Wednesday, November 25, 2009

BEFORE "MOON" by Mary Quattlebaum


Harold and the Purple Crayon scared the bejeezus out of me as a kid.

Let me quickly add that this seems not the usual reaction of children and certainly not of adult critics, who heap laudatory adjectives--“imaginative,” “original,” “ingenious”--upon the trim classic by Crockett Johnson.

But even as the book unnerved me, it drew me in. That was its delicious power. As a child, I’d carefully study the pages and think about Harold. Setting out for a nocturnal stroll, he seemed overly bold for a tyke in footie pajamas. And that purple crayon! It might bring adventure but could it stave off danger? I was skeptical. After all, Harold, feeling hungry, had drawn nine pies. But any four year old worth her P&J knew you couldn’t eat pictures of pies. Sure, the tot had managed to draw a ship when he was drowning and a hot-air balloon when he was falling but what if, in the future, he didn’t draw fast enough or drew the wrong thing?

And the closing pages—ai-yi-yi. Harold is tired but can’t find his bed or the moon and so decides to draw them. Draw them! Well, what would happen, I remember worrying, when he wakes up? He’d still have to find the real ones. And I could barely formulate the next thought: What about his mom? How could Harold draw her? (I’d seen his child-like depiction of the friendly policeman and didn’t put much stock in his ability to render the human form, especially one as important as “mother.”) That poor boy didn’t seem to realize how truly lost he was. Faced with the ending, sometimes I had to shut my eyes. The thought of Harold, smiling and tucked forever in his made-up world made me dizzy.

Even at the remove of many years, Harold and the Purple Crayon exerts a pull. It seems a perfect fable about the potential and pitfalls of the creative process.

Of course, my childhood memory of poring over the book is recounted in the reasoned language of adulthood. It is a language that has learned to temper, qualify and shape experience when, in actuality, a young child’s experience is raw, untutored and unlettered. I don’t remember a time before language, do you? I don’t remember when the circle-in-sky first became “moon” or the small-smelly-good became “flower” or more specifically “daffodil” or “lilac.” It must have been an amazing time.

For me, writing for kids has been about trying to creep ever closer to that time. That time when words were new and potent, ripe with sound and rich with texture. That time before coping mechanisms and caveats, that time when disappointment could crush and joy literally leap. Many children’s authors become so after a long time spent writing for adults—and it’s writing we still do: book reviews, articles, memos, reports, stories and poems. We’ve learned a facility with language, grammar, syntax and form.

But writing for children requires more than that type of facility. Picasso famously said that it took him “a lifetime to paint like a child.” Unlearning the tricks of language can be difficult. Can one’s unadorned sentence convey the explosiveness of a child’s emotions (as Maurice Sendak does so brilliantly in Where the Wild Things Are)? Will one’s rhythmic chant adequately smooth and soothe the way into sleep (as does Margaret Wise Brown’s Good Night, Moon)?

That’s why I’m still learning. Writing for children seems endlessly fascinating and challenging—and humbling. With playful thought, hard work and careful revision, might our writing someday connect with a child? Might it entertain, unnerve, reassure? Like Harold, we might begin by putting crayon to paper, pen to notebook, finger to keyboard. We might start by creating that first important “moon.”



Mary Quattlebaum is the author of seventeen picture books, novels and books of poetry, including the forthcoming Pirate vs. Pirate (Hyperion) and The Hungry Ghost of Rue Orleans (Random House). She regularly reviews children’s books for the Washington Post and Washington Parent presents frequently at schools, and teaches at the Writer’s Center.
http://www.maryquattlebaum.com./
http://www.childrenslit.com/bookingservice/quattlebaum-mary.html.

This essay first appeared in the Summer 2009 issue of The Carousel, published by The Writer’s Center, Bethesda, Md.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Take to the Skies



If you’ve read this month’s newsletter or been following CLCD on Twitter (@CLCDreviews) you will know that November is Aviation History Month. John Abbott Nez, a member of our Author and Illustrator Booking Service, has a new picture book about a young boy’s dream to build his own flying airship.

John is an illustrator and author of over fifty books of every sort for children. His newest book, published in May by G.P. Putnam’s Sons, is titled Cromwell Dixon's Sky-Cycle. It tells the amazing true story of America's forgotten 'Boy Aeronaut', who actually built and flew his own flying bicycle over the skyscrapers of Columbus, Ohio in 1907.

“1907 was an amazing age. It was a period when an obsession with flying swept the nation. For the first time in history people were flying and even building flying machines in their own backyards,” says John.

A story of adventure, determination, courage and perseverance it is also filled with amazing home-made inventions in Cromwell Dixon's workshop. John hopes his book “might encourage today's children to get out from behind their computers and go build something out in their backyards.” To see images and a book trailer visit http://cromwelldixonsskycycle.com/.


The CLCD feature with suggested book titles and reviews on Aviation History Month: http://www.childrenslit.com/childrenslit/th_aviation.html

The Smithsonian Air & Space Museum has several teaching guides on flight available:
Airmail to Airlines: http://www.nasm.si.edu/education/pubs/airmail.pdf
How Things Fly: http://www.nasm.si.edu/education/pubs/howthingsfly.pdf
Milestones of Flight: http://www.nasm.si.edu/education/pubs/poster_milestonesb.pdf

USA Today article on the “10 great places to let your imagination fly”: http://www.usatoday.com/travel/destinations/10great/2009-11-05-aviation-history_N.htm

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

WHAT DO YOU EAT ON THANKSGIVING? by Jacqueline Jules


My first Thanksgiving as an elementary school librarian in a Title 1 school in Northern Virginia, I came home discouraged. After reading what I thought were the best books on Thanksgiving, depicting happy families eating turkey and stuffing, my students seemed either bored or puzzled. In class after class, no one was interested in my turkey songs. No one could play my call-and-response games about the traditional Thanksgiving menu. Finally, one student politely explained, “We don’t do that at my house.”

