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At an informal fall gathering in Vermont, in beautiful late September, a few CLNE people came together to talk about the legacy of Hans Christian Andersen. John Rowe Townsend, CLNE board member and author of Written for Children, and many children’s novels, opened the discussion with a brief mirror view of Hans Christian Andersen and JRR Tolkien. John was visiting New England from Cambridge, England with his wife Jill Paton Walsh, also on the CLNE board and author of Unleaving and several other novels for children and adults.
In this most festive holiday season, it seems timely for all of us to think about Hans Christian Andersen’s remarkable contributions to the world, and his influence through the years, seen most recently in the publication of CLNE codirector Gregory Maguire’s new book Matchless, illustrated by Gregory, and inspired by Andersen’s "The Little Match Girl." Matchless was commissioned and aired on National Public Radio’s "All Things Considered" on Christmas Eve 2008.
The sad news of the death of Danish author Eric Christian Haugaard, Andersen’s premier translator, came to us after our meeting. In his observations, John Rowe Townsend calls Erik Christian Haugaard’s translation “brilliant” – and several of us at the Vermont gathering held prized copies of Erik Haugaard’s Hans Christian Andersen: The Complete Fairy Tales and Stories in our hands.
With John Rowe Townsend’s permission I share his remarks with you.
—Barbara Harrison, CLNE Codirector
John Rowe Townsend on Hans Christian Andersen
September 2009, Strafford, Vermont
It’s an extraordinary story, isn’t it? – a gangling young man of rather unprepossessing appearance, who has tried various ways of making a living, without all that much success. He’s a storyteller, among other things, but has the disadvantage of working in a small country, in a minority culture and language. But he’s a trier. And, against all the odds, now in his forties, he is discovered, idolized, made much of in high society, in London and Paris, in America and increasingly worldwide. An ugly duckling, you might say, who has magically turned into a swan. He’s recognized everywhere as one of the greatest of his kind.
Hans Christian Andersen was not of course the only great storyteller. The one among them who comes most insistently into my mind is, not surprisingly, JRR Tolkien. At first sight, Andersen and Tolkien are not much alike. They are writers of very different background and character, living in very different times and places. Andersen never head of Tolkien. He died 17 years before Tolkien was born, and I can’t from memory recall any mention of him in Tolkien’s writings. Yet I think it’s enlightening to look at each of them in the light of the other.
Tolkien was immensely learned. He combined and reinvigorated various ancient influences, far too many to discuss here. Among much else he wrote a great deal on the subject he called “Faerie.” Faerie, he memorably said, “contains many things besides elves and dwarfs, witches, trolls, giants or dragons: it holds the sea, the sun, the moon, the sky; and the earth and all things that are in it: tree and bird, water and stone, wine and bread, and ourselves, mortal men, when we are enchanted.”
That’s a magnificent piece of writing, and it could be described as a full and accurate account of the scope of Hans Christian Andersen’s work. In fact I would confidently bet that every one of those features could be found in the pages of Erik Haugaard’s brilliant collection. But I’m not here to itemize the Andersen stories. I’m sure we shall hear quite a lot about them and I’m looking forward to it. I’d just like to fill in a little background, with apologies to those of you, no doubt many, who know as much about them as I do, and more.
I’m going to turn again to Tolkien. Tolkien wrote famously about what he called the great pot of soup, into which myth, folktale, romance, and any flavorsome ingredient that came to hand could all be tossed together and left to simmer, for storytellers to dip into as they wished. And among many other observations he pointed out that it was only quite recently that children’s literature was seen as a separate category, as something suitable for, and suitable only for, children. Traditionally, a story was for everyone. Way back in the reign of Queen Elizabeth II, Sir Philip Sidney in his Apology for Poetry, had spoken of “a tale that holdeth children from play and old men from the chimney corner.” He wouldn’t have thought of providing children with something more suitable for their tender years. Old familiar tales were handed down by word of mouth through the generations. They were regarded by the educated as being of low degree, peasant crudities in a world of increasing sophistication. But they crossed oceans. They didn’t need any cargo space except people’s heads.
