Giveaway of an Author Marked-up Copy of Tantalize

Shooting Stars Mag is giving away a Sanguini's T-shirt and a marked-up hardcover copy of Tantalize (Candlewick, 2007, 2008).

Note: Sanguini's is the vampire-themed restaurant featured in the novel.

I made notes in the margins about the writing of the book, the characters, the Austin setting, and much more!

The deadline is midnight EST May 31. See more information!

And thanks to the Shooting Stars!

National Children's Choice Book Awards Announced

NEW YORK, NY-–The Children's Book Council (CBC) in association with the CBC Foundation, announced the winners of the first annual Children's Choice Book Awards at a gala in New York City, hosted by Jon Scieszka, National Ambassador for Young People's Literature.

Children across the country voted for their favorite books, author, and illustrator at bookstores, school libraries, and at www.BookWeekOnline.com. Close to 55,000 votes were received.

The Children's Choice Book Award winners are as follows:

Kindergarten to Second Grade Book of the Year

Frankie Stein written by Lola M. Schaefer (author interview), illustrated by Kevan Atteberry (Marshall Cavendish)

Third Grade to Fourth Grade Book of the Year

Big Cats by Elaine Landau (Enslow Publishers)

Fifth Grade to Sixth Grade Book of the Year

Encyclopedia Horrifica by Joshua Gee (Scholastic)

Illustrator of the Year Award

Ian Falconer, Olivia Helps with Christmas (Simon & Schuster)

Author of the Year Award

J.K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Scholastic)

The Children's Choice Book Awards program was created to provide young readers with an opportunity to voice their opinions about the books being written for them and to help develop a reading list that will motivate children to read. The program is a new component of Children's Book Week, the longest running literacy event in the country.

About the Children's Book Council

The Children's Book Council, established in 1945, is the nonprofit trade association of publishers of trade books for children and young adults in the United States. The CBC promotes the use and enjoyment of trade books for young people, most prominently as the official sponsor of Children's Book Week, the longest running literacy event in the country. The goal of the Children’s Book Council is to make the reading and enjoyment of books for young people an essential part of America's educational and social goals, as well as to enhance the public perception of the importance of reading by disseminating information about books for young people and about children's book publishing.

Editor Interview: Dana Goldberg of Children's Book Press

Dana Goldberg on Dana Goldberg: "I was born and raised in New York City, and I'm a New Yorker at heart. I moved to the Bay Area in the summer of 1997, after graduating from Brown University with a degree in Comparative Literature (Spanish and English) and Literary Translation, and I've been out west ever since. Everyone thought I was crazy for leaving New York since I knew I wanted to pursue a career in publishing, but I was fortunate enough to find employment with Jossey-Bass (then a subsidiary of Simon & Schuster), then Weldon Owen (a cookbook and lifestyle publisher), and finally Children's Book Press. I've also worked for a literary agent in New York and a literary translation journal in San Francisco."

Were you an avid young reader, or did you come to this love later in life?

To say I was a bookworm as a child would be a gross understatement. I was very fortunate in that my mother was an early childhood educator, and there was a constant supply of books in our apartment. My dad also regularly took my brother and me to the public library. In general, my parents stressed the importance of reading and education.

What inspired you to enter the field of children's publishing?

It was a combination of my own passion for reading as a child, and my exposure to the children's book industry while in college. For three summers I did a part-time internship with Liza Pulitzer-Voges at Kirchoff-Wohlberg in New York. She represents wonderful people, like Bob Barner, Lois Ehlert, and Anne Miranda. I also love that in children’s books, the art and design are integral to the process and the product.

Could you summarize your career to date?

My first paying publishing gig in the Bay Area was working as a part-time editorial assistant for Two Lines, a journal of literary translation. I got my first full-time job at Jossey-Bass, though it was really like having two jobs. I worked (rather schizophrenically) two days a week for the foreign rights manager and three days a week as a publicist.

I was there for about a year and a half before moving to an editorial and production assistant position at Weldon Owen, where I worked on a series of large format, beautifully illustrated and photographed cookbooks.

I left Weldon Owen in 2000 to become an editorial and production assistant at Children's Book Press. Through some serendipitous timing, I moved rather quickly to being Assistant Editor, then Editor, and finally Executive Editor, which is my current position.

