Poetry Friday: Self-publishing

In an attempt to be all centered and Zen yesterday, I brought along my well-worn copy of Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass to read on the subway. I opened to random pages, reading whatever, and then I tripped upon this one:

SHUT NOT YOUR DOORS

Shut not your doors to me proud libraries,

For that which was lacking on all your well-fill'd shelves, yet needed most, I bring,

Forth from the war emerging, a book I have made,

The words of my book nothing, the drift of it every thing,

A book separate, not link'd with the rest nor felt by the intellect,

But you ye untold latencies will thrill to every page.

I'll admit that I'm awful at deconstructing poetry - I get too lost in the language to take it apart piece by piece to figure out what it means. And deconstructing it just seems to take away the beauty and romanticism of it all, you know?

So I thought that this was a poem about libraries.

THEN I re-read it. Wait...wait...just...one...second. Is he a self-published author trying to get a library to stock his book?! Is that what this poem is about? Yeah, I think it might be. Do you know how often this happened to me when I worked at Queens Library?! Self-published authors contacting me directly to put their book on their shelves. Wow.

Well, I would hate to be the collection development specialist who said no, no thank you, Mr. Whitman. I think your poetry is crap. Yeah, I'd hate to be that librarian.

Help me out, poetry aficionados. Is he an aggressive self-pubbed poet, selling his collection to whoever will stock it?

Queens Library Mock Caldecott Discussion

Recently Queens Library had its first Mock Caldecott discussion for the year. In the past, we've had our first meeting in June. We review what has come out so far, and we eliminate some possibilities to make our discussions in December and January a little smoother. Here are some of the books we discussed a couple weeks ago (in no particular order):

• The Fabulous Feud of Gilbert and Sullivan by Jonah Winter, illus by Richard Egielski (Arthur Levine)
  
• Tsunami by Kimiko Kajikawa, illus by Ed Young (Philomel)
• Redwoods by Jason Chin (Roaring Brook)
• A Book by Mordecai Gerstein (Roaring Brook)
• Birds by Kevin Henkes, illus by Laura Dronzek (Greenwillow)
• You Never Heard of Sandy Koufax?! by Jonah Winter, illus by Andre Carrilho (Schwartz & Wade)
• Higher! Higher! by Leslie Patricelli (Candlewick)
• Hook by Ed Young (Roaring Brook)
• Mermaid Queen by Shana Corey, illus by Edwin Fotheringham (Scholastic)
• Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Genadii Spirin (Marshall Cavendish)
• Cuckoo's Haiku: and Other Birding Poems by Michael Rosen, illus by Stan Fellows (Candlewick)
• All in a Day by Cynthia Rylant, illus by Nikki McClure (Abrams)
• Chicken Little by Rebecca and Ed Emberley (Roaring Brook)
  
• Sparrow Girl by Sara Pennypacker, illus by Yoko Tanaka (Hyperion)
• The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau by Dan Yaccarino (Knopf)
• A Chair for Always by Vera B. Williams (Greenwillow)
  
• Dinothesaurus by Douglas Florian (Beach Lane)
• Curious Garden by Peter Brown (Little, Brown)
• Bird, Butterfly, Eel by James Prosek (S&S)
• One Red Apple by Harriet Ziefert, illus by Karla Gudeon (Blue Apple)
• Down, Down, Down: A Journey to the Bottom of the Sea by Steve Jenkins (Houghton Mifflin)

We had some "easy" ones to get rid of, such as Higher! Higher! and Chicken Little. While we loooooved them for storytime, we agreed that they weren't "Caldecott worthy." Some other books went fairly easy under the category I-Get-What-They-Were-Trying-For-But-It-Wasn't-Entirely-Successful: The Fantastic Undersea Life of Jacques Cousteau, You Never Heard of Sandy Koufax?!, Down, Down, Down, and The Fabulous Feud of Gilbert and Sullivan. Under the "Whaaa...?!" category, our committee threw in All in a Day and Sparrow Girl.

