(Click on event name for more information)

2011 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award Nominees Announced~ Sweden

Skipping Stones Youth Honor Award Winners Announced

Fremantle Children’s Literature Centre 2010 Exhibits~ Australia

Beijing International Book Fair~ ongoing until Sep 3, Beijing, China

Taranaki Children’s Book Festival~ ongoing until  Sep 4, Taranaki, New Zealand

Western Australia Spring Poetry Festival and National Poetry Week~ ongoing until  Sep 5, Australia

Melbourne Writers Festival: Stories From Every Angle~ ongoing until Sep 5, Melbourne, Australia

Singapore International Storytelling Festival~ ongoing until Sep 8, Singapore

Childrens Books Ireland and SCBWI Ireland Present: Between The Lines, an information seminar on writing and illustrating for children ~ Sep 11, Dublin, Ireland

Dromkeen Exhibitions: Mbobo Tree, The Race for the Chinese Zodiac, and Stranded~ ongoing until Sep 17, Dromkeen, Australia

2010 Bologna Illustrators Exhibition of Children’s Books~ ongoing until  Sep 26, Nishinomiya, Japan

An Exquisite Vision: The Art of Lisbeth Zwerger~ongoing until Sep 26, Amherst, MA, USA

The National Center for Children’s Illustrated Literature Exhibit: Golden Kite, Golden Dreams: the SCBWI Awards~ ongoing until Oct 1, Abilene, TX, USA

International Youth Library Exhibition: The Treasury of Binette Schroeder~ ongoing until Oct  1, Munich, Germany

Words+Pictures=Book, Contemporary Malaysian Picture Book Illustration~ ongoing until Oct 3, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

Mirror, an Exhibition by Children’s Author and Artist Jeannie Baker~ ongoing until Oct 10, Australia

Dromkeen National Centre for Picture Book Art Exhibit: From the Collection~ ongoing until Oct 24, Riddells Creek, Australia

International Youth Library Exhibit: Shaun Tan, Pictures and Books~ ongoing until Oct 31, Munich, Germany

Everyday Adventures Growing Up: Art from Picture Books ~ ongoing until Nov 28, Chicago, IL, USA

Hedwig Anuar Children’s Book Award 2011~ entries accepted until Dec 31, Singapore

Australian Library and Information Association (ALIA) Annual Conference~ Sep 1 – 3, Brisbane, Australia

Brisbane Writers Festival~ Sep 1 – 5, Brisbane, Australia

Moscow International Book Fair~ Sep 1 – 6, Moscow, Russia

Writers’ and Literary Translators’ International Congress ~ Sep 2 – 5, Istanbul, Turkey

Bendigo Children’s Literature Conference: Texts Mark the Spot – Getting Real: Debating the what, why and how of realism in children’s and YA texts~ Sep 3 – 4, Bendigo, Australia

Asian Digital Storytelling Congress: Beyond Words ~ Sep 4, Singapore

CYA Later, Alligator – Children’s and Young Adult Writers And Illustrators Conference~ Sep 4, Brisbane, Australia

KATHA’s I Love Reading! Week~ Sep 4 – 10, Delhi, India

International Literacy Day~ Sep 8

UNESCO Literary Prize Awards Presentation~ Sep 8, Paris, France

IBBY’s Biennial Congress: The Strength of Minorities~ Sep 8 – 12, Santiago de Compostela, Spain

Nu Wa International Storytelling Tour of China~ Sep 10 – 26, China

The Kennedy Center’s 15th Annual Multicultural Children’s Book Festival~ Sep 11, Washington, D.C., USA

African Library Project’s 5th Anniversary Celebration and Fundraiser~ Sep 11, Menlo Park, CA, USA

SCBWI Ireland Conference~ Sep 11, Dublin, Ireland

First International Conference on Language, Literature and Cultural Studies~ Sep 11 – 13, Skele, Albania

Book Blogger Appreciation Week~ Sep 13 – 17

The Manila International Book Fair: Words Without Borders~ Sep 15 – 19, Manila, Philippines

International Children’s and Youth Literature Festival~ Sep 15 – 25, Berlin, Germany

Hispanic Heritage Month~ Sep 15 – Oct 15, USA (more…)

Hosted by Sandy Fussel, from the Australian blog Stories are Light, this month’s children’s lit carnival offers a wealth of book reviews, interviews, writing tips, and more. Take a look and I’m sure you’ll find plenty of must-read-before-Summer/Winter-is-over books and articles.

