Folderol

Folderol

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Oodles of caboodles of strudels and noodles for you today…. poodles.  Lots of stuff to get through, so let’s make it short and sweet.

  • First and foremost, SPOGG has taken my suggestion (so to speak) for a second name.  And with a name like SPOGG, it’s gotta be good.

  • I just found me a new Mock Newbery blog.  Sharon’s Mock Newbery is brand spanking new and, happily, is considering many titles I already adore for their mock award.  If you know of other Mock Newberys (can we call them MoNes?), please write their name in my comment section but NOT their URL.  I’ll find them as long as I know their names.  URLs send this blog into a tizzy and cancel out comments quick as a wink.  FYI

  • Speaking of pretty blogs I’d never seen before, check out author/bookseller Sarah Miller and her lovely layout.  THAT is how you do it, people.  Authors who haven’t made their own blogs yet, take note.  Mighty nice template, don’t  you think?

  • Poor Pooh. He’s just such a sucker for the press. Looks like someone found my library’s dirty little secret.  Go through the Guest Book and see how patriots the darling Brits get in the presence of one of their own.  I’ve contemplating blogging on this topic in the past, but was always a little scared that maybe I’d get in trouble with NYPL as a result.  Glad to see the New York Times has no such ties.  Thanks to Educating Alice for the heads up.

  • My love for all things foreign children’s book related knows no bounds.  If I were to have a different job I’d be the American based publisher of foreign children’s books.  How awesome would that job be?  You get to see worldwide goodies before anyone else in your country.  You’d get first pick on things like Else-Marie and the Seven Little Daddies, The Rabbits, and The Zoo.  Now Kids Lit has located a great article called German Writers Beat English Barrier With Kids’ Books, discussing German authors in our current kidlit market.  Quick Question: Anyone familiar with Laura’s Star?  Never heard of that one but the article really talks it up.  In any case, let’s raise a glass to more international authors and illustrators breaking into the American publishing scene.

  • Recently I received an e-mail from Anne Marie Pace.  In it, she mentioned the following: ""My family recently vacationed in Chincoteague, home of Marguerite Henry’s MISTY. I was struck by the irony that this beautiful island, which gave its name to such a well-beloved children’s book, has the highest illiteracy and poverty rates in Virginia. The Chincoteague Island Library is in the midst of a fund drive to garner funds to build a new library building with room for literacy programs and children’s programs, among other things."  To bring more attention to this issue she is now discussing The Chincoteague Island Library and its current fund drive on her blog.  Be sure to give it a peek.

  • At some point I’m just going to secretly hide a direct feed from Eric Berlin’s blog into my own.  I may as well.  At this point I’m just stealing all the stuff he finds anyway.  For example, it’s not kidlit related but how the heck am I supposed to resist something called The "Blog" of "Unnecessary" Quotation Marks?  In college a friend of mine would go about putting quotation marks around certain words that appeared on flyers.  "Study" Hour This Sunday.  Call Me For a "Free" Couch.  I loved unnecessary quotes ever since.

  • This is a note to my fellow librarians out there.  Has anyone else noticed the increase in bizarro patrons in the last week?  Is it just my branch or is it more widespread?  I tell you that reading an article like Working in the public library can be strange certainly puts my mind at ease.  It’s not just us, it’s not just us, it’s not just us . . . .

  • Then we start to get silly.  For example, there is this item that comes in handy when holding a book is just too damn hard.  And again from Eric Berlin it’s Stephen Colbert! In Rubic Cube form!

Best Read with Vegemite: One Shot World Tour – John Marsden and “The Rabbits” (Part One)

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You can’t talk about Australian authors for youth without the name of John Marsden coming up. Sorry. Can’t be done. If we are to believe Something About the Author (Vol. 146) it is because, "First, he is known for not talking down to his audience, fully aware that for many teenagers, life is bleak, challenging, and dangerous. Second, he is applauded for his ability to craft exciting adventure stories in while the young protagonists are called to adult action – with all its moral and ethical implications." Authors that find success in the critical and commercial realms alike live the dream in a lot of way.  Best known, perhaps, for this Tomorrow, When the War Began series, Marsden’s work extends from YA novels to picture books to the creation of his very own school.

Fun Facts:

  • He is the son of Eustace Culham Hudson, which is (let us face it) a magnificent name.

  • The Journey was adapted into an opera by the Australian Music Centre in 1999.

  • In 2006 Marsden opened his own school by the name of Candlebark. The article discussing the matter says that he has books in, "one of every 12 Australian households." Oh my. It makes me wonder what would happen if J.K. Rowling were to do the same.

