Here are details of the rest of the books we all read (you’ll have to go back to here, here and here to find out the first ones…)

Together we read Goodbye Buffalo Bay by Larry Loyie with Constance Brissenden (Theytus Books, 2008). Even though I’d read it before, it was very hard to keep my composure for some of this traumatic but ultimately uplifting story, all the more engaging because it is both autobiographical and narrated in “Lawrence’s” engaging teenage voice. The first half of the book deals with Lawrence’s last year at a Residential School for First Nation children in Canada; and the second part is about how Lawrence then sets about finding himself again after leaving. It was the first time my two had become aware of residential schools and it provoked a lot of discussion about the treatment of First Nation people both in Canada and elsewhere. And as well as the ethical discussion, there was also plenty to talk about as regards Lawrence’s actual, individual experience. We all loathed Sister and we loved Sister Theresa. Then later, Lawrence’s different itinerant jobs, such as firefighting and working at a sawmill, were heroic in the boys’ eyes, and they were delighted at the end that his ambition to become a writer had so obviously come to fruition. We all of us cannot recommend this beautifully written story highly enough – and I would say that it would be a perfect book for reluctant readers, boys especially, as it is fairly short and succinct.

We also read and enjoyed Golden Tales: Myths, Legends, and Folktales from Latin America by Lulu Delacre (Scholastic, 2006) and Myths and Legends of Aotearoa, which I blogged about recently; and Little Brother and I read together the powerful and moving Grandfather’s Story Cloth/ Yawg Daim Paj Ntaub Dab Neegwritten by Linda Gerdner and Sarah Langford, illustrated by Stuart Loughridge (Shen Books, 2008).

Older Brother and Little Brother both read Señor Cat’s Romance: and Other Favorite Stories from Latin America by Lucia Gonzalez and Lulu Delacre, as I mentioned here. Older Brother is just coming to the end of Where in the World by Simon French (Little Hare, 2002); Little Brother read American Born Chinese by Gene Luen Yang (First Second Books, 2006), filched from Older Brother, and he’s still quoting it; The Rabbits by John Marsden, illustrated by Shaun Tan; and Animal Poems of the Iguazu by Francisco X. Alarcón, illustrated by Maya Christina Gonzalez (Children’s Book Press, 2008).

So we were very nearly there in terms of reading – it was the time limit that really got us. Let’s see how we do this year. I’ll be posting details of the 2011 Reading the World Challenge soon…

And very well done to all of you who managed to complete it; I hope you’ll be joining us again – and it would also be great for readers to persuade the young people in their lives to take part. The 2010 Spirit of PaperTigers book set would definitely make a great springboard – and there’s still a chance for you to win one in our 1,000th Post Draw taking place next week. The deadline is Wednesday 19th January and you’ll find full details here.

The first author up is Tanita Davis:

Growing up the youngest of three sisters (in Martinez, California) meant being left out of the older girls’ games. To placate me, I was named Mom’s “helper” and my playtimes combined chores and daydreaming. I would sit on the back porch and shuck corn from the garden, or weed the front yard – and then taking the silk from the corn, combine it with dirt and water, and make “pies” for the dog to eat (Our poor dog. She really did eat them.), or take the “milk” from the stems of the dandelions I was supposed to be eradicating from the front yard (after blowing all of the milkweed clocks and sufficiently re-seeding them throughout the lawn), and use it as glue to adhere dry weeds to the “head” of a cornhusk doll.

Because I was a quiet kid, I got away with a lot – climbing the tree next to my father’s shed, and making a tree-house of sorts on the roof, complete with its own chamber pot (Oh, I got in trouble when my mother found out about THAT) and store of slightly mildew books scavenged from a teacher’s throw-away pile. One summer I played with the hose and made carefully dried adobe “moccasins” that were no more than ten or twelve layers of clay mud I wore on the bottom of my feet as shoes. They lasted for a surprisingly long time before they cracked. As the layers dried, I would lie on my back in the yard and listen to the drone of the planes going to and from the Air Force base, and imagine they were taking people to adventures, just like I would have someday.

