anEditor’s Blog

The Chartered Institute of Library and Information Professionals (CILIP) recently announced the short lists of contenders for both its prestigious literary awards: the Carnegie Medal and the Kate Greenaway Medal. The final selections will be announced in a ceremony at the British Library in London on June 21, 2007.

The Carnegie Medal, which is celebrating its seventieth anniversary this year, is awarded to recognize the UK’s best writing for children and young adult readers. While the award provides no cash prize, the Carnegie Award is the most sought-after honor for authors published in the UK. Titles are nominated at large by professional librarians throughout the UK; the finalist is then determined by a panel of librarians from both public and school libraries. This year’s short list consists of six titles:

• The Road of the Dead by Kevin Brooks
• A Swift Pure Cry by Siobhan Dowd
• The Road of Bones by Anne Fine
• Beast by Ally Kennen
• Just In Case by Meg Rosoff
• My Swordhand is Singing by Marcus Sedgwick

The Kate Greenaway Medal is also celebrating a milestone this year: its fiftieth anniversary. The Kate Greenaway Medal is awarded for "outstanding illustration in a children’s book." Winners also receive a cash prize presented as the Colin Mears Award. This year’s short list also contains six titles:

• The Elephantom by Ross Collins
• Orange Pear Apple Bear by Emily Gravett
• The Adventures of the Dish and the Spoon by Mini Grey
• Scoop! An Exclusive by Monty Molenski by John Kelly and Cathy Tincknell
• Augustus and His Smile by Catherine Rayner
• The Emperor of Absurdia by Chris Riddell

In honor of the two anniversaries this year, two special contests are being held: one to choose the "Carnegie of Carnegies" and another to select the "Greenaway of Greenaways." In each case, ten titles have been chosen from among all previous winners—the so-called best UK books of modern times! The public is encouraged to reread their favorites and vote from those lists by noon on June 14. Results will be announced the next week at the main ceremonies.

Granta magazine has just published its second Best of Young American Novelists list. The first list in 1996 helped launch the careers of Jonathan Franzen (The Corrections), Chris Offutt (The Good Brother and a variety of Kentucky-oriented memoirs), Stewart O’Nan (Snow Angels and A World Away), David Guterson (Snow Falling on Cedars and East of the Mountains), Mona Simpson (Anywhere But Here, The Lost Father, and A Regular Guy), Melanie Rae Thon (Meteors in August, Sweet Hearts, and Iona Moon), Sherman Alexie (The Lone Ranger and Tonto Fistfight in Heaven, Reservation Blues, Indian Killer, and a forthcoming young adult novel—The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian), Allen Kurzweil (A Case of Curiosities, A Grand Complication, and the “Leon” series of children’s books), Edwidge Danticat (Breath, Eyes, Memory and The Farming of Bones), and Jeffrey Eugenides (The Virgin Suicides). The new list contains the names of another crop of rising authors (under the age of 35), who were culled from nearly two hundred original submissions.

An interesting description of the judging process is available as part of the introduction to the list (at the above link), but an interview on NPR with Granta editor Ian Jack and Paul Yamazaki of City Lights Books in San Francisco also shares some information about how the twenty-one authors were chosen. Judging criteria included the basic evaluations of story and language but also some author talents: the ability to persuade readers that the novel’s world is “believable,” the ability to interpret existing information in a new way or to teach new ideas, and the ability to enable readers to experience pleasure as they read.

Begun in 1889 as the as the student literary and political journal at Cambridge University, Granta magazine was reborn in 1979. The London-based magazine is currently published four times each year to showcase, according to the corporate Web site, “new writing—fiction, personal history, reportage and inquiring journalism—[as well as occasional] documentary photograph[s].” Excerpts of each author’s works make up the Spring 2007 issue (No. 97), which is available for single purchase.

One of my newer tutoring pupils asked during his first session, “What is writing? Isn’t it just, well—writing? Isn’t it simply putting words on paper?”

Well . . . no, I answered, stalling to collect some thoughts. What about words that are published online, I asked, words that are posted on the Internet, which we see on a monitor?

I had stalled as long as I could, and he didn’t see that point, anyway. So I started from a different angle. I pointed out that the original “photocopiers” were highly skilled calligraphers who, basically, put words on paper. They would have been writers, according to the youngster’s definition. But, I continued, many of them could not read what they were writing—they were artists, trained to copy what they saw. Should we really call them writers?

