NEWS AND NOTES

Patricia McKissack Speaking at SFPL:
The Office of Children & Youth Services and the Fisher Children's Center in association with the African American Center of the San Francisco Public Library cordially invite you to attend The 12th Annual Effie Lee Morris Lecture on Friday, June 6, 2008 at 4:30 p.m. in the Koret Auditorium, Main Library, Lower Level. Patricia McKissack will be the guest lecturer, and her subject is "Storytelling, the Heart of Literacy"
A reception and book signing will precede the program at 3:30 p.m. in the Latino/Hispanic Community Meeting Room.
A related exhibition of facsimilies of original manuscripts from McKissack's work is currently on display through June 8th at the Children's Center, Second Floor, Main Library.
The program is supported by Friends of the San Francisco Public Library and the San Francisco Chapter of the Women's National Book Association, in celebration of its 40th Anniversary.
The Main Library is located at 100 Larkin Street (at Grove) in the Civic Center.

Northern California Independent Booksellers Awards Announced:
The first awards given by the Northern California Independent Booksellers Association were announced last month. The winner for the Children's Literature category was Pat Murphy for The Wild Girls. The winner for the Children's Illustrator category was Bob Barner for Penguins, Penguins.

27th Annual Northern California Book Awards Announced:
On April 13th, the awards given by the Northern California Book Reviewers were announced. In the Children's category, the winner was The Apple Doll by Elisa Kleven.

Jane Addams Award

Winners of the 2008 Jane Addams Children's Book Awards were announced in April by the Jane Addams Peace Association. The winners are:

The Escape of Oney Judge: Martha Washington's Slave Finds Freedom, the winner in the Books for Younger Children Category, is written and illustrated by Emily Arnold McCully and published by Farrar Strauss Giroux. Mrs. Washington declares that young Oney is just like one of the Washington's own children, but Oney is not fooled. On the night Mrs. Washington tells Oney she will not grant her freedom upon her death, Oney thinks quickly, acts courageously and flees. Expressive watercolors within this well-researched biography portray the bravery of Ona Maria Judge, an African-American woman who claimed, and fought for, the right to have “no mistress but herself.”

We Are One: The Story of Bayard Rustin by Larry Dane Brimner, published by Calkins Creek, an imprint of Boyds Mills Press, Inc., is the winner in the Books for Older Children Category. Working behind the scenes because of his sexual orientation and unpopular political stands, African-American pacifist and civil rights activist Bayard Rustin, a trusted adviser to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., organized the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom. Succinct prose, powerful quotations and fresh historical photographs place the story of Rustin's life alongside the story of the March, revealing the breadth and depth of Rustin's decades of commitment to confronting racism and promoting peace in the United States and in countries around the world.

One book has won honors in the Books for Younger Children Category:

One Thousand Tracings: Healing the Wounds of World War II, written and illustrated by Lita Judge is published by Hyperion Books for Children. After discovering one thousand yellowed foot tracings in her grandmother's attic, Lita Judge wrote this tribute to her grandmother who had used these newspaper tracings to find appropriately-sized shoes to send to needy German families in the aftermath of World War II. A combination of paintings, collages of original photographs and reproductions of foot tracings underscore the message of compassion at the heart of this family story.

Three books have won honors in the Books for Older Children category:

Rickshaw Girl by Mitali Perkins, with illustrations by Jamie Hogan and published by Charlesbridge, is a contemporary novel set in Bangladesh. In clear prose and detailed black-and-white drawings, ten-year-old Naimi excels at painting alpanas, traditional designs created by Bangladeshi women and girls. Her talent, though valued by her family, cannot buy rice or pay back the loan on her father's rickshaw as a son's contribution would do. Determined to help financially, Naimi disguises herself as a boy and sparks surprising events that reveal an expanding world for herself and women in her community.

Elijah of Buxton by Christopher Paul Curtis, published by Scholastic Press, an imprint of Scholastic, Inc., is a sensitively-written historical novel infused with the spirit of youth. Eleven-year-old Elijah bursts with pride at being the first child born free in Buxton, Canada, a settlement of runaway slaves just across the border from Detroit. When a scoundrel steals money saved to buy an enslaved family's freedom, Elijah impulsively pursues the thief into Michigan. The journey brings him face-to-face with the terrors of slavery, pushing him to act courageously and compassionately in the name of freedom.

Birmingham, 1963 by Carole Boston Weatherford is published by Wordsong, an imprint of Boyds Mills Press, Inc. Deftly-written free verse and expertly-chosen archival photographs lay open the horror of the 1963 Birmingham church bombing by telling the story in the voice of an imagined girl in the “year I turned ten.” Four memorial poems, each a tribute to one of the four girls murdered in the bombing, conclude this slim, powerful volume and carry its emphatic message: No More Birminghams!

Since 1953, the Jane Addams Children's Book Award annually acknowledges books published in the U.S. during the previous year. Books commended by the Award address themes or topics that engage children in thinking about peace, justice, world community, and/or equality of the sexes and all races. The books also must meet conventional standards of literary and artistic excellence.

