Tag: HarperCollins

I Haven’t Been This Mad in a Long Time

Oh man.  Shannon angry.

Yesterday the Summer Reading Club chidlers got to pick a free book as props for cracking the covers all summer long.  While herding the chidlers and handing out stamps and “Congratulations!” and “Awesome!” I noticed something truly horrifying in the selection of books:

OH, THE HUMANITY!

What the crap!?!

It seems that Brett Helquist is re-illustrating the three Scary Story collections compiled by Alvin Schwartz and originally (and brilliantly) illustrated by Stephen Gammell.

HarperCollins, I love you.  Brett Helquist, I love you too.  But there’s no excuse for this.

Alvin Schwartz and Stephen Gammell are like peanut butter and chocolate.  Or Jay-Z and Linkin Park.  Or James Marshall and Harry Allard.  Together, they are perfection.

I don’t know how on earth I missed this.  It seems that More Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark was re-released at the end of August, right when I had a terrible case of food poisoning.  In hindsight, my body was likely reacting subconsciously to this loathsome event.  Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark was re-released at the end of July.  I don’t know what I was doing then, but it must have been important.  Scary Stories 3 will be re-released in January 2011.  I’ll need to find a tree to chain myself to or something.

I’ve book talked the three Scary Story books more times than I can count – both to groups of kids and in the stacks. Gammell’s illustrations always sell it. The thing is, when you tell kids you’ve got something scary for them, they just don’t believe you.  I think it’s because kids have come to learn that a trusted adult’s version of scary usually equals lameness.

But Gammell’s style perfectly straddles “safe scary” and “creepy scary.”  Actually, cancel that.  They’re just a bit too scary.  But just the right amount of a bit. You can’t take your eyes off his work.  Each drawing is like a perfectly disastrous car crash – you are physically unable to look away.  And when you read one of Schwartz’s tales out loud to a group, and then reveal Gammell’s deliciously scary visual interpretation, the result is gold.  We’re talking audible gasps, mouths agape, the whole nine.

From Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

I’m not saying that Helquist isn’t talented.  He’s mad talented.  But in my opinion there was no reason to mess with perfection – even if Stephen Gammell said, “You can’t use my pictures anymore.  They are too awesome for you to use.”  If that happened (and maybe it did – what do I know?), there should have been a worldwide moment of silence for these books before they went out of print.

I know there are probably people out there who are in support of this and think it’s good to give the ol’ books a facelift.  I’m sorry, but I am too blinded by anger to hear you out right now.  Maybe after I’ve mellowed out with several glasses of wine and some George and Martha, we can talk.

The Unfinishables (or, book trauma)

“If I open you, I will finish you.”

This is the creed I stick to whilst reading.  I am incapable of not finishing a book.  I can take a book out of the library, mind you, and not read it, but once I start it, it’s on.

Holy Toledo – there were four commas in that 22 word sentence.  That’s way too many.  I’m just going to leave them there as a kind of cautionary comma tale.

I believe the worst experience was in Grade 11 when we were all forced to read Who Has Seen the Wind by W.O Mitchell.  The classroom jokes included calling the book Who Has Seen the Plot and “Woooaaaahhh, Mitchell – your book is bad.”  I think I was the only one who finished the cursed thing.  I realize that hating this books makes me a bad Canadian, and an even worse Saskatchewanian, but I FINISHED IT.

Thinking back, there are only four books I haven’t been able to finish.  I’ll start with the least traumatizing and work my way up.  Give the pictures a clickaroo for more info on the books (especially Abadzis’ awesome Laika “micro-site”).

Shelf Discovery: The Teen Classics We Never Stopped Reading by Lizzie Skurnick.  Avon: 2009.

This books is full of plucky, spunky, funny, articulate essays on everything from Harriet the Spy to Forever (yes, Skurnick’s definition of teen is kinda liberal).  My plan was to read one of the essays each night before bed.  That meant I would take at least a couple of months to finish the book, but it would be a fun lil’ pre-sleep routine.  Well, not so much.  Why?  The dang thing was chalk-full of spoilers!  While I had read a good chunk of the titles featured in the book, there were many still in my “To Read” shelf on goodreads.  So, I had no choice.  I had to put it down a mere twenty-some pages in.  I know I just could have plowed through, as no plot synopsis or analysis is a substitute for the real thing, but I just couldn’t do it.  This is not to say that Shelf Discovery is a bad book.  Quite the opposite.  But I just couldn’t live with the spoilers.


