A Children's Canon?

The Royal Society of Literature requested top-ten reads for children from J.K. Rowling, Andrew Motion (Poet Laureate), and Philip Pullman. Charlotte Higgins covers the initiative for the Guardian. Higgins writes that, "recommendations were sought by the RSL's Anthony Gardner after a discussion between the society and the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority on the teaching of English in schools."

Let's just say the definition of "children" here must have meant "before university" as some of the lists are pretty ambitious. Pullman's list is the most realistic and the most fun. He chose:

• Finn Family Moomintroll Tove Jansson
• Emil and the Detectives Erich Kästner
• The Magic Pudding Norman Lindsay
• The Rime of the Ancient Mariner Samuel Taylor Coleridge
• Where the Wild Things Are Maurice Sendak
• The Ballad of Sir Patrick Spens (or other good anonymous ballads)
• First Book of Samuel, Chapter 17 (the story of David and Goliath)
• Romeo and Juliet William Shakespeare
• A good collection of myths and legends
• A good collection of fairytales

Rowling's list is also pretty good, but I'd retitle it as "10-books every high school graduate should have read" (but that may be my American education showing). I was surprised by the number of American works on her list and by the fact that I'd read everything on it:

• Wuthering Heights Emily Brontë
• Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Roald Dahl
• Robinson Crusoe Daniel Defoe
• David Copperfield Charles Dickens
• Hamlet William Shakespeare
• To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
• Animal Farm George Orwell
• The Tale of Two Bad Mice Beatrix Potter
• The Catcher in the Rye JD Salinger
• Catch-22 Joseph Heller

Finally there's Andrew Motion's list. I'll just put it out here for you:

• The Odyssey Homer
• Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes
• Hamlet William Shakespeare
• Paradise Lost John Milton
• Lyrical Ballads Samuel Taylor Coleridge and William Wordsworth
• Jane Eyre Charlotte Brontë
• Great Expectations Charles Dickens
• Portrait of a Lady Henry James
• Ulysses James Joyce
• The Waste Land TS Eliot

One of my greatest sorrows is that no one reads Henry James anymore. But as a child? Give me a break. And Ulysses? Great work, no doubt, but I personally needed a university course to get through it.

Interestingly, some authors refused to take part. Nick Hornby, for example, said: "'I used to teach in a comprehensive school, and I know from experience that many children are not capable of reading the books that I wanted them to read. If I choose 10 books that I think would be possible for all, it wouldn't actually be a list that I would want to endorse. I think any kind of prescription of this kind is extremely problematic.'"

Wendy Wasserstein

Thanks to Susan at Chicken Spaghetti for the news of Wendy Wasserstein's death and the link to the Playbill obituary.

I have a true soft spot for Wasserstein's children's book Pamela's First Musical, which was given to my daughter several years ago from one of my sisters.

My sisters love musicals. When they were younger they were in a number of school and community productions and we often went to musicals as a family. I must admit, though, that I was the curmudgeonly one who never could stand musical theater (with the exception of The Sound of Music). The beautiful thing about Pamela's First Musical is that it describes a shared experience between a girl and her aunt, a sophisticated urbanite who adores the theater. The aunt takes Pamela to the Russian Tea Room and to a magnificent Saturday matinee. Pamela's First Musical is an exuberant take on falling in love with the theater. I have long awaited a sequel. Sad news, indeed.

And (still) on the celeb watch...

50 Cent "wants to use his past experiences to teach children lessons about life."

50 Cent ($.50?) says, "'The stories will have a positive message, something that kids can learn from.'"

I really don't have much to add to this.

It's been a slow weekend in children's book news and reviews in the major media, but bloggers have been busy with some great reviews this weekend.

• Camille at Book Moot tells of Jonathan Stroud's talk and book signing at Blue Willow Bookshop. (Still jealous, Camille!)
• Anne reviews the Caldecott Medal winner, Norman Juster's The Hello, Goodbye Window (ill. by Chris Raschka), for Book Buds and finds it more than worthy of the honor.
• Liz B. at A Chair, A Fireplace and a Tea Cozy has posted two new reviews--Boy Crazy (by Cecil Castelluci) and The Penderwicks (by Jeanne Birdsall). In addition, Liz has just returned from the ALA and the awards ceremony and has lots of related news on her blog.
• Michele at Scholar's Blog reviews Geraldine McCaughrean's The White Darkness. I'm anxiously awaiting this title even more now!
• Melissa Wiley reviews Are You a Butterfly? by Judy Allen (ill. by Tudor Humphries) at Here in the Bonny Glen.
• Gail Gauthier reconsiders Jon Scieszka's books and changes her mind at Original Content. (I love Gail's blog. She's very funny and always has an "original" point of view. That being said, I learned about something very dangerous at Gail's site this weekend--Bookworm. If you're given to wasting time on the internet, ignore this link!)

Happy reading and a happy Monday!

Via Geeky Mom, make your own blog cloud! (Here's a link to SnapShirts where you can make your own and even a t-shirt if you'd like.)

Very cool, though I need to root "like," "favorite," and "good" from my blog vocabulary (and I don't remember using "yahoo" once).

"For Young Readers"

Elizabeth Ward reviews Louis Sachar's Small Steps for her column "For Young Readers" in the Washington Post. Ward has great advice for considering Small Steps: "The trick is to forget the brilliantly original Holes and take the new book on its own, more conventional terms. As such, it is both funny and affecting, even if it smacks a tad of the recovery workshop. But then, under its quirky surface, so did Holes."

In addition, Ward reviews three books for Black History Month. Like Small Steps, all three books are aimed at the 10 and above crowd and include,

• Shelia P. Moses, The Return of Buddy Bush--the sequel to The Legend of Buddy Bush, "a novel based on the true story of a young black man falsely accused of raping a white woman in Rich Square, N.C., in 1947."
• Julian Houston, New Boy, a fictionalized account of the author's experiences at "the Hotchkiss School in Connecticut, where he was among the school's first black students" during the beginnings of the civil rights movement.
• Ann Bausum, Freedom Riders: John Lewis and Jim Zwerg on the Front Lines of the Civil Rights Movement. This non-fiction title focuses on the experiences of two participants in the Freedom Rides. Ward writes, "This superb book -- meticulously researched and packed with photos -- focuses on the Rides, and the fear, loathing and violence that attended them, through the double lens of their lives."

