GARETH HINDS RE-IMAGINES CLASSICS FOR THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY
Hinds is a recipient of the Boston Public Library’s “Literary Lights for Children” award. His books can be found in bookstores and English classrooms across the country, and his illustrations have appeared in such diverse venues as the Society of Illustrators, the New York Historical Society and more than a dozen published video games. At the February 18 business meeting, Hinds will show his fellow Guild members how he gives life to his highly original graphic novels.
Date: Thursday Feb 18
Time: 6:30 business meeting (members only); 7:30 presentation by Gareth Hines (open to the public)
Location: Tenley-Friendship Neighborhood Library
4450 Wisconsin Ave NW
Washington, DC 20016
Metro: The Tenleytown station is directly across the street from the library. Parking: Paid parking is available at Circle Parking, Inc., 4530 40th Street NW (phone 202-966-2810). An Internet search may yield other parking options. Menu: $10 ($11 when paid online via PayPal)
Metro: The Tenleytown station is directly across the street from the library. Parking: Paid parking is available at Circle Parking, Inc., 4530 40th Street NW (phone 202-966-2810). An Internet search may yield other parking options. Menu: $10 ($11 when paid online via PayPal)
A light dinner of sandwiches and sides will be offered. A vegetarian option is available. If you want a vegetarian meal, please mention it when you RSVP.
Note: Dinner is for members only. The public portion of the program is free.
Note: Dinner is for members only. The public portion of the program is free.
IN THIS ISSUE:
1. Two Member Nominations: Meg Medina and Shout Mouse Press
2. First Book to Be Honored at the Library of Congress
3. Jason Reynolds's Evolution as a Writer
4. Member News
MEMBER NOMINATION: MEG MEDINA
Erica Perl nominates author Meg Medina for
membership in the Children’s Book Guild. Terry Jennings seconds the nomination.
Meg
Medina is an award-winning author of picture books and middle grade and young
adult fiction. Her work examines how cultures intersect, as seen through the
eyes of young people. Her young adult novel Yaqui Delgado Wants to Kick Your
Ass, described by Kirkus as “a nuanced,
heart-wrenching and ultimately empowering story about bullying,” earned the
2014 Pura Belpré Award, the 2013 CYBILS Award for young adult fiction and the
International Latino Book Award 2014, among numerous other distinctions. Her
forthcoming young adult novel is Burn,
Baby, Burn, a Junior Library Guild Selection that is scheduled for release
in March 2016 from Candlewick Press.
Meg
is also the 2012 Ezra Jack Keats New Writers Medal winner for her picture book Tía
Isa Wants a Car. Her latest picture book, Mango, Abuela, and Me, has earned starred reviews in Publisher’s Weekly and Booklist, which called it “heartfelt,
layered, and beautiful—a must for library collections.” Meg’s other books are The
Girl Who Could Silence the Wind, a 2012 Bank Street Best Book and CBI
Recommended Read in the United Kingdom, and Milagros: Girl from Away.
In
March 2014, Meg was recognized as one of the CNN 10 Visionary Women in America, and in
November 2014 she was named one of Latino Stories’ Top Ten Latino Authors to
watch.
In seeking membership, Meg hopes to continue building meaningful relationships with fellow authors and book lovers who are collectively producing and promoting some of the strongest work for children today.
ORGANIZATIONAL MEMBER NOMINATION: SHOUT MOUSE PRESS
Erica Perl nominates Shout Mouse Press for
organizational membership in the Children’s Book Guild. Pamela Ehrenberg seconds
the nomination.
Shout Mouse Press is a nonprofit writing program and
publishing house for unheard voices. Through writing workshops designed for all levels of
literacy, Shout Mouse empowers writers from marginalized communities to tell
their own stories in their own voices and, as published authors, to act as
agents of change. Shout Mouse authors have produced original children’s books,
memoir and poetry collections and novels-in-stories that engage reluctant
readers and open hearts and minds.
To
date Shout Mouse has published 19 books written by incarcerated youth, at-risk
teens in Washington, D.C., and exploited children in Port-au-Prince, Haiti.
Each book project has its own mission, from diversifying children's literature
to ending child slavery to supporting the #BlackLivesMatter movement. These
books are being used throughout the DC public school system as resources and
curriculum, and Shout Mouse is working to bring books into libraries and
classrooms nationwide. Its children’s books written by the teen tutors of Reach
Incorporated helped Reach win the 2015 National Book Foundation’s Innovations
in Reading Prize.
