4.27.2015

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? From Picture Books to YA


[To rehash the concept :: post what you read last week, what you're reading now, and what you plan to read this week. If you have a review of the book(s), great! If you have a picture of the book(s), wonderful! If you have a book giveaway, fantastic! If you just list the title(s) of the book(s), not a problem! Make it as simple or as complex as you need it to be. At least, that's the message I got. This version of the meme is hosted by Jen and Kellee of Teach Mentor Text, which, in turn, was inspired by Sheila over at Book Journey, who hosts the original It's Monday! What Are You Reading?]

WHAT I READ LAST WEEK:



The Chiru of High Tibet: A True Story by Jacqueline Briggs Martin, illustrated by Linda Wingerter

Feeling Great! Just Like Me! by Jess Stockham

Go Away, Big Green Monster! by Ed Emberley

Happy Hippo, Angry Duck: A Book of Moods by Sandra Boynton

How Are You Peeling? Foods with Moods by Saxton Freymann and Joost Elffers

Llama Llama Mad at Mama by Anna Dewdney

Mean Soup by Betsy Everitt

My Friend is Sad by Mo Willems

My Grandfather's Coat retold by Jim Aylesworth, illustrated by Barbara McClintock

No, David! by David Shannon

The Pigeon Has Feelings, Too! by Mo Willems

Sometimes by Keith Baker

Sometimes I'm Bombaloo by Rachel Vail, illustrated by Yumi Heo

Today I Feel Silly & Other Moods That Make My Day by Jamie Lee Curtis, illustrated by Laura Cornell

The Way I Feel by Janan Cain

We Dig Worms! by Kevin McCloskey

Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak

Yesterday I Had the Blues by Jeron Ashfrod Frame, illustrated by R. Gregory Christie

WHAT I'M READING NOW:


Kid President's Guide to Being Awesome by Robby Novak and Brad Montague

Under a Painted Sky by Stacey Lee

Where You Go Is Not Who You'll Be: An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania by Frank Bruni

WHAT'S ON HOLD RIGHT NOW:


Finding Serendipity by Angelica Banks (aka Heather Rose and Danielle Wood)

4.24.2015

Stuart Gibbs @ P&P :: April 24, 2015


Stuart Gibbs lived in DC (Garrett Park) until first grade and he liked to go to the National Zoo. --> Belly Up, Poached (Fun Jungle series)

Likes James Bond movies --> Spy School series. Kids in DC like this series because the school is in DC (but it's a secret location)


He wanted to be a writer his whole life, but he didn't know how to become one. He studied biology in college because he still didn't know how to become an author, and trained to be a field biologist. But his college was in a big city so they observed animals in zoos instead of the wild. He became the US expert on capybaras, and he got to hang out with zookeepers during his studies and learned about all of the crazy things zookeepers experienced --> the zoo would be a great place to set a story!

Eventually, Gibbs moved out to California to write movies and TV shows but never forgot this idea about setting a story in the zoo. He wanted a fun twist to the story and came up with the idea of an animal murder mystery. He decided on the hippo because it's an animal that people think they know a lot about, but they're actually very dangerous and kill 200 people in Africa every year. He did research on hippos at the San Diego Zoo, and even had to research how to kill hippos and get it fact checked by scientists (who were probably wondering why he wanted to know that). His books have animal biology facts, so Gibbs likes to claim they're still quasi-educational!

The TV show The Big Bang Theory drives him nuts because scientists aren't really like that! He knows scientists who are "much more awesome" than the ones on the show. He likes/respects scientists and wants to showcase them in his books. 


Space Case was inspired by his college friend Garrett Reisman who became an astronaut (he has a Yankees patch on his space suit!). Thanks to Reisman, Gibbs even went to the Johnson Space Center in Florida to watch the launch of Space Shuttle Atlantis. Reisman took the cover of Belly Up to the International Space Station (ISS) (not the whole book because of weight constraints)! Gibbs got an email from Reisman from the ISS, which Gibbs forwarded to everyone he knew, including his editor ... who forward to other publishing folks who thought it would be great to have a middle grade writer who knows an astronaut and can write about it!

Space travel is nothing like Star Wars or Star Trek --> it's much more cramped and uncomfortable/unglamorous than SciFi stories and movies make it out to be. 

Spy School series is not based on anyone he knows or his own personal experience. Instead, they were inspired by James Bond movies he saw as a kid. He wrote a story about Jimmy Bond (007's son): The Kid with the Golden Water Pistol. (He wrote it as a comedy because most people couldn't be like James Bond. What would happen if you drop a "regular" person in spy situations?) If Jimmy wanted to be a spy he would have to go to a spy school because his dad would be too busy to teach him how to be a spy. That idea stuck with him until he was an adult. 

How did Evil Spy School come along? Even evil organizations need to train their minions!

Gibbs recommends books by Carl Hiaasen and Michael Crichton, and Cosmic by Frank Cottrell Boyce and The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin. 


Two new books coming out soon: Big Game (Fun Jungle series) and Spaced Out (spring 2016, Space Case series)

Fun fact: There's an editing error in the Spy School series -- he told the same joke in both Spy School and Evil Spy School!


Random fact: When I mentioned I worked as a school librarian in Manhattan Beach (a suburb of LA), he asked me if I worked at Grand View Elementary. I didn't but I know the librarian there, and I mentioned how she was lucky to have had a NYT bestselling author as one of her volunteers. Turns out Gibbs and I both know him (I'm a friend of his wife's) -- what a small world!

