The Ambiguous Ending

Happy Monday everyone!

I read the most fascinating book today. I accidentally bought a book I already owned at the Harvard Bookstore in Cambridge so I hastily returned it and grabbed the first awesomely-illustrated book I saw, Bluebird, written and illustrated by Bob Staake, and left the store without reading it. And I’m so happy I did.

Children's Book Week

Children's Book Week has arrived! Check out the site here. From their site:

"Established in 1919, Children's Book Week is the longest-running national literacy initiative in the country. Every year, commemorative events are held nationwide at schools, libraries, bookstores, homes -- wherever young readers and books connect! 

Children's Book Week is administered by Every Child A Reader, a 501(c)(3) literacy organization dedicated to instilling a lifelong love of reading in children. The Children's Book Council, the national non-profit trade association for children's book publishers, is an anchor sponsor."

Read more here and enjoy the week!

Mel

Illustrator Spotlight: Isol

Now that I’ve graduated from a dual-masters degree at Simmons College I have a lot of free time on my hands. I’ve been emailing back and forth with an awesome blogger lately who blogs about picturebook design and she’s inspired me to start writing here again. So naturally I’ve decided to move, reformat, and rename my blog. I've copy-and-pasted the past posts from the other site here and tagged them as best I can so I can finally say...

Welcome to Let’s Talk Picturebooks!

In honor of this grand re-opening, I’ve decided to post something a bit different. Usually I like to pick a theme or concept and discuss a few books that strongly encompass those themes/concepts, but today I want to break from the usual and focus on one illustrator in particular, Isol.

I’ve chosen her because she was recently chosen to win 2013’s Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award. The Swedish government awards the £500,000 prize annually to an individual or organization working "in the spirit of Astrid Lindgren [to] safeguard democratic values.” A jury of twelve picked her out of 207 candidates, praising her ability to create picturebooks “from the eye level of the child," and the award will be presented later this month. I’ve long been in love with her illustrations, and I’m so excited to see her earning the praise she deserves.

My personal favorite is Nocturne: Dream Recipes, an anthology of sorts that provides dream “recipes” for its readers just before bed time. Suffice it to say there’s a lot of glow-in-the-dark ink. 

NYT Best Illustrated

Hey everyone!

If you’re interested, check out the NEW YORK TIMES Best Illustrated Children’s Books Winners 2012. The judges were Caldecott winner Chris Raschka, VANITY FAIR‘S Bruce Handy, and Cathryn Mercier, the director of the Center for the Study of Children’s Literature at Simmons College and ten books were chosen. CLICK HERE to see the ten winners!

Humbly yours,

Mel

Spooky, Scary...

Okay, I have to warn you, this one is going to be long. Halloween is my absolute favorite holiday of the year (and I say that without putting quotes around holiday intentionally) and there are just too many books with too many Halloweeny undertones. So let’s divide up the Halloween vibes, shall we?

Mel on Auntie Karen's Book Pile!

Check me out on Auntie Karen’s Book Pile this week!

Take My Breath Away

So I’m stuck in bed with the flu and thought that this would be an appropriate time to write about wordless picturebooks. Probably not the best reason I’ve ever had but bear with me…I have the flu.

Love Is in the Air...

I know, I know…I’m terrible. It’s been forever. But in my defense at least I didn’t completely forget…right? On the bright side, the blog has a new look so at least I’m keeping things fresh…

So what to write about for my first post in waaay too many months? Well in the spirit of February 14^th (and because I’m in a super good mood these days) how about picturebooks about love? Or about zombies and love? They seem to intersect more that usual these days…

Mirror, Mirror on the Wall...

Hellooooo!

I hope everyone had a successful Halloween! My house actually hosted a party this year with the theme “fractured fairy tales.” Of course, the problem with concentrating so deeply on fairy tale-themed decorations for the two months prior to Halloween is the withdrawal you experience when the party is over.

So naturally I purchased eight new fairy tale picture books and decided to blog about them. Yay!

Monster Books!

In the spirit of Halloween I’m going to talk about monster picturebooks. My new favorites for this year are ZOMBIE IN LOVE and MOSTLY MONSTERLY, both tales of creatures who don’t quite fit in with their surroundings. Written by Kelly DiPucchio and illustrated by Scott Campbell, ZOMBIE IN LOVE features Mortimer, a zombie looking for love in all the wrong places. DiPucchio and Campbell work together beautifully to fill in the comical gaps in the text and together they create a fun story about holding out for true love. Tammi Sauer and Scott Magoon take a slightly different route to self-fulfillment in MOSTLY MONSTERLY, the tale of a girl who is the only monster at her school who has interests in things other growling and lurching (like petting kittens and picking flowers). She struggles to reconcile these two parts of herself in a way that is comical and relatable, teaching readers the ideas of compromises and group hugs.

Pop-ups!

