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"Someone is sitting in the shade today because  someone planted a tree a long time ago." This Warren Buffet quote inspires me. It 's simple, yet so amazingly powerful.  1. A tiny seed can create something as massive as a tree, even a sequoia tree.  Think of the giant sequoia tree in California, USA. It averages around 26 feet in diameter, weighs around 4,189,000 lbs. and reaches

Before becoming a stay-at-home dad, I used to be in the business of helping non-profits spread the word about and raise funds for their mission. I think I was very good at what I did. In my last year of work for one non-profit I helped raise over $60,000 — all online. As good as I was at this, I don’t miss this work at all. The challenges for non-profits today are immense and here in the United States we seem to be in the midst of a culture which is touting the ills of a huge government spending deficit, yet seems to want to ignore the very apparent reasons why that deficit is out of control (i.e. funding two wars at the same time, defense spending, foreign aid, etc…). As such, our nation’s leaders (and I use that term very loosely mind you) keep seeing fit to attack the funding of domestic programs, many which have already been cut to the bone as it is. The latest target is Reading Is Fundamental.

Earlier this week, the House Appropriations Committee released its recommended spending cuts for the FY11 Continuing Resolution, which includes terminating funding for RIF’s nationwide services.

This means 4.4 million of the nation’s most vulnerable children would no longer receive free books to call their own. The significance of this cut is immense – the 15 million books RIF distributed last year across more than 17,000 sites all over the country would no longer reach the children most in need.

This is just insane. While some congressman seem content in “dumbing down America,” I really believe they are in the minority. I think a great many people truly would not support such a cut, yet here it is on the chopping block. However, unless we take action and declare to our representatives what are America’s REAL FUNDING PRIORITIES, this will happen. Will we be outraged then while we really should be outraged right now??

Please take a minute of your time and send a message to congressional representatives asking them to support RIF, and encourage your family, friends, and colleagues to do the same. Tell them what YOUR FUNDING PRIORITIES are and to leave wonderful programs making a real impact alone. Thanks for your time.

Dr. Kristin Shrader-Frechette is the O’Neill Family Endowed Professor in the Department of Biological Science and the Department of Philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. In her most recent book, Taking Action Saving Lives: Our Duties to Protect Environmental and Public Health, she shows how campaign contributions, lobbyists and their control of media, advertisements, and PR can all conspire to manipulate scientific information, withhold data, cover-up pollution-related disease and death, and “capture” regulators. To circumvent this mis-information she urges citizens to become the change they seek. In the excerpt below Shrader-Frechette looks at public citizens can push for reforms.

…The first step, getting information about public-health threats, is both the easiest and the hardest… It is the easiest because it may require nothing beyond reading and thinking, something people can do daily. It is the hardest because…special interests sometimes distort available information. In addition, many citizens receive their information only from limited and perhaps biased sources. Often people fail to get opinions and evidence from the greatest variety of people and groups possible. Many citizens likewise have not made the lifestyle commitments necessary to remain informed about public health. Instead, they may spend too much time on activities like television. As a result, citizens may have a false complacency that allows unscrupulous groups to “whitewash” or “greenwash” their behavior. Whitewash of course, can arise from any agenda-driven groups-environmental organizations, churches, labor unions, corporations, and even government agencies. The greater the group’s economic or social power, the greater their potential threat to legitimate information-as the recent coverup of sexual predators in the Roman Catholic Church reveals…Because corporate groups donate about 80 percent of U.S. campaign contributions and spend about 100 times more dollars on scientific research than do environmental groups, their greater power and potential for abuse suggests that their behavior out to receive proportionate scrutiny from those seeking reliable information.

Cooperating with others is the second step… Cooperation is difficult because people frequently recognize its necessity only when they see some threat before them. Yet often no threat is obvious until after people have already cooperated and thus gained public-health information…One health related NGO is Bread For the World. Promoting food assistance and child immunization in developing nations, it offers “action kits” that show citizens how to support its food and public-health programs. It is a valuable source of both health information and cooperation. As this example suggests, however, cooperatively working with such an NGO is not merely a matter o paying annual dues or reading a book. It involves keeping informed, helping to educate others, and supporting ongoing group activities and meetings. It involves commitments of both time and money-organizing, leafleting, educating, canvassing, and other activities characteristic of deliberative democracy. Without cooperation through a variety of focused groups, like Bread For the World, it is difficult for citizens to obtain accurate information, to evaluate conflicting viewpoints, to succeed in alleviating societal problems, or to sustain and motivate their own efforts to do good. The reason? If the social model of gaining knowledge…is correct, cooperation and cognitive division of labor are necessary to make much information readily available. The U.S. founding fathers and mothers recognized this point and organized New England town meetings…Such cooperative ideals identify deliberative democracy not with structures or institutions but instead with processes of wide communication among various people and social sectors. These processes are necessary both to build democratic consensus and to debate and amend conflicting social proposals.