What led you to Children's Book Press?

I discovered Children's Book Press while researching publishing companies in the Bay Area when I first moved out here. I even applied for a part-time publicist job at CBP, but didn't get it.

It seemed like the perfect place for me to be, in that it combined a lot of my interests (children’s books, bilingualism, Spanish and English literature, forward-thinking artwork, a social justice focus).

Three years after applying for that publicist position, I came across the listing for the editorial assistant position, which I interviewed for and got, and the rest is history.

What challenges and opportunities did you encounter at the company?

Working at CBP allows me to work with some really amazing people—not just my colleagues at the Press, but the authors and artists and designers I work with on producing the books.

It's truly a privilege to shepherd their stories to fruition, to be a part of their creative process, and also to get to know them as people. In terms of challenges, that's easy…money!

We're a nonprofit independent press that primarily serves the school-and-library market.

As schools and libraries have seen their budgets shrink over the past several years, and as the book buying public has abandoned the independent bookstores that have also been the backbone of support for us, we've struggled at times to be able to continue to do what we do.

We’re lucky in that, as a nonprofit, we can fundraise and write grants and such, but there's a lot of competition out there for funding, and it's not always the most reliable revenue stream.

How would you describe the list? What sorts of books do you publish?

We publish multicultural and bilingual picture books, written in what we call "the first voice"—meaning the authors and artists who create the books come from the community they are representing in their work. We publish in four broad categories: books from the African American, Asian American, Latino, and Native American communities.

CBP initially published a lot of folklore, but now our list focuses on fiction and poetry, generally set in the contemporary U.S. and aimed at around a third-grade audience (though we do also offer books for kids that are in the four-to-six-year-old range). Family stories, immigration, historical fiction, the power of imagination, superheroes, neighborhoods, intergenerational stories…we've got them all.

If you had to highlight three recent titles that would give us a feel for the list, which would you choose and why?

On My Block (2007), our most recent multicultural anthology, because it highlights a huge spectrum of diversity as well as being beautifully designed. My Colors, My World/Mis colores, mi mundo (2007), because of the stunning artwork, and Young Cornrows Callin Out the Moon (2007), because it's just a fabulous piece of poetry and a great read-aloud.

Which would you recommend to writers for study and why?

I would definitely recommend Juan Felipe Herrera, especially books such as Calling the Doves (1995) and Grandma and Me at the Flea (2002). He has an incredible poetic sensibility and a truly magical imagination, and is a real pro at showing rather than telling.

I'd recommend Uma Krishnaswami's books, Chachaji's Cup (2003) and The Closet Ghosts (2006). She's immensely gifted at creating real characters and wonderful dialogue, and she has a great natural sense of story.

I'd also point to Lucía González (The Storyteller's Candle (2008)), Jorge Argueta (A Movie in My Pillow (2001)), Xochitl and the Flowers (2003)), Moony Luna (2005), and Amy Lee-Tai (A Place Where Sunflowers Grow (2006)) for how to present historical information in a warm, engaging, sensitive way.

Who are your new voices, your rising stars, and your big names?

Let's see… New voices: Malathi Michelle Iyengar. Rising stars: Lucía González, Maya Christina Gonzalez. Big names: We're publishing a book in 2009 by Diego Rivera's daughter, Dra. Guadalupe Rivera Marín. She’s writing about her childhood memories, which will be illustrated with her father's artwork.

What do you see as your jobs in the publishing process?

In a general sense, my job is to find and nurture new, emerging, and established voices, and to help those writers and artists bring their stories and their vision to fruition.

In a more specific sense, my jobs are many. At Children's Book Press, because we're so small, each person essentially functions as his or her own department.

So my job as Executive Editor includes: building the editorial and production budget; finding authors and artists; acquiring new stories for publication; manuscript development; art direction (to some extent, along with the book designer); and project management.

What are your challenges?

Juggling the book schedules, making sure my authors and artists are delivering on time, figuring out what we can do with our sometimes-limited nonprofit budget.

One of the biggest challenges we all face is reigning in our desire to do more. Currently we're limited by our budget to publishing only four new hardcovers a year, but we'd all like to be producing more titles each year.

What do you love about it?

