Much has been written already about SPT book choice Little Leap Forward: A Boy in Beijing by Guo Yue and Clare Farrow  (Barefoot Books, 2008) in PaperTigers, but one more post won’t hurt, I’m sure!  This book was selected as an SPT book because it told a good story and was beautifully illustrated.  Little Leap Forward, the boy in the story, lives in Beijing in 1966.  He captures a songbird, but it does not sing.  Why?  Set as the story is at the advent of the Cultural Revolution; the caged bird becomes a metaphor for the larger scene about to unfold.   The story is powerfully and simply told.  I found myself near tears, reading at the end, at how Little Leap’s life was mirrored in the biography of one of its writers, Guo Yue.   The story also made the ‘leap,’ as it were, to the stage as well in a theatre production in the UK which PT contributor, Marjorie wrote about in this post. 

Little Leap Forward is an illustrated novel and is for middle readers.  It made an interesting counterpoint to the other selected SPT title, Grace Lin’s Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, a story about a spirited young Chinese girl and her adventures in a mythical and magical ancient China.  Although China is loosely the connection between these two books, they are as different as — well, apples and oranges!  Both, however, are ripping good reads and are also gorgeously produced.  Do check them out if you have a chance.

The Bologna Children’s Book fair is set to begin Tuesday, March 23rd in Bologna, Italy.  As all of us children and young adult lit fans know, the Bologna Children’s Book Fair is the most important international event dedicated to children’s publishing.  2010 will be the 47^th edition of the fair and is expected to be a great one: over 20,000 square meters of exhibition space have been booked,  over 1,200 exhibitors from over 60 countries are confirmed, and  a jam-packed programme of events has been released. A small sampling of the highlights:

The 2010 Guest of Honor at the Illustrators Exhibition will be Slovakia, presenting a selected exhibition of it’s best illustrators. A cultural programme featuring Slovakia will be taking place at various locations throughout Bologna during the fair.

Bologna Children’s Book Fair – SM Foundation International Award for Illustration. This winner of this  new award, reserved to young illustrators (under 35) selected for the 2010 Illustrators Exhibition, will be announced on March 25.

Illustrators Exhibition. Once again, a wealth of works by illustrators (well-known professionals and emerging talents) will  be on display. The 2010 international jury has selected 87 artists for the 2010 Exhibition from 2,456 candidates from 58 countries.

BolognaRagazzi Awards 2010. Check out Marj’s recent post on these awards.

Authors Cafe. A new feature for 2010, the Authors Cafe is the place to be to meet authors and talk books. Discussions will include: prospects for the literary scene, reading experiences in troubled areas, and debuting authors in Bologna.  To meet illustrators and get involved in their discussions, head on over to the Illustrators Cafe.

The Astrid Lindgren Award announcement will be broadcast live to Bologna from Sweden on March 24th. This is especially exciting for us as  PaperTigers was invited to submit nominations for the award!

Also exciting for us is that three members from our team will be in attendance at this year’s Fair: Aline, Marj and myself.  If you are going to be there too let us know as we would love to meet up with you. If you can’t be there, keep an eye here on our PaperTigers’ blog as we will be posting regularly to share some of our highlights with you! We’ll also be uploading  our photos to this Flikr account.

The four of us who currently write regularly on the PaperTigers blog are delighted to be joined by one of our colleagues, Jeannine, who was a fellow-panelist in choosing the books for the 2010 Spirit of PaperTigers Book Set. Here, she focuses on one of those books, Planting the Trees of Kenya by Claire A. Nivola:

I think everyone on the panel agreed that it would have been great to be able to choose 25 or more books for the first Spirit of PaperTigers Book Set, but our resources are not infinite, so each book we chose would have to have to go a long way toward expressing the true “Spirit of PaperTigers.” To me, and to others on the panel too, Planting the Trees of Kenya was an ideal book for the set, because it expresses so many important ideas and values while also being enjoyable to read and beautiful to look at.