Friday news

Ciar Byrne reports (for the Independent) that Julia Golding has won the £1,000 Ottakar's Children's Book Prize for her debut novel, The Diamond of Drury Lane.

Golding, who is a former diplomat and UN campaigner, is committed to bringing back historical fiction for children. The Diamond of Drury Lane is, Byrne writes, "packed with colourful slang...[and] tells the story of Catherine Royal, Cat for short, who was found on the steps of the Theatre Royal on Drury Lane in January 1780 by the theatre owner, Mr Sheridan. Cat experiences the highs and lows of 18th-century society by hobnobbing with lords and ladies, actors and barrow boys."
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Amanda Craig reviews Linda Sue Park's 2002 Newbery prize-winning novel A Single Shard for the Times.

Craig writes about The Single Shard, "This novel has a bleak, low-key opening that may put off impatient children, but an extraordinarily moving and delightful tale develops. Park won the Newberry [sic] Medal for other novels about the Korean identity, but this is as much about the patience and pain involved in creating a work of art as Philip Pullman’s classic The Firework-Maker’s Daughter."

I'm very happy A Single Shard has been published in the U.K.
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Also in the Times...the results of Carol Ann Duffy's Winter Poetry competition for children.

The rules were simple, as Duffy explains: "The competition was judged in two sections: under 11 and 11 to 15. All the poems were read by Erica Wagner, literary editor of The Times, and Lucy Daniel Raby, the children’s author, and the shortlist was sent to me. My task was to choose a winner and two runners-up in both sections. "

Duffy was very impressed and writes, "The standard in all the work was fantastic. I shall have problems not stealing some of the similes. "

Check out the winning poems in the under 11 category ("Snowflakes" by Tasmin Charli Khin) and the 11-15 category ("Snowy Day" by Alice Marshall) at the end of the article.

The Bartimaeus Trilogy: The Amulet of Samarkand

Okay, okay, so I'm several years behind in appreciating The Bartimaeus Trilogy. But I've just finished reading or, rather, listening to (thank you, Audible.com!) The Amulet of Samarkand, and I'm Jonathan Stroud's newest fan.

I'm not going to review The Amulet of Samarkand because there are rave reviews available everywhere online, but I just wanted to say that Bartimaeus is quite possibly the best character in children's books today. Funny, ironic, urbane...he's kept me in stitches this past week. I'm going to have to read the next volume so I can write down my favorite sentences.

Reading Gustaf Meyring's Golem in preparation for The Golem's Eye.

Stephen McGinty writes about J.K. Rowling's charity activities for the Scotsman.

"The new charity, Children's High Level Group, of which Rowling is a founder member along with Baroness Emma Nicholson, a British MEP, assists children in Romania and promotes the nation's reforms in other European countries," McGinty explains. Rowling has been working in Romania and it seems as if she will be headed to the Czech Republic soon.

Snakes!

My young scientist has a new area of interest. Okay, it is not that new, but the most recent of his passions is the snake. Previous faves have included airplanes, sharks, fish, dinosaurs, and dragons.

Snake books can be breathtakingly dull, so I thought I'd suggest a few readable titles for those of you who must read snake books.

My preferred snake book is Jennifer Dussling's Slinky Scaly Snakes! Slinky Scaly Snakes! is a DK Reader, but it isn't so simplified to be boring. The text is snappy and it covers all the requisite snake highlights (molting, egg-eating snakes, constrictors). I may like it because it is short, but it is also a good read.

I also "enjoy" Christiane Gunzi's The Best Book of Snakes (lots of facts, good environmental message) and Dorothy Hinshaw Patent's Scaly Slithery Snakes (ill. by Kendahl Jan Jubb).

**Susan at Chicken Spaghetti recently recommended A Gathering of Garter Snakes by Bianca Lavies.

Russell Hoban and other news

Tim Martin interviews Russell Hoban for the Independent. Martin sums up Hoban's career in this beautiful paragraph:

• "But Russell Hoban is the most intimate of geniuses. Best known, perhaps, for his stark, apocalyptic fable Riddley Walker, a tale of post-nuclear Britain written in a rusted and eroded English, he is also the author of 13 other novels that use the quotidian as a springboard for ever more extravagant leaps into the unknown. His unique, oblique, animistic viewpoint on love and the world has won him critical panegyrics and legions of devoted fans, but he remains a word-of-mouth writer. It is a source of mostly pleasant irony for him that his bestselling work has been a series of children's books about a demanding little badger called Frances."

Irony for Hoban, but a source of enduring pleasure for fans of children's literature. (My favorite is Best Friends for Frances, how about you?)

In any case, read Martin's article for news of Hoban's fan club, the Kraken, and the way they honor their favorite writer on his birthday (this year, Hoban is 81).

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Dina Rabinovitch talks to Kate Thompson, winner of the Whitbread award for children's fiction, for the Guardian. (Thompson's novel, The New Policeman, has not yet been published in the U.S.)

Review: My Father's Shop

My Father's Shop is an entertaining, informative, and beautifully illustrated picture book.

Written and illustrated by Satomi Ichikawa, My Father's Shop tells the tale of Mustafa and the day he understood his father's advice ("you must learn some foreign languages") was not "boring."

Mustafa's father runs a carpet shop in Morocco. One day, Mustafa finds a beautiful carpet with a hole in it. He convinces his father to give it to him in exchange for a promise to learn languages. As soon as he receives the carpet, however, Mustafa runs out into the street to show off in the market.

An odd thing happens, though. A rooster begins to follow Mustafa and people stop to talk to the boy and his new friend. (In a nice touch, the rooster's coloring complements the rug.) Mustafa learns how roosters crow in French, Spanish, English, Japanese and can boast to his dad that he "can speak rooster in five languages."

