Home > Blog > Month: August 2016

Month: August 2016

  • Three Educators Nationally Selected For 2016 Scholastic Art & Writing Award Artist Residency

    NEW YORK, NY — Three art educators were selected for the second annual GOLDEN Educators Residency – a two-week art residency created by nonprofit Alliance for Young Artists & Writers, in partnership …

  • Candlewick Press and Boston Harbor Cruises Partner to Promote Literacy and Marine-Life Education

    BOSTON, MA — Candlewick Press announced today that it will partner with Boston Harbor Cruises to expand the idea of the “beach read” by adding high-quality children’s books to the …

  • Developmental Benefits of Early Literacy

    Below are just a few of the concrete benefits of early literacy: Vocabulary building Brain development Academic success Multi-sensory development Increased quantitative reasoning Emotional awareness Academics aside, having a regular …

  • Author Matt de la Peña Receives Intellectual Freedom Award

    Urbana, Illinois – NCTE honors Matt de la Peña for his courage in standing up for intellectual freedom with the NCTE National Intellectual Freedom Award, given for de la Peña’s …

  • PLA Receives ASAE Power of A Summit and Gold Awards for Every Child Ready to Read Literacy Program

    CHICAGO, IL — The Public Library Association (PLA) has earned 2016 American Society of Association Executives (ASAE) Power of A Summit and Gold Awards for its co-creation and implementation of …

  • Fighting Homogenization

    Contributed by Ned Rust, Author

    They want me to try to write for what?

    They want a graduate of the 99%, non-minority, public schools of last-century Briarcliff Manor (the B.M. we call it, much like residents of the O.C., only without a validating TV show) to write for a diversity blog?

    Roaring Brook has just published a book I’ve written called Patrick Griffin’s Last Breakfast on Earth,about a kid who undertakes a kitchen-sink chemistry experiment and ends up in a parallel world dominated by a hyper-modern efficiency state that finds human cultural heritages to be inconvenient and even anathema.

    The novel’s chapters variously feature actual (not title) griffins, vigilante mothers, misanthropic shut-ins, jackalopes, and more. The good guys are trying to combat the efficiency state baddies by championing literature and art and music and wisdom; they’re called Commonplacers because at the center of their cause is something known as The Book of the Commonplace. Commonplace books are real and wonderful things, but this one is a bit more inclusive than your average.

    Getting back to this diversity blog mission, my surprise at this invitation was also stoked by the fact that the title character—though I don’t think I spent much ink on it—is a white boy of suburban extraction just like me.

    I mean, why would anybody want the white male author of a white male character to contribute to a conversation about the cultural and phenotypic differences among us?

    Well, I’m over my initial surprise now. And I’m grateful.

    Because, in fact, it was in fact my absolute intention in writing Patrick Griffin’s Last Breakfast on Earth not just to address diversity but to make it a central cause.

    I am no great fan of intolerant politicians, golf- or yacht-clubs, but I have a lot of experience living near them and it happened to be—from accident of birth and upbringing—a setting I could bring to life with better justice than some others.

    So, yeah, I wrote what I knew.

    In fact, I leaned into my experience with the privileged classes. As a product of an accentless suburb, and as a frequent inhabitant of media industry cubicles in my adult life, I feel I am keenly aware of the sort of variety-averse, fearful conservatism that goes hand-in-hand with society’s stratified status quo.

    And I think it’s freaking evil. So evil, in fact, that I could conceive none more profound to portray in my book.

    I like to think the villains of Patrick Griffin’s Last Breakfast on Earth are not the regular work-a-day malefactors of today’s popular fiction. They do not hold gladiatorial contests for their target readership’s age bracket. They do not suck blood. They do not rip bodices. They are neither contemporary schoolyard bullies nor bullying gods from some ancient polytheistic religion. They do not try to find and kill teens with special powers. They do not throw up cruel obstacles for children with cancer. They are not abusive school administrators. What they are is a group of people who are all about making the world as easy as it can be for themselves. They rule the world with a micromanaging, manipulative, efficiency-minded, monopoly-gloved, close-minded, diversity-crushing fist.

    They rule the world in the way that big companies here in the real world too often do—by gate-keeping outside ideas and by investing in what they perceive to be safe bets. They assume that we, the faceless (though demographically assessed) consumer hordes, like less diversity rather than more diversity. And, by catering to this assumption, they believe they will extract more money and social power from us.

    It probably is not the most commercially savvy note to sound. It is doubtless easier to say one’s main character is up against an Evil Wizard than up against the Homogenizing Forces of Modern Corporate Culture. But I maintain some hope that Patrick Griffin’s Last Breakfast on Earth will get some readers to think critically about and even to take action against the monoculture-loving, diversity-fearing, sunlight-avoiding, culturally abhorrent forces all around us. Anyhow, I really can’t think of an evil more profound. And if I didn’t write a compelling story that makes this message stick with my readers . . . well, that failure deserves to stick to it, and to me, like white on snow.

    Photo credit Bart Rust

    Ned Rust is the co-author of two books in the Daniel X series and Witch and Wizard: The Gift with James Patterson. He lives in Croton, New York, with his wife, son, and daughter. 