As the subtitle says, this book is based on the inspiring story of one Kenyan woman, Wangari Maathai. As explained in the book’s afterward, Maathai was the first woman from Africa to be awarded with the Nobel Peace Prize. She founded Kenya’s “Green Belt Movement” in the 1970s, which — in her own words — was “not simply about planting trees. It was about inspiring people to take charge of their environment, the system that governed them, their lives and their future.”

In a deceptively simple way, this book and its truly lovely illustrations show how Maathai learned to appreciate nature as a child and later grew up to be a powerful force in the renewal of her country’s environment and the well-being of its people. Maathai’s true story will encourage young readers:

to care about the environment and see the connection between the health of the natural world and people’s health

to take personal responsibility for caring for the Earth

to do the right thing even when it is difficult or takes a long time

to see that the poor, children, girls, and women — not only powerful men or governments — can have a strong influence on their society

to value education. Maathai’s education empowered her to take action.

I want to emphasize that the true story of Wangari Maathai makes a powerful statement on its own, but it is the way that Claire Nivola tells and illustrates Maathai’s story that makes it accessible and meaningful for young readers. Here is an example of her evocative writing:

“In the stream near her homestead where she went to collect water for her mother, she played with glistening frogs’ eggs, trying to gather them like beads into necklaces, though they slipped through her fingers back into the clear water.”

Nivola’s illustrations are as detailed as photographs. I can almost imagine her spending hours and hours painting every leaf on a tree, every blade of grass on a meadow, the intricate patterns on the African women’s skirts and headscarves. Groups of people fill many scenes so that the overall impression is “a group planting trees,” or “a group listening to Maathai speak,” but notice the individuals in the crowds. A girl peers shyly around her mother; an older girl helps her little brother to climb high enough to pick fruit from a tree; an excited dog peers eagerly into a big hole dug for a well; a baby reaches out to touch her sister’s face.

If you are paying attention, you will see more charming details every time you read this book with a child. And then may you be inspired to go outside and plant a tree with her!!

Thank you for sharing this with us, Jeannine!

School Library Journal’s Battle of the (Kids’) Books competition has begun.  Patterned after the wildly popular March Madness, when college basketball teams vie against one another in a “bracket” scheme, the “Battle of the Kids’ Books” pits 16 topnotch children’s books against each other and asks popular children’s book authors authors to choose a winner. It’s a fast-paced event with the 16 books that open the contest  whittled down to eight books by the second week, and four books on the third week. A winner will be chosen on Monday, April 6, by Newbery Medalist Katherine Paterson, who is the new National Ambassador of Young People’s Literature.

Yesterday, in round one, match one, Jim Murphy chose Deborah Heiligman’s Charles and Emma: The Darwins’ Leap of Faith over Phillip Hoose’s award-winning Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice. Today’s battle, judged by Nancy Farmer, pits Fire (Kristin Cashore) against Evolution of Calpurnia Tate (Jacqueline Kerry). Click here to see the schedule. Spread the word and get involved in the event: you could win a 2010 Battle of the Kids’ Books t-shirt!

Started in 1973 by a small group of women in Toronto who wanted to produce books for Canadian children, over the years Kids Can Press has broadened its mandate to produce books for children around the world. The company is now owned by Corus Entertainment Inc., a Canadian-based media and entertainment company. Their catalog includes a long list of award-winning titles, in over 30 languages, with each book designed to develop children’s literacy levels and a love of reading. They are considered forerunners in publishing books that promote a world view.

Sheila Barry, Kids Can Press’ editor-in-chief, answered our questions about One Hen: How One Small Loan Made a Big Difference, one of the seven books selected for inclusion in our Spirit of PaperTigers Book Set Donation Project, and about other topics related to the company and to multicultural children’s literature.

Q&A

PT: One Hen by Katie Smith Milway, illustrated by Eugenie Fernandes is one of the most talked about books of the last few years (and arguably the one most used in classrooms across the United States and Canada). How did this project come about for Kids Can Press?

