitting eating breakfast, walking down the front walk to the school bus, entering her classroom, sitting at her desk and at the snack table and at the art table, holding her teacher’s hand, hugging her mother upon her return home, playing with her stuffed animals, and being tucked into bed at night by her mother. Alter’s palette of soft pastel colors and her use of pale yellow in many of the backgrounds lend warmth and coziness to this story.

Francine’s Day is a good book to read to a young child who may be worried about beginning school.

For more school stories, check out my earlier post Book Bunch: School Stories.

I know some kidlit bloggers have already begun thinking about books that would be great to read to children once they begin the new school year. I’m sticking with summer for the time being—mainly because the weather in these parts has been pretty uncomfortable for most of the past few weeks. The humidity has been oppressive!!!

I’ve chosen to review two picture books that are perfect for reading to young children who may be timid about the water or who may not have learned how to swim yet.

YOU CAN SWIM, BABY DUCK!
Written by Amy Hest
Illustrated by Jill Barton
Candlewick Press, 2002

Although Baby Duck swam last year, this summer she sits at the edge of the town pool dipping her webbed feet in the water. She’s hesitant to take the plunge. Her parents prance and dance and splash in the pool, remind Baby Duck what fun she had last year, and encourage her to join them. “No,” says Baby Duck. Even when her mother says: “Be a big girl now, and jump right in,” she remains at the pool’s edge with a troubled look on her face.

Then along come coach and the swim team. Coach blows his whistle and the young ducks splash into the pool. Davy and Dotty Duck come paddling by and eagerly announce that they’ve made the swim team. Baby Duck wishes she could be on the team, too. But she worries that she may be too slow a swimmer…or that her arms might get tired…or that she might swallow water.

That’s when Grampy comes along to save the day. He hugs and kisses Baby Duck, listens to her concerns, gives her gentle encouragement, and eventually allays her fears. He understands that Baby Duck is the one who must make the decision about taking the plunge.

When Baby Duck is ready, she stands up and lines up her toes at the edge of the pool. She squeezes her eyes tight and jumps into the water. She swims along with the other ducks…kicking very hard—and her arms do not get tired—and she doesn’t swallow any water!

Jill Barton’s pencil and watercolor illustrations are a perfect complement to Amy Hest’s text. They show the emotions Baby Duck is feeling and the warm and loving relation between Grampy and his little granddaughter. In one touching illustration, Grampy is shown bending down to kiss Baby Duck; in another, a worried Baby Duck clings to Grampy as he speaks to her.

You Can Swim, Baby Duck! Would be a great book to include in a unit of stories about childhood fears.

OLVINA SWIMS
Written & illustrated by Grace Lin
Henry Holt, 2007

Olvina Swims is another good book to read to children who haven’t yet learned to swim. Olvina the chicken, who was afraid of flying in Olvina Flies, returns. This book begins where Olvina Flies leaves off. Olvina and her friend Hailey (a penguin) are vacationing in Hawaii after attending the annual Bird Convention. Now that Olvina has conquered her fear of flying in an airplane, she learns to muster the courage to overcome her fear of the water. She does this with the help of her good friend Hailey.

First, Hailey teaches Olvina how to take a deep breath, dip her face in the warm water of a bathtub, open her eyes, and blow out bubbles. Once Olvina learns how to do that, Hailey takes her to the pool where she learns how to do the dog paddle, to float, and to do the backstroke. The day before they leave Hawaii, Hailey encourages Olvina to swim in the ocean. Gradually, Olvina wades into the salty sea. Then she dips her head into the waves and it seems as if the water is hugging her. “It was a wonderful feeling.”

The last page of text:
"Isn’t swimming fun?” Hailey said to Olvina. “I told you chickens could swim if they really wanted to!” “I guess chickens can do anything,” Olvina said with a smile, “if they have good friends to help.”

Admirers of Grace Lin’s picture book art will not be disappointed in Olvina Swims. The gouache illustrations are bright and colorful and include touches of sly humor: The title of the book that Olvina is reading at the beach is Bird Sense: What Every Chicken Knows…and some of the fish she sees swimming underwater are wearing hats!

I really like the ending of the book because it is true to life. Childhood friends and relatives close in age can often teach each other how to do things. One of my first cousins taught me how to float in the ocean. A neighborhood friend taught my daughter how to ride a two wheeler. Olvina Swims is not only a story about learning how to swim—it’s a story about how friends help one another.

Note to Blog Readers: Grace Lin is a good friend.

Viking, 2007

The Lissy Doll

Written by Kristine O'Connell George

Illustrated by Lauren Stringer
Harcourt, 2005

FOLD ME A POEM is an excellent book to share with children after reading and discussing LISSY’S FRIENDS. It’s a collection of poems about origami creations—most of which are animals, including a rooster, a camel, a robin, dogs, a cheetah and lion, a frog, peacocks, a snake, rabbits and foxes, and penguins. George’s poems are haiku-like in their simplicity. Stringer’s uncluttered, colorful acrylic illustrations are a perfect complement to the spare text. This is a book in which art and text work hand in hand to make a unified pair of creative expressions about origami. Stringer even paints the endpapers to resemble six different patterns of origami papers.

At the end of the book there is A Note from the Illustrator in which Stringer informs readers of how she learned to do paper folding in preparation for painting the illustrations for FOLD ME A POEM. She even includes a bibliography of books about origami.


Find Out More about FOLD ME A POEM

Visit the FOLD ME A POEM page at Kristine O’Connell George’s website for links to teaching resources and further information about the book. Click on the titles below to read two poems from the collection:
Pond
Recycled

Lauren Stringer also has a FOLD ME A POEM page at her website. It includes links to a teacher’s guide, a view of an illustration from the book, and step-by-step instructions for making a paper snake, rooster, giraffe, and penguin.

What Do You Do with Books Like These?
It could be great fun to do a mini literature-writing-art unit in an elementary classroom using LISSY’S FRIENDS and FOLD ME A POEM. A teacher could read and discuss the story of how Lissy made her paper friends to keep her company when she felt lonely. Then, maybe with the help of the art teacher, students could make their own origami animals. And, finally, students could write poems about their paper animal friends…using George’s poems as models for their own writing. I think the children's origami art animals and poems would make an outstanding display in a classroom or school hallway.