April 2013

AUTHORS JAN GREENBERG AND SANDRA JORDAN TO RECEIVE THE 2013 NONFICTION AWARD FROM THE
CHILDREN’S BOOK GUILD OF WASHINGTON, D.C.

 













On Saturday, April 20, 2013, authors Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan will receive the Children’s Book Guild Nonfiction Award, given annually since 1977. This award recognizes a body of work; the Award Committee selected Greenberg and Jordan for their outstanding contribution to children’s nonfiction literature.

As art imitates life, Greenberg and Jordan celebrate art. Their critically acclaimed titles include Ballet for Martha: Making Appalachian Spring (illustrated by Brian Floca), an Orbis Pictus Award winner and Sibert Honor book; Action Jackson (illustrated by Robert Andrew Parker), a Sibert Honor book; and Christo and Jeanne-Claude: Through the Gates and Beyond.

The April 20 event will take place at Clyde’s Restaurant of Gallery Place, 707 7th Street NW, Washington, D.C., from noon to 3 p.m. It will include lunch, an introduction by Neal Porter, editorial director of Neal Porter Books at Roaring Brook Press, and a presentation by the authors, followed by a book sale and author signing. Seating will be limited. Tickets are available for $35.

To learn more about Jan Greenberg and Sandra Jordan and to make reservations for the event, visit www.childrensbookguild.org 

Guild members may bring two books to display on the Members' Table during the April 20 event.

IN THIS ISSUE:

1. The March 13 Business Meeting
2. Marc Tyler Nobleman on Batman's Co-Creator
3. Sally Canzoneri Writes about Useful Apps
4. Member News
5. An Upcoming Children's Nonfiction Conference


THE GUILD BUSINESS MEETING: MARCH 13, 2013
compiled by Catherine Reef from minutes provided by Recording Secretary Rhoda Trooboff
 
At their annual business meeting the members of the Children's Book Guild of Washington, D.C., elected the following slate of officers for 2013-2014:

President: Fred Bowen
Vice President/President-Elect: Susan Stockdale
Recording Secretary: Jennifer O'Connell
Treasurer: Debbie :Levy
Program Chairs: Jean Heilprin Diehl, Kem Knapp Sawyer and Jewell Stoddard

The April 20 Nonfiction Event
Guild President Jacqueline Jules encouraged members to promote the event through social media such as Facebook, listservs and flier distribution. The Guild's goal is to fill all 130 seats in the banquet room.

Treasurer's Report
Treasurer Ann McCallum reported that the Guild's finances are stable and sound.

Membership Report
Membership Chair Joan Waites reported that, at 151 members, the Guild's membership is up modestly from last year.

Further Business
A short discussion of moving the nonfiction-award event to fall instead of spring resulted in no action. It was pointed out that the April date is desirable in order to have the full academic year available for planning and preparation.

          
MARC TYLER NOBLEMAN'S PURSUIT OF BATMAN'S UNCREDITED CO-CREATOR

by Rhoda Trooboff 

An enthralled audience at the March 2013 meeting of the Children's Book Guild heard local author and Guild member Marc Tyler Nobleman reveal that for his latest book he phoned 500 Fingers in Florida looking for traces of Bill Finger, the subject of Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman (Charlesbridge, 2012).

Fascinated with Batman (aka the World’s Greatest Detective) and believing that you never know whether research paths will lead to dead ends or buried treasure, Nobleman made research sound like breathtaking detective work and simultaneously breathed life into Milton (“Bill”) Finger (1914-1974), the writer-illustrator who for 25 years was the unsung brain behind the multi-billion-dollar Batman comic book, film, theme park and tchotchke franchises.

In a talk illustrated with images from Bill the Boy Wonder, Nobleman summarized his research and Finger’s mysterious--and both banal and tragic--life. Nobleman proffered deep questions about fairness, ethics and intellectual property, and he raised important life lessons--some of them heartbreaking--learned in the process of finding Finger’s full story and investigating the comic book business.

The March Guild meeting was a compelling episode in Nobleman’s indefatigable crusade to immortalize Bill Finger and to avenge the injustice of the anonymity of the co-creator of the Dark Knight, the Caped Crusader. 

Watch Marc's entertaining book trailer for Bill the Boy Wonder on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Sf6_lyahRk

 
 
IPADS, APPS AND OTHER SUCH THINGS
by Sally Canzoneri 
(This month Sally begins an occasional column on apps that may be of interest to lovers of children's literature.)

Late one night, back in the days of DOS and blue screens with white letters, I was sitting at my
husband's computer, trying to complete a memo for work. My little white words kept rearranging themselves and wouldn't stay where I put them, though. Back then I knew almost nothing about computers and had no notion that something like a "Reveal Codes" command existed. So my frustration with the machine grew. And grew.