And what were provided officially, so to speak, were not the old tales. There was loads of stuff thrust upon children, almost all of it instructional material telling them they should be good and obedient or else. There were the hellfire threats of the puritans and the courtesy books that told them how to comport themselves, accompanied by a general belief that it was good for children to have their bad impulses beaten out of them. There was the Victorian piety and the eighteenth-century Age of Reason which enjoined them to behave in a rational and sensible manner. All of these had one thing in common, that they weren’t intended to be fun. They were serious, not to say solemn. Heaven might lie around them in their infancy, but it wasn’t allowed to last. As William Wordsworth said in 1807, “Shade of the prison-house begin to close upon the growing boy” (or, he might have added girl, for girls were even more strictly confined).
And then there came a revolution. I’d call it a glorious revolution. The heart of it was somewhere around the 1840s. The reasons for it are complicated and probably associated among other things with the rise of romanticism. But quite suddenly imagination, so long suppressed, began to be seen as something new and inspiring, and above all something eminently good and liberating for children. And now arrived a straw in the wind that became a gale. In 1835 and 1839 Hans Christian Andersen, then almost unknown outside his native Denmark, published two books of fairy tales. They didn’t sell well. But with the third book, in 1845, his reputation soared. The times were changing. Imagination and the magical were in mode. Andersen sprang suddenly into prominence. He was translated and feted around the world. And professionally at least, from then on he never looked back. He became and remained internationally famous.
I think people this weekend will have plenty to say about Hans Christian Andersen. I’ll not say more myself except to remark, rather obviously, that he was gifted with an endlessly fertile imagination, and that he arrived at the right moment to ride a giant wave. He wasn’t a flawless writer – who is? – but as somebody said, “There is no power on earth like that of an idea whose time has come.” For Andersen the time of revolution in the world of childhood had arrived, and it stayed.
—John Rowe Townsend, Strafford Vermont, September 2009 |
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We've made every effort to contact past CLNE speakers and leaders, and what follows is what we were able to glean before going to website press. Please do keep in touch with your news; write Gregory Maguire at gmwriter@aol.com We'll try to update this page several times a year.
CLNE Keepsake
To receive a copy of the festschrift called "And We'll All Go Together: A CLNE Keepsake," please write Gregory Maguire at gmwriter@.aol.com The publication is free while supplies last though mailing and handling charges may apply. The keepsake album is privately printed and its publication has been underwritten by private contributions.
The Examined Life Program
Barbara Harrison writes:
I'm directing THE EXAMINED LIFE: GREEK STUDIES IN THE SCHOOLS (ExL), a professional program for educators (teachers librarians, et al), aimed at strengthening the study of Greece in the schools of the nation. Like CLNE, ExL hopes to raise public consciousness and knowledge of a subject vital to our understanding of ourselves and our times. Participants study Greek literature, history, philosophy, art, and the impact of Greece on American ideals and culture. Like CLNE, too, ExL is a literature based program, highlighting Greek mythology, and the epic poems, tragedies, comedies, histories, and works of the philosophers. Through web casting and video conferencing, we hope to make the program available to CLNE friends and colleagues across the nation.
Please take a look at the website at http://www.teachgreece.org and don't hesitate to be in touch with me at Ithaka07@comcast.net or with Connie Carven at Connie_Carven@newton.K12.ma.us.
News, December 2009
M.T. Anderson
M.T. Anderson: Recent new release: Jasper Dash and the Flame-Pits of Delaware (Simon and Schuster). Next year there will be a sequel, called Agent O, or, The Smell of Danger (also S & S), and a young teen horror novel called The Suburb Beyond the Stars (Scholastic).
Rita Auerbach
Rita Auerbach is chairing the 2010 Caldecott Award Committee. She is a member of the committee, which has chosen the soon-to-be-announced second National Ambassador for Children's Literature, and has recently joined the Bank Street Children's Books Committee, which is celebrating 100 years of recognizing excellent new books for young people.
Molly Bang
I've had two picture books published this year. In All of Me: A Book of Thanks, a child gives thanks to each part of her body for doing its various actions: "Look at my fine feet! Thank you, feet, for holding me up when I stand, and when I walk, and when I jump! . . ." and finally to the whole world she is a part of. Living Sunlight: How Plants Bring the Earth to Life is about how photosynthesis works and how we truly are all "living sunlight'. I wrote it with Penny Chisholm, a biology professor at MIT who tends to know her subject. Living Sunlight is the second in our "Sunlight Series"; My Light, about how our electricity comes from the sun, was the first I'm now working on the third, which will be about life in the oceans, and we have two more to go for the whole series.