4.22.2015

Kevin McCloskey @ P&P :: April 22, 2015


His wife (Mama Patt) is a storyteller in Berks County (PA) and she needed a good story that was funny and true about worms. McCloskey got excited about worms and started working on the book in secret. 

He used paper bags to make the book because earthworms also recycle.

To start a book: ask questions! Asked questions about worms <-- research. Incorporated some of those basic questions, especially the ones that kids are prone to ask/wonder about, into the text of the book.


If the kids can keep it to a "reasonable level of pandemonium," he would share real worms at the end of the presentation. Brought out his worm Seabiscuit (he's so fast!).


Collaborated with Francoise Mouly (art director, editor, publisher of TOON) and some pictures were cut ("They don't wear clothes") in favor of being more true than too silly/corny.


One of the more complicated ideas he cut was about Charles Darwin, who studied worms and put worms on his wife's grand piano to see if they could hear. But he realized that earthworms have sensitive skin and could feel the vibrations.


Anyone can draw/paint worms!



4.20.2015

Andy Griffiths @ Politics and Prose :: April 20, 2015


There are some authors who just know how to capture their audience's attention. In Andy Griffiths's case, he knows his readers (and potential readers) well and can hold their attention for over 45 minutes. When those readers happen to be no more than 10 years old, that is quite the feat!


His parents were SOOO terrible (they were normal) that he ran away at 8 and never saw them again! He met Terry Denton (the illustrator) because he got his food hiding under restaurant tables stealing food. Terry was wearing inflatable underpants because his parents were very safety-conscious. They met in a river after Andy ran away from the angry chef to a stream where there was a pirate ship. They made a tree house with the scraps from the pirate ship!


Terry coincidentally drew a 13 story treehouse when Andy asked him to include a bowling alley and a shark tank. Warning: There's NO peeing in the shark tank!

Fun fact: he has a Dr. Seuss tattoo from One Fish ...


He bet Terry he couldn't draw a 39 story treehouse (after the 26 story one). Terry bet he could. Andy bet he couldn't. They went back and forth for 3 weeks! And then Terry drew it, proving Andy wrong. And then Andy had to write a book about a 39 story treehouse! Baby dinosaur petting zoo --> Terry made a time machine from a trash can and brought some baby dinos back. It's kinda complicated. 


It takes a year to write a book because they fly around on jet-propelled swivel chairs shooting staple guns. That's 364 days and then they write the book in a day. That's his favorite level in this book. But that one day can now be spent flying around because Terry invented a Once Upon a Time Machine that will write the book for you!


Every story needs a good looking, brilliant hero. "Are you talking about Terry?" asked a student. "No! I'm talking about me. I don't think you understand what I'm talking about."

In the next book, there's going to be a birthday room that everytime you go in, it's your birthday (party). But there's also an unbirthday room. Mainly for adults so they lose years/get younger. Terry goes in and turns into a baby. Andy has to change his diaper so he doesn't like that room. 


When things go wrong, that's when the story starts. If you're going to write a story about a baby, you want to write a story about a bad baby who does dangerous things. 

His book ideas come from trying to surprise his readers (the unpredictable). In the baby example, the baby narrowly escapes getting hit by various vehicles crossing the road, and then it gets hit by a little old lady in a motorized wheelchair!

His favorite book is probably The 39-Story Treehouse book because it's the biggest and stupidest! But that may change come August when The 52-Story Treehouse comes out! (The 65-Storey Treehouse -- yes, with an "e" in Storey -- comes out in August in Australia.)

It's Monday! What Are You Reading? From Picture Books to YA


[To rehash the concept :: post what you read last week, what you're reading now, and what you plan to read this week. If you have a review of the book(s), great! If you have a picture of the book(s), wonderful! If you have a book giveaway, fantastic! If you just list the title(s) of the book(s), not a problem! Make it as simple or as complex as you need it to be. At least, that's the message I got. This version of the meme is hosted by Jen and Kellee of Teach Mentor Text, which, in turn, was inspired by Sheila over at Book Journey, who hosts the original It's Monday! What Are You Reading?]

WHAT I READ LAST WEEK:



Ballet Cat: The Totally Secret Secret by Bob Shea (publication date: May 5, 2015)

If You Give a Dog a Donut by Laura Numeroff, illustrated by Felicia Bond

I Really Want a Dog by Susan Breslow and Sally Blakmore, illustrated by True Kelley

Juneteenth for Mazie by Floyd Cooper

One Pup's Up by Marsha Wilson Chall, illustrated by Henry Cole

乙嫁語り 7巻 (Otoyomegatari, or A Bride's Story, Volume 7) by 森 薫 (Kaoru Mori)

Princess Decomposia and Count Spatula by Andi Watson

Whale Trails, Before and Now by Lesa Cline-Ransome, illustrated by G. Brian Karas

Winnie: The True Story of the Bear Who Inspired Winnie-the-Pooh by Sally M. Walker, illustrated by Jonathan D. Voss

WHAT I'M READING NOW:


Kid President's Guide to Being Awesome by Robby Novak and Brad Montague

Under a Painted Sky by Stacey Lee

WHAT'S ON HOLD RIGHT NOW:


Finding Serendipity by Angelica Banks (aka Heather Rose and Danielle Wood)