And Belle Yang brings the article to a flourishing close:

I was born on the subtropical island of Taiwan. The front yard was the rice paddies, alive with tadpoles like music notes on sheet music. The Sleeping Dragon Mountain, exploding with firecracker red azaleas, was my backyard. Rivulets, home to small fish and crustaceans, came rushing down the hills. My barefoot friends and I looked for tiny crabs as they crawled among the stones, dappled by sunlight and the motion of wind in the acacia.

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We caught the crabs and tied white sewing thread to one of their many legs. We took them for walks on the paved paths of the schoolyard, where my parents taught high school. I was delighted with my pet that could only walk sideways.

Do read the rest of the Memories of Playtimes Past – between them, Alan Gratz, Mandana Sadat, Jorge Argueta, Neni Sta Romana Cruz, Chris Cheng, Demi and Larry Loyie, along with Tanita and Belle quoted above, will evoke a smile, or even a laugh out loud – and certainly memories of one’s own childhood… And if you’d care to share some of those with us, we’d love to hear them!

Patricia (Patsy) Aldana, founder and publisher of Groundwood Books (and president of IBBY, the International Board on Book for Young Readers, since 1997), answered our questions about My Little Round Rouse, one of the seven titles selected for inclusion in our Spirit of PaperTigers Book Set Donation Project; her commitment to publishing books by First Nations authors; the multicultural titles on their Fall list, and more.

In our series of interviews with the publishers of the books selected for our Spirit of PaperTigers project, I normally start by asking how the book in question came about as a project for the publisher. Since we already know the answer to this question in relation to My Little Round House, both from our interview with author Bolormaa Baasansuren and from translator Helen Mixter’s article, My Little Round House: The Journey of a Picture Book from Mongolia to Canada, we’ll start by asking…

PT: What in particular attracted you to My Little Round House?

PA: I thought it was a really special book about people whose lives are very different from ours. I also thought it was a very unique look at a baby’s life, a life that despite being nomadic seemed wonderfully cosy and safe.

PT: The books you publish often tell the stories of people whose voices are underrepresented. What first motivated you to start on this path and how do you manage to stay true to your mission?

PA: Being a Guatemalan, I guess that seeing the world through the eyes of the marginal has always come naturally to me. There are so many books published from and for the mainstream that, for me, focusing on underrepresented authors and illustrators was one way to justify being a publisher. As a small Canadian house, this focus has also been a way for us to distinguish ourselves from the huge multi-nationals with whom we have to compete.

PT: How did the decision to stop selling rights to the American market and to start publishing your books in the US come about?

PA: As US publishing changed from the editor-driven houses that I first came to know (Margaret K McElderry, Dorothy Briley, Susan Hirschman, Phyllis Fogelman, etc.), it became harder and harder to sell rights to our books in the US. At the same time Canada began to cut funding to school libraries and as a result our domestic market really shrank. We had to publish ourselves in the US or die. And that meant we had to bring our best books to the US in order to establish our list. We had very little money, but we had the quality of our books and needed to show our whole list in order to make our way.

PT: Since 1998 Groundwood Books has been publishing stories in English and Spanish by people of Latino origin under its Libros Tigrillo imprint. What motivated the creation of this imprint, and how has this part of the business grown since then?

PA: Libros Tigrillo was made possible by our move into the US market. While there are excellent books for children published in Spanish, I felt there was room for a list that was oriented toward North American Latinos. What has been a crushing disappointment, however, is the virtual disappearance of the Spanish-language market in the US. We have had to abandon Spanish-only books and start publishing bilingual books.

I have always been opposed to the use of bilingual books, however given that Spanish-only books hardly sell at all, I have had to accept that books in Spanish can only reach Latinos if they are bilingual. This goes against everything I believe and know to be true about language instruction, the joy of reading in your mother tongue, and what I believe to be the wishes of the Spanish-speaking population. I find it shocking that such a large population of Spanish speakers are not served properly by bookstores, teachers and even (although this is less the case) by librarians.