** At this point, let me remind you that I speak for my whole committee and these "categories" I've made up don't necessarily reflect my own thoughts on these books - I only share our consensus.**

We adored the artwork in Cuckoo's Haiku, but some felt it was better suited to adult Audubon fans than children. Goldilocks was described as inaccessible. And let's just say that A Chair for Always didn't have anyone standing up for it.

There were two books we eliminated but, oh man, was it contentious! One Red Apple and Birds were the most divisive books! One Red Apple is just gorgeous with all kinds of lovely details and textures, but there is a foldout that has all kinds of design problems. Take a look: you'll know

what I'm talking about. And we all agreed that Birds is stunning; however, we got really hung up over the idea that the reader is an active participant throughout the book...and then you get a whammy at the end with the appearance of a girl and suddenly you realize that the story isn't about you and the birds at all but it's about this girl and the birds. The storytelling does a switcheroo and rips the reader right out of the story. It's jarring. Oh, the arguments over all this!

So here is the final group that will move on to our final considerations in

December:

• Tsunami by Kimiko Kajikawa, illus by Ed Young (Philomel)
• Redwoods by Jason Chin (Roaring Brook)
• A Book by Mordecai Gerstein (Roaring Brook)
• Mermaid Queen by Shana Corey, illus by Edwin Fotheringham (Scholastic)
• Curious Garden by Peter Brown (Little, Brown)
• Hook by Ed Young (Roaring Brook)

Is there an illustrator busier than Ed Young these days? I think not...

As many of my readers know, I actually will no longer be working at Queens Library as of July 1st. I have accepted a position with HarperCollins as their School & Library Marketing Manager! So if you're going to ALA in Chicago, be sure to stop by the booth

and say hi. As far as how this changes Pinot and Prose, I really can't say right now. Stay tuned!

Only in children's library services...

One of Queens Library's branches, Kew Gardens Hills, is having a "Light Saber Combat Workshop" this Sunday, May 3rd at 2:00 p.m. Here's the description:



Lightsaber Combat Workshop

Ages 9-14 will learn to duel with lightsabers by working with members of the New York Jedi Association. They'll demonstrate their fighting techniques and teach audience members how to stage their own lightsaber battles.

I'm falling in love with New York all over again. We have a Jedi Association?!?!?! Too, too cool.

But the question remains: will you learn how to make the lightsaber-clashing sound during the workshop? Because everyone knows that you have to provide your own sound effects during a true lightsaber duel.

This is one of those times when I am reminded that working with kids and teens is about the coolest thing ever. I assure you that I won't be having any lightsaber duels in culinary school. And it'll be the poorer for it.

Queens Library's 2nd Annual Mock Caldecott Event!

Yesterday Queens Library held its 2nd Annual Mock Caldecott Event! As reported earlier, we discussed 6 books:

Baseball Hour by Bill Thomson

Before John Was a Jazz Giant by Carole Boston Weatherford, illustrated by Sean Qualls

Cat and Mouse by Ian Schoenherr

The Dog Who Belonged to No One by Amy Hest, illustrated by Amy Bates
Don't Worry Bear by Greg Foley

Wabi Sabi by Ed Young

And our two Mock Honor books are:

Cat and Mouse by Ian Schoenherr (Greenwillow)

and

Wabi Sabi by Ed Young (Little, Brown)

Our Mock Caldecott Award goes to...

Baseball Hour by Bill Thomson (Marshall Cavendish)

As we all know, this is anybody's year for the award and this was reflected in our voting: it was verrrrrry close. And I am thrilled with the results, as Baseball Hour is action-packed, dramatic, well-executed, and distinguished. It is stunning in its perspectives and it pulses with movement. Lastly, it has wild amounts of kid appeal, which is a nice bonus.

