October 2016

WHO ARE OUR READERS, AND WHAT DO THEY LIKE? NIELSEN'S KRISTEN MCLEAN TO PRESENT THE LATEST TRENDS IN CHILDREN'S BOOKS

On Thursday, October 20, Kristen McLean, Nielsen’s director of New Business Development, will lead Guild members and their guests on a virtual stroll through the latest data, research and trends in kids’ books. If you’ve never heard McLean, you are in for a treat. She’s a dynamic speaker who lectures extensively on issues facing the publishing world, in particular the confluence of consumer behavior, technology, literacy and global transformation in the Digital Age. She shares the stories behind the numbers, shedding a fascinating light on even the most complicated data.

McLean’s presentation will cover long-term trends in the overall kids’ market, which categories are on the rise, and how kids themselves are driving trends with their increasing consumer empowerment. She’ll also talk about the role technology plays in the lives of today’s children, and how that fits together with books and reading. She’ll touch on the biggest factors that influence consumers to buy a children's book, and how the movement toward a multi-cultural future is playing out in kids’ books and the families buying them.

Part of what makes McLean such a great data storyteller is her deep experience in the children’s market. As a 20-year veteran of kids’ publishing, she has held a wide variety of roles, including front-line book selling, field sales, marketing and running her own data business. For six years she was the executive director of the Association of Booksellers for Children (ABC), which networks the children’s publishing industry and now is a happy part of the American Booksellers Association (ABA).

In her position with Nielsen Book, a part of Nielsen Entertainment, she is responsible for developing new lines of revenue from existing products as well as creating new initiatives that expand Nielsen's value to its publishing clients. As part of her job, she manages clients, research and events in the children’s, Christian and romance areas of the publishing business. 

McLean earned a B.A. from Sarah Lawrence College with concentrations in design and consumer psychology and currently lives in Miami. She considers herself a data evangelist–for her, understanding data is really about understanding the stories the data are telling us about the people who are buying and reading our books. Her Twitter bio says: “Book Futurist. Consumer Zoologist. Idea Omnivore.” That pretty much sums her up. (Find her @NielKristen.)

Date: Thursday, October 20
Time:  11:30 a.m. "social hour"; noon luncheon
Place: Busboys and Poets
1025 Fifth Street NW (at K Street) 

Menu: All choices $25 ($26 when paid online via PayPal)
:: CHOICE OF SANDWICH (all sandwiches served with a salad of baby greens and house-made kettle chips) ::
• Falafel sandwich (vegetarian/vegan) with house-made hummus, cucumbers, lettuce, tomato and onion on whole-wheat pita, served with tahini sauce (vegan without tahini sauce) 

• Honey-roasted turkey sandwich with Havarti cheese, Dijonnaise, lettuce, tomato and onion on wheat bread

• Grilled-chicken panini with chipotle mayo, caramelized onions, pepper jack, lettuce and tomato on ciabatta 

• Avocado panini with roasted red peppers and melted cheese on multi-grain bread

RSVP Now!

IN THIS ISSUE:

1. Ann Bausum, Winner of the 2017 Nonfiction Award
2. Katherine Paterson Visits the Guild

3. Andrea Pinkney, 2016 Anne Scott MacLeod Lecturer
4. Green Earth Book Awards

5. San Miguel Writers' Conference and Contest

6. Member News

7. Remembering Ernie Bond

AUTHOR ANN BAUSUM TO RECEIVE THE 2017 CHILDREN’S BOOK GUILD NONFICTION AWARD

Ann Bausum has introduced an entire generation of American children to the epic stories of struggle, courage and heroism that have shaped our country, defined our times and advanced our common and ongoing pursuit of a more perfect union.

In recognition of her 14 nonfiction books and the way her work has enriched the minds of our children and the life of our nation, Bausum has been selected to receive the 2017 Children’s Book Guild Nonfiction Award. The award is presented annually to an author for a body of work that has contributed significantly to the quality of nonfiction for children.

