| FALL 2019megandowdlambert.com/wp-content/uploads/ASO-WBA... · The SCBWI Bulletin is a quarterly...
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FALL 2019
Transcript of | FALL 2019megandowdlambert.com/wp-content/uploads/ASO-WBA... · The SCBWI Bulletin is a quarterly...
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C O N T E N T S | F A L L 2 0 1 9
features14 Getting Your Book into Libraries - Michael Armstrong
16 A New Boost for Barnes & Noble - Greg Pincus
17 Subsidiary Rights for Translations - Lawrence Schimel
18 Creating Teacher Materials for Your Books - Judy Lindquist
20 Break into Nonfiction Work with Work-for-Hire - Candice Ransom
22 Illustration Contests Can be a Good Thing - Jena Benton Lasley
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222 SCBWI FALL 2019
www.scbwi.org · [email protected] · 323.782.1010
EDITORS STEPHEN MOOSER & LIN OLIVERART DIRECTION AND DESIGN SARAH BAKER
PRODUCTION EDITOR KAYLA CICHELLOPEOPLE EDITOR REVA SOLOMON [email protected]
MARKETING ADVISOR SUSAN SALZMAN RAAB [email protected]
BOARD OF ADVISORSKATHLEEN AHRENS, Author; LAURIE HALSE ANDERSON, Author; BONNIE BADER, Author/Editor;
TRACY BARRETT, Author; JUDY BLUME, Author; PETER BROWN, Illustrator/Author; PRISCILLA BURRIS, Illustrator/Author; DANA CAREY, Illustrator; CHRISTOPHER CHENG, Author;
BRUCE COVILLE, Author; PAT CUMMINGS, Illustrator; MATT DE LA PEÑA, Author; EMMA D. DRYDEN, Author/Editor; ELLEN HOPKINS, Author; CYNTHIA LEITICH SMITH, AUTHOR; ARTHUR A. LEVINE, Editor/Author; LAURENT LINN, Art Director/Illustrator/Author; MEG MEDINA,
Author; LINDA SUE PARK, Author; SUSAN PATRON, Author; JERRY PINKNEY, Illustrator; RUTA SEPETYS, Author; MELISSA STEWART, Editor/Author; LISA YEE, Author; CECILIA YUNG,
Art Director; CHERYL ZACH, Author; PAUL O. ZELINSKY, Illustrator/Author
BOARD MEMBERS EMERITITOMIE DEPAOLA, Illustrator/Author; JUDITH ROSS ENDERLE, Author;
STEPHANIE JACOB GORDON, Author; JANE YOLEN, Author
US REGIONAL ADVISOR COORDINATOR TRACY BARRETT [email protected] INTERNATIONAL REGIONAL ADVISOR CHAIR KATHLEEN AHRENS [email protected]
ILLUSTRATION COORDINATOR PRISCILLA BURRIS [email protected] ILLUSTRATION LIAISON DANA CAREY [email protected]
REGIONAL EVENTS COORDINATOR STEPHANIE ROSE CSASZAR [email protected] COORDINATOR SARAH DIAMOND [email protected] COORDINATOR CYNTHIA GRADY [email protected]
DATABASE ADMINISTRATOR & TECHNICAL COORDINATOR JOSH SMITH [email protected]
COVER ART MOLLY IDLE ©2019
The SCBWI Bulletin is a quarterly publication by the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, a professional international organization for writers and illustrators of children’s literature. Membership dues are $95 for the first year and $80 each renewing year. Send an e-mail to [email protected] for general queries as well as membership and conference information; for website issues and questions, e-mail [email protected]. All content copyright SCBWI ©2019. The Bulletin makes no specific endorsements of any books or products mentioned in its pages.
SUBMISSION The Bulletin welcomes submissions of articles of interest to our illustrator and writer members. Submit features to [email protected]. We also welcome illustration submissions. For illustrations, we retain only first-time rights. For articles we take only one-time Bulletin and all SCBWI website rights. For submission guidelines, log in at scbwi.org and click on “Publications,” then choose “Info for members on submitting art or stories to the Bulletin” under “SCBWI Bulletin” on the left-hand side of the page.
