So what precisely is going on here?  Typically an on-the-ball blogger comes up with original content and presents ideas in a unique and fascinating way.  The lazy blogger cuts and pastes.  Which do you think I’m about to do?  From Kelly Jensen’s post:

While we have a lineup of official people taking part in the series, anyone is welcome to blog on the topic of self promotion. You can talk about a program you did and loved. You can talk about how you perform strong reader’s advisory with teens. You can talk about the grander idea of self promotion itself. There’s nothing off limits, as long as you’re talking about libraries and self promotion or librarianship and self promotion in some capacity.

Librarians talking librarianship.  And so far we’ve seen everything from serving teen moms to promoting your own programming to using Kickstarter as a force for good and more.  When I was asked to join I knew I had to talk about my librarianship in some way, but how?

As you may know I’m a Youth Materials Specialist, which means I buy books for the New York Public Library system.  So when I ride the subway and see a kid reading a library book I can say, “I bought you that, kid” (not literally . . . that would be creepy).  But before I was in Collections I was a children’s librarian.  A job that has prepared me for life in so many different ways.

Consider my current life change.  I am now an author of a picture book (something I may have mentioned once/twice/3 billion times before).  And when one is a picture book author, one finds that the skills you learn as a children’s librarian have never been more important.  Using a recent appearance I made at the Hip Tot Music Fest as a guide, here is a direct correlation between one job and another.

1. You must be able to command the attention of large groups of children.

The Hip Tot Music Fest is precisely what you would think it is.  A Brooklyn-based monthly event where parents of toddlers and preschoolers dance and leap and scream and glide to the beat of live music from shockingly talented performers. Melanie Hope Greenberg is their resident author/illustrator and a strategic partner in the production.  As such she was kind enough to invite me to read my book before one such show. In doing so I found myself using every bit of librarian-based talent I’ve ever acquired.  And the first and foremost amongst these is what I learned when conducting baby or toddler or preschool storytimes.  You need to be interesting.

Thanks to Dawid Parus for the image.

Thanks to those years spent doing “Five Little Monkeys” and “Open, Shut Them” ad nauseam I can retain the eyeballs of most kids from 3 on up.  Before that age they’re a bit wiggly.  Not impossible, but you better have something better than just a reading if you want their attention.

2. You must be willing to make a fool of yourself.

Remember those days in library school where you had to conduct a mock toddler storytime for your peers, and you thought it was the most embarrassing thing you ever had to do?  Baby, you had no IDEA what you were in for!  Whether it’s an 18-month year old taking a bite out of your neck or a general flailing of the limbs in an effort to engage a baby, you are going to look silly.

And if you can do it wearing blue fur, all the better.

3.  You must be open to a change in plans.

You’re going to have a preschool storytime on a Saturday morning but what walks in the door instead?  Tiny tots.  Suddenly out goes the Fortunately by Remy Charlip and in comes The Noisy Counting Book by Susan Schade.  And it is the exact same thing when you perform your own book. Though library storytimes have on distinct advantage over those performed by authors.  When you’re in a library, you don’t have to worry about an all adult audience.  THAT is an interesting situation.

Thanks to Dawid Parus for the image.

4.  You must be able to handle any question, no matter how weird.

That’s a reference desk skill, pure and simple.  You know when you’re sitting at the desk and a three-year-old comes up asking for, “The one with the baker and his wife and Jesus and the lady with the white hat and she is NOT a pilgrim” and after some additional questions you determine that in spite of all logical evidence to the contrary they’re asking for Strega Nona?  That exact same exchange happens when you’re a children’s author.  You open the book and a kid points out that they own a dog.  There is no dog in the book.  You did not mention a dog in your talk.  Dogs have nothing to do with anything, but that’s what the kid is saying so you just have to go with it.

Long story short, the best training ground for not just picture book authorship but ANY job is children’s librarianship.  I bet you could apply additional skills to additional problems.  It’s just that flexible.

Announces 2013 Carle Honors Honorees

Eighth annual awards fête the individuals and organizations that provide creative vision and long-term dedication to the world of picture books

(Amherst, MA –May 20, 2013) The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art is pleased to announce the 2013 Carle Honors honorees to be celebrated at Guastavino’s in New York City on Thursday, September 26, 2013. The eighth annual benefit will pay tribute to the talented people who have made the picture book such a vibrant and impactful art form in America. This year, the Carle Honors will honor the following selection of distinguished luminaries in four categories:

Artist: Chris Van Allsburg

In the Artist category, The Carle will recognize Chris Van Allsburg, the groundbreaking artist and author and winner of two Caldecott Medals for Jumanji and The Polar Express.