I was angry in that particularly intense way that one becomes angry with electronic objects
when they do not behave as one wishes. So I did what any sensible person does in such a situation: I started shouting at the computer. At that point, my then-four-year-old daughter came into the room. "Mommy," she said in a calm, firm voice, "don't yell at the computer. It can't yell back."

A lot has changed since then, though I still find myself yelling at a screen sometimes. But not so
often anymore; and I know all about "Reveal Codes" and other commands. In fact, I am by now
quite the techie in our house–as well as a major iPad devotee.

Hoping to assuage my guilt for spending so much time in cyber-tech land, I proposed to write a newsletter feature on apps and related matters. As long as I've become so addicted to new technology, I might as well share with others some of what I've been learning. Some provisos and apologies up front: I'm an iPad user and not very conversant with other tablets or e-readers. I do have an in-house consultant on the Amazon Kindle and Nook readers, but I'm basically an iPad and Web gal. My browser of choice is Firefox, even if Chrome is sneaking up on all of us. (Do you ever wonder if someday you'll open your refrigerator and have a little Google guy jump out? I think it is only a matter of time.)
 
This month I am discussing an app and a cloud service that may be useful in your work. In the future, if you have particular interests or questions that you would like to see addressed, please let me know, and I'll do my best to respond. It would also be good to hear if my columns are of use to you–both for the ego boost and so that I know which of my topics actually interest people.

HAIKU DECK: A WAY TO PUT TOGETHER POLISHED PRESENTATIONS WITHOUT POWERPOINT

This iPad app is great for those who have never gotten around to learning PowerPoint, and/or
don't feel up to creating a book trailer. The app is free and makes it really easy to put together
slide shows with pictures over words. You can then project the slide show directly from your
iPad and/or upload it directly from the app to Facebook, Twitter, SlideShare and other
social-media services. Depending on how your website or blog is set up, you may also be able to embed your Haiku Deck there. At the very least, you can display your deck on the developer's website, haikudeck.com, and give people a URL to find it.

In Haiku Deck, you can pick images to include in your show from your iPad Camera Roll or by
using the app's built-in search of royalty-free stock photos. Basically, you grab the photos and have the ability to put words (in various fonts) over them. You can rearrange pages by dragging and dropping them. If you go to the website, you'll get a good idea of what decks look like. Most of the examples shown use stock photography, but there is no reason you have to. You can put your own photos and illustrations on your Camera Roll and use them. If you want some pages with just words, you can use the Haiku Deck app to make those pages. You can also use one of the many sketching apps available in the App Store to make pages of text to include in your show. Putting together a Haiku Deck is so fast and easy that you could create one while speaking to a class, sketching or taking photos as you talk and incorporating the students' remarks. You could show this to students at the end of the class and send it to the teacher after your visit. Recently I used Haiku Deck to create a slide show presenting photos of artwork I was submitting to an exhibition.

At present, Haiku Deck does not include sound. I think that if you use some online services (such as SlideShare), however, you can add sound. And, given the enthusiasm of the staff at this start-up, I expect they'll add sound sooner of later. You can find lots of examples and
information at the developer’s website. If you want to look at a couple of slightly silly decks I made quickly using vacation photos, go to http://tinyurl.com/cfee7zn and
http://tinyurl.com/b8ana36.

KEEPING FILES ON TWO COMPUTERS, OR ON A COMPUTER, AN IPAD AND AN IPHONE--OR WHATEVER

In theory, all our wonderful gizmos and the cloud should be streamlining our lives. In reality,
though, keeping files coordinated between devices can get somewhat muddling. I plan to take up Evernote and other tools that help with research and keeping your iPad and computer(s) in
sync in a later column. Right now, I will say that if you haven't yet gotten a Dropbox account,
you should look into it. Besides making it easy to exchange files between computers and other
devices, Dropbox can give you a bit of online backup for your files.

Dropbox is one of the best known "cloud" services. It's free (up to a certain amount of storage)
and reliable. You need to join, then download and install the app on your iPad and the program
on your computer(s). A lot of iPad apps coordinate with Dropbox, so, for example, I can write
this piece in a typing app on my iPad, put the file in my Dropbox and open it on my computer for further editing.

Dropbox is also a great way to move photos and graphic images between your iPad and your
computer. Several apps say they can move photos from your iPhone or iPad to your computer wirelessly, but all the ones I've tried were unreliable. And though my daughter insists that syncing through iTunes is easy, I don't want to mess with a bunch of cables. Dropbox makes it easy to move things back and forth between my notebook and desktop computers, iPad and iPhone. It also provides an in-the-cloud backup of the files I put on it. If you set your Camera Roll to automatically upload images to Dropbox, they’ll give you an extra 500 MB of storage for each 500 MG of images you upload; so you pretty much get the storage for your photos free.