A third step…is evaluating health threats and alternative solutions to them. This likewise is something best achieved through open interaction with a variety of other people and points of view. Yet most citizens associate only with certain groups of people and typically hear only a few points of view. As a result, their evaluations of social problems are often incomplete. To understand public-health threats, people need to hear a diversity of opinions about them. they also need emotive, narrative, and scientific or factual understanding, as well as ongoing evaluation-vigilance and criticism…One way of exercising such vigilance, at least in scientific evaluation, is to look for the characteristic errors of private-interest science…Another way is to avoid acting on the basis of unevaluated opinions that have not survived the testing and analysis…This means that people..need to aim at evaluation that is open, transparent, empirical, accessible to all, and democrative…

Evaluation is particularly necessary if citizens who hope to reform life-threatening social institutions find themselves at odds with at least some members of those institutions. If they are eventually forced into whistle-blowing…or into civil disobedience…their actions will require special evaluation…

Most ethicists believe that whistleblowing is justified only if four conditions, analogous to those for civil disobediance, are met. (1) The policy seriously threatens the public. (2) It cannot be overturned within a reasonable period of time through normal, internal channels. (3) Whistleblowing is likely to be effective in overturning the policy. (4) The whistleblowing will not violate any higher ethical obligations. Failure to meet any of these conditions typically makes whistleblowing unethical. Often this means it is unfair to the accused or endangers the whistleblower.

Organized action, the fourth step… is a natural response to the three previous steps…because individuals acting alone often can do little to help correct public-health problems, concerted and well-organized collective action usually is necessary. That is why the 50,000-member American Public Health Association (APHA) encourages “work in coalition,” including “advocacy and litigation.” Through organizations like “public-interest law groups” APHA says citizens can help exercise their “maximum responsiblity” for public health. Explaining its activities on its website, the APHA says it “has been influencing policies and setting priorities in public health for over 125 years.” It claims to serve the public not only “through its scientific practice programs” but also through its “advocacy efforts.” Showing how such advocacy and organized action can help overcome citizens’ feelings of fustration and powerlessness….organized action must build on small wins and on personal transformation-working to become virtuous onself, to become the change one seeks. Because it is so easy for advocates and any special interests to fall into bias, however, it is important to evaluate all collective actions from alternative points of view. This includes evalutating different proposed beliefs and actions, including doing nothing. In fact, organized and enlightened responses to the responsibility arguement require ongoing and iterative evaluation of alternative perspectices and actions. This continuing evaluation is important to help make oganized action less self-serving and more affirming to those who have been disenfranchised. As philosophers Hilary Putnam and John Dewey recognized, evaluation also is necessary to keep collective policies and actions inclusive, participative, and objective.

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This weekend an “earth-shaking” literature event is taking place: Reading the World X, a conference dedicated to multicultural literature education, held in San Francisco, CA at USF. I say earth-shaking because my lovely neighboring city of San Francisco, is rumbling with the footsteps of attendees from all over CA and other states, who have gathered together to celebrate, educate and share with one another—a wealth of voices in multicultural literature. Guest speakers include: Ashley Bryan, Naomi Shihab Nye, Alma Flor Ada, Leslie Tryon, Laurence Yep, Sarah Ellis, Peter Sís, Rita Williams Garcia, Jack Zipes and Doris Orgel.

I’m honored to participate as a presenter my first year at this event. Today, I’m putting on a workshop titled From Hawaiian Talk Story to Printed Page. I’ll be leaving shortly and will update this post with stories, updates and hopefully, pictures. Stay tuned…

The above image is from the picture book, Starry Messenger: Galileo Galilei by Peter Sís, which graced this year’s Reading the World X posters and promotional materials.

Peter Sís tells an evoctive, multi-layered tale of growing up behind the Iron Curtain in Czechoslovakia in his picture book, The Wall. I couldn’t put this book down even after it turned dark and I had to read with just the inside car lights on. (I brought the picture book along on an errand, hoping to squeeze it into my day–which I did!)