Angel: Lynda Johnson Robb and Carol Rasco

In the Angel category, The Carle will recognize Lynda Johnson Robb and Carol Rasco for their tireless advocacy for children’s literacy. Robb is Reading Is Fundamental’s Founding Board Member and Chairman Emeritus, and Rasco its President & CEO.

Mentor: Phyllis Fogelman Baker

In the Mentor category, The Carle will recognize Phyllis Fogelman Baker, an influential editor and publisher dedicated to bringing fresh voices and exceptional books to children.

Bridge: Barbara Bader

In the Bridge category, The Carle will recognize Barbara Bader, author of the seminal scholarly book, American Picturebooks from Noah’s Ark to The Beast Within.

The Carle Honors celebrates individuals and organizations that bring creative vision and long-term dedication to picture books and the many ways they open children’s minds to art and literacy. The awards are selected each year by a committee chaired by children’s literature historian and critic Leonard S. Marcus, who was central to the founding of the Honors. The committee recognizes four distinct awards: Artist, for lifelong innovation in the field; Angel, whose generous financial support is crucial to making picture book art exhibitions, education programs, and related projects a reality; Mentor, editors, designers, and educators who champion the art form; and Bridge, individuals who have found inspired ways to bring the art of the picture book to larger audiences through work in other fields.

The Carle Honors is a critical fundraiser for the The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, helping to support the Museum’s mission of inspiring of love of art and reading through picture books. For ticket and sponsorship information, including the ability to sponsor an educator to attend the gala, please contact Rebecca Miller Goggins, Director of Development at 413-658-1118 or rebeccag@carlemuseum.org.

About The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art:

The mission for The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, a non-profit organization in Amherst, MA, is to inspire a love of art and reading. The only full-scale museum of its kind in the United States, The Carle collects, preserves, presents, and celebrates picture books and picture book illustrations from around the world. In addition to underscoring the cultural, historical, and artistic significance of picture books and their art form, The Carle offers educational programs that provide a foundation for arts integration and literacy.

Eric and Barbara Carle founded the Museum in November 2002. Eric Carle is the renowned author and illustrator of more than 70 books, including the 1969 classic, The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Since opening, the 40,000-foot facility has served more than half a million visitors, including 30,000 schoolchildren. Its extensive resources include a collection of more than 10,000 picture book illustrations, three art galleries, an art studio, a theater, picture book and scholarly libraries, and educational programs for families, scholars, educators, and schoolchildren. Educational offerings include professional training for educators around the country. Museum hours are Tuesday through Friday 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., and Sunday 12 noon to 5 p.m. with special extended summer hours. Admission is $9 for adults, $6 for children under 18, and $22.50 for a family of four. For further information and directions, call 413-658-1100 or visit the Museum’s website at www.carlemuseum.org.

For media inquiries, additional press information and photo requests, please contact Sandy Soderberg at Sandys@carlemuseum.org/413-658-1105 or Alexandra Pearson at Alexandra@rosengrouppr.com/646-695-7048.

Butterfly from The Very Hungry Caterpillar copyright 1969 and 1987 by Eric Carle.

###

Sandy Soderberg

Marketing Manager

The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art

125 West Bay Road

Amherst, MA  01002

t (413) 658-1105

f (413) 658-1139

sandys@carlemuseum.org

http://www.carlemuseum.org

I can’t take full credit for today’s post since it was my ineffable co-worker Alison Hendon who took the time to cull together all the stuff at this month’s upcoming Book Expo that is children and YA book related.  If you have any interest at all in attending but you’re not quite sure what there is to do, here’s a lovely schedule of events:

BEA 2013

THURSDAY, MAY 30

Getting Kids Reading                               9:30-10:20   1E12/1E13
YA Editors Buzz                                       10-10:50        1E14/1E15
Library Family Feud                               10-11:50      1E11
Journey of a YA Book                               11-11:50         1E16
Future of Ebooks                                       2-2:50           1E07
SF/Fantasy                                                3-3:30          Uptown Stage
Ebooks from Libraries                               3:30-4:20    1E10
The New Graphic Novel                            4-4:45           Uptown Stage