Originally published in France, My Father's Shop is new in the States from Kane/Miller.

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To hear the rooster crow in twenty different languages, take a look at bzzzpeek.

ALA Awards

The awards are today's big news, so I'll just send you over to KidsLit for a complete rundown of the ceremonies.

Criss Cross by Lynne Rae Perkins, the Newbery winner, is the one I haven't read, so no comments there (I'll read it soon), but I'm thrilled to see Cynthia Rylant was the first winner of the Theodor Seuss Geisel Award (for beginning reader books) for a Henry and Mudge title. The Henry and Mudge books are so good, I've read them aloud to both my kids before they could read on their own. Congrats to Rylant!

Young Bond

Robert McCrum takes a look at Charlie Higson's Young Bond series for the Guardian. McCrum explains why now:

• "Three years ago, to reach a new audience among the Harry Potter generation, and possibly inspired by the success of Anthony Horowitz's Alex Rider stories, the estate commissioned Charlie Higson, the co-creator of The Fast Show, to write a sequence of five novels about the young James Bond, at Eton in the Thirties. The first volume, Silverfin, published in 2005, in which a 13-year-old Bond overcomes killer eels in the Scottish fastness of an American megalomaniac, was a surprise hit, with bestseller sales surpassing the first Harry Potter and much movie talk. The second, Blood Fever, backed up by a cool Young Bond website (youngbond.com), is just out from Puffin. So it's a good time to take stock."

I didn't know the estate commissioned these works. And, I've never been a Bond fan. But it seems I'm going to have to give the first Young Bond, Silverfin (the second volume, Blood Fever, hasn't been released in the States yet), a close read.

McCrum, for one, is pleasantly surprised. "Higson," he writes, "takes the reader by the throat and propels him - we're talking boys only - through a succession of narrative hairpin bends." I don't know whether McCrum means only boys read these books or that the characters are only boys, but either way the "boys" don't deter me here. Two recent good reviews have convinced me to give Silverfin a try.

An experiment in reading

There's a great article in the Guardian by Francesca Simon (of Horrid Henry fame) and her sixteen-year-old son, Joshua Stamp-Simon.

They made a deal. Francesca would read Joshua's favorite fantasy title and Joshua would read Trollope. Francesca Simon was reluctant and explains why:

• "All right, I admit it, I'm biased. I hate fantasy. All those adjectives and elves and weird names. The moment someone says fantasy, I know I'm in for 'The three blood-red moons rose over the dusty sand plains of Ut-Tajik as the bald jackal priest of Sidt placed the sacred silver urn of Caldon on the broken altar of the blind god Fifff.' I got bored halfway through The Lord of the Rings; why should I endure Tolkien's imitators?"

Her assignment? Robin Hobb's Farseer trilogy, volume one (Assassin's Apprentice). Verdict?

• "I am hooked. Hobb is a remarkable storyteller. There are no elves. Fitz, the assassin's apprentice and the king's bastard son, has quite a good name. Hobb even keeps her adjectives on a tight lead. (Adverbs are more frolicsome.) What particularly gripped me was her exploration of the consequences of magical powers."

Joshua's assignment? Barchester Towers. And the results are not so successful. Young Joshua is clear about his preferences from the outset. He explains, "To me fiction should be enjoyable first and 'worthy' second. Although it's nice to think that classic literature will enrich the mind and broaden the horizons, this prospect fades into insignificance when faced with hours spent bored rigid."

And how does Trollope fare? Not well. Joshua writes,

• "The problem is ... nothing happens. The Reverend Obediah Slope gives a sermon that no one likes. The other characters then spend 50 pages discussing this. Trollope (or Anthony, as my mum calls him) writes as if none of his readers have anything better to do - all characters are introduced by means of lengthy and irrelevant description. The basic doctrine of 'show, don't tell' was obviously not around in the 19th century, nor the notion that character and plot work best in tandem, rather than in isolation. Trollope constantly interrupts his already boring descriptions with his own views on various subjects, including the nature of literature, where he discloses that there is not, and will never be, any suspense in his fiction."

Too funny. I laughed my way through this article. The greatest part of this article are Joshua's conclusions: "But the best thing about this experience is that it proves I was right all along. I assured my mum that she'd love the Farseer books, and she does. She assured me I'd love Trollope. I assured her that I wouldn't. Victory is sweet."

2006 Gryphon Award

Michelle Edwards has won the 2006 Gryphon Award for her "easy-to-read book" Stinky Stern Forever.

Here's a note from Andrea Lynn, Humanities Editor for the "News Bureau," University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign:

• "The award, which includes a $1,000 prize, is given by the Center for Children’s Books at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. The center is a unit of the U. of I. Graduate School of Library and Information Science."

The Center for Children's Books also named three honor books. These are:

• Jigsaw Pony, by Jessie Hass (ill. Ying-Hwa Hu)
• Babymouse, written and illustrated by Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm
• Chameleon, Chameleon, by Joy Cowley (ill. with photographs by Nic Bishop)

The Gryphon award, "is given to the author of an outstanding work of fiction or non-fiction for children in kindergarten through fourth grade."

While you're at it, check out the Center for Children's Books website. There are reading lists, databases, and an excellent newsletter available.

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Also, while you're at it...check out Susan's letter to the ALA (about their webiste) at Chicken Spaghetti. Hilarious (and true)!

"Peter Pan in Scarlet"...

is the title of the new Peter Pan sequel by Geraldine McCaughrean (to be released in the U.K. on October 5).

McCaughrean was interviewed by the BBC and she said: "'Neverland was such a marvellous place to spend my year. I clean forgot Barrie's ghost might be reading the computer screen over my shoulder - forgot to worry whether the necessary people would like what I wrote. Mind you, that's a good sign. When a book is a joy to write, some of the fun often snags on the letters and gets trapped between the pages.'"

The Cuffies

Check out Publishers Weekly's 2005 "Off the Cuff" awards.

The "awards" are selected by children's booksellers and they move beyond "favorite book of the year." (The Penderwicks is a clear favorite as book of the year amongst the booksellers.)

