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“If we don’t offer children literature from other languages, we are starving them.” Philip Pullman (TES, 2005)

Phew! I’d been planning on doing a round-up of some of the speeches and talks I sat in on at the ALA Conference in Orlando a week or so ago, only to find that I’d lost my notes.  They have since resurfaced.

When one attends an ALA Conference in full, it is useful to decide early what kind of talks you’d like to attend.  Is your interest in copyright or preservation?  Do you have more of a yen to learn about sustainable thinking, coding groups, STEM collaboration, or small scale digitization?  This year I decided to concentrate more on international children’s literature.  It’s an interest that has grown within me over the past few years and I was curious to learn more about the topic.

First up, Diverse Books from Across the Globe.  Description: “How can the local library help voices from emerging markets and developing countries be heard? How can we make their books available to refugee populations and foreign language speakers across the United States? Join innovators from Library for All to look at how libraries can continue to support access to quality educational materials in an increasingly global context.”  The panelists included Rebecca McDonald of Library for All, Kerri Poore of First Book, and Hannah Ehrlich of Lee & Low Books.

This was right up my alley.  As I say, my interest in international literature for kids has peaked over the last few years, possibly kickstarted by an event held at The New School in NYC that addressed American discomfort with books from other nations.  With all the talk of getting kids to read more diverse books, there’s been very little talk about getting kids to read books that are from a diverse range of countries.  Windows and mirrors are great, but why do the windows always have to look at our own back yards?  Now with the rise of Donald Trump and the recent Brexit vote, nativism is at an all-time high, making me wonder why we don’t talk more about the value of teaching kids about other cultures through those nations’ books.  I’m no innocent.  I don’t think the world’s problems can be solved if kids in Texas read more books written for kids in Iraq.  Nor do I think that American discomfort with the art of other nations (whether it’s foreign films or translated novels) is relegated solely to picture books.  That said, there is value in learning, at a young age, the different ways in which other nations and cultures tell their stories.

So!  The talk!  It was such an interesting collection of speakers.  The focus of this particular panel was how to meet the needs of kids in the United States that have families from international cultures.  I confess that I’d never heard of Library for All before.  Though their primary purpose is to bring books to poverty stricken areas of the world, the organization also works closely with First Book to bring books from other countries to kids here in America.  What struck me as particularly interesting is how they will essentially become book detectives for specific cultures and languages.  Which is to say, they’ll go into other countries to seek out and find books that would otherwise never make it to American shores.

When it was time for questions I asked how librarians can work to promote international books here in the United States.  There are some problems with doing so, of course.  There is, and has always been, a marked preference for diverse American books vs. diverse international literature.  Add in the fact that such books can only win a couple awards here and there, and there’s very little incentive on the part of the publishers to promote or distribute them.

In answering it was Hannah Ehrlich who gave me quite a lot to chew on.  She pointed out to me (and this is key) that this isn’t just a children’s book problem.  The wider difficulty comes with getting Americans as a whole used to different narrative styles.  One way to do this is to get very young children used to these different kinds of books from the start.

Another factor?  The discoverability of international children’s book is key.  Visibility is, in many ways, the greatest hurdle to overcome.  That’s why we have USBBY lists like their yearly release of Outstanding International Books (you can find the 2016 list here).  But the greatest hurdle?  Getting such books into curriculum.  To do this, publishers like Lee & Low work with the school and library market.  The problem is that the text complexity of these books is often their downfall.  Books written for foreign markets don’t care two bits about leveling.  As a result, they’re often kept out of those schools that live and die by Fountas and Pinnell and their ilk.

So what can be done?  The panelists had some excellent suggestions.  First off, let’s be honest.  International children’s literature can sometimes be a hard sell.  You can’t introduce these books to Americans cold.  If you’re going to introduce a global perspective into your classroom, you need to foster a dialogue around these books.  As for librarians, do displays of translated children’s books!  Start international book clubs where you highlight a different country every month.  And be aware that some types of books simply do not exist in other countries.  Young adult literature, for example, just isn’t an age level designation in some places.

It was a good talk.

The second one I attended a little later was entitled Conversation Starter: Other People’s Voices: Using Global Literature in Translation to Reimagine Diversity in Libraries. Its panel consisted of Rachel Hildebrandt, Marc Aronson, and moderator Doris Gebel.

The problem?  I had difficulty finding the room and missed Marc Aronson’s opening remarks.  Too bad, since the man is a positive machine of good quotes.  Here’s one I was able to catch:

“It is wrong to hem our children in to a national experience when they are living an international experience.”