His puzzled look encouraged me to continue. Writing is learned; it is not a skill we are born with, I said. We struggle to learn . . . to form letters . . . to combine those letters into words . . . to make those words into sentences—sentences that convey a message. I wrote these words on the board: writing learned not skill born with. Is that writing? I asked.

The puzzled look was now joined by a wrinkled brow and a confused stare. I confessed that I did consider the words to be writing because the words did convey a message, they did have meaning—I could deduce what the writer was trying to say.

A thought leaked from the silent student: “But, it doesn’t make sense!”

True, I admitted—it is not good writing. In that case, I directed his original question back to him: What is writing?

“Words that we can see that make sense,” was the answer I got. I agreed, then repeated his thought with embellishment and emphasis: So, I would say that writing is publishing meaningful words in a meaningful way.

Which leads into what we are going to be studying, I began to conclude. Good, meaningful writing, by my definition, requires learning the elements of basic writing, which I spoke of earlier, plus grammar plus structure (or rhetoric) plus style. Fortunately for both of us, those were studies for another day . . .

A not-so-new but not-well-heard-of Web site has surfaced thanks to a recent article on National Public Radio. The site, FutureMe.org, is intended to enable a person to write an e-mail to himself or herself that will be delivered anytime between a paltry thirty days from now and fifty years into the future. In the past four years, more than 400,000 people have sent messages for a variety of reasons.

Granted, most people address letters to themselves, like a personal time capsule, but a use that would be more pertinent to our areas of interest, is to write letters to others in our lives, letters that will surprise their receivers in the future, just as lost letters and missing postcards have surprised some of us in years gone by. The site does not have a limit yet on the number of letters that can be sent, though abusers who use the site as a simple reminder service are allegedly dealt with . . .

Oh, and in case you’re worried about “moving” (changing e-mail addresses), FutureMe now has a management system that allows updating of addresses—no fair, though, changing or updating those messages! Get started here: FutureMe.org.

As a member of the Association of Personal Historians, I got invited to a preview screening of  The Ultimate Gift  last fall. The movie has now been released and is causing a resurgence in discussions over “ethical wills”  (which are also known as “legacy statements” and “legacy letters”).

Ethical wills are nonbinding letters to the heirs of a deceased that are written in addition to an actual will. They are usually intended to be upbeat and to relay messages to friends and family members who are left behind—often messages that the deceased could not deliver for one reason or another during his or her lifetime or general thoughts that he or she wanted to be sure were passed along one last time. Ethical wills sometimes contain

• explanations for difficult decisions or certain actions
• challenges and hopes for future generations
• valuable life lessons and experiences or memories

The story of The Ultimate Gift, for example, focuses primarily on one man’s lingering hope that his final protege, a “lost” grandson, “deserves” to inherit the family company—and fortune. From the film’s Web site:

When his wealthy grandfather dies, trust fund baby Jason Stevens anticipates a big inheritance. Instead, his grandfather has devised a crash course on life with twelve tasks—or “gifts”—designed to challenge Jason in improbable ways, sending him on a journey of self-discovery and forcing him to determine what is most important in life: money or happiness.

If you are interested in learning about the potential for ethical wills, I suggest you see  The Ultimate Gift  (starring James Garner, Brian Dennehy, Drew Fuller, Bill Cobbs, Lee Merriwether, Alli Hillis, and child star Abigail Breslin).

M.T. Anderson’s The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation, Volume One: The Pox Party, which won the 2006 National Book Award for Young People’s Literature (presented by the National Book Foundation) last November, is one of the latest books helping to revive the young adult literature genre. After seeming to peak in the 1970s and early ’80s, then stumbling through much of the 1990s with unchallenging and formulaic easy-reading novels that featured teen characters in stereotypical situations, YA literature has been rebounding for the past two or three years. The rebound is being seen both in popularity and in quality.

The adventures of teen wizard Harry Potter are widely credited with increasing the genre’s popularity by focusing attention on YA books and authors over the past decade. But J.K. Rowling’s works did not satisfy the needs or tastes of every reader—the volumes were long and complicated, they had unrealistic settings and plotlines, and the basic subject matter was specifically targeted. Many critics add that the series actually outgrew its original audience of YA readers over the years, anyway. Still, Rowling’s series did usher in a renewed interest in writing quality material and developing intricate and intriquing story lines, scenes, and characters—all attributes that drew the attention of YA readers—and that fact is seldom argued.