FRIDAY MAY 31

YA Author Buzz                                        10-10:30       Uptown Stage
Out of this World Pageturners                  11-11:30         Uptown Stage
Middle Grade Editors Buzz                       11-11:50         1E12/1E13
Writing Genre for Boys                              12:12:30       Uptown Stage
Middle Grade Authors Buzz                       1-1:30           Uptown Stage
Picture Book Powerhouses                        2-2:30          Uptown Stage
Betsy Bird signs Giant Dance Party      3:00              Table 8
Realistic Fiction YA                                    3:30             Uptown Stage
Librarian Shout and Share                         3:30-5          1E11
Kate DiCamillo/Cynthia Voigt                    4-4:50          Uptown Stage

SATURDAY JUNE 1

Adult Crossover/YA                                11-11:30         Midtown Stage
Sci Fi / Fantasy Writers                          12-12:30        Midtown Stage

Note that I have helpfully highlighted the most important events *cough cough* for your attending convenience.  One of those is the somewhat confusing “Family Feud”.  Essentially, if you’ve ever wanted to watch me trash talk John Rocco, now’s your chance.  The official description is below.

Authors and Librarians, Get Ready for the Feud….Library Family Feud! ™

10:00 am – 11:50 am
Room 1E11

Start out your convention RIGHT with a little sparring of smart wits between a team of librarians and authors who go at it Family Feud ™ style. Featuring the nation’s smartest, toughest, and humor filled writers and librarians across the country! Hosted by AAP Library Committee Chair Chris Vaccari, Director, Sterling (aka…Quizmaster Chris…the industry’s own Richard Dawson). Speakers (er, game show contestants) revealed here:

LIBRARIAN FAMILY: Christopher Platt, New York Public Library; Betsy Bird, New York Public Library; Erin Shea, Darien Library; Elissa Miller, DC Public Library and Jamie Watson, Baltimore County Public Library.

AUTHOR FAMILY: Simon Doonan, author of The Asylum: A Collage of Couture Reminiscences (Penguin/Blue Rider Press); Stephanie Evanovich, author of Big Girl Panties (HarperCollins/William Morrow); John Rocco, author of Super Hair-O and the Barber of Doom (Disney-Hyperion); Jill Shalvis, author of It Had To Be You (Hachette/Grand Central); Obert Skye, author of Pinocula (Macmillan Children’s). A donation will be made to the winning (and losing) team’s charity of choice!

Thems authors be going down!

I honestly don’t think you can be a reviewer without being honest about your own personal prejudices first. When I pick up a book for children I have to cut through a thick swath of issues infecting my brain that may have little to nothing to do with the book in hand. Maybe I was forced to read Stuart Little when I was a child and that’s why I’ve never liked animal fantasies. Maybe a poorly constructed sports novel burned a small hole in my soul and that’s why this particular baseball novel isn’t ringing true to me. You have to own up right from the start to what makes you tick as a reviewer. So that’s what I’m going to do with Blue Balliett’s book Hold Fast. Here are the facts of the matter. I have read two other books of Ms. Balliett’s in the past and they were not to my taste. That’s fact number one. Fact number two is that when I am disappointed in a book it makes me even more critical of the title than would be normal for me. So read on if you like, but bear in mind that these two facts are at the forefront of this very review. I read Hold Fast by Blue Balliett. I did not much care for it.

Sum, Dash, Early and Jubie. Four people in a single family. Take away one of them? Disaster. That’s how Early feels when her beloved father Dash disappears one night on his way home from the library. The police are willing to believe that he’s just another deadbeat dad but Early knows better. Surely his disappearance has something to do with a side job he got at the library. And what’s the connection to those scary men who threatened her family, forcing them to seek help in one of Chicago’s many shelters? Though she’s just a kid, Early is determined to solve the mystery for the sake of her little brother Jubie, her seriously depressed mom Sum, and the father who might be out there needing her help.

