Annual Carle Honors announced

Each year, The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art "pays tribute to those individuals who are dedicated to the art of the picture book and its integral role in art appreciation and early literacy" with their Carle Honors.  The 2011 honorees are

Artist: Lois Ehlert

Angel: Jeanne Steig

Mentor: Michael di Capua 

Bridge: Karen Nelson Hoyle

Learn more about the honorees and the categories here. 

An Honors Gala—including the ceremony, a dinner reception, and a silent auction of author experiences and original art to benefit the museum—will be held September 22 at Guastavino's in New York. The auction items are unbelievable; go ogle them either online or in person at NYC's Books of Wonder. A sampling:
- illustrations by Tomi Ungerer, Chris van Allsburg, honoree Lois Ehlert, and more
- visits with Tomie DePaola and Kadir Nelson
- personalized poems by Jane Yolen
- customized art by Rosemary Wells and Eric Carle himself

All steamed up

As my friend and fellow blogger observed not long ago, “steam is so hot right now.”  This year has seen a mind-boggling number of steampunk-themed events in the northeast alone: International Steampunk City, which took over the town of Waltham for a weekend; a book tour for The Steam­punk Bible; an exhibit on steampunk aesthetic , form, and function at the Charles River Museum of Industry and Innovation; The Steampunk World’s Fair three-day festival in New Jersey…  Whew! And the events just keep on coming, with next week’s performance of Valve: Antique Vaudeville Circus and the Museum of Industry’s ongoing Steampunk Calendar. Entranced by the wide, imaginative (or should I say “re-imaginative”?) world of steampunk, I recently read two short story collections that explore the ever-expanding boundaries of the genre.

In editor Trisha Telep's collection Corsets & Clockwork: 13 Steampunk Romances (Running Press, May), authors such as Caitlin Kittredge, Dia Reeves, Kiersten White, and Adrienne Kress write the steamier side of steampunk, where “technomagical and natural desires collide.” This naturally means lots of flirting and first kisses (with gorgeous automatons or gentlemen criminals, aboard airships, or after narrowly escaping mad inventors); it also entails deeper ethical concerns about technology, progress, and humanity’s impact on nature. Don’t miss contributor Dru Pagliassotti’s excellent essay “How Do I Write a Steampunk Story?” at Steamed!.

Steampunk! An Anthology of Fantastically Rich and Strange Stories edited by Kelly Link and Gavin Grant (Candlewick, October) goes even further in expanding the steampunk oeuvre—but you’ll have to wait for the September/October issue of The Horn Book Magazine to read my review. In the meantime, pilot your airship over to the website for our list of recommended steampunk-inspired reads.

—Katie Bircher

Save the date—BGHB Awards and Horn Book at Simmons

The office is starting to buzz about the Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards taking place Friday, September 30, and the Horn Book at Simmons Colloquium, happening Saturday, October 1. On Friday night, BGHB judges Jennifer Brabander, Robin Brenner, and Dean Schneider will present the awards to this year's winners and honorees:

Fiction
Winner: Blink & Caution by Tim Wynne-Jones
Honor book: Chime by Franny Billingsley
Honor book: Anna Hibiscus by Atinuke, illustrated by Lauren Tobia

Nonfiction
Winner: The Notorious Benedict Arnold: A True Story of Adventure, Heroism, & Treachery by Steve Sheinkin
Honor book: Into the Unknown: How Great Explorers Found Their Way by Land, Sea, and Air by Stewart Ross, illustrated by Stephen Biesty
Honor book: Can We Save the Tiger? by Martin Jenkins, illustrated by Vicky White

Picture book
Winner: Pocketful of Posies by Salley Mavor
Honor book: Pecan Pie Baby by Jacqueline Woodson, illustrated by Sophie Blackall
Honor book: Dark Emperor and Other Poems of the Night by Joyce Sidman, illustrated by Rick Allen

The ceremony will be followed by a reception with the winners. Mosey over to our website to see video and pictures of last year's (and previous years') awards festivities.

