Soon to Say "Signing Off"

Dear Blog Readers,

This is my last day of posting for this San Diego State University Children's Literature Program blogspot.

Starting August 1, my colleague Joseph Thomas Jr. will be beginning his tenure as director of our Center for the Study of Children's Literature. As part of his position, Professor Thomas will be blogging the items and announcements he finds of interest and pertinence in this field of children's and YA literatures that we all are dedicated to.

Thank you for your time and interest in reading what's been posted.
Stay in touch with our program through email at childlit@mail. sdsu.edu and, of course, through this blogspot, and keep checking our rolling book review site at sdsubookreviews.blogspot. com.

My best wishes to you,

Alida Allison
allison@mail.sdsu.edu

New Issue of Deakin Review

Posted on July 27, 2012 by Nicole Dalmer

The latest issue of The Deakin Review of Children’s Literature is now available. Enjoy reviews of new titles from picture books to teen fiction in our one-year anniversary issue!

http://ejournals.library.ualberta.ca/index.php/deakinreview/index

July 28 Literary Fair in Oceanside, CA, North County Times reprint with thanks

OCEANSIDE: Literary fair connects local authors with readers

July 18, 2012 • By RAY HUARD rhuard@nctimes.com

Picture Oceanside and it's not likely that the image that comes to mind is a hot spot for literati where authors and book lovers gather to chat about what they're writing and reading.

Yet that image is not far from the mark, given the number of writers who call Oceanside home, said Oceanside principal librarian Monica Chapa-Domercq and Eliane Weidauer of the Oceanside Cultural Arts Foundation.

Their work spans the gamut from military memoirs and biographies to children's books and dark mysteries involving the paranormal.

"I like the idea of pointing out or sharing with the rest of the country, the rest of the world, that Oceanside is more than sand and ocean," Weidauer said. "There is a treasure trove of literature right here in Oceanside."

That treasure trove will be on display July 28 at a "Write on Oceanside" literary fair put on by the library and the Arts Foundation in the Civic Center Plaza in front of the Civic Center Library, 330 N. Coast Highway.

The fair is scheduled to run from 10 a.m. To 2 p.m.

Weidauer said 36 local writers will be on hand to talk about their work, meet their readers and autograph copies of their books.

Donald Sobol, Encyclopedia Brown Author, Dies at 87 Years Old

Sobol's Encyclopedia Brown likely influenced many young readers toward studying science. The young hero used reason and observation to reach his conclusions (along with his friends). As a young parent, I delighted in Sobol's books as much as my children did.

Been a rough year already for losing many stellar children's authors/artists--- we thank them all for leaving remarkable, timeless legacies of literature.

A.A.

San Diego Comic-con awards announced, Publishers Weekly excerpt with thanks

This year's Eisner Comics Industry Awards, the annual book awards for comics, added an extra category for children's comics, dividing the children's comics category in two. The award for Best Publication for Early Readers (up to age 7) went to Dragon Puncher Island by James Kochalka (Top Shelf); the Best Publication for Kids (ages 8-12) was 
Snarked by Roger Langridge (kaboom!), and the Young Adult prize went to Anya's Ghost by Vera Brosgol (First Second).

Belk Library, Appalachian State University Exhibit, excerpt with thanks

New Childrens Literature Illustration Exhibit

Posted by Greta Browning on Thursday, July 19, 2012 -

A new exhibit of artwork, “Miraculous Creatures and Natural Encounters: Selections from the Beulah C. Campbell Collection of Original Illustrations from Children’s Books,” is now on display in the Dougherty Reading Room in Special Collections on the 4th floor of Belk Library and Information Commons. The exhibit is accessible during the regular operating hours of the Dougherty Reading Room, Monday through Friday, 9am – 4pm.

The exhibit, curated by graduate student and Dougherty Reading Room reference assistant David Funderburk, includes works by artists Pauline Baynes, Eric Carle, V. H. Drummond, Susan Jeffers, and Symeon Shimin. The illustrations on display were selected based on their depictions of animals and encounters with the natural world as fantastical or miraculous. This small selection includes heroic horses, an enchanted wood, animals with mythical abilities, a man who talks to a tree, and more.

