Last year we spoke to Katie Smith Milway about her first solo children’s book One Hen: How One Small Loan Made a Big Difference, selected for the Spirit of PaperTigers 2010 Book Set; it’s great to welcome her back now to talk about her latest book The Good Garden: How One Family Went from Hunger to Having Enough, which promises to be equally life-changing and life-affirming as One Hen. The Good Garden is illustrated by Sylvie Daigneault and, like One Hen, is published by Kids Can Press as part of their superb CitizenKid series.

Katie is a partner at the Bridgespan Group, an advisory to nonprofits and philanthropy. She has written many books and articles on sustainable development and has coordinated community development programs in Africa and Latin America for Food for the Hungry International. She is also the co-author with her mother Mary Ann Smith of Cappuccina Goes to Town (Kids Can Press, 2002), as well as the non-fiction book The Human Farm: A Tale of Changing Lives & Changing Lands (Kumarian Press/Stylus Publishing,1994).

Katie lives in Wellesley, Massachusetts, USA.

In your interview with PaperTigers last year, while touching upon the then forthcoming The Good Garden, you said, “In an era of food crisis, any child can play their part in their home or school garden, or in supporting poor farmers through acts of giving.” How have you aimed at getting that message across in the book?

The Good Garden is based on true people and events, and portrays the life of a campesino family in Honduras. They, like so many small farmers around the world eke out barely enough to live on – in a good year – and are highly vulnerable to hunger and malnutrition, when weather or insects create havoc. This family’s life is transformed, however, when a new teacher, Don Pedro, comes to the village school and gets the family’s daughter, María Luz Duarte, to help him plant a school garden – which he not only uses to teach students their basic subjects, but moreover to teach simple, sustainable agriculture methods that they can apply using their innate human resources: their heads, hands and heart. Through the caring labor of composting, terracing the hillside, planting beans among corn to keep soil nutrients in balance, and even dotting the terraces with flowers that smell bad to bugs, students see their school garden thrive on land that they all thought was too poor to keep them going. María Luz and others bring the learning home to their farms, improve their crops and grow in confidence about taking their own produce to market as opposed to selling to unfair middlemen – called “coyotes” in Honduras – who scoop profits. The knowledge they glean in the marketplace triggers another cycle of learning and innovation. Most importantly, the way the family shares what they have learned – passes it forward – ultimately transforms village after village.

So on one hand, kids see many acts of giving within the story – from teacher to student, from student to family and from family to family. At the back of the book, however, we offer practical ways that kids can help local food banks and community gardens, or give to international organizations like World Vision or Heifer International that provide seeds, tools and farm animals to families that need them. On our website www.thegoodgarden.org, kids can learn more and join a national food drive.

What else do you hope children will find inspirational in the book, which is based on the true story of Honduran teacher Don Elías, who had a profound affect not only on his pupils, but also on the whole community, through spreading his practical knowledge of what was needed to create sustainable farmland?

I hope kids will feel empowered to apply their heads, hands and hearts to any problem to help themselves and others. And I especially hope The Good Garden interests them in combating world hunger – ideas for action are listed at the back of the book. I also hope we see even more school, community and family gardens sprouting up – so kids can identify, if only in a small way, with the billions of poor in our world who live off the land, and so they can experience the satisfaction and nutrition of self-grown produce.

As I was completing The Good Garden manuscript in spring 2009, two of my kids got interested in planting a vegetable garden, and so we’ve had a miniature farming experience ourselves. The kids worked their tails off planting, watering and weeding. They harvested corn, Brussels sprouts and cucumbers, but bugs and shade killed most of the peppers and tomatoes. This summer, Brendan (15) and Mary Kate (12) expanded the garden for maximum sunlight and planted marigolds to repel the bugs. We’ve had great peppers, tomatoes and eggplants, but a varmint got through the fencing and decimated the corn patch. All to say, we have learned how good home-grown food can be, but also the tenuousness of growing it. We would starve without groceries!

The Good Garden has only been out for a few months but have you already heard about schools using it as a springboard for their own projects?

Absolutely. Here are a few anecdotes: (more…)

Now live over on the Kidlit4Japan site:

Auction #121: A Spirit of PaperTigers 2010 Book Set of Seven Picture books, some signed. From PaperTigers.org

Description: You are bidding for a set of seven high-quality picture books (all hardcover) which were selected as the Spirit of PaperTigers book set for 2010 to be sent to different schools and libraries around the world.