So I’ve been wracking my brain trying to decide which excuse works best for why I haven’t written in almost a month and here’s what I’ve come up with so far:

1. I COULD COMPLAIN THAT THE REST OF AUGUST WAS FILLED WITH WHIRLWIND FAMILY VACATIONS THAT TOOK ME UP AND DOWN THE CALIFORNIA COAST AND AS FAR AS MEXICO SO THAT LEFT NO TIME FOR WRITING, LET ALONG THINKING, ABOUT BOOKS.
2. I COULD MENTION THAT I FLEW TO BOSTON WITH MY EIGHTEEN-YEAR-OLD CAT ON THE 31^ST, MOVED INTO MY NEW PLACE ON THE 1^ST AND THE 2^ND, AND STARTED CLASSES ONLY A FEW SHORT DAYS LATER AND HAVEN’T HAD TIME TO DO ANYTHING BUT READ A LIST OF SCIFI/FANTASY BOOKS AND ESSAYS DUE FOR CLASS ON THURSDAY.
3. I COULD EVEN BLAME THE INTERNET BECAUSE I DIDN’T HAVE WIFI IN MY NEW HOUSE FOR ALMOST TWO WEEKS AND WE ALL KNOW THAT TWO WEEKS IN BLOG TIME IS, LIKE, FOREVER AND WHATEVER I SAY NOW IS PROBABLY ARCHAIC ANYWAY.
4. OR I COULD JUST SUCK IT UP AND WRITE A NEW POST. PREPARE YOURSELVES.

Preachy Picturebooks

So I’m about to set sail for Mexico but I found this great post that I think all pb writers can benefit from on preachy picturebooks–even kids know when someone is talking down to them and NO one likes it.
See you in 5 days! And hopefully I’ll be bringing back some Spanish books…

HTTP://KIDLIT.COM/2011/08/22/PREACHING-IN-PICTURE-BOOKS/

Con cariño,
Mel

Tiny Books For Tiny Hands

So I have officially packed up all my books into milk crates and no longer have access to them until I move into my new place in September, therefore making this post waaaay shorter than usual. But last night the phrase “tiny books for tiny hands” kept rolling around in my head. It’s a concept I learned in my picturebook class last year and (apparently) it really stuck with me. In case it isn’t glaringly obvious, “tiny books for tiny hands” is the notion that books should be small enough to fit in the hands of a young child so as to make them more accessible and engaging–the child becomes more important to the story because s/he is the one in charge of turning the page. Boardbooks tend to be much smaller because babies tend to have the tiniest hands and many books (Eric Carle’s come to mind) are often reproduced in smaller versions to appeal to younger audiences.

Nonfiction!

One of the series I grew up reading was Mike Venezia’s GETTING TO KNOW THE WORLD’S GREATEST ARTISTS series. I only ended up owning two of them, Van Gogh and Monet, but they’ve stuck with me for almost twenty years now—that must mean something, right? So today I want to talk about nonfiction picturebooks because they are a great way to mix information and original artwork and (apparently) make a lasting impression.

Fourth Walls and Existentialsm

So I’m super excited about today’s topic because if I ever do a thesis it’s going to be on the ideas of breaking the fourth wall and existentialism in picturebooks.

First, there’s the concept of breaking the fourth wall. This happens a lot in plays, where the actors talk directly to the audience, but there are a lot of great picturebooks that do it too. THERE ARE CATS IN THIS BOOK by Viviane Schwarz is a great book where the characters address the reader and encourage them to turn the page, engaging the reader more full because s/he becomes a part of the experience of furthering the story.YOU’RE FINALLY HERE! by Mélanie Watt is another good example of a book that breaks the fourth wall, featuring a bunny who scolds the reader for having taken so long in reading the story, only to turn around and talk on his cell phone (there are also some examples of existentialism in it but I’ll get to that in a minute). Finally, Mo Willems’ Pigeon books also break the fourth wall, with the Pigeon asking if he can drive the bus, have a puppy, eat a hotdog. All three are examples of how effective engaging the reader can be and makes the book interactive for all audiences.

Picturebooks for Travel

Hi again!

So I’m leaving for the west coast in less than two weeks and I thought that good picturebooks for travel would make an interesting topic. I’ve never really seen myself as the kind of person to take along a stack of picturebooks on a long flight, but the last time I flew I decided to try it out. During a 6 hour-long trip across the continental United States I brought along two picturebooks (and, okay, one novel just in case it didn’t work out): Nick Bantock’s THE EGYPTIAN JUKEBOX: A CONUNDRUMand THE CLOCK WITHOUT A FACE, written by Eli Horowitz and Mac Barnett and illustrated by Scott Teplin (and John Green’s AN ABUNDANCE OF KATHERINES which I unsuccessfully struggled to get through, yet, a second time).

Salutations!

Hello blogosphere!

So, after almost 36 hours of children’s literature-related activities this past weekend I decided it was time to finally get this thing up and running. I spent Thursday through Sunday at the Body Electric Institute hosted by the Center for the Study of Children’s Literature at Simmons College.