The Bolduc House Earthquake Exhibit

The Bolduc House Museum's exhibit to commemorate the New Madrid Earthquake of 1811 begins on December 16th. The thoughtful, varied ways they have chosen to commemorate the earthquake are intriguing and make me wish I lived closer so I could visit during the exhibit. 


The aspect of their commemoration that is close to my heart is the exhibit of Debbie Davidson's etegami. Etegami is an art form I have always admired and wanted to try. I had seen plenty of beautiful artwork in Japan, but I remember first identifying Etegami as an art form when I went to mail a postcard. The post office was a large one and had a etegami exhibit. Etegami art is striking. It is common to fill the page and spill over the sides. I feel a certain kinship to it as I feel like I spill over the sides quite a bit of the time. 


Debbie's work is remarkable. After the earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster I found myself visiting her blog daily. She was a voice in those terrible days that followed that spoke of strength and unity and love. Her series Humanizing the Quake brought hope during a very fearful time. The images from Humanizing the Quake are on display at the Bolduc House Museum. The proceeds will assist those who have had to relocate after the disaster.


If the story ended there it would be enough. For me, there is more. My own response at the time seemed inadequate. Too far away. Too little. The poem I offered up was all I had to give. Debbie was inspired by it and (with my blessings) created an etegami. In fact she created two. This piece is part of the collection. So in my small way, I too, have a connection to the exhibit. 


We are all connected. We all make a difference. You never know how far your actions may ripple. 




Visit Debbie's blog Dosanko Debbie's Etegami Notebook and follow her on twitter @dosankodebbie

Our words take on a life of their own

I am reflecting on the fact that our words, once let free, take on a life of their own. Last year I wrote a poem during the Month of Poetry. When Japan suffered the great tragedy of having earthquake, tsunami and nuclear disaster I offered my poem up right here. 


Enter Deborah Davidson, Etegami artist based in northern Japan. Her artwork is beautiful, delicate and meaningful. I became a fan. Through some twist of fate, she read my blog and asked if she could make artwork of my  poem. I was delighted. Not only was the result beautiful, I had never seen my words through someone else's eyes. 


Months have passed and I received a comment from Deborah. Turns out she's part of a earthquake-related exhibit at The Bolduc House Museum in St. Genevieve, Mo. I'd never heard of the place. Her artwork will be for sale to raise money to relocate victims of the earthquake. She wanted to know if I would give permission for the image with a fragment of my poem to be used. My eyes misted over. Yes, a thousand times, Yes! What a beautiful thing to watch my words go out in support of this project. If you would like to see the announcement you can view it at:
http://hosted-p0.vresp.com/591095/a6771c7698/ARCHIVE


All this got me thinking of how one action leads to another. I wrote the poem during Month of Poetry so I really need to thank Kat Apel for the inspiration. I met Kat Apel through National Picture Book Writing Week and strengthened my correspondence with her through Picture Book Idea Month, so I guess I really should thank Paula Yoo and Tara Lazar. I found out about those events through NaNoWriMo from reading Paula Yoo's blog so it comes down to Paula again. And Paula, I have no idea how I started reading your blog, but it might have been from a link from Mitali Perkin's blog. 


These words of ours. We write them down. We cherish them. We raise them until they can go out into the world alone. We hope they will not be led astray by hucksters. We pray that they will reach their blissful without despair. From the cradle of an idea to the moment of graduation we love them. But at some point we set them free. 


And what a beautiful thing it is to see them bloom. To blossom. And to bring joy back to us in unexpected ways. 

Participate in Picture Book Month

This last six weeks have been all about picture books for me. Learning about them, reading them, evaluating them and trying my hand at writing them. So when I learned about Picture Book Month I wondered if I really had time to check this out as well. I thought I'd wait until December 1st, but my curiosity got the better of me. So glad it did. If you love picture books you'll want to take a visit to read all the great things these giants of the industry have to say about them. If you don't love picture books already, get over there and see what you are missing!

