One of the contributing authors to our current Book of the Month, Water Stories from Around the World (Tulika, 2010), Deepa Balsavar has both written and illustrated many children’s books, including The Seed, selected for the 2007 White Raven’s Catalogue. She has also worked with the Avehi-Abacus Project for the past twenty years, as well as on UNICEF sponsored projects, developing teaching resources for mathematics and literacy.

My Water Story by Deepa Balsavar

I come from a family of readers and nature lovers. As a child, I remember my father bringing me large, colorful books on pet animals and wildlife and natural history. I devoured those books and became the heroine of countless adventures as I traversed the continents sometimes as a veterinary surgeon and at other times as an intrepid explorer.

The true joy, however, was going back far in time. And as I pored over my “Life on Earth”, an animated flip book would form in my mind. In super fast motion I would see our earth as a big ball of gas wobbling in space. Then the gas would cool and the surface of the planet would be covered by a thin layer, like cream on the surface of hot milk. And like cream, this layer would break and re-form as bubbling lava welled up and split the surface. Meteors would come crashing down kaboom! and splashes of hot red would soar into the air. Thunder and lightning would add their own music and then… And then it would rain and rain and rain. At this point the flip book in my head would slow down and become almost still. All other activity would become muted as the sounds in my mind merged with the monsoon happening outside my window. And my stilled mind would see the earth wait, expectantly, for the seas to fill and for the first chemical reactions to herald the beginning of life on Earth.

Everyone knows that water brings life and sustains it. In India the pouring of water forms part of most rituals and rites of passage. Rivers are propitiated and it is believed by Hindus that bathing in the Ganges washes away the sins of a lifetime. In homes, guests are offered a glass of water before anything else. This is not only an acknowledgment of the hot and dusty road outside but also a gesture of friendship. But water has also been at the heart of much cruelty…

Read the whole of Deepa’s article here.

For me, it was a case of love at first sight, the first time I came across Bronwyn Bancroft‘s artwork. So in this Books at Bedtime post I’m going to highlight three titles all by different authors but illustrated by Bronwyn. The first two fit neatly into our current Water in Multicultural Children’s Books theme; and the third provides an accent to it with its Alice Springs desert setting – no, not a lot of water there…

First up is Big Rain Coming, written by Katrina Germein (Clarion Books, 1999). The text is snappy and there’s plenty of expansive detail in the illustrations to pore over with a child. Everyone, but everyone is waiting for the rain to come, from Old Stephen, to the kids; from the dogs to the frogs. The clouds gather, and still they wait, right through each day of the week, until finally, on Saturday, it rains. It won’t be long till the child you share this book with knows the words by heart and is jubilantly shouting out the last couple of pages before you get a look in! My favorite illustration: the children swimming in the blue/green billabong, surrounded by tall pink flowers – gorgeous!

Next is Malu Kangaroo: How the First Children Learnt to Surf written by Judith Morecroft (Little Hare, 2007), which again is a finely tuned synthesis of word and image. Malu the Kangaroo boldly tells the people, “I will show you how to play with the ocean.” And then he shapes and polishes a piece of wood into a surf-board. As he tells them how it will feel to surf, Bronwyn’s illustrations underscore the joyous lyricism of Malu Kangaroo’s words, with birds soaring and dipping into the surf, fish flying, and dolphins leaping. The patterns and swirls that have their roots in aboriginal art, coupled with Bronwyn’s characteristic bright pallette are simply (yes I am going to use that words agian!) gorgeous. My favorite illustration: the birds that ‘sweep and fly’, breaking up the horizontal bands of sand, surf and sky.

And lastly, Ready to Dream written by Donna Jo Napoli and Elena Furrow (Bloomsbury Children’s Books, 2009). Young artist Ally’s Mamma is taking her to Australia for the first time. At Alice Springs, Ally meets Pauline, an artist who, with just a few gentle words each time, teaches Ally to get closer in her art to the animals and nature she sees and experiences on her excursions. In their last meeting they draw together in the sandy earth, and Ally’s reaction shows that, in Pauline’s culminating words, she is “ready to dream”. There is much for young people to ponder in this gentle story that will appeal especially to budding artists – and there’s no doubt that they could be trying their hand at something in Bronwyn’s style as a result. My favourite illustration: Ally throwing high the stone on which she has painted a kangaroo, so that it can hop free.

