My older son got to pick out the books for my last set of reviews, so I brought my younger son with me this time. It took him all of about 20 seconds to pick out the five books for me to read with him, so what you see today is the “gut instinct” of a 7 year old boy, for what that’s worth. As it happens, most of them are author-illustrated books which as I always say, is daunting for someone like me with little to no artistic talent, but still hugely important as examples of the craft itself. Enjoy!
A Momentous Reading Day (Including PB Reviews)
Wednesday was a great day in our household: Maxwell got his first library card! I was nervous, not wanting to disappoint him, but sure that we would need to provide some form of ID and I’d forgotten to grab his passport or any piece of mail with his name on it. I needn’t have worried: We filled out one small card, he signed it, and voilà! He is the proud owner of TWO cards: one regular card for his wallet (signed!) and one keytag for his housekey (which was another huge moment he had been begging us for).
So, of course, since he had a spanking new card, I let him help pick out the picture books for my reviews this week and put them all an on his card. I normally try to review books from the past year, but that’s not always easy at the library. It’s a small town and although they have a phenomenal children’s room and do a great job keeping current, I relax my rule a bit there, so my library selections are all from the last 6 years (I thought they were all from the last 4, but “Ready to Dream” was given to the Library in 2012 but published in 2009). Still, pretty recent stuff all things considered! Enjoy!
The Art and Poetry Project
Sometimes the answer is just under your nose, isn’t it? Today, instead of my usual picture book reviews, I’m going to write about another one of my language joys: poetry. I was a poet long before I started writing picture books. Ironically, my mom was taking a course in Children’s Literature (to get re-certified for teaching) when I wrote my first real poem (“Alice and I go fly cross the sky…”) when I was 7 or so and I’ve been interested in poetry ever since.
A couple years ago I made contact with P at my public library who runs poetry readings, etc. and had posted about a project she was starting connecting poetry and art. As is the case with most creative projects, it was amorphous at first: maybe we would find artists and each create something with the same prompt, maybe we would find artists and create poetry based on their works, maybe some combination…who knows? The goal was ultimately to have an exhibition pairing the art and poetry. For two years, I’ve been visiting museums and practicing writing using art as my inspiration. We’ve held meetings to hone our craft and share our ideas. I’ve written a lot, but even after making contacts with a few artists, I haven’t had luck hitting on the right partnership.
Then last month one of my sons had a piece of art in a local gallery as part of their youth exhibit. My friend P saw the exhibit too and said I should write something based on Robbie’s work (titled “Behind the Cat”). By the time I finished working on my cat poem, I realized the answer had been there all along. The result: next summer I’ll be presenting an exhibition of poetry based on the artwork of my children. The artwork in the photo at the top of this post represents two of the works I will include: “Circles and Patterns,” and “A Happy Accident” It’s perfect — tying together art, poetry, writing for kids and…my children themselves. I have a long way to go to get the art and the poems both ready but now I have a goal. And that’s pretty exciting.
So the moral of this writing story is a quote from the 1939 film “The Wizard of Oz”: “If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own backyard; because if it isn’t there, I never really lost it to begin with.”
More picture book reviews later this week: it’s summer vacation, after all.
Welcome Summer! PB Reviews!
Finally, it’s Summer vacation time! Best time in the world for teachers! My older son is at cub scout camp for the week, and the younger one was sleeping in, so I got a solo Barnes & Noble visit today (and also scored a cool Doctor Who cup at %50 off!). Finally got the chance to read a couple bestselling picture books I’ve been anxious to read, and I actually read about twice as many as I’m including reviews for, so I’ve got only the best for you here today! Enjoy!
Brand-spanking-new book reviews: Finals Week Edition
Wow, it’s been a month since my last post– sorry folks! In the meantime, I’ve been working on helping my mentee with manuscript edits for “FicFest,” I helped bring a great group of kids to the national Speech & Debate competition in California, and I finished up teaching my classes for the year– finals started today! Happily, I also squeezed in a trip to Barnes & Noble yesterday, so I have a new crop of picture book reviews. Even better, they are ALL for books published within the last month– in fact, one of them technically hasn’t even been officially released! Enjoy!
Sunday afternoon Book Reviews!