A national committee chooses winners and honor books for older and younger children. Members of the 2007 Jane Addams Children's Book Awards Committee are Susan C. Griffith, Chair (Mt. Pleasant, Michigan), Barbara Bair (Washington, D. C.), Ann Bower (Harwich, Massachusetts), Sonja Cherry-Paul (Yonkers, New York), Eliza T. Dresang (Tallahassee, Florida), Oralia Garza de Cortes (Pasadena, California), MJ Grande (Juneau, Alaska), Daisy Gutierrez (Houston, Texas), Margaret Jensen (Madison, Wisconsin), Jo Montie (Minneapolis, Minnesota), Sarah Park (Long Beach, California), Pat Wiser (Sewanee,Tennessee) and Junko Yokota (Skokie, Illinois). Regional reading and discussion groups participated with many of the committee members throughout the jury's evaluation and selection process.

The 2008 Jane Addams Children's Book Awards will be presented Friday, October 17th in New York City. Details about the award event and about securing winner and honor book seals are available from the Jane Addams Peace Association (JAPA). Contact JAPA Executive Director Linda B. Belle, 777 United Nations Plaza, 6th Floor, New York, NY 10017-3521; by phone 212-682-8830; and by e-mail japa@igc.org

Board Book Roundup - Spring Part 2

A few more board books came in for review, after our last issue went to press. Most of these will be great for baby storytime!

"Fancy Nancy" Do-It-Yourself Program

A popular new picture book character, Fancy Nancy from the books by Jane O'Connor, can be a great basis for a "do it yourself" library program. You can either make it a school-age storytime program, or a program directed at kids ages 3-8 and their parents, with lots of hands-on activities. Many of these ideas come from Lisa Watson, a librarian in Mississippi, who submitted her thoughts to the PUBYAC listserv. The overall look of the program is like a tea party, so this could be great around Mother's Day for moms and kids to attend.

Start by reading one or two of the "Fancy Nancy" books:
Fancy Nancy (HarperCollins, 2006).
Fancy Nancy and the Posh Puppy (HarperCollins, 2007).
Fancy Nancy - Bonjour Butterfly (HarperCollins, 2008).

Remembering Bruce Vogel

It was just about a year ago that Bruce Vogel, Coordinator of Children's Services at Alameda County Library for 25 years, died at the age of 72. He had a profound influence on many of us who were lucky enough to work with and train under him. His obituary recounts his first public recognition when at the age of 4 he won a screen test for "his charming… recitation of "Jabberwocky", Lewis Carroll's nonsense poem". Debuting as a director of Cub Scout plays at the age of 8 and continuing to act as an adult and in his public libraries, he inspired his colleagues with his ability to enbed his full-throttle love for drama and words into all his library work. Who can forget the chariot races he brought to life on the Library's lawn; the madcap melodrama which toured the entire library system one pre-Proposition 13 summer; the puppet-heroine, tied to the rails as a locomotive comes hurtling towards her, with which he entranced the hordes of children who welcomed the opening of a new Fremont Library; and the fiendishly elaborate summer reading games he created, which made the game itself, with its twists of chance, an unpredictable romp - and inspired many young readers to go beyond the simple first step of winning to continue reading to the ultimate triumph, known as Blackout! His sense of play was a terrific validation of the sheer joy of reading, which brings so many of us to this profession in the first place. Many thousands of children have been enthralled by his presentations of Richard Wilbur's Loud Mouse,, Edith Thacher Hurd's Catfish, and A.A. Milne's The King's Breakfast and responded in the only possible way - by picking up a book themselves.

As an administrator, he oversaw the development of public library services to children in an area of booming population growth. He played his own part in the balancing act we all know of developing a viable partnership with the different school districts with which the various Alameda County communities interacted. He fought fiercely one fall to establish reasonable boundaries in a suburb whose neighboring school welcomed a new public library with the expectation that its 20-plus classes would make weekly visits; he fought equally fiercely to establish and support the Booklegger project that over 20 years later still brings intensively library-trained volunteers to public school classrooms throughout Fremont. He also brought his fierce intellect to position papers that helped to advance his vision of children's services. This showed up, of course, in his book reviewing, too, and old time ACL-ers may remember the insights flying as Bruce turned his keen knowledge of military history on juvenile history books. His retirement, which came too early for his staff, was timed for a period of budget cutting that would otherwise have resulted in the lay-off of two front line children's staff, a very Bruce-like action. His brother, David, recalled at the memorial service that Bruce opined that while the well-being of children has been steadily declining, practitioners of library services to children have bucked this trend by continuing to innovate and build. Many of us pursue such a goal strengthened by Bruce's encouragement and example. In his memory, the Alameda County Library Foundation has established the Bruce Vogel Memorial Picture Book Fund. A vital memorial to his irrepressible storytelling is also preserved in his book of cowboy tales, Buck Hooey: Tales of the Wild West, published under the name Daniel Bruce.

Tear-Jerkers

Recently on the PUBYAC listerv, there was a posting on juvenile novels for kids who like "sad books." Here are some suggestions for those kids, 4th-8th graders, who like tear-jerkers.