Robert’s Snowflakes

Robert’s Snowflakes – Featuring Brian Floca

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By this point in time, most of you have grown aware of the Robert’s Snow auction, as coordinated by children’s literary bloggers.  If not, here’s a summary.  In September, Jules of Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast asked whether or not bloggers would be interested in featuring artists who had created snowflakes for Robert’s Snow 2007 at their blogs.  The response has been massive, and so each day a couple bloggers highlight a specific artist and snowflake.  Three auctions will take place, each one offering several snowflakes apiece.  The aim is to raise people’s awareness about Robert’s Snow and to promote the three auctions.

Of course, the question of who I should feature came up, and I’ll admit that I had a hard time choosing.  I like a lot of artists out there.  Artists are friendly.  They do fun blog tours with farm animals and don’t mind being called "hot" by wayward random children’s librarians.  That said, I eventually decided to settle on Brian Floca, and I’m glad I did.  Floca is a subtle artist.  His art can range from sketchy to precise in half a heartbeat.  He’s a RISD kid, and cut his teeth on Avi’s City of Light, City of Dark (which, if your library is anything like mine, you’ll find shelved in the graphic novel section).  Over the years he’s gone on to create everything from The Racecar Alphabet and Uncles and Antlers to the (good) covers of Avi’s Poppy series.  Most recently he has finished The Hinky-Pink, a story by Megan McDonald. And yes, he has been known to blog on occasion.

So I had to ask him how he came to be acquainted with Robert’s Snow.  This is the answer he gave:

"I learned of Robert’s Snow a few years ago when my friend Alison Impey at Little, Brown forwarded me an e-mail about it. For whatever reason I didn’t make it in on the action that year. When I saw that it was on again this year, I got in touch with the organizers. A little time went by and the next thing I knew a wooden snowflake was in my mailbox. I gave some thought to an image of Avi’s Poppy; Poppy would be fairly well recognized, I figured, and I have a lot of affection for the character, so she seemed a good choice. But LIGHTSHIP had come out relatively recently, and so I still had boats on the brain. Plus, a lightship seemed fitting in its own way. (For those who don’t know, lightships were the rough equivalent of floating lighthouses.) When I first stepped foot on the Ambrose lightship down at South Street Seaport a couple of years ago, my interest in her was purely in nuts and bolts and seafaring yarns and that sort of thing, but the more I learned about lightships the more I appreciated their steadfastness and the relief and aid that they offered to others. Those ideas seemed appropriate to the work of Robert’s Snow, as did the image of a light in the dark, and so the lightship it was."

Now consider the book itself.  Lightship has garnered FOUR starred reviews (SLJ, PW, Booklist, AND Kirkus).  And those of you with good memories will recall that it also has its own book trailer.  This book is one of the finest of the year and the image on the snowflake is undoubtedly one of the most beautiful.  This is a snowflake with a sense of place.  It has its own mood.  I won’t make other people jealous by saying that it’s the prettiest one of the year  . . . but, come on.  Seriously.  How can you NOT find it amazingly attractive?  And on a Christmas tree?  Stunning, m’dear.

So how do you make it your very own?  Well, bidding will begin on November 19th at 9:00 a.m. and close on November 23rd at 5:00 p.m.  Be a smartie.  Bid often.  After all, this is A) A good cause and B) Your chance to own a piece of original art entirely of your own.  (Floca’s page is here)

View Brian Floca’s website too at www.brianfloca.com.  And I highly HIGHLY recommend that you check out his live webcast of his studio as well.  Other artists would be wise to mimic this.

Also, check out the new Blogging for a Cure page at Seven Impossible Things. It has a comprehensive list of snowflake and illustrator features.

Exclusive Punk Farm Interview (Part One)

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It seems unfair to have featured only one member of Punk Farm‘s motley crew (so to speak) on my site.  So it is with great pleasure that I present to you my participation in the Punk Farm blog tour.  An in-depth interview with the guys who make it all happen.  With the upcoming release of Punk Farm On Tour, the time has never been better to grow to know and love some of the heroes who make it their job to allow YOU the chance to rock.