SCBWI ONLINE Visit the SCBWI website at scbwi.org, where you will find a calendar of events, regional information, and many other resources. Current SCBWI members have special access to the latest publications and the members-only discussion boards, where they can participate in the SCBWI online community. Remember, this is your organization. Please send your suggestions and ideas to [email protected].
OFFICE SUPPLY DISCOUNT To request a catalog, visit www.penny-wise.com or call 800.942.3311.
departments4 News & Notes
6 Illustrator Profile
7 Art Spot/Poem
8 SCBWI Success Story
9 Legally Bookish
10 The Illustrator’s Perspective
11 The Truth About School Visits
12 Art Tips
13 Independent Perspective
24 Book Review
25 This About That / Publisher’s Corner
26 People
30 Regional Events
34 Here, There & Everywhere
35 To Market
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T H E I L L U S T R A T O R ’ S P E R S P E C T I V E
B Y A N N E S I B L E Y O ’ B R I E N
I HOLD UP my picture book, I’m New Here, for the children sitting on the floor before me, a group of five to seven-year-olds gathered for a story hour at a rural town library on the down east coast of Maine.
“What do you see?” I ask.Within a few minutes we have deduced that it’s about
three children, who have different skin colors, who are “new,” who may speak the same language or different ones, and—examining the wrap-around illustration—who are going to school. We’ve talked a bit about differences and commonalities, between the characters and with these young readers. And I haven’t yet opened the book. By the time I start reading, the children are already invested in the story.
In this library event, I’m practicing an informal version of Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), originally developed by Abigail Housen and Philip Yenawine for engaging people with art in museums. Standard VTS questions are:
What’s going on in this picture?
What do you see that makes you say that?
What more can you find?
One of my learnings from this approach is to try validating responses by paraphrasing and repeating them (“Arianna noticed that the title is in a speech bubble”) rather than only with my habitual enthusiasm (“Yes, that’s right!”). This increases the sense of the group collaborating to make meaning together, instead of focusing on individual children getting the “right” answer.
VTS is part of the inspiration for the Whole Book Approach developed by Megan Dowd Lambert with the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, Massachusetts. (Megan is a lecturer at Simmons College and a picture book author—Real Sisters Pretend and others.) Centered on “the picture book as a visual art form,” the Whole Book Approach explores the picture book’s “materiality” as a way of making and expanding meaning.
The organization, Island Readers and Writers, that has brought me to this library story hour, is piloting the Whole Book Approach to support literacy in isolated Maine schools on islands and in rural areas. These organizations and approaches
focusing on the art of picture books continue to contribute to and expand my understanding of what I’m doing as an illustrator.
I turn to Megan’s book, Reading Picture Books with Children: How to Shake Up Storytime and Get Kids Talking About What They See, to learn more about the Whole Book Approach. Though written for people reading books with children, it’s full of rich insights for those of us creating those books. From trim size to jacket image (and “undies” cover art), end papers to front matter, and typography to page design, this analysis of picture book structure offers so many possible ways that we as illustrators can extend the reach of our art. Numerous examples—from Wanda Gag’s 1928 masterpiece, Millions of Cats, to 21st-century work by Yuyi Morales, Jon Muth, John Klassen, and many others—serve as rich inspiration.
For instance, Megan observes that “paratexts”—titles, covers, and end papers—“are often so crucial to the cohesion of a story.” End papers might function as a kind of table of contents (Eric Carle’s colored stripes for Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin); a “visual backstory” providing context not in the text (G. Brian Karas’s illustrations for Clever Jack Takes the Cake by Candace Fleming); or the introduction of a significant motif or object (the dolls in Kevin Henkes’s Wemberly Worried). Megan writes that “. . . even endpapers that are a single color can provoke responses in children as they make meaning of this design choice and tie it in to the content of the book as a whole.”
Whether through paratexts or color palette or navigation of the gutter, the Whole Book Approach invites me to consider how my choices as an illustrator might add layers of meaning for child readers as they engage with the entire book as art.
Illustrator and writer Anne Sibley O’Brien has published thirty-seven books for children. She is a co-founder of I’m Your Neighbor Books (www.ImYourNeighborBooks.org) and the Diverse BookFinder (www.DiverseBookFinder.org). More at www.AnneSibleyOBrien.com.
Picture Meaning
The Whole Book Approach explores the picture book’s “materiality” as a
way of making and expanding meaning.
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