You might wonder why I would suck on such bitter disappointment with this book right from the get-go when, as I’ve already stated, it wasn’t as if my expectations were high to begin with. But you see my expectations were high. Not because of the author necessarily, but because of the description of the plot. I work in the ultimate urban library system: New York City. I see middle grade books for kids waltz through my library’s doors every single solitary day. Sheer hoards of books are published for children in a given year. Now recount for me all the titles you can think of off the top of your head that deal with the shelter system. Not the foster care system (though that genre could certainly use a kick in the pants as well) but the kids and adults caught up in shelters. In all my years of librarianship I can tell you honestly that I have never read a single solitary middle grade novel, or picture book for that matter, that dared to explain, explore, or inhabit the world of shelters. The children living there might as well not exist for all that they don’t show up in books. So for Ms. Balliett to research and throw herself heart and soul into a book that dares to explore this remarkable topic is to her credit. For that alone she should be commended. And had I not read the book I could have left it at that. But I did read the book. That is where the trouble started.

I recently wrote a post on my blog decrying the lack of African-American male protagonists in middle grade novels (particularly in the publishing year 2013). Balliett’s protagonist is female, but that’s fine and dandy with me. As much as we need boys, we need girls just as much. I’ve never had a problem with an author writing about a character outside their own race. Do your research and avoid the obvious pitfalls and you’ll have my support. “Hold Fast” starts out fine in this respect. The family lives lower-income lives (in part, perhaps, due to Summer’s crippling and understandably untreated depression), just about scraping by until tragedy knocks them flat. But once they entered the shelter my hackles began to raise. With the exception of Summer and an older woman they meet in the shelter with grown children, almost every mother encountered in this book threatens her children with beatings, beltings, slaps, hits, and other forms of physical punishment. About the third time it happened I was getting worried. What precisely are we trying to say here? The rare mom who doesn’t hit her kids is either sunk in depression or gets carted off for drug possession. Is this really what we want to say about the African-American women caught in Chicago’s shelter system? I understand that such physicality occurs, but the frequency went beyond mere personality quirk to commentary. And not a commentary I necessarily want kids to read.

Then there was the small difficulty of Dash’s personality. There is a thin line between the joyous father figure character that supports his children’s hopes and dreams, inspiring them along the way, and a character that speaks almost entirely in platitudes. Dash might have been able to take a page out of the book of Ratchet’s father in This Journal Belongs to Ratchet by Nancy Cavanaugh. A fellow 2013 publication, Ratchet’s dad bears much in common with Dash. Both men have high aspirations for a better world and speak truth to power. Both enjoy wordplay. But while Ratchet’s dad speaks in platitudes on a regular basis, he has a personality above and beyond his aphorisms. More to the point, he has some major character flaws. Dash, in stark contrast, feels less like a real flesh-and-blood human and more like a stand-in for an idea. The self-made man who quotes Langston Hughes is a caricature if not reigned in continually. Dash, unfortunately, is never given any flaws except an excess of misplaced trust in his fellow man. I wanted someone real to worry about. Instead, all I had was a symbol.

That Early has a bit of a Pollyanna in her is almost a necessary character quality. When you’re so beaten down you find yourself trapped without seeing any hope in your situation, you need some kind of inner strength to carry on. She has it in droves, and mostly as a character she worked for me. There were, however, two exception to this. The first was a sequence where Early introduces the joy of reading to the other kids in the shelter. It’s an old-fashioned “reading is fun” portion of the book that didn’t feel right at all. It contained honest-to-goodness lines like, “It’s so fun, like seeing a movie with popcorn, only better, because it stays in your head as long as you want it to and then you can go back and see parts of it again!” Like an after school special had walked into what was otherwise a rather realistic novel. Then there were Early’s interrogation skills. Even a willing sense of disbelief must raise a skeptical eyebrow when a kid asking a grown person questions in conjunction with a crime can make that adult sweat profusely and quail under their directness. That one was a bit hard to buy.

What kills me is that there is so much to potentially enjoy in this book. The idea of using the definition of words as a way of finding clues? That’s fun! The section that rightly points out that it was, “as if you weren’t 100 percent human when you came into the police station on the wrong side of the front desk. If you were upset, it was unreasonable. If you had a question, it could wait. Just the fact that you were there seemed like a strike against you.” That’s good writing. And that’s what kills me. So much of this book works. What sinks it is that the parts that don’t work REALLY don’t work and the bad weighs down the good. If I can’t believe in my characters then I can’t believe in a book. My favorite character in Hold Fast ended up being the setting. In terms of a sense of place, Balliett can’t be beat. You are there. You are with her. You are trapped even as her characters are trapped. But you’re prevented from completely identifying with them. The end result is that you still end up learning a lot about the shelters and the people in them, despite the actual plot. And maybe, in a way, that’s a success that makes the whole book worth it in the end. However you chose to look at it, the bones of Hold Fast could be called strong. It’s the excess that keeps it from reaching what could have been its full potential.

