J. Patrick Lewis named new Children's Poet Laureate

Today J. Patrick Lewis was named the national Children's Poet Laureate by the Poetry Foundation. He's the third to hold the two-year post, following Jack Prelutsky and Mary Ann Hoberman.

In his article "On Originality in Children's Poetry" in the May 2005 Magazine, Lewis referenced T.S. Eliot's observation that "Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal; bad poets deface what they take, and good poets make it into something better, or at least something different.” Lewis went on to say,

If you read contemporary children’s poetry with some knowledge of the grand tradition from which it flows, only tone deafness can keep you from hearing echoes of the past: the lambent lines of worthies like Christina Rossetti, Langston Hughes, and Robert Louis Stevenson in gentle poems, or the inspired wordplay of David McCord and John Ciardi in nonsense verse. . . .

My own benefactors range from Eliot himself, Auden, Housman, Lear, Carroll, the Carryls—Charles and Guy, père and fils—to many other lesser-known nineteenth- and twentieth-century toilers in poetry, nonsense, and light verse. I happily confess my felonies. When poets stand on the shoulders of their forebears, they should do so with a lightness, not to say airiness, that bespeaks respect for the tradition and an unimpeachable commitment to originality.

Clearly, the man knows what he's talking about: his knowledge of poetic tradition informs the originality of his own work. Congratulations to Mr. Lewis.

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!

May Notes out

This month's Notes from the Horn Book arrives today, including
- five questions for Patrick McDonnell
- nonfiction picture books for nature lovers
- chapter books for young readers
- middle-grade audiobooks (with bonus recommended audiobook list)
- new young adult fiction

Missing out? Sign up to receive the monthly Notes from the Horn Book e-newsletter here.

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!

Let's get lost

Children’s author/illustrator Roxie Munro has collaborated with OCG Studios to create Roxie’s A-MAZE-ing Vacation Adventure. Sixteen screens of mini-mazes make up a gigantic maze that takes players through cities, farmland, freeways, and wilderness. Along the way, users search for hidden numbers, letters, and objects.

Munro’s characteristically detailed illustration style gets revved up here. As in her books (Mazescapes, Amazement Park), the mazes are complex and varied: roads and footpaths lead to a slope to ski or a river to raft, with dead ends disguised as construction sites, road blocks, driveways to private homes, or roundabouts. The landscapes are full of tiny, often interactive, vignettes, like a zoo with elephants that trumpet and a field that blooms with flowers. One especially effective screen places amusement park rides along a footpath; following the path triggers each ride to begin moving. Similar both in concept and in organization to Mazescapes, the app’s interactivity is heightened as kids tap the screen and make things happen.

Another cool feature is the ability to move from the default car to other forms of transportation (including a canoe, a raft, and a hot air balloon) in order to explore different terrains. Not every vehicle is steerable—it’d be fun to actually control the plane, for instance—but it’s still satisfying to figure out what vehicle to use to overcome obstacles and move on to the next part of the maze.

At first, I was unsure for what age group Roxie’s A-MAZE-ing Vacation Adventure is intended. It requires no reading and asks players to identify numbers and letters, which would indicate a younger audience; the mazes and seek-and-find are challenging enough for older kids and even adults. But when I learned that Munro and developer OCG Studios intended to make the app accessible for players internationally, the lack of reading makes more sense. The app is rated ages 4 and up, but given the complexity of the mazes I’d suggest a minimum of age 6.

OCG Studios has a fascinating making-of blog here.

—Katie Bircher

Blow the house down!

Crows normally freak me out—their carrion-eating, raucous-cawing ways give me the willies. But when it comes to kids' apps, two Crows seem to know what they're doing.

Loud Crow Interactive (producer of the awesome PopOut! The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Sandra Boynton apps) had better make room in the nest for Nosy Crow, whose The Three Little Pigs is an app-only retelling of the familiar tale.

Nosy Crow's story is faithful to the traditional tale with a few original touches, including making one of the porcine siblings a girl and having the brick-building pig be the youngest one. While the narrative doesn't offer much that's new, the illustrations and interactive features are clever (though not problem-free) and imaginative. Users can choose to read the story themselves, be read to, or be read to and play along. I was skeptical about the decision to use actual kids as narrators—I was worried they'd sound irritatingly perky, like the kids on Barney and Friends—but these young readers' performances are refreshingly unaffected and engaging. Their delightful British accents don't hurt, either. Hearing the wolf's and the parents' lines delivered by child readers takes a little getting used to, however.

There are lots of interactive elements to draw kids into the story, so many that it slows the story down (which may be not a bad thing, since the story will be familiar to most users). New and cool to me: at the prompt, users can choose to help the wolf huff and puff by blowing into their iPad's microphone. (If you share your iPad with a lot of people, though, you may want to opt out.) It's hard to know when you've exhausted all the things to do on a page (flip the characters, make them speak, move items on the page, shift the perspective on the page) and can proceed to the next page, but multiple viewings may help with this problem. And speaking of multiple viewings: it's frustrating not to be able to skip around in the story; to revisit a particular page, you have to go through the whole thing again. Page by page.

Nosy Crow's "Three Little Pigs" is an auspicious debut, and I look forward to seeing what they hatch next.

—Kitty Flynn

Bonjour, Monsieur Tullet!

Hervé Tullet—the French author, illustrator, and ad agency art director known as the “Prince of Preschool”—has been popping up all over the office recently.

Tullet’s new book Press Here directs readers to press, rub, shake, and blow on colorful dots which then “transform” with the page turn. Chronicle’s been promoting Press Here with an adorable book trailer starring a group of kids who shriek in joy as the book “responds” to their touch—the brightly colored circles grow, shrink, slide, change color, or multiply from page to page. Like the kids in the trailer, I love how interaction and imagination bring the book to life in my hands.

Phaidon Press just published six board books from Tullet’s "The Game of…" series. The Game of Mix and Match and The Game of Mix-up Art are your standard flip-the-flaps books; the reader can choose to either seek out pieces of a complete picture or mix different shapes and patterns. The Game of Finger Worms is more story than game; after drawing smiling “finger worm” faces on my fingers, I had a Thumbelina-esque experience popping my pointer fingers through the holes in each page and wiggling them around the world of the story. The Game of Let’s Go! and The Game of Light are slightly more abstract and may require adult help (Light involves holding the book at an odd angle and projecting shapes on a wall with a flashlight). My personal favorite is The Game of Patterns, in which opposing pages contain what looks like an identical collection of images, but closer examination reveals subtle differences. This would be an excellent (and durable!) book to have in the car or travel bag. For more on “The Game Of…” books, see Betsy Bird’s in-depth review on Fuse #8.

Tullet’s The Book with a Hole (Abrams, May) is a “zany” activity and coloring book with a die-cut hole in its center. Readers can “crumple up a sheet of paper, make a ball, and play basketball” on one page; other pages encourage kids to “dress up” as “king of the castle” with their faces through the hole or to build a skyscraper to fit in the hole. As with all of Tullet’s creations, combining imagination with book interaction is the main goal, which is entertaining for readers of all ages.

—Cindy Ritter