ON THE EVE OF THE CALDECOTT/NEWBERY AWARDS

Throughout the world of children's literature comes the call: "Who?  WHO?  Whoooooo?"  No, it it is not a forest full of owls, it is the community of librarians, teachers and kidlit enthusiasts all wondering who will take the coveted ALA/ALSC Library Media Awards,  the Caldecott for best American children's book illustration, the Newbery for best children's book writing, and a bevy of other significant commendations (Sibert for non-fiction, Coretta Scott King and Pura Belpre Awards for African American and Latino/Latina children's lit, Theodore Geisel for early readers).  These are better known the "Oscars" of Children's Literature (and even better known as "Day of Disappointment" for 99.9% of author/illustrators, but oh, well).  You can view the webcast live tomorrow at 7:45 San Diego time (that's 9:45 to you, Midwesterners, and 10:45, East Coast).  Who is going to take the silver and gold?  Please forgive some informal musing to follow...

The horse race for the Newbery points toward THE DREAMER by Pam Munoz Ryan, a piece of magical realism that depicts the childhood of poet Pablo Neruda, backed by the ethereal art of Caldecott winner Peter Sis...

and ONE CRAZY SUMMER by Rita Williams-Garcia, the sensitively told story of a girl in the late 1960's whose mother is involved in the Black Panther movement.

Perfectly deserving recipients and original reads, both, but I am still laying some coins down on a few dark horses.  There are other worthy contenders with middle grade readerships who could take it, each using history to tune in to the readership of today, excellent books that will speak to children in this economy.  Namely, THE YEAR MONEY GREW ON TREES by Aaron Hawkins (Houghton Mifflin), a lively story set in the Great Depression about a family who tries to survive by starting their own apple orchard.  Then there is TO COME AND GO LIKE MAGIC by Katie Pickard Fawcett (Knopf), set in 1970's Appalachia in which Chili Sue Mahoney longs to see the world outside of Kentucky, and finds herself living vicariously through her teacher.  Then there is the little gem PALACE BEAUTIFUL by Sarah DeFord Williams  (Putnam) with an unfortunately non-Newbery looking cover and already in paperback (ye of little faith), but inside is the poignant-with-a-capital-P story of a girl who finds a journal of a girl suffering through the flu epidemic of 1918, and finds the worlds of then and now converging; short and sweet, this is the most unassuming heavyweight contender read since Patricia MacLachlan's SARAH, PLAIN AND TALL. You heard it here first.

On to the Caldecotts.  All eyes and runny noses are on A SICK DAY FOR AMOS McGEE by Philip and Erin Stead (Roaring Brook, reviewed here), a perfectly respectable choice, if a bit old-skool (but don't we love old skool?)...

 

and illustrator John Muth, coupled with our golden boy (or rather, golden man) Mo Willems in the role of author, for CITY DOG, COUNTRY FROG, which is pretty darn timeless and will probably take it...

but that can't stop me from rooting for some love to go to G. Brian Karas's artwork in CLEVER JACK TAKES THE CAKE, done with Candace Fleming, two talented children's book workhorses who also deserve recognition.

 

Luckily for American illustrators, Jeannie Baker (MIRROR) is from Australia and Suzy Lee (SHADOW) is from Singapore, or my oh my, with respect I have to say they would have given this year's crop a run for their money.

These awards are meant to represent the excellence of the larger whole, and so books like these will probably get awards:  BALLET FOR MARTHA:  MAKING APPALACHIAN SPRING, for instance; Susan Campbell Bartoletti's brave and well-researched THEY CALL THEMSELVES THE K.K.K.; Sharon Draper's gotten lots of buzz for her novel OUT OF MY MIND; if David Weisner has any more room on his shelf for more prizes, he might take it for ART & MAX; and BINK AND GOLLY is a shoo-in for a Geisel (who can resist Kate DiCamillo matching wits with Alison McGhee, coupled with David Fucile's work that is as fun as any television cartoon?).  Yes, I am a librarian, and I can recognize the distinguished qualities of some books.  But as a teacher librarian for elementary school kids, I have my own favorites based on what works well in classrooms...I look for distinguished books with a pragmatic edge.  Marilyn Singer's MIRROR, MIRROR for sheer inventiveness. Laura Amy Schlitz's  THE NIGHT FAIRY, short and action-packed, a perfect read-aloud.  THE DARK EMPEROR, so handsome, DOTTY, so wise.  I guess works like THE STRANGE CASE OF ORIGAMI YODA and BENJAMIN FRANKLINSTEIN LIVES! are too base and funny to win, but by golly, how funny are they, and will anyone recognize with gold how truly hard it is to write something that funny, and how very very very much children want to read something that is that funny?  And these awards do mean these books will be bought by the thousands and put into probably more classrooms, even, than libraries, and children will be assigned to read them...so I guess my wish is that whoever wins, let it be books that kids really like. That's why I so appreciate lists like The Allen County Public Library Mock Newbery and Mock Caldecott (impeccable taste always, by the way, my own nominations notwithstanding; this year, they chose NINTH WARD by Jewell Parker Rhodes for the Newbery, and mentioned the great wordless CHALK by Bill Thomson as a worthy Caldecott contender), and the mighty Cybils, chosen by children's book bloggers across the kidlitosphere, always an eclectic list that offers so many opportunities to connect so many readers.  Our own PlanetEsme Picks will be posted this month, the best of 2010.  I love lists more than prizes.  Motto:  the more the merrier...in friends, in dishes on a table, in cookies in a jar, and in books. 