SB: Katie wrote a picture book for Kids Can some years ago, so we were the first people she approached when she decided she wanted to write an informational picture book that would allow her to share her knowledge of development issues in Africa, where she once worked in a village very like the one in the book. Since we had already published other informational picture books on global subjects, we were excited to work with Katie on developing her concept—and obviously we’ve been thrilled with the end result.

PT: Did Kids Can expect the book to do as well as it did, or have some of the ripple effects of its publication come as a surprise?

SB: We hope all our books will do well, but sometimes it does seem that a book comes into the world at exactly the right time to take off. With One Hen, we knew we had done something pretty original in making the subject of microloans both accessible and inspiring for children. We hoped buyers would appreciate our accomplishment, and we’ve been gratified to see that our title clearly struck a chord for many, many readers.

PT: What about the choice of Eugenie Fernandes to illustrate One Hen? How did CBP go about finding the best match for the story?

SB: Eugenie Fernandes is very well-known in Canada as both a writer and an illustrator of picture books for very young children. But in addition to her classic picture books (her new book Kitten’s Spring just came out), she has also illustrated an older book for us called Earth Magic, Read the rest of this entry »

New YA novel f2m: The Boy Within by Hazel Edwards and Ryan Kennedy (Ford Street, 2010) by no means sets out to be sensational but it is likely to get a lot of people talking nevertheless. It charts the eighteen-year-old narrator’s physical transition from Skye, female, to Finn, male. Co-author Ryan, a female to male transgender person himself, was able to bring his personal experiences to bear on ensuring the verisimilitude of the narrative.

I read the book at one sitting – it’s a fast-paced and compulsive read. Of course, Finn’s decision to transition does not just impact on him. One of the strong-points of the novel is how Finn tells his family and friends (in particular his fellow members of a feminist punk band) of his decision, and how they then react. We get a fair inkling of the medical process, including counselling and psychological assessment, though Finn’s main source of information comes from internet forums and websites. I came away with a strong feeling of inevitability – as though deep down everyone around Finn knew, like he did, that this was the real person now showing on the outside – so that opposition and prejudice fall away.

This is a novel with a happy ending and very little fall-out – Finn emerges with his relationships intact and indeed, many of them stronger than before. Real life is probably a bit messier; however, f2m: The Boy Within will be a boon to any teenager with feelings of gender anguish and will help to promote tolerance of, and indeed empathy with, those who feel trapped in a body of the wrong gender.

You can read my 2007 interview with Hazel here. She was awarded the prestigious ASA (Australian Society of Authors) medal last year but this, her latest book shows that she is not resting on her laurels! This photo of Hazel and Ryan was taken at the launch of f2m: The Boy Within in Melbourne, Australia on February 14th. We couldn’t be there but we are happy to welcome Hazel and Ryan to the PaperTigers Blog to tell us a bit about the background to writing the novel. With Hazel in Melbourne and Ryan in New Zealand, this was definitely a project that exploited modern means of communication!

So over to Hazel Edwards: Read the rest of this entry »

The Middle Country Public Library in Centereach NY, USA, currently has an exhibition entitled “The Creative Worlds of Lynne Barasch”. Ongoing until May, the exhibit features six of Lynne’s books (including Hiromi’s Hands and First Come the Zebra) with interactive stations relating to each title.

First Come the Zebra has been selected for the 2010 Spirit of PaperTigers Book Set. Click here to read Aline’s post exploring the particular reasons why it was selected, here to read Aline’s interview with Lynne, and here to see images from the book.

A couple of weeks ago I posted the responses of some of the authors and illustrators of the books in our Spirit of PaperTigers‘ 2010 Book Set to the question, “If you were to pick a place anywhere in the world to send your book, where would it be and why?” – and what about the others, what did they say?