  • Winnie-the-Pooh Dolls Back on Display

    Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet, Eeyore, Kanga, and Tigger are looking cute as ever, just in time for Pooh’s 95th birthday on August 21.  The dolls have been not only cleaned, repaired and stabilised, …

  • #1 New York Times Bestselling Author Kitty Kelley to Publish Her First Children’s Book with Simon & Schuster

    New York, NY — Atheneum Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing, announced today that it will publish Martin’s Dream Day, the first picture book for …

  • Scholastic Announces Strong Sales for ‘Harry Potter and the Cursed Child’

    Scholastic announced a first printing of 4.5 million copies for the eighth story in the beloved series. Eager fans of all ages gathered at midnight parties in bookstores and libraries to …

  • National Ambassador Gene Luen Yang’s Creativity in Progress Series: Part 5

    In his latest post, Yang shares his approach to inking. Though it took him years of practice to hone — and a few spills — inking is now Yang’s favorite part of …

  • AASL Welcomes New Knowledge Quest Bloggers

    CHICAGO, IL – The American Association of School Librarians (AASL) is proud to welcome an additional cast of bloggers for its Knowledge Quest website. Knowledge Quest offers breaking news, inspired blogs and encourages conversations …

  • Bookish Reminders Here and Abroad

    Last month I joined seven other children’s book editors on a week-long trip across Germany, sponsored by the German Book Office of New York. The program nurtures Germany’s relationships with publishers around the globe, as Deutschland imports roughly 50% of its children’s books from other countries.

    Everyone involved learned a ridiculous amount about what we all do similarly and differently, and I was constantly inspired to think more globally and critically about my own lists.

    I was also constantly reminded of children’s books I’ve connected with, including many from Charlesbridge. At a pop-up illustrator gallery in Hamburg, for example, I recognized the art of Gerda Raidt, illustrator of In the New World: A Family in Two Centuries. Charlesbridge translated this from German and published it last year. At a visit to a smaller publisher, I held the German edition of Blood & Ink, a contemporary young-adult novel Charlesbridge will release in English, in 2017. Other destinations during my travels brought to mind children’s titles from a wide-range of publishers, with topics ranging from WWII, Shakespeare, Japanese samurais, and the Brothers Grimm.  

    I share this because I don’t get out of my bubble nearly enough. It was empowering and exciting to experience different cultures and see parts of the world I’d only known through literature. Likewise, it was heartening to remember that even if readers aren’t always fortunate enough to see the world, we can still “see” the world through books.

    This theme emerged most powerfully at the Tempelhof Airport in Berlin. I was reminded of Charlesbridge’s The Candy Bomber: The Story of the Berlin Airlift’s “Chocolate Pilot,” which recounts how Gail Halverson brought joy and hope to the children of devastated Berlin.

    Although the airport is now defunct, it has modern relevance. Its runways now serve bikers, joggers, and picnickers rather than aircraft. And behind the fence surrounding the airport’s main building, refugees live in tented shelters. German Chancellor Angela Merkel approved converting the airport into a makeshift shelter for thousands of refugees and migrants from Syria, Afghanistan, and other countries.

    Looking through the fence, I started to think about how the refugee issue will look to us years from now. Down the road, how will future books depict our global response to today’s crisis? Or to the refugees that were forced to leave so many countries over so many years? Will we feel pride or shame? And what books can we find now, to guide us through this history-in-the-making? Is there still hope for a happy ending?

    I don’t have the answers, but I do know that I personally want to expand my own knowledge and empathy on the matter. Here is a list of children’s books I’ve been reading and rereading now that I’m home from Germany. Should I visit this part of the world again in the future, I hope some of these titles will come to mind. I hope they will remind me of brave souls and of communities that chose compassion and education over fear and hate.

    Books that can inspire conversation about immigrants and refugees:

    Julie Bliven is an editor at Charlesbridge. She holds an M.A. in Children’s Literature from Simmons College. The I’m Your Neighbor project and CBC Diversity continue to help her find titles that bring diverse experiences to our book market. Julie is especially grateful to author and librarian Natalie Dias Lorenzi for recommending some of the titles on this particular list of recommended books.

  • National Ambassador Gene Luen Yang on Reading and Writing Outside One’s Comfort Zone

    Through his platform, “Reading Without Walls,” Yang encourages readers to pick up books outside their comfort zone — featuring characters different from themselves. As a writer, he also pushes himself …

  • Submissions Open for the New-York Historical Society Children’s History Book Prize

    Only books published in 2016 are eligible. The deadline for submission is November 1, 2016.  Click here for more information on the award.

  • Penguin Young Readers Acquires Sequel to New York Times Bestselling Picture Book, ‘Dragons Love Tacos’

    July 28, 2016 — Dial Books for Young Readers, an imprint of Penguin Young Readers, has acquired Dragons Love Tacos 2: The Sequel, companion to the popular, New York Times …

  • Call for 2017 Carter G. Woodson Young Reader Book Nominations

    The National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) is pleased to announce its call for nominations of books eligible to receive the CARTER G. WOODSON BOOK AWARD, presented to the most distinguished young reader non-fiction books …

  • Barnes & Noble Announces That Harry Potter and the Cursed Child is the Company’s Most Pre-Ordered Book Since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows in 2007

    New York, NY – Barnes & Noble, Inc. (NYSE: BKS), the nation’s largest retail bookseller and a leading retailer of content, digital media and educational products, today announced that Harry …

  • Script eBook of “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts One and Two” Now Available Globally

    London, England, 1 August, 2016 – Following the opening gala of the stage play Harry Potter and the Cursed Child Parts One and Two, Pottermore has published the original eBook …

  • Random House Children’s Books Launches the Story Stop Bus

    Carrying a wide variety of titles, the Story Stop will visit book festivals and more throughout the year.  Click here for upcoming tour stops!

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