At Last ...

It's more than a month in the making ... but here is the Science in Second Life slideshow:
(Cross your fingers)

Beneath the Planet of the Children's Literature Conference

Just kidding. My husband said I'd missed that title. Ummmm, nice hotel, good food, and nice restaurants in Athens.
Oh, and, Children's Literature Conference Jumps the Shark.
the end

Bride of Son of Children's Literature Conference

Prepare to have your childhood ruined!

The last session I have notes on was "Cinderelly: Magical anecdotes for addressing gender in children's literature." How many of us thought we were supposed to wait for Prince Charming, eh? This session was about book selection, but raises awareness for storytimes as well.
Rachelle, one gorgeous and charismatic woman, enjoins us to consider a child's self-image in selecting books. I wonder what books she read growing up ... Is it too late for me?
Society, Rachelle tells us, cites gender (she means "sex" but for some reason people giggle when you use that word) as binary; what is masculine is not feminine and vice versa. Yes, well, people seem to do this to everything for some reason. Maybe it's just a western thing to use the binary model. You are either to the left or the right. Things are up or down. Everything has an opposite. But that isn't the way things are. There is a continuum between these so-called opposites. HyPOthyroid is the opposite of hyPERthyroid ... but in between them is a grey area called healthy. And it can be a pretty big area. So there might be masculine and feminine, but most of us live in that big continuum between them. If a girl is good at math but has no interest in sewing or cooking, should she be stigmatized by a stereotype from the far end of the continuum? If a boy loves pink or babies (my dad, a former track star and wrestler, loved babies when he was a boy and goes all twee over small children even now), should we kick him in the pants and tell him to go watch some football?
Even among europeans, how many truly blonde and blue-eyed (in the middle ages, they were called grey-eyed) types are there? Sure, all those blonde, blue-eyed princesses resonated with me when I was growing up. But I was even a minority in my own family. Both my mother and sister were dark haired. My hair is dark now. I could identify with those characters in books but what about the darker europeans such as the hispanic child or the african child and the asian child? Do my storytimes reflect my audience? Consider Walt Disney's Cinderella from the point of view of the hispanic niñita. This is our society's standard of beauty and, honey, you're not it. What does that do to her? This could cause her to reject books, reading, and school.

Rachelle tells us to look at picture books (and other children's books, because non-fiction can sneak up under our radar) and check the illustrations and storyline.

Look at the lifestyles of the characters.
Weigh the relationships between people.
Note the heroes.
Consider the effects on the self image of different sorts of children.
Consider the author's and illustrator's backgrounds (and think hard about that Five Chinese Brothers book).
Check the author's perspective.
Watch for loaded words.
Look at the copyright date.
Can you change the hero to a female? Can you change the race? Can you find another book in the catalog or your collection that will show more diversity?

Rachelle says that in her class she had a male student who claimed he felt he was the Prince that was in search of the Princess to rescue. And after all the slamming of stereotypes the women in the class did ... they all suddenly focused on him. Well, I wish him well. If you think it's your job to rescue someone ... you will spend the rest of your life rescuing while they spend the rest of their life being rescued and, ya know, that can get old real fast.

She concentrated on the Cinderella story, of which there are plenty from different cultures and from less gender-stereotyped attitudes ... but I think you need to know the original stories to appreciate the twists. I'm not talking about the ethnicity, just the gender. Because, actually, there's nothing wrong with girls liking pink, babies, cooking, frilly things. Then we can add books about the more practical girls, who wear loafers because they're comfortable (like in Cinder Edna above) - but I think they need to come later.
And then, even saying that, there is one of my favorite alternative lifestyle fairy tales:


Others are:
The cowboy and the black-eyed pea by Tony Johnston
Rumplestiltskin's daughter by Diane Stanley
Three cool kids by Rebecca Emberly (the three billygoats Gruff in da 'hood)
and, of course, Cinder Edna by Ellen Jackson