As evidence, note that many books on both the adult and children’s New York Times Best Sellers lists are written for, about, or involving young adults and that the American Library Association’s Michael L. Printz Award now takes notice of books for young adults just as the Caldecott and Newbery awards have for other younger readers over the years.

Reporter Cecelia Goodnow, with the Seattle Post-Intelligencer posted this recent article that spotlights additional evidence. She also uncovered and compiled some interesting trends in “teen literature” and this list of best reads for 2007.

Several recordings from the November 2006 National Book Awards sessions in New York City are now available online. The recordings can be downloaded in MP3 format or played through a Web browser (using that method, I would suggest choosing “Play in Popup” so you can continue doing other work while listening).  Among the podcast recordings are five sets of nominated authors reading from their nominated works and the acceptance speeches that the winning authors made after being named at the ceremony.  (My only complaint about this collection is that the sessions are recorded in their entirety, instead of being excerpted by author, but that’s not a big deal as long as you have the time—most sessions are twenty to thirty minutes long.)

The goal of the National Book Awards is to increase the popularity of reading and to enhance awareness of exceptional books written by American authors in four genres: Fiction, Nonfiction, Poetry, and Young People’s Literature. Lists of nominees and the annual award winners from 1950 to the present are available at the National Book Awards Web site, www.NationalBookAward.org.

Access to the podcasts is through a site hosted by BookExpo America (BEA).  BEA is the largest annual exhibition of materials published in English in the world. The podcasts are produced by the same publishers who bring us the weekly series of author interviews, discussions, and readings known as Authors on Tour (which is sponsored by the Tattered Cover Book Stores in Colorado).

Brian Hill and Dee Power wanted to know what makes a book successful. So they researched the concept and published their answers in The Making of a Bestseller: Success Stories From Authors and the Editors, Agents and Booksellers Behind Them. They talked with more than one-hundred editors and agents to find out, in brief, that the most important factors in a book’s success are (in order):

1. the author’s previous success
2. the quality of writing
3. the timeliness of the topic
4. the author’s fan base
5. word of mouth advertising from readers
6. efforts of the author to promote the book
7. publicity
8. reviews
9. paid advertising

Hill and Power have also released some extremely helpful answers to some very interesting questions on their Web site, www.BrianHillAndDeePower.com. The questions and answers—most of them would be quite difficult to find answers for—are primarily about query letters and the query process, but frequently touch on other topics.

A new promotional technique known as “book trailers,” or “book teasers,” (think of the so-called trailers that preceed movies to tease us into seeing upcoming films) could be a hot new trend—if it catches on. Book trailers can occasionally be seen on the Web sites of major publishing houses (particularly Random House and Knopf), where they are used to promote new titles and to revive one-time best sellers. Until last year, trailers were used primarily with adult books, but that trend is shifting a bit since BookStandard.com gave out the Teen Book Video Awards for three young adult titles last fall (you can still view the winners at that Web site). For additional examples of book trailers, try these sites:

this site at YouTube.com has two examples
this author’s Web site
The Kamikaze Book

I’ll post additional sites as I discover them.

Yes, here we go—yet, again. Instead of exposing America’s students to the differences of our society and helping them understand the history of those differences (in essence, teaching them what makes America America), another attempt is under way to just remove a topic from the table and ignore it. Who knew, of course, that Mark Twain used the “n-word” (as this St. Paul Pioneer Press author so safely puts it) two-hundred times in the classic adventure novel? Then, again, who really needed to know? That wasn’t the point of the book then, I don’t think, and, while the point has admittedly changed through the years, it shouldn’t be the point now!

During discussion of the book, [one student] said she was uncomfortable with views she said students expressed—that blacks should go to hell and interracial marriage was immoral, for instance. (see “District may drop ‘Huck Finn’ from required reading list” by Bao Ong; posted online Friday, February 2, 2007)

It’s good that she was uncomfortable, isn’t it? Isn’t that part of the point of educating our youth? To let them know that people are different, that controversies exist and can be debated in a healthy fashion, that times have changed, that we shouldn’t “let history repeat itself?”

No, I should know by now that’s an outdated concept of public education, that such lessons are not on any of the tests today’s students have to pass, so there’s not enough time in the schedule; but, that’s another disturbing story! I guess it could be worse . . . at least they’re not specifically trying to ban The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn—this time . . .