Bausum’s titles cover some of the nation’s most pressing historical issues, including immigration, racial equality and women’s right to vote. Her forthcoming book, The March Against Fear: The Last Great Walk of the Civil Rights Movement and the Emergence of Black Power (National Geographic; February 2017), tells of James Meredith’s 1966 march in Mississippi, which became one of the most important demonstrations of the Civil Rights Movement. Her other titles include Denied, Detained, Deported: Stories from the Dark Side of American Immigration and Unraveling Freedom: The Battle for Democracy on the Home Front During World War I. It is her intent to “make history relevant, engaging, alive and irresistible,” as she states on her website (www.annbausum.com/).

It was Bausum’s breadth of topics and her contribution to children’s nonfiction that won over committee members Edie Ching (chair), Rhoda Trooboff and Mary Bowman-Kruhm.

The event honoring Bausum will take place on Saturday, April 29, at Clyde’s Restaurant of Gallery Place, 707 7th Street NW, Washington, DC. It will include lunch and a presentation by the author followed by a book sale and signing. Tickets will be available for purchase starting in January 2017.

A GREAT VISIT WITH KATHERINE PATERSON

by J. H. Diehl

The Children’s Book Guild launched its 2016-2017 program year with an inspiring visit from celebrated author and longtime Guild member Katherine Paterson. The September 22 event at Busboys and Poets was sold out. Paterson has won just about every major national and international award for children’s literature (some of them twice) and has served as the Library of Congress National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. The Great Gilly Hopkins, her second novel to be turned into a feature film, premieres in theaters and on-demand on October 7.

In a talk that Guild president Kem Sawyer, in thanking her afterward, called “very frank…and also very funny,” Paterson recounted several stories about how she came to write The Great Gilly Hopkins and then spoke about the book’s translation into film.

The novel started with a name. On the beach, one day, at Lake George, Paterson read the name Galadriel in J. R. R. Tolkein’s classic series, The Lord of the Rings. “Someday,” Paterson told herself, “I’m going to write a book about a character named Galadriel.” The surname Hopkins came, she suspects, from her interest in the work of poet Gerard Manley Hopkins.

For months, Gilly Hopkins had a name but no story--until Paterson’s husband, John, a Presbyterian pastor, asked for help locating a Christmas story to share with his congregation. Dissatisfied with what she found at her local library, stories she considered too saccharine, Paterson decided to write her own. After that, her Christmas tales became an annual tradition at her husband’s church. One year, she happened to write about a kindly gentleman who took in two orphaned children in order to give them a wonderful holiday, but the children were not grateful. That’s who Galadriel is, Paterson said she realized: a kid who needs “someone who will take her home, whose wise love is stronger than her anger is.”

At this point in her Guild talk, Paterson explained how, like Bridge to Terabithia, the first of her well-known books to become a feature film, The Great Gilly Hopkins is partly based on a deeply personal experience.

During the Vietnam War, Paterson, a mother of four, was also briefly a foster mom to two orphaned boys from Cambodia. “I cooked rice three times a day and thought, how lucky they are,” she said. The boys were not happy, however, and the situation proved unexpectedly challenging. “I always thought of myself as a B+/C- mother,” she added with candid humor. “But I realized I was flunking.”

A moment of personal reckoning came when Paterson called herself to task for thinking, “They’re only going to be here a short time.” Then, she said, “I realized I was treating two human beings as if they were disposable, and I was deeply ashamed. So the book became my confession of sin.”

After that, Paterson said, she was determined to give Gilly Hopkins the best foster mom possible. That foster mom is Maime Trotter, whom Paterson described as her favorite character from her books. The Great Gilly Hopkins became “a story of redemption, about a girl who finds someone to love her as she is.”

Paterson intentionally infused her serious theme with humor. “After I wrote Bridge to Terabithia, which drained me emotionally, I decided to write a funny book,” she said. “I laughed a lot while I wrote The Great Gilly Hopkins. I laughed so hard I could barely type.”

It took about eight years for the book to become a movie. One of Paterson’s sons, David, wrote the adaptation, and it was decided to produce it independently rather than work with the big studios that produced Bridge to Terabithia in 2007.

