Location: Books & Such Nashville office

Weather: Low 90s and muggy

A sentence on page 20 in Publishers Weekly’s recent July 19 issue on children’s books for this fall caught my eye: “…It’s unclear whether parents will fork over the money for kids to use a $499 iPad that might easily fall into the toilet or sandbox.” I hadn’t thought of that!

It’s one thing for a child to leave a $14.95 hardcover or even a $6.95 paperback out in the rain or let the dog chew it, but it’s quite another for him/her to do the same with the expensive hardware needed for an electronic app, no matter how cheap the app. I should have thought of this because one of my young grandsons is not the most careful, and I bet lots of parents will have the same thoughts.

Regardless, it does seem clear that creators of content for children–that’s you authors–must at least try to think of interactive product. The closest we have come at this point is in  lift-the-flap books, cut-outs with texture (think Pat the Bunny) and multi-novelty creations like Paul Zelinsky’s The Wheels on the Bus. Now, the emphasis seems to be on converting formerly published titles with sales vitality into something that “comes to life” through technology, puts children in the content and to some extent lets them have control over it.

The writing in the sand points to a reinvigoration of content for all readers, but not necessarily new content. Rick Riordan’s 39 Clues Series, launched in 2008, is telling in this regard. The series included books, cards and online games with a designated website. But the series, written by four different authors, all had some reference to historical characters. It was new technology applied to conveying existing knowledge. Incidentally the final book, Into the Gauntlet, will be published at the end of August with a print run of 750,000. I’d like to see the number of hits the website gets.

One more quote from the article: “Publishers will focus on producing the best possible stories–and then making them ‘discoverable.’” And we know who writes those stories, don’t we?

How do you feel about making the shift from writing for the page to writing for the screen?

Location: Books & Such Nashville Office

Weather: Hot and cloudy

Being a kids book’ advocate, I don’t think you can start little ones too early in grasping new experience from a book. Well, maybe I draw the line with prenatal reading, but I’ve had too many lovely experiences holding those six-month-old cherubs and sharing books with them not to think it’s valuable.

Of course the question comes to mind about their ability to absorb meaning from the page versus the feeling of being loved while wrapped in the arms of a caring adult. Does it really matter if the love a child feels at this stage carries over to a love of reading? The book and the love can become indistinguishable.

But what about all this talk and some evidence that kids of today have become adapted to and enamored with electronic formats? At what stage of a child’s life does that take place?

We’ve read about and perhaps seen preschoolers at computer keyboards where they may be cued to an electronic picture book or cartoon. No adult needed there. The e-book makes the reading/viewing even easier for smaller and perhaps younger ones. We’re getting there in regard to making content and format accessible for very young children.

However, even with all these technological breakthroughs, I hope we don’t lose the opportunity to connect love and reading for the preschool child. So many of them need it. Nobel author Pearl Buck’s children’s book, One Bright Day (1950), seems pertinent to this question. (And maybe I need to read again The Good Earth.) Born in 1892 and taken to China by her missionary parents before the start of WWII, Buck escaped indescribable tragedies by her mother’s reading to her and then by reading herself at an early age. How did she come to know love when she was finding mutilated body parts in her yard if not through books?

Well, that’s history, and we live in the 21st century. Thank heaven we have children and love and books to share in so many forms. What affect do you think reading an e-book might have on children?

Location: Books & Such Nashville Office

Weather: Hot and muggy

A recent quote in Newsweek from Anna Quindlen caught my eye: “Well, what is a book really? Is it its body or its soul?” I think that was her way of asking the question many of us have about the relationship between content and format. The two have been considered one for so long. Reading automatically meant holding and turning bound pages, but that was before the digital age. This revolution is certainly noticeable in the area of kids’ publishing.