The Book Set comprises the following titles with some, as indicated, containing book plates signed by the author/illustrator:

First Come the Zebra – SIGNED
Written and illustrated by Lynne Barasch
Lee & Low, 2009. Ages 4-8

Little Leap Forward: A Boy in Beijing – SIGNED BY THE AUTHORS
Written by Guo Yue and Clare Farrow, illustrated by Helen Cann
Barefoot Books, 2008. Ages 9-12

My Little Round House - SIGNED
Written and illustrated by Bolormaa Baasansuren
Groundwood Books / House of Anansi Press, 2009. Ages 4-8

One Hen: How One Small Loan Made a Big Difference – SIGNED BY THE AUTHOR
Written by Katie Smith Milway, illustrated by Eugenie Fernandes
Kids Can Press, 2008. Ages 7+

Planting the Trees of Kenya: The Story of Wangari Maathai – SIGNED
Written and illustrated by Claire A. Nivola
Frances Foster Books/Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2009. Ages 5-8

The Storyteller’s Candle / La velita de los cuentos – SIGNED BY THE ILLUSTRATOR
Written by Lucia Gonzalez, illustrated by Lulu Delacre
Children’s Book Press, 2008. Ages 4-8

Where the Mountain Meets the Moon – SIGNED
Written and illustrated by Grace Lin
Little Brown Books for Young Readers, 2009. Ages 9-12

Estimated Value: $150

Bio: PaperTigers.org is a colorful website devoted to multicultural books from around the world for children and young adults, with a particular focus on the Pacific Rim and South Asia. We seek to promote the celebration and tolerance of diversity, and to nurture literacy and a love of reading. As well as highlighting the world of multicultural children’s and ya literature on our website and blog, we work to reinforce our goal of promoting cross-cultural understanding via our Spirit of PaperTigers Outreach, under the banner Books and Water: Nourishing the Mind and Body.

PaperTigers’ website: www.papertigers.org

Mitali Perkins, author of Bamboo People, Christina Gonzalez, author of The Red Umbrella, Richard Michelson, author of Busing Brewster and Lionel Vital (inspiration for Youme Landowne’s Selavi: A Haitian Story of Hope) tell the stories and struggles of children around the world. This free Boston Book Festival event is moderated by Katie Smith Milway, author of One Hen.

Following a brief introduction, each author will present individually for 10 minutes. The presentations will be followed by a discussion and question and answer period with the audience, moderated by the session host. The event will culminate with a booksigning.

The event takes place tomorrow, Saturday, October 16 from 11:30am – 12:30pm at Church of the Covenant, 67 Newbury Street, Boston, MA , USA.

First came the very special One Hen: How One Small Loan Made a Big Difference, which taught kids about microfinance. Now, Katie Smith Milway brings us another powerful book: The Good Garden: How One Family Went from Hunger to Having Enough (Kids Can Press). The Good Garden tackles the topic of food security and is the inspiring story of a Honduran young girl and her family’s journey to growing enough food to meet their needs (you can watch a book trailer here). The book is accompanied by a Good Garden Enrichment Program, an online resource developed by One Hen, Inc.

A portion of all book sales go to fund One Hen, Inc.’s programs in disadvantaged communities.

Hooray! Our first feedback on the Spirit of PaperTigers 2010 Book Set has just gone live over on our website – from the Grade 6 class at Woodlands School in Montevideo, Uruguay. They have been reading One Hen: How One Small Loan Made a Big Difference together and wrote the following class review:

One Hen Made a Big Difference, 28 May 2010

Do you think a little loan and a little brown hen can change the future of a whole country? This tale is based on a true story about a small boy (called Kojo) who lived in a poor village in Ghana. It all started when his mother gave Kojo the rest of the loan she had asked for. He had an amazing idea. Kojo’s plan was to help his mother by buying a hen which would give them food and money. After finding the perfect hen his life started to change.

Read this book to find out how Kojo was able to change his life. This is a fantastic and interesting story which shows how a small boy with a great and clever idea could improve the life of many people.

We recommend this beautiful book because we read it aloud in class and learned a very important lesson about solidarity, effort, hard work and commitment.

Start the chain and pay it forward, nothing is impossible.

Thank you for sharing your thoughtful evaluation of the book with us, Mrs Storace and Grade 6. Everyone else, you can read the rest of their feedback here.

Today we welcome James Webb to the PaperTigers blog. James works for ShelterBox, a charity based in the UK that delivers survival boxes, each containing a tent and other life-saving equipment, in the immediate aftermath of disasters around the world. The signature green box has become an iconic presence in such situations, with hundreds of thousands of people receiving crucial assistance in many different countries.