What books did you really like this year?  Who do you predict will win, and who has already won your heart?  Please share in the comments section this week. One lucky winner chosen at random will get a signed copy of my new book, FAIRLY FAIRY TALES.  That way, tomorrow, any way it goes, I can be assured someone I really like will win something. 

Links are provided for informational use. Don't forget to support your local bookseller.
More Esmé stuff at www.planetesme.com.

HAPPY NEW YEAR and HAPPY BOOK BIRTHDAY TO ME!

Talk about getting off on the right foot, early January marks the release of my own picture book, FAIRLY FAIRY TALES (Aladdin, 2011).

The inspiration for this book started with an experience I had reading aloud Paul Galdone's CAT GOES FIDDLE-I-FEE to preschoolers, in the style taught to me by my former boss and mentor Andy Laties. I hold up the book, where there is clearly a picture of a duck, and carelessly say it is a picture of a tractor, or a pizza, or a rhinoceros, or a pair of underpants. The children immediately correct/chide me.  "Nooooooooo!"  What fun to correct dumb grown-ups!  Later, when I was working on a book about preschool, I visited a classroom to brainstorm about what should go in it,  and remembered this tack.  I showed them a bunch of pictures of things that might be in a classroom, such as blocks, a sand table, chairs, and...a Tyrannosaurus Rex.  "Nooooooo!" cried all the children, except for one boy,  a literalist, who promptly went to the toy box and pulled out a seven-inch plastic dinosaur.  "Well, maybe," I had to concede.  We were off and running.  Space alien?  Well, maybe, if one landed from Saturn.  Cupcake?  Well, maybe, if it were somebody's birthday and someone's mom brought them in.  "Noooooo" is mighty fun.  But the idea of possibility...the "well, maybe!" of it all...that's even funnerer.  And that's the spirit I tried to put in this book, which was originally titled Well, Maybe (until the marketers thought, well, maybe something else). 

A little boy has a pile of story books that he wants his mother to share at bedtime, but her reading seems a bit off. For instance,  take The Three Little Pigs.  Straw?  Yes.  Sticks?  Yes.  Bricks?  Yes.  Solar panels?  Nooooooooo!

 

Turn the page and...Well, maybe.

Elisa Chavarri

And so it goes.  Red Riding Hood has a basket and a wolf and a grandmother, but can she have a bottle of shampoo?  Well, maybe.  Goldilocks has porridge and bears and a bed, but can she have a television set?  Well, maybe.  Maybe Jack of beanstalk fame can have some spaghetti, maybe Hansel and Gretel may have a candy-filled pinata...but my favorite is Cinderella.  She can have a fairy godmother and a coach and glass slippers, but can she have a disco ball?  She can indeed, shaped like a glittering mosaic pumpkin, and her glass slippers are even 70's style, with goldfish in the heels.  The text is minimal, but oh-la-la, I could not have asked for more in an illustrator than I found in the great Elisa Chavarri, whose work I first saw in SANTA GOES GREEN. I never met her and we never spoke directly in the process of making the book, as is customary in publishing.  She just went ahead and did what every picture book author dreams an illustrator will do: she ran with it, not just visually narrating the text but adding to it, creating two voices for the one song, both hers and mine.  I could not have wished for a more inventive, colorful, and beautiful execution.  She is totally the star.  The review periodical Kirkus said: "Her brightly colored...artwork is full of so many funny details that children will find something new with each re-reading.  This will certainly keep kids on their toes as they try to guess what is coming--no maybes about that."  Though my favorite review so far came from artist Tom Lichtenheld (DUCK!  RABBIT! and SHARK VS. TRAIN), who quipped that it looked "like a classic Golden Book, updated."  Sigh!  What could be better than that?

Me

I am proud that, with the collaboration of our editor Emily, we have created a reading experience that will encourage audience participation, because that's how it was conceived.  I am also delighted that we can reinforce folkloric knowledge and divergent thinking in the zaniest of ways through this book.  But it's naughty, naughty, naughty to review one's own book, so I'll stop and now I'll leave that to you, or, more credibly, the intended audience: your children.  Enjoy!

