January 27, 2010
Our Family Literacy Day Baby Literary Salon
It’s Family Literacy Day! To celebrate, we invited our favourite Mom and Baby friends to share some stories, and to sing some songs (as the theme of this year’s Family Literacy Day is “Sing For Literacy”). The event was a resounding success, and not just because of the snacks provided. No, it was a success because the guests brought even more snacks, including delicious fudge, green tea shortbread and jello treats for the little ones. (Forgive me for fixating on edibles, but for breastfeeding women, this is very very important).
Margaret and her mom Carolyn brought family favourite Tumble Bumble, as well as Margaret’s beloved book of the moment Boo Boo. Finn in particular enjoyed Tumble Bumble. His mom Sara came with a copy of one of her childhood favourites, the absolutely magical The Bed Book by Sylvia Plath. Who knew Sylvia Plath wrote a children’s book? No, not I. But I liked the elephant bed the very best.
Leo’s mom Alex brought along a copy of hardcore alphabet book Awake to Nap by Nikki McClure. The illustrations were beautiful, and “I is for inside” was the best one. Later, Alex read Margaret Atwood’s first kids’ book Up in a Tree, which was pretty delightful and might even impress the most avid Atwood-hater. Also remarkable was the character that looked like a baby Margaret Atwood, and was absolutely adorable.
I read Ten Little Fingers Ten Little Toes, as well as Harriet’s fave All About Me: A Baby’s Guide to Babies. And then, because of the singsong theme, we also read/sang Old MacDonald, Five Little Ducks and The Wheels on the Bus. The babies played quite happily together, and took turns playing with the best toy out of all the toys we own: a tin pie plate. Harriet fell down from sitting and now has her first bruise. Leo and Finn bonded over a set of plastic rings. Margaret showed us her mobility prowess. We listened to Elizabeth Mitchell, and drank tea, and ate delicious things, and in celebrating family literacy, we spent a splendid afternoon.
January 26, 2010
Expert Recommendations for Family Literacy Week: Author/Illustrator Geneviève Côté
Geneviève Côté has illustrated books for children of all ages, working with a variety of talented authors, like Janet Wong, Gilles Tibo or Susin Nielsen-Fernlund. Her own picture books include Me and You (Kids Can Press 2009), What Elephant? (Kids Can Press 2006) and With you always, Little Monday (Harcourt 2007). Her editorial art has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, l’Actualite and other publications.
She has won several honours, including the Elisabeth Mrazik-Cleaver Award in 2005 and the General Governor’s Award for Illustration in 2007. She lives in Montreal, Quebec.
And she was kind enough to share recommendations for the following books:
1) The True Story of The Three Little Pigs! as told to Jon Scieszka and illustrated by Lane Smith: Outrageous, funny to read aloud and to play-act
2) Penny Lee and her TV by Glenn Mc Coy: Funny enough to wean small kids from TV (at least for a while)
3) The Wishing of Biddy Malone by Joy Cowley, illustrated by Christopher Denise: A tale, rather classic in form, about learning the power of working for what you wish for (thanks to something akin to placebo magic), and therefore being actually happy when you do get what you wish for.
4) The Tree of Life by Peter Sis: A picture book biography of Darwin -who would have thought he would still be a controversial figure 125 years after his death?
5) Madeline by Ludwig Bemelmans: Out of nostalgia, mostly, but hey, it worked for me, for my sisters, my niece, and her daughter!
6) Bonjour Madame la Mort by Pascal Teulade, illustrated by Jean-Charles Sarrazin: This one in French. Hotly recommended most of all for any kid mourning a grandparent, but probably many other kids as well. Death here wears a flannelette nightdress, plays cards with the old lady she’s come to claim, and takes silly photographs. Cartoon-like illustrations fit the text – a perfect mixture of tender, sensitive and surprisingly funny. I’d be real interested to know what you think about this one, Kerry! I heard it caused a bit of a stir when it was published, but personally I find it very appropriate.
January 26, 2010
Author Interviews @ Pickle Me This: Patricia Storms (for Family Literacy Week!)
