Artist!

I went to a talk by Caldecott-Medal illustrator Paul O. Zelinsky at Tacoma Public Library last week. What a cool guy.

I apologize for not telling you about this beforehand in the blog, but the good news is you still have a few days to see the exhibit of his art at the Main Library in Tacoma. The show goes through May 14 and it's worth a visit.

Zelinsky is super talented and versatile. The paintings for "Rapunzel," his Caldecott Award book, look like they were done by an old master. For the popular pop-up book "Wheels on the Bus" and its follow-up "Knick-Knack Paddywhack!" his style is brighter and livelier.

For another cool book, "Doodler Doodling," by Rita Golden Gelman, Zelinsky "doodled" most of the characters, then scanned them and put them together using his computer.

At first glance, Zelinsky looks like he could be a mild-manner high school history teacher with his suit, spectacles and receding hairline. Once he took the microphone, he was hilarious and had the rapt attention of everyone in the audience, from age 4 on to adults.

He talked about why he chooses different styles for different books. "Every story has its own feelings." Using a program on his laptop, he drew pictures on the spot to illustrate. Obviously, the dude on the left would be in a different sort of book than the pretty girl on the right.

He showed pictures and talked a lot about "Awful Ogre's Awful Day," a book of poems by Jack Prelutsky that Zelinsky illustrated. For that book, he called up another famous illustrator, Lane Smith, to ask him advice on creating a "yucky" texture for the ogre's skin. He wanted a look like "old food that turned bad and started to rot." He showed pictures from medieval manuscripts that contained little monstrous figures called "grotesques." He said: "I thought Awful Ogre should have a grotesque." He does - a different one on every page.

"Rapunzel" was a long, arduous illustration project. Each painting was done using many thin layers of watercolor to re-create the old feeling. On another "Rapunzel" note, he said: "My daughters were not really interested in my work, but they were interested in their cat. So I thought if I put their cat in, they'd get interested." It worked beautifully; the girls pestered him daily to see the drawings, he said.

He talked about deciding on a follow-up to "Wheels on the Bus," then figured out how to make the "old man" so that when he played paddywhack on parts of his protagonist's body, the kid wouldn't get pummeled. He decided to use 10 tiny men, each humorously representing a different occupation. His laptop drawings to illustrate his "process" had the audience, especially the kids, chortling.

"Paddywhack" is a "pop-up book." So Zelinsky had to be in close contact with a talented paper engineer. Among many astounding features in the book: One of the little men runs from left to right, every time. Think about it. How does he get back? Zelinsky showed an inside view of that page. A piece of paper hides his return to the left. Zelinsky said the paper engineer Andrew Baron, is also well known as a repairer of antique clocks and watches.

I haven't decided yet on all the authors for my "An Author a Day" classes for Summer at Seabury. But after hearing Zelinsky, I think he might be one of them. We could make pop-ups! I've done that before with kids and it's great fun.

I hope some of you get a chance to see his work at the library. Check out Zelinsky's Web site, too. It has some fun features, including animations he did related to one of his newest books: "The Shivers in the Fridge."

(A warning: Don't let kids navigate to the animations using the You Tube link. Links/promos to other inappropriate YouTube videos show up on the page. You can link directly to the animations on his site. Addendum: I e-mailed Mr. Z and got a very fast response. He's going to try to change his tags, or contact YouTube. An update: Mr. Zelinsky changed his You Tube tags; it took him a couple of tries. He even e-mailed me with updates. But now the links are harmless!!)

Let me know if you're interested in hearing about author talks in advance (Here or in the Thursday packet). I will post them, if some of you will go!

Talk to you soon

Gold medal books

On Monday, I got the rare chance to hear the announcements of the 2007 Newbery and Caldecott awards in person.

The American Library Association's Midwinter Meeting was in Seattle over the weekend and the announcement of all the big children's book awards is traditionally made the Monday morning toward the end of the conference.

Each of the committees - Newbery, Caldecott, Printz (for young adult books), Coretta Scott King (for African-American author/illustrators), and others - spent the three days before the announcements sequestered in a locked room at a nearby hotel discussing the books that qualified for their particular awards.