The Beulah C. Campbell Collection of Original Illustrations for Children's Books is a compilation of over 400 original illustrations by European and American artists that were published primarily in children’s literature and picture books. The collection includes works from twenty-eight twentieth-century illustrators, such as James Daugherty, Eric Carle, Jan Pienkowski, Symeon Shimin, Robert Quackenbush, and Leo and Diane Dillon. It includes pencil and charcoal drawings, pastels, watercolor paintings, photographs, printed posters, and other mediums. The illustrations and the children’s books for which they were created are housed in Special Collections and are available to researchers by request through the Dougherty Reading Room. The illustration collection is viewable online through the Library’s Digital Collections at: http://contentdm.library.appstate.edu/cdm/landingpage/collection/beulah

Univ. of Tennessee Center for Children's and YA Literature's recommended reading list, reprint with thanks

UT Expert Offers Ideas, Books to Get Kids Reading at Summer’s End

Posted on July 20, 2012

Youngsters looking for some entertainment and excitement as the summer winds down might want to explore … the library.

Even kids who get bored with required reading can find summer reading a refreshing change.

And—don’t tell the kids this—summer reading can help maintain and develop their reading level. It’s also a good activity for parents and kids to do together.

“No matter the time of year or age, kids should be reading,” said Miranda Clark, director for the Center for Children’s & Young Adult Literature. “Get them as excited about reading as they are about other activities.”

Here are some tips from Clark for sparking your child’s love of reading this summer:

• Let them have their way. Take your children to a bookstore or library and let them pick out their own books. “Summer is about freedom, for kids especially,” said Clark. “So giving them the freedom to choose their reading material is key to getting them to read in the summer.”
• Crank up the car’s stereo with an audio book. Whether you’re traveling or at home, audio books are also a good reading alternative during the summer, Clark said. Parents can go online to the American Library Association’s website and search for award-winning audio books, including those that have won the prestigious Odyssey Award given to the best audio book for children and young adults.
• Share the love. Parents’ involvement in their children’s reading habits is important in developing children’s critical reading skills. “Help your child learn how to know themselves as a reader,” Clark said. “It’s important we help our children become critical readers. Sharing a book with your child is even better because you can help them notice elements of the writing or illustration then connect those observations to their daily life.”
• Anything goes. Reading chapter books or novels is wonderful, but reading a comic book or graphic novel is good, too. “Reading is all about acquiring language and being exposed to quality literature and great writing and vocabulary,” Clark said. “I think in the summer, reading is reading, and if kids are reading something they love, that should be good enough for us.”

The Center for Children’s & Young Adult Literature has published a list of award-winning children’s and young adult books as part of their The Best of the Best 2012 Workshop being held today. To see the whole list and to learn more about the center, visit the website.

C O N T A C T :

Miranda Clark (865-974-2305, mclark22@utk.edu)

Publishers Weekly excerpt and links, with thanks;ublishers' Listings of Forthcoming Books

Children's Books for Fall 2012:

All the Listings and Features
Edited by Diane Roback and Carolyn Juris

Jul 13, 2012

Summer may be in full swing, but here at PW our thoughts have already turned to fall and our comprehensive listings of the coming season’s offerings. With this issue we shift our parameters a bit; our fall announcements now encompass July 1, 2012, through January 31, 2013....

Click the links below to go to the listings:

Publishers A-F | Publishers G-M | Publishers N-R | Publishers S-Z

And here are the features:

What Common Core Means for Publishers | Children’s Books Taking College Campuses by Storm

from the Univ. of Mississippi Press, Charles Hatfield's (Cal State Univ. Northridge) Eisner-award book

Hand of Fire
The Comics Art of Jack Kirby

By Charles Hatfield

304 pages (approx.), 7 x 10 inches, 32 line illustrations, appendix, bibliography, index

Paper, $25.00

Ebook 978-1-61703-179-3, $25.00

The first critical exploration of the work of a great comics creator

Jack Kirby (1917-1994) is one of the most influential and popular artists in comics history. With Stan Lee, he created the Fantastic Four and defined the drawing and narrative style of Marvel Comics from the 1960s to the present day. Kirby is credited with creating or cocreating a number of Marvel's mainstay properties, among them the X-Men, the Hulk, Thor, and the Silver Surfer. His earlier work with Joe Simon led to the creation of Captain America, the popular kid gang and romance comic genres, and one of the most successful comics studios of the 1940s and 1950s. Kirby's distinctive narrative drawing, use of bold abstraction, and creation of angst-ridden and morally flawed heroes mark him as one of the most influential mainstream creators in comics.

