Welcome!

Dear Book Lovers, Welcome! I am delighted that you have found The Through the Looking Glass blog. For over twenty years I reviewed children's literature titles for my online journal, which came out six times a year. Every book review written for that publication can be found on the Through the Looking Glass website (the link is below). I am now moving in a different direction, though the columns that I write are still book-centric. Instead of writing reviews, I'm offering you columns on topics that have been inspired by wonderful books that I have read. I tell you about the books in question, and describe how they have have impacted me. This may sound peculiar to some of you, but the books that I tend to choose are ones that resonate with me on some level. Therefore, when I read the last page and close the covers, I am not quite the same person that I was when first I started reading the book. The shift in my perspective might be miniscule, but it is still there. The books I am looking are both about adult and children's titles. Some of the children's titles will appeal to adults, while others will not. Some of the adult titles will appeal to younger readers, particularly those who are eager to expand their horizons.

Tuesday, May 11, 2010

Seven Days of Picture Books - Day Two

During Children's Book Week and Reading is Fun week, I will be reviewing a picture book every day. Here is the second picture book review for the Through the Looking Glass Nine Days of Picture Books event. I chose this book because the artwork is so delightful, and because the story has a magical element that is quite unique. 


Justin Young
Picture Book
Ages 4 to 8
Golden Tree Press, 2010, 978-0-9785418-1-1
   One night a bat called Tommy goes with the other bats to find his daily meal. Tommy finds an apple tree, and he is just about to take a big bite out of one of the apples when a caterpillar tells him that the apple is not ripe. “You should pick a ripe apple that is a delicious red color,” says the caterpillar. The problem is that Tommy has no idea what red is. Being an animal of the night, he has never seen colors before, and he is not convinced that the caterpillar is telling the truth.
   Tommy decides to stay up to see what color is, and when the sun rises, he sees, for the first time, what blue, green, red, and orange looks like. Everything the sun paints with his paintbrush gets a color that delights the eye. The sun not only paints the sky, the flowers, and the grass, but he also paints all the animals, and Tommy decides that he too would like to have a color; he would like to be red!
   Children are sure to enjoy this story, which explores the idea that beauty truly is all around us. In addition, the author looks at the ways in which problems can be solved amicably if people will just be civil and generous towards each other.
   Full of gorgeous watercolor paintings that are bright and full of life, this book is sure to become a bedtime reading favorite. 

Monday, May 10, 2010

A picture book a day for Children's Book Week and Reading is Fun Week


The next seven days days are special in the children's book world because Children's Book Week is from May 10th to May 16th and Reading is Fun Week is from May 9th through 16th. In celebration of these days, I am going to post a review of a picture book every day. I chose picture books because it gives me the opportunity to enjoy reading and reviewing some of the treasures that I have sitting on my shelves. I hope you will join me every day for this Seven Days of Picture Books event.

Here is today's picture book review:


The Red Chalk
Iris van der Heide
Illustrated by Marije Tolman
Picture Book
Ages 5 to 7
Boyds Mills Press, 2006, 978-1-932425-79-6
   Sara has a stick of red chalk and she tries to draw on the sidewalk with it, but the sidewalk is so bumpy that “none of her pictures turned out right.” Luckily for Sara, Tim is willing to trade his marbles for her “magic” chalk. Sara tells Tim that everything that he draws with the chalk “will come to life.” Not surprisingly, Tim is more than happy to make the trade.
   After playing with the marbles for just a short while, Sara decides that the marbles are “no fun at all.”  Down on the beach she sees Sam. Sam has a delicious looking red lollipop, and Sara soon comes up with a way to get Sam to trade her sweet treat for Sara’s marbles; Sara tells Sam that the marbles are “real pearls from the ocean,” and Sam is happy to trade her lollipop for the marbles. The problem is that Sam soon discovers that this trade isn’t going to work for her either.
   In this lovely picture book, the author tells a story that some children, and a few adults, will find familiar. Like Sara, many of us are always eager to have what someone else has. We don’t use our imaginations to see that we have right now has great potential. Marije Tolman compliments the text with deliciously emotive illustrations that are touched with humor, and that add a special magical dimension to the story. 

You can download a charming Children's Book Week bookmark here.When you open the page, right-click on the image and save it to your computer. Print the bookmark on heavy paper, then cut out around the dotted line. Then you can draw in your own favorite character and keep a list of your favorite books! Enjoy!

