Kadir Nelson, for that blindingly spectacular book, We Are the Ship did not receive the Caldecott?
The Coretta Scott King honors for writing and illustration? Awesome.
The Silbert Medal — way, way cool.
But seriously? No Caldecott?
Once again I really wonder if they work out these awards in tandem, as in “oh, he’s already got one of those. Give it to someone else.”
If so…
Graphic courtesy of the Chinese horoscope site.
Welcome to The Year of the Ox!
I still maintain that having two New Year celebrations is the best idea, ever. All of the resolutions that you’ve already blown through twenty five days ago are over — so, you can start over while munching on a banh tet trung thu or mooncake, and decide that the Lunar New Year might work better for you!
The perfect book for this two-week celebration of the Year of the Ox is Kao Kalia Yang’s The Late Homecomer. Conveying both the horror and the sweetness of a life lived in the midst of war, yet protected by a loving family, Kalia is a voice for the Hmong, a tribal people who lived peacefully in villages in Laos, until the CIA and The Secret War destroyed that way of life.
Kalia’s memoir details the story of her family’s escape from Laos to the refugee camp in Thailand, where she was born in 1980, to their immigration to St. Paul, Minnesota, when Kalia was about six. She talks about the grandmother who kept alive the traditions and the customs of the Hmong people, many of which were lost, as separate groups of Hmong were thrown together in the refugee camps, and re-educated in American ways. More than just the story of the Yang family or of the Hmong, this is the story of Kalia’s grandmother, who named her, enchanted her, educated and loved her, and represented to Kalia the bedrock of everything she had ever known. In 2003 when she died, Kalia realized that her grandmother’s life and the life of the Hmong was something everyone should know about, and she wrote it all down.
Kalia is a young writer whose engaging, clear narrative makes her family’s history, and our shared Hmong and American history poignant. Her family’s struggles and victories become our own, and young people looking for a book on a portion of American history they might not have read before will be able to devour this very readable book in a single afternoon.
Since we don’t review non-fiction, at our book site, I sneaked this satisfying memoir in under Non-Fiction Monday status, and in honor of my little sister, whose birth people are Hmong. Happy Tet.
TIME IS RUNNING OUT! This is your last reminder as the days tick down: mental_floss is giving away five $10,000 scholarships for college. Enter to win by saying, in 750 words or less, why you should win your tuition. YOUR DEADLINE IS JANUARY 31st, so DON’T DELAY!
Earlier this week, the words of Rabbi Hillel echoed through my head, as the change of administration in the country took place. “We understand,” the gentleman said, “that greatness is never a given.”
Do we understand?
Nothing is a given, and never has been. No one is handing out greatness or goodness or change or hope. Everything has to be… taken, hands opened, accepted, reached for, grasped, and achieved.
If we are just for ourselves, then who are we?
If we are not for ourselves, then who will be?
If we don’t reach out now, when will we?
Perhaps a strange thing, to place the words of an ancient Jerusalem scholar on the side of a whitewashed Presbyterian church. But I think the wisdom of Rabbi Hillel is transcendent enough to work, and the imagery of a plain and practical church, with its churchyard full of the past, speaks to the generations behind and before us who knew:
Nothing is a given.
What a world, in which we have a chance to make something of ourselves…
Poetry Friday is at Laura’s place. And don’t miss her fabulous picture of the dungeon at Urquhart Castle, and the “15 Words or More” poems which came from that prompt. Some pretty intense observations.
Theodosia is sitting on the windowsill, waiting for me…
To finish my novel.
Sigh.
Some of us bribe ourselves with chocolate.
Some of us need shoes.
But an author must always bribe herself with books.
Head down and back to work…
(Psst. If you missed our great interview with author R.L. LaFevers, revisit the SBBT here!
It’s a beautiful morning, ahhh.
Think I’ll go outside for awhile,
And just smile…
Happy Inauguration Day.
Andi at a wrung sponge has an interesting project for the 44th inaugural ceremony commemoration — a picture and a post — forty-four words long. Hers is — painful. But hopeful. The posts will be rounded up at the Peapods blog.
The prompt today at Sunday Scribblings is “pilgrimage,” and that’s what I did this weekend.
Those of you who participate in the WBBT/SBBT know that sometimes you JUST LOVE an author, so the format of the Summer/Winter Blog Blast Tour enables you to ask them to talk to you — about their books, about their lives, what’s playing in their iPod, and what authors they’re reading. Barring MotherReader’s unfortunate restraining order1 for the Mo Willems incident(s), (*!!!*) most of us keep our fangirling and stalkerish tendencies under wraps. *cough* You’ll be gratified to hear that I have taken stalking to a whole new level! Wonderland had so much fun interviewing her for WBBT this past November that yesterday I stalked author Elizabeth Wein all the way to her change ringing rehearsal at an ancient cathedral, and then to her house! And she’s very, very funny!
Okay, it was supposed to be a short visit — as in, I’ll just hop a train early in the morning and bring her a few goodies from the United States. After all, those of us who live abroad have to keep each other in Hershey’s, right? But the short visit turned into two meals and a 12-hour tour of Perthshire, conversing on a whole wealth of topics that continued until literally minutes before the doors on our eight o’clock train closed.
