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Fwd: life drawing, a photo by dibujandoarte on Flickr.

Fwd: life drawing, a photo by dibujandoarte on Flickr.

Fwd: life drawing, a photo by dibujandoarte on Flickr.

Fwd: life drawing, a photo by dibujandoarte on Flickr.

Fwd: life drawing, a photo by dibujandoarte on Flickr.

Fwd: life drawing, a photo by dibujandoarte on Flickr.

Fwd: life drawing, a photo by dibujandoarte on Flickr.

Fwd: life drawing, a photo by dibujandoarte on Flickr.

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In anticipation of the American Library Association awards announcement on January 14, Wizards Wireless has been discussing various ALA awards. So far, I've written about the Caldecott, the Newbery and the Printz.

Now, let's talk about the Batchelder. The Mildred L. Batchelder Award is presented to children's books that have been translated into English and published in the United States. The book has to have been previously published in another country and another language. Since 1979, the award has been presented to the publisher... not to the author. Part of the idea is to encourage publishers to translate books from other languages.

I had the pleasure of attending the 2007 Batchelder awards ceremony. Here was the list of winners and honor books:

• Delacorte Press, for The Pull of the Ocean written by Jean-Claude Mourlevat and translated from the French by Y. Maudet.
• Delacorte Press, for The Killer's Tears written by Anne-Laure Bondoux and translated from the French by Y. Maudet.
• Hyperion/Miramax, for The Last Dragon written by Silvana De Mari and translated from the Italian by Shaun Whiteside.

I read both The Pull of the Ocean and The Killer's Tears and was struck by the fact that the same publisher Delacourte Press (and in fact, the same translator, Y. Maudet) received both a Batchelder award and a Batchelder honor. I was also impressed by the effort and skill of the editor (again the same person- although I can't seem to find her name anywhere). She was obviously fluent in French and English and had discovered both The Pull of the Ocean and The Killer's Tears and worked for years to bring them to press in the United States.

I think effective translation is a real art form and I'm delighted that the Batchelder exists. In all honesty, I wouldn't have read either book had it not been for the awards, and I would have been poorer for it.

The Pull of the Ocean is a creative and unique modern retelling of Tom Thumb, and it's one of the best books I read last year. The story is told from a variety of viewpoints, which I think creates a striking and memorable effect. Click here for an excerpt of the book.

The Killer's Tears is the chilling, surprising and eventually breathtaking story about the relationship between a young boy and the murderer of his parents. It stayed with me long after I finished reading it. Click here for an excerpt.

Here's a complete list of the Batchelder award winners and honor books from 1968 to 2007. Stay tuned for the announcement of the 2008 Batchelder Awards on January 14.

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In an effort to be more on top of things, instead of always worrying about my backlog of things that need to be reviewed, I'm going to try and get books reviewed as I read them and THEN worry about the backlog. If that makes sense.

So, here's the book I just finished reading last night.

The Last Dragon by Silvana de Mari, translated from the Italian by Shaun Whiteside

Yorshkrunsquarkljolnerstri is the last elf. All the others had been sent to elf-camps, where they starved and froze to death. When the rains came, the remaining elves drowned in the floods. Yorsh's grandmother told him to go. Go, and don't look back.

Navigating a world that hates elves, Yorsh meets two human travelers who protect him, even though it brings them nothing but trouble. While escaping from jail, Yorsh sees a prophesy on a wall and knows it is about him.

Sarja and Monser (the humans) leave Yorsh to care for a dying dragon.

Years later, he and his dragon brother go to fulfill the prophesy...

There's more to it than that, but there is a huge gap in time between the first and second halves of this book and to fully explain the last bit, I'd have to completely ruin the first bit, and we don't want that, do we?

This is the type of story that sounds mundane and hackneyed. Elves. Dragons. Prophesy. Evil Kingdoms. Yawn. But in the hands of de Mari, this is a new, original tale that captivates you. There is a rhythm and lyricism to the prose that is hard to capture in just a single quotation. Yorsh is a wonderful character and even though the book is titled The Last Dragon, it is really Yorsh's tale.

This was a Batchelder honor book this year. The Batchelder is the prize ALA gives for translated works, but for some reason, instead of going to the author or translator, it goes to the publisher. What's up with that?!

This book also made the Cybil's short list!

Other Blog Reviews: Oz and Ends, Rebecca Hogue Wojahn, Becky's Book Reviews, Fairrosa's Reading Journal

Not all the blog reviews are positive. Also, there's a movie with the same name, so it was hard to wade through. I'm sorry if I ever miss anyone... Read the rest of this post

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QUICK SKETCH
I love my tiny little sketch book and never leave home without it. I have a bigger one, for if I am going someplace where I know sketching and note-taking will be possible, but I also keep a tiny one in my purse for drawing emergencies! Such as this. Friends Molly (a painter) and Sigmund (a doctor) invited us to dinner last Saturday and afterwards Sigmund treated us to some pretty fantastic piano playing. Knowing what was on the agenda for the evening my husband Paul brought his flute, and it was great to hear the guys jam together for a while. Sigmund is a neurologist, but could probably have become a professional pianist if he'd wanted. Musical talent runs in his family: one of his nephews is the Rap Champion of Norway!

This was just a minute of quick scrawling with a ball point pen...I knew I'd be interrupted and I was. One of the kids needed something, then Molly wanted my opinion on one of her newest paintings, and then it was time to head home. But I was glad I got this done: I love my sketchbook, even if it is not full of carefully rendered scenes, but mostly is a bunch of croquis, doodles and lightning sketches. (Plus phone numbers and names of books and movies people recommend!) It's my funbook, and we can all use a little fun!