After basking in the light of the carnival’s links, make sure to check the blog’s sidebar for a list of Top 50 Australian Writing Blogs. Enjoy!

Following up on my post from last week, Mitali has graciously allowed us to share her blog post about the event here:

A thousand thanks to Porter Square Books in Cambridge, Ma and to my publisher Charlesbridge for hosting my Bamboo People book launch party. I always get nervous, so I greatly appreciated everybody who came and sent notes of encouragement from near and far. I’ve posted a few videos below, and here are some recaps from others who attended:
Charlesbridge, Walk the Ridgepole, Not Just For Kids, Britt Leigh’s Brain on Books, and The Papa Post

Arrived to find this gorgeous bamboo plant sent from Portland, Maine by Curious City’s Kirsten Cappy, Jamie Hogan (who illustrated my book Rickshaw Girl), Annie Sibley O’ Brien (After Gandhi), and King middle school librarian Kelley McDaniel. Thank you so much, ladies, for your love and support!

I loved watching people mingle and meet.

My buddy Deb Sloan is one of the best book cheerleaders on the planet.

Authors who write for adults don’t get love like this.

Porter Square bookseller Nathan exuded hospitality. Thank you! I’m holding the bamboo bookmark giveaways I picked up a couple of weeks ago at the Chiang Mai Night Bazaar.

Introducing the book

Reading an excerpt of BAMBOO PEOPLE

Thank you to Karen Lukas of Folk Arts Rajasthan (FAR) for letting me know about this wonderful World Vision broadcast and accompanying slideshow about the Merasi School and Merasi music. I am so excited to share them with you. In Karen’s words:

FAR volunteer and musicologist Adam Pogoff is seen here recording on the ground in Jaisalmer, Rajasthan. His piece covered both the pure beauty of the centuries-old music, and the harsh realities under which it continues to flourish. Adam, who along with photographer and schoolteacher Alison Brockhouse and other friends, volunteered to travel to Jaisalmer this April to experience and record first-hand the sounds of this legacy. They returned from the scorching desert amazed and excited, keen to spread the word about this gifted community.

On behalf of the African Library Project, PaperTigers would like to invite you to Harembee!, a fundraiser in celebration of the project’s 5 years and 500 libraries. The event, whose goal is to raise funds to establish and sustain more libraries in rural Africa, will happen on Sep 11, in Menlo Park, California and includes cocktails, dinner, silent and live auctions, and entertainment provided by Zimbabwean Julia Chigamba and the Chinyakare Ensemble. For more details, click here. The deadline to RSVP is Sep 1.

To learn more about African Library Project’s meaningful work, read our interview with founder Chris Bradshaw.

Our summer holidays are nearly over and the Reading the World Challenge is nearly running away with me in terms of posting about the books we’ve read – so without further ado, here’s the latest installment, including the long overdue catch-up with our fellow readers…

Together we have read the delightful Lulie the Iceberg by Her Royal Highness Princess Takamado and illustrated by Warabe Aska (Kodansha America, 1998), which Sally wrote about a while ago – her post prompted us to get hold of it: and we did, indeed, love it. We read the actual story one evening and then spent several evenings after that reading the factual information at the end, while hunting again and again for the various creatures mentioned in the gorgeous illustrations. Read Sally’s post for a synopsis of the story…

Meanwhile, Older Brother has read Linda Sue Park’s A Single Shard (Clarion Books, 2001):

A Single Shard is about a young boy called Tree-ear in 12th Century Korea, who loves watching a potter called Min making vases grow from the wheel. Then Tree-ear starts working for Mon (but he’s not allowed to actually make things) and goes on a long journey to the emperor with some pottery to seek a commission – but he is tricked by robbers on the way…

It’s a very exciting story. It made me feel happy and sad at different times: and the ending was probably the saddest part of all, though it did eventually turn out to be for the best.

Little Brother has also read a book set in Antarctica – but I have to confess that I have mislaid the notebook in which he wrote his mini-review, which he will be quite unimpressed about. I will try and remedy the situation asap.

In the meantime, what of everyone else in all these weeks that have elapsed since my last update?

Corinne has read Shanghai Girls by Lisa See, of which she says, “It won Honorable Mention for Adult Fiction in the 2010 Asian/Pacific American Awards for Literature. I loved Lisa’s previous book Snow Flower and the Secret Fan and this book did not disappoint either. Highly recommend it especially for all those “historical novel” lovers like me.”