PT: A 2005 Publishers Weekly article quotes you as saying: “Given that people are so interested in visual media, like graphic novels, I keep wanting to put illustrations into books for older children and older adolescents.” Have you been able to act on your desire to add illustrations to middle reader and young adult books?

PA: I have been able to, sometimes successfully, as in the case of Skim, and sometimes less successfully. But I will keep trying. We have a thrilling new graphic novel coming out in the Fall, Harvey by Herve Bouchard and Janice Nadeau, a very unconventional book that can be read by middle readers and yet has enormous adult appeal. I have high hopes for it. I have also just published a beautiful 96-page illustrated version of the Ring Cycle by Jorge Luján, called Brunhilda and the Ring, that adults have been enjoying, but that hasn’t been favorably reviewed by children’s book reviewers. They don’t seem to realize that it’s not aimed at children, that just because it has pictures it’s not necessarily for children.

PT: PaperTigers is currently focusing on the theme of Canadian Aboriginal Children’s Literature. Can you tell us something about the books by aboriginal authors and/or illustrators on Grounwood’s list?

PA: Everywhere in the world First Nations people suffer terrible discrimination, poverty and exclusion. I am especially interested in making sure that these people have a voice, and so Groundwood has always published as many aboriginal people as we can.

In Canada, not only did First Nations people lose their land and in many cases have had to make do with terrible, isolating living conditions on reserves, there was the systematic destruction of these peoples’ way of life through the system of enforced residential schools. These schools not only abused the children within them, they broke people’s contact with their elders and with the land, further rendering a traditional way of life almost impossible. The residential-school process strikes me as a kind of crime against humanity, and Canada is still a very long way from coming to grips with it and the consequences of it, much less in making adequate reparation for it.

Most manuscripts we receive from Canadian First Nations people are about the schools or, perhaps even more important, about what was lost—the kind of glorious natural world from which the schools terminally separated them.

Leo Yerxa, Larry Loyie, Shirley Sterling, Ninegeokuluk Teevee and now Nicola I. Campbell, who is the child and grandchild of school survivors, all deal with these themes. There is also Tom King, a great satirist and
humorist who is an important author of ours.

PT: You have recently announced the release of Teacher’s Guides for your bestselling Groundwork Guides series. Are there any plans to develop teacher’s guides for other books as well?

PA: Yes, if teachers find them useful.

PT: How, if at all, do you think the public’s attitude toward multicultural books for children has changed since Groundwood was established, in 1978?

PA: I think the biggest difference is that it is now widely accepted in North America that these books are a part of our national literatures. While there are many, many things in North America that one can decry, we have grown more accepting of a multi-cultural world in which we have got to live together, tolerate each other and like each other. Our European and Asian friends are far behind us in this. I also think we are much more critical about books and expect excellence no matter who they are written or illustrated by, though now that quality has to include authenticity. Tokenism no longer works.

PT: What would you say are the biggest challenges you face as a publisher of children’s books, and in particular of multicultural books? What are your hopes for the future?

PA: I don’t see challenges, but opportunities. As for my hopes for the future, they are:

-That public institutions continue to be adequately funded, because we live and die by libraries and school libraries and the librarians who are such passionate advocates of our type of publishing.

-That we continue to instill in children a love of reading by giving them great books that speak to their own lives and give them knowledge about other worlds.

PT: Could you please give us a taste of your Fall catalog?

PA: These are the “multi-cultural” books on the Fall list:

No by Claudia Rueda, a Columbian author-illustrator, is a classic picture book about a little bear who doesn’t want to go to sleep.

Hello Baby Board Books by Jorge Uzon show the major stages in his baby’s first year. Jorge is an internationally recognised Chilean photojournalist.

Doggy Slippers is a wonderful book of first poems about pets by Jorge Luján and Isol, an award-winning team.