FUSE #8: All right, guys.  So I read the interview you did with Cluck Roosterman, which was conducted before you guys got a chance to go on tour.  Now that you’re in the thick of it, is it going the way you expected it to?   

SHEEP: The tour is going well, we’re rocking some serious rock…but we’ve certainly hit a few rough spots. We have this old van and well, it’s tough to keep the wheels goin’ round and round all through the town. It’s an old van.

PIG: With a sweet paint job! 

FUSE #8: Obviously not being under the thumb of Farmer Joe must affect your music in some way.  I mean, sure he’s "the man".  But is your creativity squashed by having to hide your concerts from him or is he in fact one of your strongest influences?  Now that you don’t have worry about being discovered by him, has your music changed in any way? 

SHEEP: Well, he’s only away for this farmer’s convention in Reno, so we have a nice window to get out there and play, but we’re still stressed about getting to all of our fans and then back to the barn before Joe does.

COW: Farmer Joe works us hard while we’re on the farm, so a lot of tension builds up inside of us.  We let that energy translate to the rock.  

FUSE #8: Hollywood, I can only assume, must be knocking down your door to get at you.  In fact, a quick glance at IMDB shows that there’s a Punk Farm movie already in the works.  More than one rocker has been swayed by the siren call of La La Land.  Are you worried that you won’t be able to "keep it real" when sipping pomegranate mixes alongside beautiful crystal blue pools?  

GOAT: Hmph. LA….

SHEEP: Well, a movie about our lives is in the works. At first DreamWorks Animation was all about it, but now it doesn’t look like it’s going to be a go with them. We’ve been talking with our agents and we’re exploring all of our options.

PIG: We’ve got some fans over in Hollywood, so really it’s only a matter of time.

SHEEP: As for IMDB, well they would have you believe our movie was coming out in ’08, which simply isn’t true.

CHICKEN: There are a lot of rumors going around the Internet. Like the one about Matt Dillon playing Goat. 

GOAT: That kind of stuff is just entertaining, really. Ridiculous stuff.

SHEEP: As for “keeping it real”…we know no other way.

COW: Pomegrate mixes are for pets…we’re farm animals.  

FUSE #8: I’ve heard you talk a lot about your past influences.  The Ramones.  Hendrix.  The usual.  What about your contemporaries?  I heard rumors of drum-offs between Cow and Meg White and jam sessions where Pig broke it down alongside Amy Winehouse.  Are there any other people today you’d like to work with?  

PIG: Jay-Z, he’s all about the hyphenations. Rapper-mogul-Mr. Beyonce…

(CONTINUED IN PART TWO)

Exclusive Punk Farm Interview (Part Two)

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(CONTINUED FROM PART ONE)

SHEEP: I wouldn’t mind collaborating with Billy Jo from Green Day. We could sit down and write some seriously deep songs.

GOAT: I’d like to work with Jack White, but after Cow and Meg White went head to head, it just got a little awkward and weird.    

FUSE #8: Not everyone knows yet that Punk Farm has a MySpace page where certain selections of your songs are available for quick listening.  You also appear to have, 1,957 friends, which I calculate to be the highest number achieved by barnyard animals on the site as of right now.  How has such direct feedback from fans affected what you do?  Have you changed your style at all in response to what they think?  

CHICKEN: The feedback has all been positive, which only encourages us to make more rock.

SHEEP: More exciting than our MySpace page is our PunkFarmSpace.com website. MySpace is a great way to connect with our human fans, but PunkFarmSpace.com is the only place where we connect strictly with our fellow animals.

PIG:  I love it, I log on every day.

GOAT: You just log on just to see if any fans posted about you.

PIG: Well, they’re always posting about me.

COW: Back to the second part of your question, we only change our style to accommodate us.

FUSE #8: And finally: Promise me you’ll never sell out.

SHEEP: We promise. The only thing we sell out is concerts.
 

  • Be sure to check out the Punk Farm website.

  • There’s a far more in-depth interview with the crew over at 7-Imp as well as a meaningful talk with Little Willow.