Actor Kathy Bates was the first to sign on to the cast, which also includes Glenn Close, Octavia Spencer, Julia Stiles and Sophie Nelisse. Stephen Herek is the director. “They all agreed to do it for independent movie pay scale. Otherwise, we couldn’t have done it,” Paterson said, explaining that the project had a budget of $5.5 million. It was filmed over three weeks on locations in New York State, including Brooklyn and Westchester County.

Paterson described spending time on the set and said she was impressed by Nelisse, who plays Gilly. Nelisse also appeared in the title role of the film version of The Book Thief. “She’s incredible,” Paterson said. “She’s so angry and awful, and she has to persuade you in 90 minutes that she’s changing.”

The Great Gilly Hopkins premiers on October 7 at the Vermont College of Fine Arts, where Paterson is a board member. The event will benefit foster families and scholarships for the college. The movie will be available immediately for on-demand screening and will have a limited theatrical release, with distribution through Lionsgate. DVDs will become available in November.

Paterson said she has watched the movie many times, though only once, so far, in a theater. She is extremely pleased with Kathy Bates’s performance as Maime Trotter. Paterson read to her audience from a note that she received from Bates, about how meaningful it was to play a character who proved that “one right-minded person can make a difference in the life of a child.” Wrote Bates, “We need more examples of this love in our world.”

RSVP to Lawrence Liff: lliff@umd.edu

GREEN EARTH BOOK AWARDS

The Nature Generation invites you to the National Green Earth Book Awards on October 27, 2016 from 6:30pm to 9pm at the Hyatt Regency on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.  Enjoy hearing master of ceremonies Wendy Rieger (NBC News 4) and keynote speaker Jim Foster of the Anacostia Watershed Society.

Meet and help celebrate these winning authors:

Jane Yolen: The Stranded Whale

Karen Romano Young: Mission: Sea Turtle Rescue

Todd Strasser: The Beast of Cretacea

Ali Benjamin: The Thing About Jellyfish

Miranda Paul: One Plastic Bag: Isatou Ceesay and the Recycling Women of the Gambia

Tickets are $75 and can be purchased by clicking here.

WRITING CONTEST: SAN MIGUEL WRITERS' CONFERENCE AND LITERARY FESTIVAL

Submit your poetry, fiction or creative nonfiction to our writing contest before November 1, 2016, for a chance to attend the 12th Annual Writers’ Conference.

Winners Receive:

• Full conference package
• Lodging (during the conference)
• One agent pitch session (optional)
• Digital publication
• Headline a reading during the conference (optional)
• Bragging rights

Winning the contest is an exceptional opportunity for writers to attend workshops; hear  keynote speakers such as Naomi Klein, Billy Collins, David Ebershoff and others; and network with literary agents.

The contest is open to anyone writing in English who has not yet published or self-published a book that has sold more than 1,000 copies in the genre of application. So far we have not received many entries, and anyone who enters has a very good chance of being chosen.

Conference Location: Hotel real de Minas, San Miguel, Mexico

Submit your entry through Submittable: https://sanmiguelwritersconference.submittable.com/submit

For more information about the writing contest, visit: https://sanmiguelwritersconference.org/12476/

MEMBER NEWS

Burn Baby Burn, by MEG MEDINA, has been voted the 2016 Young Adult Book of the Year by the New Atlantic Independent Bookseller’s Association. 

Burn Baby Burn is also long-listed for the National Book Award, along with Booked, by KWAME ALEXANDER.

An original work of art from LULU DELACRE's book How Far Do You Love Me? was selected for the Carle Honors Art Auction Gala, held on September 28. Lulu writes, "I’m in incredible company for the show preceding the auction to be held from September 7 through 27 at Books of Wonder in New York City." 

Also, Lulu will visit schools and participate on a panel during the Virginia Children’s Book Festival on October 13 and 14.

Finally, notes Lulu, "I’m thrilled with the adorable super-soft Olinguito that the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History created. It’s available at the museum's Mammals Store, and you’ll find it decorating my book! Perhaps a nice holiday or birthday gift duo?"