  • In Something about the Author Autobiography Series (SAAS) he wrote, "Growing up in Australia wasn’t a matter of kangaroos, surfboards, and the wild outback. Not for me anyway. My childhood was spent in the quiet country towns in the green southern states of Victoria and Tasmania. It was peaceful, secure, and often very boring."

  • Marsden has had at least thirty-two different jobs.

  • According to Wikipedia (notoriously unreliable) "In 1982, he was arrested while on the blockade attempting to stop construction of the Franklin Dam. As all the prisons in the region were full due to the number of people arrested, Marsden was placed in the high-security Risdon Prison for a night. He later wrote that he used the experience to help him write scenes in Letters From The Inside and parts of the Tomorrow series."

  • Of Catcher in the Rye in SAAS, "I’d never dreamt you were allowed to write like that . . . For the first time I was reading a genuine, contemporary teenage voice. If I’ve had any success at capturing teenage voices on paper, it’s because of what I learnt at the age of fifteen from J.D. Salinger."

  • Of what may be remembered as his most outstanding book, The Rabbits, the Horn Book review said, "This book is a title to jolt readers . . . There is no doubt as to the writer’s intentions: to sober , sadden, and provoke."

He has a truly beautiful website that requires an enormous screen to view it properly. He also keeps a blog with titles to his posts like Alice: an unsolved mystery, Go ask Alice, and The Elusive Alice, down in the garden, possibly eating cucumbers. It is also notable in that this blog began with the following statement: "I can feel a blog coming on. I am about to blog. I’ve never blogged before but when a blog forms in your stomach and starts to work its way through your system, you know what it is. Blog. Oh God, sorry, that was a big blog, and now I’m about to blog all over the room."

(CONTINUED IN PART TWO)

John Marsden and “The Rabbits” (Part Two)

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(CONTINUED FROM PART ONE)

The Rabbits is the book that drew me the closest to Mr. Marsden. Certainly a fair share of credit goes to Shaun Tan but the writing in this title has a power that is difficult to ignore.

For further info, here are Shaun Tan’s comments about The Rabbits as found on his website:

Comments on The Rabbits

The parallels with a real history of colonisation in Australia and around the world are obvious, and based on detailed research, in spite of the overt surrealism of the imagery and the absence of direct references. It was named Picture Book of the Year by the Children’s Book Council, which in part generated some controversy due to it’s confronting themes, and was attacked on several occasions for being ‘politically correct propaganda’, but only by right wing conservatives of course. In spite of this (or because of it), the book went on to win numerous awards in Australia, the US and UK, and is studied widely in secondary schools. It would seem that some of my concepts and designs were unacknowledged inspiration for a section of the opening ceremony of the 2000 Sydney Olympics, although I’ve never been able to find out if this is true.

One reason for the initial controversy is that The Rabbits is a picture book, and therefore thought to be children’s literature, and wrongly assumed to be didactic, whereas it had been originally conceived as a book for older readers, and generally difficult to categorise. Some children may get a lot out of it, but generally it defies most picture book conventions and is not necessarily a good choice for pleasant bedtime reading!


(CONTINUED IN PART THREE)

John Marsden and “The Rabbits” (Part Three)

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(CONTINUED FROM PART TWO)

Here now is my old review for the book. I wrote this three years ago, and would probably describe it in different terms today, but I agree with this sentiment all the same.


First of all, I’m going to admit right here and now that I was seriously depressed as a child by Dr. Suess’s, "The Lorax". A great book and a great story and a great moral and it brought me down low. But that’s okay. I got over it. I was doing all right. Then I idly picked up John Marsden’s, "The Rabbits" in my local lending library. Suddenly all the feelings I’d ever felt after reading "The Lorax" were back, but stronger. I came to the realization that this book was better than the Seussian creation. It carries a different message, but the idea behind the tale (and the method of teaching it) is the same. Once you’ve read "The Rabbits", you can’t unread it. It sticks in your brain and you start to see its scenes replaying themselves in your mind at the oddest of times. The best word I can conjure up to describe this book is "haunting". It’s like nothing you’ve ever read before.