I first encountered Patricia Storms through her blog Booklust, and I think I’ve only ever met her two or three times in person, but I feel as though I know her much better than two or three times would allow. She is a generous spirit who radiates such warmth and energy, she has a delightful sense of humour, and she’s a talented illustrator (of books including The 13 Ghosts of Halloween, Edward and the Eureka Lucky Wish Company, and Good Granny Bad Granny) and now author/ illustrator (of her latest book The Pirate and the Penguin). I love her books, I think she’s fabulous, and I’m so pleased that she’s answered some of my questions about writing and illustrating picture books, and also about family literacy.
I: Funny, we call them “picture books”, but then the pictures themselves are so often regarded as secondary (that an illustrator might not receive the same credit as an author of the text, for example). What role do you think illustrations play in children’s books? And why do the illustrations get less respect?
PS: In my Utopian world, the writer and the artist would get equal-billing, since they are both so dependent on each other. Ideally, the artist (I would hope) would be more than just a hired hand doing grunt work and translating literal images onto the page from the words provided. In a good picture book, I see the illustrator as someone who takes the story to another level of delight, imagination and entertainment. The illustrator should be just as much of a story-teller as the author. But they should not be competing with each other. It makes me think of a couple in love, walking in the forest holding hands, each pointing to the different things they both see on their travels. Each person has a unique perspective, but they are still connected, and are grounded in the same environment (the story).
Perhaps ‘get less respect’ is a tad dramatic. (I know, I know I’m the one who used this phrase in a previous email conversation. Heaven knows, I can be a tad dramatic at times). That being said, I have on occasion encountered a certain lack of appreciation for what illustrators (and might I add, especially cartoonists) do for picture books. It can be small annoying things like every time I illustrate a book I have to send a special request to Amazon so that they will add my name at the top of the book entry, following the author. Or really shocking situations like when Madonna ‘wrote’ all those kid’s books, and the illustrators didn’t have their names on the cover of the book at all (of course that is a unique and hopefully never-to-be-repeated situation by any other author). Usually it just seems to me that in terms of promotion, the writer’s name gets more coverage than that of the illustrator. And yet it is called a ‘picture’ book. But I have to be fair, here. It’s the writer who comes up with the idea for the story, and yes, the words are usually crafted long before any pictures appear. As much as I would like equal billing, I must concede that the writer is steering the ship (am I using too much cheesy imagery here? This is the wannabe hack writer coming out in me). So perhaps it is assumed that since the writer is the one who has thought of the original idea and the story, then the illustrator will never be as ‘creative’ as the author, and is simply following the author’s lead. I would rather not see the relationship of author and illustrator in this manner. And I am starting to ramble. Next question.
I: Over the course of your career, what have you learned about the art of illustrating children’s books that would have surprised you in the beginning?
PS: I had always assumed that when an illustrator was hired to draw the pictures for a picture book manuscript, that the story was completely polished and finished at this point. But this is not always the case, and the artist may go off in some interesting directions, while editors are still actually doing last-minute edits on the story. Sometimes art can change at the last minute because of this.
I was also very surprised to find out how much control the Marketing Department (in some publishing houses) has in terms of which artist is chosen for specific projects. But I do have to remind myself that as much as I may just want to create silly, adorable pictures for kids, it is, in the end, a commercial product, and well, publishers do appreciate making money (as do I).
One aspect of this industry which really surprised me was when I was told that some big box bookstores even have editorial control over potential manuscripts and art. They are consulted by publishers and can say yea nor nay on a project, if they think it will or will not sell. They can also recommend creative changes on book covers. Frightening.
I: You’ve recently made the leap from illustrator to author too, of your most recent book The 
Pirate and the Penguin. Would this be a natural extension for any illustrator? Was it a natural extension for you, and why?
PS: I don’t think making the leap from illustrator to author is for every artist. Not every illustrator has a gift of the written word. Some just have no interest in doing it at all (and really, why would one willingly enter into another career that has the potential to do more serious damage to one’s already delicate ego?)
Becoming a picture book author was a natural extension for me, though. I have always loved words just as much as art, and I think this has a lot to do with my enduring love of cartoons and comics. In fact, that’s how I learned to read through cartoons, comic strips and comic books, in conjunction with picture books, of course. As a kid I wrote and drew countless comic strips, and as I got older, I enjoyed writing stories and poems and my own one-panel gag cartoons. Any chance I could get to not write a standard dull essay in high school English, and instead do something creative, I took it. (For example, in my grade 13 Canadian English course, I opted to write a musical based on Richler’s The Apprenticeship of Duddy Kravitz).