The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman.  HarperCollins: 2009.

There are two things in life that scare me: spiders and home invasion.  I have had an irrational fear of both since childhood.  This  means that I can’t handle Coraline or The Graveyard Book. I’ve never even attempted Coraline because so many people have warned me against it (my spider fear is intense, folks).  But I was determined to read The Graveyard Book because what kind of self-respecting youth librarian isn’t all over Gaiman?  Besides, everyone told me the scene at the beginning is quick, non-explicit, and that it can be easily digested by nine-year-olds.  I gave up by the second page, scared out of my bloomers.  I’ve tried several times, even skipping over the first few pages, but I just can’t hack it.  (Note: I also tried The Graveyard Book audiobook.  That didn’t work either.  Gaiman’s voice box clearly comes from the same factory as Boris Karloff’s.  Spooksville).

Before I Die by Jenny Downham.  David Fickling: 2007.

Man, I love well-written, angsty YA.  Gayle Forman, Jandy Nelson, Sara Zarr – I love it. I like some grit, some real trauma, some good ol’ fashioned naughty bits.  When I read the (mostly starred) reviews of Before I Die, I knew it was for me.

The premise is simple (teen girl has just months to live and wants to go off her chain before the end) but all the reviewers said the execution was brilliant, raw, and beyond expectation.  Since it’s in this blog post, you know I couldn’t get through it.  I gave up around page 30.  Maybe things turned around in the end (I don’t think they do), but I couldn’t get over the “die” part.  This was three years ago and lately I’ve been thinking of trying this one again.  But for the time being, it remains an Unfinishable.

Laika by Nick Abadzis.  First Second: 2007.

I tried to read this at the lake this summer.  ‘Tis not beach reading, y’all.  Laika was the first animal sent into space.  It didn’t go so well.

I was about 2/3 into this book before my other half had to come outside, extract my bawling self from a lawn chair, and say firmly “I don’t think you should read this anymore.”   He then had to hide it at the bottom of his suitcase and return it to the library for me because I couldn’t even look at it.  The only thing more upsetting for me than this book was when I thought the baby alien was going to die in District 9. Seriously.

Laika is terrifically well done, but I think that was the problem for me.  I still can’t shake it.  It’s like Old Yeller but in Russia/space.  That makes it about 40 million times more intense.

In my experience, I find that recommending an Unfinishable to a child or teen is more effective than anything else.  If I can honestly say “I was too traumatized to even finish this book,” it will fly off the shelf.  Of course, I’m not going around trying to traumatize chidlers.  But Unfinishables make great sells.  They issue a challenge:

I couldn’t get through this book.  Can you?

Writing Wisdom: Lauren Conrad vs. Katherine Paterson

In the final term of my MLIS degree, I wrote a paper on Lauren Conrad for a New Media for Children and Young Adults course.  I spent 5800 words exploring how Lauren Conrad embodies several conflicting versions of herself over various media.  It almost killed me.  It wasn’t the actual writing or the theory – it was the hours I spent with Lauren watching and reading interviews, pausing and rewinding episodes of The Hills and, perhaps most painfully, reading both L.A. Candy and Sweet Little Lies. In the midst of my LC binge, I tweeted:

Well, people, the time has come.

Whilst promoting her books, Lauren talked about the writing process: her inspiration, balancing fiction and reality, and her passion for writing.  Katherine Paterson does this too (note that I had the decency and respect not to put those two in the same sentence).  The thing is, when Katherine Paterson speaks or writes about creating fiction for young people, it is like a lobster feast.  When Lauren speaks about creating fiction, it is like the final bite of a filet-o-fish sandwich that has been left out in the sun too long.  But I’ll leave you to judge things for yourself.

Now, I know that there is nothing really fruitful that can come out of this comparison and that it is really just unfair.  After all, is anyone really as articulate, eloquent and insightful as Katherine Paterson?  No.  Not really.  She sets a bar that is higher than Mount Everest, K2, the Empire State Building, and Vancouver’s new behemouth Shangri-La if they were stacked vertically on top of eachother.  And Lauren Conrad certainly isn’t suffering as both L.A. Candy and Sweet Little Lies were NYT best-sellers.