My students came from over sixty different countries. Many of them did not speak English at home. But Thanksgiving is a holiday for Americans of all faiths and births. After all, it celebrates the landing of the pilgrims on Plymouth Rock. In many ways, my students were pilgrims—people who came to America for religious freedom or to find a better life. Thanksgiving is a time to celebrate the diversity in America. I felt bad that my students seemed to feel so uncomfortable with Thanksgiving. Did they really not observe the holiday at all?

So when we came back after the holiday, I asked them what they did. At first, they were hesitant to tell me. I asked more questions. Did you have a meal with your families? “Oh yes,” they told me. “But we didn’t have turkey.”

That’s when it dawned on me! It’s not that my students were ignoring Thanksgiving. They just were celebrating it with holiday foods from their birth countries. It reminded me of my own childhood. My father was an immigrant from Switzerland. Turkey and pumpkin were American foods he had never experienced before. Growing up, I often didn’t eat traditional American foods on Thanksgiving day, either! My father preferred duck on Thanksgiving. He thought turkey often tasted too dry. This memory inspired me to write my picture book Duck for Turkey Day, released by Albert Whitman & Co in September 2009.

In Duck for Turkey Day, a little girl named Tuyet is concerned because her family seems to be breaking the “rules” for Thanksgiving. Her Vietnamese-American grandmother explains, “Our family likes duck better.” The book validates the idea of gathering on Thanksgiving Day with ethnic holiday fare, rather than American foods that may not be appealing to immigrant families. And as Tuyet’s teacher says in Duck for Turkey Day, “It doesn’t matter what you eat on Thanksgiving, as long as you have a good time with family and friends.”

Please visit YouTube to see a book trailer for Duck for Turkey Day
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbrvcGUkeIc

Jacqueline Jules
http://www.jacquelinejules.com/

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to the brand new blog from Children’s Literature Comprehensive Database. We are an ever-growing online subscription database that provides reliable one search access to important and relevant information about PreK-12th grade media. Robust full-text searching and innovative features make this database the number one choice for many children’s and young adult teachers, librarians and other professionals.

By writing this blog we hope to cultivate a sense of community and build a platform for discussion. Our goal is to continue to connect our subscribers with information about books, authors and illustrators around the world, and to connect children and young adults with the books that will make a significant difference in their lives.

Whether CLCD is new to you or you have been with us since the beginning over ten years ago, this blog will give you an inside-look into CLCD—what we are up to at trade shows, conferences, and other events, plus you can expect to hear the buzz on new books and news in the children’s book world. We will share tips and ideas from subscribers on how they best utilize CLCD and how schools, libraries and authors/illustrators are connecting and learning from children all over the country.

Our blog team consists of Marilyn Courtot, President of the CLCD company; Sharon Salluzzo, Newsletter Editor and Library and Education Consultant; Sheilah Egan, Mid-Atlantic Sales Representative; and Emily Griffin, Publicity and Marketing Director. In addition, you will hear from our reviewers, authors and illustrators from our booking service, sales reps, and other support staff. We are all eager to provide you with the latest information on children’s and YA literature.

CLCD contains bibliographic details for 2 million MARC records, more than 350,000 full-text reviews from 38 respected and reliable review sources, reading metrics, American and international awards and prizes, resources for teachers that include curriculum tools and reviews of professional materials, as well as the largest and most up-to-date links to author and illustrators websites available. While traditional books are the mainstay of our service, our database includes reviews of audio books and offers links to e-books. CLCD is updated monthly. Cataloguing records come from the Library of Congress, the Canadian National Library and the British Library. In addition to American review sources, CLCD monthly updates include reviews from Canadian, British, Australian, and Irish review sources and we average more than 2,000 new reviews a month. Sign up for a free trial at http://www.childrenslit.com.

Children’s Literature is an independent review source, whose reviewers read and critically appraise more than 5,000 books annually. Our review staff of over 125 people is comprised of book authors, librarians, writers and editors, teachers, children's literature specialists and physicians. Our mission is to help teachers, librarians, childcare providers and parents make appropriate literary choices for children. We also offer a free monthly e-newsletter and a series of new and updated features each month that highlight authors and book reviews relevant to events that take place during a given month. For example, our November author features include Lois Lowry and her new picture book Crow Call, Jim Murphy and his new book Truce; and Lyn Miller-Lachmann with her brand new title Gringolandia. November is Aviation Month, so we offered a series of reviews addressing the very short history of flight. November also brings one of our favorite holidays—Thanksgiving and we have some tasty offering in that feature. These features and more can be found at http://www.childrenslit.com/childrenslit/home.html.

Our Author/Illustrator Booking Service grows weekly and we are proud to have more than 125 participants, such as Susan Roth, Audrey Penn, Mordicai Gerstein, Sneed Collard, Cheryl Harness, Joan Carris, Jacqueline Jules, Carolyn Reeder, Uma Krishnaswami, J. Patrick Lewis, Mary Quattlebaum, Candice Ransom, Lindsay Barrett George, Susan Stockdale, Vicki Cobb, Moira Donohue, Wendie Old, Claudia Mills, Janet Morgan Stoeke, and many more. You can find all of the details at http://www.childrenslit.com/bookingservice/bs-home.html.