I love working with fantastically creative people! We’re so lucky to work with such generous storytellers and artists, and I am so thankful I get to be involved in how their work develops.

I love the range of stories and styles and histories I get exposed to in doing this work.

I love that each book represents a completely new adventure, a new relationship (even when I’m working with an author I already know well), and a new learning curve.

And I love producing books that do some good in the world.

How has publishing changed--for better and worse--since you entered the field?

For the better…. Publishers are finally making (limited) room for authors and artists of color and for bilingual books, which I think is a very good thing, although I don't think they're always as thoughtful about it as they could be.

For the worse…. The market is so glutted—we'd all be better off if publishers were publishing fewer books of higher quality. The booksellers, the reviewers, and the public wouldn't be quite so overwhelmed by the sheer quantity of what's out there, and the books themselves would benefit from more attention and a longer shelf life, I think.

Also, there's obviously been a huge negative impact on independent bookstores in the last ten years due to certain online retailers (ahem) and the expansion of the big chains, which hits small presses especially hard.

What global improvements would you like to see and why?

I'd like to see independent presses be able to survive on their own and not keep getting swallowed by huge conglomerates that seem to be only incidentally interested in the making of books.

I'd like for people to walk the walk and not just talk the talk—a lot of people say they support independent bookstores in their communities but then go spend their money elsewhere.

Of course, these are probably not very realistic improvements to expect, but a girl can dream.

Why is it important to make a special effort to publish books with diverse characters and themes?

Because that's the world we live in! All children deserve to see themselves reflected in the pages of books. It's a powerful thing to be validated like that, and it helps get them--and keep them--engaged and excited about reading. And all children benefit from reading about kids with lives and experiences and histories that are different from their own.

Bilingual books?

Unfortunately, there's a segment of our population that insists we should be a monolingual nation, which is so limited and so not reality!

Bilingual books are important because many, many children in this country are growing up in households where their parents are bilingual, or maybe their parents don't speak English well or not at all. Bilingual books allow those families to read together, to share that important experience together.

Some people may resist the idea of bilingualism as a positive value, but it's obviously something we believe in and which we promote in our books.

How has multicultural publishing evolved over time?

Back in the 1970s, when Children's Book Press was founded, there wasn't much in the way of multicultural publishing for children. Harriet Rohmer, who founded CBP, started by traveling to Latin America, transcribing and then publishing stories (folktales, myths, etc) from the oral traditions of various Latin American countries. The Press focused heavily on international and multicultural folklore and was one of the few, if not the only, publishers to do so at the time.

The rest of the publishing industry took quite a while to catch on, to realize there was a market out there for those kinds of stories. CBP eventually shifted its focus from folklore to more contemporary stories, and other publishers have followed suit, though many of them still publish quite a lot of folktales.

What is the landscape now?

I think the multicultural publishing fields has just exploded over the last 15 years—though as a share of the entire industry, it still represents a very small share.

But I do think that some of the bigger houses have realized that there is money to be made, that the Latino population (for example) is a huge, mostly untapped market, and so they're trying to capitalize on that.

As I said before, in some ways I think that's great, and in some ways it's challenging for us because it does create more competition.

What new directions and/or continuing challenges are out there?

In terms of new directions, we're looking to move into bilingual board books and books aimed at kids who aren't yet reading on their own.

There's a huge need out there for bilingual materials for that age group; that's what we’ve been hearing from experts in the early literacy field. Some day I would love for us to be able to move into chapter books and YA as well…

Our continuing challenges have to do with there being seemingly no end in sight to the budget pressures that are being put on our teachers, school districts, and librarians, who make up the biggest share of our customers.

How do you work to ensure that your books are accurate and respectful of the communities they depict?

Our motivation for publishing work in the first voice—written and illustrated by people who are part of communities they represent in their work—is to keep our books as culturally accurate, sensitive, and authentic as possible.

I'm not saying there isn't more than one way to be authentic. But for us, this idea of first voice is a very important principle. We also have various trusted readers who review our manuscripts while they're in development.

And in terms of bilingual books, we run the text by a bilingual copyeditor and a host of native readers to ensure as much as possible that the translation is not just correct, but also as smooth, poetic, and beautiful as the original language.

How does Children's Book Press work with teachers and librarians to connect books to young readers?