Since the focus on this talk was, to a certain extent, translation, I was particularly intrigued by a mention made of something called The Global Literature in Libraries Initiative.  In June there was an excellent piece in YALSA’s The Hub blog explaining what this is.  As their mission statement says:

“. . . the Global Literature in Libraries Initiative strives to raise the visibility of world literature for adults and children at the local, national and international levels. We intend to do so by facilitating close and direct collaboration between translators and librarians, because we believe translators are uniquely positioned to help librarians provide support and events to engage readers of all ages in a library framework that explores and celebrates literature from around the world.”

There are a lot of great points in the piece.  For example, when talking about the lack of international books available to a lot of kids today in our increasingly interconnected global world it said that, “Librarians play a key role in counteracting this dangerous insularity.”

On the panel, the panelists mentioned that our love affair with translation is a funny, fickle thing.  We do well when it comes to Pippi Longstocking, but we’re not great when it comes to contemporary literature.  That gives the U.S. book market, and American children’s books in general, cultural dominance.  To get an outsider perspective is invaluable to kids today.  For example, in 2004 Chronicle Books won the Batchelder Award for The Man Who Went to the Far Side of the Moon: The Story of Apollo 11 Astronaut Michael Collins by Bea Uusma Schyffert, translated from the Swedish by Emi Guner.  And let me tell you, our space program looks a LOT different when its story is told by someone other than rah-rah Americans.

Doris Gebel urged the attendees to start kids young on international literature.  Fail to do so and they won’t have a yearning for it as teens.  Show them those “strange” books that confuse you, the adult.  “Our young children need other books from other lands every day.”

Mention was made of the two major book lists/awards of translated children’s literature in the States.  One is the Batchelder Award (named after Evanston librarian Mildred L. Batchelder so HOMETOWN PRIDE!) which is given each year.  The International Books List (which I mentioned before) celebrates 40 books and breaks them down by age groups.  That’s great, but the bulk of the books are from Western countries.

It was at this point that Marc Aronson spoke about the importance of distinctive translations.  Take Anne Frank’s diary, for example.  The version we read in schools is a very particular rendering.  A lot of people would be shocked to hear that there are different versions out there.  This reminded me of an article I read in Book Bird (a fantastic international children’s book periodical) years ago about how translating Hans Christian Andersen changes the meaning of his stories, depending on the translator.  Until I read that piece it wasn’t something I’d thought about.  As Marc said, “Translation is a creative act.”  Mention was made at this time of the fact that for the very first time a woman has translated an edition of Madame Bovary.  Meanwhile the famous translator of 100 Years of Solitude just died.  If you think you know that book and you speak English, you only know his version.

Today, things are perking up.  In the last five years we’ve seen more small independent presses translating children’s books than ever before.  Often these publishers are their own translators.  Look at that USBBY list.  It’s almost entirely small presses.  And if these small presses don’t get reviewed in most of the journals out there (Kirkus is beloved to me because they take special care in reviewing the little guys) then the books just don’t get any attention.

When the audience members came up to speak, we heard some fascinating takes on all this.  One woman said that the bulk of books translated from Colombia in the United States are about losing weight.  She has Colombian immigrants in her library wondering aloud to her why Americans want them to lose weight so much, but that’s just what’s (weirdly) available.

So let’s talk solutions.  What can libraries do to promote translated materials?  Well, we could work with our immigrant communities more.  Doris also pointed out that storytimes of translated books and library displays of translations could be useful as well.  That got me to thinking how cool it would be if someone were to create lists like, “Top Ten Kids’ Books Translated from German” or “Top Ten Kids’ Books Translated from Swahili”.  Or by country!

Which finally brings us to the International Digital Children’s Library.  If you haven’t seen it yet, please check it out.  Seeking to serve the international community, the site makes, “the best in children’s literature available online free of charge.”

Also mentioned was the collection at Worlds of Words, at the University of Arizona. The description reads, “Worlds of Words is committed to providing a range of resources to encourage educators at all levels to integrate global literature into the lives of children. The resources on this site grew out of work in schools around the world and the identification of needs…”

Thanks to both panels for this fascinating exchange of ideas.  Much to chew on here.

You know what’s even better than serving on an award committee?  Having someone else write about it.  As I’ve mentioned in the past, I was on the judging committee for this year’s Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards alongside Chair Joanna Rudge Long and Roxanne Feldman.  It was Roxanne who reported on our discussion, and even took photos of where we met (Joanna’s gorgeous Vermont farmhouse), what we ate, and more.  There is also a particularly goofy shot of me that is impressive because even without knowing that there was a camera pointed in my direction, I seem to have made a silly face.  I am nothing if not talented in that respect.