In this book, Charles Hatfield examines the artistic legacy of one of America's true comic book giants. He analyzes the development of Kirby's cartooning technique, his use of dynamic composition, the recurring themes and moral ambiguities in his work, his eventual split from Lee, and his later work as a solo artist. Against the backdrop of Kirby's earlier work in various genres, Hand of Fire examines the peak of Kirby's career, when he introduced a new sense of scope and sublimity to comic book fantasy.

Charles Hatfield, Northridge, California, is associate professor of English at California State University, Northridge. He is the author of Alternative Comics: An Emerging Literature. Follow his blog at http://handoffire.wordpress.com/.

China Daily, excerpt with thanks

Translation is kids' stuff at Beijing academy

Updated: 2012-07-10 10:02

By Zhang Yue

A group of children in Beijing has translated a series of picture books, originally by four Spanish painters and writers, from English to Chinese.

This is the first series of children's literature translated by international students whose first language is not Chinese, according to Wang Biao, a senior editor from the Department of Chinese Language and Linguistics of Peking University Press, who is in charge of the publication.

"Our target readers are those children who are learning Chinese both in China and overseas," Wang says of the book series recently published by Peking University Press.

The 17 children who participated in the translation are mostly overseas-born Chinese and fifth grade students from Western Academy of Beijing, the city's second largest international school.

New Publisher Seeks Submissions, reprint with thanks

Creative writing courses & workshops and other great stuff for writers

Wednesday, July 11, 2012

Pajama Press seeks picture books, juvenile and young adult fiction, as well as juvenile nonfiction

Pajama Press
Toronto, Canada

http://www.pajamapress.ca/

Pajama Press is a brand new children’s publisher, established in April 2011 and bringing out its first books in the fall of 2011. Pajama Press picture books, board books, middle grade novels, young adult novels, non-fiction for all juvenile categories.

Publisher Gail Winskill has 35 years experience with a focus on excellence in children’s publishing. Gail’s long-term editor and collaborator, Ann Featherstone, who has been editing for 23 years, brings an outstanding experience in all children’s book genres.

Submissions:

Pajama Press looking for authors and illustrators who value children’s literature and have some knowledge of or experience related to the Canadian children’s publishing industry. Pajama Press is interested in picture books, juvenile and young adult fiction, as well as juvenile nonfiction. No genre fiction or early readers. Query by email only: info@pajamapress.ca

Full submission guidelines here.

Sky/Tyne and Wear, reprint with thanks

Jul 10, 2012

Seven Stories Adult Tours: 7th Birthday Special

Thu 27 Sep 2012 (13:30) Event: Sky Local

For seven years Seven Stories has been showcasing and celebrating modern children’s literature from our home in Newcastle.

This is a special opportunity to celebrate the last seven years and look forward to many more. Find out how Seven Stories began, the history of our Grade II listed building, view unseen treasures from our Collection, highlights from the past 7 years and meet the expert team who bring it to life. If you are interested in the UK’s literary heritage and children’s books then this tour is for you. Booking essential. £10 per person includes admission fee and cream tea in the café. National Art Card holders gain free access to our adult tours subject to advance booking and can order a cream tea after the tour for the discount price of £3.50!

When & where

Dates & times:

Thu 27 Sep 2012(13:30)

Venue:

Seven Stories, the Centre for Children's Books

Address:

Ouseburn Valley, Newcastle upon Tyne. NE1 2PQ

Website:

Visit website

CFP for Dartmouth Conference April 19-21, 2013

From: Philip Nel <philnel@ksu.edu>
Date: Mon, Jul 9, 2012 at 10:31 PM
Subject: [IRSCL] CFP: Illustration, Comics, and Animation Conference,
Dartmouth College, April 19–21, 2013

I'm forwarding the following CFP on behalf of Associate Professor
Michael Chaney at Dartmouth. This is the inaugural conference; he
plans to make it an annual event. Note that abstracts are due Dec.
1st.

Best wishes,


Philip Nel
Professor
Director, Program in Children's Literature
Dept. of English, 103 ECS Bldg.
Kansas State University
Manhattan, KS 66506-6501
U.S.A.
www.ksu.edu/english/nelp :: philnel@ksu.edu

-- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --


What is the future of illustration studies?