One handy feature of Dropbox is that you can use it to share selected files with other people. This is helpful if you are working on a joint project, of course; but you can also use the feature to quickly set up a portfolio file when you want to show photos and/or images to someone. You can get a URL specifically for this file and share it with someone. This helps you avoid the hassles that often occur when you try to send high-resolution images.

Again, please feel free to send me any comments, questions, suggestions or kudos. This column is a work-in-progress, and anything you have to say will be helpful. You can e-mail me at
sallycanzoneri@aol.com or SarCanz@aol.com. Meanwhile, happy teching!

 
MEMBER NEWS

Eat math? Count rabbits? ANN MCCALLUM will share a tasty and tantalizing presentation at the Kensington International Day of the Book, on April 21, 2013, at 11:30 a.m. Please join her at this exciting "hometown" festival, from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., on Howard Avenue in Old Town Kensington, Md. For more information, please go to: www.dayofthebook.com

Also, an interview with Ann and Leeza Hernandez, author and illustrator of Eat Your Math Homework, is featured on Jama Rattigan's "Alphabet Soup" blog: http://jamarattigan.com/2013/03/05/

SUSAN STOCKDALE’s newest picture book, Stripes of All Types, has been published by Peachtree. Called “a feast for the eyes” by Kirkus Reviews, the book explores the many ways in which animals around the world wear and benefit from their stripes. The final two spreads present readers with thumbnails of the animals and a few sentences of information about each, as well as a challenge: match the 19 different stripe patterns to their animals based on the text. (Answers are provided.) 

Susan will be presenting Stripes of All Types at the National Museum of Natural History on Saturday, April 6; the Bethesda Literary Festival on Saturday, April 20; and the Kensington Book Fair on Sunday, April 21. She warmly welcomes all Guild members (and their family and friends!) to attend her Stripes book signing and reception at Sidwell Friends School on Saturday, April 27 from 3 to 5 p.m. An invitation to this event will follow. 

EDIE CHING recently spoke about her love of picture books as a participant in Candlewick Press's "We Believe in Picture Books!" program. Go to the program's web page to see and hear Edie: http://www.readingstartshere.com

JACQUELINE JULES, CYNTHIA COTTEN, MARY QUATTLEBAUM, and DEBBIE LEVY all have poems in The Poetry Friday Anthology for Middle School, edited by Janet Wong and Sylvia Vardell and released March 1, 2013. This innovative poetry resource contains poems for every week of the school year with connections to the Common Core, providing teachers with a handy tool for integrating poetry with the curriculum.

April brings a shower of events for LULU DELACRE, who will be sharing How Far Do You Love Me? On April 6 she will be speaking at the Read Green Conference at Salisbury University, Salisbury, Md.; on April 11 she will read and sign books at the Woodlin Elementary Book Fair, Silver Spring. On April 24 she wll be thrilled to conduct an art workshop based on the book with the children at the cancer center of Georgetown Hospital, in Washington, D.C., and on April 26 and 27 she will be at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, in Amherst, Mass. Then on April 29, at 6 p.m., she will take part in the Día Celebration at Juanita E. Thornton/Shepherd Park Library, in Washington, D.C. The whole family is welcome!


 21st-CENTURY CHILDREN'S NONFICTION CONFERENCE

June 14–16, 2013
State University of
New York ~ New Paltz

Here's a unique conference that highlights:
* What is new in children’s publishing and education
* How you can use your talents to create books, e-books, apps and other
publications
* How you can approach traditional publishers and digital developers with
your ideas and projects
* The Common Core Standards and how your books and apps can meet them
* Finding freelance work as a children’s writer, editor, illustrator or designer
* Creating your own nonfiction teaching and learning materials
* Setting up your own business in the children’s publishing market
* How to sell and market your products with 21st-century technology
* Applying your expertise in fiction to a new genre: nonfiction
* Why becoming knowledgeable about the “business” of children’s publishing
is as important as the art and craft of writing, editing and illustrating
* Opportunities for part-time and full-time careers in the children’s publishing industry. 

PROGRAM:
FRIDAY p.m.: Intensives (optional), Dinner and Panel, Mix and Mingle
SATURDAY: Breakfast, Workshops, Lunch, Panel, Cocktail Party, Dinner
Keynote speaker Vicki Cobb, “Winning the Nonfiction War”
SUNDAY (until 12:30 p.m.): Breakfast, Workshops, Faculty Q & A, Light Lunch

Conference Fee:
Early bird registration: $390; after April 30: $430
Fee includes conference fee and all meals.
Low-cost housing in college dorms available. Additional housing options also available.
Intensives and proposal, manuscript, marketing-strategy and portfolio reviews available as extras.

Go to the conference website for full information about the program, faculty, travel and accommodation, and to register: www.childrensNFconference.com