Over the next few weeks we will be focusing on the theme of Water in Multicultural Children’s Books here on PaperTigers.  Our first feature is an online Gallery of talented artist Li Jian‘s work, including illustrations from his first book to be published in English, The Water Dragon (Better Link Press, 2012).  We’ll be posting a full review soon – in the meantime, head on over to our Gallery to view a selection of his illustrations and to find out more about his work in our Q&A.

Rachna Gilmore, illustrated by Pulak Biswas,
The Flute
Tradewind Books, 2011.

Ages 5-8

“Long ago and far away” begins this beautifully written story from the pen of award-winning writer Rachna Gilmore, transporting her young readers to the realms and codes of magic that may be familiar to them in fairy-tales.  The hope that, in the vein of fairy-tale, whatever bad things happen along the way, all will come well in the end, will help them to empathise all the more with the young Chandra’s trials and tribulations.

A terrible flood carries away little Chandra’s parents, after they have put her in a tree to keep her safe and given her the flute her mother loved to play.   When the waters recede, her aunt and uncle reluctantly take her in but treat her cruelly and even throw the flute into the river (the aunt’s malignant smile in the illustration here will chill the heart of any reader).  Without it, Chandra feels more alone than ever but stoically carries out her gruelling daily chores through the harsh winter and scorching summer.  Then one day, she hears a flute filling the air with music of hope, comfort and love – and food magically appears before her.  When her aunt and uncle find out, their only thoughts are for themselves; and when the monsoon arrives, they force her to stay in the river rather than joining them on the safe high ground.  This potentially cataclysmic act of cruelty is actually the catalyst for change that Chandra needs for her happily-ever-after.  Her hopes, as well as the hope of young readers who have been willing for a happy ending, are fulfilled.

Accompanying Gilmore’s narrative are Pulak Biswas’ stunning illustrations.  Using only blocks of primary color, texture and detail are created through the overlying black.  The varying moods of the familiar river and the clouds bringing the monsoon, or the gentle wave of musical notes creeping in at the top of the page all convey the atmosphere of the story.  The illustrations root the story solidly in the Indian setting alluded to in the text, such as the monsoon and Chandra herself, named after the moon.

In a world where young people have great awareness of natural disasters and difficulties around the world, The Flute is a very special book that combines a timeless quality with a particular relevance to today’s children.

Marjorie Coughlan
February 2012

Excitement is building in London, England as the city gets ready to host some once in a lifetime events this summer! Athletes from over 200 countries will converge in London July 27 – August 12  to take part in the 2012 Summer Olympics. Two weeks later (August 23 – 26) children’s literature enthusiasts from around the world will gather at London’s Imperial College for the 33rd IBBY (International Board on Books for Young People) International Congress. Here at PaperTigers excitement is also building as we have just learned our editor, Marjorie Coughlan, has been chosen to present her paper at the 33rd IBBY International Congress Parallel Sessions!

The main theme of the 2012 Congress is Crossing Boundaries: Translations and Migrations. Participants will explore how books and stories for children and young people can cross boundaries and migrate across different countries and cultures. The congress will look at issues such as globalisation, dual-language texts, cultural exchange and the art of translation. The programme outline has just been released and can be seen here.

Marjorie’s paper, Escaping Conflict, Seeking Peace: picture books that relate refugee stories, draws attention to picture books in English from around the world about children and young people who have been forced from their homes because of conflict. These are important stories that need to be told, whether they are biographical or fictionalised accounts, for understanding of the past, healing in the present, and hope for the future. Her paper arose in part from PaperTigers’ August 2010 issue that focused on Refugee Children and the abstract for her paper can be read here…. (more…)

Head on over to the PaperTigers website to enjoy a feast of artwork from gifted artist Ed Young, including images of the amazing fold-out collages in his recent book The House Baba Built. If you missed our interview with Ed in December, then do read that too – he gives some fascinating insight into how he works, as well as his views on the future of books.

