March 2018

HENA KHAN WRITES BOOKS FOR YOUNG READERS TO TREASURE

Like so many other writers, Guild member Hena Khan grew up with her nose in a book. She still thinks of the characters and stories she absorbed years ago. That’s why she loves writing for kids—in the hope that something she wrote will help shape them and become a favorite book they turn to again and again. Hena explores her Pakistani-American culture in her writing, along with space, spies and other adventures. Amina’s Voice is her most recent middle grade novel; it was named a best book of 2017 by Kirkus, NPR and the Washington Post, and was selected as a Cybils Finalist and an ALSC Notable Book. Amina's Voice was the debut title of Simon & Schuster’s Salaam Reads imprint, which aims to introduce readers of all faiths and backgrounds to a wide variety of Muslim children and families, and to offer Muslim kids an opportunity to see themselves reflected positively in published works.

Hena also wrote Mars and Amazon, two books in the Worst-Case Scenario Ultimate Adventure series; and she has authored several picture books, including Golden Domes and Silver Lanterns, Night of the Moon and It’s Ramadan, Curious George. Forthcoming in 2018 are the picture books Crescent Moons and Pointed Minarets and Under My Hijab, and the Zayd Saleem: Chasing the Dream chapter book series. Hena grew up in Rockville, MD, where she still lives with her husband and two sons. You can learn more about Hena and her books at henakhan.com or follow her @henakhanbooks.

Hena's program will follow the business portion of the March 15 meeting. Please note that this meeting is open to Guild members only.

Date: Thursday, March 15 

Time: 6:15-8:30 p.m. 

Location: Tenley-Friendship Library 

                4450 Wisconsin Avenue NW
The library is on the southwest corner of the Wisconsin Avenue-Albemarle Street intersection.

Metro: Tenleytown AU Station 

Parking: There is limited metered parking on Albemarle Street and ample parking under the Best Buy/Ace Hardware adjacent to the west exit of the Tenley Metro station. 

A light dinner will be served and includes a vegetarian option.
The cost is $10 ($11 when paid online via PayPal)

RSVP NOW!

IN THIS ISSUE:
1. The April 7 Event Honoring Nonfiction Award-Winner Phillip Hoose--Reserve Your Place Now!
2. Donate Books for Deserving Schools--There's Still Time!
3. Sidwell Friends School Rejoins the Guild
4. Member Nomination: Winifred Conkling
5. Elizabeth Zunon's Winning Formula: Eyes, Hands and Imagination
6. Update on the Guild's Publishing Venture
7. Member News
8. "Quick Links"
9. Proposed Change to the Bylaws

PHILLIP HOOSE: 2018 NONFICTION AWARD WINNER

The Children’s Book Guild of Washington, D.C., has selected Phillip Hoose as its 2018 Nonfiction Award Winner. The award, given annually since 1977, honors authors or illustrators whose total work has contributed significantly to the quality of nonfiction for children. Hoose will be honored at a Children’s Book Guild award luncheon on April 7, 2018, at Clyde's Restaurant of Gallery Place, 707 7th Street NW, Washington, D.C. Tickets are now available.

Hoose’s books explore important topics through protagonists whose stories compel readers “to turn to the next page because they want to know what’s going to happen to someone or something they care about,” Hoose told Book Links. His protagonists range from teenagers such as Claudette Colvin and Knud Pederson to the tiny red knot bird and the great ivory billed woodpecker. “I like to find stories that have not been told that I think will inspire young readers,” said Hoose.

Hoose has won numerous honors for individual books. Claudette Colvin: Twice toward Justice, the story of an impassioned teenager who refused to give her seat to a white woman on a segregated bus in Montgomery, AL, won the National Book Award as well as Newbery and Robert F. Sibert Honor Awards. Hoose won another Robert F. Sibert Honor Award for his most recent title, The Boys Who Challenged Hitler: Knud Pederson and The Churchill Club, the story of teens who challenged the German occupation of Denmark.

BOOK DONATIONS FOR THE NONFICTION AWARD LUNCHEON BASKETS

There's still time to help fill the book baskets that will be given to designated local schools (TBA) at the Nonfiction Award luncheon, on Saturday, April 7.  Members can bring donated books to the March business meeting. If you prefer, you may bring the books to Joan Waites at 9715 Fairway Ave., Silver Spring, MD 20901, or mail them to her at that address. Please make sure that all books reach Joan by March 30, so that she has time to put together the baskets.


RETURNING ORGANIZATIONAL MEMBER: SIDWELL FRIENDS SCHOOL

After a short hiatus, Sidwell Friends School, in Washington, DC, is excited to rejoin the Children's Book Guild as an organizational member. For many years Sidwell Friends was represented by Cynthia Grady, who moved to New Mexico. (Cynthia is now an out-of-town member in the author category.) Angela Smith, the Lower School librarian, is looking forward to being the new representative for Sidwell Friends.