Here are some of the more unique categories and the winners:

• Favorite Book to Handsell The Lightning Thief ("because every customer between nine and 14 can't be wrong")Honorable mention: Golden & Grey (An Unremarkable Boy and a Rather Remarkable Ghost) by Louise Arnold ("it's so nice and easy to explain, and almost sells itself")
• Book We Couldn't Shut Up About The Penderwicks Honorable mentions: Criss Cross; The Scarecrow and His Servant; The Lightning Thief
• Book We Wish Everyone Would Shut Up About Celebrity books ("I try not to openly cringe when customers ask for them") Honorable mentions: The Rainbow Party by Paul Ruditis ("Just get over it already!"); Walter the Farting Dog by William Kotzwinkle et al.
• Most Overdone Subjects Bedtime; passing gas; dinosaurs; celebrity books ("when will it end??")
• Most Unusual Complaint from a Customer "Regarding the Walter the Farting Dog books: 'I'm all for farting critters, but I didn't like the father!' " "A customer returned Richard Scarry's A Day at the Airport because of the bratwurst balloon at the end. The customers were vegetarians and said that the book displayed 'a gratuitous use of meat.' "" 'Too fun—I want educational!' This from a grandmother I showed some horse books for her granddaughter. It was for a Christmas present! What a fun Grandma to have."

I love the bratwurst comment! Too funny.

News

Bob Minzesheimer talks to Rick Riordan about The Lightning Thief and the Newbery for USAToday.

The Lightning Thief won The Northport-East Northport Public Library's Mock Newbery contest. This particular Mock Newbery has garnered attention because of the library's active children's review program (reviews posted online here). Minzesheimer writes, "In a testament to the power of the Internet to connect writers and readers, Riordan also is one of five authors who contacted the book club after reading reviews on the library's website."
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There's an interesting article in the Independent today about Peter Pan and The Great Ormond Street Hospital, "to whom Barrie bequeathed the rights to his great work."

Louise Jury writes that the hospital, "will announce details of the first officially sanctioned sequel, a book written by the award-winning children's author Geraldine McCaughrean after a worldwide competition. The sequel, whose title will be unveiled tomorrow, will be published this year to raise fresh funds for the famous children's hospital in London."

I'll be looking for the title, but the interesting part of the article is the effect an American book has had on the Great Ormond Street Hospital's fund-raising efforts. Dave Barry and Ridley Pearson's Peter and the Starcatchers will be published in the U.K. next week. And it's a competing Peter Pan book. (Read Camille's November 10 review of Peter and the Starcatchers at BookMoot.)

Jury writes that the hospital is a bit put out, but that Barry and Pearson, "were not aware of initially was the link to Great Ormond Street Hospital, which gains no royalties from Peter Pan books sold in America though it will gain from the films in a deal signed with Disney half a century ago."

And, she interviewed Barry who said, "'We became pretty sensitive about it. We visited Great Ormond Street Hospital when we were in England to do research for the next book and we saw the tremendous need for funds.'"

"They plan to bring their celebrity band to the UK for a fund-raising concert in a bid to help."

The Five Ancestors

Lawrence Bender and Karen Barber will produce a two-film adaptation of Jeff Stone's series The Five Ancestors for Nikelodeon. Variety notes that Bender's previous production credits include the following films--"Reservoir Dogs," "Kill Bill," and "Pulp Fiction," among others.

I recently read Stone's The Five Ancestors: Monkey, the second volume in a planned seven. And I have to say I was pleasantly surprised. Pleasantly surprised because I've a life-long distaste for the martial arts and did not expect to enjoy this book as much as I did.

The Five Ancestors series follows the lives of five "brothers" (I was also happy to discover that one of the brothers is a girl). The brothers are orphans and the youngest students of the Grandmaster of the Cangzhen Temple in China. Each brother is trained in a different fighting style--tiger, monkey, crane, snake, and dragon--and their training informs their personalities. (Or is it the opposite?) The details of the fighting styles passed me by some, but The Five Ancestors: Monkey is a well written romp of a book. It's full of action and adventure. Stone's characterization is believable and I found myself rooting for Malao, the trouble-making monkey brother.

While The Five Ancestors series is definitely aimed a particular reader (boy, initially reluctant), I would recommend these books to any middle-grade reader with an interest in other cultures, history, and adventure. The Five Ancestors: Monkey, at least, ends unresolved, ensuring continued reading through the series. Highly recommended.

**Check out The Five Ancestors website Random House created for the series. There's a historical overview of the era (17th century), games, and a quiz "to see which animal spirit matches your personality." I'm a dragon.

PotterCasts

Melissa Anelli of the Leaky Cauldron made an announcement today to members of Child_List.

There has been much debate as to how many times publishers, agents, etc. rejected Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone until Bloomsbury took it on. Arthur Levine of Scholastic (the U.S. publisher of Harry Potter) clears up the controversy on PotterCast#22. (If it is not on the front page, click on "News")

PotterCasts! I had no idea. This one is an hour and twenty some minutes long too. Wow. I just may have to listen to some of these.

A Bridge to the Stars

I spent a year reading Henning Mankell's chilly, dark mysteries one by one. Though I've never actually been to Sweden, after that year I felt like I knew Mankell's neck of the woods well. So, when I found out his young adult novel, A Bridge to the Stars, had been translated and published in English, I had to have it.

Mankell wrote A Bridge to the Stars in 1990 and Andersen Press published it in October, 2005 (London. I had to order it through a distributor.)

A Bridge to the Stars is vintage Mankell. But this novel's hero is an eleven-year-old boy named Joel Gustafson, not a grumpy, yet oddly compelling detective in the throes of a mid-life crisis (Kurt Wallender). And, there's not much of a real mystery in A Bridge to the Stars, but rather an imagined one. Joel begins sneaking out into the icy night in search of a dog--a dog he saw heading towards a star. In the process of his nighttime wanderings Joel discovers much about himself, his father, and his isolated town.