To read this book requires understanding a little about its background. Originally published in Australia, the book is about the effects of colonization. As you may recall, rabbits were once a foreign species that was introduced to the Australian wildlife with disastrous results. Devouring the native resources and spreading like mad, both they and cane toads are considered dangerous pests. Taking that idea as a starter, we follow the arrival of civilized rabbits on a vaguely Australian-like land. The story is told from the point of view of some brown curly tailed spear carrying native animals. As the book begins, the native animals say, "At first we didn’t know what to think. They looked a bit like us. There weren’t many of them". Then time passes and more and more rabbits come to the land. They build their own kinds of houses and introduce their own animals. When the native creatures (bush babies, perhaps?) fight back, they loose because there are too many rabbits. The rabbits destroy the land and (in the worst and most heart-wrenching scene in the book) they, "Stole Our Children". Rabbit driven planes fly away with little baby creatures in kites trailing behind as they parents run along the ground, their arms extended. In the end, the land is bare and all the animals are gone. In a final picture, a native creature sits across from a rabbit next to a tiny puddle that reflects the stars, the ground littered with trash. The animal asks, "Who will save us from the rabbits?"

Sad? You don’t know the half of it. It was delightful seeing how many details in this tale were particular to the Australian aboriginal people. The fact that their children were taken by the white settlers to be taught in white schools. Pictures of the fights (natives destroying the rabbit proof fences). Symbols repeat in illustration after illustration. The rabbit’s flags look British, until you realize that the lines on them are arrows pointing everywhere. The guns and houses of the rabbits are inscribed with the words, "Might = Right". If author John Marsden is clever, illustrator Shaun Tan matches him pound for pound. This tale is artistically and morally interesting. I’ve spent more time than I like to think about poring over these pages. The book is covered in the most minute and fascinating details. Notice the single yellow flower that grows in the rabbits’ town. The fact that the rabbits are partitioning out the land, even as they draw topographic lines on the ground. The cows that are permanently attached to milking machines and that already have their tasty parts outlined on their bodies

It all comes down to that final question: Is this a book for children? Originally I said no and my husband said yes. Then I looked closely at the book. It’s not without a glimpse of hope, you know. Even as the little creature at the end asks, "Where is the rich dark earth brown and moist?", there’s a rabbit sadly dropping the dry rotten dust of the ground from its hand. The final shot of the two creatures facing one another across the tiny pond suggests that the only one to save them from the rabbits are the rabbits themselves. Some children will understand this story intrinsically while others will be brought down low by it. Know your child before you decide whether or not to share this book with them. If you decide they might not be ready yet, buy it anyway for yourself. Books like this one are rare pieces of art that disappear quickly. This tale is ideal for those adults that are learning to read as well. Honestly, I don’t know what more I can say to make you want to buy this book. If I have to, I’ll beg you. Please. People so rarely get a chance to see books this well made. Take the time to find it.

Hot Men of Children’s Literature: AUSTRALIAN EDITION!

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Bafflingly, when I say "The Day My Butt Went Psycho" in a crowd, the immediate reaction from friends and family is not, "Omigod the guy who wrote those books is sooooooo hot!"  Most odd.  Perhaps this is due, in part, to the relative obscurity surrounding today’s HMOCL.  Though he penned the fun "Just" series (including "Just Annoying", "Just Crazy", and "Just Kidding", amongst others) his most recent contributions can be attributed to cataloging the malicious mechanations of elusive posteriors.  The kind of stuff that makes "Captain Underpants" look positively subtle.  And, as a sidenote, he’s absolutely adorable. 


Meet the newest addition to the Hot Men of Children’s Literature family:


ANDY GRIFFITHS!





And for a truly eye-opening glimpse into the varieagated minds of Australian vs. British vs. American children’s publishers, I direct you to the portion of Andy’s site that displays covers of his books from each nation.

Review of the Day: Laika by Nick Abadzis

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Laika
By Nick Abadzis
First Second (an imprint of Roaring Brook Press)
$17.95
For ages 11 and up.
On shelves now

Dead dog books used to be a dime a dozen.  Time was a kid couldn’t walk into a bookstore without getting whacked over the head with “Old Yeller”, creamed in the kisser by “Sounder”, and roughed up royally by “Where the Red Fern Grows”.  Recently, however, dogs don’t die as often as all that.  You could probably concoct some magnificent sociological explanation for this, citing changes in the political and emotional landscape of our great nation leading to the decrease in deceased literary pups, but as I see it, a good dead dog story is as hard to write as an original paper on Moby Dick.  What else is there to say?  Man’s best friend dies and everyone feels bad.  In this jaded culture it would take a pretty steady hand to find a way to write a dead dog tale that touches us deeply.  Not a dog person myself, I direct your attention today to Nick Abadzis.  I don’t know how he did it.  Laika, the world’s most famous real dead dog (a close second: the dead pooch of Pompeii), is now presented to us in a graphic novel format.  Though I prefer cats through and through, “Laika” the novel grabs your heart from your chest and proceeds to dance a tarantella on the remains.  The best graphic novels are those books whose stories couldn’t have been told any other way.  “Laika” has that honor.