A work by SUSHMITA MAZUMDAR is included in the "Dream House" exhibition at the National Building Museum, which is on display until January 22, 2017. Learn more about the exhibition at http://www.nbm.org/exhibitions-collections/related-exhibition-resources/dream-house.html, or visit Sush's website: http://studiopause.com/projects/dream-room/. Her artist's statement follows:

Time Warp through Coraline’s Door and into Treasure!

Sushmita Mazumdar
Arlington, Virginia

When Sushmita left India to come to the US to marry her sweetheart, she had to tear herself away from a family, a place, a culture, and an identity that had formed over 29 years. As she started her new family in a new culture, a new identity started to form. She was now also a wife, an immigrant, a foreigner and a mom. And then, she was an artist and writer. When her friend asked her why all the stories she writes for her handmade artist’s storybooks were about a girl from India, Sushmita realized that a physical move hardly represents places where the soul resides.

In her Dream Room, Time Warp through Coraline’s Door and into Treasure! Sushmita imagines a place for the unfinished conversations, the constellations of untold stories and the characters from her life that are lost in time. She dreams of a tiny Coraline’s door of her own that would take her into another world, through a tear in time, where she could meet people as they were “back then,” so she could finish the conversations and record the stories from that vast treasure she left behind. 

CAROLINE HICKEY's new book, Wrong Place, (Really) Wrong Time, is coming out on September 16 from Simon & Schuster! It's part of the In Due Time series, about a group of middle schoolers who discover that their librarian is a time traveler and borrow her portal (a library book!). 

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Freddie Ramos is back with a new adventure in Zapato Power: Freddie Ramos Rules New York. In the sixth book of this award-winning series by JACQUELINE JULES, Freddie and his mom go to New York City to visit Uncle Jorge. Just before they leave, Mr. Vaslov gives Freddie a new pair of zapatos to replace the ones that were getting too small. Will his new zapatos be as fast as his old ones? And will Freddie be able to help Uncle Jorge in the middle of a New York City traffic jam?

On October 22, PAMELA EHRENBERG  will be one of the workshop leaders for "A Day of Writing with Authors" at Montgomery College in Rockville. Fifth through 11th graders will spend a Saturday writing with published authors in workshops focusing on different genres. The event is sponsored by Montgomery College Youth Programs, with information available at http://www2.montgomerycollege.edu/departments/wdce/youthpdf/y_authors.pdf.

PAMELA DUNCAN EDWARDS's book Winston Was Worried, published in the U.K. by Macmillan, has just been sold to Italy, France, Israel and Turkey. 

Also, Pam's book The Boston Tea Party is being produced as an e-book by Penguin Random House.

ERIKA WIDMAIER DOOLEY, who represented TURNING THE PAGE at Guild meetings, is now teaching elementary school in Rochester, N.Y. and is the mother of an active baby. Erika is organizing a team to walk in the 2016 Monster Scramble in Rochester, on October 23, to raise funds for MS research. You can support her team at http://bit.ly/2d3RobK 

REMEMBERING ERNIE BOND, 1963-2016

Ernie Bond, Guild member and children’s literature professor at Salisbury University in Maryland, died on September 20 following a massive stroke. Maryland Professor of the Year in 2007, Ernie served as the U.S. jurist for the Hans Christian Andersen Award and actively promoted children’s literature around the world. The Nature Generation wrote, “What a wonderful soul with a passion for life, his kids and family, and his work. A children's and young adult literature guru extraordinaire, he helped us found the Green Earth Book Award and led it with zeal, integrity, and passion since its inception.”

Fellow Guild member Susan Roth offers this remembrance.

It is with very big sadness that I am writing about Ernie Bond’s untimely and unexpected death. Happy memories of the too few times we shared together are crowding into my head and heart. What a talented, generous, lovely person he was. It isn’t fair and it isn’t reasonable that he should die so soon.

