Books!

Travis Jonker Still from 100 Scope Notes

Sat, 2 Jan 2010 00:14:37 -0500

This is part 2 of my three videos with Travis. We pick up where Travis has asked me about doing presentations for children. In this video I start by explaining that I also did Caldecott presentations for adult groups. We go on to discuss the issue of personal bias in selection committees and other facts about serving on single book selection committees, such as the Printz Committee and the Caldecott Committee. Fun!

The 3rd video with Travis will cover books that should get attention from the Caldecott and the Printz Committee. Travis did not ask me about what will win the Newbery:

When You Reach Me by Rebecca Stead
Where the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin
The Small Adventure of Popeye and Elvis by Barbara O’Connor
Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice
The Great and Only Barnum by Candace Fleming

Although I have waffled on including Almost Astronauts by Tanya Lee Stone and The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly.

Travis Jonker of 100 Scope Notes

Fri, 1 Jan 2010 23:50:25 -0500

On Wednesday, December 30, 2009 Travis Jonker, an elementary school librarian, came by to chat about books and to film an interview that he will post on his blog ( http://100scopenotes.wordpress.com/ ) Travis is also involved with this year’s Cybils. We had great fun discussing books. Travis brought with him a select group of very ugly books and we had a contest of sorts to determine who had the ugliest book, the UnCaldecott. This is NOT in the video (part 1 of 3). In this video we talk about my journey to the Caldecott Committee (2009) and a bit about Caldecott rules. This was quite a lot of fun. Please take a look at Travis’s blog and you will understand why!

Going Bovine by Libba Bray

Thu, 31 Dec 2009 19:20:56 -0500

Bray, Libba. (2009). Going Bovine. New York: Random House/Delacorte Press. 481 pp. ISBN 978-0-385-73397-7 (Hardcover); $17.99

Adopting the inimitable, possibly picaresque style of Don Quixote (who is a genre unto himself), Bray has modernized Cervantes classic novel without abandoning the caring soul at the center of it. Cameron is not a noble knight. In fact he is closer to being that renegade who travels and lives by his wit, sarcastically skewering society and its foibles in an episodic manner (which certainly makes this novel a picaresque novel, regardless of how one categorizes Don Quixote).

Snow globes replace the giant’s metal figurines and cruel reality television pranks fill in for the pranks of the Duke and the Duchess. Gonzo, the dwarf serves as Sancho Panza. The parallels to Don Quixote are numerous, beginning with the acknowledgements and proceeding through the windmills and Dulci right to the very end.

Our hero, Cameron Smith, is attempting to stay alive after discovering that he suffers from Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease or mad cow disease. Don Quixote is concerned with a dying code of honor that is filled with chivalry as represented by the knights of old. Cameron is trying to avoid dying. Both Cameron and Don Quixote battle against hypocrisy and religiously wage war against artificial class distinctions of the time.

While a knowledge of Don Quixote certainly makes reading Going Bovine far more entertaining (to say nothing of also reading Norse mythology), readers who have never heard of Cervantes will howl with laughter, just as readers did with Don Quixote centuries ago. This one wins my prize as the funniest, cleverest, and wittiest book of the year.

All fun aside, there is a very serious, beautiful side to Going Bovine that should not be laughed away. “Maybe we’re all part of the same unconscious stew, dreaming the same dreams, hoping the same hopes, needing the same connection, trying to find it, missing, trying again—each of us playing our parts in the others’ plotlines, just one big ball of human yarn tangled up together. Maybe this is it.” (p. 435). Cameron believes he is going to die, but by novel’s end, he understands that he has been slowly dying anyway and that no life is worth an E Ticket unless we actively live that life.

Humor often receives second-class treatment in the award-world of books. I am hoping that the Printz committee recognizes and enjoys the humor without overlooking the very serious and important look at how teens should navigate a world filled with so much deception.

Pop by Gordon Korman

Sat, 5 Sep 2009 23:34:54 -0400

Marcus Jordan thinks he knows football until he meets Charlie Popovich, the king of the Pop. Marcus may even supplant Charlie’s son as the starting QB, if he is willing to risk losing his mind.