Guess I'll have to wait until January before I dig into those novels I've had my eye on.

Setting up a Mock-Caldecott Committee group

I was asked if I would blog the process of my Mock Caldecott group. So I started where I was – on kick off day. I didn’t want to loose the importance or the feelings of the moment. Yet so much happened before I got to that point and I think that’s the part that anyone considering doing a group like this would want to know about.  It takes a lot more than loving reviewing books.

The idea to form a group started poking me during the course I took through the ALSC last winter. The course, Newbery Award: Past, Present and Future, was an inspiring and mind expanding experience. K. T. Horning is an inspiration. Her extensive knowledge and masterful structuring of the course made it one of the highlights of my year. It certainly expanded the way I looked at the award process and children’s literature in general.

During the class I began to think that it was the process the award committee takes which really interested me above all else. I guess I had always thought of the end result, finding the most distinguished book for children, to be the goal. Learning more about the process, I felt that the process of reviewing in a systematic way in relation to other people doing the same was something I wanted, more than anything else, to experience.  Some people have told me that they don’t see the point in taking graduate classes when they can get knowledge experientially. While everyone has to walk their own life and find their own truth, I have found that the systematic approach to studying something does give a different kind of perspective. For example, while I may be widely read in some areas, systematically reading and comparing with a goal in mind gives a whole new realm of experiencing what is being viewed. It is well worth the time and effort because my experience grows into a deeper level. A person can do this without a course or a group, but most of us don’t stick to a system unless we are in concert with others. We also miss out on the perspectives gained from others, the growth in our relationships with others and a network of fellow seekers.

So I knew I wanted both a system and human contact. Sharing the experience was paramount to the experience I was seeking.

And I knew it was the Caldecott Medal that I was interested in.

Now I needed a forum. Professionally, I had a goal of providing some professional development in my school. This focus group is a chance to form a group without the travel time, foster learning with my peers, provide an opportunity for people to earn professional development credit which I hoped they would find interesting while fulfilling some of my own, build community and have the opportunity to try out the process all wrapped in one. It didn’t hurt that I’d be doing advertising for the award while I was at it.

Getting clearance to do this project was an education in itself. I am fortunate, as everyone was supportive of me in the process. However, writing the proposal and filling in the paperwork was not as easy for me to do as convincing people that it was a good idea. It took me several months from the time I picked up the application to the time it was ready to be submitted. Part of that was my own dreaming and reflecting on how I should structure the project -what parts to go as authentic as possible and what parts to be more relaxed about. When I thought I was ready I submitted it to our Curriculum Director who sat down with me and helped me work through the pieces I needed to clarify.

While I was doing this I was reading like mad. I read the Caldecott Medal Committee Handbook multiple times. The bibliography in the document served as my guide in ordering books online. Hint to those who want to do this – some of the out of print books can be had used online. For a while I was receiving books from UPS or the US Postal Service every day. I read and I reviewed. I took copious notes, distilled some key vocabulary, typed it in large font and hung it over my desk to remind me of what I am looking for when I review books. It was overwhelming. It was inspiring. It took over my waking and my sleeping.

Here’s the difficult part - structuring it all. It sounds easy to find books and review them. In reality it would be easy to loose track. So creating a personal recording method is essential. I have a spreadsheet for the eligible books. I can use spreadsheet software, but I’m not a whiz at all the formatting for printing. So that means I save the spreadsheet several times over customized in a variety of ways. I have a list of the books and the publications which have reviewed them, a list of the books and their ILL status, and a list of the books and who has read them to reference to see if a book can go back to the library.

