ALA Notable Books...

Here's the link to this year's list in case you haven't seen it. Sigh. That nightstand stack just won't stop growing.

The Acquisitions Process...

It's eerily quiet in my office today. An occasional conversation, an occasional phone ringing. Otherwise quiet quiet quiet. A number of my co-workers are attending the first day of a three-day off-site meeting, something about revamping our process for acquiring books. I'm not quite sure what they're doing for three whole days through breakfast, lunch and dinner. I do know they're having a Reverse Pub Board meeting. Everyone's been buzzing about Reverse Pub Board for weeks. At this meeting, the Editors pretend they are in Sales and the Sales people pretend they are Editors. The Sales team will present books they think we should publish (along with lengthy proposals they've prepared). The Editors will (I'm predicting) shoot a lot of them down.

Acquiring books is a not big part of my job. I do it only occasionally, when we do a book that is children's publishing-related. I really like doing it occasionally, but I'm happy I don't have to do it all the time. It's a great deal of work. I didn't become an editor because I love doing reports. I don't imagine many editors enter the field so they can spend their days crafting proposals and profit & loss reports. (I didn't know about all that going in--no one mentioned it in college.)

So here's the thing: An editor must really really dig your book to take it through the acquisitions process. They must love it enough to devote lots of time to it before it's under contract with the possibility that a group of Sales & Marketing folks or higher-ups will say No. And of course they love it enough to want to spend time with it through the editorial process. So when an editor calls you and says those seven magic words, "We'd like to offer you a contract," feel the love! Feel the love!

I'm Quite a Character...

Click here to cartoonify yourself and your friends.

Breaking News: 2007 ALA Awards...

I just caught part of the ALA Awards webcast (the children's publishing Oscars if you will). The Higher Power of Lucky by Susan Patron, illustrated by Matt Phelan, won the Newbery Award. The Caldecott went to David Wiesner for Flotsom. I'm working on parsing together the list of honor winners from my notes--there was a lot of applause and it was kind or hard to hear some of the names and titles. However, the ALA website said they will post a press release at 1 p.m. e.s.t.
It was really exciting to watch the announcements along with everyone at the meeting in Seattle. (Would have been more fun to be there myself, of course!)

Here's the link to all the winners as reported by Publishers Weekly.

My favorite moment as I watched the webcast: hearing Cynthia Lord's name called as a Newbery honor winner for her wonderful book Rules. Cindy is featured in the 2007 CWIM's "First Books" article. Yay!

Lemony Snicket on Etiquette Books in NY Times...

If you haven't seen yesterday's New York Times Book Review, check out Daniel Handler's piece on several new children's books about good manners and etiquette. My favorite lines: "Whoopi Goldberg’s philosophical principles are sounder. (It’s so nice to write a sentence one suspects has never been written before.)" Then check out David Greenberg's Don't Forget Your Etiquette! The Essential Guide to Misbehavior, which sounds like tons of irreverent fun.

Things I Dig Lately (that may or may not have anything to do with writing & books)...

• The Class of 2K7's YouTube video. The images go by so fast you must watch it over and over and over.
• Vintage clutch purses, my latest favorite thing to buy on eBay. (Please fellow eBayer--you know who you are--stop bidding on that vintage '80s purple leather number because I'm sure you don't want it as much as I do.)
• Author research. I've been doing a lot of it lately as I prepare interview questions for 2008 CWIM articles. It's wonderful to get lost in websites and blogs and hear authors read their work with the click of my mouse. Immersing myself in all things Author is pretty much my favorite part of my job. And it makes reading books feel so much more intimate, like I'm reading the work of a friend. I admire authors not only putting their work out there, but putting themselves out there.
• Roasted Brussels sprouts. I munched down a big pile of them while I read my email this morning. They are pretty gross when they're boiled. But oven roasted Brussels sprouts are like little tiny cabbage candies.
• Freelancers meeting deadlines. My 2008 CWIM articles are pouring in and I'm reading them and they are good good good. I've been very smiley at my desk this week.
• Staying up way past my bedtime to finish a really good debut novel because I love the characters then finding out the author has written a sequel that's under contract.
  

2007 CWIM Update: First Second Books...

If you're interested in submitting material to Roaring Brook's cool graphic novel imprint First Second Books, grab a pen, turn to page 137 of the 2007 CWIM and make a couple of corrections/clarifications. First, although CWIM states that First Second "considers all categories," note that First Second only publishes graphic novels, so don't send them other stuff. Also note that they no longer want electronic submissions.