In the car’s dim lighting, I learned how the seemingly innocuous, yet twisted schooling of the boy, mounted up to a lifestyle of paranoia and fear. He hears of a relative being thrown into prison for planning to defect to the West. His parents no longer speak freely in front of him and his sister for fear of being ratted on by them. However, the boy’s internal walls, erected and reinforced by Soviet society, begin to crumble long before the Berlin wall does, thanks to his love of drawing and hunger for artistic expression.

Sís captures the flavor of youth’s innocence amid sordid world views through stunning pen and ink illustrations, graced with sensitive, carefully-placed color washes. Read this book and relish the visuals, but take time to read the timelines at the beginning and end of the book. Much more than a memoir, it summons a fresh take on Communism and the Cold War. Other reviews on The Wall can be found here (must sign into the NY Times) and here.

I look forward to hearing Mr. Sís speak, along with other children’s literature luminaries, at Reading The World X, a multicultural literature conference held next month at USF–it promises to be an enriching event. I’ll be an attendee, as well as, presenting insights on Hawaiian storytelling. Stay tuned!

Thanksgiving ‘07.

I brought my daughter’s copy of THE GIVER by Lois Lowry on our annual Thanksgiving trip to the east coast. Kai lauds THE GIVER as her favorite book “of all time.” Not a surprise. It sported the worn and tattered look of a well-loved book.

To my delight, THE GIVER was an excellent holiday read. You see, I’ve grown weary of all the holiday hullabaloo pressuring us into a spending frenzy. Don’t get me wrong. One of my favorite things about the season is gift-giving. However, what is the true meaning of gift and giving, especially in today’s culture? These words have been stripped of their true lustre thanks to the bombardment of holiday advertising, spend-now-pay-later deals and other commercial trappings. THE GIVER pulls us in, neck deep, into rushing waters forcing us to tread on the genuine meaning of giving and receiving.

A riveting tale set in a pristine, ideal community, THE GIVER suggests that a smooth ride in life is not without bumpy, disjointed truths, or dangerous consequences, even if things are perfect. I love Lowry’s voice—her expert build-up of tension, clarity of storytelling and poetic description satisfied me to the bone. Although it took me away from my NanoWriMo writing, the story was a welcome distraction. I was inspired and rejuvenated by Lowry’s words, secretly wishing that her gift of language would rub off on me. (Okay, it’s not a secret anymore.) THE GIVER earned the prestigious Newbery Medal in 1994.

Photo: My friend’s daughter, Sophia. Too cute!

Today, I’m sharing kid lit wisdom in the form of “Threebies,” a trio of kid lit insights and quotes from veteran authors & illustrators. Enjoy!

* * *

“I write and illustrate picture books because I’ve never outgrown a deep childhood urge to enter a magical world.”

~ Elisa Kleven

* * *

WHEN I’M STARTING A NOVEL, I’m like a dog circling and circling before it settles down to sleep. I might circle for days, weeks, or months before dropping into the focused, dreamy state in which a story becomes so engaging and alluring that it pulls me along. Sometimes it feels like a fight to find the main thread of a story, and during those times my writing schedule is more erratic. But overall, I’m very disciplined, in the sense that once I commit to a story I see it through, no matter how long it takes.

~ Deborah Davis

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DANGEROUS MYTHS AND TERRIBLE TRUTHS
A Quick Intro to Writing Children’s Books & Publishing Them

By Aaron Shepard

MYTH: Children’s books are easier to write than adult books.
TRUTH: Good writing is difficult no matter what the reader’s age—and children deserve the best.

MYTH: Picture books are the easiest children’s books to write.
TRUTH: Picture books may be the hardest—because they demand conciseness, simplicity, and a visual sense. Also, the competition is greater, because more people try them.

MYTH: A children’s book writer must first write for magazines.
TRUTH: Writing for magazines can teach you a lot, but it is different in some ways from book writing. And though magazine credits may catch a book editor’s eye, they won’t sell your manuscript. If books are your goal, you might do well to jump right in.

MYTH: Children’s stories should teach lessons.
TRUTH: Good children’s stories do not preach. Instead, they educate for life, by exploring significant themes—as do good adult stories.

MYTH: Since my kids/neighbors/students like my story, it will make a great book.
TRUTH: Your kids/neighbors/students may like it only because it’s yours, or because they enjoy your reading. This does not impress editors.

