The last book of the year has been read (Sahwira: An African Friendship, by Carolyn Marsden) and a whole new year of reading is about to start. Oh the joys of being an avid reader!…

If, like me, you’re likely to ring in the New Year in bed, with a good book, you might want to consider Reading Into the New Year. “It hardly sounds like a challenge,” I hear you say. Well, it isn’t. It’s more like an invitation to have fun and share your passion for books with others. However, the book(s) you choose to curl up with to welcome the new year and new decade might reveal much about your aspirations and hopes—and I guarantee the fireworks in your mind’s eyes will be just as incredible as the ones outside!

Whereas I am still planning to get caught up with titles I missed from previous years, the list of 2010 releases I just started already excites me beyond words. Perhaps one or two of these titles might inspire you to start your own brand new pile of books to look forward to?

Ling and Ting by Grace Lin
A Million Shades of Grey by Cynthia Kadohata
Bamboo People by Mitali Perkins
Our Grandparents: A Global Album (A Global Fund for Children book)
Seeds of Change: Wangari’s Gift to the World by Jen Cullerton Johnson, illustrated by Sonia Lynn Sadler.

The always reliable CCBC is hard at work compiling the best of the 2009 crop: CCBC Choices 2010 will be available after March 6, 2010 (for information on how to have a copy sent to you, go to their website). And Fuse#8 has a great post on the best of the decade.

Happy New Year of Reading to all!

It’s Sunday night and as I type this post my husband and children are putting the final decorating touches on our Christmas tree.  So, as I sit  here thinking about what event to blog about this week, perhaps  Family Trees: A Celebration of Children’s Literature would be most appropriate.

Held from December 4, 2009  through to January 3, 2010 in Concord, MA, USA, the annual Family Trees event is unique among the many holiday events in Greater Boston as it focuses on  children’s literature! The historic Concord Museum galleries are filled with fanciful trees of all shapes and sizes decorated with original ornaments inspired by acclaimed children’s storybooks and contemporary picture book favorites.  Each tree serves as a canvas for the artistic creations of a dedicated team of volunteer decorators. Inspired by the storyline, the illustrations, the characters or setting of a particular book, the decorators let their imaginations take flight, much to the delight of visitors of all ages from all over New England.

Serving as inspiration for this year’s trees are books that are classics and sure-to-become classics. Selections include:

Listen to the Wind: The Story of Dr. Greg and Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and Susan L. Roth

Mrs. Greenberg’s Messy Hanukkah by Linda Glaser, illustrated by Nancy Cote

Amazing Peace: A Christmas Poem by Maya Angelou, illustrated by Steve Johnson and Lou Fancher

Fortune Cookie Fortunes, by Grace Lin

Flotsam by David Wiesner

For a complete list of this year’s  books (there are over 30 titles!)  click here.

Proceeds from Family Trees benefit the Concord Museum’s educational mission serving an audience of preschoolers, school-age children, college students, families, adults and seniors in over 600 school and public programs yearly.  For hours of operation, admission costs etc. click here.

And since we are speaking of the holidays, be sure to check our new website features, which focus on Religious Diversity in relation to End-of-Year Celebrations.

Grace has uploaded the video of her appearance on the The TODAY Show. Check out her blog to watch it. Well done Grace!

NBC’s The TODAY Show is the top-rated daily American morning news and talk show with over 5.5 million daily viewers.  So it is especially exciting to learn that The TODAY Show has picked Grace Lin’s newest novel Where the Mountain Meets the Moon as their  Kids Book Club December selection!

Grace blogs: I am THRILLED to announce that Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is the December selection for Al Roker’s Kids Book Club on the TODAY SHOW!!!!

I am scheduled to appear on The TODAY Show with Al Roker and the Book Club Kids on Friday, December 4th at 9:45am! Tell your friends, spread the word and send me some positive thoughts –hopefully I don’t make any social gaffes on national TV… For those of you who miss it, don’t have a TV, despise jovial weathermen, etc., I also have some new events on the schedule! There’s a couple in NYC, right before and after my interview and there is a newly scheduled book signing at the Newtonville Books (Newtonville, MA). Click here for details.