Teens & Online Social Networking...

If you're the parent of a teen, or, like me, employ teenage babysitters, you know they spend a great deal of time IM-ing their friends or haunting social networking sites. (Yes, I've been known to investigate what my babysitters are doing online when Murray's sleeping.) Here's a link to an article stating that more than half of teens in the U.S. use MySpace and FaceBook.

I also heard an interesting piece on Day to Day on NPR recently, for which the reporter talked to a group of college students about privacy issues in the Internet age. If you have time, click the link and listen. I was kind of shocked at how little they care or worry about their privacy.

What did teenagers do before they all had MySpace profiles and cell phones? I remember leaving notes in a friend's desk every day. Notes written on paper. With pens. Complete with punctuation. (But, hey, I also went to the library to work on research papers and listened to albums.)

Teenagers are strange and interesting creatures. And all you YA writers out there have to pay attention to what they're doing. I guess that's easier than ever. They're strange and interesting, but not quite so mysterious thanks to the Internet.

2007: My Ups and Downs So Far...

It's only a few days into the new year, and at this point I'd have to say 2007 has not been all that great. But I've decided (resolved?) to be positive this year, so I've been thinking about the good side of the things that have thus far annoyed me during the first few days of January:

• DOWN: The new version of Blogger wiped out my visitor counter and I can't get it to work. UP: I can pretend thousands and thousands of people are reading my blog!
• DOWN: The O.C. got cancelled just when it was getting good again. UP: One more hour of reading time each week!
• DOWN: I got the highly unpleasant stomach flu, that, according to the local news, is "sweeping the tri-state." UP# 1: I finished a great novel while I was laid up on the sofa with my barf bowl! UP #2: My skinny pants fit this week!
  
• DOWN: Global warming. UP: It's in the 60s in the Nati in January!
• DOWN: I have pink eye and not in the eye that my hair is generally flopping over. UP: There really is no up side to conjunctivitis except that the Internet says it will go away in 3 to 5 days and I'm on day 2!

Sometimes it's tough to look on the bright side of things (even with the blatant overuse of exclamation points!). If you're a writer who's gotten material rejected or an illustrator who is not getting response to your marketing efforts, this can be particularly true. I hope in this new year you can finds some UPs when the publishing world is getting you DOWN.

Happy new year!

I Like This--You Should Visit (an Ongoing Series)...

I just heard about an e-zine by children's lit bloggers. Check out The Edge of the Forest for reviews, author interviews, book picks and other articles of interest to children's writers and book lovers. It's pretty cool. You can subscribe and receive and e-mail whenever a new issue is posted.

Roger Sutton of The Horn Book Blogs...

I just got online to renew my subscription to The Horn Book and I discovered editor Roger Sutton's blog. Apparently he's been blogging for quite a while. How did I miss it? He definitely has a great perspective on the world of children's books. But if you check out his blog, you have to promise you won't read his instead of mine. (You can read them both!)

Savings tip: The mail-in renewal form HB sent me asked for $61 for a year--but online renewal was only $49.

I love love reading The Horn Book. It's tough for me to get much done the day a new one arrives in the mail. I'm just a big fan of book reviews. Besides giving me ideas for other titles to add to the ever-growing nightstand pile (which recently became 2 piles after I knocked it over trying to retrieve the second book from the bottom and my right foot got bonked by the corner of a hardcover and, yes, it did leave a mark), it also helps me become familiar with a lot of books I'll never read. (I like Entertainment Weekly for the same reason. I am a font of knowledge on TV shows, movies, books, music and the occasional Broadway play that I've never seen, read or listened to. Perhaps--one day--I can make it to the World Series of Pop Culture.)

New Yorker Critic on Picture Books...


The other day my husband mentioned that the New Yorker had an article on the year in picture books. I was very excited to hear this. But I just got around to reading it, and it made me sort of annoyed. First, the writer of this piece, former New York Times reporter, New Yorker staff writer and nonfiction author Elizabeth Kolbert, starts by asking, "why do we tell stories to our children?" Her answer: "...mostly to get them to shut up." She explains it's an unspoken deal--parent reads story, kid goes to sleep.