I’m doing NaNoWriMo! November is National Novel Writing Month. I signed up October 31st and started off with a new Alphasmart at my doorstep and a story on my fingertips.

However, there’s a few obstacles. The Alphasmart model I received was defective. After several email and phone conversations, the helpful folks at Renaissance Learning are sending another one on the way. Also, the Nano site is extremely slow and has glitches in the widget word count program. Certain parts of my nano site are off limits for a few days.

This less than perfect start hasn’t deterred me from writing though. I’ve carved out time for my story and am currently at 4563 words in my YA novel. Writing YA is definitely not the norm for me. I tend to write short pieces like poetry and PB’s. In 2005, I decided to particpate in Nano one-third of the way into it and I proudly reached 35k words. I know I’ll need to pick up my pace in order to reach 50k by November 30th. I want a Nano medal this go round. If I get a decent story from this, even better.

The above image is from the Nano store. I will buy myself one when I reach 25k words—half-way to the finish for a shiny, new red mug!

That’s right. Church Lady has a contest and a cool weekend of interviews with children’s authors at A Bench Press blog. Church Lady will insist on the lowdown on this heavenly business of writing and bookmaking. Join the fun and meet authors, Gretchen Laskas on Friday, Elizabeth Bunce on Saturday and yours truly on Sunday. Yikes, I’m slightly behind in posting this but it’s not too late to join the contest today and tomorrow!

Oh yes, there will be prizes! Church Lady believes in prizes, too! For more info visit A Bench Press. Or just see who’s in the hot seat with Church Lady today.

This Monday, I went to see celebrated Newbery author, Jerry Spinelli, at my local independent bookstore: Books, Inc., Alameda. His latest title, LOVE, STARGIRL, has just been released and he’s doing a two week book tour in the USA by train. Like everyone else, I’d listen to his talk, buy a copy, have him sign the book and float away with a smile, right? No, not exactly…

Before leaving the house, I followed a nudge to toss some extra items into my bag: an 8.5 x 11 poster and a copy of my picture book, THE SLEEPING GIANT: A Tale From Kaua’i. It seemed a little silly, but I did it anyway. I had met Jerry at the Highlight’s Writers Workshop in Chautauqua in 2005. Having just sold my picture book, I was fortunate to engage in several conversations with Jerry and his wife, Eileen, on being a writer and the art of writing.

On return from that trip, I added my favorite motivational quotes, including one of Jerry’s sayings, to a hand-decorated poster that I placed on my wall, next to my computer. I needed some positive reinforcement, for although I’d sold my story, I still had the monumental task of completing it. It was my first picture book and it had a looming deadline. Was I up to the challenge?

It’s ironic how everything we wish for can happen; albeit, all at the same time. Sure, I had a book contract, but I was neck-deep in a rigorus dance program, I had family commitments, a son graduating middle-school, a soccer team to coach, freelance projects and something called “life.” There were days when I doubted myself and my work. On other days, I was so exhausted I couldn’t paint another stroke. The words on my poster pressed me to stay focused. I plugged away at the manuscript edits and worked faithfully on the illustrations. One page-spread at a time, I kept at it, until one glorious day everything was done.

My daughter, Kai, and I (shown in the above photo with Jerry) waited in line for close to forty minutes. I rehearsed my delivery in my mind, which was going to be smooth and professional, of course. However, when it came our turn to meet Jerry, I said something goofy and non-sensical as I pointed to his saying (set in stone serif bold) on my hand-made poster. I felt like a little kid pointing to a fingerpainting.

It took a few minutes for him to realize what was going on, but when I pulled out my picture book and reminded him of Chautauqua, his face lit up. He graciously accepted a copy of my book—a book that was eight years in the making. It was retold, revised, reincarnated as a story a trillion times over—by me. What I learned in the process could be summed up by Jerry’s words: “Write what you care about.”

My awkward attempt at “show and tell” didn’t matter. Jerry understood my visit.

Special thanks to Jennifer AKA Litericat on Verla Kay’s Blue Boards for publicizing Jerry’s appearance. Jennifer runs the Not Your Mother’s Book Club for teens in the SF Bay Area. Check out her NYMBC website for the next exciting event—she has a bunch of them coming up.

Momentum, as in skate-boarding downslope with your best buddies~your dog and your books.

I illustrated and designed this bookmark a few years ago. I like this Groucho Marx saying and thought it would “work” with these images. What do you think?