No matter if words or illustrations, books or e-books, every form of modern children’s books struggles with issues of representation and inclusion of children and families of all cultures, races, religions, classes, ethnicities, and backgrounds.  Far too often works for children do not reflect the diversity of the world, English-speaking or otherwise. Since our own forum is cyber-based, it only makes sense that the question of multicultural e-books for children should arise on this PaperTigers feature.  Here is a far from conclusive set of suggestions for initial forays into the multicultural children’s e-book world, arranged approximately by reading age, youngest to oldest.  This post rounds up our focus on multicultural children’s e-books.  If you’ve just arrived in the discussion, do take a look at my earlier post, e-troducing the e-book, as well as our interviews with authors Janet Wong and Hazel Edwards.

Janet Wong, illustrated by Sladjana Vasic,
Once Upon A Tiger: New Beginnings for Endangered Animals
OnceUponATiger.com, 2011.

Learning has never been this interactive. Poet and author Janet Wong supplements her poems about a range of endangered animals, from the familiar whale and polar bear to the tongue-twisting axolotl and mouth-filling Sumatran rhinoceros, with nonfiction information about each particular animal’s stories. A Once Upon A Tiger website pushes interactivity, allowing readers to write and send poems of their own.

Dub Leffler,
Once There Was a Boy
Magabala Books, 2011.

Ages 3+

This exquisite, fragile picture book tells the story of a boy who lives alone on an ancient boat on a beach until one day, a girl appears. A disarmingly evocative, gentle story of friendship, separation and reconciliation propelled through breathtaking illustrations.

Andrea Cheng,
Only One Year
Lee & Low Books, 2010.

Ages 7-10

This slender, gentle chapter book introduces readers to a serious subject rarely discussed in children’s literature. After he turns two, Di Di’s parents, immigrants from China, decide to send him to China for the year to live with his grandparents, learn Chinese, and know his family. Told from the point of view of Di Di’s older sisters Sharon and Mary (ages 9 and 6), Only One Year addresses the confusion, shame, embarrassment, and sadness they feel trying to come to terms with this common immigrant family custom, and to their own fears that their American friends will not understand, and that Di Di in turn will return having forgotten America and his American sisters.  Read a full review.

Monica Brown, illustrated by Rafael Lopez,
My name is Celia / Me llamo Celia: The Life of Celia Cruz /la vida de Celia Cruz
Luna Rising, 2004.

Ages 8-12

Growing up in a large Cuban family, baby Celia loves music more than everything, even though her father wants her to be a teacher. After revolution begins in Cuba, Celia flees prejudice and violence and learns how to make her way through the world, sharing her love of music with everyone she meets. The other two titles in Monica Brown’s My Name is/Me llamo… series, My Name Is Gabito and My Name is Gabriela are also available as e-books.

Ching Yeung Russell,
Tofu Quilt
Lee & Low Books, 2010.

Ages 9+.

Yeung Ying’s mother might understand that girls are just as good as boys, but in 1960s Hong Kong, all Yeung Ying hears from everyone else is how important boys are. After her mother saves precious money to send Yeung Ying to school, she begins to imagine a dream centered around writing, relayed here in thirty-eight poignant, free-verse chapters that tell the story of a girl and a culture each finding their identities.  Read a full review.

Guadalupe Garcia McCall,
Under the Mesquite
Lee & Low Books, 2011.

Ages 12+

Mexican-American Lupita struggles to keep her seven siblings and herself together after their mother is diagnosed with cancer. Facing chaos at home and the normal struggles of social life at high school, budding actress Lupita finds refuge “under the mesquite,” where she turns to writing to make sense of an unscripted world.

Hazel Edwards and Ryan Kennedy,
f2m: the boy within
Ford Street, 2010.