A Bridge to the Stars is a classic coming-of-age tale aimed at the young-adult market. A highly recommended, atmospheric read.

Into the Lowelands

L. Lee Lowe has begun an interesting experiment, publishing her YA short stories on a blog, Into the Lowelands.

So far, Lowe has posted two stories--"Legacy" and "The Christmas Box." (A warning: content is too mature for younger readers, but older teens and adults should enjoy them.) Commenters responded to "The Christmas Box" with "Whoa, scary. I really like the voice you used" and "Wonderful Story."

I'll definitely be following Lowe's progress with her stories and her blog.

Charlie Higson: Blood Fever

Nicolette Jones names Charlie Higson's second volume of the Young Bond series as the Times "Children's Book of the Week."

Jones writes, "Charlie Higson’s first Young Bond book, Silver Fin, has sold 150,000 copies. In this substantial second volume, Higson has got into his stride." Blood Fever (the second volume in the series), Jones finds, "is an action adventure with lots of fights but, to Higson’s credit, death, even for the villains, is never trivial, and violence has lingering consequences. Many of the characters are more than stereotypes, with complicated motives and particular eccentricities."

Blood Fever will be published in the U.S. in June. Silver Fin is available now.

It's Picture Book Sunday

I have another picture book to recommend--Tad Hills' Duck & Goose, forthcoming from Random House, January 24.

As you can tell from the cover, the illustrations for Duck & Goose are (do I dare say it?) cute, cute, cute.

Duck & Goose will become a classic read-aloud book in schools and libraries. Duck and goose find an egg and fight for it. Over the course of their argument they both assume their rightful spots warming the colorful egg. Soon they discover they share a bright future in mind for the chick and the baby becomes "our baby." When they discover their egg is not an egg at all, they aren't that disappointed. It is, after all, a "lovely" ball, and duck and goose are now close friends.

Hills' story is silly, snappy, and funny--in other words, just perfect for the 3-7-year-old audience. His illustrations are warm, colorful, and just darn cute. A truly fun book.

I'm a Pill Bug

Well, not really...but the subject of an enchanting new picture book by Yukihisa Tokuda is.

Yukihisa Tokuda's I'm a Pill Bug (illustrated by Kiyoshi Takahashi and published by Kane/Miller) describes the life of the little noticed pill bug. We learn what a pill bug does every day, what it eats, where it lives and why. And, for the five-year-old audience especially we learn, "Our appetite is huge. We can eat leaves as big as this. As soon as we eat, we poop (lots and lots of square-shaped poop)."

I'm a Pill Bug is a wonderful picture book for the young and reluctant scientist. You learn all about the ever-present pill bug in a clear, entertaining format. (It eats its own shell, for example.) Takahashi's illustrations are clean, simple, and attractive to the young reader. A highly recommended read for home and the classroom.

Saturday Links

Lots of Sunday book reviews this Saturday.

In the New York Times:

A.O. Scott reviews Louis Sachar's Small Steps and finds, "His prose is clear and relaxed, and funny in a low-key, observant way." There has been some controversy about Small Steps, and Scott explains why: "It [Small Steps] is likable and readable, but it never quite emerges from the shadow of Holes. No one said life after Camp Green Lake would be easy."

• Web-only features: Julie Just interviews Sachar and the first chapter of Small Steps.

Rich Cohen reviews Mr. Chickee's Funny Money by Christopher Paul Curtis. Here's a quote from the mostly positive reviews: "Curtis is dead-on about how children see adults - it's like what a fly sees, a kaleidoscope of images. If the grown-ups in 'Peanuts' ever got screen time, they would appear like this: 'Steven silently said each word to himself a second before it passed his father's lips. He would've moved his lips right along with Dad but Steven knew that that qualified as sass and not a whole lot of that was tolerated.'"

Today's "Bookshelf" is devoted to kids' books and includes a brief note about Elise Paschen's Poetry Speaks to Children. For the web edition, there are also some audio files from the anthology available. Also noted are

• Marie Louise-Gay's Caramba (a "whimsical tale")
• Jamila Gavin's The Blood Stone ("ambitious and richly detailed")
• Hurricane Hunters! Riders on the Storm written and illustrated by Chris L. Demarest ("action-packed," "more than enough jargon to satisfy...")
• The Little Match Girl translated by Anthea Bell and illustrated by Kveta Pacovska ("An original interpretation of Andersen's classic, in a colorfully abstract style reminiscent of Klee and Miró")

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Elizabeth Ward considers books on art "For Young Readers" in the Washington Post. Ward begins her article with an excellent piece of advice: "According to Francoise Barbe-Gall, a lecturer in art history at the Louvre School and author of How to Talk to Children About Art, books are actually better than galleries for younger children."

How to Talk to Children About Art sounds like a wonderful book. Ward writes, "it zeroes in on 30 famous paintings, from Fra Angelico's "Annunciation" to Georg Baselitz's "The Girls From Olmo II," and illuminates them by responding to the comments and questions a child might bring to each one: 'The angel and Mary both have pink robes and blond hair.' 'This painting is upside down. Do I have to stand on my head to look at it?'"

Ward recommends many other books for children about art or artists including:

• "the lovely board books by Julie Merberg and Suzanne Bober, In the Garden With Van Gogh, A Picnic With Monet, Sunday With Seurat and others (Chronicle)."
• "The Metropolitan Museum of Art's glorious Museum ABC"
• "Lickle Publishing's Come Look With Me series takes its cue from the Expressionist Helen Frankenthaler ("Every canvas is a journey all its own") to explore paintings by category: landscapes, modern art, animals, play, work and more."
• Philip M. Isaacson's A Short Walk Around the Pyramids and Through the World of Art
• Bob Raczka's Unlikely Pairs: Fun with Famous Works
• Thomas Brezina's Who Can Save Vincent's Hidden Treasure?

Portals and "Where the Wild Things Are"

David Baddiel writes of portals and children's books for the Times, focusing on "the most obvious portal...a child’s bedroom" used in Where the Wild Things Are.

