A few of the books I sobbed over in childhood can still raise a tear. Anyone else?
Many books make me cry when I encounter them for the first time, although fewer these days than during my mascara-smeared teens. But it's rare that a childhood favourite still has the power to call forth tears. Mostly, I find, the potency of even the most sorrowful children's book fades with time, like the scent of a floral sachet – there might be a little lingering whiff of lavender, a tiny prickle at the back of the eye, but no sign of the once irresistible overflow and puckering plop of tear-drop onto page. There are, however, notable exceptions.
From Publisher's Weekly ...
Rick Riordan's Big Year
The bestselling author has two brand-new series and a film of his first booWith two new trilogies launching this year, Percy Jackson author Rick Riordan stands likely to boost his already (ahem) Olympian output—and sales. On May 4, Disney-Hyperion will release one million copies of The Red Pyramid, first in his Kane Chronicles series inspired by ancient Egyptian magic. And in October it will publish an as-yet-unnamed Percy Jackson spin-off, which will combine familiar characters with some new half-human, half-Greek-god kids.
Hooray! There's a Hippopotamus on Our Roof Having a Birthday Party
Author: Hazel Edwards Deborah Niland
The hippo is back to celebrate his 30th birthday with a brand-new book!
Join him and his friends for a jungle-inspired celebration full of games and lots of jungle-party treats!
Download all the things you need for your very own Hippo birthday party here (and find more details about the book)
How to Train Your Dragon (Heroic Misadventures of Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III)
Cressida Cowell
Young Hiccup may be the son of Stoick the Vast, chief of the Hairy Hooligans, but he isn't exactly heroic Viking material.
When he and the other boys of his tribe are sent on a mission to fetch dragons to train, Hiccup comes back with the scrawniest creature ever seen. Toothless, as Hiccup names him, is also rude, lazy, and greedy, but when the tribe is faced with horrible danger, Hiccup's unorthodox dragon-training techniques prove successful and he and his unique beast become true heroes. Sprinkled throughout with funny sketches, scribbles, and ink blots, this is a goofy and exciting tale of an underdog who proves that brains can be just as important as brawn.
Kids will hoot at the ridiculous names and sympathize with Hiccup's exasperation with his truly obstinate but strangely lovable dragon. A delightful read that fans of Ian Whybrow's "Little Wolf" series (Carolrhoda) will particularly enjoy.
The Demigod Files (A Percy Jackson and the Olympians Guide)
This slim volume is clearly intended as a stop-gap product to tide eager readers over until the final volume of the series is released. In addition to three previously unreleased short stories about Percy and his companions, it also includes such filler as interviews with the same, along with word games, portraits of some of the Gods and their half-blood offspring, and the inevitable sneak preview of Book 5. The short stories are the meat of this book, and are filled with Riordan's trademark anachronistic humor. The first one puts Percy and his enemy Clarisse, the daughter of Ares, on the same team as she tries to retrieve her father's chariot, which has been hijacked as a prank by her two immortal brothers. The second story relates an incident that occurred during one of Camp Half-Blood's infamous Capture the Flag games, when Charlie Beckendorf, the camp counselor for Hephaestus, is captured by a horde of giant, poisonous ants, and has to be rescued with the help of a mechanical dragon. The final story brings Percy, Thalia, and Nico, the son of Hades, together at the request of Persephone to help retrieve Hades's stolen sword, the loss of which could be deadly to the Gods, and the resolution of which forms a lead-up to the probable events of Book 5. Despite the fact that this is more of a marketing package than anything else, the quality of and interest in the three stories likely justifies its purchase.
List price: $12.95 You pay: $5.18
Bologna, Italy....