Children's Book Week is May 10th to May16th

This is what the folks on the Children's Book Week website had to say about this wonderful event:

Since 1919, Children's Book Week has been celebrated nationally in schools, libraries, bookstores, clubs, private homes -- any place where there are children and books. Educators, librarians, booksellers, and families have celebrated children's books and the love of reading with storytelling, parties, author and illustrator appearances, and other book-related events.
It all began with the idea that children's books can change lives. In 1913, Franklin K. Matthiews, the librarian of the Boy Scouts of America, began touring the country to promote higher standards in children's books. He proposed creating a Children's Book Week, which would be supported by all interested groups: publishers, booksellers, and librarians.
Mathiews enlisted two important allies: Frederic G. Melcher, the visionary editor of Publishers Weekly, and Anne Carroll Moore, the Superintendent of Children's Works at the New York Public Library and a major figure in the library world. With the help of Melcher and Moore, in 1916 the American Booksellers Association and the American Library Association cooperated with the Boy Scouts in sponsoring a Good Book Week.
In 1944, the newly-established Children's Book Council assumed responsibility for administering Children's Book Week. In 2008, Children’s Book Week moved from November to May. At that time, responsibility for Children’s Book Week, including planning official events and creating original materials, was transferred to Every Child a Reader, the philanthropic arm of the children’s publishing industry.
Also in 2008, the Children's Book Council created the Children's Choice Book Awards, the only national child-chosen book awards program, giving young readers a powerful voice in their own reading choices.
The need for Children’s Book Week today is as essential as it was in 1919, and the task remains the realization of Frederic Melcher’s fundamental declaration: “A great nation is a reading nation.”
You can find ideas for Children's Book Week on the CBW website here (for children) and here (for teens). Happy Children's Book Week.

Friday, May 7, 2010

An Interview with the creators of the book Picture the Dead

Earlier this week I had the opportunity to interview the author and illustrator of Picture the Dead. Here is the interview.


1. Your wonderful book has a singular story. Where did the inspiration, or the kernel, of the tale come from?
We were first and most inspired by our heroine, Jennie Lovell, and everything that she represents for us. The two of us have been friends for a long time, and a while ago, we’d come to realize that our collaboration would grow out of our shared enjoyment of a particular kind of literary heroine—not overtly disruptive or rebellious, but more quietly dogged and persistent. And so Jennie became a beacon, for us, of what it took to see through this project, with all of its many intriguing but complicated components. Resolute and unrelenting—that’s our Jennie, and that was also our process.

2. Picture the Dead is set during the American Civil War. Did you do a lot of research to make the book as authentic as you could?
We did. Our “Notes and Acknowledgements” page is definitely more than one page. We site our whole list there. What we didn’t mention there, but seems critical to how we researched Picture the Dead, was our timeline—or lack thereof. We didn’t have a contract in place, or any deadline, or any imperative for this book other than to enjoy creating it and to learn things that we wanted to learn about, and so we took liberties with time. Specifically, the time it takes to decipher a collection of 150 year old, handwritten letters, or to chase down a record book of the imprisoned at Andersonville, or to read the Godey’s Ladies’ Index or Drew Gilpin Faust’s This Republic of Suffering, which is not exactly a beach read. Time to put away the project for a few months, and return to it with fresh eyes. All in all, the book took us about seven years, during which time, of course, we were busy with other projects as well, but always aching to return to this one. We didn’t want to feel overly directed or we knew we’d lose enthusiasm. Or to lose the core value of what collaboration is, where the nostalgic joy and influence of all these books we both loved—Johnny TremainThe Witch of Blackbird PondCatherine Called BirdyThe Summer of My German Soldier—was absorbed into what we could do now. And so Picture the Dead has a foot in the past, but it’s also digitally-born. And we hope that ultimately it doesn’t reflect the private, self-indulgence of our youth, but is a brisk and modern way of speaking to what we think today’s young readers might want. Our website also feeds that philosophy. 

3. Did you visit some of the places mentioned in the story?
Yes, we both are familiar with Boston its environs, and in fact, one of our readings will be at the Brookline Booksmith, www.brooklinebooksmith.com on May 15th. An early ARC was vetted by our Brookline friends at The High Street Hill Neighborhood Association, and they were kind enough to catch some historical anachronisms, and we are very glad for their approval and support. We haven’t yet had the chance to visit the memorial at Andersonville, where the boys were imprisoned, but Jennie’s world, and the story’s setting, is familiar to us.