Then there are the review notes. Very clever I thought myself when I made a chart echoing the sample given in the Caldecott Manual. I copied and pasted the charts until I had plenty to work through. Each new book reviewed was entered in the next empty form. Now, I have a long, long list of charts out of order. It would be simple to print, sort alphabetically or by general impression, three hole punch them and file. Digital formats are so less clunky, though. So I guess I’d better start cutting, moving and pasting them in alphabetical order.  It has been suggested that I would have been well advised to add date and some sort of easily identifiable mark which marks whether I think it is in the running or whether it is not to be borne.

Yes, these things will work themselves out during this session and be in place for next year. They take more time and energy and thoughtfulness than you originally bargain for.

Finally, I had to find 15 people to form the group. I was able to get one member from the public library when I went to invite and discuss the program. Several teachers who I knew to be children’s lit enthusiasts had helped me through the thinking stages. They readily joined and brought others with them. An all staff email garnered a few inquiries. Mostly though, I talked to everyone as we crossed paths. I stopped talking when I hit the magic number. I did find that the most successful way for me to garner members was to talk to them. I don’t know if it was the personal invitation, my enthusiasm for the project or my sparkling personality. It doesn’t matter. I have a wonderful group of 15 intelligent, perceptive, energetic people who are helping me to realize my goal. 

Mock Caldecott Kick Off

Today I hosted my Mock Caldecott Kick Off. The Mock Caldecott is being run as a focus group for members of my school and community. We have a nice cross section of our school represented and a school/public library connection. I was hoping that we could mimic the actual committee as much as possible and so I aimed for 15 participants. I selected myself as chair and sent out an email to all the staff of my building. I'll blog about how it came to be another time. For now, it's all about today.

I prepared folders for each participant with the materials I thought they would need. This included a copy of my Power Point slideshow for taking notes, contact list for all participants, evaluation sheets, a list of titles to start looking at and a bookmark with all the Caldecott Medalists up to 2005 which I had bought from CBC back in the day. To add to the festive nature of the day I put a gold medal sticker on the cover of each and wrote a name on each one.

I served refreshments. After a full day of teaching people need to unwind a bit. We had tea and soft drinks available. I wanted something Caldecott theme oriented, so I baked some brownies, frosted them and placed circles of white chocolate which was tinted yellow in the middle of what I thought would be each brownie. I thought when I cut them apart they would look like books with gold medals. Well, it was a nice fantasy, but really I think I'd better leave the themed baking up to two of my favorite bloggers - Grace Lin and Jamma Rattigan. Those are two ladies who know how to do it right. On the contrary, when you try to cut fudge brownies with a table knife they don't cut evenly. In fact, they kind of form balls. If I were to do it again, I wouldn't choose fudge style brownies and I would  bake them until dry. At least they would look good. The rollos and peanut butter cups which were both wrapped in round gold foil held up the theme of gold medals a bit more successfully.

Although most of us work in the same building, we don't really all know each other. Our member from the public library needed to have a way to meet us as well. So I asked everyone to wear a name tag and tell about a picture book that they love. Any picture book they love. I was not foolish enough to ask for a "favorite". I couldn't have answered that - my "favorite" changes from moment to moment. It was really interesting to me, who knows everyone, what books they chose.

We turned to the power point in which I outlined some of the background of the Caldecott Medal, an overview of the criteria, the format of our meetings, some background on picture book evaluation and some resource information.

From tomorrow, people will start coming to the library to read and review the books. In conjunction with our public library, I have ordered a selection which I will keep behind my desk. Members are welcome to help themselves any time. They are also given a list so they can order them through ILL and see them at their leisure at home.

This all took about one hour. I looked about me and was really excited. It is a very lively group of people with very different perspectives. Hosting a group like this will be a real learning experience. I have no doubt that debate about the various merits of the books will be hotly contested at times. I look forward to this challenge. It will certainly stretch my abilities and my vision.

It was a good day.

End Papers

When June rolls around I find that I had better find something really engaging to do with my students if I want to be cheerful. I realized that we had never done my end paper study.