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon has been receiving rave reviews and awards since it was released in June. PaperTigers was delighted to host Grace on Day 2 of her Blog Tour to celebrate its launch and we wish her every success with tomorrow’s appearance. Congratulations, Grace!

(Click on event name for more information)

2009 Bologna Illustrators Exhibition of Children’s Books~ ongoing until Dec 6, Ishikawa, Japan

Guadalajara International Book Fair~ ongoing until Dec 6, Guadalajara, Mexico

Jewish Book Month~ ongoing until Dec 12, Canada and USA

When Cinderella Went to the Ball: Five Hundred Years of Fairy Tales~ ongoing until Dec 12, Toronto, ON, Canada

CJ Picture Book Festival~ ongoing until Dec 24, Seoul, Korea

Summer Reading Club: Read on the Wild Side~ ongoing until Jan 31, 2010, Australia

Golden Legacy: Original Art from 65 Years of Golden Books Featuring Artwork from Iconic Children’s Books~ ongoing until Feb 28, 2010, Amherst, MA, USA

Mother Goose in an Air-Ship: McLoughlin Bros. 19th Century Children’s Books from the Liman Collection~ ongoing until Apr 18, 2010, Amherst, MA, USA

Heart and Soul: Art from Coretta Scott King Award Books, 2006–2009~ ongoing until Apr 18, 2010, Chicago, IL, USA

From The Tiger Who Came to Tea to Mog and Pink Rabbit; A Judith Kerr Retrospective~ ongoing until May 2010, Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom

Grace Lin, Author of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, Appears on NBC’s TODAY Show~ Dec 4

Family Trees: A Celebration of Children’s Literature~ Dec 4 – Jan 3, 2010, Concord, MA, USA

International Antiquarian Book Fair~ Dec 4 – 6 Hong Kong

The Children’s Literature Centre at Frostburg State University Presents Storybook Holiday~ Dec 5, Frostburg, MD, USA

Irish Children’s Literature and Culture Symposium~ Dec 5, Dublin, Ireland

The Making of the Word Witch: The Poetic & Illustrative Magic of Margaret Mahy & David Elliot~ Dec 5 – Mar 14, 2010, Ashburton, New Zealand

Everything I Need to Know I Learned from a Children’s Book: An Afternoon with Anita Silvey~ Dec 5, New York City, NY, USA

Who Will Speak for the Child? Human Rights at Home and the Convention on the Rights of the Child~ Dec 7, New York City, NY, USA

BookFest@Singapore~ Dec 11 – 20, Singapore

The Best of the Best in 2009: Distinguished American Picture Books for Children~ Dec 12, Amherst, MA, USA

2009 Bologna Illustrators Exhibition of Children’s Books~ Dec 13 – Mar 1, 2010, Seoul, Korea

Phew, just made it! Where have the last two weeks disappeared to? Anyway, I’ve made my nominations for the Cybils - and if you haven’t yet, you have until 11.59 p.m. tomorrow…

So here’s my list:

Fiction Picture Books:

I nominated Naomi’s Tree by Joy Kogawa

… on my list were also Erika-San by Allen Say (Houghton Mifflin, 2009) – nominated by Kara of Not Just for Kids;
and Cora Cooks Pancit by Dorina K. Lazo Gilmore, illustrated by Kristi Valiant (Shen’s Books, 2009) – nominated by Renee of Shen’s Blog;

…and I especially want to look out:
First Come the Zebra by Lynne Barasch (Lee & Low, 2009) – nominated by Hannah from the Lee & Low Blog
Hook by Ed Young (Roaring Book Press, 2009) – nominated by Susannah of Raab Associates
My African Bedtime Rhymes by Brettell Hone (Shamwari Publishing, 2009) – nominated by Ginger Nielson;
Crow Call by Lois Lowry – nominated by Kristine at The Best Book I Haven’t Read
My Abuelita by Tony Johnston, illustrated by Yuyi Morales (Harcourt Children’s Books, 2009) – nominated by Lynn E. Hazen
…and the list continues!