We used to do quite a bit of direct programming with classrooms, after school programs, and libraries, but now we try to partner with organizations who are already doing direct service work with kids.

We've also developed relationships with quite a few teacher-education programs to connect student teachers to our books, so that they know how to maximize their use in the classroom.

We've developed free online teachers guides for many of our books, available on our website.

We've also been involved in things like helping to plan San Francisco's annual Día de los Niños, Día de los Libros (Day of the Child, Day of the Book) festival.

What qualities do you look for in a manuscript?

An engaging voice, believable dialogue, action that compels you to keep reading, economy of language, showing rather than telling.

I love it when manuscripts teach me something new, or that have a fresh, sparkling take on a subject I already thought I knew something about. I love manuscripts that have a clear sense of purpose. I love manuscripts that are intelligent, that respect the intelligence of the reader, and that don't talk down to kids.

How can writers/illustrators submit their work for consideration?

Guidelines are on our website, and I'd encourage aspiring authors to read them carefully before submitting.

Any submission recommendations or pet peeves?

Do your research! We are pretty specific in terms of what we look for and what kinds of books we publish, and it's always disheartening to see how many people submit stories to us with apparently no idea as to what we publish.

As for pet peeves… A lot of people submit stories about food, or about situations involving school bullies, classroom contests, talent shows, etc.

I'm kind of over those topics as vehicles for promoting inter-cultural understanding. But then again, if someone were to come up with some really and truly original take on those themes…

Please describe your dream author.

One who submits a perfect first draft that needs no tweaking whatsoever! Just kidding. One who delivers on time, is thoughtful about his or her work, passionate about their subject and their craft, diligent about deadlines, and pleasant to work with on a personal level. A sense of humor never hurts, of course. That goes for authors and editors alike, actually.

Please describe your dream illustrator.

I've actually been lucky enough to work with a few artists I'd consider "dream illustrators"... The same principles I outlined in the previous question apply to illustrators, as well.

Do most of your books begin as submissions from writers, writer-illustrators, or agents? Why?

Most of our books begin with the author, and we choose the artist. We've had a few instances where the author and illustrator are the same person (Carmen Lomas Garza, for example, or, more recently, Maya Christina Gonzalez).

I think it's just really rare to find individuals who are equally talented at both writing and illustrating. It seems much more common that people identify as writers or as visual artists.

Also, we work with a lot of new and emerging talent, so most of our authors and artists come to us before they find representation.

Looking back on your career to date, which of the books you've worked on stand out most in your memory and why?

Every book is a unique, amazing experience, but a few recent ones that stand out are:

A Place Where Sunflowers Grow (2006), because of the author and artist's connection to the subject matter (the Japanese American internment during WWII) and the access we were given to the author's grandmother's sketches and artifacts (Hisako Hibi, a prominent Japanese American artist who was interned during the war with her family).

On My Block (2007), an anthology of 15 different visual artists creating artwork and stories about special places in their lives, from their childhoods, or from family memories, which was a project I had wanted to bring to fruition for years, since I first became an editor at CBP.

And The Storyteller's Candle (2008)(author-illustrator interview), a book about Pura Belpre, the first Latina librarian in New York City, because she has been such a hugely influential figure in the librarian community, and we love our librarians!

The author, Lucia Gonzalez, is a librarian and a storyteller with a strong connection to Pura's legacy, and Lulu Delacre, the artist, created beautiful collage art using a copy of The New York Times from the period when the story is set, during the Great Depression.

What do you see in your professional future? The future of Children's Book Press?

I'd love to be able to continue learning and growing and contributing to the children's book field.

Children's Book Press is looking to move into publishing board books, and maybe someday we'll even move into chapter books or young adult…. along with publishing the picture books we're already known for.

What do you do outside the world of children's book publishing?

I do a lot of reading, cooking, and singing/playing keyboards in a gigging band.

When my schedule permits, I love to hop back home to New York for my fill of museums and real bagels, or further afield to places like Italy. Actually, it's been way too long since I've taken a vacation like that.