We’ve had electronic gadgets related to kids’ book content, usually called “novelties,” and in some kind of book format with page-turning features for some time. Remember the Play-a-Tune books of the 1980s? But the web has brought newer interactive digital formats onscreen into existence. Quoting from an article entitled, “Technology Alters Concept of Literary,” from an LA Times article: “Sound, animation and the ability to connect to the Internet have created the notion of a living book that can establish an entirely new kind of relationship with readers.”

“Living book”–now there’s a great phrase. It is this relationship with readers made possible electronically that is so astounding and so breathtakingly new for those of us who think of reading as turning pages. The texting, chatting, YouTubing kids of today will expect a different kind of connection with the content that enters their consciousness. They will associate new information and entertainment with moving sound and color as much as text in fixed format on a page of paper.

This is not alarming to me, even though I’ve been looking at words in type on pages for years. Why? Because I see so many options for resurrecting great art and stories of past generations and keeping them alive online for kids today. We all know the sadness of discovering a bound book has gone “out of print,” but the electronic book is more accessible for infinitely longer–or at least as long as we have a power base for our computers. I also see an expanding world of listening opportunities for the blind as Intel and Amazon convert text into speech immediately available through computers.

Ask any children in your life where they access their reading material: libraries, computer, physical books, etc.

Location: Books & Such Nashville Office

Weather: Hot as you-know-what

The title for this post has a broader meaning than at first may come to mind. As I read the summer movie listings, review publishers’ offerings of games, and receive inquiries about film rights-all based on children’s books, I can’t help thinking what terrific influence authors of children’s books have.

Beverly Cleary’s classic books about Ramona Quimby have just hit the big screen in the full-length film, “Ramona and Beezus.” For an older audience, Stephanie Meyer’s third book and film, “Twilight Saga:Eclipse,” is playing, though it’s questionable whether the book or the film was birthed first. And if you think kids books include comics, you’ll want to know about ComicCon, the annual San Diego conference devoted to that format that took place last week. I heard it was awash with trailers for viewing.

All of which may cause us to ponder which comes first with kids now:  words or pictures? The time-honored approach developed in a world where reading was a great achievement was first the picture book, then the all-text chapter book, followed by the longer novel and nonfiction book. But things have changed in the last 20 years, thanks to declining levels of classic education, the rapid spread of computer and texting culture, and the lure of entertainment.

I don’t mean to indict any of those changes–just saying that they have happened and that kids learn in different ways now. And even in all this change, some things are universal. That’s why it’s encouraging to see a major movie being made of “Ramona and Beezus.” Beverly Cleary is 93 or 94 years old, and she clearly remembers her father losing his job when she was a child. The Ramona books began in 1968, developing out of Cleary’s success with books about Henry Huggins. Read the Ramona books and see the movie–with a child.

What experiences are universal themes that children still respond to? How much time do the children in your life devote to reading?

Location:  Books & Such Nashville Office

Weather:  Still hot

After writing about words for three days, I’ve realized that the hardest writing may be description–not dialogue–because description is more visual. It calls for painting pictures with words, and that’s really difficult to do well. It’s hard to evoke the feelings derived from texture, smell and color.

This summer in Nashville we have the most spectacular exhibit of colorful glass sculpture by Seattle artist Dale Chihuly. From the 30-foot tall, massive golden glass spiral at the entrance to the glass balls in the Japanese sand garden to the blue glass crane shapes in the reflecting pool, and on and on, everywhere you look there is one or more entrancing pieces of beautifully colored blown glass. As I listened to the exhibit chief talk about the installation, I was struck by how low-key and plain-spoken he was. Then I realized that he knew the exhibit would speak for itself as it was viewed. Words can’t do it justice.

I make no secret of the fact that my favorite book format is the picture book, that careful design of few words and colorful pictures to convey meaning to young children. Yes, the color printing process makes picture books more expensive to publish and the number of picture books being produced in the last few years has diminished. But when a richly colored book such as this year’s Caldecott Award winner, The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney, hits the market, we know it’s worth sharing for years to come.