Middle Grade Fiction:

I nominated Wanting Mor by Rukhsana Khan (Groundwood, 2009)

…and must seek out Brushing Mom’s Hair by Andrea Cheng (Wordsong, 2009) – nominated by Linda at Swell Books
and Journey of Dreams by Marge Pellegrino (Frances Lincoln, 2009) – nominated by Janni… and more!

Non-fiction/Information Picture Books:

I nominated My Japan by Etsuko Watanabe

…and great to see already nominated:
Balarama: A Royal Elephant by Ted and Betsy Lewin (Lee and Low, 2009) – nominated by Miri at Wands and Worlds;
Listen to the Wind: The Story of Dr. Greg and Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson and Susan Roth, (Dial, 2009) – nominated by Maggi at Mama Librarian;
Shining Star: The Anna May Wong Story by Paula Yoo (Lee & Low, 2009) – nominated by Jama at Jama Rattigan’s Alphabet Soup.

I want to read:
The East-West House: Noguchi’s Childhood in Japan by Christy Hale (Lee & Low, 2009);
The Grand Mosque of Paris: A Story of How Muslims Rescued Jews During the Holocaust by Karen Gray Ruelle and Deborah Durland Desaix (Holiday House, 2009);
Tarra & Bella: The Elephant and Dog Who Became Best Friends by Carol Buckley (Putnam Juvenile, 2009) – nominated by Elaine Magliaro at Wild Rose Reader;
Nasreen’s Secret School: A True Story from Afghanistan by Jeanette Winter – nominated by Sherry at Semicolon;
Cycle of Rice, Cycle of Life: A Story of Sustainable Farming by Jan Reynolds (Lee & Low, 2009).

Non-Fiction – middle/teen:

I nominated Let There Be Peace: Prayers from Around the World by Jeremy Brooks, illustrated by Jude Daly (Frances Lincoln, 2009)

…already nominated: After Gandhi: One Hundred Years of Nonviolent Resistance by Anne Sibley O’Brien and Perry Edmond O’Brien (Charlesbridge, 2009) – I’m in the process of writing a review for this superb book and will add a link soon…
and Three Cups of Tea: One Man’s Journey to Change the World… One Child at a Time (The Young Reader’s Edition) by Greg Mortenson (Puffin Young Readers, 2009).

Grace Lin’s Where the Mountain Meets the Moon (Little, Brown and Company, 2009) has been nominated in the Fantasy/Science Fiction section by Emily Reads; and John Agard’s The Young Inferno would have been my poetry nomination but Sherry got there first!

I’ve realised that I have read very little newly-published YA fiction this year so I haven’t made a nomination there either – but it’s good to see Mitali Perkins’ Secret Keeper in there, nominated by Sarah at Archimedes Forgets (what a wonderful name for a blog!); and I do have a copy of Shine, Coconut Moon by Neesha Meminger (Margaret K. McElderry, 2009) in my to-be-read pile (nominated by R. J. Anderson)…

So it looks like I’m going to be busy enough – I can’t imagine how the judges are going to manage to read all the nominees. And after tomorrow, we’ll be waiting with baited breath to find out the shortlists, published on 1st January…

Yesterday was the official launch of Grace Lin’s Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. If you missed the virtual party, don’t worry – you can still join in the fun. Grace is offering a prize of $25 worth of merchandise from her new on-line store to three lucky people who send in a photo of themselves reading the book – draws will take place at the end of July, August and September (…and while you’ve got the camera out, send us a photo of your kids’ bookshelf too!).

Grace’s wonderful Blog Tour, which we really enjoyed being a part of, draws to an end tomorrow – you can see the full schedule on Jama Rattigan’s Alphabet Soup here - and you just have to head over there and look at the amazing dishes she has concocted to join in Grace’s celebrations – carp-shaped dumplings and exquisite “Where the Mountain meets the Moon” cup-cakes!