What can comics scholars learn from animation studies and vice versa?

Do illustrated books or graphic novels resist the supposed
obsolescence of the book? What do pictures want (now)?

These and related questions will be explored at the Illustration,
Comics, and Animation Conference at Dartmouth College to be held April
19 – 21 2013.

Scholars interested in the illustrated image in all of its mediated
guises are invited to participate in this interdisciplinary
conference. Nearly all illustrated or drawn ‘texts’ are eligible for
consideration:

*comics and graphic novels

*cartoons and animated films

*picture books

*illustrated books

And given the uniquely plenary nature of the conference, which brings
together scholarship on static and moving illustrations, preference
will be given to proposals that seek to bridge visual media. Possible
topics may include:

*Individual titles by prominent practitioners in the field

*Identity, subjectivity, authority, ideology or culture in or more
type of illustration media

*The future of particular schools of criticism (psychoanalysis,
critical race theory, phenomenology, Marxism, feminism, queer theory,
post-colonialism, formalism, aesthetic theories, etc.) and one or more
type of illustration media

The location of the conference may also be a source of inspiration for
prospective participants. Not only does Dartmouth College lie in close
proximity to the Center for Cartoon Studies in White River Junction,
Vermont, but it is also the historic home of Theodor Geisel, Dr.
Seuss, whose illustrated books continue to awe and amuse.

Interested participants may propose individual papers or panels.
Individual papers should be no longer than 20 minutes. Panels shall be
ninety minutes long and should be comprised of three presenters and
one (ideally separate) panel chair. Please send 300 word abstracts and
a brief bio for each proposed paper no later than December 1, 2012.

Send all proposals and inquiries to

Michael A. Chaney <michael.chaney@dartmouth.edu>

SDSU's Jerry Griswold on Wisconsin Public Radio WBEZ, link provided

http://www.wbez.org/series/front-center/creating-culture-literacy-100004

Jerry Griswold's Union-Tribune Review of Children's Picturebooks by Salisbury and Styles, link provided

Book review

The genius behind simplicity

Authors take pains to illustrate the complexity of creating children’s picture books

By Reviewed by Jerry Griswold

“Children’s Picturebooks: The Art of Visual Storytelling”

Martin Salisbury and Morag Styles

Laurence King Publishing; 192 pages; $35

http://www.utsandiego.com/news/2012/apr/28/the-genius-behind-simplicity/

Internatl. Research Society for Children's Literature CFP

Call for papers

The 21^st biennial conference of the International Research Society for Children’s Literature on

Children’s Literature and Media Cultures

will be hosted by the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, Maastricht University, The Netherlands

Conference Convenor: Lies Wesseling

Conference dates: August 10-14, 2013

Conference theme:

Contemporary children and adolescents divide their time over many different media. These media do not develop in isolation. Rather, they shape each other by continually exchanging content and modes of mediation. This conference addresses the exchanges between children’s literature and adjacent media (oral narrative, theatre, film, radio, TV, digital media).

Media are best defined as cultural practices that forge specific links between senders and receivers of messages, facilitating certain types of communicative behavior. As newer media tend to imitate, if not absorb, older media, they force older media to reassert their uniqueness and indispensability in a rapidly changing media landscape. How has children’s literature staked out its own niche in these historically variable ‘mediascapes’ in the course of time? How do electronic and digital media affect children’s emergent literacy and literary competence? How have children’s books and the newer electronic and digital media impacted on children’s play? What sort of communicative behaviors are facilitated by the diverse media available to children and adolescents nowadays? Which ethical and political issues are raised by the fact that children’s literature has to share its claim to the audience’s attention with a whole gamut of alternative media? These questions are central to the 21st biannual conference of the IRSCL.

The aim of the conference is to strengthen the ever closer ties between children’s literature scholars and media experts, and to bridge the gap between hermeneutic methods from the humanities and empirical, experimental methods from the social sciences.