Ages 14+

Authors Hazel Edwards and Ryan Kennedy take on a subject until recently virtually absent from teen fiction, transgendered identities. When all-female punk rock band guitarist Skye decides to make the change from female to male – which is how she feels on the inside – she must come to grips with not only the physical changes her body undergoes, but also the emotional challenges of making and sticking to the decision.

Looking for more? Often the easiest multicultural books to find are those that have won prestigious awards, like the Newbery, CBCA or former Smarties Award, such as Where The Mountain Meets the Moon, The Watsons Go To Birmingham, or Hitler’s Daughter.

For one of the best resources for free e-books about all cultures, check out the International Children’s Digital Library, an online resource where you can sort by title, author, country, and award-winner.

As more publishers embrace e-publishing, more multicultural e-books will become available. In turn, as the technical potential for reproducing picture books increases, we will hopefully see more picture books making the leap. Today both traditional print books and e-books still consistently neglect and under-represent those peoples who themselves historically remain neglected and underrepresented. In turn, many of those engaged in the world of multicultural children’s literature hope that the ease e-books offer, particularly with new horizons of self-publishing and viral promotion, will impact both the ability to offer more books for children that represent all children in the world, as well as give all children access to books they might not otherwise reach.

Like the publication of multicultural children’s e-books itself, this list is a beginning. As always, we welcome your thoughts and suggestions. What other multicultural e-books have you read that you would recommend?

As we continue to explore the world of e-books on PaperTigers, we’re asking practitioners and people on the ground about some of the challenges and triumphs they personally have faced creating e-books, as well as the challenges and triumphs they see for the industry as a whole. Last week we spoke with Janet Wong ; today we chat with Hazel Edwards.

Hazel is a 2012 Astrid Lindgren Award nominee, and Ambassador for Australia’s  2012 National Year of Reading, and writes a story each birthday for her grandkids. f2m:the boy within was a 2011 White Ravens selection. Hazel is also a director of the Australian Society of Authors and especially interested in e-books. She is perhaps best known for her There’s a Hippopotamus on Our Roof Eating Cake series, as engaging and creative as the author herself, which recently celebrated its 30^th anniversary with the release of the Pocket Bonfire short film that screened internationally at 2011 film festivals.

We first interviewed Hazel back in 2007, and since then she has been a regular guest on the PaperTigers Blog; we’re delighted to welcome her back now to tell us about her involvement with e-books.

***

What was your inspiration for writing e-books? Was that your intention from the get-go, or was there an evolution in your creative process?

I enjoy e-books, both as another innovative format for my stories and to read myself. Inclusive of print, not exclusive. Audio already exists. Maybe smellovision next?

Change should be embraced, not feared. So, although I’m format-challenged, my aim is to learn one e-skill per day and slowly add e-stories to my website. For e-skilled children who are more visual rather than verbal, I’d prefer them to exercise their imaginations reading mysteries on screen, than play violence-based computer-games.

As a 2012 National Year of Reading Ambassador, I’m keen on any aids to literacy, and reading ‘on screen’ is seen as ‘cool’ by challenged readers, whether kids or adults. That’s the reason for adding my mystery series and performance scripts as an easy way of sharing reading for a fun purpose.

‘Us mob likes your e-stories’ was a response after an outback web-chat with an indigenous literacy program.

Fan mail proves e-books work for challenged readers, whether read on laptops or other devices. Educator Robyn Floyd forwarded this fan mail. And it’s genuine responses like this that make an author’s day.

Recently, my e-mentor daughter streamlined my website to allow sales of my print books, along with a slow move to all e-books, for the ease of readers beyond bookshops and libraries. This also makes my books available for international schools or remote web chats.

Experimentally, I grouped some of my easy-to-read children’s mystery stories into an e-book series, Project Spy Kids, starring Art, a challenged reader who is a sleuth and excellent problem-solver.

My mainstream publishers have my print titles as e-books on Amazon etc.  These include the nonfiction Aussie Heroes series Sir Edward Weary Dunlop and forthcoming Dr Fred Hollows and eco-fantasy  Plato the Platypus Plumber (part-time). An early e-book series was Duckstar.