Author Interview: Bryna J. Fireside on Private Joel and the Sewell Mountain Seder

Bryna J. Fireside on Bryna J. Fireside: "I was born in Linden, New Jersey. I learned early in life that if I stayed home when school was out, I'd have to help my mom with the house work. But if I went down to my dad's dental office, I could do neat things such as answering the phone, making appointments, mixing up the stuff that silver fillings were made of, developing X-rays, and running errands. But a career in dentistry was not what I wanted.

"When I finished college, I taught in elementary schools in Chicago, Baltimore and New York City. I had a great time living in Greenwich Village, where I met and married Harvey, with the terrific last name, which I happily adopted as my own.

"We moved to Ithaca, New York; ten years later where Harvey was a professor at Ithaca College. We have three terrific adult children, five granddaughters and one grandson."

Would you tell us about your journey as a writer and how it lead you to write Private Joel and the Sewell Mountain Seder, illustrated by Shawn Costello (Kar-Ben, 2008)?

My writer’s apprenticeship started when I was a Girl Scout. I began taking our troop's news to the local weekly newspaper, and was soon given a paying job to write up both the Girl Scout News and the Boy Scout News. I not only had two bylines (one was a nom de plume for the Boy Scouts). I got paid $3 per column!

Later, when I was in high school, and had dropped the Scout news, I landed a job writing a weekly syndicated column called "The Teenager Looks Around." It ran in seven weekly newspapers in New Jersey.

In college, I concentrated more on my social life than I did on my writing.

Much later, I took several writing workshops at The New School for Social Research, and began to take my writing seriously. With our move to Ithaca, I wrote articles for teachers' magazines, and I became the children's book reviewer for a local weekly newspaper.

I moved on to reviewing children's books for The New York Times, after I'd met the children's book editor at a conference in Philadelphia.

While newspaper writing was fun--I love to see my name in print--I really wanted to write books for kids. Getting published wasn't as easy as writing articles for magazines and newspapers. But I joined the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, went to conferences whenever I could, and met other struggling writers, who often became good friends and led the way to my getting published.

One friend, Joanne E. Bernstein asked me to co-author a book with her. Special Parents, Special Children (Albert Whitman, 1991). It was my first published book. It was quickly followed by Is There a Woman in the House...or Senate? (Albert Whitman, 1993), which was named a "Best Book for the Teenager" by the New York Public Library, and one of the 100 best books for girls by the Women's Booksellers Association.

Other nonfiction books for Enslow Publishers followed: Young People From Bosnia Talk About War [with Harvey Fireside](1996); Cruzan v. Missouri: The Right to Die Case (1999) The Mary Surratt "Lincoln Assassination" Trial (2001); The Haymarket Square Riot Trial (2002); and The Trial of the Police Officers in the Shooting Death of Amadou Diallo (2004).

In addition, there have been four editions of Choices for the High School Graduate: A Survival Guide for the Information Age (first published by Garrett Park Press, 1996; Ferguson Publishers, Chicago 1999, 2000; Ferguson Publishers/Facts on File, New York 2005. The fifth edition will be published in 2009.

However, my path to the publication of Private Joel and the Sewell Mountain Seder (Kar-Ben, 2008) literally took years. I discovered the original memoir written for "The Jewish Messenger" by J.A. Joel in 1865 on the Web about ten years ago. And, off and on over the years, I dabbled in writing this story for kids, but I never felt that I struck the right note.

Then, in 2005 I read a notice that there was a writers conference at the 92nd Street Y in New York City. It was specifically for Jewish children book writers who were writing Jewish stories for kids. And we were asked to send in the first page of a manuscript we were working on. I signed up immediately. And I whipped out my dusty (can manuscripts get dusty in one's computer?) manuscript. Suddenly, I began to revise it with new vigor, and when I was satisfied that I was going in the right direction, I sent off my "first page." However, by the date of the actual conference, I still hadn’t finished writing the story.

Nevertheless, I went to the conference, where I not only met other writers, I also met editors and agents who were truly looking for manuscripts that dealt with Jewish themes.

My particular goal was to write stories for kids that explored the varied Jewish experience in America, from Revolutionary days to the present. I had a particular interest in the Civil War, since I'd written about Mary Surratt. And when I began to research Jews on both sides of the conflict, I discovered some extraordinary stories. And this conference has become an important part of my current writing life.