I want to make science books for kids that are WONDERFUL!!!,
Mary Brigid Barrett
I have recently completed a set of baby board books that will be published by Candlewick Press, and a picture book, Shoebox Sam, that will be published by the HarperCollins Zondervan imprint. I am working on a young adult novel for Candlewick Press that will hopefully be completed by the time we all meet in May 2010. As President and Executive Director of the The National Children's Book and Literacy Alliance, I am delighted to also share the following news.
The National Children’s Book and Literacy Alliance (www.thencbla.org) and the Library of Congress announce a national reading outreach project “The Exquisite Corpse Adventure” an episodic story game written and illustrated by: M.T. Anderson, Natalie Babbitt, Calef Brown, Susan Cooper, Kate DiCamillo, Timothy Basil Ering, Nikki Grimes, Shannon Hale, Lemony Snicket, Steven Kellogg, Gregory Maguire, Megan McDonald, Patricia and Fredrick McKissack, Linda Sue Park, Katherine Paterson, James Ransome, Jon Scieszka, and Chris Van Dusen! Read the adventure and check out the NCBLA’s educational support resource pages at:
http://www.read.gov/exquisite-corpse/Book/#page/2/mode/2up
http://www.read.gov/exquisite-corpse
http://www.thencbla.org/Exquisite_Corpse/exquisite_home.html
New episodes will appear every two weeks until the last episode is revealed by the Children's Book Ambassador at the National Book Festival in September 2010. The NCBLA and the LOC ask that you spread the word, sharing this rollicking adventure with colleagues, family, friends, and the young people in your life.
Pat Bartholomew
This year in my second grade classroom in Cincinnati, Ohio we are focusing on companion books. These are books that may be fiction and non-fiction, i.e., a How –To on Making Maple Syrup and then pairing it with The Sign of the Beaver. Each book in its own way informs the reader to deepen comprehension and spark curiosity. Developing this over the last few years and watching the powerful way it transforms young readers and plants seeds of wonder has me exploring the possibility of publishing a compilation of book lists and suggestions for educators. It’s a someday thing right now, but it is a resounding theme in my thinking process.
Alan James Brown
Alan has been writing for children since 1990 as Alan Brown, but recently changed his pen-name to Alan James Brown to be easier to find by search engines. Since speaking to CLNE he has published a young fantasy novel titled Michael and the Monkey King about Michael's adventures in the company of the legendary Monkey, ISBN 9781409202417. This is available from lulu.com as both paperback and e-book. His latest publication in the US and Canada will be Love-a-Duck, a picture book from Holiday House available from March 2010, ISBN 9780823422630. More news on Alan's website at www.alanjamesbrown.com
Margaret Chang
Celia’s Robot, my novel for children ages 8-12, was published in November 2009 by Holiday House. Ceila is a biracial girl whose Chinese-born father, a researcher in artificial intelligence, gives her a robot to organize her life. http://www.holidayhouse.com/ I have also been elected to the board of USBBY. Holiday House tells me that they'll feature my podcast on their website in December 2009.
Susan Cooper
Susan Cooper’s five-book sequence The Dark Is Rising is to become a “bind-up” (omnibus to you and me) from McElderry Books next year, and she is still happily startled that Newsweek included the sequence this year in a list called “What to Read Now. And Why: Fifty books that make sense of our times.” Her book about John Langstaff, provisionally titled The Magic Maker, will be published by Candlewick Press in 2011, and she is working on a new novel. There’s a tide table on the wall of her study, since she now lives on an almost-island in a Massachusetts saltmarsh, near her children and grandchildren. When not writing, she can be found chasing deer, rabbits and Canada geese away from her garden, and encouraging the local fox and coyote to do the same. Lord knows what twisted picture-book texts will come out of this.
Sally Derby
By May 2010, Sally’s first middle-grade novel, Kyle's Island, will have come out from Charlesbridge, and the talented Shadra Strickland should be well into working on the illustrations for Sally’s next picture book, Sunday Shopping from Lee and Low.
Karl Miller made his screen debut this fall as the lead actor in the "Time" episode of the Health Care Film Project. He had to be talked into it, but he had a ball once it started.
