I’ve love to have a print of this illustration from You Read to Me, I’ll Read to You by John Ciardi, illustrated by Edward Gorey:
Tag: cool
Royal Role Models in YA/MG Literature
In response to Disney Princess week, Bailey Shoemaker Richards at SPARK counters with her own list of awesome princesses from MG/YA literature. As Bailey says: “The main characters in these books are, become or interact with princesses, and all of them have to deal with the implications of femininity in their own worlds.”
I have to admit: I was crazy about Ariel, Belle, and the other Disney princesses when I was little, and I think these characters still have a lot to offer girls. But when the princess line is marketed as just focusing on the fact that these ladies are princesses and wear pretty dresses, that’s a problem.
Bailey’s list includes three of my favorite MG fantasy heroines: Ella from Ella Enchanted, Cimorene from The Enchanted Forest Chronicles, and Alanna from The Song of the Lioness. All such awesome choices and complex characters outside of being royalty or near royalty. Bailey talks about each character and what makes her compelling, so click through to read more.
A couple of other suggestions I’d add:
Ani (aka Isi) from The Goose Girl by Shannon Hale
This is one of my favorite fairy tale adaptations. Ani has a hard time being a princess and manages to find her own strength when her position is challenged. I love seeing Ani’s progression from awkward and uncertain to a confident, sensitive leader. (Shannon Hale has a bunch of other strong female characters in fairy tale adaptations, so Ani stands in for them as well.)
Beauty from Beauty by Robin McKinley
I especially like Beauty’s relationship with her family in McKinley’s retelling. In the original tale, Beauty’s sisters are selfish and spoiled, but here the family gets along well. Leaving them behind means a lot for Beauty, and I like how McKinley reinforces Beauty’s quiet bravery.
Who are your favorite women from MG/YA fantasty?
The Art of Imaginary Friends
My friend Ron alerted me to an awesome upcoming exhibition at the William Baczek Fine Arts gallery. From May 2-June 2 they’ll be featuring Travis Louie and his series, The Secret Pet Society. An example is Julia & Her Swamp Friend, 2012, acrylic on board, 20 x 16″:
What dreamy, eerie, cool art. From the description for this piece: “Julia discovered him while she was collecting red-spotted salamanders in the swamp behind her parent’s farm house. She mistook the crown of branch-shaped tendrils on its head as a thicket of dead birch trees. The creature turned out to be quite harmless.”
Need to make a road trip to check out this exhibit.
(image: Travis Louie)
Doing the Voices: Reader as Orchestra
From this interview with awesome children’s book writer/illustrator Mo Willems:
MONTAGNE: You have a long relationship with writing for television. You’ve won six Emmys for your work at “Sesame Street.” And that kind of writing shows up in your books, it seems, not just funny but also really works and it’s very possible to read it out loud. Do you read out loud as you’re writing?
WILLEMS: I think it’s really important. I mean here’s the weird thing is. I write for illiterates.
MONTAGNE: Three year olds.
(SOUNDBITE OF LAUGHTER)
WILLEMS: Right? So what that means is I am dependent on my orchestra. And my orchestra can be a parent, it can be a teacher, it can be a librarian. But I have to make sure that my orchestra is engaged. That they are, you know, maybe being sillier than they normally are; that they are yelling and jumping around, so that that’s what’s going to make the book work better. It’s very, very important. Also, because it’s a time to be together. You know, I want parents to be engaged and I want them to laugh, because then it’s cool. I think that sometimes parents forget that they are the coolest people in the world to kids. They’re just awesome. So if they’re enjoying reading books, suddenly the kid is going to say, wow, reading books is awesome.
I love the idea of the reader as the “orchestra” of a picture book. Willems does a great job capturing voice and making his characters really dynamic for the reader and the listener. You need to do the voices!
The Explosion of Plot
When I was in high school, I was really into writing stories without plot. Plot was old, I thought; existential angst was in! I wish I had seen this quote back then:
“Plot is people. Human emotions and desires founded on the realities of life, working at cross purposes, getting hotter and fiercer as they strike against each other until finally there’s an explosion—that’s Plot.”—Leigh Brackett
I love that description. Plot isn’t just action; it’s people getting in each other’s way and confronting each other.
Also, I hadn’t heard of Leigh Brackett before, but apparently she co-wrote The Empire Strikes Back. Awesomeness!
(via Writer’s Digest)
Be the Cool Kid at the Coffee Shop: Make Your Own Notebook
I’m pretty picky about my writing notebooks. In Writing Down the Bones, Natalie Goldberg advocates for cheap, drugstore notebooks to alleviate the pressure of having to write something grand, but I like having a little big of style in my notebooks. If you want to jazz up a plain notebook, A Beautiful Mess has a create tutorial for making a lace patterned notebook.
Wouldn’t that be a cool notebook to pull out of your bag at a coffee shop? I’m already feeling the writerly inspiration.
(image: Elise Larson/A Beautiful Mess)
Star Light, Star Bright
Can you believe we’re almost at the end of National Poetry Month? Which means it’s time to share another poem. This one is by Tracy K. Smith, who recently won the Pulitzer Prize for her collection of poetry, Life on Mars. The poem “My God, It’s Full of Stars,” is from that collection. The poem is pretty long, so I’ll just quote a cool section here:
MY GOD, IT’S FULL OF STARS
1.
We like to think of it as parallel to what we know,
Only bigger. One man against the authorities.
Or one man against a city of zombies. One manWho is not, in fact, a man, sent to understand
The caravan of men now chasing him like red ants
Let loose down the pants of America. Man on the run.Man with a ship to catch, a payload to drop,
This message going out to all of space…. Though
Maybe it’s more like life below the sea: silent,Buoyant, bizarrely benign. Relics
Of an outmoded design. Some like to imagine
A cosmic mother watching through a spray of stars,Mouthing yes, yes as we toddle toward the light,
Biting her lip if we teeter at some ledge. Longing
To sweep us to her breast, she hopes for the bestWhile the father storms through adjacent rooms
Ranting with the force of Kingdom Come,
Not caring anymore what might snap us in its jaw.Sometimes, what I see is a library in a rural community.
All the tall shelves in the big open room. And the pencils
In a cup at Circulation, gnawed on by the entire population.The books have lived here all along, belonging
For weeks at a time to one or another in the brief sequence
Of family names, speaking (at night mostly) to a face,A pair of eyes. The most remarkable lies.
Read on at the Awl. Frankly, I think it’s awesome to write a poem that includes zombies, Kubrick, and the infinity of the universe.
You can also here Smith talk about her poem and read a part of it here.
(image by NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory, via the Smithsonian Institution)
Dress Your Bookish Best
Nothing to wear? Turn to your old paperbacks for inspiration:
You might want to keep this in the closet on rainy days, but at least you’d never leave the house without something to read.
(via Libraryland)
International Library Tour
Just what I needed for Tuesday: a little armchair travel with this list of gorgeous public libraries from around the world. One of my favorites:
This is the Rijksmuseum Research Library in Amsterdam. (Seriously, Amsterdam, you are the coolest.) Lots more library awesomeness through the link.
Getting Excited for NESCBWI
My friend/designer guy Patrick Truby made me these awesome business cards for the upcoming NESCBWI conference:
When I was at SCBWI in January I didn’t have any business cards and felt kind of silly writing out information to give to people. Now I’m excited to network with these.
Note: The weird squiggly lines in the picture are from where I blocked out some of the contact info. Not a design choice!