Shout
Mouse was founded in 2014 in Washington, D.C., by Kathy Crutcher, a writer,
educator and dreamer of big dreams. Kathy has mentored young writers since 2003
and is passionate about empowering others to tell their stories. She has pursued
this passion in diverse places—from elementary schools in rural Japan to
college classrooms in the American South to inner-city high schools in
Washington, D.C.—and with many different communities: adult literacy learners,
refugees, gifted writers, reluctant writers, kids, teens, college students, those
who've written many stories and those who are writing their very first. Prior
to founding Shout Mouse, Kathy was the DC Director for Writopia Lab as well as
the regional affiliate for the Scholastic Writing Awards, through which her
students have won national recognition every year. She has also taught writing at the University of Kentucky, Johns Hopkins Center for Talented Youth and
the University of Arizona. Her own writing has earned recognition from places such as the DC Commission on Arts and Humanities as well as fellowships to writing
programs in Kenya and Prague. Kathy received her bachelor’s degree from Duke
University and her MFA in creative writing from the University of Arizona. She
has also completed the Nonprofit Management Certificate Program at Georgetown
University. Kathy is originally from Cincinnati, Ohio, and enjoys running,
hiking, reading, traveling and cheering on Shout Mouse and its authors.
FIRST BOOK TO RECEIVE THE 2015 DAVID M. RUBENSTEIN LITERACY AWARD
The Library of Congress
has awarded the prestigious David M. Rubenstein Prize for 2015 to First Book, a nonprofit social enterprise and an organizational member of the Children's Book Guild. One
of three literacy awards presented by the Library of Congress annually, the
Rubenstein Prize recognizes an organization that has made outstanding and
measurable contributions to increasing literacy levels and has demonstrated
exceptional and sustained depth and breadth in its commitment to the
advancement of literacy. In addition,
the award, which includes a $150,000 cash prize, honors organizations that meet
the highest standards of excellence in operations and services.
JASON REYNOLDS, LANGSTON LATIFAH AND THE MAKING OF A WRITER
by Abby Nolan
A day before the first big blizzard of 2016 hit the East Coast, author Jason Reynolds spoke at January’s Guild meeting to a full house. He covered many topics, including his influences, his goals and the gap in American literature for and about young African Americans of his generation, which he dates from the 1980s to the early 1990s.
First, though, there was a quiz. Reynolds quoted from three writers and said that although he came to appreciate the first two (William Shakespeare and Langston Hughes), the storyteller who spoke most directly to him as a teenager was the third, rapper Slick Rick. He said he was then less interested in Toni Morrison than in movies and music that depicted the life he saw around him.
Reynolds identified three major developments that deeply affected his Washington, D.C., neighborhood while he was growing up: the crack epidemic, the HIV/AIDS crisis and the spread of hip-hop. He said he found his calling through hip-hop music, especially once he started reading the lyrics of Queen Latifah. He admired her regal bearing, her infectious style and the way she told men that they couldn’t speak to her disrespectfully. With a laugh, he described his wish to not just emulate Queen Latifah but actually to be her.
Thankfully Reynolds had a store of self-confidence that got him through discouragements in college. These included two attempts to pass English 101 on his own terms, an arrogant Shakespeare professor/thesis advisor and a commencement speaker who told his audience of the slim chances any English major had of becoming a writer. Reynolds talked amusingly of his younger self, whom he called “Langston Latifah” because he was both heavily indebted to these influences and completely convinced of his genius.
In near-record time, Reynolds did indeed get a contract with HarperCollins, but the glory he expected for his first book, My Name Is Jason. Mine Too (coauthored with Jason Griffin), lasted only briefly. It took a conversation a few years later with his friend Christopher Myers, son of the late novelist Walter Dean Myers, to get him on the path he follows today. Myers told Reynolds that he could be a worthy successor to the elder writer, and that he should look at some of Walter Dean Myers’s works again. Reynolds picked up The Young Landlords and soon realized he needed to find his own voice to tell the stories he wanted to write. When I Was the Greatest, The Boy in the Black Suit and his collaboration with Brendan Kiely, All American Boys, have been the most visible results, but Reynolds also mentioned that he is a workaholic with a 12-book contract, so many more stories are on the way.