Monica Edinger
Monica Edinger is pleased to announce Candlewick's acquisition of her book, Africa is My Home, a fictional account of Amistad captive Sarah Margru Kinson's journey from Africa to America and back told in scrapbook format.
Monica's blog, educating alice (http://medinger.wordpress.com), was included in a School Library Journal article as one of ten best kids' lit blogs.
Sarah Ellis
Sarah Ellis doffed one hat when she retired as a public librarian a couple of years ago and promptly put on a new cap by joining the faculty of the Vermont College of Fine Arts where she is teaching writing for children and young adults (on-line mostly) and maintaining her connection with New England. She’s writing a book which is ostensibly about the Titanic but which seems to be morphing into a story about Fabian Socialists and she is delighted to have achieved the rank of “masthead reviewer” for Hornbook Magazine. Off-page, she continues her interest in long-distance walking and she recently took a woodworking course in an attempt to overcome her fear of power tools. Her ukulele career is somewhat stalled. One day soon, honest, she will update her website: www.sarahellis.ca.
Donna Freitas
Donna Freitas' second novel, This Gorgeous Game, will be published by Frances Foster Books/FSG in May 2010, and it happens to be about keeping secrets--dark ones! Her first, The Possibilities of Sainthood, was also with Frances Foster Books/FSG, and was published in the fall of 2008, and it was about first kisses and saintly aspirations.
Neil Gaiman
Let's see. The Graveyard Book won the Booktrust Teenage Prize in the UK and the Elizabeth Worzala Prize in the US. Odd and the Frost Giants is out, and I'm writing stuff. Lots of stuff.
Nancy Garden
New(ish) books, etc. by Nancy Garden:
Endgame, Harcourt, 2006. (YA; re bullying/school shooting) Hear Us Out: Lesbian and Gay Stories of Struggle, Progress, and Hope, from 1950 to the Present, FSG, 2007. (YA; fiction (stories) and nonfiction (history) Annie on My Mind, commemorative edition, FSG, 2007 Annie on My Mind, audio book, 2008, Listening Library, Random House, 2008 The Case of the Vanishing Valuables, Two Lives Publishing, coming (probably) 12/09. (middle grade mystery, #2 in Candlestone Inn Mystery Series) Am working on two new books, one a YA, the other probably for 10-14, and am thinking about starting research for a recreation of an old legend--but who knows?
Alan Garner
10 October 2010, 10.10.10. in binary, will see the 50th anniversary of the publication of my first novel, The Weirdstone of Brisingamen, which (along with the later novels) has never been out of print in the UK.
To celebrate this, the Oxford Literary Festival will mount an Alan Garner Day on 20 March, including lectures and an exhibition of MSS from my archive at the Bodleian Library. There will be a similar event at the Chester Literary Festival in October and the unveiling of a portrait by Andrew Tift commissioned by the Grosvenor Museum. A lecture will also be given in London on a date yet to be fixed. Over the anniversary weekend there will be a series of activities held on Alderley Edge, including a guided tour of the copper mines. For a surfeit of other information, visit http://alangarner.atspace.org/ and http://www.theblackdentrustweb.org.uk/index.php
Barbara Harrison
In my capacity as director of The Examined Life: Greek Studies in the Schools (ExL), I’m delighted to announce the launch of GreeceOnline, a distance learning program, and to invite the participation of CLNE folk as Greek Study Fellows. GreeceOnline provides an exciting journey to ancient (and modern) Greece through the eyes of world-class scholars; and an option to travel to Greece. The program boasts a spectacular reading list that includes The Iliad and The Odyssey, and an opportunity to catch up on recent adaptations and retellings of Greek myth and legend in books for the young. Stipends are available to participants, and CLNE board member Barbara Scotto who is also a member of The Examined Life’s Leadership Corps is the GreeceOnline facilitator. People within a 50 mile radius of Brandeis University might want to investigate the onsite program. For additional information, visit The Examined Life’s dynamic website http://www.teachgreece.org. Earn professional development points (PDPs), continuing education units (CEUs), and 3 graduate credits, and have the experience of a lifetime!!! If you have any questions, don’t hesitate to contact me at barbara_harrison@teachgreece.org or at 617-876-3578.
Betsy Hearne
A Narrative Compass: Stories That Guide Women’s Lives.