Editors and critics often mention the “color” of an author’s work even though no visual element is involved. I think they are referring to a particular vividness of imagery. Most writers do have a mental picture of their protagonists, and it’s often a help if the author keeps close at hand photos or paintings of the setting where the narrative takes place. That way a writer might produce more colorful words, not bogging the manuscript down with description. It’s a tough act to write a colorful piece with only words.

Who are some of your favorite “colorful” authors?

Location: Books & Such Nashville Office

Weather: Hot and sticky

Young readers’ enthusiasm still thrills me. From the time most of them first discover they can decipher those symbols on the page and glean meaning from them, they are in love with words and with easy reader series like the Berenstain Bears. The more rabid young reader simply can’t get enough of stories about a favorite character or group. Thus a series is born in response to eager readers. Many series characters have become cultural icons–Nancy Drew, the Hardy Boys, the Boxcar Children, Beverly Cleary’s Ramona books and Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House series, to name just a few.

For the slightly older and young teen readers, the American Girl Series blossomed, and Francine Pascal began the Sweet Valley High series followed by Ann Martin’s Baby-Sitters Club series. Note that as the readers mature, the series tend to be more for girls (the Matt Christopher Sports Series to the contrary), while boys at this age lean more toward comics.

That still is generally true, but the arrival of the Harry Potter books changed things. I’m not sure exactly who the target age or gender was. Maybe J.K. Rowling had a specific group in mind, but the series exploded from early middle schoolers through adults. And I wonder where and when the decision was made to publish in hardcover rather than the usual paperback format of most series.

In short, from picture book series like Maisy and Arthur to Stephanie Meyer’s Twilight Saga Series,  we seem to be in a humongous flurry of series publishing by big publishers. I suspect that’s due to several factors: The publisher has a pattern for editing and production from one book to the next and the time required for negotiating terms is minimized. The author has many of the story elements worked out as well as the security of knowing a contract has been agreed on.

Most series do reach their limit in one way or another, and authors can only hope that the generation coming along will like their series as well as the one in place when it was first written.

What were your favorite series growing up?

Location:     Books & Such Nashville Office

Weather:     Slight chance of showers

Recently an author asked me how many poems she should include in a manuscript for a picture book of poetry. I had no idea how to answer until I knew the length of the poems, what form they were in, and how they were intended to be used.

That made me think more about the distinction of poetry as a separate form from prose and how to tell one from the other.  At an earlier age, we might have said poetry is either lyric or narrative. When we heard the rhythm and rhyme of spoken words, we knew we were hearing poetry. But like so many aspects of life and literature today we are ever straining toward new forms.

With so much free verse around, an audience for poetry may need either to see the way a poem looks or else be told that it is poetry. The emotion or insight or dramatic combination of elements seem more important in defining a poem than aligning the words in any particular format.

But perhaps the look of poetry is more important than we acknowledge. We get an entirely different impression from looking at words assembled in limerick format than we do from words assembled as a sonnet. Their format or their look tells us something about their content that we don’t get from reading the first page of a novel no matter how varied the type or chapter opening decorations. The poet e.e. cummings understood the importance of the looks of poetry, even to the point not using punctuation or capitalization. (Maybe he just didn’t want to use the Shift key on the manual typewriter!)

To illustrate the point, here’s the first half of “The Porcupine Poem” from Speaking in Tongues by Charles Ghigna, former poetry editor of English Journal and much-published children’s poet:

“Just when you think you are done with it, the poem turns on you, charges back for more, pricks you with its finer points . . . .”

Those words are insightful, memorable, we might even say “poetic” in the prose format above. As printed in the book, they are broken into six lines and it’s obviously a poem. The LOOK made it more poetic.

What poem have you read or written that needs to be seen to grasp some aspects of its poetic nature?

Location: Holding down the fort in Santa Rosa while everyone else attends the Mount Hermon Christian Writer’s Conference.

“I don’t know why you kids bother to read fiction,” said Mrs. Klocki, my eighth-grade history teacher. “You should read history!  Not only are the stories more unbelievable,  but they’re also true!”