Lucia Gonzalez, author of The Storyteller’s Candle (Children’s Book Press, 2008):

I would like The Storyteller’s Candle to travel to Puerto Rico, to be in classrooms, libraries, and homes from the smallest town to the capital city San Juan. I want children in the island to know and be proud of the work of Pura Belpré, and to re-encounter the stories that belong to them.

and Lulu Delacre, the book’s illustrator:

I would like to send The Storyteller’s Candle to Tibetan schools for monks and nuns in Ladakh, India. Their lovely children have no libraries, and live off the generosity of others. They are taught English and the lesson that Pura Belpré imparts at the end of the book might be one they truly connect to.

Katie Smith Milway, author of One Hen (Kids Can Press, 2008):

If I could send One Hen anywhere in the world right now, it would be to Haiti, in Creole, to inspire children there to play an entrepreneurial role in rebuilding their nation. Happily, a Haitian Creole edition of the book is due out in 2010 through publisher EducaVision.

and Eugenie Fernandes, the book’s illustrator:

One Hen is already at the White House, so… after that I would like to send it… everywhere!, because it’s a book that connects us all.

Guo Yue and Clare Farrow, authors of Little Leap Forward: A Boy in Beijing (Barefoot Books, 2008):

Little Leap Forward is about the lives of children who are growing up in a very poor, overcrowded society, in which food is rationed and there are no toys (beyond what they can make themselves) – a closed society in which freedom, knowledge and creativity are suppressed, and the people they love are about to be taken away from them. It is also a story about the irrepressible power of friendship, love and the imagination, even in the face of hardship and revolution.

So if we could send the book to children in areas of need in the world, it would be to any country where people are not free to express themselves, where families are divided, and children suffer from hunger, fear and poverty. In some small way, we would love to give those children the feeling that they are not just tiny grasses blowing helplessly in the wind (there is an old Chinese saying about this), but that they can find strength through nature and friendship, and hope for a better future by making the most simple gestures of freedom and compassion, whether it is releasing a caged bird (as Little Leap Forward does), finding music in everyday sounds, taking care of a friend, or flying a homemade kite in the wind.

and Helen Cann, the book’s illustrator:

I’d like Little Leap Forward to go anywhere where lives are repressed and people are told what to think and do. Little Leap Forward is about the triumph of hope, love and imagination over oppression.

Once again, those interviewed have provided us with plenty of food for thought – and perhaps you have very particular ideas about where you’d send special books like those that make up the Spirit of PaperTigers Book Set? Do let us know…

When I first read Bolormaa Baasansuren’s My Little Round House (Groundwood, 2009) to my daughter, she was captivated.  What’s not to like, after all, about the story of a baby?  But Jilu, of course, is a special baby whose first of year of life is charted through the nomadic seasonal migrations of his Mongol parents.  Jilu is born in a ger – the “little round house” of the title of the book.  The ‘ger’ is a kind of a metaphor for the world from which Jilu emerges; it is comforting and warm like the womb, and it is the one constant in his family’s life of migration.

When my daughter and I read this book together, we got a good sense of the passage of time.   And of course, one year in the life of an infant is quite amazing!  The world of their consciousness  — from being held and suckled, to their first independent movements, to their growing perception of the world outside of themselves — is all contained in this wonderful book.  By the time one year passes, little Jilu is old enough to truly enjoy the season — summer — he was born in, outside of the ger.

Baasansuren’s illustrations are lovely and rich.  My Little Round House is a picture book of the first order and this is one of the reasons why it was selected for the Spirit of PaperTigers project.   Do read the PaperTigers interview with Baasansuren.   And of course, do seek out the book itself either at your local library or bookstore!

Lee & Low announced today that it has acquired Tu Publishing, a company founded by Stacy Whitman in the fall of 2009 to publish multicultural Middle Grade and YA fantasy and science fiction. Tu Books is now an imprint of Lee & Low, and the first books under the new imprint are due out in 2011. Here’s the press release.

Congratulations, Lee & Low, on this new development! We look forward to enjoying the books and helping spread the word on them!