I think we first met when one of my books won the Green Earth Award, which was presented at Salisbury University in Maryland, where he was on the faculty. To celebrate the event further, he invited me to exhibit the original art from that book at the beautiful Ward Museum in Salisbury. Not only that, he drove to Bethesda with his sons, Nicolas and Nathan, just to pick up the art, "to keep it safe," he said. I went to Salisbury for the wonderful event. We managed to take off in the middle of the conference to drive to Assateague, where I had never been, to see the wild horses. They were the descendants of the literary characters I had known and loved since I was about 10 years old. It was a beautiful, memorable day.

I was part of another event at his university two years ago, when Ernie orchestrated another exhibit of my work, and this time he drove all the way to New York to pick up the art. He and a friend stayed to have lunch with my family but drove back to Salisbury the same day.

Some time before or after this, Karen Leggett and I convinced Ernie to join the Children’s Book Guild. I was lucky enough to be able to attend a few meetings after he became a member, so we had some additional visits at those meetings.

I recall another time, a lovely day in New York that turned into a party when he brought the Icelandic author Andri Snær Magnason to our house. All my New York friends (the same writers and illustrators that Guild member Barbara Porte had "given" me for a present in 1998) came to meet Ernie and his friend. Not only that, Ernie’s very close colleague, Dr. Patricia Dean, also made the long trip up from Salisbury. The party lasted all day long.

When my husband and I began spending a lot of time in Copenhagen a few years ago, it was Ernie who introduced me to my circle of writers and artists and publishers there. I have made lasting friendships as well as lasting collaborations in Copenhagen, all beginning with Ernie’s introductions, his international awareness and his great generosity. (He went everywhere in the world, I think, and he knew everyone in the world working with children’s literature.) Karen Leggett’s book about Malala Yousafzai was translated and published in Danish and in Swedish, really due to Ernie’s introductions.

The last time I saw Ernie was about a year ago. He suggested that I speak at the IBBY Conference that was coming to New York. When I got the idea (from my Danish experiences) that we should create a talk on the differences found between acceptable and unacceptable language and taboos in children’s literature, especially focusing on Denmark and the United States, he knew exactly what I was thinking about. In Denmark one finds books even for very young children that are full of blatant obscenities and unashamed, unembarrassed nakedness. At the same time, most books dealing respectfully with anything multicultural or multiracial are virtually nonexistent. The very few that do address cultural and/or racial differences seem to be stereotypical at best and obviously prejudicial at worst. And, of course, here in the States our books are quite the opposite: we don't tend to approve of crude language and nudity, but these days we are (usually) very approving and respectful of cultural and racial differences. Our session filled the room to the edges and generated much laughter.

"Come to New Zealand for IBBY next time," Ernie said as we parted. "We’ll have such a good time." I wish I had been able to go, to be there with him.

Ernie Bond will be deeply missed by everyone who ever knew him, all over the world. 

If any of you would like to make a contribution in Ernie's name and in Ernie's honor, this is the project that was dearest to his heart:

ERNIE BOND CHILDREN'S LITERATURE FESTIVAL FUND

c/o Dr. Patricia Dean

803 Bradford Court

Salisbury, MD 21804

Checks should be written to: SALISBURY STATE UNIVERSITY

The Nature Generation provided this photograph of Ernie in the Curriculum Resource Center that he founded at Salisbury University’s Teacher Education and Technology Center.  Said Jenny Schmidt of the Nature Generation, "He donated his own enormous collection of children’s and young adult books, and even created an environmental reading room to contain his ever-growing collection of Green Earth Book Award winners and other good environmental literature."

DO YOU NEED A NEW GUILD NAME TAG?

If you need a new name tag for our monthly luncheons, contact Karen Leggett (leggett@comcast.net). Please leave your name tag at the registration table or bring it with you to each meeting.

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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. October's speakers include DEBBIE LEVY, ERICA PERL and HENRY COLE.

And remember, Politics & Prose is now the bookstore at the 5th and K Streets location of Busboys & Poets. Politics & Prose plans to have copies of our featured speakers' books available for purchase at this location on meeting dates whenever possible.