As the daughter of an only-non-fiction reader, I knew she had a point.

My love for history started long before I found Laura Ingalls Wilder’s Little House books on the shelf in my school library. I became enraptured by a series of small, square books, each maybe eight chapters long on notable Americans: Martha Washington, Kit Carson, Thomas Edison and the like. The first seven chapters were incidents from the title character’s childhood; the final chapter summed up what happened to them once they reached adulthood. The end pages included illustrations and the pertinent dates of their lives.

Just like kids today, I read every one our library had, not caring who the book was about. The hardback covers were an assortment of colors: green, orange, and blue, but the “brand” was the same in each: tell about a famous American’s childhood, using incidents that would reverberate into their future.

I remember at the time wondering why anyone would want to know about the characters’ adulthood; wouldn’t you rather read stories about children?

Amazon.com lists nearly 17,000 books under the search “children’s biography series.” Obviously, many of us have been interested in reading about the lives of famous people for a long time.

But how  many stories of George Washington and his cherry tree–or not–do kids need to have? How do we find a fresh way to tell an old, familiar story?

For me as an elementary school student, I was attracted to fascinating stories, unusual events, and a hook that appealed to my age. Add illustrations and stories about kids “like me.”

Or not, depending on how outlandish the tales might be.

How do we write history in a way that makes it meaningful to people–young or old–while telling the truth? And does a series of books make reading history more palatable?

Location:  Books & Such Nashville Office

Weather:  Low 40s and Rain

I’m still thinking about all those junior high students in the “Letters to Authors” contest I was judging last week –I’ve blogged a bit about their responses on gender and race. Today I’m wondering what they believe. What is their faith stance in our increasingly secular society? So much of teaching and setting an example about faith is left to parents, but when kids reach to junior high, they start that trek toward independence which often means they look to their peers and teachers and what they read and see for direction. For some kids, it’s a time to rebel against what parents teach.

Out of the total 75 letters I read, two had explicit Christian content. Perhaps a better criterion would be the content of the books, speeches, and poems they selected. If a kid reads A Wrinkle in Time by Madelyn L’Engle or the “I Have a Dream” speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. (both of whom we know as Christian authors), is that child more inclined toward a Christian faith response to life?

I think these questions are important for authors of adult books, not only because they indicate something about the next generation of adult readers but also because they challenge us to think of the relation between our faith and our creativity. This morning I read a snippet in Julia Cameron’s The Artist’s Way Every Day which she begins with, “Creativity requires faith.” She’s writing about faith in one’s self, but it’s encouraging no matter how we take it.

How do we weave our faith into our writing without slamming readers in the face? Junior high students aren’t the only ones who resist being told what to believe. Kids growing up need some answers, and maybe we adults do too.

Location: Books & Such Nashville Office

Weather: Cold and Wet

In Monday’s post on judging the “Letters to Authors” written by junior high students, a couple of other items caught my attention. One of those was the large number of outstanding letters written by boys. You know–that gender that we and editors at publishing houses are constantly bemoaning because they don’t read. While there may not be a great many boys reading, I found close to half of the letters were from young male readers, and they are in that age bracket where we surmise boys are playing either sports or video games.

In addition, most of these boys were not writing about books we’d call easy reading, and the schools they represented were a good mix of public and private, large and small. Somehow these boys had become engaged with books such as Salinger’s  Catcher in the Rye and Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. So much for any gender bias I had!

It did set me to thinking about the gender of authors, particularly fiction authors. Of the 15 Hardcover Adult Fiction Bestsellers in the January 11 issue of Publishers Weekly, ten were written by males. The ratio is about the same in the report of the Hardcover Bestsellers for all of 2009 where seven of the ten are male. Now there’s some difference between readers and writers, but I want to suggest that we keep those males in mind when we write–either as well-rounded characters or as interested readers. Who knows, the future John Grisham may be reading our words!