Confirmed Keynote Speakers: Adriana Bus, Gudrun Marci-Boehncke, Jackie Marsh, Kerry Mallan, Junko Yokota

For further information about the conference, the call for papers, and the submission of abstracts, go to: www.irscl2013.com

New Caldecott/Newbery Award Guide Announced, reprint

Saturday, July 7, 2012

The 2012 edition of the Newbery and Caldecott awards guide

What book was honored with a Newbery Award in 1931? Or awarded the Caldecott Medal in 1957? In 1974? Last year? Updated to include the 2012 award and honor books, "The Newbery and Caldecott Awards: A Guide to the Medal and Honor Books, 2012 Edition" gathers together the books deemed most distinguished in American children's literature and illustration since the inception of the renowned prizes. Librarians and teachers everywhere rely on this guidebook, published by ALA Editions, for quick reference and collection development and also as a resource for curriculum links and readers' advisory. With an easy-to-use streamlined look and format, the 2012 guide features:

A new essay by Deborah Stevenson, director of the Center for Children’s Books at the Graduate School of Library and Information Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, on how the awards are consistently a big moment for children's books to be noticed and celebrated outside the library world;

Explanations of criteria used to select the winners;

Updated bibliographic citations and indexes for the award winners

Bookbird Issue Announced, reprint

A special issue of Bookbird: a journal of international children’s
literature devoted to British children's literature and marking the
IBBY congress in London in August 2012, will shortly be available.
Copies will be sent to subscribers to Bookbird. Copies will be
available to purchase at the congress and from Johns Hopkins
University Press. Subscriptions to Bookbird may be arranged through
JHUP:

www.press.jhu.edu/journals/bookbird/

See also: www.ibby.org for more information about Bookbird.

New Book by Tove Jansson Released, excerpt from the Independent, with thanks

Art in Nature, By Tove Jansson

Dreamlike trip through the magic of life

Christian House

Sunday 08 July 2012

When reading anything by Tove Jansson, one cannot quite ignore the looming hippo-shaped shadow of the Finnish author's legendary creation, the Moomins. At the time of her death in 2001, those loveable, large-snouted trolls had made Jansson an international name, one synonymous with a particularly Scandinavian take on children's books. And that is how it would have remained if it hadn't been for Sort of Books posthumously publishing her novel, The Summer Book, two years later....

The latest fiction of Jansson's to be translated and published in Britain is Art in Nature, a sublime little collection of stories that is full of boats and beach houses, painting and plays.... In "White Lady", three middle-aged ladies, one of them a novelist, enjoy a night out with youngsters at a seaside restaurant. "I write books for young people and they don't know who I am," ponders the writer. "And I know nothing about them, either. Funny, isn't it." It's a bittersweet scene for Jansson to have composed; she entertained a generation of children but had none herself.

David Almond Fellowship Winners Announced, reprint

ANNOUNCEMENT
Inaugural David Almond Fellows

In spring 2012 the Children’s Literature Unit in Newcastle
University’s School of English Literature, Language and Linguistics
and Seven Stories, the national centre for children’s books announced
the creation of David Almond Fellowships. The Fellowships aim to
promote high-quality research in the Seven Stories collections of a
kind that will call attention to the collections’ breadth and
scholarly potential. The competition closed on 1 June. A strong field
of candidates from scholars at different stages in their careers and
from several countries applied to become the first David Almond
Fellows. Applications were judged on the merit of projects and their
ability to make full use of the Seven Stories collections. The
successful candidates for the 2012 awards are Eve Lacey and Dr. Keith
O’Sullivan.


Eve Lacey read English at King’s College, Cambridge. Since graduating
in 2011 she has completed a research internship at the Fitzwilliam
Museum in Cambridge. Eve reviews for various online journals and
websites. Her research focuses on 'Illustrated Bodies and Traces of
Disability'. Eve plans to look at material relating to David Almond's
Heaven Eyes and Jacqueline Wilson's The Illustrated Mum.


Keith O'Sullivan lectures in English at the Church of Ireland College
of Education in Dublin. He recently co-edited the well-received volume
Irish Children’s Literature: New Perspectives on Contemporary Writing
(Routledge, 2011) and is currently co-editing a volume on Children’s
Literature and New York City, also for Routledge. Keith’s project
will examine some early Philip Pullman materials in the Seven Stories
archives for evidence of iconoclastic subtexts.


Details of the resulting projects will be provided early in 2013 in
tandem with application details for the 2013 round of David Almond
Fellowships.


Further information from Kim.Reynolds@ncl.ac.uk.