4. I have visited several Civil War battlefields, and on numerous occasions, I was struck by the sadness that seems to pervade these places. Do you think more unhappy spirits might be ‘haunting’ these places, much in the same way that Will haunts his old home?
It’s so true, memorial sites have a tremendous grip on the living; it is that singular, unmistakable memento mori, (“remember that you will die”). The silence itself feels haunted. Every casualty of war bears the weight of that war’s enormity. In Picture the Dead, we were tasked with making that staggering number of losses resonate in one family. Obviously, we can’t write an intimate story about a thousand soldiers from Brookline who died in the Twenty-Eighth Massachusetts Infantry. We could take all boys from one single family, however, and send them all off to war. Then kill two, and have one boy return so shattered as to be permanently damaged, both physically and emotionally. Which is a pretty realistic portrait of any given American family in 1864. We always imagined what that silence sounded like in the Pritchett house.

5. I understand that you are and Lisa worked on this book together. How did this collaboration begin, and how did you work together?
We are absolute partners in the process, even down to this interview, which we both are answering as one voice, but will have been passed back and forth between us before we send to you at http://lookingglassreview.com.Picture the Dead has a long prelude, where we’d landed on an idea of an illustrated, gothic mystery and then began to assemble what was almost a scrapbook; of letters, books we loved, eerie images from the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Archive, casts of characters, and enough plot elements to fill a twelve volume set. For a long time, it wasn’t any kind of beginning-middle-end book, but just hundreds and hundreds of impressions, back and forth emails titled “my favorite kind of ghost would” or “the strangest thing about a twin is” and then some compellingly spooky spirit photograph jpg.

But the real story behind this story is that we’d met about eight years ago, through our shared agent, and from that meeting had spent a couple of years creating an entirely different project, The Book of Humiliations, which was a fictional re-invention of the Salem Witch Trials as experienced in a modern New England High School. And we’ll always see that project as a success, because we learned what a blast we could have, zipping documents and images and flash thoughts from New York to California. The fun of that project took us by surprise. So we knew we’d roll out something, it just needed to be more suitable, more cohesive, than just the two of us online on opposite coasts, or together on a couch with our overstuffed accordion files between us, cracking each other up or freaking each other out with story ideas.

6. How did you first hear about people using photographs to connect with their dead loved ones?
We’d known about it in the backs of our minds, and the images were all immediately available when we put together the idea of a ghost story with the Civil War. And then there was a fascinating exhibit of Spirit Photography at the Metropolitan Museum of Art a few years back. And we’d been reading in a similar vein—one of us was reading a biography of First Lady Mary Todd Lincoln at the same time the other was reading a biography of the Victorian-era photographer Julia Margaret Cameron—and these books touch on the influence and power of spirit photography. But we would both agree that researching this book gave us a far more complete comprehension of the whole art and the hoax of spirit photography. 

7. In Picture the Dead you have included several pages from Jennie’s scrapbook that show the reader letters, newspaper clippings, photographs, and other mementoes. What did you use as models for these items and where did you find them?
Lisa selected every image in the book, and her background as both an graphic artist and an illustrator, combined with her interest in finding, reconfiguring, and creating art that was exactly of that moment (winter 1864 – spring 1865) is one of the quiet victories of the book—in that not many readers will be aware, or need to know, that each newspaper clipping, each dance card and fashion plate and advertisement and price of a pair of kid gloves—is accurate to within that six month time frame. The illustrated “photographs” are based on old daguerreotypes and albumen prints, and most of them are of anonymous sitters, found in the Online Prints and Photographs Reading Room of the Library of Congress. The background patterns are based on actual Victorian designs and other pieces of Jennie’s scrapbook had their origins in the New York Public Library’s online Digital Gallery and in the online image archives of the Brookline, Massachusetts Historical Society.

You can learn more about Lisa and Adele on their websites: 


Many thanks to both of these wonderfully gifted ladies.

Thursday, May 6, 2010

A book review: Picture the Dead

Yesterday I posted an announcement about the release of a book called Picture the Dead. Today I would like to share my review of the book with you. If you have an interest in the paranormal and/or in the American Civil War, then this is the book for you.