More than 60 librarians came together to discuss the books and vote on them. I was lucky enough to flit and float between the 7 groups and listen to what everyone had to say. The depth of the discussions, as well as the enthusiasm for the event, was thrilling and gave me much-needed inspiration to get through my day-to-day job. We used voting ballots and followed the actual voting criteria of the Caldecott committee (we took it straight from the handbook).

It was a fantastic day, and I look forward to doing it again next year!

2nd Annual Mock Caldecott Event at QL!

It’s that time of year again! Awards Season!

Queens Library is hosting its 2nd Annual Mock Caldecott Event on January 6th for its children’s librarians, and the planning committee has settled on our 6 finalists. Here they are:

-Baseball Hour by Carol Nevius, illus by Bill Thomson (Marshall Cavendish)

-Before John Was a Jazz Giant by Carole Boston Weatherford, illus by Sean Qualls (Holt)

-Cat and Mouse by Ian Schoenherr (Greenwillow)

-The Dog Who Belonged to No One by Amy Hest, illus by Amy Bates (Abrams)

-Don't Worry, Bear by Greg Foley (Viking)

-Wabi Sabi by Mark Reibstein, illus by Ed Young (Little Brown)

And since this isn’t the real thing, we can avoid that tedious veil of secrecy that keeps the actual awards so hush-hush. We discussed about 50 titles altogether during the course of 2008, and I do feel that these were definitely in the Top 10 books.

What I’m surprised about is that neither How I Learned Geography by Uri Shulevitz nor A Kitten Tale by Eric Rohmann made the cut. Personally, I was really hoping that Planting the Trees of Kenya by Claire Nivola would make it – it’s one of my favorites for the year – but it didn’t have a chance against some of the showier titles.

Lastly, for the most part, the committee was in agreement that both House in the Night by Susan Marie Swanson, illustrated by Beth Krommes and Wonder Bear by Tao Nyeu left us scratching our heads and saying, “Wha..?” Beautiful, yes. But coherent? Well, that’s debatable. And we did debate it, I assure you.

Stay tuned for the results on Tuesday, January 6th. Let the games begin!

Food books and Queens

Horn Book has a booklist up about food.  Naturally, I came up with completely different ones here, here, and here.

Which all reminds of some sad news: I just noticed the other day that How Pizza Came to Queens by Dayal Kaur Khalsa is out-of-print.  It's the one book we could truly call our own!  No longer.  

So thank goodness for David Ezra Stein.  Oh, and Mark Siegel.  Both Queens residents.  I'm definitely taking some consolation in that.  So boo to you, Brooklyn, and your silly Jon Scieszka.

Annual Literature Meeting: just another day at Queens Library

So I’ve been doing all kinds of wonderful, fun things lately. My last post is evidence of that. And there has been lots more fun since then and I’ve been so excited to tell you all about it. However, because I’ve been having so much fun, I have become run down and exhausted. Which naturally left me no energy to blog. Indeed, I left work early yesterday and today, sick. So my conundrum is this: do I stop doing so much so that I have more time to blog? Or do I keep doing so much, thus leaving me no time (or inclination) to blog?

The most exciting event for me recently is this: Queens Library’s Literature Meeting*. We held it yesterday at our Flushing branch. We do this event every year and, in the past, we’ve had such luminaries as Paula Danziger and Walter Dean Myers. This year, we decided the time was ripe for a panel on graphic novels. To get to the point, we invited Françoise Mouly (editorial director of TOON Books, art director of The New Yorker, and Art Spiegelman’s wife), Mark Siegel (well-known illustrator and editorial director of First Second), and Elicia Castaldi (illustrator of Middle School is Worse than Meatloaf).

As you can imagine, with a new format, there were lots of difficulties. Hell, with three different MAC laptops in play, there’s bound to be issues!!! Add to that the surprise appearance of Diamond Comics Distributors, who planned a 10-minute presentation that we were not made aware of…oh, and poor Françoise Mouly went to our Central branch instead of Flushing and was very late. Add to that a colleague that repeatedly kept saying to me, “See?! I told you there would be technical glitches! I told you we should have made David [Queens’ techie] come!” Last but not least, the large Chinese population in Flushing decided this would be a swell day to protest the Bush administration outside of the library...a couple hundred of them! If there was ever a need for wine, it was yesterday morning!!!!