Son of Children's Literature Conference

Jazz, by Walter Dean Myers

The next session I attended was about using music in storytimes. Now, about two years ago I made it my goal to add music to my storytimes somehow. Not just the songs I sing with children, but expose them to music. I have this sneaky little idea to run opera roughshod over the little darlings (well, with puppets, of course) because that is, after all, my passion, but just have never gotten around to it what with all the internet frou-frou dangling in front of me. I've matched some other goals: more puppets, creative dramatics, but the music thing was getting away from me.
This session was about Jazz - All that Jazz and Razzmatazz! The presenters had lists of books (such as the above, Jazz by Walter Dean Myers, Ella Fitzgerald and Duke Ellington: The Piano Prince and His Orchestra by Andrea Pinkney, I See the Rhythm by Toyomi Igus, Dizzy by Jonah Winter, and Ellington Was Not a Street by Ntozake Shange (we have this in a kit!). She read these books to kids and played the artists' music in the background during the storytime! I'll have to look at these (these are the ones we have) to see if they are appropriate to my storytimes, but I have some Bessie Smith in my collection and we have the picture book, Bessie Smith and the Night Riders (okay, this may be a bit intense but it is a picture book!) by Sue Stauffacher. While I was in California, I went shopping for some Jazz compilations ... but I bought some Terry Pratchett books instead. Ooops. Will work on this. Can also use Brian Pinkney's Max Found Two Sticks with the rhythm sticks we bought for storytime.
If the jazz works, can opera be far behind? Dalla sua pa-ace, la mia di-ipe-e-e-ende!

Children's Literature Conference Cont'd (at last)

Could YOU resist this book?

Now I can finally get around to the sessions I attended at the Georgia Children's Literature Conference. Most of these sessions were by and for school librarians, but you can always pick up something to use in a public library setting. At least we don't have to worry about curriculum standards.
The first session I attended was "Making movies about books and stepping into a good story." The presenters claimed to be from a poor district but I noticed that everyone seemed to have digital cameras and SmartBoards. Hmmmm. Their presentation sounded a great deal like the Whole Language Learning stuff, but it fit in nicely with Mo Willems's belief that books should not just be read, but played.
The book they used as an example was Close Your Eyes by Kate Banks (which was sooo cute that I bought a copy in the conference booksale). They had many activities to reinforce all the words and plot in the book (not much, really - just a call and response of why little tiger won't close his eyes and go to sleep but he's just the cutest little tiger!), but the one that I was interested in (and the titular activity), was where they had the children act out the story.
Using a scan or photograph of a good background layout in the picture book projected with the SmartBoard, the teacher costumed two children as tigers (simple costume of tiger patterned cloth with a hole cut like in a poncho and a paper headband with tiger ears on it ... which children could make themselves) and photographed them in front of the projected background as they said the words of little tiger and his mother. The teacher cycled through the whole class to make sure everyone appeared. She then printed off each page with the words from the book and the names of each child next to their pictures and bound it so that they would have a copy. Cute!
What can I use? Ah! The simple costumes like that fabric poncho and the tiger ears would add a great deal to the Creative Dramatics I already use in some storytimes. I drew pictures of them in my notes.
Doing the full monty (excuse me, I mean, the full portion) with the backdrop, photos, etc. would make a nice summer activity some time. Choose a book to re-enact with kids, take pictures, have bound to give to each child. Must check on prices for nice binding, but can run off here as well.
Getting this involved in a storybook would mean a great deal to a kid who doesn't really look on books as his or her friend like the rest of us do.

American Born Chinese

After the Staff Education Day on Young Adult Services Wednesday (I know, I haven't even finished going over the Children's Literature Conference), my thingie - resolve, whatever it was, was to read more YA materials, which I do a bit anyway. Whither my favorite authors go ... I was quite taken with the thought of American Born Chinese by Gene Yang. The other books mentioned sounded too much like the Serious Realistic Fiction That I Go Out of My Way to Avoid in the adult section. "Oh, it's so gooooood!" people tell me about this stuff, but I get enough realism in my own damn life and when I read a book, I want to be taken somewhere else other than, say Vietnam (where I spent my dinner hours growing up) or Nazi Germany (where I had relatives, thankyewverymuch, who may have turned in their Jewish neighbors but certainly suffered more in the war than my stateside family did (we have letters and our family sent clothes, etc. when the war was over). And I have no interest in drugs (okay - not a lot of interest, unless they are tasty frozen concoctions) because I lived through the 60s and 70s - suis allee la, fait cela, obtenu le tattoo.
I have read The Wintersmith by Terry Pratchett (no surprise there - I'm a huge fan) and listened to the audio book read by Stephen Briggs, which is terrific. He reads many of the Pratchett books, adult and YA, and has wonderful characterizations. I even read one of his Johnny Maxwell books (more for boys), which ... was good but not as complex as the Tiffany stories. But then, it is for boys, innit? I love Diana Wynne Jones' children's books and so I have also trod into her YA. Hornbook often has recommendations for YA that pull me away from my usual concentration in Juvenile (and trashy adult mysteries) which led me to The Swan, a graphic novel by Ariyoshi Kyoko. Now, I knew that the Japanese manga were to be read back to front, but for some reason I forgot when I picked up this one, so I was a bit confused for a short while. "This doesn't quite make sense," I thought, "but I can see where it might if I ... Awwww, shhhhhugar!" And I had to start over ... from the back. I can see where teens might enjoy that book, but it wasn't my cup o' cha. It's disconcerting to see Japanese characters (the people kind) all wrapped up in something so european as ballet (but our teens could relate) and I'm not keen on romantic longing and angst (ew! ew! - but teens could relate). Probably won't read more of that, which I think is a series. I also read The Life of Pi by Yann Martel as a YA recommendation (very funny article in Hornbook where Martel is at a book-signing and a young teen comes up and gushes about how much he really liked the tiger in the boat. I don't wanna spoil anyone's read of this, [Stop reading here] but Pi made Mr. Parker up. [Safe to read again.]).