• Along very much the same lines, I would like you to read the best book review you will read all year.  Possibly all decade.  If you have not experienced a Pink Me review before, they pretty much give me something to strive for.  Paula knows how to zero in on the meat of a book, and acknowledge the good alongside the seriously uncomfortable.  And what’s making her uncomfortable at the moment?  That would be Trash Can Days by Teddy Steinkeller.  If we are talking about depictions of race in books for our youth, then this is an excellent place to start the conversation.  This is your required reading of the day.  A billion thanks to Mary Ann for the heads up.

• Not sure if I should be furious or relieved that the universe didn’t alert me to the fact that Honest Toddler, one of my favorite Twitter feeds, has a blog.  Better still, there are children’s book reviews.  Worth seeking out if only because it managed to work the phrase, “too much rim make the ride too hard” into an encapsulation of Babar.

• I was so very very happy to see that the WNBA recently announced that one of its winners of the 2013 Pannell Award was none other than the delightful Bookbug Bookstore in Kalamazoo, Michigan.  Bookbug recently went out of their way to create for me the greatest Giant Dance Party the world has ever known.  I’m talking strobe lights, cupcakes, a smoke machine, kicky music, and an actual GIANT in the house.  Derek Molitor and Joanna Parzakonis totally deserve that award.  If you see them at BEA this year, give ‘em a clap on the back from me.

IBBY Announces the 2014 Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury and Nominees

The Hans Christian Andersen Award is the highest international distinction given to authors and illustrators of children’s books.  Given every other year by IBBY, the Hans Christian Andersen Awards recognize lifelong achievement and are given to an author and an illustrator whose complete works have made an important, lasting contribution to children’s literature.

The 2014 Jury, selected by IBBY’s Executive Committee from nominations made by its national sections, comprises the following ten distinguished members from across the globe.  Jury President María Jesús Gil (Madrid, Spain) will lead the Jury to select the winners of the 2014 Hans Christian Andersen awards.

• Anastasia Arkhipova Illustrator, chair of the board of the Association of Moscow Book Illustrators and Designers, Moscow, Russia.
• Fanuel Hanan Diaz Editor, author and researcher, Caracas, Venezuela.
• Sabine Fuchs University lecturer in children’s literature, Graz, Austria.
• Sang-Wook Kim Professor in children’s literature at the Chuncheon National University of Education, Seoul, Korea.
• Enrique Pérez Díaz Author and publisher, Havana, Cuba.
• Deborah Soria Book-seller and promoter of children’s literature, Rome, Italy.
• Susan M. Stan Professor of children’s literature at the Central Michigan University, USA.
• Sahar Tarhandeh Independent researcher in children’s literature, freelance graphic designer and art director, Tehran, Iran.
• Erik Titusson Publisher and former Director of the ALMA, Stockholm, Sweden.
• Ayfer Gürdal Ünal Writer, critic, and lecturer at the Bhosphorous University, Istanbul, Turkey.

Former IBBY Vice President Elda Nogueira (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and IBBY Executive Director Liz Page are ex officio Jury members.

The following nominees have been submitted for the 2014 Hans Christian Andersen Awards by the National Sections of IBBY.  For the 2014 Awards 29 authors and 31 illustrators have been nominated from 34 countries.