You know what, though, it’s funny how things turn out. Elicia Castaldi brought her boyfriend, David, who somehow got every one of the presentations up and running. And it was a good thing that we made room for John, the Diamond Comics guy, because his presentation was really fantastic. And even though Françoise was late and flustered, she pulled herself together and gave a fascinating talk that people stayed for, even though we went over time. And the protest was just another reminder that living in NYC is always an adventure. As for the colleague who wouldn’t leave me alone…well, I still don’t know how I can deal with him in a grown-up manner. Best to keep my mouth shut.

John, the Diamond Comics guy, talked about the history of comics and graphic novels, calling it “the new rock n’ roll.” He was approachable, funny, and interesting. Mark Siegel…well, it’s Mark Siegel. He talked about First Second’s vision and told good stories. Most of the people in the room hadn’t heard him speak before and, well, let’s just say that I had a co-worker that declared she was leaving Queens Library to go work for Mark. I think the whole room was swooning. Elicia was a great complement to the guys – she was sweet and modest, and I enjoyed the images of her artwork appearing in flashes behind her on the screen. And lest I forget to mention, she and her boyfriend are probably two of the most beautiful people you’ll ever meet: someone (I won’t reveal who said it) said, “They look like they came straight off a movie screen!” Also, brave soul that she is, this was Elicia’s first library visit! And with all our crazy technical glitches! Françoise was the consummate pro: gracious and beautiful under pressure. Unfortunately, her talk did have to be abbreviated, but what she did show us was completely fascinating. I’m longing to hear the rest of her talk. Later, on the subway ride home, Mark and Françoise spoke French (I understood every 3^rd word) and talked about visual literacy – needless to say, I was in heaven. I’m such a geek when it comes to these things…not to mention that I have an overdeveloped sense of hero worship when it comes to these powerhouse industry types (authors, illustrators, and Arthur A. Levine fit into this category).

I got warm, positive feedback from the librarians who attended; not to mention that some admitted to not having read a single graphic novel before the event…and were happy that now they have. Glitches aside, I will call the event a success. It seemed to reflect my own personality: flying-by-the-seat-of-its-pants, spontaneous, lack of attention to detail…yet also managed to avoid disaster and it was filled with laughter and fun.

Thank heavens it only happens once a year!

* Elicia emailed me today post-meeting, asking me for the fancy name for our meeting so her rep can include it in Elicia's info. Unfortunately, there is no fancy name. This is only the second one of these I've participated in, and we've always called it "the lit meeting." But I'm sure there's some fancy name we can give it before I email Elicia back tomorrow!

Shortbread and sun-dried tomato pesto

I chair a children’s book selection committee – I won’t go into too much depth about what we do (because this is a food-related post) but, ultimately, the committee helps me review un-reviewed books so that we can decide if we want them to be part of Queens Library’s collections. When I started my job 18 months ago, I decided to bring breakfast to the meetings, mostly as a bribe so that they’d be nice to the new gal. As you know, I don’t like to bake. So I’ve always bought bagels at my local kosher place, or croissants and muffins from the local bakery. Not this past week, though. I wanted to actually make something for the committee, but I didn’t want to do a cloying sweet treat. Nope, like any dictatorial leader, I decided I’d make something savory and make them eat it out of fear of insulting me or hurting my feelings.