So why did I become an e-publisher?

• Some of my publisher merger ‘orphaned’ titles were requested by readers and I had no copies. Rights-reverted titles could be re-published in new formats, from my own site.
• My aim was speed of reader access (they get the e-book within 24 hours) plus extras like free finger puppet patterns or Antarctic polar ship plans.
• I write in varied fields. Writing a Non Boring Family History, my most popular e-book, helps grandparents or parents wanting to write family stories for children of their extended families internationally.
• A non-fiction title in print and e-book format is Difficult Personalities with Dr Helen Mc Grath. This has an audio Louis Braille version as well.
• International web-chats with authors are more relevant when the e-book is instantly accessible. f2m:the boy within is a significant  gender transition (and punk music) print novel easily and diplomatically available for international readers via Amazon etc.

In 2009 I was an Author Ambassador with the Nanjing International Cultural Exchange.  We did webchats in dual languages, and wrote some school-based stories about school pet turtles in Mandarin and English to exchange between the Australian and Chinese schools. Now some of my titles are in Mandarin.

So although I see my core profession as author, I’ve become an authorpreneur, unintentionally.

Children’s books, particularly picture books, present specific challenges to the e-book industry in terms of faithful reproduction of art and story. They also present exciting opportunities for new forms of interaction. What limitations or challenges, expected or unexpected, have you personally experienced creating e-books for children, and in turn, what benefits have you discovered as compared to printed books?

Picture books are a greater technical e-challenge in terms of preserving the quality via aps but Blue Quoll is innovating with selected picture book titles of mine. Certain stories are better suited to certain formats, but there is enormous potential for adding/changes languages and using the audio as a literacy aid. This is the MOST exciting area.

Plato the Platypus Plumber Part-time is available in Spanish, German and English as an e-book as well as a print picture book. The eco-water issues plus the ‘tool kit’ for fixing watery problems, but also grumpy people, is relevant for the age group, but there are still quality-formatting-conversion challenges to e-books.

However the Pocket Bonfire’ production of There’s a Hippopotamus on Our Roof Eating Cake is an excellent example of the director retaining the sentiment and childlike focus of the original book, but using the strengths of the medium to add new insights via sound, pausing, visuals etc.

I would like to see the Hippo stories in e-book apps formats. But that decision is for the publisher Penguin and when they think the timing and technology appropriate.

Particularly in English-speaking countries, a common concern is the lack of diversity in children’s books. How or do you think e-books might address such concerns, and how has your work engaged with issues of multicultural children’s books?

Stories crossing media into theatre or film and going into formats such as Braille or Auslan signing for deaf kids have always intrigued me.  My books have been translated into Indonesian, Mandarin, Finnish, French, Polish and American, where Mum became Mom and taps became faucets.

I live in a multicultural suburb of Melbourne. Our neighbours are Chinese, Vietnamese, Greek, Dutch, New Zealander, Serbo-Croatian , Somali and Italian. That’s just my street. Hence my Frequent Flyer Twins are Asian-Australian 10-year-old sleuths. Authors draw inspiration from their communities, but the best stories always have universal appeal through compassion.

Originally a popular print series, the Frequent Flyer Twins books now have new covers, e-formatting for all kinds of e-readers and merchandise such as stickers, t shirts, etc. by graphic designer/illustrator Jane Connory.  We met serendipitously in a local park when I was doing a Channel 31 “Kids in the Kitchen” program linking food and reading my picture books.  I had my grandson cooking Hippo footprints on camera (pancakes). Jane now designs all the new e-books in the “Project Spy Kids” literacy mystery series and illustrates the covers.

In the twentieth century the development of children’s rooms in public libraries marched hand-in-hand with growth in the children’s publishing industry. Do you think e-books will change roles of traditional libraries, and how do you envision e-books reaching children of all incomes and backgrounds?

Digital libraries are the key to providing e-books for readers of all incomes. But it’s also necessary to recompense the creators, without illegal copying depriving them.  Currently Australia has PLR (Public Lending Right) and ELR (Educational Lending Right) recompense for surveyed usage of creators’ books in libraries. This is a very significant part of most creators’ incomes. However audio and e-books are NOT included.