• Argentina: author María Cristina Ramos; illustrator Isol
• Australia; author Nadia Wheatley; illustrator Ron Brooks
• Austria: author Renate Welsh; illustrator Linda Wolfsgruber
• Azerbaijan: author Sevinj Nurugizi
• Belgium: author Frank Andriat; illustrator Carll Cneut
• Brazil: author Joel Rufino dos Santos; illustrator Roger Mello
• Canada: author Kenneth Oppel; illustrator Philippe Béha
• China: author Hongying Yang; illustrator Liang Xiong
• Croatia: illustrator Svjetlan Junaković
• Denmark: author Lene Kaaberbøl; illustrator Charlotte Pardi
• Estonia: author Aino Pervik
• Finland: author Kirsi Kunnas; illustrator Pekka Vuori
• France: author Jean-Claude Mourlevat; illustrator François Place
• Germany: author Mirjam Pressler; illustrator Rotraut Susanne Berner
• Greece: author Sofia Madouvalou; illustrator Daniela Stamatiadi
• Iran: author Houshang Moradi Kermani
• Ireland: author Eoin Colfer; illustrator PJ Lynch
• Italy: author Bianca Pitzorno; illustrator Fabian Negrin
• Japan: author Nahoko Uehashi; illustrator Ken Katayama
• Republic of Korea: author Jin-Kyung Kim; illustrator Byoung-Ho Han
• Latvia: illustrator Reinis Pētersons
• Netherlands: author Ted van Lieshout; illustrator Marit Törnqvist
• Norway: author Bjørn Sortland; illustrator Øyvind Torseter
• Portugal: author António Torrado; illustrator Teresa Lima
• Russia: author Vladislav Krapivin; illustrator Igor Oleinikov
• Serbia: author Ljubivoje Ršumović; illustrator Dobrosav Živković
• Slovakia: author Daniel Hevier; illustrator Peter Uchnár
• Slovenia: author Polonca Kovač; illustrator Alenka Sottler
• Spain: illustrator Javier Zabala
• Sweden: illustrator Eva Lindström
• Switzerland: illustrator Albertine
• Turkey: author Serpil Ural; illustrator Saadet Ceylan
• UK: author Jacqueline Wilson; illustrator John Burningham
• USA: author Jacqueline Woodson; illustrator Bryan Collier

The Jury President will guide the judging process and preside at the jury meeting 15-16 March 2014.  The shortlist will be disseminated immediately following the Jury meeting and the winners will be announced at the IBBY Press Conference at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair on Monday, 24 March 2014.

A blogger might field any number of requests to host contests for new books on their blogs.  And generally speaking, you could be forgiven for almost always politely declining. “No”, you might say, “I just don’t run that sort of blog”.  It is the rare book that snaps me out of such a funk as this, and the rare artist who catches my attention fully.  Such is the case today with Sophie Blackall and her work on Matthew Olshan’s The Mighty Lalouche.

Best described as a story about French boxing, electric cars, and heroic postmen, Olshan’s text is sublime while Sophie Blackall’s art truly shines.  Which brings us to today’s contest.  Or, as we like to call it:

HOW TO SEND A HAND-WRAPPED PARCEL

The rules are simple.  Share in the comments of this post the BEST package you have ever received in the mail. I’m talking the number one best.  Maybe it was a hand tatted doily from your Great-Aunt Gertrude.  Maybe it was a live snail named Larry.  Maybe it was a flat-screen color TV from somebody you thought died thirteen years ago.  Whatever it might be, I want you to tell me about it.  Why?  Well, after tell me your story a randomly selected winner will receive a hand-wrapped parcel from Sophie Blackall.  What might such a package resemble?

Observe.  From the woman herself.

Supplies:

Brown Paper

String

Stamps and stamp pads

Scissors

Wax

Glue stick

Stamp for sealing

Step 1: Cut off enough brown paper to cover the front and back of the book and overlap a bit. Parfait!

Step 2: Fold your book into a parcel – just like a Christmas present! My mother always told me to tuck the paper edges under and crease along the seam; it’s more chic this way.

Step 3: Tie your parcel up with string – they didn’t use sticky tape in the 19^th Century! See if your friendly baker will give you some of his red and white stripy string. That’s the best kind of string. Super!

Step 4: Decorate your parcel with stamps. If you are going for a classic French look, be restrained with these stamps. If you don’t care, Allez! Stamp away to your heart’s content.

Step 5: Seal the back of your letter with wax. I give you permission to cheat and buy modern wax. It comes sized for glue guns for easy application! Très bien!

Step 6: Slip your letter in the front of the parcel…

VOILA!

(Disclaimer: If you want to send this through the real, modern mail, you’ll need to enclose it in another envelope, otherwise your letter may go astray. Also the Post Office is down on string. Bah!)

Bah indeed.  In any case, YOUR package might be even more elaborate than this one.  Who’s to say?  The woman has a tendency to be artistic.

Now while you ruminate on what your best package of all time was, here is a response I received when I grilled Sophie on why she used the style she did for this book.  Here is her answer.