Eds. Betsy Hearne and Roberta Trites.
University of Illinois Press, 2009.
Nineteen scholars identify and examine the stories--including classics of children’s and adult literature, folktales, and family narratives--that have motivated them and shaped their research. Telling the ‘story of her story’ leads each of the essayists to insights about her own methods of textual analysis and to a deeper, often surprising, understanding of the connective power of imagination. The contributors represent a range of interests, stages of development, ethnic backgrounds, and disciplines. Their essays vary in length and in tone, but they all communicate the passion of the storyteller whose lifework has been dominated by the epistemology of narrative. Jack Zipes says, ‘Never before have I read such insightful and unique accounts about the power of books in determining the paths that we take in our lives.’
http://www.press.uillinois.edu/books/catalog/67bwp6gn9780252034077.html
http://www.press.uillinois.edu/narrativecompass/
Kathy Isaacs
Kathy Isaacs is writing lots of reviews and a book on informational picture books (essentially an annotated selected bibliography) for ALA Editions. Her working title is “Picturing their World” and the expected publication is comfortably far off in 2012. 2010 will be her Bill Morris year, speaking on nonfiction for the ALSC Bill Morris seminar in January and serving on the YALSA Morris YA Debut Award Committee all year long.
Ginny Moore Kruse
CCBC Director Emerita Ginny Moore Kruse enthusiastically balances professional service and personal pleasure. Current: Ezra Jack Keats Awards committee; Virginia Hamilton Lifetime Achievement Award /Coretta Scott King Task Force/ALA; Literature Advisory Board/Reading Is Fundamental; First Amendment rights projects/ACLU of Wisconsin; local Jane Addams Awards projects. Recent: literacy projects in South Africa, Bolivia and Peru; 2008 ALA/ALSC Batchelder Award committee; 2008 USBBY Outstanding International Books for Children committee; 2007 ALA/ALSC Geisel Award committee (chair); 2007 NSK Neustadt Prize jury; 2005 Parenting Magazine judge; 2004 USBBY/Andersen committee (chair); 2003 ALA/ALSC Wilder Award committee (chair); occasional articles (Rethinking Schools, Sojourners, Christian Century, SLJ, Book Links, etc.) At home in Madison, Wisconsin, each month Ginny discusses literature for adults with friends in three different book groups. With John she enjoys their family, church activities, the family’s northern Wisconsin cabin, the Wisconsin Film Festival, and theater in Manhattan & at Canada’s Stratford Shakespeare Festival.
Gregory Maguire
Gregory Maguire brought out three books in 2009. Making Mischief: A Maurice Sendak Appreciation (Morrow) is an expanded edition of the talk Gregory gave prior to Maurice Sendak's delivery of the 2003 Arbuthnot Lecture. Matchless: A Christmas Story (Morrow), with illustrations by Gregory, is a print edition of a tale written for National Public Radio's "All Things Considered" and performed by Gregory on Dec. 25, 2008. The Next Queen of Heaven (Concord Free Press) is an adult novel that will be reissued in the fall of 2010 in a paperback edition by Morrow. Finally, Gregory's novella, "The Silk Road Runs Through Tupperneck, N. H." appeared in Michael Cart's anthology of original stories published by Harper in the fall of 2009, How Beautiful the Ordinary.
On a personal front, Gregory and Andy are excited to announce the existence, on an island in the Mekong River in central Cambodia, living with his adoptive mother, of Vith, not only a brother to our middle child, Alex Maguire Newman—but an identical twin. The world trembles.
Daryl Mark and David Nelson
Daryl Mark and David Nelson have been joining others to raise funds to create a school library for a primary school in the township of Khetani in Kwazulu Natal, South Africa. The project was the vision of their good friend, Marlene Nelson who was a photographer, nurse and potter. For years, she was passionately committed to supporting opportunities for Zulu children and adults in this rural farming area. Her connection involved a visit during which she taught pottery to interested farm workers. A couple of years ago, she decided to make 1,000 mugs to sell to raise funds for education for Zulu children. Because of her death caused by cancer, she was unable to fulfill this dream. Her fellow artists at the Harvard University Ceramics Program have donated their time and talents to making 1,000 mugs! If you are interested in finding out more, please check out the website: www.1000mugs.org.