Picture the dead
Adele Griffin
Illustrated by Lisa Brown
Fiction
Ages 14 and up
Sourcebooks, 2010, 978-1-4022-3712-6
   Ever since the death of her parents, Jennie Lovell’s life has been complicated. Living with her uncle and aunt, neither of whom want her, has not been easy, but at least she has always had her brother, Toby, with whom to share her trials and worries. Now Toby is dead, a casualty of the Civil War, and Jennie lives in fear that Will, her cousin and her fiancé, might also be killed.
   One night Jennie is woken up by the arrival of a carriage. Jennie hopes the passenger is Will, but instead it is Will’s brother Quinn, who is grievously ill and wounded. One look from Quinn and Jennie knows that Will is dead. Quinn tells everyone that Will died honorably on the battlefield, and for a time Jennie accepts this. Then strange things start to happen and she begins to wonder if Quinn is telling the truth.
   Jennie, Quinn, and Quinn’s parents have their photograph taken by a photographer who specializes in photos that are supposed to help connect the living with their dead loved ones. When she sees the photo that the photographer took, Jennie knows at once that the so-called angel in the photo is a hoax. However, the wreath of black irises that appears on the photo some time later is not a hoax at all. It is a message from Will, and Jennie has to figure out what he is trying to tell her. What she discovers turns out to be more terrible than she could ever have imagined.
   This extremely powerful and sometimes disturbing book will very likely cause readers to experience a spooky shiver more than once as they read. The author beautifully captures the sadness and fear that filled the hearts of family members and sweethearts as they waited for their loved ones to come home from the American Civil War. All too often, all they got in response to their prayers was a letter on condolence and perhaps, if they were lucky, a few of their loved one’s personal effects. Beautifully merging fact and fiction, Adele Griffin and Lisa Brown give their readers a haunting story that is likely to stay with them for a long time.  

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Bedtime for Mommy - A contest

Bloomsbury Books sent me an email recently announcing that they are holding a contest inspired by their book Bedtime for Mommy

Here is the information about the contest:


Bedtime Story Contest

Win

It’s as easy as 1, 2, 3 – read to me!

Send in a photo of your child reading to you (jammies on, preferably!), and you
could win your own delightful bedtime for mommy—or daddy—story time session.

In Bedtime for MommyNew York Times bestselling author Amy Krouse Rosenthal puts her signature twist on a time-honored childhood experience, turning the bedtime routine on its head. A child puts Mommy to bed – but Mommy procrastinates by stretching each nighttime ritual: brushing teeth, laying out clothes, and, of course, reading one last book (Anna Karenina?).… The gentle humor of the story, paired with award-winning artist LeUyen Pham’s cheerful illustrations, is sure to solicit plenty of “read it one more time!” requests come bedtime.
Reenact the story in your own house and take a photo of your kids reading to you---or whatever their own spin on the bedtime routine may be—and you could win a bedtime story phone call from Amy Krouse Rosenthal along with a bedtime basket of goodies (cocoa, cookies and more!) from Dylan’s Candy Bar® and a selection of read-aloud favorites from Bloomsbury. Three winners will be selected at random by the author from entries received between April 15, 2010 and October 31, 2010. How do you enter? Email your photo to childrens.publicity@bloomsburyusa.com, subject line “Bedtime for Mommy Contest”, along with your contact information.

Book Release Announcement From Sourcebooks


Book Release Announcement

On Thursday, May 6th at 7:30pm PST (10:30pm ET) two-time National Book award finalist Adele Griffin and co-writer Lisa Brown (best selling author/illustrator) will be hosting a virtual book launch for their new book, Picture the Dead in conjunction with the wonderful independent bookstore, the San Francisco Booksmith and the also independent author resource RedRoom.com (Sourcebooks, by the way, is also independent!)

Lemony Snicket spokesperson (Daniel Handler) will be reading a statement of introduction to this horrid story! Both the authors and Mr. Snicket himself will be in costume.


DOWNLOAD A FLYER FOR YOUR LIBRARY, SCHOOL OR COFFEE SHOP:

Any questions for the authors can be posted in the launch discussion forum on the TeenFire website prior to the event. You can also use the TeenFire chat room to discuss the event in real time!

Questions for the authors can be posted in the comments section on Red Room or in the discussion forum on the TeenFire website (TeenFire.Sourcebooks.com) in the days leading up to the event. 

Picture the Dead—an illustrated mystery story in the gothic tradition with graphic elements—is taken straight from the pages and photographs of history. This paranormal mystery follows Jenny as she uncovers the mysterious circumstances surrounding her fiancé’s death in a prison camp during the Civil War.

Find out more on www.PictureTheDead.com.

If you want to hear about a new, scary story to read in the dark—and learn about the rich illustrations and wonderful history surrounding the book—you can just log in and watch!

You can use this event to meet other YA addicts across the globe right on our TeenFire Chat Room—7:30pm PT, 10:30pm ET.  BE THERE!

Tuesday, May 4, 2010

Storyline Online has a new book!

In the past I have written about Storyline Online, a program created by the Screen Actors Guild Foundation. Storyline Online is a online streaming video program featuring Screen Actors Guild members reading wonderful children's books aloud. The tiles that have done so far include Stellaluna, Guji Guji, the Polar Express, and Somebody Love you Mr. Hatch. Each story includes activities for children to do, and lesson ideas for teachers. Yesterday I got an email from them that I would like to share with you.