But I came here to bury Caesar, not to praise him, so on to American Born Chinese. Which I read yesterday.

This graphic novel weaves a story on several levels: Chinese folkloric background story, an only slightly exaggerated (loved the lips on the test animals!) realistic story of the titular American born Chinese kid, and the sit-com over-the-top (complete with laugh-track along the bottom of the frames) version with the character that looks like he stepped right out of Claire Bishop's "Five Chinese Brothers": Chin-kee. The story is touching, milk-out-the-nose-snortingly funny, and enlightening - I cannot say enough good things about it. I had only one teensy problem with one itsy-bitsy frame, but I won't go into it here or I can see a bit of trouble with my co-workers on this. Oh well, just call me "Mr. Partypooper." Other than that, this story is PERFECT as well as perfectly beautifully drawn.

Children's Literature Conference, Athens, GA

Ian Ogilvy ("School Bully" and author of Measle and the Wrathmonk)

Sorry I'm so late about this. Apparently, I picked up some awful flu while at this conference and was very ill all the next week.

I should begin by saying that I didn't think listening to authors maunder on and on was going to be worthwhile but I was dead wrong. We started the conference by listening to Ian Ogilvy (above) accepting the Georgia Children's Book Award. Ogilvy is an actor and has pretty much done nothing but acting until he decided to write a book (which actually was an adult book and not the one he was awarded for that day). He was introduced by his acting resume - which was tantalizingly familiar and I sat there squirming, sure I knew the voice. I had watched some "Babylon 5," but he wasn't a regular. "I, Claudius" was so long ago, I couldn't remember anyone but Derek Jacoby (who still calls Ogilvy "Dad" - not that flattering if you consider how old Jacoby looks compared to Ogilvy) - Ogilvy played Drusus, the father of Claudius. But I still felt I must know him from somewhere else. A quick search on IMDB.com brought me the answer I needed: in "Thompkinson's School Days," one of the Ripping Yarns programs put on by Terry Jones and Michael Palin, Ogilvy played the School Bully (Grayson). Suddenly the plummy accent and the face all came into focus for me. Now I wish I'd hugged him when I ran into him on the steps (which he would not have appreciated, since he would probably have gotten whatever I was incubating).
Each of the authors described their methods of writing, what got them into writing, and each one was completely different! There would be no way to emulate all of them - you'd just have to find the method that made most sense to you (or else try them all in succession). Ogilvy annoyed everyone by just deciding to write a book, slogging through it, and getting it published, solely on the strength of his recognition factor. He had succeeded Roger Moore in the role of "The Saint" and was a household word in England at the time.
He remarried in the US (after he realized that his cachet as The Saint only went so far in England he moved to California where he was an illegal alien for a while) and read books to his new family at bedtime. So he thought he'd take a stab at a children's book. Measle and the Wrathmonk is the result. He sent it to his literary agent who found it delightful and set it up to be "auctioned" - which means various publishers would bid for it and run the price up. He was quite pleased with that. At his age, parts are harder to get, and he fancied that a little writing would be a help.
His agent called to tell him that, of the bidders, she recommended Oxford University Press. They had not bid the most, but had sent her a cake with decorations reflecting the plot and characters of the book. If they put that much into just getting the bid, she figured they would put as much or more effort into marketing the final product.
She was apparently right. Ogilvy is quite satisfied with the promotion of the book. He is definitely not satisfied with his American publisher, Harper Collins, who picked it up but let it languish. They told him that only so many books "make it" and apparently they put their money behind the ones they think will. The majority of new books have to fend for themselves.
Ogilvy simmers below the surface. You can see him come right to the edge of a good, solid lambaste, but he deftly pulls away leaving the smoke of charm and politesse in his wake. On the verge of skewering Warner Brothers for making a total dog's breakfast of the script for MatW, he merely describes their tendency (as well as everyone in Hollywood) to "blow smoke." You have to fill in the "up one's arse" for yourself.
The good news on the movie front is that, after a scathing letter from him, the WB executives took him to lunch (instead of airily suggesting they "do" lunch) and agreed with him totally that the script needed a total re-write and that it should start with going back to the original material instead of re-writing the re-write of a re-write of a re-write. Ogilvy is hopeful that his arse was smoke-free.
As to writing, Ogilvy says he pictures the story like a movie and "just writes what he sees." Oh, nice. I'm sure we can all do that. He also passes on what he considered to be good advice in writing, "Put weather in."
So, everyone, picture a story in movie form ... and just describe it! And don't forget the important weather!