Geraldine McCaughrean
Geraldine McCaughrean, the English author of last year's Michael L Printz-winning The White Darkness, has a new book out in the States in January. The Death Defying Pepper Roux is the cheerfully alarming story of a boy with has his whole life ahead of him. That’s about twelve hours by the hall clock, according to his family. What should he do? Stay put and wait for the fiery chariot to descend, or take off and run? Hiding inside a succession of identities and jobs, he pelts through a series of adventures, colliding with a motley crew of characters and kicking up a world of trouble as he goes. "Like carefree Garcia Marquez," said Frank Cottrell Boyce.
Gillian McClure
www.gillianmcclure.com Having recently become a granny I have found it is having a wonderfully positive impact on new ideas for picture books. But I'm a very part -time overseas granny who relies on skype video calls for keeping in touch and for building a relationship with my grandchildren. In order to connect with other grannies who also have an interest in children's books, I've started a blog called Granny's Tale, http://www.grannytale.blogspot.com. It's a mix of picture book news, illustration and granny topics.
Beverley Naidoo
Beverley Naidoo's Burn My Heart (HarperCollins), set in 1950s colonial Kenya, has been named a Booklist Youth Editors' Choice. She has two books for younger children due in 2010: S is for South Africa (Frances Lincoln), an alphabet book of poems with photographs by Prodeepta Das; and Aesop's African Fables (Janetta Otter Barry/Frances Lincoln), illustrated by Piet Grobler. With Shereen Pandit, she has guest edited a special issue of the international literary magazine Wasafiri, in its 25th anniversary year ( www.wasafiri.org). “New Generations: Writing for Children and Young Adults” features global contributors, critical and creative. The issue includes Rudine Sims Bishop on Contemporary African American Children’s Literature, Elsa Marston on Palestinians in Young People’s Fiction, Véronique Tadjo on Creating Books in Francophone Africa and Beyond, an interview with Jamila Gavin, creative offerings from Ibtisam Barakat, Jackie Kay, Jack Mapanje, John Agard, Grace Nichols and many more. See also www.beverleynaidoo.com
Donna Jo Napoli
I find myself changing a lot. For a long time I did novels for middle school and high school with just a few things outside that. But now my stories range all over the board; I'm as likely to be working on a picture book as a YA novel. And I just wrote a story that I think is not for children at all, so I grabbed Brenda Bowen and asked her to try to sell it
as adult. Who knows. I'm 61 and I think of retirement from my job teaching linguistics. But then I think how lovely a salary is -- so different from living off one's writing. My salary allows me to write what I need to write, regardless of whether I think there's a market for it. That is a huge luxury, and I shudder at the idea of giving it up. I also don't know exactly who I'd be if I left my job -- would I turn into a muttering fool with crazed eyes who sits at the computer all day and cowers at the doorbell? I mean that seriously. I have tendencies in that direction. Having to face a classroom forces me to hold onto a semblance of being socialized.
Naomi Shihab Nye
My book Honeybee (poems & short prose) won the Arab American Book Award (books for young readers category) a few weeks ago. New anthology of poets Time You Let Me In: 25 Writers under 25, is forthcoming from Greenwillow this spring.
Elizabeth Partridge
Elizabeth Partridge’s blood is fizzing with excitement and fear as she works on a new book, Dogtag, a historical novel about an Amerasian girl adopted by a Vietnam vet. Two of Elizabeth’s books came out in 2009: Big Cat Pepper (Bloomsbury) and Marching for Freedom: Walk Together, Children, and Don't You Grow Weary (Viking).
Katherine and John Paterson
John and Katherine Paterson both have new books out this fall. John's, written with their son, John, Jr., is Roberto’s Trip to the Top (Candlewick). The illustrator is Brazilian artist, Renato Alarcao. Katherine's new book is The Day of the Pelican (Clarion Books), and it is the Vermont Reads Choice for 2010.