The International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY) today announced the winners of the 2010 IBBY-Asahi Reading Promotion Awards. This is the 20th Anniversary of the award given by IBBY and the Asahi Shimbun newspaper company for international projects run by groups or institutions judged to be making a lasting contribution to reading for young people. The Award is given every other year to two organizations. The 2010 winners are The Osu Children's Library Fund, Ghana, http://www.osuchildrenslibraryfund.ca, and Convenio de Cooperación al Plan de Lectura, Medellín, Colombia, http://bit.ly/9kSlvg.
Each will receive $10,000 US, which will be presented at the 32nd IBBY Congress in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, at a special event on September 10th.
The Osu Children's Library Fund (OCLF) consists of two teams one in Canada and the other in Africa- that share the mission of bringing books and literacy skills to African children and adults. OCLF works at the grassroots level, seeking support and participation of elders and members of the host community.
Convenio de Cooperación al Plan de Lectura is a non-profit organization that encourages reading and literary creation by means of awareness, training and research programs, including workshops, storytelling and sessions with authors and illustrators.
Other nominees were:
Alola Literacy & Reading Programme, Dili, Timor-Leste
Indigenous Children´s Literature Writers´ Meeting, Brazil
Visible Readings for Invisible Children, Medellín, Colombia
Room to Read, USA
Kamishibai - To build a culture of peace in the world, Japan
Justita Arenas Reading Room, México City, México
Mama, Tata & ... Myself Campaign, Nowa Iwiczna, Poland
Roma People, invited to the library, Metlika, Slovenia
White Elephant / Domrei Sor, Phnom Penh, Cambodia
Akili Trust, Kenya
Members of the 2010 jury are Jury President Hannelore Daubert (Germany), Anastasia Arkhipova (Russia), Nikki Gamble (Great Britain), Jehan Helou (Palestine), AhmadRedza Khairuddin (Malaysia) and James Tumusiime (Uganda).
The International Board on Books for Young People, www.ibby.org, is a non-profit organization which represents an international network of people from all over the world committed to bringing books and children together.
Bologna, Italy...The Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury of the International Board on Books for Young People (IBBY), has announced that David Almond, from the United Kingdom is the winner of the 2010 Hans Christian Andersen Author Award and that Jutta Bauer, from Germany is the winner of the 2010 Hans Christian Andersen Illustrator Award. The announcement was made at the Bologna International Children's Book Fair, and the Andersen medals and diplomas will be presented to the winners on Saturday, 11 September 2010 at the international IBBY congress in Santiago de Compostela, Spain.
The Hans Christian Andersen Award is the highest international recognition given to an author and an illustrator of children's books. In awarding the 2010 Hans Christian Andersen Medal for writing to David Almond, the jury has recognized the unique voice of a creator of magic realism for children. Almond captures his young readers' imagination and motivates them to read, think and be critical. His use of language is sophisticated and reaches across the ages.
The 2010 Hans Christian Andersen Medal for illustration recognizes Jutta Bauer as a powerful narrator who blends real life with legend through her pictures. The jury admired her philosophical approach, originality, creativity as well as her ability to communicate with young readers.
David Almond was selected from 28 authors for the award. The four finalists were: Ahmad Reza Ahmadi from Iran, Bartolomeu Campos de Queiros from Brazil, Lennart Hellsing from Sweden and Louis Jensen from Denmark.
Jutta Bauer was selected from 27 illustrators nominated. The four finalists were Carll Cneut from Belgium, Etienne Delessert from Switzerland, Svjetlan Junakovic from Croatia and Roger Mello from Brazil. The full list of candidates can be read at www.ibby.org.
The ten members of the 2010 Jury, led by Jury President Zohreh Ghaeni from Iran, met in Basel, Switzerland on 13 and 14 March 2010. The Jury of children's literature experts comprised Ernest Bond (USA), Karen Coeman (Mexico), Nadia El Kholy (Egypt), María Jesús Gil (Spain), Jan Hansson (Sweden), Annemie Leysen (Belgium), Darja Mazi-Leskovar (Slovenia), Alicia Salvi (Argentina), Helene Schär (Switzerland) and Regina Zilberman (Brazil). Elda Nogueira from Brazil representing IBBY and Liz Page as Jury Secretary attended the meeting ex officio.