I was totally surprised when I returned home to find an e-mail from the editor at Kar-Ben Publishing (editor interview) asking me for the complete manuscript of Private Joel!

My excitement was tempered momentarily by the fact that I hadn’t finished the story!

I replied that I'd send the manuscript within two weeks.

Well, that got my heart pumping and my fingers tapping on the computer keys. And by George! I finished the story and sent it off. Within two months, I had a contract in hand.

And after some revisions by me, and great editing and support by the editors, the manuscript was sent to Shawn Costello, who made my story come to life with her amazing paintings that draw the reader right into the experience of these Union soldiers who were determined to celebrate Passover during the war to preserve the Union, and to end slavery in America.

So, the timeline from beginning to end actually stretched over many years. But the major events were my desire to write about the Jewish American experience that has been ignored, or not well known, the discovery of Private Joel's description of that unusual and amusing and finally, deeply spiritual story during this particular war.

Of course, I took many liberties with the original telling. I have drawn on facts from Private Joel, and names of the Jewish soldiers from a Web site that lists some of the Jewish soldiers in his regiment, made up much of the dialogue, and added the names of the three Negro free men. So this is historical fiction.

And I am very fortunate to have had not only terrific editorial advice, but also Shawn Costello's beautiful paintings. Her colors are so well chosen, and the images are soft and impressionistic, and we know that these soldiers are really young boys who had spent time fighting the Rebels, and now, were not only bored, because the Rebels had holed up in the mountains for the winter, but the guys were also lonely and missed their families.

What would you say to aspiring writers?

My advice to any beginning writer:

1. Find time every day to sit down and write, even if all you do is one page. The great thing about writing is that it is not age related—and you get better at it the more you write.

2. Take writing workshops at your local college or community college wherever you are.

3. Go to writers conferences, and gather your courage and talk to people. Jane Yolen once gave me an important piece of advice: "It doesn’t matter that you are not published. What matters is that you are writing."

4. Write what you are passionate about.

5. Keep your mind active—take courses in subjects you don’t know anything about--you just may develop a passion in history, science, art, theater, whatever.

6. Do careful research.

7. Be familiar with what publishers are actually publishing.

8. Join the SCBWI.

What do you do outside the world of youth literature?

When I'm not writing, I am involved in helping immigrants and refugees in our community through an organization started by my husband and me called The Eleanor Roosevelt No Interest Loan Fund. When my husband died this past February, the fund was renamed the Harvey Fireside Loan Fund. It makes no-interest loans to immigrants and refugees who need money for such things as an unexpected medical bill, or to reunite family members, or apply for a green card, make a deposit on a new apartment, etc.

I'm also involved in the Border Fund, which raises funds for refugee shelters along with U.S.-Mexican Border. I take very seriously that Jewish command of Tikkun Olam—repairing the world. I try to keep it simple and local.

What's coming up next for your readers?

My next book will be the 5th edition of Choices for the High School Graduate and will have many new interviews with kids who got off the straight and narrow path and struck out on their own...and survived! But I'm also working on another Civil War story, this time an amazing heroine of the Confederacy.

Cynsational News, Links & Giveaways

Enter to win one of three copies of Violet by Design by Melissa Walker (Berkley Jam, 2008).

From the promotional copy: "I was going to get out of the modeling business for good.

"But now I'm having trouble sticking with my decision. After all, if it weren't for modeling, I might still be the invisible wallflower. Hot guys like Paulo wouldn't be interested in me. And I'd never have seen Brazil or Spain--and now France! On the other hand...

"I also wouldn't have to choose between my best friend from home and my agent's shrill demands. Or anguish over my body the way only runway models do. Not to mention all this trouble I'm getting into for speaking out in the press about eating disorders.

"Maybe the life of an international model isn't for me. But if I quit for good, I might always wonder... What if?"

To enter the giveaway, email me with your name and snail/street mail address by 10 p.m. CST May 20! Please also type "Violet by Design" in the subject line. One copy will go to a YA librarian (please indicate if you are one in your entry email). Good luck!

Reminder

The Cynsations grand-prize May giveaway is an autographed paperback set of all three of Lauren Myracle's New York Times bestselling Internet Girls novels (in chat-room-style writing)--ttyl, l8rg8r, and ttfn, all published by Amulet!

