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Happy Seuss Day!

02 Friday Mar 2012

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It’s Read Across America Day, a celebration of literacy sponsored by the National Education Association. Not coincidentally, it’s also the birthday of Dr. Seuss, the late, great creator of that gem of a limited-vocabulary easy reader, The Cat in the Hat.

Now, last month, in what was probably a coincidence, Fuse #8 issued a challenge for folks to re-imagine scenes from Dr. Seuss books in the style of yet another famous illustrator of their choosing — to “Re-Seussify Seuss.” She posted the results yesterday.

And they are really something. From a delightfully deadpan Jon Klassen-style Cat in the Hat, to a Seussian circus overrun by Curious George-ish monkeys, to an uber-creepy Gammell-style ghoul reciting words from One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish, each artist did, in my opinion, an ingenious job of capturing both the style of each illustrator while not forgetting the heart of Seuss.

And, um, I did one, too.

If you work with small kids, you’ve almost certainly seen — and, I’d imagine, been charmed — by the picture books of Todd Parr. His hallmarks are simple line drawings filled with bold colors, relentlessly cheerful characters, and the overt theme that diversity is not only okay but a wonderful thing in our world. (I’m also a big fan of Underwear Dos and Don’ts.) Hopefully if he sees this he’ll recognize it as the homage it is.

Please do check out all the submissions. The page was very slow to load yesterday, what with all the large images and heavy traffic, but I think things have settled down by now. And it’s worth the load-time, regardless.

Stonewall Awards Pass 2012 Hairy Eyeball Test

12 Sunday Feb 2012

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Last year I promised to keep an eye on ALA’s Stonewall Awards, and now I’m making good on that. As I noted last January, the books thus far honored in the Children’s and Young Adult category had been focused almost exclusively on gay white boys — a disappointment, given the growing diversity in LGBTQ literature for young people.

The balance of the 2012 Stonewalls is a decided improvement. Taking the top award was Putting Makeup on the Fat Boy, by Bil Wright, features an Hispanic gay male protagonist, and the author is himself African-American.

Taking honors were Money Boy, by Paul Yee, about a gay, Asian-Canadian young man; Pink, by Lili Wilkinson, about a lesbian-identified white girl questioning her sexuality once again; a + e 4ever, by I. Merey, a graphic novel (!) about a girl and a boy experiencing the fluidity of gender and sexuality; and with or without you, by Brian Farrey, which does feature white gay protagonists.

So, yes: a much broader representation of ethnicity, gender, and orientation. I still feel like lesbian/queer girl lit was underrepresented, but what I’m going to take issue with now is the prevalence of all-lowercase book titles — two out of five, really? Just kidding. Sort of.

I like to see how the Stonewall Awards overlap with the annual Rainbow List, which is chosen by ALA’s GLBT Round Table. The Rainbow List is a more or less comprehensive list of LGBTQ books published for children and young adults, and they star ten titles as being the most distinguished.

This year, the honored titles were I Am J, by Cris Beam; Beauty Queens, by Libba Bray; Brooklyn, Burning, by Steve Brezenoff; Sister Mischief, by Laura Goode; Huntress, by Malinda Lo; Shine, by Lauren Myracle; Donovan’s Big Day, by Leslea Newman; She Loves You, She Loves You Not, by Julie Anne Peters; Gemini Bites, by Patrick Ryan; and Putting Makeup on the Fat Boy, by Bil Wright.

That’s one overlapping title. One. (Note to self: read that book, already!) This is how committees work, folks, and why we should not get overly bent out of shape when good books slip through a crack. Hopefully they’ll get caught in another and find the love they deserve.

As last year, I find the Rainbow List to be very nicely balanced. I Am J and Beauty Queens feature trans characters; Beauty Queens, Sister Mischief, Huntress, Donovan’s Big Day, and She Loves You, She Loves You Not feature queer girl characters. White characters dominate, though the books do include queer Hispanic and Asian characters, plus the main character of Sister Mischief is Jewish. (And I haven’t read all the books, so it’s likely I’m missing details here.)

Looking at both lists, I’m pleasantly surprised: there actually was a pretty good crop of LGBTQ books for kids and teens last year. Did they make up a minute percentage of all the kids’ and YA books published? Heck yeah. But all I have to do is go back in time to high school, and I’m impressed once again by how far things have come.

Of course, I’m interested to know what the 2013 lists will look like. Already, The Miseducation of Cameron Post, by emily danforth (seriously: capitals, folks!), is garnering starred reviews, and I imagine it’ll walk away with some awards. Then there’s my book, Starting from Here, due out in the fall. Our fellow debut authors Elissa J. Hoole and E. M. Kokie will also be adding to the canon with Kiss the Morning Star and Personal Effects, respectively. Julie Anne Peters has a new one coming out this spring.

And you better believe I’ll have my eyes peeled for more. Let me know if you’ve got a hot tip!

A Resolute New Year

12 Thursday Jan 2012

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I’m not big on making New Year’s Resolutions. First because if there’s one thing everyone knows about New Year’s Resolutions, it’s they’re a joke. I hate breaking promises, even to myself. Second because I think it’s silly to wait until January 1 to make resolutions. If there’s something in your life you should change, change it now!

But this year, for whatever reason, I ended up with three:

1. Wash dishes within a day of dirtying them. Dishes are my least favorite chore because they always need to be done, and without growing science projects in the sink I must do them promptly. Also, I have very little counter space in which to accumulate them. #1 downfall of this apartment = no dishwasher, in case you were wondering.

2. Write every day. It’s how I wrote my first (terrible) novel when I was fifteen, and it’s how I wrote the novel that landed me my agent, and it’s how I wrote Starting from Here. Even if it’s just a couple of notebook pages or an hour of revisions, write.

This past fall, especially as holiday season began, I fell out of the habit. It’s very easy to go from writing every day to writing almost every day, and from there it’s even easier to write most days and then some days, and pretty soon you’re lucky if you sit down once a week.

So, I’ve been reclaiming my writing time. The biggest step was to start setting my alarm for 6:30 a.m. I’m much better at daily writing in the spring and summer, because my eyelids flip open of their own accord at 5:30. In the fall and winter, I’m more inclined to roll out of bed when the sun seeps into my bedroom at 7:30. The flip side of getting up at 6:30 is that I need to make sure I’m in bed, falling asleep, at 10:30 sharp. No more staying up watching those last twenty minutes of Stephen Fry in America or Dollhouse. They must wait.

3. Moisturize.

(Was that anticlimactic?)

There are other habits I’d like to sustain throughout 2012: go to the dog beach at least once a week with Saffy, get back into crochet and other crafty activities, eat less spaghetti. But for now, these are the three promises I’m willing to make.