When I sat down to make the first sketches for The Mighty Lalouche, I found my drawings to be frustratingly two dimensional. I wanted to feel you could step into Lalouche’s world. With this book, I was also keen to try something I’d never done before. Being a devil for punishment, I decided to make the book in tatebanko, Japanese paper dioramas. I drew, painted, and cut out thousands of tiny pieces of paper to make Parisian streets and boxing-ring crowds and Lalouche’s cozy apartment. Often, I sneezed and lost a bunch on my studio floor and had to start all over again. I went through many Band-aids. Once the pieces were assembled into scenes, they were lit and photographed. Most pictures books take me around four months to complete; The Mighty Lalouche took nearly two years!

Whew.

All right, time’s up.  Tell me your mail based joys and we’ll have a good old-fashioned lovefest for our good brave postal service.

What has truly floated your boat?

Corner a children’s librarian. Say the words “Japan” and “baseball”. Ask for picture books that involve both topics. What will you get? If I were a betting woman I’d say that nine out of ten librarians would probably hand you a book about America’s Japanese internment camps and the folks in there that played baseball to keep their sanity intact. Baseball Saved Us by Ken Mochizuki or Barbed Wire Baseball by Marissa Moss come immediately to mind. That tenth librarian might go in a different direction, though. Maybe you made it clear that you wanted something contemporary. Something that involves Japanese baseball today, but is written in a style that would engage both the very young and your older, more sophisticated seven-year-old. Until now, you would have been up a tree. Fortunately for all parties, Take Me Out to the Yakyu swoops in to save the day. Visually splendid with a text that manages to be simple without being simplistic, I look at this book and realize that while I’ve nothing else like it on my library shelves, I’d pay all the money in the world for this format to be replicated over and over again. Until that happy day occurs, let’s bask in Meshon’s gift to us.

“I love baseball . . . in America . . . and in Japan.” The boy telling us this is a ruddy-cheeked cheery little dickens. In his left hand he holds the red jersey of a Japanese team. In his right, the blue of an American. He then leads us through what it’s like to attend a baseball game with his American pop pop in the States and his ji ji in Japan. Some differences are small. You might take a bus rather than a car to a game in Japan, or you might wear an oversized foam hand rather than toot a giant plastic horn in America. Some differences are fairly large. There’s the food, the different ways of tackling the seventh inning, and even what a fan might buy on their way out. At the heart of it all, though, is the fact that when it comes to baseball, there’s only one real way to close out the day. Lie down on your bed or your mat and think, “What a wonderful day!” A glossary of terms and an Author’s Note are included at the end.

When I review a book for kids I like to include some “readalikes” into the piece for folks looking for similar fare. People looking for picture books that discuss life in contemporary Japan in a style similar to Meshon’s are in luck since there are books like Etsuko Watanabe’s My Japan and Aoki by Annelore Parot out there. Baseball fans, by the same token, could enjoy Ballpark by Elisha Cooper or something a little more esoteric like The Boys by Jeff Newman. Where I get stumped is when I try to think of a picture book that takes a singular event and shows what it’s like alongside that same event in another country. The best I could come up with was Mirror by Jeannie Baker, which shows scenes of daily life in Australia on one page, and Morocco on another. Yet even with Baker’s work there was a mildly unnerving civilized vs. uncivilized vibe about the book that put some readers on edge. Amongst Meshon’s many strengths here is the fact that he really manages to make Japan familiar and unfamiliar all in the same breath. I think part of the reason it works as well as it does is that our hero has been living in both Japan and America for so long that he doesn’t find one style of life or living any better, or more surprising, than another. Japan isn’t exoticized in any way (nor, for that matter, is America). The side-by-side comparisons also have the additional advantage of being just as interesting to American child readers as it would be to Japanese kiddos. No mean feat.

Naturally when someone makes as strong a picture book debut as Take Me Out to the Yakyu, you want to know more about them. Aaron Meshon is interesting because his forays into the book world have been relatively few and far between. A RISD grad (naturally) he did some art for a Brooklyn tour guide once but beyond that I couldn’t find that he’d done much on the publishing end of things. Until now you’d be more likely to find his art in a magazine or on a mural in a Brooklyn coffee bar. His style doesn’t slot into an easy description either (I just deleted a very lame attempt to call it “Hello Kitty meets Adventure Time” which has only the barest ring of truth to it). The colors are used in a clever matter in this story as well. Blue for America and red for Japan, the contrast is killer. The consistency of the color palette is comforting and moves the reader along at a smart and steady clip. There’s the occasional oddity (I’m not sure why our hero’s speech appears as a purple speech balloon with eyeballs during one two-page spread) but it doesn’t distract much. Long story short, what we’ve got on our hands here is a true original. Don’t blink or you might miss it.

