Adam (right) receives the award from author Kevin Crossley-Holland who isPresident of the School Library Association
Congrats to Adam Lancaster who is SLA School Librarian of the Year and Duston School for winning the Library Design Award. It was an inspiring event with many thrilling ideas about enthusing children into reading. But the awesome initiatives on display were made poignant by a
Top o’ the Tuesday to you, gentle readers! After a delightful Memorial Day Weekend of doing very little (aside from watching somewhat strangely high statistics for my dinky little Saturday review) I am now working my final week at NYPL before the imminent arrival of a brand new Baby Bird. So let’s pack in the news items while we may, eh?
First off, big time thanks to everyone who showed up for the BEA Kidlit Drink Night. We raised excellent money for Reading is Fundamental and Rasco from RIF provided her own sweet thanks as well. Y’all are sweet and good and I appreciate you thoroughly.
And now the sad news. I’m sure that some of you may have heard that librarian, blogger, and 2012 debut author Bridget Zinn died of colon cancer at the age of 33. Tributes to her have been springing up all over the web and Liz at Tea Cozy has created a very impressive rundown on all the best Zinn links. I was sorry not to have known her better.
- I mentioned everything in my Day of Dialog rundown except the new books coming out. Until I get around to typing that up, why don’t you head on over to the PW post BEA 2011: A Bountiful Fall for Children’s Books. I’ve read some of those books, but a lot are unfamiliar to me. Get a glimpse of what the publishers think will be big (warning: may differ wildly from what librarians think will be big).
- I just can’t stop mentioning Candyland these days. One minute I’m talking about the Candyland movie. The next I’m insisting that you head over to The Scop where Jonathan Auxier talks up his favorite board game of all time: The Settlers of Catan. Sounds a bit like Risk except, as Jonathan says, “Risk is Candy Land in wingtips and a smoking jacket — a game of luck pretending to be a game of skill.” I’m just amazed that no one’s done a Risk movie yet. I mean, come on! We’re already shooting most of our films in New Zealand/Australia anyway. Clearly that’s where you’d have to set it.
- Sounds pretty standard at first. The online children’s book magazine Books for Keeps puts out a piece called Ten of the Best Dystopian Novels. You probably are, like myself, expecting them to cover the usual. Your Eva. Your Z for Zachariah. So it was with great pleasure that I noticed the #1 was The Wolves of Willoughby Chase. Wait . . . oh! Dystopian. Not post-apocalyptic. The other choices are just as fascinating (I always liked The Wind Singer).
That's the gist of Catherine Bennett's piece for the Guardian, listing all the closures expected in the coming government cost-cutting exercise.
THINK! Kill a library and live with the consequences.
Anyone who loves reading (or writing) will want to bang their heads on the wall if they read the comments below the piece, such as this one from someone calling themselves Taxpayer555:
Close
Save the Cheerleader, Save the World was the slogan on which turned the first season of Heroes, the TV series about people with super powers.
In the real world however there is plenty that needs saving - and here's one campaign that should be dear to the hearts of all writers:
Save the Library, Save the Book.
Here's a sad fact: this year was the National Year of Reading in the United Kingdom and yet spending on books for public libraries is down for the third year running.
Libraries are in trouble. Which means books are in trouble.
Not that books haven't always been in trouble.
Technology relentlessly produces threats to the ascendancy of the book - the telephone, cinema, the radio, TV, and now, the internet have all been accused of ushering the End of the Book. But rumours of the Book's demise has always turned out to be exaggerated.
Here's why I think libraries are important to children's writers like ourselves:
- Libraries create readers.
- Libraries aren't Borders or Waterstone's or Tesco. However wonderful a bookstore may be, it is still a business driven by profit. If libraries were properly funded and buying enough books to keep publishers happy, publishers will have the breathing space to take risks with new authors, more "literary" books. They will have enough bottom line to nurture unripe talent.
- Librarians love books. A librarian will recommend a book because he/she has read it and loved it. Not because of some statistic that a sales rep has produced or because a publisher has paid for its promotion.
Having said all that, I recently visited a library local to me where there was no comfortable seating in the adult section, when I asked if I could sit in the children's section, the librarian tried to discourage me from hanging around, then scolded me for keeping a pile of books on my table because they were made unavailable to others (the library was empty).
The thing is, libraries have to change too. I am not just talking about technology or serving a better latte than Borders, I am talking about becoming a place where the young people of today would want to hang out.
Books I Borrowed Last Week:
Sabriel by Garth Nix
Abhorsen by Garth Nix
Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve
The Savage by David Almond
The Red Necklace by Sally Garner
The Stuff of Nightmares by Malorie Blackman
Across the Nightingale Floor by Lian Hearn
Save the Library, Save the Book ...
If you haven't yet signed up to the Campaign for the Book, do so now. Go to this
Facebook page and sign up. Here is the draught
charter as conceived by author Allan Gibbons (
Shadow of the Minotaur). Attend the conference for the campaign on Saturday, 27 June 2009 at King Edward's School in Birmingham.
Blog about the situation (feel free to use the image I created above). Visit a school. Borrow books at your local library and post a list of the books you've borrowed on your blog (check out mine above!)
Save the Library ... who knows,
the book you save might be yours.
I was discussing writing with a good friend the other day, how I felt every novel I completed was practice towards the next one. His well-meaning response was:
And then when you're ready, you can write an adult novel.
Sigh. An adult novel is always a possibility (maybe when I'm 80 and thinking about oldie stuff) but writing for children is as tough and as deserving of regard as writing for adults and no way is it a little league trial before moving on to the big league. I think.
Which leads me to
this great article from the New Yorker which I found signposted on the
Achuka blog (thanks, Achuka!) - a must read for all who love books for children.
It is the story of the clash between EB White (
Stuart Little, Charlotte's Web) and the legendary librarian/critic Anne Carol Moore (1871 to 1961), to whom the world owes the elevation of children's books to a status that deserved bespoke libraries and book reviews. And yet she subscribed to children's books as twee, cute, sentimental and worthy objects.
EB White described their quarrel thus:
Children can sail easily over the fence that separates reality from make-believe. They go over it like little springboks. A fence that can throw a librarian is as nothing to a child.
It was a tough business then, it's an even tougher business now - speaking of which, I have just been asked to do more work on one of my manuscripts. Argh!
All ye who are near despair over their manuscripts can take heed of this poster I've just put up on my study wall:
Keep Calm and Carry On.
Amen.
There has been much in the UK news about Prozac and other anti-depressants over the last couple of days. This is because of a recently released study from the University of Hull, which suggests that some of these drugs might not be as effective as we have been previously led to believe. With over 31 million prescriptions being given out for these drugs in England alone, this is a grave statement indeed. In light of this study, this morning I’m bringing you an extract from our book Happiness: The Science Behind Your Smile by Daniel Nettle, which sheds a little light on the history of Prozac and other “happy pills”.
(more…)
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What a great honour!! Yay for the School Librarian of the Year event!! <br /><br />Take care<br />x
It's been a great year for Adam Lanchester,picking up the Eleanor Farjeon award for the Federation of Children's Bookgroups last year and now this. Well deserved as well.<br /><br />If you want to speak out for libraries, there is a survey you can fill in online<br /><br />http://librariesofthefuture.dialoguebydesign.net/<br /><br />Not sure if you're allowed to put links up here, we
PS - you'll have to copy and paste the link. Worth doing!
Thanks, jackie!
Whoop! Well done that man: we do need more male school librarians! :D