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.

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:

* Let each child choose what she or he wants to read. I’ll never forget my own son’s reaction reading Little House on the Prairie (a favorite of many readers): “Are they really going to spend this whole chapter making a door?”

* Expand the definition of “reading” to include non-fiction, humor, graphic novels, magazines, action adventure, and, yes, even websites. It’s the pleasure of reading that counts; the focus will naturally broaden. A boy won’t read shark books forever.

* If a kid doesn’t like one book, don’t worry about finishing it. Start another. The key is helping children find what they like.

* Be a good reading role model. Show kids what you like to read, what you don’t like to read, how you choose what you read. Let them see you reading.

* Avoid demonizing television, computer games, and new technologies. Electronic media may compete for kids’ attention, but we’re not going to get kids reading by badmouthing other entertainment. Admit that TV and games can do things books can’t. Talk about how reading can make a world in ways that movies and games can’t.

I am honored to have served as our great nation’s first National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. I will continue to serve as Ambassador Emeritus. And I will make good on my Ambassadorial promise to my wife to stop playing the Fanfare every time I walk into or out of a room. Now, if someone could just get word to the New York City traffic department that I do have complete Diplomatic Immunity.

Thank you, Jon, for the enthusiasm, humor and rigor you brought to your ambassadorial role. You’ll be a hard act to follow – and yes, I expect some writers of the future will pin point their moment of vocational inspiration to your school visit many years earlier. Stay tuned to PaperTigers and on January 5th we will bring you the announcement of Jon’s successor.

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.

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!

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.

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.