I started by explaining the role of end papers. We talked about browsing in book stores. End papers help move you visually through the book. They keep your interest level high and make it more likely that you will keep turning the pages. End papers are like trailers for movies…they either leave you uninterested or have you counting the days until the movie comes out. Before you even come to the title page, you can be hooked.

After we understand the idea, we start looking at a stack of books. Students give their reviews on the success of end papers in each book using thumbs up or thumbs down. When we got to Grace Lin’s book, Dim Sum for Everyone, one of my classes broke out in cheers. In every class there was at least one person who declared themselves too hungry to go on. In Ian Falconer’s Olivia, the end papers not only delight, they actually make your eye take a journey from left to right. The response was warm. We looked at many examples of brilliant use of end papers before I presented the problem.

I took a book which is a brilliant book in terms of content and illustration. However, the end papers are really subpar. What were they thinking? I primed the book as I had all others. Excitement to see the end papers was high. Then I opened the book. Confusion was written on the faces of most of the children I showed it to. Exclamations of horror were not uncommon. Several children had to be spoken to regarding inappropriate language choices.

The challenge: To create end papers which were superior to the ones in the original book. We read the whole thing so they would have the context. Then I gave students a piece of paper, a pencil and some crayons. They followed through brilliantly.

New books in the library

The books I ordered have arrived! They are lovely. Sometimes it just feels so good to look over the purchases and know that the decisions were good ones. I always love getting new books and showing them off to students. Sometimes, it seems like every book is a jewel and each one fits a special area of the school curriculum or social needs so perfectly it brings tears to your eyes. This year was like that. As I pulled the books from the cardboard boxes I felt that all the work I had put into selecting the ones which would serve us well paid off. I’ve already started my list for next year.

On Friday I had a “Sneak Peek” for teachers to come and see what’s new in the library. Last time I did this there was very little response. This time I was more proactive – emails to all staff, a follow up flier in their boxes and an announcement on the intercom at the end of the day. Not only that, I offered refreshments, games and prizes.

One of the games I prepared was a Caldecott guessing game. When I submitted the purchase order for Jerry Pinkney’s The Lion and the Mouse last year it had not yet won the Caldecott Award. So I chose three other new books to display with Mr. Pinkney’s book. Teachers had to guess which one was the medal winner. It was fun to watch them. Several of them huddled together whispering and trying to come to a group decision. One teacher picked up The Lion and the Mouse and kept saying over and over again “It has to be this one.” This teacher complemented me on choosing books which mimicked former award winning selections. She was convinced that I had done this thoughtfully. In truth, I just grabbed three reasonably beautiful books. More than half of them chose correctly.

It was good to hear the teachers squeal with delight, grab a book and express that the book fills a need they had. One teacher was overcome with the giggles reading Henry and Mudge and the Great Grandpas by Cynthia Rylant. Another one accosted every person who came through the door and insisted that they immediately read Mama Says: A book of Love for Mothers and Sons by Rob D. Walker and lushly illustrated by Leo and Diane Dillon. By the time the afternoon was over there were at least five people who intended to go out and buy a copy as a gift. I was glad when one of the teachers made a point of telling me how glad they were that I had purchased a number of Grace Lin’s picture books including Dim Sum for Everyone. It seems they are just what she needed.

The books will start going out today. Can’t wait to see the kids’ faces when they see them.

RISD Alumni Art Sale

Yesterday I hoofed it on over to the RISD (Rhode Island School of Design) Alumni Art Sale held at the Rhode Island Convention Center. Always a feast for the eyes, these sales delight and inspire. My objective in going yesterday was to visit Grace Lin and get my hands on a signed copy of her book Where the Mountain meets the Moon. The book has been getting good reviews and I have wanted to read it, but I was pretty sure I could get a specially signed copy if I waited. I intend to wrap it and put it under the tree for myself. Then I will read in between the holidays and the beginning of the new year.