I have a two-year-old that I have turned into a walking litmus test. It is very dangerous to use your own child as a testing ground for books that are way above their reading level/comprehension. My kid does not care about baseball. She’s only just now able to define what a basketball is. As for Japanese culture, that begins and ends with her ability to dissect a sushi roll like she was a surgeon attempting a difficult removal of a kidney stone. That said, she would sit down and listen to every last word of Take Me Out to the Yakyu. Not because the text is babyish, mind. It’s just that Meshon has a singular ability to get to the bloody point. From page one onward you know exactly what this book is about and how the author is going to format it. Then there are the ways in which the author has chosen to incorporate Japanese and American words into the text. Descriptive terms like “Fastball” and “Sokkyu” appear within the pictures themselves, adding life and color. Adults like myself will be interested in hitherto unknown facts like that the Japanese shout terms like “Do your best” at their players (I love that Meshon pairs these essentially positive shouts alongside the very American cheers of “Win! Win! Win!”). Likewise the Glossary of terms and informative section at the end that covers everything from baseball history to game length to mascots will be welcome reading for parents and gatekeepers and interesting for the occasional kid enthusiast.

To clarify, while I mentioned earlier in this review that there are no picture books quite like Meshon’s out there, that’s not 100% accurate. It’s true that there are no simple picture books of a kiddo living in Japan and America that compare. There are, however, books that have taken the format of two different homes brought together for side-by-side comparisons and applied it to other situations. I’ve seen this happen in books about divorce like Living with Mom and Living with Dad by Melanie Walsh, and I’m sure there are stories about visiting different grandparents, or what people do in Latin American vs. United States households. That said, for sheer appeal, Meshon stands out. Basically what you have here is a book that is so amusing that the fact that it also happens to teach interesting facts is almost beside the point. Kids will gravitate to this book because the art looks like fun, the text is really amusing, and it’s about baseball. And if they happen to learn a ton about Japanese culture along the way? Bonus. A necessary purchase then. For sports fans and seekers of multicultural fare alike.

On shelves now.

Source: Final copy sent from publisher for review.

Like This? Then Try:

• My Japan by Etsuko Watanabe

• Ballpark by Elisha Cooper

• Aoki by Annelore Parot

• Mirror by Jeannie Baker

Videos: A remarkably successful book trailer, if I do say so myself.

Happy Mother’s Day!

It was Monica Edinger who alerted me to the fact that fresh on the heels of the Matilda musical is an upcoming British production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  She has the details and directed me to this truly unfair let’s-not-give-anything-away teaser trailer.

This introduction is a bit better.

You know what this means, don’t you?  We are just THIS MUCH CLOSER to a truly terrifying  Witches musical.  And I’ll be first in line.  Thanks to Monica for the link!

Last weekend I hosted author Sue Stauffacher at my Children’s Literary Salon at NYPL to talk about her Wireman series.  If you’re unfamiliar with the books, they’re essentially graphic novels containing the 100 most common words for kids and teens with low reading comprehension.  The art is stellar, it’s a brilliant reading tool, and there’s nothing like it out there.  It also doesn’t have a publisher at the moment *ahem hem*.  In any case, check out this pitch from Eric, a student at the Detroit Palmer Park Preparatory Academy.  Love that kid’s style.

Sometimes it feels like SLJ reporter Rocco Staino has wings on his heels the way he flits about the world, capturing all the good stories.  Now it appears he’d also do well on Sesame Street.  Talk about a natural rapport with a puppet!  Well played, man.

Book trailer time!  This one’s a delight.  It’s The Tribe: Homeroom Headhunters by Clay McLeod Chapman and it’s a good example of how to make a simple but effective trailer.  Love that Vertigo effect too.

Now there’s much to love of this Lunch Lady video featuring actual lunch ladies dancing, as you can see:

However, I think the point we should be careful not to miss is that this song is sung by Recess Monkey, the band.  An actual band.  Not a bad idea in the least.