Her story was more than just her own.  It encapsulated a vast range of people, many of whom you may have never heard of.  As the book begins we see a man named Korolev leaving a Russian gulag in a freezing night.  Eighteen years later, he is the Chief Designer of Sputnik and his success is without measure.  Buoyed by the success of the successful launch, Khruschev demands that his space program launch a second orbital vehicle within a single month.  Enter Laika.  An unwanted pup, abused and abandoned on the street, she’s eventually caught and taken to the Institute of Aviation Medicine.  There she is one of many dogs, trained for flight travel.  Laika bonds immediately with her caretaker Yelena Alexandrovna Dubrovsky and endears herself to the other scientists as well.  As it stands, however, no dog is better suited for space travel and Laika is slated to make a trip from which she will never return.  Abadzis deftly describes the people who care for the little dog and the process by which she was ultimately abandoned and killed by both science and Cold War mechanics.

I admit it.  You’d think that at this point I’d have learned to trust the First Second imprint of Roaring Brook Press.  In the past two years they’ve managed to churn out consistently engaging, entertaining, fascinating graphic novels.  But when I heard that they were doing “Laika” I was incredulous.  You work as a children’s librarian long enough and you see far too many complex issues simplified and sad stories made light, all in the name of the kiddies.  I looked at “Laika” and wondered whether or not the book would even touch on her death.  I thought to myself that maybe the author would put it in an Afterword or something.  I mean, what child/YA GN is going to actually show a dog die?  After finally finishing “Laika”, you will be pleased to hear that I gave myself a rousing series of slaps to the face.  The death of the dog is practically the point of the entire enterprise from the book’s start.

Laika’s entire story, as conceived by Abadzis, is heartbreaking but there are certain moments towards the end that I found particularly easy to identify with.  When Comrade Yelena visits Laika for one last time she can hear the dog saying her name with every bark, even when Yelena is too far away to hear them.  She dreams that Laika is calling out to her for help.  That she’s scared and uncomfortable and just wants to get out and play.  Anyone who has ever owned a pet will be familiar with this feeling.  When the pet is missing or in pain, it’s difficult to keep from emphasizing with it.  How much worse then when the dog in question is imprisoned in a capsule and shot into the sky?  Abadzis doesn’t just show Laika’s plight.  He makes you feel it in the core of your being.

The art is interesting as well.  For the most part Abadzis chooses to maintain a simplified cartoony style.  At moment of great importance, however, he will make the figure of Laika more three-dimensional.  In terms of visual storytelling this is a remarkably interesting choice.  As Laika sits in the red light of her capsule, mere moments before takeoff, she becomes vastly realistic.  Other portions of the book were just as interesting.  Sometimes scenes will be black and white, like stills from a movie.  Other times they’re vast two page spreads that drill home the wonder or the horror of a given moment.  And in dreams the lines that make up a panel will grow soft and colorful.  There are all kinds of interesting stylistic choices taken in this book if you’re just willing to look for them.  As with any good graphic novel, these choices make up a significant portion of the storytelling as well.

I am happy to report that at the end of this book you will find an extensive Bibliography, replete with book, video, and Internet sources. Abadzis obviously took a great deal of time researching his subject, a fact mentioned in an Afterword by Alexis Siegel. He has gone from, “the stacks of the British Library to Korolev’s house in Moscow.” These facts are then combined with fictional details and the result is this book. To what extent does he hold himself accountable for accuracy? To my delight, Abadzis includes a final Author’s Note that I’ve seen in children’s books before, but that always amuses me when I spot it again. To quote: “In this book, all phases of the moon depicted on specific dates are accurate to the day – although I may have erred on the side of drama about the time of moonrises.” Beautiful.

The last page of this book contains a quote that offers a 1998 statement from Oleg Georgivitch Gazenko. In it, he laments the way that Laika was misused. “We did not learn enough from the mission to justify the death of the dog.” It’s a dead dog book. Anyone who knows the story of Laika will be aware of that. But above and beyond the obvious this is an ode to dogs themselves. To the animals that we befriend and love and, ultimately, destroy. It’s also about history, humanity, and the price of being extraordinary. No one can walk away from this book and not be touched. Consider Nick Abadzis a name to watch from here on in.

On shelves now

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