Distribution of digital books is a key issue and currently there are discussions of ways creators need to be compensated for library usage.

Stories about minorities need to be better distributed and recompensed, so readers can learn more about other worlds.

We love sneak previews! What are you working on at the moment? Do you plan for it to come out in print, as an e-book, or both?

The Parts of Speech TV Show and the L of a Difference literacy performance scripts have just been uploaded to my site.  Next is the sequel to my chapter book Sleuth Astrid the Mind Reading Chook called Lost Voice of the Grand Final.

This month, I launched a picture book A Safe Place to Live by Bic Walker, a former refugee/boat person from Vietnam and now an architect, who has written a universal story of change from a child’s viewpoint, based on her experiences. I highly recommend this self-published book, and have suggested to Bic than the e-book should be her next challenge.

This is a time of expediential change with e-books. We are all learning together. Next up, I’m going to write Authorpreneurship, a “how to” writing book, just as an e-book, not print.

If you were a fortune-teller, where would you predict the future lies for the evolution of the printed book vs. the e-book generally?

I’d predict that internationally more emphasis will be on audio stories with pictures for future literacy and ease of changing the language. What that technology will be called and in which format, is in transition now.  These are exciting times as regards technology, but the world still needs storytellers, so we can see the world from another’s viewpoint.

Titles, covers, chapter headings and blurbs are especially important for e-books. Readers expect more ‘gadgets,’ but currently print-book conversions work quite well. I predict that the game-book will be the next development, which is why I have been experimenting with my junior mysteries to encourage reader involvement.

***

Thank you, Hazel.

Head on over to the PaperTigers website to find out more about talented artist Shirin Adl and to see a selection of her work, including illustrations from our current Book of the Month, Let’s Celebrate! Festival Poems from Around the World.  Shirin grew up in Iran, and now lives in Oxford, UK.  Her work combines exuberance of color and media (find out in our Q&A, for example, how she used cling film to good effect in Let’s Celebrate!), and we will soon be able to enjoy her writing in print also – in the meantime, visit Shirin’s website for a taste of her unique story-telling voice.

Continuing our exploration of the world of e-books for children, we’re asking practitioners and people on the ground about some of the challenges and triumphs for them personally, as well as for the children’s publishing industry as a whole.

Today we have with us Janet Wong, former lawyer turned children’s book author of numerous books, including A Suitcase of Seaweed, Me and Rolly Maloo, Twist: Yoga Poems, and Once Upon a Tiger, an illustrated e-book poetry collection about endangered animals, as well as three e-poetry collections, co-designed and edited with Sylvia Vardell: Poetry Tag Time, p*tag and the recently released Gift Tag. Janet’s many awards include the International Reading Association’s “Celebrate Literacy Award”.

We first interviewed Janet in 2008 and it’s great to welcome her back to PaperTigers to talk here about her experiences with e-books.

***

What was your inspiration for writing e-books? Was that your intention from the get-go, or was there an evolution in your creative process?

Sylvia Vardell and I hatched our PoetryTagTime project one year ago at the NCTE convention with one simple goal: to make poetry an impulse buy. Poetry books are too often neglected, left to collect dust on bookshelves. We wanted people to hear about our books, read a sample poem, click “buy” (for no more than the cost of a cup of coffee)–and fall in love with poetry!

Children’s books, particularly picture books, present specific challenges to the e-book industry in terms of faithful reproduction of art and story. They also present exciting opportunities for new forms of interaction. What limitations or challenges, expected or unexpected, have you personally experienced creating e-books for children, and in turn, what benefits have you discovered as compared to printed books?