Arroz Con Leche / Rice Pudding, the second book in our bilingual cooking poem series, features a poetic text by Jorge Argueta and wonderful illustrations by renowned Brazilian artist Fernando Vilela.

Viola Desmond Won’t Be Budged by Jody Nyasha Warner, and illustrated by Richard Rudnicki, is a remarkable true story about a Canadian black woman who in 1946, almost a decade before Rosa Parks, refused to give up her seat in a whites-only section of a theater. The Nova Scotia government has just apologised for her arrest.

On the fiction front, we have…

No Safe Place, a gripping new YA novel by Deborah Ellis about teenage refugees in Europe.

Harvey, the graphic novel I mentioned earlier, by Hervé Bouchard, illustrated by Janice Nadeau.

Between Sisters, a wonderful novel about a fifteen-year-old girl in Ghana, by Ghanaian Canadian author Adwoa Badoe.

PT: Wow. It sounds like we have lots of gems to look forward to! Thank you, Patsy, for taking the time to answer our questions. We are very grateful to Groundwood Books for donating copies of My Little Round House in support of our Spirit of PaperTigers project, and we wish you continued success!

To find out more about Groundwood Books, visit their website, facebook and twitter pages.

As Long as the Rivers Flow was selected as an honor book for the 2006 First Nation Communities Read Program, and this year, along with Goodbye Buffalo Bay, it was chosen for inclusion in a literacy project whose goal is to encourage learning and understanding of First Nations histories, cultures and perspectives in Ontario schools.

Together with his partner, writer and editor Constance Brissenden, in 1993 Larry created the Living Traditions Writers Group to encourage writing within First Nations communities. If you’re not yet familiar with his work, you’re in for a genuine treat.

You can read our 2007 interview with Larry here. His next book, The Moon Speaks Cree, will be published by Theytus in 2011.

Children’s and young adult’s literature will be highlighted in the First Calgary Savings Book Rapport Programme. Festival Director Anne Green tells us:

“Book Rapport brings students up-close and personal with their favourite authors, which is a rare and fantastic opportunity for them. Students can hear the authors read, ask them questions, while teachers have a creative way to bring life into literature.”

Anne adds that this year’s Book Rapport Programme offers a superb line-up of KidLit writers, including the following award winning Canadian authors:

Canadian superstar Kenneth Oppel. Oppel, recipient of numerous prestigious literary awards, is the author of the million-copy-selling Silverwing Saga and has more than twenty children and young adult books to his credit. “To have Ken Oppel attend WordFest is great news for Calgary’s schools, students and families,” says Anne.

First nations writer Larry Loyie and his partner Constance Brissenden. In 2003, Loyie and Brissenden won the Norma Fleck Award for Canadian Children’s Non-Fiction for their children’s book, As Long as the Rivers Flow which was inspired by Loyie’s Cree childhood and the true story of his grandmother’s confrontation with a grizzly. As Long as the Rivers Flow is about a First Nations boy’s last summer spent with his family in the bush before being taken to residential school. The second book in this series When the Spirits Dance recounts the dramatic changes to the boy’s life when his father is sent overseas in World War 2.

Quebec writer Michel Noël. Noël has over fifty books to his credit and has written several award-winning books for young people, including Pien, which won the 1997 Governor General’s Award for French language children’s literature. His novel Good for Nothing, winner of the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People, takes place in northern Quebec in 1959 and is the story of young Métis who seeks to establish his own identity and find out more about the mystery surrounding his father’s death. The book provides compelling insights into many issues faced by First Nations people during this time (residential schools, racism, land claims etc.) as well as the ongoing struggles of native communities today. Noël was named Citizen of the World by the Canadian Association for the United Nations for his work in seeking better understanding among people.

For those of us who can’t attend WordFest in person, we can still take part! Pop culture writer Hal Niedzviecki will be writing the first official WordFest blog. Niedzviecki describes it as “a gossipy insider look at what’s going on and where to be, what’s not to be missed, who is who, and the opportunity to have your questions answered.”