Join us the next day for the Horn Book at Simmons colloquium, led by Horn Book editor in chief Roger Sutton and Cathie Mercier, director of the Simmons Center for the Study of Children's Literature. Entitled "Engaging Worlds, Real and Imagined," the colloquium will feature all three of this year's winners (and many more speakers) in presentations, panels, and workshops. Registration for the colloquium includes an invite to Friday's awards ceremony. Sign up here!

Upcoming stars

Starred reviews appearing in the September/October Horn Book Magazine:

- The Haunted Hamburger and Other Ghostly Stories by David LaRochelle; illus. by Paul Meisel (Dutton) - A Ball for Daisy by Chris Raschka (Schwartz & Wade)
- Dead End in Norvelt by Jack Gantos (Farrar)
- Secrets at Sea by Richard Peck; illus. by Kelly Murphy (Dial)
- The Watch That Ends the Night: Voices from the Titanic by Allan Wolf (Candlewick)
- Breaking Stalin’s Nose by Eugene Yelchin (Holt)
- A Little Bitty Man and Other Poems for the Very Young by Halfdan Rasmussen; trans. from the Danish by Marilyn Nelson and Pamela Espeland; illus. by Kevin Hawkes (Candlewick)
- Trapped: How the World Rescued 33 Miners from 2,000 Feet Below the Chilean Desert by Marc Aronson (Atheneum)
- Orani: My Father’s Village by Claire A. Nivola (Foster/Farrar)
- Feynman by Jim Ottaviani; illus. by Leland Myrick; color by Hilary Sycamore (First Second)
- Drawing from Memory by Allen Say (Scholastic)
- Swirl by Swirl: Spirals in Nature by Joyce Sidman; illus. by Beth Krommes (Houghton)

Congratulations!

The one, the only

Eric Carle will appear at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, MA the weekend of July 15th and 16th.

On Saturday, July 15th, at 5 p.m., Mr. Carle will host a ceremony to honor his mentor Leo Lionni and unveil Mr. Lionni's bronze sculpture Imaginary Garden. A reception with Mr. Carle will follow.  Tickets for the ceremony and reception are $25 for the public, $15 for members.

The following morning at 10 a.m., Mr. Carle will meet fans and sign books. This event is free with admission.  More details for both appearances are available here, and a specific FAQ for the "Meet Eric Carle" signing is here.

Author Jay Asher in EW

Jay Asher and his YA bestseller Thirteen Reasons Why are featured in the new Entertainment Weekly, just in time for the novel's paperback release today. I read Thirteen Reasons Why shortly after it came out in 2007 and found it powerful; I'm not surprised that it has gained such a strong following. (I do have to wonder whether EW came up with article's title—"How This Guy's Mystery Novel is Saving Teen Lives"—before or after the recent "YA is too dark" vs."YA saves" brouhaha, though.)

In addition to discussing the inspiration for Thirteen Reasons Why, its impact on readers, and the upcoming film version, the article touches on Jay's latest project: a collaboration with Carolyn Mackler. Titled The Future of Us, the novel is about two teens in 1996 who somehow access the Facebook profiles they will have 15 years in the future. The book won't be out until November, but the movie adaptation rights to The Future of Us were recently acquired by Warner Bros.

While I have a hard time feeling any nostalgia for the dial-up internet of the '90s, I'm intrigued by the premise of The Future of Us. Social media profiles are pretty skewed representations of ourselves—it'll be interesting to see how accurately they predict the future for these characters.

—Katie Bircher

July/August starred reviews

The following titles will receive starred reviews in the July/August issue of The Horn Book Magazine:

- Naamah and the Ark at Night written by Susan Campbell Bartoletti, illustrated by Holly Meade (Candlewick)

- Bone Dog written and illustrated by Eric Rohmann (Roaring Brook)

- Press Here written and illustrated by Herve Tullet (Handprint/Chronicle)

- Hooray for Amanda & Her Alligator! written and illustrated by Mo Willems (Balzer + Bray/HarperCollins)

- Queen of Hearts by Martha Brooks (Farrar)

- Anya’s Ghost written and illustrated by Vera Brosgol (First Second/Roaring Brook)

- Paper Covers Rock by Jenny Hubbard (Delacorte)

- This Dark Endeavor: The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein by Kenneth Oppel (Simon)