Also of interest:

As the calendar begins anew, check out these picks that take children on a ride from January to December.  My go-to has been the classic OVER AND OVER by Charlotte Zolotow and illustrated by Garth Williams (the artist behind CHARLOTTE'S WEB), because I like a book that doesn't hurry along, and I can never get over the beautiful saturation of Williams' paint printed into the paper.  But I lean toward the old-fashioned, and modern children have more choices for exploring the cycle of the year.  Try:

ALL AROUND THE SEASONS by Barney Saltzberg (Candlewick, 2010), a chummy, cheerful rhyme that covers all the seasons, with generous cartoon illustrations and especially bright colors that capture everything from the pink of summer's watermelon to the cozy bronze light of a fall evening spent building a tent with chairs, blankets and a best friend.   A really solid early childhood choice, children will recognize and  look forward to all that's ahead in the year and in these pages.

A YEAR FULL OF HOLIDAYS by Susan Middleton Elya, illustrated by Diana Cain Blumethal (Putnam, 2011) is the most visually slick and modern in mood of the picks, capturing the anticipation..and near impatience...of a little girl who can hardly wait from one birthday to the next.  Luckily, there is plenty to celebrate in between, including a nifty stylized double-paged spread of a multicultural Thanksgiving dinner, the bright green of a St. Patrick's Day lawn, a sky full of Fourth of July fireworks, and a family framed in an Easter basket.  Each month is a present to be opened...almost as good as a birthday party.  

And have a look at SO MANY DAYS by Alison McGhee, illustrated by Taeeun Yoo (Atheneum, 2010), more of a loving ode to all a child can be and do in the vein of Dr. Seuss's OH, THE PLACES YOU'LL GO! with the gentle affection of Sam McBratney's GUESS HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU.  Nicely paired with books that look forward to the year, this will help children get January off on a most optimistic note.  McGhee's book features incredible print illustrations against a white backdrop that will appeal to fans of Jen Corace (LITTLE PEA).  Yoo's artwork is available on etsy.com, and just check out this illustration to describe the text, "you are braver than you know."

(And you are, you know.)  Happy New Year!

Links are provided for informational use. Don't forget to support your local bookseller.
More Esmé stuff at www.planetesme.com.

CLEVER JACK TAKES THE CAKE (PICTURE BOOK)

PICTURE BOOK

CLEVER JACK TAKES THE CAKE by Candace Fleming, illustrated by G. Brian Karas (Schwartz & Wade, 2010)
Jack is bringing a gift to the princess for her birthday, and he has it all planned out. Even though he’s broke, he’s going to make the best with what he has.

And that same mornning, he traded his ax for two bags of sugar, and his quilt for a sack of flour. He gave the hen an extra handful of seed in exchange for two fresh eggs, and he kissed the cow on the nose for a pail of her sweetest milk. He gathered walnuts. He dipped candles. And in the strawberry patch he searched…and searched…and searched until he found the reddest, juiciest, most succulent strawberry in all the land. “Delicious!” said Jack as he plucked it from its stem.

Wah-lah, all the ingredients for a perfect cake, with “princess” spelled out in walnuts, and away sets Jack for the castle, only to be hindered by four-and-twenty blackbirds, an ogre with a sweet tooth, a dark forest, a hungry dancing bear and a castle guard who informs him that the princess is allergic to strawberries. Finding himself at the front of the royal receiving line, what does Jack have left to give? A story of course, and one that knocks the princess’ royal socks off.

Candace Fleming is crazy versatile in her gift for writing, penning ambitious and well-researched historical nonfiction for kids (check out BEN FRANKLIN’S ALMANAC, THE LINCOLNS or my personal favorite, A BIG CHEESE IN THE WHITE HOUSE:  THE TRUE TALE OF A TREMENDOUS CHEDDAR), picture books (like the clever and popular MUNCHA, MUNCHA, MUNCHA, done in collaboration with this same illustrator), a besides her special penchant for the historical, she has a flair for the folkloric (case in point: THE FABLED FOURTH GRADERS OF AESOP ELEMENTARY, which has a sequel, THE FABLED FIFTH GRADERS), proving she can juggle genres with the aplomb of the great Avi. But though all her books are consistently special, there is something especially flawless in this one, a chef d’oeuvre of sorts, even on an already heavy shelf of accomplishment. Her equally prolific illustrator, using his standard charming colored pencil and watercolor technique, has stepped up his game here, starting on the endpapers with a black cloud of foreboding forest and an almost romantic moonlit chat between the princess and Jack awaiting on the other side, with exciting variation of layout in between. Besides being a perfect marriage of text and art, this deceptively simple book is a pretty flawless read-aloud, inviting both attention and participation from the listener and should be a contender for the Geisel Award. It belongs on every child’s shelf, and is a must-have for starting fairy tale units and a sure-fire “read it again!” choice for the lap or the nap. Sweet and with just the right mix of storytime ingredients, just like a good cake, it rises to the occasion. (5 and up)