But dang it, it’s fun to ridicule celebrities, especially when they enter the sacred world of writing for young people.  So here we go.  Note that I have culled the Paterson quotes from The Gates of Excellence and The Spying Heart which I’ll abbreviate as GE and SH respectively.  Lauren’s quotes have been mostly transcribed from interviews and I’ve provided links.

Lauren Conrad

Katherine Paterson

On truth creeping into their fiction

 One of the main questions I get asked is how close these books will be to my life.  Um, I think that it’s best to write what you know.  There’s gonna be a lot of things in the books that people who, if they’ve at all, you know, followed our story will be like ‘Oh, I know exactly what they’re talking about.’

HarperTeen: Lauren talks about L.A. Candy

 Perhaps the more orthodox among us would hesitate to say that it was the story that shaped the truth, but surely it has been the vehicle for the truth as long as the human race can remember.

GE, p. 57

On writing a character that resembles herself

 I kind of took a girl and put her in similiar situations and kind of told my side of the story, you know, from someone like me but didn’t do, any of, you know, any of the same situations I had been in.

Teenflare.com interview

 I know that the only raw material I have for the stories I tell lies deep within myself, and somehow when I go inside I find there a troubled child reaching up for comfort and understanding.

SH, p. 137

On discussing one’s own book

 I just finished writing it and it is really good. I learned so much from writing book one so I think it shows in book two.

Lauren Conrad Online interview

 There are real problems when a writer talks about her own books.  You can’t talk about them while you’re writing them, at least I can’t.  They’re too fragile and would collapse under the weight of your verbiage.  Once they’re safely written, but not yet published might be a good time, but you may be the only person interested in the book at that point.  And even if you aren’t, it would be grossly unfair, because no one else would be in a position to talk back.

GE, p. 123

On tackling tough subjects

 I tried to tone down the truth a bit because I was keeping the demographic in mind.

Good Morning America interview

 There are adults who would rather teenagers not come face to face with such agonizing home truths.  But I have never been sorry that I met my shadow when I was sixteen.

SH, p. 111

And, finally, a quote from Lauren that is so nonsensical and enigmatic that there was no Paterson comparison:

That’s one of the great things about writing is that you get to be in someone’s head, so I think there’s a lot of situations where you know, you’re going through things and it can be, you know, a little overwhelming and it’s all very new. So I think that’s more where I drew from.

Little Bear Without Sendak?(!)

Looky-loo! That's my very own pristine copy of an early edition of Little Bear. If you ever come over, I may let you touch it. Please bring white gloves and a deep sense of reverence.

I thought my inaugural post should be something dear to my heart, and well, easy readers basically line my aorta. I wrote a really long paper on the birth of easy readers (i.e. – my MA thesis) because I love ’em, I think they need to get more cred, and they came about in the mid-1950s.  The mid-1950s was the most swingin’ time in American children’s book publishing with the best gossip: powerful librarians talking to dolls, editor rivalries, unknown authors and illustrators getting to just flounce up to the editor’s office.  Amazing.

One of the most interesting little gems I have come across is this New Hampshire Public Radio interview with Else Holmelund Minarik. And Holy Mother of Pearl, there is one heck of an interesting tidbit in there.

At the 4:00 mark, Minarik said that she, GET THIS, took the Little Bear manuscript to Random House before she ever took it to HarperCollins (then Harper and Brothers)!  And Random House passed, saying “If you can write about children, we’d be interested.”

Now, why is this so interesting?  Just imagine if Random House had accepted the Little Bear manuscript.  That would have meant no Sendak-drawn Little Bear (he was Ursula Nordstrom’s property and there’s no way the Random House peeps would have sought him out).  Can you imagine Little Bear without Sendak?  Can you imagine Sendak’s career without Little Bear? (I mean, he was already rockin’ it with Ruth Krauss and others, but that lil’ ursine munchkin is an important part of his almighty portfolio)

I truly believe that the whole easy reader genre could have gone down an entirely different path if it weren’t for the Sendak/Minarik partnership.  With no word list, and that dear, quaint, comfy Victorian-inspired art, Little Bear set the bar for both I Can Read and other publishers.

Any Grade 6 researcher could find the Minarik interview as it is linked to her Wikipedia page.  But I’ve never seen it discussed anywhere, which is surprising, considering how different things could have been if Little Bear had been a Beginner Book.  I mean, really.

Ah, 1950s children’s publishing gossip.  Is there anything better in the world?  No.