- I’ll Be There by Holly Goldberg Sloan (Little, Brown)

- When Apples Grew Noses and White Horses Flew: Tales of Ti-Jean written by Jan Andrews; illustrated by Dusan Petricic (Groundwood)

Cap'n Jack is back

Ahoy, mates! In conjunction with today’s opening of the film Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides, Disney Book Group just published a Pirates of the Caribbean novel titled The Price of Freedom. Written by A.C. Crispin, this 600-plus page yarn provides a back story for everyone’s favorite pirate: Captain Jack Sparrow. Twenty-five-year-old Jack has given up his boyhood exploits as a pirate for a legitimate career as first mate on an East India Trading Company ship, but a swashbuckling adventure typical of the Pirates movie franchise tempts Jack back to the pirating business. Along the way Jack encounters major players of the first three films, including his nemesis Lord Beckett of the East India Trading Company, his rival Captain Barbossa, and his father Captain Teague (portrayed in the films by Keith Richards). Perhaps most interesting to us landlubbers is the lengthy tome’s explanation of how young Jack Sparrow became the crazed Captain we know and love: how he acquired his ship The Black Pearl, became indebted to Davy Jones, and got his red bandanna, the brand on his arm, and his signature dreadlocks. If you can’t get enough of Jack after seeing the new film, be sure to check out this origins story. Savvy?

—Cindy Ritter

Change of plans

Unfortunately, and contrary to yesterday's post, Horn Book editors Roger Sutton and Martha Parravano will not be speaking at the Eric Carle Museum on May 21st.  The event has been postponed, with the new date to be announced.

Fortunately, tonight Roger will indeed moderate a star-studded panel of YA authors discussing "Diversity in Young Adult Fiction"—7:00 p.m. at the Cambridge Public Library. Get there early to get a seat!

Showtime!

Horn Book editors Roger Sutton and Martha Parravano will share insights on children's reading from their book A Family of Readers: The Book Lover's Guide to Children's and Young Adult Literature at the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, MA. The event (free with museum admission) is scheduled for 3:00 p.m. on Saturday, May 21st. More info available here.

In the meantime, Roger will be moderating a panel on "Diversity in YA fiction" with authors Malinda Lo, Francisco X. Stork, Sarah Rees Brennan, Cindy Pon, Deva Fagan, and Holly Black tomorrow, May 12th, at the Cambridge Public Library. The event (also free) begins at 7:00 p.m.

Hope to see you there!

London calling

I just reviewed Salvatore Rubbino’s nonfiction picture book A Walk in London (Candlewick, March) for the May/June 2011 issue of The Horn Book Magazine. A follow-up to A Walk in New York, Rubbino’s new book is equally engaging, informative, and beautifully illustrated—and had me longing for a plane ticket back to my beloved study-abroad city.

Needing a London fix, I picked up London: A 3D Keepsake Cityscape illustrated by Sarah McMenemy, also from Candlewick and due out in May. At roughly 4 inches by 4 inches with an accordion-fold format, this definitely isn't a tour book or map to use as reference while wandering Kensington or Westminster, but it makes a perfect souvenir or gift. Both sides of the accordion showcase twelve cut-paper, pop-out illustrations of London landmarks with general information about each. Two maps place the sites in geographical relation to one another. For London lovers like myself, these pop-outs of famous places like Westminster Abbey (where Prince William and Kate will be married on April 29th!) or The London Eye are a great way to reminisce.

I hope more Keepsake Cityscapes are in the works and can’t wait to see which city will be next: New York? Boston? Paris? Rome? Washington, D.C.? There's a world of possibilities.