Cynthia Kadohata did not look well. People complained about her presentation, but I thought it was good and ... well, I thought she was bearing up well under some stress or illness. She had pictures to show - one of her getting the message about the Newbery Award, pictures of her family, and described her harrowing adoption trip to Kazakhstan. And then I heard people complaining that she didn't go enough in depth!
Cynthia's father spent WWII in an internment camp - which helped inspire Weedflower. She "killed off her sister" for Kira-kira, which annoyed her real-life sister for quite a while. Her love of dogs inspired CRACKER! The Best Dog in Vietnam. Kadohata put many dog-related ideas past her editor before the Cracker story was accepted.
Apparently, she is very heavily edited, and showed us an example of how ideas dear to your heart can be rejected and you just have to get up, dust yourself off, and re-do.
Her recommendation for writers is to write something and send it off (to be rejected) because that will force you to finish a piece. It also helps if your editor is a childhood friend.
The advice so far: be already hideously famous, grow up with a future editor/agent/publisher. The weather continues charming.

Brian Pinkney does not claim to be a speller or a grammarian. He came into writing through the back door of illustrating. His father was an artist as well, so he had the advantage of an example at home and access to materials. He loves working with scratchboard, but that becomes another burden if you want to do something different. "Oh, but you do the scratchboard!" "Oh, but you're The Saint!" "Oh, but you're Japanese!"
Pinkney practices karate and used that in one of his books (Jo-Jo's flying side-kick).
He is a drummer, and was able to use that as well (Max found two sticks). He taught us the paradiddle rhythm and charged us to go home and practice. I tried to do this for my husband who probably thought I was going mad. All of these so-called talents actually take a great deal of practice and concentration. (Rats.)
He convinced his wife to write books for him to illustrate, which raises the specter of husband and wife living and working together. He has rules for that:

• If you're going to talk about work, have a meeting and discuss it like it's what it is: business.
• Never tell your spouse something is a stupid idea.
• If there is something about a drawing that just isn't working, don't say it's wrong, say that that part is "unresolved."
• Preface the bad news with, "Honey, you're off to a great start ..."

It's all a person can do to not fall down and worship David Wiesner. His drawings are brilliant, imaginative, and funny, and you don't have to read anything! He entered illustration at the last gasp of color separation, where you had to do separate overlays of each ink color (remember how children's books used to have only two colors in them? Or their coloring was very, very simple? Ahhh, that explains it, eh?) This rankled him a bit, but publishers weren't going to spend the money for full-color printings on children's books. He'd show them what he was capable of doing and they would tell him it was very nice, but do it the way they asked. An applicant for a position at our library showed us his latest Caldecott winner, Flotsam, and waxed enthusiastic about his work and described in depth his use of the smaller panels to show the action. I was so excited that I used the book in the evening storytime that night. Luckily, I had only one child and she was slightly older. We were able to go through the book and chat about it.
Wiesner will make a terrific sketch and then think, "Can I do more with this?" His goal is to make the reader want to know what could possibly be happening on the next page.

So, be incredibly famous, grow up with an agent/editor/publisher, have a talented father/prolific wife/photogenic children, work something until you've gotten everything out of it you can. Lovely weather, eh? The sun is shining ...

The last author was Mo Willems, author of the Knufflebunny (the K is pronounced - usually) and Pigeon stories. Willems wrote for Sesame Street. He says that if you can imagine the story just from reading, you don't need pictures. You can have too many words or too many pictures (take that, Wiesner!) and he feels the audience needs to do some work. His mission is to write incomprehensible stories for illiterates. Picture books need to be read aloud (great! I'm doin' that; gotcher back, Mo) and that books should be played, not just read. He firmly holds to the belief that the lead character should be drawable by a five year old (and that, Wiesner!). Then he tried to get us all to draw the Pigeon. He says small, real stories are worth being told.
After years with Sesame Street, dealing with suits, etc., he's glad to be in the only industry left where individuality is the norm, that is picture books.

Okay, all of the above, and don't put in too many words or too many pictures. Include the weather. Now, go write a great children's book!

Got all that? Good.