Also of interest:

Another fresh nursery-tale take!
3 LITTLE DASSIES by Jan Brett (Putnam, 2010)
Inspired by a visit to Namibia in Southern Africa, three little groundhog-meets-koala-like creatures build their houses of driftwood, grasses and rocks while an eagle with young to feed looks on hungrily in this Three Pigs take-off. Amazing textile patterns and signature borders and frames delicately decorated with native patterns and samples from nature are especially graceful and dynamic, even for Brett’s consistently detailed body of work. The debonair and gallant Agama Man (a lizard), happy to have new neighbors, adds a new dimension of drama as he rescues the two terrified dassie sisters while the third fights off their enemy. Packed with eyebrow-raising excitement, this beautiful book emanates and inspires respect and awe for the African landscape, and ends with a pourquoi-tale twist that brings the fanciful story back around to the real world, with a symbiotic relationship between dassies, agama and the black-feathered eagles. This book reads like a treasure-box collected from travel, and is well worth the trip. (5 and up)


Links are provided for informational use. Don't forget to support your local bookseller.
More Esmé stuff at www.planetesme.com.

DOTTY (PICTURE BOOK)

PICTURE BOOK

DOTTY by Erica S. Perl, illustrated by Julia Denos (Abrams)

“Where’s Keeko?” she asked.
“Ida!” scolded Katya. “That’s for babies.” She looked around, then whispered, “I still keep her in my pocket sometimes.”
With a laugh, Katya ran off. Ida chased after her.
Dotty tried to catch up, but the snow made it hard.

When Ida goes to school, she brings her imaginary friend Dotty with her, and it turns out that the classroom is populated with plenty of such companions. But as time passes, these partnerships dissipate, and Ida is stigmatized. All the same, she is not yet willing to say goodbye, Dotty being so very real to her in spite of what other people see. Only after a very poignant talk with her empathetic teacher is Ida able to loosen the leash on her pet, her own pedagogue proving that you don’t need to let go of the best parts of your imagination in order to carry on into the world of grown-ups. 

Sometimes there comes a book that undermines any hope I could have of descriptive prowess and just sends me reeling into a repeating chorus of PERFECT PERFECT PERFECT PERFECT PERFECT PERFECT PERFECT PERFECT PERFECT PERFECT PERFECT! Oh my shelves, this is why you were built, let me put this on you and take it off again and again to see if it STILL makes me cry with each new reading, why YES IT DOES!  Pardon my lack of decorum but my goodness, teachers certainly read a lot of books and it absolutely rattles the marrow to find one that “gets it” so 110%, one written with such a sense of surprise and real love, and one that so freshly suggests growing up is not necessarily about letting go, but about holding on with grace; a great message both for little people and the big people who share with them. Loose, lively, largely ink illustrations are very colorful and expressive, and manage the tricky realistic and the otherworldly dichotomy here. Do you still have what you imagine in your pocket, or on a long blue leash? Not since Margery Williams’ THE VELVETEEN RABBIT has a book said something been spoken so truly about the happy and sad of the nature of things being “real.” If there is a teacher or a child you like at all, please share this book with them, along with a very real hug. (6 and up)

Also of interest:

IN ENGLISH, OF COURSE by Josephine Nobisso, illustrated by Dasha Ziborova (Gingerbread House, 2003)

The members of Josephine's classroom all seem to come from somewhere else, and are called upon in turn to talk about where their families are from. But when it's Josephine's turn, she is not sure she has enough English under her belt to explain that her parents are architectural engineers from Napoli, Italy. Her limited language leads her into uncharted farm territory, where with the help of her teacher she is able to share an extravagant reminiscence about a cow, told with a lot of body language. This hilarious and honest book explores both the insides and the outsides of an extremely intelligent child who is just gathering the tools she needs to make herself understood. The splashy collage illustrations appropriately reflect the wild amounts of information that are being sorted through, along with the style and spirit of the story's heroine. ESL students and teachers will cheer here, but any child will empathize with Josephine's earnest attempt to share the best of herself with her class. "Sometimes native-speaking people underestimate the talents, dignity and wit of newcomers to a country," the author muses in her postscript. All of these attributes come through loud and clear in one of the more endearing characters and accurate classroom narratives to appear in children's literature (6 and up)

Links are provided for informational use. Don't forget to support your local bookseller.
More Esmé stuff at www.planetesme.com.