Baddiel's reading of Where the Wild Things Are is spot on. He writes, "The key to Sendak’s success, and to the continuing hipness of his book, is that its hero is not a good child: he is in every sense a bad boy, semi-feral, half boy, half wolf...We know that Max has learnt virtually nothing and is almost certain to disobey his mother the next time that she tells him to take off his wolf suit."

Where the Wild Things Are is somehow being made into a movie directed by Spike Jonze and written by Dave Eggers. I sure hope it is a better movie than most "inspired by" picture books.

Review: Learning to Fly

Penguins are the "it-animal" of recent children's literature. And the star of Learning to Fly, a new picture book by Sebastian Meschenmoser, is a credit to his flock. (Do penguins make up a flock? Anyone know?)

The penguin hero of Learning to Fly falls out of the sky one day when other birds tell him, "Penguins can't fly." He crashes to the ground and is rescued by a kindly young man who takes him home, feeds him, cleans him up, and gives him a place to sleep. Together the man and the penguin begin training for flight. They exercise, read about flight, and try just about anything to get the penguin back in the air.

Meschenmoser's illustrations are deceptively straightforward. Sketched in pencil with only minimal color added, the illustrations are warm and often laugh-out-loud funny. The penguin dressed as batman cracked my son up as did one picture of an especially inventive attempt at getting the penguin into the air. Learning to Fly earned three repeat requests from my son, a new record. (And I complied which is against my rule of no more than two reads of the same book in a twenty-four-hour period.)

Learning to Fly was published in 2005 as Fliegen lernen in Germany. Kane/Miller (a very cool publishing house specializing in foreign and translated literature for children) has published Learning to Fly as part of its 2006 Spring list.

SCBWI Conference-New York

Susan at Raab Associates asked me to pass along the following announcement about the SCBWI Conference, New York (February 4-5, 2006).
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SCBWI-New York

This year's conference features a special President's panel with the top executives from four major children's publishers - including Chip Gibson (Random House Children's Books), who many now recognize from his guest TV appearance on Martha Stewart's Apprentice; Lisa Holton (who recently joined Scholastic from Hyperion); Rick Richter (Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing) and Doug Whiteman (Penguin Books for Young Readers). Featured authors include Marc Brown, Nikki Giovanni, David Almond and Francine Pascal. A limited number of press passes are available upon request for the afternoon President's session, which will be held Saturday, February 4 from 3:00-4:00 p.m.

This conference provides a unique opportunity for published and aspiring authors and illustrators to meet with experts in the field, including publishers, literary agents, editors, art directors and prominent authors and illustrators. SCBWI Executive Director and President, Lin Oliver and Stephen Mooser, are available for interviews, and can discuss changes in the industry and how their love of the children's field has made the SCBWI the largest children's writing organization in the world. Mooser, a former magazine reporter and documentary filmmaker, is the author of over 60 books for children. Oliver, formerly the Senior Vice President of Television and Home Video at MCA/Universal, now runs her own production company, Lin Oliver Productions. Among her projects are the animated feature of E.B. White's The Trumpet of the Swan and the Emmy-nominated Showtime Family Film, Finding Buck McHenry. She is also co-author, with Henry Winkler, of the Hank Zipzer series.

For more information, including how to register and a complete list of session speakers and faculty bios, visit: http://www.scbwi.org/events.htm.

Review: Babymouse

I'm not much of a graphic novel reader, but the new Babymouse series has won me over.

Written by Jennifer L. Holm and illustrated by her brother Matthew Holm, Babymouse is intended for 7-10 year-old readers. Random House Children's Books describes the series as "Mean Girls meets Hello Kitty" and, while it is true the Babymouse books are exclusively in black, white, and pink, Babymouse is really in the grand tradition of Ramona Quinby, Junie B. Jones, and other books with intelligent, sassy, but misunderstood heroines given to the occasional faux pas.

In the first Babymouse volume, Babymouse: Queen of the World!, Babymouse tries to secure an invitation to Felicia Furrypaw's slumber party. Felicia Furrypaw is, of course, Queen Bee--oops, make that cat--of the third grade. In the meantime, Babymouse's best friend, Wilson the Weasel plans for a scary movie marathon on the same night. What will Babymouse do? Will she miss movie night? How does she obtain an invitation to the slumber party? With nerve, great imagination, and, in the end, a clear conscience.

The second volume and my favorite of the two, Babymouse: Our Hero, takes on the true horror of grade school--dodge ball.

The strength of the Babymouse series is its heroine. She's funny, given to wild flights of imagination, and essentially a good "kid." These books appealed to both my five-year-old son (when read aloud) and my ten-year-old daughter (who read them in one sitting). Highly recommended for the grade school set.

**Check out Cynthia Leitich Smith's interview with Matthew Holm at Cynsations.

Still more from the Rowling interview...

Stephen McGinty provides even more information from the Tatler J.K. Rowling interview for the Scotsman.

In this article we learn J.K. has written a book for younger children, "a political fairy tale" starring a monster. She prefers cafes to her study (who doesn't?) and says, despite it all, she is grateful for her wealth. The following paragraph from the article is particularly intriguing:

• "Rowling, who has three houses in Edinburgh, Perth and London, says she still found it 'freakish' to find herself in a position where her PA could arrange for her to meet anyone in the world. She decided, however, not to pick up the phone to the Pope after he was critical of her novels 'subtle seductions' which, he claimed, could 'distort Christianity'. The author, who is an Episcopalian Christian, says of the complaints of Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, that: 'I can remember reading about it and thinking, surely there are more important things for him to worry about than my books - world peace, war in the Middle East.' In the interview she compares her own faith to that of Catholic author, Graham Greene: 'Like Greene, my faith is sometimes about if my faith will return. It's important to me.'"

Take lots of Rowling with a dash of Sachar

Much about J.K. Rowling today in the news.

USAToday has published the AP's recap of the Tatler interview.