—Cindy Ritter

Upcoming stars

Look for these starred reviews in the May/June issue of The Horn Book Magazine:

Tweak Tweak by Eve Bunting; illus. by Sergio Ruzzier (Clarion)
RRRalph by Lois Ehlert (Beach Lane/Simon)
Good Luck, Anna Hibiscus! and Have Fun, Anna Hibiscus! by Atinuke; illus. by Lauren Tobia (Kane Miller)
The Trouble with May Amelia by Jennifer L. Holm; illus. by Adam Gustavson (Atheneum)
The Last Little Blue Envelope by Maureen Johnson (HarperTeen/HarperCollins)
Lark by Tracey Porter (HarperTeen/HarperCollins)
Jasper Jones by Craig Silvey (Knopf)
Encyclopedia Mythologica: Dragons & Monsters by Matthew Reinhart and Robert Sabuda (Candlewick)
Can We Save the Tiger? by Martin Jenkins; illus. by Vicky White (Candlewick)
Into the Unknown: How Great Explorers Found Their Way by Land, Sea, and Air by Stewart Ross; illus. by Stephen Biesty (Candlewick)

Keep your friends close, and your frienemies closer

I have to admit that when I slipped Amy Holder's debut novel The Lipstick Laws (HMH/Graphia, April) off the shelf, I was motivated mainly by the jacket summary's similarity to Mean Girls. Packed with cliques, hot boys, revenge, and a tyrannical friendship pact sealed with a bright red kiss, The Lipstick Laws would be ripe for adaptation as a sequel to the 2004 film -- if ABC Family hadn’t already released Mean Girls 2 in January.

The Lipstick Laws lacks all of the wit of Tina Fey’s script and all of the substance of the movie's nonfiction inspiration, Queen Bees & Wannabes by Rosalind Wiseman. Narrator April Bowers spends most of her time vapidly obsessing over boys and insulting the physical appearance of her classmates, making the reader wonder: what really makes her better than reigning queen Britney Taylor? April is sucked in, chewed up, and spit out by the Lipstick Lawlords, the popular clique headed by Britney. This drives unpopular April to plot a series of humiliating pranks to bring Britney down a notch or two. Though April finds a new group of friends and realizes some of her own shallow faults along the way, by the time she calls off her final prank -- because she realizes it's potentially lethal -- readers will undoubtedly be rooting for everyone involved to sink into high school obscurity.

-- Elizabeth Parks

In the What Were They Thinking? department…

Jean McElroy's Let's Count 123! (Simon and Schuster, May), a pleasant new board book that counts ten of the celebratory objects at a child’s birthday party (“1 cake / 2 candles / 3 party hats”), bills itself as “both chunky and lightweight!” The inside pages are not cardboard but paper-covered flat boxes (I think).

So, is the intent to lighten parents’ tote-bag loads? Or have there been many reported injuries of babies clunking themselves in the head with heavy board books? Is this new configuration meant to alleviate parents’ safety concerns? If so, they won’t: the inside boxy pages have wickedly sharp edges, a definite no-no in board book land. Let’s hope this is just the beta version, and that it’s back to the drawing board for “both chunky and lightweight!”

-- Martha V. Parravano

A story worth hearing

The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, MA will host an event (free with admission) with Jerry Pinkney on Saturday, February 12, at 1 p.m.

In "A Story Worth Telling," the Caldecott-winning author/illustrator will look back on his fifty years of picture book–making -- and, of course, sign his many beautiful books.

Anybody wanna carpool?

Snow day seek-and-find fun

It's looking like we'll have a snow day again tomorrow, so we're loading up on projects to take home. I've got a stack of novels, audio books, and blog possibilities set aside that I probably wouldn't get through in a week of snow days, but hope springs eternal, right?

Two new picture puzzle collections from Candlewick offer a nice distraction. Where's Waldo? The Phenomenal Postcard Book features the eponymous hero in 30 postcards. Beloved, bespectacled Waldo appears in settings ranging from Dracula's dinner party to a Hollywood movie premier to a sinking pirate ship. There's one for every correspondent and every occasion -- if you can stop searching long enough to actually mail the thing.

I keep mixing up the characters of activity book MoshiMoshiKawaii: Where Is Strawberry Moshi? with the dessert mochi. Can you blame me, given the dumpling-shaped animals that populate Moshi town? Strawberry Moshi (named for her strawberry-print ensemble, not her flavor) is looking for her boyfriend, Super Moshi. But due to the huge number of Moshis, and all their different outfits, she needs help. The seek-and-find puzzles and mazes are good for kids too young for the more complex Waldo puzzles, even if they do sometimes feel like a book-long ad for MoshiMoshi merch. (OMG, Moshi activities online!!)