Review of the Day: First Light (Part One)

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First Light
By Rebecca Stead
Wendy Lamb Books (Random House imprint)
$15.99
ISBN: 978-0375840173
For Ages 9 and up
On shelves now


Sometimes I stop myself in the middle of the day and think random thoughts. Thoughts like, "Why am I so freaked out by pigeons with deformed feet?" or, "Is there a logical reason why grass never became a delicacy?" and even, "Did I like science fiction as a child?" That last question pops up more than the others, maybe because it’s worth pondering from a contemporary marketing/librarian standpoint. The conventional wisdom will tell you that science fiction for kids doesn’t sell. Of course, dig a little deeper beneath that statement and you’ll find exceptions to the rule. Bruce Coville’s My Teacher Is an Alien series, Madeline L’Engle’s A Wrinkle in Time or The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau all come to mind. DuPrau’s book is the best example of a successful science fiction novel (what with the movie and all) and it seems appropriate to mention it in terms of the most recent title I just read. "First Light" by Rebecca Stead is a meticulous melding of science fiction, ecological fact, and crisp storytelling. Melding global warming and DNA, and set against a magnificently chilly backdrop, Stead creates a cohesive, gripping story without allowing her book to fall apart into incomprehensible goo.

Two kids. Two lives. First of all you have Peter. He’s happy enough living in New York City, but when his dad informs the family that they’re taking some months off to join him on his expedition to Greenland, the kid is seriously excited. It’s a pity that he’s been getting these headaches though. They’re not serious or anything, but once in a while Peter finds that if he looks at something far away he can suddenly zoom in on it like there’s a telescope inside of his eyes. That problem has nothing on Thea’s, though. Thea lives in Gracehope, a civilization of ice, skating, and dogs. Her home is in the center of a glacier and it is there that her people have survived for hundreds of years, purposefully hiding from the outside world. Thea is convinced that there must be a way out of Gracehope since the population is booming and supplies are running low. Unfortunately, her grandmother (and ruler of Gracehope) forbids any research into the matter. Yet soon enough Thea takes a chance and runs into Peter, leading to the discovery that their lives and pasts are oddly and inexorably linked.

Quite frankly, I just liked the writing. It’s interesting and to the point without forgetting to get a little descriptive now and again. For example, when Peter considers his father’s experience in the Arctic as opposed to his scholarly methodical university self, it occurs to the kid that being the son of such a man, "was a little like living with Clark Kent but never once getting to meet Superman." Larger overarching themes are treated with a similarly deft hand. I liked Stead’s handling of Peter’s mother’s depression. It’s a difficult topic, and it would be all too easy to turn his mom into a villain when she’s not feeling well. Instead, you have the distinct sense that she really can’t help getting whapped with a bad bout once in a while. In terms of readability, "First Light" will not bore your average middle grade child reader. It has a firm enough grasp on its own private world to convince you that what happens in Gracehope could happen anywhere.

I do not write fiction, but if I were to hazard a guess at what it is like to write a work of science-fiction as opposed to a work of fantasy, I would have to suspect that science-fiction was the harder row to hoe. After all, you need to place your world firmly in fact, and that means research. In Ms. Stead’s case it would have meant the research of the Arctic, DNA, ice, global warming, and who knows what else. Little throw away lines like, "It was against the law to bring dogs into Greenland – the Inuit wanted to keep their breed pure…" smack of the truth. Ditto the rumor that hidden somewhere in Greenland is, "a road on the ice cap built in secret by Volkswagen as a private test site for new cars." Sometimes convincing your reader that they’re in another world requires a realistic infusion of real facts. Lose your details, lose your readers. That’s why Peter’s superhuman abilities that emerge throughout the book don’t become superfluous. Not only does Stead ground them in fact but she also works them into an overriding theme concerning Peter’s mother’s job.

And can I say how much of a relief it was to meet a character like Jonas in this book? Jonas is Peter’s father’s research assistant and is part-Inuit. Were Stead a different writer she might have used this character to launch into a whole taking-care-of-the-Earth slash Indian-way-of-life kind of didactic poppycock. She would have made Jonas a symbol rather than a person. To her infinite credit, however, Jonas is none of those things. He is capable and interesting, but his purpose in this book is to act as a person that Peter can talk to when he can’t talk to his parents rather than some kind of fount of infinite wisdom.

(CONTINUED IN PART TWO)