Read a Cynsations interview with Lauren. Read Lauren's blog, and visit her at MySpace!

To enter the giveaway, email me with your name and snail/street mail address by 10 p.m. CST May 31! Please also type "Internet Girls" in the subject line. Note: one autographed set will be awarded to any Cynsations YA reader.

For Authors

Source: Jennifer Echols:



More News & Links

Faith in Fiction by Carla Sarratt at The Brown Bookshelf. Peek: "Within African American Christian fiction, there are several well known authors including Jacquelin Thomas, Kendra Norman Bellamy, Michelle Andrea Bowen, Vanessa Davis Griggs, and Reshonda Tate Billingsley." Read a Cynsations interview with the founders of The Brown Bookshelf, and join the new Brown Bookshelf Forum at MySpace!

The Power of Family Conversation: School and community programs help parents build children's literacy from birth by Laura Pappano from Harvard Education Letter. Peek: "Mounting research that links language-rich home environments with reading success and school achievement is driving educators and community groups to target families long before children register for school." Source: Pen Weekly NewsBlast.

Congratulations to April Lurie on the release of The Latent Powers of Dylan Fontaine (Delacorte, 2008)(excerpt)! Read a Cynsations interview with April!

Blogging helps encourage teen writing: Survey reveals that student bloggers are more prolific and appreciate the value of writing more than their peers from eSchool News. Peek: "Forty-seven percent of teen bloggers write outside of school for personal reasons several times a week or more, compared with 33 percent of teens without blogs. Sixty-five percent of teen bloggers believe that writing is essential to later success in life; 53 percent of non-bloggers say the same thing." Source: Pen Weekly NewsBlast.

"New Vermont College of Fine Arts is almost ready to take over Union Institute" by Sarah Hinckley from the Barre Montpelier Times Argus. Peek: "The three masters of fine arts programs being purchased from Union Institute and University are in Writing, Visual Art, and Writing for Children and Young Adults. They range in age from 10 to 25 years and have produced several published authors and award-winning works." Note: congratulations to the administration, my fellow faculty members, students, and our partners! Thank you to all who contributed to the establishment of our new college!

Kids' Comics: this blog "is an online publication of RAW Junior, LLC, publisher of the Little Lit Library and TOON Books. The blog is maintained by Bill Kartalopoulos with contributions from TOON Books artists and authors." Source: Anastasia Suen's blog.

"Child's 'One Hen' Lays Microlending Success" from National Public Radio. Peek: "That part of the story also mirrors Darko's experience: 650 people now work at his farm and he has granted small loans to entrepreneurs such as bakers, dressmakers and traders in his own community. His repayment rate? 98 percent." Note: features One Hen by Katie Smith Milway (Kids Can, 2008). Don't miss the official One Hen website--a model for the best in book sites!

The 2008 Skipping Stones Honor Awards: "recognize 26 exceptional books and teaching resources. Together, they encourage an understanding of the world's diverse cultures, as well as nature and ecological richness. The selection promotes cooperation, nonviolence, respect for differing viewpoints, and close relationships in human societies." Source: Mitali's Fire Escape.

The Nonfiction Author-Illustrator Relationship by Sneed B. Collard III at Interesting Nonfiction for Kids. Peek: "Not long ago, another one of 'my' artists, Joanna Yardley, who lives here in Montana, took an especially daring step." See also "My Tune Has Changed: Writers and Photoresearch" by Tanya Lee Stone.

Dialogue: Writing for Children and Young Adults: an interview with authors Linda Urban and Micol Ostow by Carrie Jones from Through the Tollbooth. Peek from Linda: "Longtime friends have a shorthand for things. They speak in private jokes. They tease. They sidestep. They shield." Peek from Micol: "There's always a temptation to cram exposition into dialogue but to do so is to give in to lazy impulses." See also Tami Lewis Brown's discussion this week of showing versus telling and literary time.

Thick-skinned, Thin-skinned, The Skin I'm In: Books about Bullying, Teasing, Relational Aggression and School Violence by Tessa Michaelson from the Cooperative Children's Book Center (2008). Peek: "From books depicting the heartache of gossip and social invisibility to books portraying the struggle of feeling comfortable into one’s own skin, these titles will have relevance and resonance with readers." See also BulliesinBooks.com.