Meg Rosoff
Meg Rosoff’s most recent novel, The Bride’s Farewell, was published in hardback by Viking in August 2009. Based loosely on Thomas Hardy’s Tess of The D’Urbervilles, the story is set in the middle of the 19th century on England’s Salisbury Plain and features a heroine who runs away from home on her wedding day. What I Was, her third novel, was awarded the Die Zeit and Bremen Radio Luchs prize for book of the year in Germany in November 2009. She is currently at work on her fifth novel. www.megrosoff.co.uk
Pam Muñoz Ryan
Pam Muñoz Ryan's new novel, The Dreamer, will publish April 1, 2010. Set in Temuco, Chile, it chronicles the childhood of Neftali Reyes, who finds beauty and wonder everywhere: in the oily colors of mud puddles; a lost glove sailing on the wind; the music of birds and language. He loves to collect treasures, daydream, and write - in secret - pastimes his authoritarian father thinks are for fools and fanatics. Against the backdrop of the Chilean forest and the Pacific Ocean, Neftali prevails against his father’s cruelty and his own crippling shyness to become one of the most widely read poets in the world, Pablo Neruda. The novel is illustrated by Peter Sis.
Leda Schubert
Leda Schubert's Feeding the Sheep, illustrated by Andrea U'Ren and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux, will be released in early March, 2010. Also forthcoming are Monsieur Marceau and The Princess of Borscht, both Porter/ Roaring Brook. Leda teaches writing for children and young adults at Vermont College of Fine Arts. Website:
www.ledaschubert.com
Marilyn Singer
My two latest picture books were recently published: I’m Your Bus (Scholastic) and I’m Getting a Check-up. In February, my poetry collection, Mirror, Mirror (Dutton) will be out. The poems are "reversos," a form I invented. Read each down, and it's one poem. Read each up, with changes only in punctuation and capitalization, and it's another poem. All of the reversos in this collection are based on fairy tales. The book will receive a starred review in January's Booklist. And once again, I'm co-hosting, with Barbara Genco, the ALSC Poetry Blast at ALA in June in D.C. Come listen to wonderful children's poets read!
William Sleator
William Sleator’s forthcoming book is entitled The Phantom Limb. Bill says to see the Wikipedia article about mirror boxes to get an explanation of the subject of the book. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mirror_box
Jill Paton-Walsh and John Rowe Townsend
The big news is that Jill's third Lord Peter Wimsey novel, continuing the original sequence by Dorothy L Sayers, is finished and accepted, and is due to be published in the UK by Hodder & Stoughton in September 2010. There will be a reception on publication day in the House of Lords, no less. The date of American publication isn't yet known. John, at 87, is feeling that the time has come to hang up his boots and take it easy, though he can't be entirely sure he won't pop up again some day.
Sylvia Waugh
I still recall warmly the friendly reception you gave me in Cambridge all those years ago. I continue to write but have been very busy with other things in my life, and often felt that writing was pushed too far to the margins. It is surely a problem with other women writers.
There's always next year...
Next year, I shall find a publisher for my unpublished ghost novel. Next year, I shall finish some of the things I have started. Next year, I shall tidy my filing cabinets and get rid of my 'flater drawer'. (In case that puzzles you, that's the drawer I put thing in 'for later'!)
Virginia Euwer Wolff
Virginia Euwer Wolff’s novel This Full House, the final volume in the Make Lemonade Trilogy, was published in January 2009. Her novel Bat 6 was one of three books selected to celebrate Oregon’s statehood sesquicentennial. In October she traveled to the University of Oklahoma to introduce the 2009 NSK Neustadt Laureate, Vera B. Williams. Jinny will give the Teen Author Luncheon speech at the March conference of the Public Library Association, and will be at the CLNE Colloquy in May.
Tim Wynne-Jones
Tim Wynne-Jones launched two new books this year and one old trilogy made new. In the spring Candlewick brought out Tim's young adult thriller, The Uninvited. It has been chosen as a Publishers Weekly Best Book and made the short list for the Governor General's Award in Canada. This fall saw the release in Canada of the third of the Rex Zero novels for middle grade readers. Rex Zero, The Great Pretender will be out in the US from Farrar Straus Giroux in the spring of 2010. The Cold War Museum of Canada, affectionately called "The Diefenbunker" opened a permanent exhibition this fall called Rex Zero Headquarters. The hands on display featuring Rex's bedroom and a typical late-fifties/early-sixties classroom, is meant to represent a kid's eye view of the cold war. Also this fall, Groundwood Books brought out a reissue of the three Zoom the cat picture books, Zoom at Sea, Zoom Away and Zoom Upstream, all in one glorious volume. |