This year is ShelterBox’s 10th anniversary: to celebrate they have set up a 10-month Challenge with UK scouts. Little Brother is taking part in this with Cubs and I have got to know much more about the charity, as a Cub Leader. We are hoping to raise enough money to pay for a whole box so that we will be able to track “our” box to its destination…

When James, one of the Scout Challenge coordinators, emailed to say that he was about to leave for Haiti, I asked if he would send us a few words on his return: and I’m so glad he did as I didn’t know about their Classrooms in a Box before. Thank you, James; over to you:

When I was deployed to Haiti in mid April as a ShelterBox Response Team member, I was shocked by the level of destruction still evident over three months after the earthquake devastated the country. Rubble is still everywhere and there are still thousands of people desperately in need of shelter.

While ShelterBox specialise in emergency shelter, we also send Classrooms in a Box which help children continue their education and provide some sort of normality for people who otherwise have lost everything.

In my 12 days in the country I visited two schools which were each severely damaged by the earthquake, leaving them dangerous to use. One of these schools was operating from a large tent instead, which had very little access to basic materials such as pencils and notepads. We immediately provided the school with another large tent and are planning on giving them a number of children’s packs which will each contain a small blackboard, note pads, crayons, pens, rubbers and a number of other items.

So much has been affected in Haiti but the people’s attitude is still inspiringly positive. Having the opportunity to make a difference by providing shelter and basic materials was a huge privilege and the experience of a lifetime.

The photos show smiling children who have just received the children’s pack – and if you watch this video, you can see what an oasis these packs provide (not to mention the incredible journeys the boxes often go through to reach their destinations). “For children who have lost most, if not all, their possessions, these small gifts are treasured.”

Also, don’t miss the Young ShelterBox area of the website, which includes teacher resources. ShelterBox has expanded hugely in the last ten years and now has nine affiliates across the globe – check out their individual websites via ShelterBox UK’s homepage.

When asked about where they would like a Spirit of PaperTigers book set to go, both Bolormaa Baasansuren and Katie Smith Milway chose Haiti so it’s great to be able to announce that a set will be winging its way to the Matànwa Community Learning Center there in June.

Thank you again, James, for sharing your eye-witness account with us. Our thoughts go with you and all your colleagues at ShelterBox as you carry out your vital work.

Since its publication by Kids Can Press in 2008, One Hen: How One Small Loan Made A Big Difference, selected for the Spirit of PaperTigers 2010 Book Set, has evolved from an inspirational story into an equally inspirational non-profit organization, One Hen, Inc.

On the evening of May 7th, One Hen Inc. will mark its first anniversary with a celebration and fundraiser “It Takes a Village”. The celebration will take place  at the Wellesley Country Club in Wellesley, MA, USA from 6:30 – 10pm. Highlights will include an African market, vibrant music, dance and inspiring stories from youth who have gained an entrepreneurial vision for their future through One Hen programs.  Author of One Hen and co-founder of One Hen, Inc.,  Katie Smith Milway will be speaking, and attendees will be shown a multimedia presentation of One Hen’s unique summer school enrichment program that helps inner city kids learn to build small businesses and share their success with their communities.

There’s plenty to celebrate! In the past year visitors from over 133 countries have used the website www.onehen.org and have accessed the One Hen resources that teach youth that true success comes with personal initiative, financial responsibility and a commitment to community. 7,000 children have been involved in direct One Hen programs and  Executive Director/Co-Founder Amma Sefa-Dedeh says that with this anniversary celebration/fundraiser they hope to raise enough funds to send 1,000 inner city kids to this year’s One Hen summer school enrichment program.

Tickets for the event are $75 and can be purchased by email or by calling 917-319-0485.

Today’s Books at Bedtime feature is One Hen by Katie Smith Milway, illustrated by Eugenie Fernandes.   Much has been written already about this book in PaperTigers and elsewhere.  It was selected for the Spirit of Paper Tigers Project and will likely see its way into many hands hence.  The story is about microfinance and features Kojo, a little Ghanaian boy, who, with a loan, buys himself a hen.   What Kojo does with that one hen changes his life and everyone else’s around it.

By the time I got to this book with my daughter for her bed time read, she’d already been exposed to it at school.  But that did not diminish her enjoyment of the story the second time round.  She loved the colorful illustrations by Eugenie Fernandes and was quick to point out some lovely things I would have never noticed in the pictures like the colorfully clad chicken mothers in the market of one drawing.   The story is set up perfectly for children to understand.  The purchase of one hen leads to the purchase of another and so forth until by the end of the book, Kojo, a grown man, is shown as a producer of one of the largest poultry farms in West Africa.   That’s microfinance in a nutshell, or rather, in a children’s book! And the great thing about this book is that it’s based on the true life story of Ghanaian producer Kwabena Darko.

One Hen is a truly inspirational and informative read.  If you can, I suggest you buy the book as some of the proceeds of the sales will go directly to the One Hen: Microfinance for Kids organization.

