June is rainy season in Japan and boy, did it ever come with a vengeance at the end of May with torrential rains that swelled the rivers, and gusty winds that got the tree tops swaying!  Sometimes the rain would go on all night long and listening to it drip off the eaves made me think of a leaky faucet with its pit-pat-pit-pat sound on the roof and balcony.  We had to get used to carrying umbrellas everywhere (the trick is not to forget them somewhere when it’s stopped raining!) and I had to figure out a way of drying our laundry indoors.  Of course, rainy days put a damper on sightseeing, so I was very glad to discover a privately run childrens’ picture book library near my house.  Simply called Ehon Toshokan, or Picture Book Library, its small collection is located on the first floor of a house-like building near the Nigawa River in Nishinomiya.  A quaint, turreted building, it’s a great place to spend a rainy afternoon with a child or by yourself (as more than one mother mentioned to me!)  Dipping into the colorful world of illustrated Japanese childrens’ books was like taking a bath in wonderland.  I have long admired the work of Japanese artists in the field of book illustration and found some wonderful books to look at and read.  I was quite happy to stumble upon the Japanese equivalent of an alphabet book — a book of hiragana letters with accompanying words — by well known Japanese illustrator Mitsumasa Anno (whose books I’ve covered here before.)  In this hiragana book, Anno has shown the shapes of the hiragana letters as they might look if they were carved out of wood; accompanying the wooden letter is an image of a traditional Japanese object beginning with that letter.  Some of the items were unrecognizable to me so I had to look them up in the glossary at the back!  This is a great children’s primer on not only hiragana but of  the many objects unique to this country.  Of course, my focus was on Japanese picture books of which there were plenty, but when I took my daughter to the library she wanted to check out the English books available, of which there were also a number.  The library contains books from 27 countries in 18 different languages.   She settled on Jon Sciezka‘s The Stinky Cheese and Other Fairly Stupid Fairy Tales (illus. by Lane Smith, 1992) and had a blast reading it to me one rainy night.  There’s something about curling up with your child with a good book on a rainy day that makes it seem … well, less rainy!

The 2009 Cybils (the Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards) Finalists have been announced. Click here to see the list.

Tomorrow, January 5th the  Announcement of the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature will take place. For the past two years, Jon Scieszka has held this position and has done an absolutely outstanding job! Check out the roundup of thank-you posts to Jon compiled at A Year of Reading.

On January 5, 2008 acclaimed children’s author Jon Scieszka was announced as the inaugural U.S. National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. This position, named by the Librarian of Congress, was created to raise national awareness of the importance of young people’s literature as it relates to lifelong literacy, education, and the development and betterment of the lives of young people. As his two-year term comes to an end (the next National Ambassador will be announced at the Library of Congress on January 5, 2010!), Jon recently reflected on his experiences as National Ambassador in this article published in the The Huffington Post:

How is it possible? This is my last month as the first National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature – appointed by the Library of Congress and the Children’s Book Council. But I’ve only been to about 33 states and 274 schools, libraries, bookstores, conferences, and festivals in the past two years. And now it’s time to pick a new Ambassador? I still don’t have my Ambassador Attack helicopter.

It has been an incredible run. One of my favorite moments took place in a California school shortly after I was appointed. The kindergarteners made me a beautiful red sash with blue tape letters that spelled A-M-B-A-S-S-A-D-O-R. And then, as I walked into the presentation hall, a group of 5th-graders played an original Ambassador Fanfare, which they had composed, on kettle drum, trumpet, trombone, and xylophone. I put the Fanfare on my iPhone and played it everywhere I went after that.

At an incredibly poor school in Arizona, I got to speak to a very intense group of 3rd-grade writers and illustrators who had never seen any kind of author . . . let alone an Ambassador author. I read some books, talked about the process of writing, explained my job as Ambassador, showed them my official medal, and asked if there were any questions. The first question, from a little girl, was: “Can I try on the medal?”

I loved it. She posed, and I took her picture as Ambassador. Then everyone decided they wanted to try on the medal and be Ambassador for a moment. It was incredibly heart-warming. And you never know what dreams were created that day.

It was great, because the teachers and kids instantly “got” the whole idea of the Ambassador. And they made it even better. I was the same author, but people listened with new interest.

I used my two-year term to work on reaching the reluctant reader: that’s the kid who might be a reader, who could be one, but just isn’t that interested in reading. The new Ambassador will have his or her own program, and ideas on connecting kids with reading. Here is the advice that I have been giving throughout my tenure: (more…)

Calling all poetry fans in the Chicago area! The ALSC (Association for Library Service to Children) sends out an invitation to join in their Poetry Blast on Monday, July 13, 2009 from 5:30-7:30 p.m.