If you are not familiar with Grace Lin, you are missing out on a gem. Her work is fresh and empowering. Her website and blog are among my favorites to follow. Grace has a voice which is so friendly and warm that you really feel like you know her. This tone is one of the reasons her books have such appeal. Don’t miss out any longer. To view her blog, see a trailer for the book, as well as her interview on the Today Show, go to:

http://outergrace.blogspot.com/

Yesterday I tried to behave myself. I really did. The first time I saw Grace at a RISD Almuni Art Sale, I charged the booth she shares with Anna Altieri and simply gushed “I’m a fan!” at which my preteen child nearly died of embarrassment. I didn’t know enough to stop. “I follow your blogs” I continued. I was on a roll. Grace was charming and didn’t seem to think my behavior as outrageous as my companion did. She simply smiled and asked me if I was a librarian. How did she know? While I was thinking she was not only a wonderful author/illustrator but also somewhat of a mystic, my child informed me that it was as if I had the word LIBRARIAN stamped across my forehead.

Yesterday I managed to browse peacefully, request my books quietly and slyly mention that I do follow her blogs and enjoy them. I bought the aforementioned Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, Robert’s Snow and Lissy’s Friends, complete with Lissy doll. I intend to use Lissy’s Friends at school to accompany my origami lessons.

Here's the inside of my book bag.

Rhode Island Festival of Children's Books and Authors

My bag of books

Yesterday I had the great pleasure of attending the Rhode Island Festival of Children's Books and Authors. It was held at the Lincoln School in Providence, Rhode Island. What a wonderful gathering of authors, illustrators and people who love books! The school itself is a beautiful building - certainly one which inspires excitement and awe. The people assembled inside were what made the day special.

Unable to attend the morning events I missed some great author talks. Lucky for me, I was still able to meet people when I had books signed.

The people I met and the books I bought:

Paul Zelinsky made you feel like you were doing him a favor. He is a truly gracious man. I got Swamp Angel and the last copy of Rumplestiltskin. We cannot keep his books on the shelves in our school library.

Jerry Pinkney made you feel like you were coming home. I loved watching him as I stood in line. He was relaxed, enjoyed people and smiled a smile which made my worries fade away. I was so happy to purchase for a dear friend a copy of The Moon Over Star, winner of the Coretta Scott King Award this year and the book Barack and Michelle Obama read to second graders. For myself I bought Goin' Somewhere Special a book which is special to me as a librarian. I had to have Jerry Pinkney's Little Red Riding Hood because it was the book which made me stop 10 months of research to change my focus. It was a pivotal book in my thought process about fairy tales and equal access.

Next was a talk given by Christopher Paul Curtis. There are no words to describe just what a delight his talk was. His easy manner, his sense of humor, his sense of timing - all impeccable. Later when I had him sign a copy of Bud, Not Buddy for a relative who is from Flint, Michigan, it turns out he knows another relative of mine. The world is a small place.

Brian Selznik was a delight. The Invention of Hugo Cabret was my pick this time. When meeting him by accident before his signing, we asked if he could sign the book. He replied that he didn't have time to sign the book, that he would be happy to do so later if only we would be able to come to his table, he would want to sign it properly. All the time he was giving this monologue he was signing the book with a wicked smile on his face!

Padma Venkatraman was there signing an intriguing book called Climbing the Stairs, among other titles. I can't wait to read this book. She was charming and had materials for teachers and librarians to use with her books.

I was intending to get a copy of Lois Lowry's Number the Stars, but it was sold out by the time I got there. So I ended up getting a copy of Gossamer, which I have not read yet. Her talk was humorous, delightful and intellectually stimulating. I am so glad I heard the talk as I became acquainted with some of her work for an earlier age group which I was unaware of. Oh, I have a lot of reading to do.

One of the great things about the day was seeing the people who were there to sign their books being excited to be able to sit in on the talks given by the others. To see people you admire showing admiration for other people you admire makes you admire them all the more.

It was a wonderful day.