Speaking of listening in on committees and their discussions, ALA is next week (she said, eyeing her unfinished Newbery/Caldecott Banquet outfit nervously) and that means you have a chance to sit and listen to one particular committee talk the talkety talk.  I am referring, of course, to the ALA Notables Committee.  This year they’ve released the list of books on their discussion list online for your perusal.  A lot of goodies there, as well as room for a lot of books I hope they get to eventually.

I was very sad to hear about the passing of Lois Duncan. Like many of you, she was a staple of my youth.  When Jules Danielson, Peter Sieruta, and I were writing our book Wild Things: Acts of Mischief in Children’s Literature we initially had a section, written by Peter, on why Lois stopped writing suspense novels for teens.  It’s a sad story but one that always made me admire her deeply.  She was hugely talented and will be missed.

Speaking of Wild Things, recently I was sent a YA galley by Marcus Sedgwick called Blood Red, Snow White.  But lest you believe it to be a YA retelling of the old Snow White / Rose Red fairytale, it ain’t.  Instead, it’s about how Arthur Ransome (he of Swallows and Amazons) got mixed up with Trotsky’s secretary and a whole lotta Bolsheviks.  What does this have to do with Wild Things?  This was yet ANOTHER rejected tale from our book.  Read the full story here on our website where we even take care to mention Sedgwick’s book (it originally was published overseas in 2007).

As I’ve mentioned before, my library hosts a pair of falcons each year directly across from the window above my desk.  I’ve watched five eggs laid, three hatch, and the babies get named and banded.  This week the little not-so-fuzzyheads are learning to fly.  It’s terrifying.  Far better that I read this older Chicago Tribune article on the banding ceremony.  They were so cute when they were fuzzy.  *sigh*

In other news, Harriet the Spy’s house is for sale.  Apparently.

Sharon Levin on the child_lit listserv had a rather fascinating little announcement up recently.  As she told it, she’d always had difficulty finding a really fast way to catalog her personal library.  Cause let’s face it – scanning every single barcode takes time.  Then she found a new app and . . . well, I’ll let her tell it:

“Shelfie is a free app for iOS and Android (www.shelfie.com) where you can take a picture of your bookshelf and the app will automatically recognize your book spines and generate a catalog of your library. In addition, the team behind the app has made deals with over 1400 publishers (including HarperCollins, Macmillan, and Hachette) to let you download discounted (usually around 80% off) or free ebook or audiobook edition of your paper books (right now these publisher deals cover about 25% of the books on an “average” shelf). The app also lets you browse other readers’ shelves. Shelfie will also give you personalized book recommendations based on how readers with similar taste in books to you organize the books on their shelves. The founder of Shelfie is named Peter Hudson and he’d love to hear any suggestions about how he can make the app better. Peter’s email is [email protected].“

Thanks to Sharon Levin for the heads up.

I leave NYPL and its delightful Winnie-the-Pooh toys and what happens?  The world goes goofy for the story of A.A. Milne and Christopher Robin.  Now we just found out that Domhnall Gleeson (a.k.a. Bill Weasley in the Harry Potter films) has just been cast as Milne in an upcoming bio-pic.  Will wonders never cease?

Are you familiar with the works of Atinuke?  An extraordinary storyteller, her Anna Hibiscus books are among my favorite early chapter books of all time.  They do, however, occasionally catch flack of saying they take place in “Africa” rather than a specific country. Recently, K.T. Horning explained on Monica Edinger’s recent post Diversity Window, Mirror, or Neither that Atinuke did this on purpose so that kids in Africa could imagine the stories as taking place in their own countries.  That makes perfect sense.  The ensuing discussion in Monica’s post is respectful, interesting, and with a variety of different viewpoints, all worth reading.  In short, the kind of talk a blogger hopes for when he or she writes something.  Well done, Monica.

Big time congrats to the nominees for the Neustadt Prize.  It’s a whopping $10,000 given to a children’s author given on the basis of literary merit.  It may be the only children’s award originating in America that is also international.  Fingers crossed for all the people nominated!

Hooray!  The Children’s Book Council has released their annual Building a Home Library list.  I love these.  The choices are always very carefully done and perfect for clueless parents.

In other CBC news, I got this little press release, and it’s worth looking at:

“For the second consecutive year, the Children’s Book Council has partnered with The unPrison Project — a 501(c)3 nonprofit dedicated to empowering and mentoring women in prison — to create brand-new libraries of books for incarcerated mothers to read with their babies at prison nurseries. Fourteen of the CBC’s member publishers answered the call by donating copies of over 35 hand-picked titles for children ages 0-18 months for each library. The books will be hand-delivered and organized in the nurseries by Deborah Jiang-Stein, founder of The unPrison Project and author of Prison Baby. Jiang-Stein was born in prison to a heroin-addicted mother, and has made it her mission to empower and mentor women and girls in prison.”