Teacher's Guide to My Life as a Rhombus (Flux, 2008). Note: novel by Varian Johnson; guide by Tracie Vaughn Zimmer. Learn more about Tracie's teacher guides. Need a guide?

Asian American Book List from the National Education Association. Peek: "a bilingual reading list of titles appropriate for K-12 students. The following titles are listed by grade level and include fiction, non-fiction and poetry." Source: NCTE.

The Perfect Blend from Lensey Namioka from Jama Rattigan's Alphabet Soup. Peek: "Lensey's most recent book is a young adult novel called Mismatch (Delacorte, 2006), which I devoured over the weekend. Fifteen-year-old Sue Hua, a Chinese American girl whose family moves from culturally diverse Seattle to a mostly white suburb, falls for Andy Suzuki, who plays violin in the school orchestra. They are seen as an ideal couple since they are both Asian, but this is just one of many misconceptions that are examined and dispelled in the course of the novel."

"I'm Talking to You, Corded! The mismatch of technology and picture books" by Erica S. Perl from Slate Magazine. Peek: "And yet there is one place—a whole world, actually—where children are safely walled off from wired and wireless devices. That is the world of picture books." Note: just FYI, my Santa Knows, co-authored by Greg Leitich Smith, illustrated by Steve Bjorkman (Dutton, 2006) featured a more modern take as Alfie takes his campaign to the Web. Source: VCFA.

Attention Austin Writers: author Jo Whittemore will be speaking on "The Great Agent Hunt" at the 11 a.m. May 17 Austin SCBWI meeting at the Barnes & Noble in Westlake, Texas. Read a Cynsations interview with Jo.

Attention Austin Event Planners: famed fantasy author Franny Billingsley has a particular interest in visiting the Texas Hill Country! Drop her an invite! Check out her newest release, Big Bad Bunny, illustrated by G. Brian Karas (Atheneum, 2008). Read a Cynsations interview with Franny.

Celebrating Young Writers

READ and WRITING magazines present the 2008 Student Writing Showcase. In the Student Writing Center section, check out the honorees. Note: You can hear me read two of them aloud--"Veiled Water" by Nadia Qari and "House at Bodega Bay" by Hari Srinivasan.

More Personally

Attention authors/publicists: interested in submitting a book for Cynsations review/interview consider? See guidelines.

Thank you to Betty Bird and everyone in my warm and enthusiastic audience at the Daughters of the American Revolution-Austin Woman's Club luncheon on Thursday! It was a pleasure to meet y'all. Thanks too for the tour!

On a more dramatic note, Austin is still cleaning up from Thursday's early morning storm.

It hit the center of town between 12:30 a.m. and 1 a.m. with four-inch hail and winds clocked as high as 47 miles per hour.

Trees still block many neighborhood streets (including mine, headed north), three elementary schools were closed yesterday, and up to 40,000 people lost power. More than 3,000 are still without. Here's the latest from the Statesman.

We were lucky, losing only a medium branch and one west-facing second-floor window. West-side windows were hit (and broken) hard across town; at least one east-side apartment complex lost all of theirs. The problem was that the large hail was flying fast and horizontally toward them. If your angle was right, it looked like a blizzard.

I was on the second floor at the time, rushing to unplug my laptop and grab my flash drive (priorities?) when hail broke the window behind me. We never lost power, though our cable service was out until about 4 p.m. yesterday.

The kitties weathered the storm in their cat carriers in the first floor central hallway, except for Mercury, who was temporarily in hiding and then decided that clinging--claws out--to my shoulders was the only way to go.

Of course many other cities have been hit much worse by spring storms. It appears that none of our funnel clouds actually touched to cause tornado-level damage. From the reports, it appears that our damage was to property--not people. There was time enough to secure animals, etc.

Still, quite a night. See Greg's report and Don Tate's.

Finally

Check out the book trailer for The Gollywhopper Games by Jody Feldman (Greenwillow, 2008)! Read a Cynsations interview with Jody, and learn more about the Class of 2k8!



Don't miss the book trailer for A Difficult Boy by 2k8's M.P. Barker (Holiday House, 2008)!



And take a peek at this new entry for Impossible by YA superstar Nancy Werlin (September, 2008)(author interview):