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!

Share a Story – Shape a Future’s second annual Literacy Blog Tour started today, and this year’s theme is “It Takes a Village to Raise a Reader.” Now let’s show the world what being a virtual community of book lovers committed to helping kids become hungry readers really means, by joining in the conversation and sharing our personal stories and perspectives!

Today’s Literacy Blog Tour host is Terry Doherty @ Scrub-a-Dub-Tub. For a complete list of hosts and topics, see here. And check these for a taste of some of PaperTigers’ posts on literacy:

Thoughts on Literacy: Going Where the Children Are
Books at Bedtime: Win-Win!
Our Literacy Future

Written and directed by Alison Duddle and based on the book Little Leap Forward: A Boy in Beijing, written by Guo Yue and Clare Farrow, the stage production of Little Leap Forward is touring again this Spring in the United Kingdom. Click here to see the tour dates and here to read Marjorie’s post from last year when she went to the show. Little Leap Forward is presented by the Horse + Bamboo Theatre Company in creative partnership with Barefoot Books Ltd and The Royal Exchange Theatre. With set design by Bob Frith, the production incorporates mask, puppetry, shadows and animation with original music by Loz Kaye. The music also includes the distinctive flute playing of Guo Yue (recorded).

Little Leap Forward: A Boy in Beijing has been selected for the 2010 Spirit of PaperTigers Book Set. A wealth of information about the book can be found here on our PaperTigers main website.

As a poet, I’m always interested in new poetic forms.  Join Hands! by Pat Mora (with photographs by George Ancona, Charlesbridge, 2008) introduced me to the pantoum.  The pantoum is a poetic form derived from Malaysia.  It is composed of quatrains where the second and fourth lines are repeated as the first and third lines of the following quatrain.  In Join Hands!, Mora uses the form (with slight alterations in her repeating lines) to create a poem about celebrating life through dancing, singing, masquerading and parading.  The book takes you through the lines, one line per page, with accompanying photograph per line.  A few Spanish words like ‘amigos’ and ‘canciones’ are used. (Mora is known for her bilingual Spanish/English books.)   The explanation of the form comes at the end of the book.  I wish it had come at the beginning, however!  Reading the text linearly while viewing the picture made it seem a bit confusing.  However, I did enjoy the lively photographs by George Ancona,  accompanying each line.  They feature children dancing and strutting and holding hands.

Have you heard of the pantoum or tried your hand at writing one?  A few months after I read this book, I encountered a pantoum written by Canadian poet, Robyn Sarah in her latest book, A Pause for Breath.  The form seemed vaguely familiar when I suddenly realized I had encountered it in Mora’s book.

This week’s Poetry Friday host is Danika at Teaching Books.

Since it’s publication by Kids Can Press in 2008, One Hen: How One Small Loan Made A Big Difference, selected for the Sprit of PaperTigers 2010 Book Set, has evolved from an inspirational story into a non-profit organization, One Hen, Inc. Co-founders Katie Smith Milway and Amma Sefa-Dedeh tell the story of how and why this organization came about in this video.

To learn more about One Hen, Inc., be sure to visit the website, including games, activities and resources for teachers and librarians – not to mention great music! Also, be sure to read our recent interview with One Hen author Katie Smith Milway here.

Established in 1992 by Nancy Traversy and Tessa Strickland, Barefoot Books is a children’s book publisher based in Bath, UK and Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. It publishes multicultural books that, in addition to providing high-quality content, pay great attention to art and design. One of the company’s core values is to use art and stories “to create deep and lasting connections—whether it’s a child and parent connecting over a book; a child connecting to the universal wisdom of other cultures; or a broad network of people connecting through shared values and the desire to help children become happy, engaged members of a global community.”

Tessa Strickland, Barefoot Books’ co-founder and editor-in-chief, answered our questions about Little Leap Forward: A Boy in Beijing, 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: How did Little Leap Forward: A Boy in Beijing come about as a project for Barefoot Books?

TS: This project came about in quite a circuitous way. First, I was contacted by Clare Farrow, who wanted to know if I was interested in having her retell any traditional Chinese tales. In the course of our conversation, I learnt that she and her husband, Guo Yue, had just completed a manuscript about his life, Music, Food and Love. It so happened that this telephone conversation came about just as I was starting to cast around for stories for older readers, and I was fascinated by what Clare told me about Yue’s childhood in Beijing. So, I asked to read a copy of the manuscript.

PT: When you acquired the manuscript, did you know from the get go that you would publish it as an illustrated middle grade book, or was the decision regarding full plate illustrations made later in the process?

TS: When I read Music, Food and Love (Piatkus, 2006), I thought that the best way to tell Yue’s story to children would be to focus on the summer of 1966. The manuscript went through about four drafts and was a close collaboration between Yue and Clare, me, and an excellent editor, Anne Finnis. The decision to make full-plate illustrations was made once we had a manuscript that everyone was happy with.

PT: What can you tell us about the pairing of Guo Yue and Clare Farrow’s text with Helen Cann’s art?

TS: We have done a number of books with Helen Cann; I knew that she would be a delight to work with. Not only is she very talented, she is also extremely interested in developing her own style and in working
collaboratively. She had some very fruitful meetings and discussions with Clare and Yue, who were both extremely happy with her illustrations.

PT: How do you think the public’s attitude toward multicultural books for children has changed since Barefoot Books was founded, in 1992? Are there any major differences between the US and the UK markets in that regard?

TS: As Barefoot has always focused on multicultural books, it is hard to say with very much claim to objectivity how Read the rest of this entry »