PaperTigers is delighted to be hosting author and illustrator Grace Lin on Day 2 of her Blog Tour to introduce her latest book, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, which, as Aline pointed out last week, has already received its first award! We’ll be publishing a full review in our next issue of PaperTigers… in the meantime, Grace has kindly answered some questions and shared some pictures with us.

Welcome, Grace: thank you for joining us!

In an article you once wrote called “Why Couldn’t Snow White be Chinese?”, you talk about an experience you had as a child when your school put on a production of The Wizard of Oz and you were told by a friend you couldn’t be chosen to play Dorothy because “Dorothy’s not Chinese”. How would you relate that experience to your writing of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, which has been described as being written in “the Wizard of Oz tradition”?

Wow, that is a very astute observation of my work. While I did not write Where the Mountain Meets the Moon as an attempt to create an Asian Dorothy, it is probably one of the reasons why I felt so strongly that the main character needed to be a girl and why this book is an Asian-inspired fantasy (a story influenced by my Asian-American values rather than an attempt at a traditional Chinese tale).

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon is very, very loosely based on the Chinese folktale “Olive Lake,” Aside from adding many layers and changing plot points, I also changed the main character from an adult male to the girl, Minli. In some ways it may have been easier to leave the character male; I would not have had to worry about how I bent /ignored some Chinese customs that inhibit women — like the fact that there is no foot binding, for example. But I very much wanted the main character to be a girl, a strong and brave and clever girl who (now that you mention it) was someone I would’ve wanted to pretend that I was as I child.

You have referred to your illustrating of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon as being “like the classic books of yore” – do you think illustrated books for independant readers are starting to be published a bit more nowadays and how important do you think they are? (more…)

“A book is a science laboratory, an art museum, a guided tour through history, a great friend. Books put the magic in the carpet ride.”

~quoted from the Parents’ Choice Foundation website.

Established in 1978 by author and educator Diana Huss Green with the goal of providing parents with information to participate wisely in their children’s learning outside the classroom, the Parents’ Choice Foundation is the oldest non-profit guide in the US to quality children’s media. Its panels of parents, educators, scientists, librarians, artists, as well as kids themselves, identify the very best products available to help kids and parents connect: “books with honesty and integrity of characters; illustration of elegance and imagination; toys with staying power; music that families can sing together; storytelling that teaches us lessons from lands and cultures close and far away; magazines that do not mask editorial content in advertising; television that teaches with civility and not chaos.”

In addition to lists of award winners and recommended books (and other products), the website, whose unofficial motto is “Read More. Play More. Learn More.”, also offers internet safety and media management guides and a variety of themed articles, including What-Kids-Who-Don’t-Like-To-Read-Like-To-Read and Have you Hugged an Ugly Book Today?. “Until the time when parenting road maps are issued with birth certificates, these guides should make [navigating the terrain of children's media] a little easier.” And with summer upon us, in the Northern Hemisphere, what could be better than some “guided” fun?… Jammed full of information and flavor, this website should be bookmarked and consulted time and again by parents and caregivers alike.

The following books have been awarded the Spring 2009 Parents’ Choice Seal in the picture book, fiction and non-fiction categories, respectively: A Party in Ramadan; Where the Mountain Meets the Moon and Cycle of Rice, Cycle of Life. And a shout-out is also in order for the multi-award winning Kahani Magazine, for its selection as a “2009 Parents’ Choice Recommended” children’s magazine.

Well, we knew it would be a success and it was! Check out Grace Lin’s blog to read and see photos of her recent book launch party for Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. Congratulations, Grace!

Also, be sure to check out Grace’s charity project, Small Graces: A Painting a Month for the FCB. Each month this year, she is auctioning off a piece of her artwork to benefit the Foundation of Children’s Books, a small, non-profit organization in Boston that makes a big difference in the lives of young readers by bringing children’s book authors and illustrators into under-served schools in Boston for visits and residencies. This month’s auction takes place June 15th – 19th and features a lovely original painting by Grace depicting the Chinese proverb “Flowers leave their fragrance on the hand that gives them”.