Olduvai at Olduvai Reads has completed the Challenge – Hooray! You can find links to her reviews for all the books she read here…

Tiina of A Book Blog of One’s own has read The Lovers of Algeria by Anouar Benmalek and The Birthday Boys by Beryl Bainbridge…

And I’m so glad Jama at Jama Rattigan’s Alphabet Soup has joined in too. She’s been reading a wonderful selection of picture books about Asia and Asian Americans, focusing on Korea, China and Japan - definitely not to be missed.

And welcome, too, to Nora at Reading My Way Through The Classics, who has read Goodbye Tsugumi by Banana Yoshimoto, Jane Eyre by Charlotte Bronte and I Know Why The Caged Bird Sings by Maya Angelou.

There are only four and a bit months left of the year but if you’re happy to squash your reading up a bit, you could still join in our Reading the World Challenge of seven books from or about each of the seven continents… And I promise it won’t be quite so long till the next write-up!

Observed by Muslims all over the world, the Islamic holy month of prayer and fasting, known as Ramadan, started this year on August 11th in North America and will culminate on Eid, a three day celebration that marks the end of the period of fasting.

Here are some children’s books about Ramadan that have been featured on PaperTigers:

A Party in Ramadan, by Asma Mobin-Uddin, illustrated by Laura Jacobsen (Boyds Mills Press)

Leena, a young girl who is fasting “part time” for the first time (children are not expected to fast every day of Ramadan until they have passed puberty), is disappointed when she finds out that her best friend’s party will be held on the afternoon of the day she had chosen to fast. How she deals with her conflicted feelings makes for a very gentle story about faith and friendship. This is “a picture book that can help bridge divides and reassure children of any faith who sometimes have to make the choice between fitting in and following their hearts.”

Many Windows: Six Kids, Five Faiths, One Community, by Rukhsana Khan, with Uma Krishnaswami and Elisa Carbone (Napoleon & Company)

Many Windows is a book of stories about six children of different faiths sharing one community. In the story about Ramadan, a young boy is suspicious of his uncle, who is visiting from Pakistan to celebrate it with his family. The book includes an information section on the religious celebrations and, through its interlinked stories, “shows a community whose members respect and value one another—a gentle and crucial message our youth would benefit from finding in other contemporary stories.”

Moon Watchers: Shirin’s Ramadan Miracle, written by Reza Jalali and illustrated by Anne Sibley O’Brien, recently published by Tilbury House, is the story of a nine year-old girl who is too young to fast like her older brother and how she comes to understand that there’s more to Ramadan than just fasting. We will be reviewing the book ourselves soon, but in the meantime, here’s a lovely review from ForeWord magazine.

For more books for children and teens about Ramadan, I suggest you head over to UmmahReads, where you will find great reading lists divided by age group.

An invitation from the Global Fund for Children:

Join The Global Fund for Children for an exclusive trip to Guatemala. Experience the work of our grantee partners and become immersed in the everyday life of the local people while touring community-based organizations that serve vulnerable children and youth. You will also visit some of the most treasured destinations that Central America has to offer, such as colonial Antigua and the Mayan ruins of Tikal.

The learning tour will take place either January 15—22 or February 19—27 (the date chosen depends on the response received). Please contact Haida McGovern by September 15 for more information.

Judging by the lovely book trailer below, It’s a Book by author and illustrator Lane Smith (to be released tomorrow by Roaring Brook Press), will sure be a hit! A book “for the technorati and literati alike”, it features a book-loving ape and a tech-savvy donkey talking digital vs. print. Just priceless!

On December 2009, the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution proclaiming the year commencing today, August 12th 2010, and ending on August 11th 2011, as the International Year of Youth (IYY). Under the theme “Dialogue and Mutual Understanding,” the Year aims to promote the ideals of peace, respect for human rights and solidarity across generations, cultures, religions and civilizations. The Year also coincides with the 25th anniversary of the first International Youth Year in 1985, when a framework and guidelines for national action and international support to improve the situation of young people were first put into place.

For an overview of the importance of the Year for young people, take a look at this brochure, which soon will be available in all UN official languages.

If you are planning to hold an event in celebration of the International Year of Youth and would like to officially register it, you may do so here – and do tell us about it too.