Co-hosted by librarian Barbara Genco and poet/writer Marilyn Singer, this unique program will celebrate the wonder and excitement of contemporary North American poetry for children. Ten to twelve poets, some new, some well-established, will read from their works. Information about current and forthcoming books of poetry will be available.

This event is designed to be a ‘drop-in’ reading at the close of the ALA Annual Conference and attendees are guaranteed to find the time spent in these readings both enlightening and energizing. Poets include: Carmen T. Bernier-Grand, Rebecca Kai Dotlich, David Harrison, Bobbi Katz, Laura Purdie Salas, Jon Scieszka, Joyce Sidman, Marilyn Singer, Hope Anita Smith, Susan Marie Swanson, Joyce Carol Thomas. Publishers will also offer a display of books and promotional materials featuring the participants.

Sally sent the link to this new video to us all by email – it made me laugh so much, I just had to try and put it onto the blog. I say try because I’ve never uploaded a video before but here goes…

BOOK BY BOOK: the making of a monkey man from Jarrett Krosoczka on Vimeo.

How exciting – hooray, it’s worked!

I love the way video is becoming more and more a way to promote new books: all these wonderfully imaginative authors create some pretty wonderful footage – and this has to be one of the best yet! It’s actually a spoof documentary made by picture-book writer Jarrett Krosoczka. There are lots of other authors/ illustrators in it and they must have had a lot of fun making it – spot the Blue Rose Girls, and the reference to Fuse #8, high in the celebrity stakes!

Jarrett unveiled it last week at the US SCBWI conference in New York, where he gave the opening address. In his blog posting about it he makes this very thought-provoking observation:

I was excited to hear Mr. Gantos speak. I would say I’ve never seen him speak, but that wouldn’t be a complete truth. I saw him speak when I was in the 3rd grade. He visited my school and I remember this clearly – he walked by my desk, pointed to my drawing of Rotten Ralph and said, “nice cat”. That had a profound impact on me.

Cloudscome has already picked it up, and she got it from Miss Rumphius Effect, who challenges us to name everybody before the credits roll…

I’m not sure this is quite the thing for those kids of an age to be reading the book, though – the irony was a bit wasted on my two and they were more inclined to take the whole thing literally… But silly me, of course Jon Sczieska pretends to be an answer phone whenever he doesn’t want to speak to someone!

It’s been a while since we read any fairy tales but our local library has recently added a goodly number of fairy tale books to its collection so we thought we’d delve in. We came home with an armful… some of them are traditional, others are modern (re)tellings or parodies.

I knew that Jon Scieszka’s The Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales and The Frog Prince Continued would both go down well – they are funny and wittily illustrated (by Lane Smith and Steve Johnson respectively); and both depend on the kind of superior knowledge that children delight in – all the stories would be somewhat lost in the telling if you didn’t already know the originals.

The Lost Happy Endings by Carol Anne Duffy and illustrated by Jane Ray was visually irresistible. Duffy’s rich eloquence also lives up to all expectations: but a word of caution. Although this is a new story, she takes the fairy tale genre back to its grass-roots level. No wishy-washiness here. The retribution meted out to the thieving witch is absolute. It is more suitable for slightly older children: and should be cherished for that, for it sometimes seems that the older children get, the harder it is to find beautifully illustrated picture books for them. Certainly both my children relished both the pictures and the wonderful, descriptive language and each bore the book off to read independently after I’d read it to them.

There were several anthologies of traditional fairy tales to choose from and I have to admit I was slightly dubious as to how my boys would take to several nights in a row of traditional “happy-ever-after” tales: they assure me every time romance is mentioned that all that stuff is yeuch… But of course, I had fallen into the trap of equating fairy-tale with romantic and there is so much more to the traditional stories than that. Anthea Bell’s name is a talisman for me so her translation of Henriette Sauvant’s selection of Rapunzel and other Magic Fairy Tales was the obvious choice (helped by the surreal cover illustration)– and has been bourne out. We have so far enjoyed stories we know well, as well as come across some new to us all.

Jon Scieszka (“it rhymes with Fresca”) was declared the first ambassador for Young People’s Literature, today. The position is the children’s book equivalent of the Library of Congress’s poet laureate program. The new role will entail promoting the importance of reading by reaching out to parents, teachers and children everywhere and, in particular, Scieszka says, “to children who are considered reluctant readers.” Author of many children’s books, including the very successful Time Warp Trio series, The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs and Stinky Cheese Man and Other Fairly Stupid Tales, Scieszka is also the founder of Guys Read, a literacy program and website aimed at encouraging boys to read.

What should we expect from a guy whose Little Red Hen questions the presence of the ISBN number in the volume she appears on, and who allows her, later on, to be eaten by the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk?… Well, lots of gutsy energy to impart momentum and backbone to his important mission.