Designing for the small black-and-white screen of the Kindle isn’t easy, especially since you can’t know what size font a reader will choose. A child who chooses a large font might end up breaking a poem’s lines in places where a line break might be, well, ugly. For our third PoetryTagTime venture, GIFT TAG, Sylvia came up with the name “Kindleku” to describe the form that we “invented” for the Kindle screen. This form allows a maximum of 10 lines and 25 characters per line (including spaces)–the most that will fit on a Kindle screen when it is set at Font Size 6 (though Font Size 4 is, in my opinion, the best size for reading most e-books). Douglas Florian called this form the “Kindlekuku” and we acknowledge in the intro that it was cuckoo to limit our poets to 250 characters per poem–but we think the poems are terrific!

Particularly in English-speaking countries, a common concern is the lack of diversity in children’s books. How do you think e-books might address such concerns, and how has your work engaged with issues of multicultural children’s books? 

More and more people are discovering the authors in themselves and soon will be using e-books to make their voices and stories heard. This is such an exciting time to be involved with books. There will be lots of awful books, just as there are lots of awful YouTube videos–but there will also be indie-published gems. I anticipate an explosion of diversity in subject matter and also books offered in many more languages. For instance, one of the e-books I’m working on is a ballad about the first famous Chinese poet, Qu Yuan, and the origins of the Dragon Boat Festival, that will appear in a bilingual Mandarin/English edition. I’m looking forward to publishing e-book versions of several of my books in several languages, from Korean to Lithuanian!

On a similar note, in the twentieth century the development of children’s rooms in public libraries marched hand-in-hand with growth in the children’s publishing industry. Do you think e-books will change the roles of traditional libraries, and how do you envision e-books reaching children of all incomes and backgrounds?

Thousands of copies of my e-books Once Upon a Tiger: New Beginnings for Endangered Animals and PoetryTagTime have been downloaded by children in Ghana and Kenya through the terrific Worldreader.org program–books that would’ve cost a fortune to ship to Africa. The newest Kindle includes a $79 version; with the abundance of free and cheap books, these e-readers might be the best way to reach children in circumstances where traditional libraries are not an easy option.

We love sneak previews! What are you working on at the moment? Do you plan for it to come out in print, as an e-book, or both?

Right now Sylvia and I are finishing up GIFT TAG, an anthology of holiday poems. This is the third book in our PoetryTagTime series. It will be available as an e-book for Kindles, Nooks, iPads, phones–and computers, too (many people are just discovering that they can download the free Kindle app to their regular computers). The book begins with a Thanksgiving poem by Jane Yolen and contains a reminder of the meaning of Christmas by Lee Bennett Hopkins, a whimsical dreidel poem by Douglas Florian, a Mew Year’s Day poem for cat-lovers by Children’s Poet Laureate J. Patrick Lewis, and 23 more poems about everything from getting your first bicycle to your first bottle of perfume, being a spider in a Christmas tree, and having your Christmas stocking pop!

If you were a fortune-teller, where would you predict the future lies for the evolution of the printed book vs. the e-book generally? 

Too often I hear people say something negative about e-books, followed by the phrase, “because I love books.” I love both ice cream and frozen yogurt; can’t we have both? I’ll make a bold prediction: e-book poetry anthologies will actually make print collections of poetry more popular than ever. I think a lot of people who are new to poetry will take a chance and spend $2.99 to buy an e-book anthology like PoetryTagTime, which will lead them to discover a bunch of poets that they’d never heard of before. You can’t read Allan Wolf’s poem in P*TAG about burping up kittens in Shanghai without wanting to read more of his work–which is currently mainly available in print books only.

What’s up next on your to-read e-book list? Do you have any favorite e-books that you’d recommend?

Each week I have a new favorite! Today’s favorite, though, is an OLD book: Opposites by Richard Wilbur. The line drawings come through really well on the Kindle, and the poems beg to be read again and again, of course–even just one poem at a time, when the mood strikes. That’s a great thing about a poetry book: you can read it a poem at a time and not feel like you’ve “lost your place”–and the poems are so short that you can read one on your phone while you’re waiting in line!

***

Thank you, Janet.

And the good news is that since doing the interview, Gift Tag has been released and is now available to buy… Time to get e-reading!

This week’s Poetry Friday is hosted by Carol at Carol’s Corner.