I kind of feel bad for Kolbert if this is truly the case. That's not at all why I read books to my son. I read them because I love books. Because I want him to love books. Because I want him to learn. Because it makes me happy when he repeats lines or laughs or points out something in an illustration that I didn't see. But mostly because it's wonderful to have that quiet, kid-on-lap, one-on-one time together. (To get him to shut up, I give him an ice cream sandwich.)

Kolbert goes on to mention a number of classic picture books and some recently published titles by the likes of Peter McCarty, Ian Falconer, Lane Smith and David Wiesner. This also kind of annoyed me. Why do picture book roundups always include the books that everyone is going to buy anyway, the ones by Caldecott medalists that will be face out in B&N? I know publicists campaign to get their "A" titles mentioned in the press. But every now and them I'd love to see a piece about quieter picture books--some of those wonderful titles that don't have $100,000 marketing budgets, the ones that will get lost among the hundreds of others on store shelves.

As Kolbert discusses bedtime stories, she devotes several paragraphs to the ubiquitous Goodnight Moon, written by the bi-sexual, children hating, hunting club member Margaret Wise Brown, who apparently enjoyed watching bunnies "get ripped to pieces" despite the fact that she wrote about them in her books for young readers. "The arrangement in Goodnight Moon is completely uneven," Kolbert writes. "Time moves forward, and the little bunny doesn't stand a chance. Parent and child are, in this way, brought together, on tragic terms. You don't want to go to sleep. I don't want to die. But we both have to."

Never have I read an article on children's books that sucked the joy out of them. Never have I read an article on children's books that made me want to cry. Thank you Elizabeth Kolbert for doing both.

Finally--A Christmas Song Just for Children's Writers...

The apparently multi-talented author Kim Norman loaded a catchy little ditty on her website, "A Writer's Wish List," to the tune of "Santa Baby." I've been walking around singing it all morning. Just click the play button on her website.

Good Advice on Creating Characters...

I just visited the MediaBistro Toolbox and they linked to an article on creating good characters by Elaine Marie Alphin on the Writer's Digest magazine website. Elaine's a wonderful writer who writes great characters and her advice is useful. The WD mag piece is based on information from Elaine's book Creating Character's Kids Will Love, which we published in 2000. It's a few years old, but it's chock full of solid, timeless advice from a solid writer. So if characterization is getting you down, buy yourself a copy of CCKWL for Christmas. (And also check out Elaine's book Counterfeit Son which won an Edgar Award.)

A Cool Holiday Book...

I just came across the holiday title A Creature Was Stirring, a new take on "'Twas the Night Before Christmas," published by Simon & Schuster. Maybe it's the fact that it snowed this morning in the Nati, or maybe I'm more excited about Christmas than usual because I have a 2-year-old, but when I saw the cover of this book, it gave me a warm happy holiday feeling in my tummy.


The illustrator/adaptor Carter Goodfinch uses humorous couplets from the persceptive of a little boy anticipating Santa's visit along side the classic lines from Moore's poem.

I have a soft spot for "'Twas the Night Before Christmas"--it played a part in my very first byline back in my intern days. I wrote a column for the now defunct Decorative Artist's Workbook magazine about traditional and nontraditional designs for painting Santa Claus, and Santa images from around the world. I got to talk about Moore's poem and the first depiction of Santa as fat and jolly:


He had a broad face and a little round belly,
That shook, when he laughed like a bowlful of jelly.
He was chubby and plump, a right jolly old elf,
And I laughed when I saw him, in spite of myself;

The opening illustration for the column was Thomas Nast's drawing that appeared with Moore's poem. (I also got to compose this brilliant line: "No, Virginia, there is not a Santa Claus--there are many.")

I wasn't planning on putting up a tree or decorating this year, but I've changed my mind. This weekend I'm getting out my Christmas tree (a fake silver one from the '50s that I got on eBay a few years ago). Maybe I'll wrap some gifts. Hang up some lights. Go to the mall. I'm having visions of sugar-plums!

I've been a pretty good girl this year, I'd say. I hope Mr. Claus is good to me. He's cordially invited to my roof.


Away to the window I flew like a flash,
Tore open the shutters and threw up the sash.
The moon on the breast of the new-fallen snow
Gave the lustre of mid-day to objects below,
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But a miniature sleigh, and eight tiny reindeer,
With a little old driver, so lively and quick,
I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.