While Waldo, a long-time friend, might get preference for my snow day reading breaks, the bizarrely cute Moshi are growing on me. And making me hungry.

-- Katie Bircher

P.S. Kitty says Stephen Savage's Where's Walrus? (Scholastic, pubbing today -- click for brilliant trailer) has "a flipper up on that guy in the striped shirt." Look for her review in the March/April issue of the magazine.

¡Mira! ¡Mira!

¡Muy bueno! Leslie Patricelli's Higher! Higher!, a 2009 Boston Globe-Horn Book honor book, will be reissued as a bilingual board book (Higher! Higher! / ¡Más alto! ¡Más alto!) in January, along with The Birthday Box / Mi caja de cumpleaños.

Look for reviews of two brand-new Patricelli titles, Potty and Tubby (all Candlewick), in the January/February 2011 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.

And you thought I was kidding about the Silly Bandz.

As promised, some book-related ephemera!

The eponymous boxes. Behind them you can see (left to right) a Halloween card sent by Penguin ("Happy Halloween from Dick and Jane and Vampires"), a leaf art thank-you note from Lois Ehlert, a Bink and Gollie watch, and pink pouches of fairy dust. What you sadly can't see, obscured by the mountain of packages, are a Very Hungry Caterpillar wall calendar and a print from Carin Berger's Forever Friends.

From left to right:
-- a "scrapbook" and (underneath) tote bag promoting Travels with Gannon and Wyatt: Botswana
-- a BLAD of Matthew Reinhart's and Robert Sabuda's forthcoming Encyclopedia Mythologica: Dragons and Monsters-- the Dick and Jane and Vampires Halloween card again (I just really like it)
-- The Boxcar Children, The Buddy Files, and Zapato Power-themed "collectible shaped rubber bands"
-- Frankly Frannie pencils
-- Sandra Boynton's Amazing Cows doorknob hanger and info packet, including a free download of her 17-minute version of "Bolero" for orchestra and kazoo, AND
-- a DVD of interviews with Maya Soetoro-Ng and Yuyi Morales about their picture book Ladder to the Moon.
Whew! If you packed everything into the handy Gannon and Wyatt tote bag, you'd have a well-rounded (if somewhat haphazard) bookish goody bag.

I'm pretty sure Reinhart's and Sabuda's pop-up dragon can kick our dragon's butt.

A thoughtful note from former intern Meaghan, enclosed with her box of review copies from IPG.

Don't you wish you got Boxcar Children Silly Bandz in your mail?

-- Katie Bircher

Extra points for participation

You may have heard this summer's buzz surrounding Jodi Lynn Anderson’s (bestselling author of Peaches) Loser/Queen (Simon & Schuster), an “interactive” novel for which cyber fans voted weekly on turns in the plot. With the paperback edition’s release date of December 21 approaching, and the ARC landing in the Horn Book offices, I came to wonder if the summer’s hype speaks for anything beyond a very marketable idea.

The story follows Cammy, a typical high school “loser” who has more in common with the grandparents who raise her than she does with her classmates. She begins receiving mysterious text messages revealing secrets that bring down the most popular kids at school, and after a make-over facilitated by her mysterious “White Rabbit” texter, Cammy moves up the social ladder. Though the story of outcast turned teen queen is nothing new, Cammy is relatable -- especially so, I’m sure, to the readers who helped shape her actions online. The fact that these readers’ imaginations helped create the novel will probably make them want to own what feels in part already theirs. But, even if the paperback and e-book editions sell like hotcakes with web fans, what about those who did not participate in the online plot-planning? I didn’t, and I was underwhelmed because, marketable idea aside, the story itself is not a homerun. It needs the hype; it needs the extra points it earned by letting readers participate.

Loser/Queen does not bend genres or break fictional ground, but it does reexamine what it means to create a work of fiction. Luring readers with the invitation to participate in the creative process might catch on. Sure, this strategy may seem gimmicky to some, but to me it seems visionary. Come on, who doesn’t like to feel included? Personally, I’ll be watching for more of the like (and rooting for more exciting outcomes).

-- Katrina Hedeen