Of course, there were the whole “Liz Is Trying To Kill Me” episodes, which included a dizzying spiral stairwell that was exactly as wide as my shoulders — and getting more narrow as it rose, a river so high she called it a “death trap” and wet rocks slicked with moss, but I bribed her with 20 pounds of candy to let me live, and so we went home. We will just draw a veil over how dorky I looked crawling up the rocks on my hands and knees. Yes. Drawing a veil. Now.
Ahem.
To conclude: real life authors are lovely people, and should you have a chance to meet one in his or her own home environment, they will often feed you, and let their children take blurry, close-up pictures of you. It’s a lot of fun. (Pictures to follow; Flickr is uploading at the speed of a wheezing asthmatic camel in a sand slide.)
Reminder via Children’s Writers & Illustrators Market newsletter:
It’s the 78th Annual Writer’s Digest Writing Competition! Submit your children’s or young adult fiction! The reading fee is GRAND PRIZE: $3,000 cash and a trip to New York City to meet with editors or agents. Writer’s Digest will fly you and a guest to The Big Apple, where you’ll spend three days and two nights in the publishing capital of the world. While you’re there, a Writer’s Digest editor will escort you to meet and share your work with four editors or agents! Plus, you’ll receive a free Diamond Publishing Package from Outskirts Press.
Entry Deadline: May 15, 2009.
The most fun about this contest is that it’s open to everyone. Check out the small print at Writer’s Digest.
Margaret Atwood is one of my favorite writers of all time. This poem has been passed around and I don’t know if it’s in one of her books I haven’t yet read, but it’s one I love.
She wrote another one, Variations on the Word Love which is also quite popular, but it’s this one that touches me, somehow. There’s such a vulnerability in sleep, and the way the poem draws one and immerses one into deeper and deeper layers reminds me of actually falling asleep, and in that depth, there is a vast intimacy. The final line clinches it for me — and it also brings up the question of whether or not I really would ever want to be that person — so necessary and unnoticed — and selfless enough to be unnoticed.
Could you?
“Variations On The Word ‘Sleep'”
I would like to watch you sleeping,
which may not happen.
I would like to watch you,
sleeping. I would like to sleep
with you, to enter
your sleep as its smooth dark wave
slides over my head
and walk with you through that lucent
wavering forest of bluegreen leaves
with its watery sun & three moons
towards the cave where you must descend,
towards your worst fear
I would like to give you the silver
branch, the small white flower, the one
word that will protect you
from the grief at the center
of your dream, from the grief
at the center. I would like to follow
you up the long stairway
again & become
the boat that would row you back
carefully, a flame
in two cupped hands
to where your body lies
beside me, and you enter
it as easily as breathing in
I would like to be the air
that inhabits you for a moment
only. I would like to be that unnoticed
& that necessary.
Poetry Friday today is hosted at The Blog With The Shockingly Clever Title. Keep a good thought for Karen today as she battles plumbing gremlins!
I really love craftastic blogging chicas. Leila’s always doing something cool with literary bags, or t-shirts, Farida rocks the sewing and the dolls most awesomely, and everybody knows about Laini’s Ladies.
Wendi Gratz, one of the craftastic members of Gratz Industries (the other half of the industry produces some really awesome Horatio Wilkes Mysteries, two of which are IN MY HOUSE, whee!) has come up with THE cutest …definition dolls. That’s really the only way I can describe them.
I have to admit that I want a doll named Vigilante…
I’m baaaaack!
The most stressful wrangling with the UK embassy is over, and we made it back to Glasgow, just in time for the skies to open and drench us as we went out to get groceries. It was actually funny — when we landed, the sun was shining.
C’est la vie!
As Glasgow counts down to the 250th birthday of Robbie Burns (January 25th — it’s going to be a humdinger of a party), back home, people are counting down the days ’til the inauguration… and I am beginning to feel for the people in D.C.! According to speculation, it looks like there will be one bathroom for every 10,000 people. Oh, dear.
Via Jen Robinson’s Book Page, the International Reading Association reports on an African American Read-In. This is huge news to me, because a.) I’d never heard of any of the above and b.)this is an NCTE thing. To be counted as participants, people are asked to merely select books authored by African Americans; and report their results by submitting the 2009 African American Read-In Report Card. The suggested reading list is not intended to be exhaustive, but has plenty of favorite authors and a few new finds.
In more book news, Atlanta bookseller Doret of the HappyNappyBookseller blog, is guest blogging at White Readers Meet Black Authors about supporting authors of color. Says Doret: “I want people to understand the importance of buying minority authors if they want to continue to see the growth of diversity in children’s and teen lit.” Doret is planning a book giveaway to publicize this post, drop her a comment if you’d like to donate.
Speaking of donations, via Read, Write, Believe, Reading Is Fundamental is holding a book drive to celebrate the inauguration. Because Reading Is PRESIDENTIAL.
How cool is that?
More Coolness of 2009:
time lapse images of dancing lights in the sky. Check out the auroras! Too gorgeous.
And another “Duh” of 2009: The wife whose husband donated a kidney to her now wants it back, as they divorce… *sigh*