October 2022

Upcoming October Program

An Evening Conversation with author Leah Henderson (via Zoom)

Thursday, October 20, at 7 p.m. EST. 

Our October Guild Speaker Series program will be a virtual conversation with Leah Henderson, author of the marvelous middle grade novels The Magic in Changing Your Stars (an SCBWI Golden Kite Award finalist) and One Shadow on the Wall (a Children’s Africana Book Award Notable and a Bank Street Best Book). Leah’s beautiful and moving picture books include Daddy Speaks Love, Together We March (an SCBWI Golden Kite Award finalist), A Day for Rememberin’, and the forthcoming Your Voice, Your Vote. Her short stories are included in Black Enough: Stories of Being Young & Black in America, and the forthcoming anthologies Calling the Moon and Out of Our League.

Leah holds an MFA in Writing and is on faculty in Spalding University’s graduate writing program. An avid traveler, Leah has explored more than 60 countries. She was born in Richmond, grew up in Andover, Massachusetts and lives in Washington, D.C. 
 
Find Leah on Twitter @LeahsMark or at her website: leahhendersonbooks.com.

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October Charity: Books donated this month will go to Black Swan Academy, a non-profit organization in Washington, D.C. that empowers Black youth through civic leadership and engagement.

From Guild President Jason Wells

Dear Guild Members,

In September we once again celebrated Banned Books week. While having a book banned is never why anyone writes a book, the kind of media that accompanies a controversy can help sales and increase conversations around the topic. I work for the American Psychological Association (APA) and we have had many books banned over the years. If you are curious to discover which ones, feel free to read this article. The Guild would be happy to create a list of books by members who have been included in banning. Please email me with the title, a link to where it was banned, and any other information. We can get a list up on the Guild website and add to it. Here’s to a terrific October for all, and I hope to see you at our virtual events.

Jason Wells, Guild President

In Case You Missed Our September Program ...

Margarita Engle in Conversation with Zara Gonzalez Hoang

by Betsy Kraft
At our September Guild meeting, members heard an interview with Cuban-American poet, novelist and memoirist Margarita Engle. Her books have received many awards including a Newbery Honor, Pura Belpre, Golden Kite and many others. She also served as the national Young People’s Poet Laureate in 2017-2018. She spoke with Guild member Zara Gonzalez Hoang on how she writes, how she gathers material and her concerns regarding the state of childrens’ books in the United States.

Born in Los Angeles, Engle frequently visited Cuba, her mother’s homeland, as a child. She absorbed much of the culture of rural life there and envied her horseback-riding, outdoor-living cousins. Asked if she regarded herself as two different personalities, Engle said she often thought of herself as a twin — one who was in the United States and the other who stayed in Cuba.

Back in California, a mentor in college encouraged her poetry writing and told her not to worry about getting published: just pursue the freedom of expression she found in verse. But before she focused on her poetry, she followed her love of nature and majored in agronomy (the science of soil management and crop production), serving as a professor for many years before turning to writing full time.

Engle is drawn to events and figures from Cuban history, as in Surrender Tree, based in 19th century Cuba. She usually writes in first person, present tense, trusting her young readers to regard the form as a kind of time travel. Though much of Cuban history, both past and recent, is full of dark events, Engle always looks for stories with a hopeful end. In history she at least knows how stories turn out, she observed.

When asked to comment on her revision process she said her first draft is always written in pen on paper, allowing her to feel that “anything is possible.” Then she works to make sure she is communicating with her reader. Her poems, she thinks, appeal to reluctant readers because of a partially blank page and to serious readers who love a literary challenge.

In her most recent book, Wings in the Wild, Engle tells the story of a teenage couple caught in the web of Latin American immigration. They fall in love as they work for artistic and environmental justice. In the past she has avoided subjects taboo to the Cuban government, but now she is less guarded and willing to risk the country’s strict censorships law. As to censorship in the United States, she sees it as a real and growing threat. One of her books, Drum Dream Girl, has been banned by a Pennsylvania library for reasons she can’t comprehend.

Member News

Fred Bowen's latest book, Hardcourt: Stories From 75 Years of the National Basketball Association, was named one of the Top Ten Sports Books for Youth in 2022 by Booklist.

Sue Fliess has a new Thanksgiving book available: How to Hide a Turkey!, illustrated by Simona Sanfilippo and published by Sky Pony Press. It is the 7th book in her Magical Creatures and Crafts Series. The story follows four children on a nature walk on Thanksgiving Day. They meet a lost turkey they hope to make their pet, but even turkeys should be with their families on Thanksgiving.

Joy Jones, author of Jayla Jumps In, will be a panelist (on the Novel Author Panel) at the SCBWI Mid-Atlantic Fall Conference on Saturday, October 22. Joy will present with Kate Albus and Meera Trehan.

Jacqueline Jules is excited to announce the October 1st publication of My Name is Hamburger (Kar-Ben). In this middle grade verse novel, Trudie Hamburger is the only Jewish kid living in the small southern town of Colburn in 1962. Nobody else at her school has a father who speaks with a German accent or a last name that means chopped meat. Trudie doesn't want to be the girl who cries when Daniel Reynolds teases her. Or the girl who hides in the library to avoid singing Christian songs in music class. She doesn't want to be different. But over the course of a few pivotal months, as Trudie confronts her fears and embraces what she loves―including things that make her different from her classmates―she finally finds a way to say her name with pride.

Susan L. Roth is pleased to have five of her children's book illustrations on exhibit in the Eric Carle Museum's "Celebrating Collage: A 20th Anniversary Exhibition," on now through the end of the year. She is further pleased that one of her illustrations from the show (a self-portrait at an art-exhibit-and-book-signing event) was chosen for the Carle's postcard announcing the exhibit.

Debra Kempf Shumaker's nonfiction picture book Peculiar Primates: Fun Facts About these Curious Creatures, illustrated by Claire Powell, releases on October 11th with Running Press Kids. It's the follow-up to her debut Freaky, Funky Fish, released in May of 2021. From flossing and howling, to building nests and thumping chests, Peculiar Primates explores the amazing things primates do in fun, rhyming text and adorable illustrations.

Susan Stockdale is happy to report that five of her books: Bring On the Birds, Fabulous Fishes, Carry Me, Fantastic Flowers and Bird Show have been licensed for publication in Indonesia by the Ministry of Education to promote childhood literacy in that country.

An Open Book Foundation will participate in District Hunt, a DC-based scavenger hunt held October 1-10. This annual, themed event highlights the work of area nonprofits, and is put together by DC nonprofit Game Genius. This year's theme is "literacy." Guild members can play in two ways: against other teams on October 1 or on your own time between October 2-10. This year's game is called "The Wordsmith’s Wriddle.” The event directly supports Game Genius' play-based mission while promoting local organizations in the DMV region. Click here for ticket information. AOB invites Guild members to use the discount code (PARTNER22) to waive registration fee.