Tracy Grant takes on the questions left by Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince for "KidsPost" (Washington Post). The article begins, "Have you figured out who RAB is? Does your family get into shouting matches over whether Snape ( Professor Snape, please) is good or evil?" My daughter, a co-worker and I got into just this argument over Thanksgiving Dinner. In any case, I learned something (or was reminded of a clue) when reading this piece. Definitely worth a look.

Also "KidsPost" asks children to vote for their favorite child character in Harry Potter.

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Jacqueline Blais speaks to Louis Sachar about Small Steps for USAToday. Sachar discusses his influences and how he writes (2 hours a day with 5-6 hours of revision). He says, for example, "In high school, he read J.D. Salinger and Kurt Vonnegut, who 'got me excited about reading and writing.' What both writers have in common, he says, is the ability to engage readers and make them think. He tries to do the same."

J.K. Rowling interview

Amy Iggulden gives us the scoop (in the Telegraph) on an exclusive interview with J.K. Rowling featured in this month's Tatler magazine.

In the interview, J.K. Rowling talks about her mother's death ('"I know I was writing Harry Potter at the moment my mother died,' she says. 'I had never told her about [him]'") and about the price of fame ('"I had lived under a rock for such a long time and suddenly someone had lifted it off and was shining a torch on to me. I was petrified and didn't know how to handle it.'")

Review: Dawn Undercover

Do you like really good middle-grade fiction?

Then run, don't walk, and find a copy of Anna Dale's Dawn Undercover. What a fantastic read! I loved this book so much, I may read it again. Soon. (I liked it, can you tell?)

Dawn Buckle is an ordinary girl living what can only be called a Dahlesque life at Number Eight, Windmill View, in the outskirts of London. Her ancient grandfather watches quiz shows at all hours of the day and night, her mother is a workaholic, and her father buries himself in the basement repairing and collecting clocks. Dawn just wants someone to notice her:

• Dawn was not an outgoing child. She was timid, bland and nondescript. Slightly on the dumpy side, with a round, pallid face, hair the colour of milky tea and a sprinkling of hairs in each eyebrow, it could not be said that Dawn was very striking to look at. She wore crumpled, baggy clothes and was never without a pair of mushroom-coloured knee socks and battered gym shoes. People always tended to look through her or over her head, but never directly at her. (11-12)

But someone finally does notice Dawn--a representative of S.H.H., a top-secret government agency. Dawn's family offers very little (okay, no) resistance when Emma Cambridge of the S.H.H. whisks Dawn away to train for a secret mission in the quaint village of Cherry Bentley. Working for the P.S.S.T. Department, Dawn is employed to identify Murdo Meek, a criminal mastermind and arch nemesis of P.S.S.T., amongst twelve village residents.

Dawn Undercover is a gripping, hilarious read. The plot is good, but characterization and satire (of village and suburban life, of bureaucracy) are definitely Dale's strong suits.

Highly, highly recommended.

And on the celeb watch...

Senator Edward M. Kennedy, to Pen the Story of His Canine in Congress.

Louis Sachar

Tracy Grant talks to Louis Sachar today for the Washington Post about Small Steps, Sachar's sequel to Holes.

Small Steps is an excellent read (I'll post a review soon), snappy and well-written. The characters are compelling and the dialogue realistic. But, Armpit is older and Grant addresses this issue in her interview.

• TG: "Armpit is older and there are some more mature themes. Do you expect your audience is older, too?"
• LS: "I don't think too much about the audience when I'm writing....I'm aware that Holes was read by kids as young as 8, up to adults. I know a lot of those readers will want to read this book. I keep that in mind. But basically I'm writing a story that appeals to me."

Tracy Grant also asks about Keira, a young popstar and a main character in Small Steps. Sachar replies,

• "With Holes I was troubled that there weren't very many female characters. I tried to put them in where I could. But the setting didn't lend itself to girls. When I start a book, I usually don't know where I'm going. I just start with something that intrigues me. In this case it was Armpit, X-Ray and a ticket-scalping scheme. It wasn't until I was well into the first draft that Keira became a [major] character."

As a companion piece, KidsPost meets Louis Sachar. "Favorite pizza topping: Green peppers. Favorite ice cream flavor: Coffee. Favorite kids book that you didn't write: Charlotte's Web."

The Penderwicks

My 10-year-old daughter, Anna, has a review to contribute. Here it is:

The Penderwicks

In The Penderwicks, 4 girls and their dad go to stay in a cottage, part of Arundel. They meet a boy, go to his party, and have many upsets with him, including going many times into his mother’s secret garden and eavesdropping. The oldest girl, Rosalind, falls in love, and finds out something horrible about her crush, Cagney. He has a girlfriend. The boy, Jeffrey, has a snooty mother who has an awful boyfriend. They want him to be a military general while he wants to be a musician. He lives in a mansion, part of Arundel. The girls bake brownies and cookies, nearly set their house on fire, let a rabbit belonging to Rosalind’s crush, Cagney, loose, write and shred a book, find secret passages, and do much more.


In the end, it all turns out okay, though. By the end of the fantastic book, you are friends with Jane, Skye, Rosalind, Batty, Yaz, Carla, Hound, Mr. Penderwick, Churchie, Harry, and Jeffrey, know many others, and hate Mrs. Tifton and Dexter. There is a lot of humor and excitement, and I recommend this book to anyone who likes to read!

Sunday Reviews

Liz Rosenberg reviews two new picture books for the Boston Globe.

The first is Sharon Phillips Denslow' In the Snow (illustrated by Nancy Tafuri). Rosenberg finds In the Snow, "celebrates the quiet days of winter, in clear lyrics by Sharon Phillips Denslow, with equally poetic watercolors by two-time Caldecott Honor-winning artist Nancy Tafuri."