Apart from describing his own unique career, Reynolds had other important points to make. He called out those who had discouraged him and other aspiring writers from pursuing their craft. And he addressed the meeting’s attendees by urging them to be actively anti-racist and not turn away from young people in difficult circumstances. As he put it, violence against young black men hasn't had "a surge--it's a perennial issue."
MEMBER NEWS
MARGARET MEACHAM's article "Five Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Mistakes to Avoid When You Write Your Children's Book" is the cover feature of the January issue of The Writer.
BARBARA BROOKS WALLACE reports that Pangea will reissue her memoir, Small Footsteps in the Land of the Dragon: Growing Up in China. Bobbie writes, "To say I’m delighted about this doesn’t being to cover it!" Pangea previously published two of Bobbie's "Miss Switch" books. The cover of Small Footsteps features a photograph of Bobbie at age two, her sister at age three and their ama, Cho Mei, taken in Soochow, China, where Bobbie was born.
Pangea plans to release more of Bobbie's stories, beginning with Why the Tiger Came to Tea. Bobbie wrote the story "eons ago," she says, as The Tiger Who Came to Tea. According to Bobbie, "My son, then all of about six, told me not to bother sending it out." She learned not to heed advice from six-year-olds three years later, when Judith Kerr's book The Tiger Who Came to Tea was published and and became what was then the best-selling picture book of all time. Bobbie's book tells a different, more humorous, story.
KITSON JAZYNKA and JACQUELINE JULES are finalists for CYBILS awards:
http://www.cybils.com/the-
LAURA GEHL's latest picture book, Peep and Egg: I'm Not Hatching, illustrated by Joyce Wan, releases February 9 from FSG/MacMillan. This is the first in a series of books featuring adorable siblings Peep and Egg. Kirkus called the book "Delightful and right on target." Hooray for Books in Alexandria is hosting the Peep and Egg launch party on Wednesday, February 10, with games, crafts and treats starting at 4 p.m., followed by book reading, activities and more treats at 5 p.m. Please spread the word to friends with young children or grandchildren!
JANET STOEKE, seen here with Guild members JENNIFER O'CONNELL and SUSAN ROTH, exhibited her art recently at the Center for the Arts in Manassas. Janet wrote poems to accompany the oil landscapes, with a theme of "Presence." Janet writes and paints about the great solace found in natural surroundings. She feels that her picture-book skills (knitting the visual and verbal elements together without being redundant) served her well in this new format.
Historical changes in NoMa are illustrated in lenticular pictures. Archival photos and Sally’s photos of the same or similar sites are put together and folded accordion style, so that viewers see different images when looking at the pictures from different sides.
The exhibit also includes groups of photos of the Mathmatica Building, at 1100 1st Street NE, which has a curved, reflective exterior, illustrating how short-term differences in light and reflections change what viewers see. The north side of the building will be hidden when its planned companion is built on the vacant tract next to it, and this will hide the current view and change it dramatically. The decision to construct two buildings was made partly in reaction to the city’s building-height limit, but the second building was delayed by economic factors. The evolution of this vista therefore is an example of the variety of factors that determine the visual environment of NoMa.
"NoMa: Changing Vistas--Changing Views" is part of a series sponsored by the Washington Project for the Arts and NoMa BID, in the lobby of 1200 First Street NE. It will be up through March 11. There will be an artist reception from 6 to 8 p.m. on February 18.
Sally also has three pictures in The Capitol Hill Art League Juried Exhibition at the Hill Center Galleries, 921 Pennsylvania Ave SE. The show includes work by 35 artists and runs until February 28. Hill Center is a lovely old building very near the Eastern Market Metro stop, and Sally says the show is worth seeing because of the variety and quality of work by other artists. She also says that Joyce Schwartz will certify that the food at the Bayou Bakery in Hill Center’s carriage house is genuine New Orleans cuisine. So you can eat good food and see good art in one stop.
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NOTE ABOUT THE CHILDREN'S BOOK GUILD NEWS: Would you rather print your newsletter than read it online? Current and past issues are now available for printing on the Guild's website at http://www.childrensbookguild.org/guild-newsletters. Look for the "Newsletter" tab on the left side of the Guild website. There is also a "Printer Friendly Version" link on the top left-hand side of this blog.
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LITERARY EVENTS SPONSORED BY POLITICS AND PROSE: The literary calendar at Politics and Prose lists many upcoming programs that may be of interest to Children's Book Guild members: http://www.politics-prose.com/events. February's speakers include Kwame Alexander, Gareth Hinds, Betsy Harvey Kraft and Laura Gehl.
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