What I appreciate about this much-needed football sports story is Marcus’s very clear love of the game, which continues throughout the story, despite the clear danger message regarding the violence in the game. Korman has all of the elements for a stereotypical story. He has the superstar. He has the winning streak. He introduces the new, young stud. He has the cute cheerleader who is, of course, the girlfriend of the starting quarterback. He has the wise old mentor who is going to impart the wisdom necessary for the young stud to prove himself on the field. With all of these elements, however, Korman provides the reader with a fresh approach. The most knowledgeable football mind is the cheerleader. The cheerleader is also in charge of her own life, while she does talk (with undisguised pleasure) about her own sexuality, there is no direct, on the page sex, which makes this book appropriate for the full range of fourteen year old students (and to some extent, younger students). This is also a smaller portion of the more important football cautionary tale that has me cheering for Pop. The wise old mentor has early onset Alzheimer’s disease. The expected feud between the starting QB (Troy) and Marcus is woven into the fabric of Marcus’s gradual realization that Charlie has something seriously wrong with his behavior. Readers are not able, consequently, to dismiss Troy or his sister or even his father as bad guys. The football portion is told with a true love for the game, but the very serious warning is blended into the story without fumbling.

The Princess Plot

Fri, 28 Aug 2009 15:16:29 -0400

Boie, Kirsten (2009). The Princess Plot. Translated by David Henry Wilson. NY: Scholastic/Chicken House, 400 pp. ISBN 978-0-545-03220-9 (Hardcover); $16.99.

Today on Adbooks Linda asked whether it is true that boys are less likely to read women authors than girls are to read male authors. This is a variation on the discussion of boys reading female protagonists or romances or [insert subject here]. Frankly this discussion on what boys will or won’t do begs a fundamental question of what we as a society ask of boys and the expectation we have of male readers. “Don’t put a pink cover on the book because boys won’t pick it up.” “Don’t put a girl on the cover because then boys will see it as an attack on their masculinity and will not pick the book up.” If you want girl readers, you must put a White girl on the cover (even if the protagonist is Black).

I think it is about time we begin asking boys (and girls) to read books because we have taken the time to get to know them as people and as readers--regardless of the subject matter and regardless of the cover. Now I realize that we have cultural baggage with which we must contend, which only means that the discussion must begin in much earlier grades, say first grade! With time and persistence we will begin to plant those seeds that have young men willing and eager to embrace their inner pink. We can begin by appealing to that competitive male brain, by recognizing and recording all the times young men prove that they are immune to an archaic social structure that has us genderizing literature and creating a perceived negative social stigma for, among others, things pink.

[Imagined first grade conversation, which I know is likely, based on a whole year of talking to boys and girls about why so many more girls end up in the smart high school English classes.]
“Joseph, what do you think of a pink cover?”
“It’s for girls.”
“Is that bad?”
“No.”
“Is it OK for boys to read books with pink covers?”
“Yes.”
“If I asked you to read this book and let me know what girls and what boys may think of it, would you do that? You like funny books and I think you will like this one.”
“OK!”

So, today’s inner pink book is The Princess Plot. How can anyone not love a hot pink book with a black skull wearing a crown? Jenna doesn’t think of herself as a princess. Consequently she is amazed and a bit shocked to have won the leading role of a princess for a movie being made. She is even more amazed when her prim and proper mother grants permission for her to fly off alone to make a movie when that same mother did not even want her to audition. Very soon, however, Jenna discovers that there is more to her “role” than she is told. In fact, she begins to wonder whether or not there is even a movie. It is hard, however, to ignore the limos, the food, and the castle. When she overhears a conversation about rebels and uprisings, she seriously begins to wish that she had never participated in the audition.

This book will appeal to anyone who loves a bit of mystery with even more action. Toss in some political intrigue and we have a book that is pretty universal in its appeal. Dare I say, especially with its pink cover and princess title? Gentlemen, who is ready to embrace that inner pink?