Dear Storyline Online Friends and Family,

We are thrilled to announce the launch of our newest story, the classic Harry the Dirty Dog, read by the treasured Betty White. We will be premiering the story on Friday, May 7th at 10am (Pacific) with a special introduction from another wonderful actress, Betty’s dear friend Valerie Harper.

We hope all educators, parents and grandparents will be able to join us for this special launch and watch our newest story with their students, children and grandchildren the moment it goes live. Immediately following the premier, the story will begin streaming at www.storylineonline.net and, along with several activities, will be available 24 hours, 7 days a week for all to view.


Harry the Dirty Dog was written by Gene Zion and illustrated by two-time Caldecott Honor winner Margaret Bloy Graham over 50 years ago. We are delighted that HarperCollins has given us the opportunity to share this story with you. There have been many requests to feature classics for young children and we are pleased to add yet another quality story to our library of books.

Please know that funding remains a concern for this important effort in the SAG Foundation’s Children’s Literacy Initiative and that we are truly grateful for your encouraging comments and financial assistance. As we continue approaching companies and organizations to underwrite Storyline Online, we will try to fulfill the many requests and suggestions we receive from teachers, parents and children around the world.

From all of us at the SAG Foundation, thank you!

Remember to visit us at www.storylineonline.net on
May 7th, 10am (Pacific).


Read On!

I hope you take a look on Friday, and don't forget to look at the other books that they have in their library.

Monday, May 3, 2010

The new issue of Through the Looking Glass is now online



The May and June 2010 issue of Through the Looking Glass Children’s Book Reviews is now online. I hope that you enjoy this issue and find lots of books that interest you.  

For this May and June issue I have chosen to focus on books about farms and farm life for the special feature.  Young children in particular love to learn about farm animals, to explore life on a farm, and to read stories about what it is like to live on a farm. The In the garden feature also ties in with the farm feature, exploring books that look at gardens and gardening.

May and June are the months when summer finally makes itself felt. Winter coats and sweaters are put into boxes or are tucked away on high shelves, and bathing suits are tried on to see if they still fit. The sun is warm, and children are happy to spend their play time out of doors. There is a delightful collection of books about summer on the Summer Days page, with books for readers of all ages. Of course, if you live in the southern hemisphere you might prefer to look at our Winter Days feature!

For this month’s Editor’s Choice title I selected The Story of Cirrus Flux written by Matthew Skelton. Matthew wrote Endymion Spring a few years ago, and he is definitely an author to watch in the years to come.


-:Bookish Events for May and June:-

May 12th to 18th is Reading is Fun Week (USA)
Children's Book Week is May 10th to 16th (USA)

I hope you find a way to celebrate some, if not all, of these bookish events. If I have missed an important bookish event, please drop me a line to tell me about it.

Don’t forget to look at the Bookish Calendar page for reviews about Walt Whitman, hurricanes, fairies, Anne Frank and much more. This calendar is a great tool to use at home and in the classroom to help children incorporate books more fully into their lives.

At the beginning of this year, I launched the new website, and all the new content for every issue is on this new website. However, a large part of the old content is still on the old site. You can still get to this content, but it is not integrated into the new site. Moving the 4,000 reviews over is going to take some time, and I appreciate your patience while I work on this. 

I hope you enjoy this new issue, and I look forward to hearing from you.

Friday, April 30, 2010

Poetry Friday - A review of Poetrees


It's Poetry Friday again, and it is also the last day of National Poetry Month. Enjoy!

Poetrees
Douglas Florian
Poetry
For ages
Simon and Schuster, 2010, 978-1-4169-8672-0
Many of us walk past trees without even noticing them. If we do stop to notice these wonderful plants, we often find ourselves asking a lot of questions about the trees that we see. For example, how did they get here, what are their names, and what do roots do?
   For this unique book, master poet and illustrator, Douglas Florian, have written eighteen poems about trees. Some of the poems are about specific species of trees, including yews, baobabs, giant sequoias, paper birches, and weeping willows. Other poems are about certain parts of a tree. For example, he begins the book by looking at a seed. Using one long sentence that is twisted into a figure eight on the page, Florian reminds us that seeds are just part of an ongoing cycle. Later he tells us about roots, which anchor a tree into the ground “so it won’t slip,” and which provide trees with the means to drink “rain that pours.”  Bark protects trees from “fire, heat, and cold,” and it comes in “an array of hues.”
   At the end of the book the author gives his audience further information about each of the topics that he has covered in the book. In addition, he uses an author’s note to tell us why trees have a special place in his heart and in his life.

You can get to know Florian Douglas better by taking a look at his blog. 
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