I had a family get-together on Saturday, so my book review plans were postponed until today. My 10 year old helped me with the choices today, all from a visit to Barnes & Noble. There are some good ones today, all very different and all very new– nothing more than 2 months old, people! This industry changes quickly!
Saturday Picture Book Reviews: #FicFest Edition
As I mentioned in my last post, I am a mentor for a new writing contest called “FicFest” — I recently read all 71 picture book entries and decided on one of them which I will be mentoring for the next 8 weeks in order to make it shine for the “agent round.” It’s already in pretty good shape and I’m excited to work with the author as I think we have a lot in common. It’s daunting to be a mentor when you’re not published yourself– it’s very easy to let the insecurities take over because, really, why should she listen to me, right? So, before I start my book reviews today, I remind all of you that I’m just one reader: you may love or hate anything I talk about today regardless of my opinion. However, after reading 71 picture books in three days, I can also tell you it gives you a Heck of an education! Some of it is humbling: there are amazing writers out there with some breadth of knowledge and depth of experience that is totally inspiring. And at the same time, some of it reminds me that in my 44 years on the planet I have actually accumulated some knowledge and experience myself: I’ve got skills in poetry, in pacing a story, in writing a good cover letter, whatever. It also reminds me that one of the best ways to become a good writer is to read more.
And as part of that goal, I bring you today’s 5 picture book reviews. I hope they help you– either to choose your next book to read, or to find some insight about your own writing.
#FicFest – Submissions tomorrow! (And six tips for PB writers)
One of the amazing benefits of becoming part of the Twitter community as a writer is hearing the latest news about contests and other opportunities to connect with agents and publishers. I’ve quickly become a fan of “Twitter Pitch” fests such as #PBPitch and #PitMad and will post about them another time. Through contests like those, one has a relatively risk-free way to get your ideas out there and potentially attract the interest of an agent or editor. While I do get requests from those occasionally, I also generally make several new Twitter connections (both people I follow and new followers) on a Twitter pitch day, connections through which I learn even more about the industry and about more upcoming events. It’s a great cycle.
Chickadees and Robots
My boys came home from school on Friday talking about voting for their favorite books. I learned that both of their schools were collecting votes for the “Chickadee Award,” a picture book award voted on by Maine K-4 students. All 10 nominees for the 2015/16 award are picture books published in 2014 and my boys were eager to tell me about their favorites. Since my school district was having a library fundraiser at the Portsmouth Barnes & Noble this past Sunday anyway, I figured it would be a perfect time for us to go check out all the Chickadee nominees. Sadly, they only had one of the books on the shelf, so we weren’t able to look at all of them. They didn’t seem to mind, though, since the high school’s robotics team was on hand for demos and the kids were thrilled to see the robots at work and even get to drive them!
Since we couldn’t get all the Chickadee nominees at the bookstore, we read a few others too, and I ordered their favorite Chickadee nominee, “A Boy and A Jaguar” for our Kindle. (I think it’s my favorite of the day, though Iggy comes close). Read on for the results of our afternoon!
Saturday Picture Book Reviews: Unexpected Behaviors
This morning we headed to Portsmouth with the boys to run pre-Easter shopping errands and spend some time at Barnes & Noble. I read a huge pile of picture books to the boys, and my husband browsed the aisles and drank coffee. I was excited to finally get the chance to read some books which have been getting real buzz on Twitter, especially those by Julie Falatko (Maine Author!), Ame Dyckman and Tara Lazar, all of whom I’ve been following on Twitter for a while. Tara is the brainchild behind “PiBoIdMo”– “Picture Book Idea Month”– which I participated in this past fall. The concept is to come up with ideas for 30 new picture books, one for each day in the month of November. It’s a great writer’s challenge, made even better by the support found on Tara’s blog, on Facebook and on Twitter. Tara has a few other books I’m also itching to read, but one will do for today.
I titled today’s post “Unexpected Behaviors,” because all the books I’m reviewing seem to subvert the expected idea of the book– either by breaking the 4th wall, or by having an unexpected plot twist. In my children’s school, they are taught about expected and unexpected behaviors (e.g. pushing vs. standing quietly) as part of the school’s “responsive classroom” behavior management philosophy. So my kids know all about what constitutes “unexpected behavior.” There’s plenty of it in these stories! Enjoy the reviews!
Schreibenfreude 