The Hans Christian Andersen Award is considered the most prestigious in international children's literature, is given biennially by IBBY to a living author and illustrator whose complete works are judged to have made lasting contributions to children's literature. Her Majesty Queen Margrethe II of Denmark is the Patron of the Andersen Awards. The Author's Award has been given since 1956 and the Illustrator's Award since 1966. Nami Island Inc. is the sponsor of the Hans Christian Andersen Awards. Information, including a history of the awards is available at www.ibby.org.
Pioneer of Australian idiom for kids dies
From: The Australian, March 25, 2010 12:00AM
PATRICIA Wrightson, who died this week aged 88, was one of the first children's writers to use Australian places and idioms in her novels.
Born in the northern NSW town of Lismore, Wrightson's first books were published in the 1950s, and she continued writing until ill health forced her retirement in the late 1990s.
The Rocks of Honey (1960) and The Nargun and the Stars (1973) were two of her four books to be awarded the Children's Book Council Book of the Year. She was also awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal.
In 1999, the NSW Premier's literary awards honoured Ms Wrightson by naming their children's literary prize after her. Minister for the Arts, Virginia Judge, yesterday acclaimed Ms Wrightson as an "Australian literary great".
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/pioneer-of-australian-idiom-for-kids-dies/story-e6frg8nf-1225844972765
Kitty Crowther is an illustrator and author, born in 1970, who lives and works in Belgium. The jury's citation reads as follows:
Kitty Crowther is the master of line but also of atmosphere. She maintains the tradition of the picture book while transforming and renewing it. In her world, the door between imagination and reality is wide open. She addresses the reader gently and personally, but with profound effect. In her deeply felt empathy with people in difficulty, she shows ways in which weakness can be turned into strength. Humanism and sympathy permeate and unify her artistry.
In Kitty Crowther's books, text and pictures form an integral whole. Her principal works are her own picture books, including L´enfant racine (2003), La visite de Petite Mort (2004), Le grand désordre (2005) and the Poka & Mine series (2005, 2006, 2007, 2010).
She addresses readers personally using a limited repertoire of tools, principal among them pencil, ink and coloured pencils. Facial expressions, posture and atmosphere are captured with unfailing precision. In Kitty Crowther?s world there are no basic stereotypes. The landscapes in which the stories are set resemble the ones we know, but Kitty Crowther sees beyond them to a world richer in possibilities than we imagine.
One of the cornerstones of her authorship is to show how weakness can be turned into strength. Her loyalty to children is unconditional. The sympathy and intense empathy Kitty Crowther shows with her fictional characters is an expression of the deep humanism that runs through all her works.
Examples of Kitty Crowther?s world of imagery can be downloaded from www.alma.se. For more images and interviews with the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award winner and jury, please contact the ALMA office: agnes.lidbeck@alma.se or +46 76 540 10 17.
The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award (ALMA) is the world's largest prize for children's and young adult literature. The award, with a total value of SEK 5 million, is awarded annually to one or more recipients. Authors, illustrators, oral storytellers and reading activists are eligible. The award is designed to promote interest in children's and young adult literature, and to promote children's rights, globally. An expert jury selects the winners from candidates nominated by institutions and organizations worldwide. The Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award is administered by the Swedish Arts Council.
Tif at Tif talks books is celebrating all things literacy with Share-a-Story, Shape-a-Future!!
She has answered the questions
What is the book from your childhood you can't wait to share with a child and why?
Who is the person who influenced you most as a reader?
Do you have any special reading-time rituals for reading aloud with kids?
and it makes a great post - beautiful!
A 10-Year-Old’s Marching Orders for the Upcoming School Year
" ... kids function best when they're real clear about exactly what's expected of them ..."