Started in 1973 by a small group of women in Toronto who wanted to produce books for Canadian children, over the years Kids Can Press has broadened its mandate to produce books for children around the world. The company is now owned by Corus Entertainment Inc., a Canadian-based media and entertainment company. Their catalog includes a long list of award-winning titles, in over 30 languages, with each book designed to develop children’s literacy levels and a love of reading. They are considered forerunners in publishing books that promote a world view.

Sheila Barry, Kids Can Press’ editor-in-chief, answered our questions about One Hen: How One Small Loan Made a Big Difference, one of the seven books selected for inclusion in our Spirit of PaperTigers Book Set Donation Project, and about other topics related to the company and to multicultural children’s literature.

Q&A

PT: One Hen by Katie Smith Milway, illustrated by Eugenie Fernandes is one of the most talked about books of the last few years (and arguably the one most used in classrooms across the United States and Canada). How did this project come about for Kids Can Press?

SB: Katie wrote a picture book for Kids Can some years ago, so we were the first people she approached when she decided she wanted to write an informational picture book that would allow her to share her knowledge of development issues in Africa, where she once worked in a village very like the one in the book. Since we had already published other informational picture books on global subjects, we were excited to work with Katie on developing her concept—and obviously we’ve been thrilled with the end result.

PT: Did Kids Can expect the book to do as well as it did, or have some of the ripple effects of its publication come as a surprise?

SB: We hope all our books will do well, but sometimes it does seem that a book comes into the world at exactly the right time to take off. With One Hen, we knew we had done something pretty original in making the subject of microloans both accessible and inspiring for children. We hoped buyers would appreciate our accomplishment, and we’ve been gratified to see that our title clearly struck a chord for many, many readers.

PT: What about the choice of Eugenie Fernandes to illustrate One Hen? How did CBP go about finding the best match for the story?

SB: Eugenie Fernandes is very well-known in Canada as both a writer and an illustrator of picture books for very young children. But in addition to her classic picture books (her new book Kitten’s Spring just came out), she has also illustrated an older book for us called Earth Magic, (more…)

A couple of weeks ago I posted the responses of some of the authors and illustrators of the books in our Spirit of PaperTigers‘ 2010 Book Set to the question, “If you were to pick a place anywhere in the world to send your book, where would it be and why?” – and what about the others, what did they say?

Lucia Gonzalez, author of The Storyteller’s Candle (Children’s Book Press, 2008):

I would like The Storyteller’s Candle to travel to Puerto Rico, to be in classrooms, libraries, and homes from the smallest town to the capital city San Juan. I want children in the island to know and be proud of the work of Pura Belpré, and to re-encounter the stories that belong to them.

and Lulu Delacre, the book’s illustrator:

I would like to send The Storyteller’s Candle to Tibetan schools for monks and nuns in Ladakh, India. Their lovely children have no libraries, and live off the generosity of others. They are taught English and the lesson that Pura Belpré imparts at the end of the book might be one they truly connect to.

Katie Smith Milway, author of One Hen (Kids Can Press, 2008):

If I could send One Hen anywhere in the world right now, it would be to Haiti, in Creole, to inspire children there to play an entrepreneurial role in rebuilding their nation. Happily, a Haitian Creole edition of the book is due out in 2010 through publisher EducaVision.

and Eugenie Fernandes, the book’s illustrator:

One Hen is already at the White House, so… after that I would like to send it… everywhere!, because it’s a book that connects us all.

Guo Yue and Clare Farrow, authors of Little Leap Forward: A Boy in Beijing (Barefoot Books, 2008):

Little Leap Forward is about the lives of children who are growing up in a very poor, overcrowded society, in which food is rationed and there are no toys (beyond what they can make themselves) – a closed society in which freedom, knowledge and creativity are suppressed, and the people they love are about to be taken away from them. It is also a story about the irrepressible power of friendship, love and the imagination, even in the face of hardship and revolution.

So if we could send the book to children in areas of need in the world, it would be to any country where people are not free to express themselves, where families are divided, and children suffer from hunger, fear and poverty. In some small way, we would love to give those children the feeling that they are not just tiny grasses blowing helplessly in the wind (there is an old Chinese saying about this), but that they can find strength through nature and friendship, and hope for a better future by making the most simple gestures of freedom and compassion, whether it is releasing a caged bird (as Little Leap Forward does), finding music in everyday sounds, taking care of a friend, or flying a homemade kite in the wind.

and Helen Cann, the book’s illustrator:

I’d like Little Leap Forward to go anywhere where lives are repressed and people are told what to think and do. Little Leap Forward is about the triumph of hope, love and imagination over oppression.

Once again, those interviewed have provided us with plenty of food for thought – and perhaps you have very particular ideas about where you’d send special books like those that make up the Spirit of PaperTigers Book Set? Do let us know…