Unlike the Academy Awards, there aren't nominations made beforehand, so the committee members have the daunting task of reading hundreds of books before the meeting, then deciding in just three days which are the best.

Jeri Kladder, head of the Newbery committee, told me she read about 700 books.

The announcements were made to a crowd of at least 1,000 cheering, whistling librarians, publishers representatives and other children's book people.

A woman sitting next to me was alternately whooping loudly as the announcements were made, and excitedly sharing each bit of news with someone via cell phone.

There was some news of special interest to the Seabury community.

Laura McGee Kvasnosky, who visited the school last spring, won the Theodor Seuss Geisel award for "Zelda and Ivy: The Runaways."

"The Runaways," the fourth "Zelda and Ivy" adventure, had just come out when Laura visited. Those of you who bought it and got her to autograph it, now have a first-edition autographed copy of a nationally award-winning book. I bought a set of the shiny, gold Geisel award stickers and put them on our school copies today.

Here's what the Seuss award is for, according to the ALA: "The Theodor Seuss Geisel Award, established in 2004, is given annually to the author(s) and illustrator(s) of a beginning reader book who demonstrate great creativity and imagination in
his/her/their literary and artistic achievements to engage children in reading. The award is named for the world-renowned children’s author Theodor Geisel, aka Dr. Seuss."

This is what the Geisel committee chair said about "The Runaways:" “Our Geisel winner connects with readers by featuring a dilemma many young children understand,” said Geisel Committee Chair Ginny Moore Kruse. “Zelda and Ivy’s backyard escapades spark the imagination and make the reader want more.”

The Caldecott Medal for illustration went to "Flotsam," by David Weisner.
"Flotsam" is an amazing, intelligent, beautifully illustrated book about a boy who finds an old camera washed up on the beach. Weisner has two other Caldecott Medals ("Tuesday" and "The Three Pigs") and two Caldecott Honors ("Sector 7" and "Free Fall").

The Newbery Medal for outstanding writing went to Susan Patron for "The Higher Power of Lucky."

Here's what committee chair Kladder said about the story of 10-year-old Lucky Trimble: “‘Lucky’ is a perfectly nuanced blend of adventure, survival (emotional and physical) and hilarious character study... as well as a blueprint for a self-examined life. Through Lucky’s experiences, we are reminded that children support
one another just as needy adults do.”

Here's a link to my News Tribune story on the awards. And you can find a complete list of the ALA's 2007 awards here.

(I've added some of the award books to Seabury's Wish List on Amazon.com. Check the link at right.)

Talk to you soon

Lilly's back!

My taxes are finally done (don't ask how much we owe!) so I can get back to things I'd rather pay attention to.

My column in The News Tribune this week was about Kevin Henkes' new book, Lilly's Big Day. He had big shoes to follow in Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse. Maybe that's why it took him 10 years.
But I like this new book just as much as the first, as you can tell in my review. I love all his mouse books. He understands children so well. My daughter's favorite was Chrysanthemum. She related because we had saddled her with a name that many people found difficult to pronounce.

I haven't read the new Lilly to Seabury children, yet. I will in the next few weeks, along with Purple Purse and another book or two in his mouse series.

I did read Kitten's First Full Moon last year after it won the Caldecott, and the Ladybugs might have heard it again this year. I've put it on the table for them to check out.

I just got the spring bookfair preparation box from Scholastic. The fair will be May 10-13. I notice they are sending hardcovers of Lilly's Big Day. That will be on the library "wish list." (Hint, Hint.)

Enjoy two Kevin Henkes links:

His own website is good. It includes activities for children.

Henkes appeared on the Today show last Friday. My guess is that Al Roker hadn't read the book, but it's fun to see Henkes draw Lilly for a group of children the show brought in. (Don't bother trying it if you have a Mac computer. MSN doesn't think we Mac owners are worthy of watching videos from Today, Dateline NBC, Meet the Press ... I had to wait till I came to school to watch it. I'm writing e-mails to MSN. We'll see how that works.)

Talk to you soon