Angela, who lives with her family in Washington, DC, has been a classroom teacher in the primary grades, a Reading Recovery specialist and a middle school science teacher. She has been the Lower School librarian for the last 12 years and will serve on the 2018 Children’s Fiction panel for the Nature Generation’s Green Earth Book Awards. During her library tenure she has taught classes that include building children’s repertoire of the classics, normalizing diversity in youth literature, digital citizenship, anti-bias curriculum development, print vs. online research projects and literacy justice through service learning. Angela has also recently presented to her peers on these same topics at local, state and international conferences. One of Angela’s proudest achievements over the past eight years has been founding the Jamaica Library Project with the Green-Williams family. The project was created to build libraries in under-served schools in Westmoreland, Jamaica, working in partnership with the Sidwell Friends School, the Jamaican Ministry of Education, the Caribbean Peace Corps, Jet Blue Airlines and the William Penn House. The Jamaica Library Project has to date built five elementary school libraries with collections of 3,000 books in each and is working on launching a sixth library in spring 2018.

MEMBER NOMINATION: WINIFRED CONKLING

Catherine Reef proposes Winifred Conkling for membership in the Children's Book Guild in the author category. Jacqueline Jules seconds the nomination.

Conkling is the author of several books for young readers, among them Votes for Women!: American Suffragists and the Battle for the Ballot (Algonquin Young Readers, 2018) and Radioactive! How Irène Curie and Lise Meitner Revolutionized Science and Changed the World (Algonquin Young Readers, 2016). She also helped adapt Margot Lee Shetterly’s Hidden Figures into a picture book for Harper Collins (2018).

Her middle grade nonfiction book Passenger on the Pearl: The True Story of Emily Edmonson’s Flight from Slavery (Algonquin Young Readers, 2015) won the Carter Woodson Award from the National Council for the Social Studies. Her middle grade novel Sylvia & Aki (Random House, 2011) won the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award and the Tomás Rivera Mexican-American Children’s Book Award.

Winifred Conkling lives in Vienna, VA. She has attended Guild meetings and looks forward to participating in more Guild functions in the future. Visit her website at www.winifredconkling.com.

AUTHOR-ILLUSTRATOR ELIZABETH ZUNON EMPLOYS SKILL AND IMAGINATION
by Kitson Jazynka

Author-illustrator Elizabeth Zunon spoke to the Guild in February about her life as a children’s book illustrator, the process behind her beautiful artwork and growing up in both the United States and the Ivory Coast, as well as her obsession with cacao pods. Her new picture book (her ninth as an illustrator) is called The Legendary Miss Lena Horne. It was written by award-winning author Carole Boston Weatherford and just came out in January.

Zunon shared stories about her life as a child straddling two cultures. She was born in Albany, NY, but grew up in tropical Abidjan. Summer visits to the States as a kid meant trips to the library with her grandmother and watching Reading Rainbow on TV. But even after she moved back to the United States and began her studies at the Rhode Island School of Design, life in West Africa was always on her mind and continues to be reflected in her work.

From the beautiful beads and fabrics she uses to accent her paintings to the jewelry and other items she crafts, her artwork brings together worlds. Inspired by her book One Plastic Bag, she sometimes weaves with recycled materials. To create the original paintings that become illustrations for her books, she starts with lots of research and thumbnail sketches. Then she plays her favorite music and spends months painting in her living room. She starts by covering sheets of watercolor paper with brightly colored acrylic paint, like hot pink or orange, as a base. “I love how it reacts with blue skies, dark skin tones and green grass,” she said, noting that she uses oil paints for the subjects of her art. “It makes for unexpected color relationships in the visual story.”

When she’s done with paint, she adds bit of fabric, beads and textured or printed paper for a collage effect. In her book about Lena Horne, this meant gluing tulle fabric and tiny cut-outs of silver paper onto her painting to mimic a fancy sequined outfit the famous singer once wore. In another illustration for the same book, Zunon photographed the pattern of her own grandmother’s vintage couch, printed the pattern in color on paper, then made cut-outs to decorate a couch. Between research, sketching, revising and painting, it might take a year before she’s ready to carefully pack up her paintings in a box and mail them to her editor. “Sometimes that’s the hardest part,” she said, “letting go of the art when I’m done.”

Luckily for this brilliant, young artist, there always seems to be another project right around the corner. These days she’s working on her first book as an author-illustrator: Grandpa Cacao, due out in May 2019. The cacao fruit pods that turn into chocolate have been both good luck charms for Zunon (she always has one on her desk) and inspiration. She first dreamed up the idea for this book when she was in college. It’s based on a story her father told her about her grandfather’s life on a cacao plantation in the Ivory Coast. She listens to music from her childhood as she paints, surrounded by the beautiful cacao pods that provide endless inspiration. “No matter what materials I have at my disposal,” she said, “my most important tools are my eyes, my hands and my imagination.”

THE GUILD EXPLORES THE POSSIBILITY OF PUBLISHING A BOOK
by Rhoda Trooboff

Meeting on February 25, 2018, the Guild’s Executive Board approved formation of an Anthology Publishing Team to dig deeper into the many practicalities of publishing an anthology of members’ work in celebration of the Guild’s 75th anniversary in 2020. At the meeting the Board discussed critical elements that such a publication project would entail.