You know who’s cool?  That gal I mentioned earlier.  Julie Danielson.  She’s something else.  For example, while many of us might just say we were interested in James Marshall, she’s actually in the process of researching him.  She even received the James Marshall Fellowship from The University of Connecticut’s Archives & Special Collections at the Thomas J. Dodd Research Center. As a result she spent a week looking through the James Marshall Papers there. Their sole stipulation?  Write a blog post about it.  So up at the University’s site you’ll find the piece Finding the Artist in His Art: A Week With the James Marshall Papers. Special Bonus: Rare images you won’t find anywhere else.

Daily Image:

I take no credit to this.  I only discovered it on Twitter thanks to Christine Hertz of Burlington, VT.  It may constitute the greatest summer reading idea I’ve seen in a very long time.  Public libraries, please feel free to adopt this:

• “I just finished a poem where St. Francis and St. Clare double-date with Thoreau and Evita and it just makes me very happy.”  My mother was the winner of the 2011 Prairie Schooner Book Prize because she is as good as it gets.  No brag.  Just fact.  Prairie Schooner recently interviewed her as well and I recommend looking at it, partly because this my mother we’re talking about and she makes me very proud and partly because it raises the old interview bar, so to speak.  Clearly I need to put more work into my own.

• Once in a great while my husband’s occupation and my own will intersect.  He is a screenwriter and will alert me to interesting news items on the cinematic side of things.  This week he pointed me to a ScriptShadow piece.  If you are unfamiliar with the site it’s where a fellow going by the name of “Carson Reeves” reads and reviews the scripts that have recently sold in Hollywood and critiques them long before they are turned into films.  Each Friday Carson has something he calls Amateur Friday where folks submit their own screenplays for his review.  Last Friday someone handed in a script called Fifi, A Monkey’s Tale.  Those of you familiar with the story behind Curious George will recognize this as the original title of that manuscript.  The script essentially tells the tale of the Reys’ escape from the Nazis in WWII.  Only to punch it up a bit the screenwriter (and I kinda love this) rewrote history so that Goebbels himself wants Mr. Rey destroyed.  Something you have to see for yourself, I think.

• Do you like awards?  Do you like children’s books that come from countries other than America?  Well then, folks, have I got great news from you.  After her recent trip to Italy to judge the awards, Jules at 7-Imp let me know that the winners have been announced:

The 2012 Bologna Ragazzi Awards have just been announced! Here are links for interested folks:

Fiction winner and mentions: http://www.bolognachildrensbookfair.com/en/boragazziaward/images_award/fiction;
Nonfiction winner and mentions:http://www.bolognachildrensbookfair.com/en/boragazziaward/images_award/non_fiction;
New Horizons winner and mentions:http://www.bolognachildrensbookfair.com/en/boragazziaward/images_award/new_horizons;
Opera Prima winner and mentions (Opera Prima is for new artists):http://www.bolognachildrensbookfair.com/en/boragazziaward/images_award/opera_prima.

• I long for the day Save NYC Libraries can be shut down, but until that happy day occurs it’s a hugely useful and well-organized site for fighting mayoral cuts.  Recently the mayor rolled out his old budget again and yep.  You guessed it.  We’re
  5 Comments on Fusenews: Shelve the books but shelve them slant, last added: 2/24/2012
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  tanita said, on 2/23/2012 1:15:00 AM
  

  Your mom is, as always, kind of amazing. I aspire to her grasp of the sestina…

  Ed Spicer said, on 2/23/2012 5:53:00 AM
  

  And all this time I have been here in Kalamazoo reading about and admiring yet another astonishingly good writer from the Kalamazoo area… I never knew. I can see your mother in you. Wear that pride proudly!

  Ed Spicer said, on 2/23/2012 6:01:00 AM
  

  Thanks, too, for posting the various award lists–I always appreciate seeing what is available internationally (and then become seriously miffed that we don’t have places close to my home that will have the actual books).

  Elizabeth Bird said, on 2/23/2012 8:53:00 AM
  

  Thanks, Tanita! And Ed, if you ever stopped by the Athena Bookshop back in the day you would have run into her. These days she does do some work with the libraries. FYI!

  Ed Spicer said, on 2/24/2012 10:07:00 AM
  

  Loved Athena and visited often. Was sad to see it go away. I’m sure I must have had several conversations with you mom (and George Hebben). The staff in general was excellent and they also provided all the books for the KPL events.

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