As much as I enjoy illustrating the words of others, I do have my own ideas that I would love to see come alive in a book. I sometimes have to pinch myself when I look at The Pirate and the Penguin, I can’t believe I’ve managed to get this far with my dreams. I hope I may be allowed to write and illustrate more stories in the future. But I gotta be truthful for me, it’s very hard, writing picture book stories. The writing is much harder to do than the art. So really, just ignore everything I was kvetching about in question one. What the hell do I know? (more…)
January 25, 2010
Our Favourite Family Reads
We’re starting simple in our celebration of Family Literacy Day/Week. To kick it off, I bring you a list of our favourite books to read to our eight month-old daughter.
Though first, I’ll have you know that she now has two favourite books of her own and they are Rainbow Fun and All About Me: A Baby’s Guide to Babies. Sometimes she will only not cry if she is holding/eating/being read Rainbow Fun, and no other book will do. She laughs hysterically throughout A Baby’s Guide to Babies. This absolutely kills me. Text is not foremost in either of these books though, so the books we like best to read to her are a little different. And they are as follows:
1) Peepo by Janet & Allan Ahlberg: I love the rhythm, I love the rhymes. I love bedroom mirror with its rainbow rim, and a mother with a baby just like him. And you could find something new hidden in the illustrations with every reread.
2) Where is the Green Sheep by Mem Fox: We’ve started banging on a drum during story time, and this book has the best beat poet vibe. I have given this book to every child I know. My favourite is the moon sheep and the star sheep, and Stuart loves the near and far sheep. It never gets old, or at least it hasn’t yet.
3) I Kissed the Baby by Mary Murphy: It’s short with strong drawings in black and white, which made it ideal for when Harriet was smaller. It’s question/answer structure makes it fun to read in dialogue. I love to say, “Of course, I kissed the baby. My own amazing baby.” Indeed.
4) Everywhere Babies by Susan Meyers: Harriet always laughs at the “Every day, everywhere, babies make noise” page. We kind of like the book because it has same-sex families, and we get to feel liberal and superior to those who gave it one-star ratings on amazon for that same reason. It also has a wonderful sing-song rhythm to it, adorable pictures, and an ending that makes me cry, crediting baby-people for “for trying so hard, for travelling so far, for being so wonderful, just as they are.”
5) Ten Little Fingers Ten Little Toes by Mem Fox: Though I fear that this book might alienate readers with six toes on one foot, or with three thumbs, anyone with twenty digits will find this Mem Fox/Helen Oxenbury collaboration completely adorable. Page breaks in all the right places allow for optimum emphasis, narrative underlines that babies are delicious the world over, and babies learn about fingers, toes, and then receive three little kisses on their noses.
5) The Paperbag Princess by Robert Munsch: We have an abridged, indestructable board book version that is perfect for story time. Hoping our daughter takes home the message of one enterprising princess, and how she “didn’t get married after all.”
6) Night Cars by Teddy Jam: We love this story of an urban baby who wouldn’t go to sleep, and is the reason I can often be found warning garbagemen to “be careful near that dream.” Stuart particularly likes that Dad is the primary parent in this one, and that it ends with Baby asleep in his arms, albeit in the morning.
7) Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown: This is the mommy version of Night Cars at our house. I love reading it, making the “shhh” sounds (though I am often frightened by the eerie lights on in the dollhouse). And the cow jumping over the moon picture, because that was Harriet’s first nursery rhyme.
8) The Lady with the Alligator Purse by Nadine Bernard Westcott: A hilarious story of three-tiered healthcare, with pizza as the best medicine. It’s weird and joyful, and we read it like a song.
9) Kisses Kisses Baby-O by Sheree Fitch: I love the “Shhh, hush time. Snuggle huggle…” page the best, which features a beautiful picture of a baby breastfeeding (though unlike my baby, that one doesn’t appear to be biting). Fitch manipulates language in her signature style, and the result is sheer delight. Part lullaby, part poem, and all love song.
10) On the Day You Were Born by Debra Frasier: Because of the illustrations with strong contrast and bright colours, because everything in it is true, and because it puts Baby at the centre of the universe. My favourite is the promise from gravity “that you would never float away.”
So those are mine. What are yours, for babies or kids that are bigger?