Rosenberg also reviews The Princess and the White Bear King by Tanya Robyn Batt (illustrated by Nicoletta Ceccoli), a picture book for older children. Rosenberg praises The Princess and the White Bear King and writes, "Tanya Robyn Batt's retelling evidences the lush adjectives and rhythms of a true storyteller. Nicoletta Ceccoli's illustrations in acrylics, pencils, and oil pastels have a distinctly Italianate flavor, with whimsical figures moving slantwise against immense landscapes. Her illustrations are dreamlike, queer, and strange, in jewel tones that gleam against the snowy backgrounds."
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Philip Ardagh reviews David Almond's Clay (forthcoming in the U.S. this spring) for the Guardian. Ardagh writes, "There's a reassuringly old-fashioned feel to David Almond's latest book, Clay, that gently lulls the reader into a cosy false sense of security. There are few, if any, outside events or references fixing the story in a particular moment in time." But, as Ardagh notes, evil is just under the calm surface. And, this time, "there's no neatly tied-up ending and no redemption. The evil is still out there." I can't wait to read this one!

On the road again...

Tomorrow I'll be traveling the fourteen hours necessary from the West Coast to Smalltown. I hope everyone has a great Saturday!

Amanda Craig on reading

Amanda Craig writes on teaching your child to love to read for the Times. She begins with the following assumption:

• Books are not toys; they are much more magical than that, they are windows into the world of story. Children who have learnt to love books are never bored — how could they be, plugged into some of the greatest entertainment of all time? Yet the gulf between being simply able to read and finding words a uniquely rich source of pleasure is vast. This is a burden — or a privilege — that has to fall on parents. By the time a child gets to school, it’s almost too late, especially if school makes the fatal association between work and reading rather than adventure and reading.

Craig suggests specific strategies (and books) for each stage of development in a child's life. Her book recommendations are great and based on the premise that, "only adults are expected to tolerate boredom in books. A great children’s book captures a child’s attention from the first paragraph, and holds it like a vice."

A wonderful, practical article on the joy of children's books.

(Amanda Craig also has a website with recommended reading lists)

New Year's Resolutions

J.K. Rowling shares her New Year's Resolutions on her website. The AP report of the resolutions has been published this morning in USAToday. Here's an excerpt:

• Rowling also promised to "guard the time allotted to writing as a Hungarian Horntail guards its firstborn egg," to "follow advice from critics on how to be a better writer" and "try and keep children healthy."

The PlanetEsme Reading Room

Check out Cynthia Leitich Smith's interview with Esmé Raji Codell today on Cynsations.

I can't put it better than Cynthia who describes Esmé Raji Codell as, "an award-winning author, a legendary teacher, a premier literacy and literature ambassador, a show-stopping speaker, the queen of Planet Esmé, and quite possibly the greatest force for good in children's literature. Everything she does is HIGHLY RECOMMENDED."

The entire interview is fascinating, inspiring, and completely worth reading, but I was particularly interested in Esmé Raji Codell's PlanetEsme Reading Room, a private reading room located in Chicago. Take a look around.

New Science Fiction for Children

Colleen Mondor takes on new science fiction for children in the January edition of Bookslut. Mondor's review of Jay Lake's Rocket Science is of particular interest. Set in Augusta, Kansas, "Lake has the plot flying with Nazis, Communists, the U.S. Military and the mob all converging on the town of Augusta." Sounds good already! And, Mondor writes, "From start to finish Lake channels the talents of the great writers from the Golden Age of science fiction. This book is just flat-out fun. I can’t imagine anyone not enjoying this ride. As soon as I was finished I put my copy in the mail to my older brother -- I knew he was going to love it too and I didn’t want to keep him waiting."

Mondor also reviews John Lunn's The Aquanauts ("a wonderful story about some great characters caught in a catastrophe and how they must be both brave and smart in order to get out alive"), and Seonna Hong's Animus (a book for "readers from my own four-year old son to the typical misunderstood teenage artist and most certainly should be appreciated by all moving book aficionados.")

Funke interview

Tracy Grant interviews Cornelia Funke for the Washington Post today.

Funke talks about her last name ("My name is pronounced FOON-ka, but I don't mind when people call me funky"), how she writes (always in German first), and answers the question "Have you thought about writing a sequel to "Dragon Rider"?

Her answer?

• "So many children ask me that question. I'm really thinking about it because they are all so passionate about that book. I'll try."

Funke also discusses her favorite characters and the sequel to Inkheart and Inspell, the forthcoming Inkdeath.

KidLit Blogs

Two new sites about children's literature caught my eye today.

Swarm of Beasts, written by Emily Horner, and Pixie Palace, a site that's been around for awhile, but I've never seen before. Time to update the old blogroll again.

Happy Reading!

I will never understand the publishing industry, I'm afraid.

Today I'm not in Smalltown. I'm in Los Angeles! A major metropolitan area.

I set off in search of books I can not find in Smalltown. Number one on my list was Henning Mankell's A Bridge to the Stars. Turns out, it hasn't been published in the U.S. yet. Only in the U.K.

Swedish author, huge American and British readership, simultaneous publication, no?

No.

Okay...no Mankell for the youth in L.A. bookstores, but what do I find instead? Anna Dale's Dawn Undercover, a book I was afraid would never be published in the States.

I'm happy, ecstatic, even grateful to find Dawn Undercover, that's for sure, but I never thought it would be published here so soon. Reviews pinned Dawn Undercover as decidedly British. Nicolette Jones, for example, wrote for the Times : "It is set in a knowingly nostalgic present: Dawn wears mushroom-coloured knee-socks with plimsolls, the village show holds a contest for odd-shaped vegetables, and the (female) vicar pedals around on an ancient bicycle 'with the air of someone who longed to be in the Famous Five.'"

Ah well...I'm off to read (happily) Dawn Undercover.

Onward, 2006!

Happy New Year!

I've been catching up on adult titles this week, but my kidlit "to read" list looks very promising indeed. Topping the list are:

• Henning Mankell, A Bridge to the Stars. My favorite mystery writer has a new book for teens. It was published in October, but I've read nothing about it anywhere. I'm seeking it out as soon as the stores open tomorrow.
• Helen Dunmore, Ingo. Michele at Scholar's Blog has a review up, but I didn't read past the spoiler line. I'm too anxious to read it myself.
• Geraldine McCaughrean, The White Darkness.
• David Almond, Clay. Clay will be published this year in the U.S.

What's on your list?