The Executive Board’s decision was based on results of the recent Guild survey on this topic. Of 146 members surveyed, 82 members responded as follows:

·         74 expressed positive interest in publishing the anthology;

·         46 offered to submit work for the anthology; and

·         52 offered to volunteer in some capacity.

      The Anthology Publishing Team, comprising initially five to seven members, will be formed in late spring and will have a seed budget from the Guild treasury of no more than $1,000. More detailed information and the first invitation to participate in the team will follow at the annual business meeting.

MEMBER NEWS

Peachtree Publishers will release FRED BOWEN's next book on March 1. It is a story about baseball--and baseball superstitions--called Lucky Enough. 

LAURA GEHL's new book, I GOT A CHICKEN FOR MY BIRTHDAY, illustrated by Sarah Horne, also releases on March 1. Kirkus called the book "an ingenious treat for all ages" in a starred review.

Burn Baby Burn, by MEG MEDINA, comes out in paperback this month.

SUSAN STOCKDALE will sign her picture books at Peachtree Publisher’s booth during the Public Library Association’s Annual Conference in Philadelphia on Friday, March 23, from 10:30 to 11:30 a.m. She will present an informal family program in the National Museum of Natural History’s Discovery Room in Washington, DC, on Tuesday, March 27, from 1 to 2 p.m., followed by a book signing in the Family Store from 2 to 3 p.m.

MOIRA ROSE DONOHUE's first book with Scholastic is Great White Sharks.

Florence Nightingale, by CATHERINE REEF, was selected for the 2018 Amelia Bloomer List of recommended feminist literature for readers from birth through age 18: 
https://ameliabloomer.wordpress.com/2018/02/15/2018-amelia-bloomer-list/.


MARY QUATTLEBAUM will moderate panels on the power of poetic play and considering gender in children’s picture books at the Association of Writers and Writing Programs (AWP) Conference in Tampa, FL, March 7 through 10.


MICHELLE GREEN writes: "I went to New York City with my mother February 23 and 24, to attend the Athena Awards. The script for the movie based on A Strong Right Arm: The Story of Mamie 'Peanut' Johnson won an award for best script. The Athena Awards are a female-centric film festival. Mike Leahy and Lori Leahy, his wife, wrote the script, and they stayed at the Park West while my mom and I took the train and stayed at the Belvedere Hotel. The script tells the backstory of how I met Mamie, and my two sons, Bryan Green and Evan Green, will be in the movie."

LULU DELACRE shares this news: "I’m very pleased that Us, in Progress: Short Stories About Young Latinos was listed as a Kirkus Best Book of 2017, A New York Public Library Best Book of 2017 and a Los Angeles Public Library Best Book of 2017. It was also awarded a Malka Penn Award for Human Rights in Children’s Literature Honor. 

"Last month I turned in the art for Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s autobiography. My editor showed the art to Justice Sotomayor and shared her reaction with me: 'She was just over the moon about how gorgeous everything was. She was talking about the fantastic outfits you gave her and how beautiful you made her look and how wonderful the movement and the motion and the detail and everything was.' This is the first time I am illustrating the life of a living person, so I was delighted with her response. Look for the release of Turning Pages in September!

"Since the justice’s book might shine some light on my artwork, I decided to revamp my website. I hired a designer who did a marvelous job! The site has a gallery, and I’m so excited about it. After 15 years using the Author’s Guild platform, having a way to showcase my art is fantastic. Please come and visit: www.luludelacre.com."



ERICA PERL brings her fellow Guild members up to date with the following: "I’m back from a wonderful trip to Zambia, and I am getting adjusted to falling asleep without the sounds of hippos. (I went on safari for a week after the school visit that brought me there.) I'm happy to discuss my experiences with any Guild members curious about travel to this fascinating region or international school visits (or hippos). My school visit was to the American International School of Lusaka, where I spent a wonderful week working with pre-K students through fifth graders on a wide variety of writing projects. The school surprised me at the end with a very sweet video they made to document the week, which can be viewed here: https://youtu.be/hOeUuPLOAb4.

"Also, I have been writing a new series of young chapter books for Simon and Schuster called Craftily Ever After, about the adventures and misadventures of four friends who love crafting and STEM projects. I’m writing under the name 'Martha Maker' (as per S&S tradition, in case I ever decide to leave the series, though I have no plans to–I am currently working on books five and six). My illustrator is the extremely talented Xindi Yan (who gets to use her real name… guess she’s stuck with me!). The first books, The Unfriendship Bracelet and Making the Band, come out March 27."

"QUICK LINKS"

Here is a link to MARGARET MEACHAM's article "Five Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Children's Book Mistakes" in The Writer: https://www.writermag.com/2018/01/16/childrens-book-mistakes/.

PROPOSED CHANGE TO GUILD BYLAWS TO BE VOTED ON AT THE MARCH 15 MEETING

The bylaws currently state:

In the case of authors and/or illustrators, their works should include at least two books that have been issued by a reputable publisher, within the past five years.

Proposed change:

In the case of authors and/or illustrators, their works should include at least one book that has been issued by a reputable publisher.

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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.