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Now Reading: Un Lun Dun
Just Finished: The Invention of Hugo Cabret, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, Persepolis: The Story of a Childhood, Special Topics in Calamity Physics, The Brothers Grimm: Two Lives, One Legacy, The Talented Clementine,Persepolis 2: The Story of a Return

The Green Glass Sea by Ellen Klages was this year's winner for the Scott O'Dell prize for historical fiction.

Dewey is a weird kid-- there's something wrong with her leg that makes her limp and she spends all of her time making gadgets and fiddling with stuff. Her dad is working on some top secret project that is going to help win the war and when her grandmother dies, she goes off to live with him.

Dewey didn't realize how top secret this project was. She didn't realize she was moving to a place that didn't officially exist... All she knew was everyone was living out in the desert working on the gadget. The gadget would win the war. The gadget would make everything better.

Suze has been living at Los Alamos for awhile when Dewey moves there-- Suze is a bit awkward and bossy and both of her parents are working on the project-- her mom's a real scientist, not just a typist or secretary like the other moms. When Dewey's dad has to go to Washington for awhile, Dewey moves in and the pair form an unlikely, but entirely realistic, friendship.

What's great about this book is the portrait of day-to-day life at Los Alamos-- you never think about kids living with their families, going to school, and being kids. You never think about the divisions between scientist kids and military kids. And you never think about Los Alamos just plain not existing... (well, at least I never thought about those things.)

This balances the line perfectly of being meticulously researched and historically wonderful, while not letting this detail overshadow the actual story. I liked how realistic the interactions between the kids were-- this unlikely friendship took a long time to develop and it never came across as hokey or simplisitic.

My favorite part of the book was how delicately it dealt with some very large issues that need to be tackled when dealing this topic-- it put them in there so you knew people were worrying about them, but Dewey hears about them and deals with them in a way that is very true to her age. In Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character) Feynman (a minor character in this book, much to my delight) talks about the horror of what they had done after the first test. The book captures this horror well with the adults and the confusion of the kids at what's going on.

Something happens about 3/4 of the way through the book that is a bit of a spoiler so I'm not going to talk about it too much, but it was just too much and I don't really think it was necessary (but it might be for the sequel that I am very much looking forward to!)

The other thing is... I'm assuming that if you're reading my blog, you know what the gadget was-- you know what was invented at Los Alamos during WWII to win the war. Dewey and Suze, and therefore the reader, never find out was the gadget was, and I'm not sure how much sense the ending of the book is going to make if you don't know. I also don't know if the intended audience is going to automatically know what the gadget was...

Still, an excellent book and a well-deserving win.

Once upon a time, a very long time ago, I promised I'd review this years Newberry winner, The Higher Power of Luckyby Susan Patron.

I wanted to wait down until all the fervor over SCROTUM faded away. And then it came back. And then it faded again.

Anyway... Lucky really surprised me. I hadn't heard anything about it before Newberry day and in reading the description-- it didn't sound kid-friendly. It sounded like it was going to be really nostalgic and an adult book written for kids.

It wasn't! I was so happy!

Lucky lives with her French guardian (he absent father's ex-wife) in the middle of the desert. She likes to eavesdrop on 12 step meetings to find out how people find their higher power-- higher power sounds like a handy thing to have, but Lucky's hoping to avoid hitting rock bottom in order to get it. Hitting rock bottom doesn't sound like much fun.

At the same time, Lucky's worried her guardian is going to go back to France-- she seems homesick and her passport was out the other day.

Deep down, this is a really sweet tale that will appeal to younger readers, but also has some really big issues for older readers to get into.

Most enjoyable was the large cast of wacky, but believable, characters. A good book and my favorite Newberry winner of the last few years.

Hattie Big Sky by Kirby Lawson was a Newberry Honor book that is being found in the YA section at all the libraries I've visited!

Hattie is an orphan who inherits a homesteading claim in Montana. In order to keep the claim, she has to cultivate a large portion of it (which involves clearing it first!) and fence off most of it. By hand. By herself. She knows nothing about farming. Or cooking. Or anything. She wants to keep the claim, but she'll be lucky if she even survives.

Her next door neighbors are helpful and nice and the first friends Hattie makes, but one of them is German, and it's smack in the middle of WWI. Montana is rife with anti-German sentiment, loyalty leagues and other things making things hard for Hattie's friends. How can she reconcile her soldier-friends killing Germans across the ocean with her German neighbor fencing her claim in the middle of the night?

Tragedy and hope about in another great example of what historical fiction should be in this book that's perfect for Tweens and those right on the kidlit/YA break.

My favorite part was the ending and how it was handled. The author's note at the end is great, as are the recipes!

The Pull of the Ocean by Jean-Claude Mourlevat won the Batchelder award for translated work this fall.

The Doutreleau children are all sets of twins, except for the Yann, the seventh and the last. Yann is small and mute, but notices everything and communicates with his older brothers silently. One night he wakes up to his parents fighting and lets his brothers know they have to leave, to escape. For days they walk, following Yann's inner compass to the ocean.

This is more than just a retelling of the Tom Thumb. This story is told in brief accounts of people who saw the children and interacted with them only briefly-- sometimes only seconds, never more than an hour or so. Interspersed are the accounts of the children, but never Yann.

This book is surprisingly powerful and moving without ever being overwrought, over-contrived, or melodramatic. I couldn't put it down and it haunts you long after you turn the final page-- I highly recommend!

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