I needed something easy to transport and something that could be served at room temperature. And I also thought that, given the few Jewish and vegetarian members of our committee, it was best to avoid any meat products (I found some deelish-sounding proscuitto recipes). Epicurious came through for me again and I discovered Parmesan, Rosemary, and Walnut Shortbread. Per the recipe, it was recommended to top it with Sun-Dried Tomato Pesto, which I also found a recipe for. I won’t put the whole recipes here because I don’t want this to the The Longest Post Ever – follow the links. Here’s how it all turned out:

The shortbread dough

Rolled in "logs"

In the oven (because I forgot to take one before I put them in there!)

The pesto

The finished product

It turned out delectable. The shortbread was buttery with a melt-in-your-mouth quality, and the pesto was the perfect foil, giving the shortbread zing and pizzazz. Not as many people ate them as normally wolf down the breakfast bakery goods I usually bring in, but I was very pleased with the praise from those who did give it a try. The pesto is super versatile: the recipe actually includes mixing it with linguine. It worked on the shortbread well, and it would also make a fab sandwich spread. The salty shortbread would be great with tomato soup (or any soup, I suppose).

I won’t do this every month when the committee meets, but I still had fun shaking it up a bit by combining my two favorite things: children’s books and food.

Eat, drink, and do something unexpected.

The One Where I Wish I Worked for Google

So I may have mentioned this before - I'm not sure if I have - but Adam works for Google. I don't know if I should share that, and I'll have to check with him later - this post may disappear later today. Nevertheless, I'm telling you all now. And you may have heard about the free, amazing food that Google prepares for their employees each day. All the rumors you've heard? Totally true. The other day Adam ate lobster stuffed steak wrapped in bacon and grilled. Can you believe it?!?! And it's all organic, mostly local food...while I'm stuck with my CAFO-ham and grilled, perfectly-square-orange-cheese sandwich in the cafeteria at Queens Library (never fear, dear readers, I bring my own food to work).

So add Google's stellar food to the fact that they're across the street from Food Network headquarters, and you can imagine that they're going to get some major players stepping into Google's kitchen. Unfortunately for me, Adam is horrible with names and can never remember a single chef's name. Morimoto was there, I know that.

Then, the other day, guess who did a lecture for Google employees:


The great Jacques Torres!

Now you all know I don't really like baking, and I don't even indulge in dessert very often. But I still recognize greatness when I see it. Adam and I used to watch his show a couple years ago and giggle over his fabulous accent declaring that "even zee gelatin mold ees edible!" And Adam stood right next to him in line for food. Adam said he was quick to laugh and very nice; apparently he made fun of his own accent and the way French people talked. I loves me a self-deprecating man who can cook!

I just wonder why the husband got so lucky to work in such a fabulous office and I have to see mauve-colored tomatoes in plastic tubs and smell people's tater tots every day at my workplace. Where's the justice?!

"French Milk" caused my OCD to kick in!

This is as good a time as any to confess that I am often overcome with a bit of OCD. Which shouldn’t be too much of a surprise since, you know, aren’t we all afflicted with a touch of OCD from time to time? So here’s the story of my latest bout with OCD:

I was recently introduced to the blog Oops…Wrong Cookie, which has some nice reviews of books I haven’t heard of. I always appreciate reviews of more obscure (at least obscure to me) titles – it helps me keep my street cred as a “children’s materials specialist” and I just enjoy being in-the-know about such things.

So one of the bloggers, Laura, reviewed a darling book called French Milk by Lucy Knisley, published by Epigraph Publishing (unfamiliar to me) in 2000. I’m a total Francophile so I was completely intrigued – am I the only one who had never heard of this book before? I first looked in the Queens library catalog: no go. Hmmm… So I went to Baker & Taylor and BWI: “permanently out of stock”. Which of course is just one stop away from Outofprintsville. Damn. So I went to Amazon (guilty as charged) to see if I could pick up a copy from the Marketplace: denied there too. Hmmm… So I thought perhaps Brooklyn PL or NYPL had heard of this book and purchased it: that was a dead end too. Has this book dropped off the face of the earth?!

This is where the OCD kicks in. Now I am obsessed with finding this book. Obsessed. And this has occupied my mind for a week. I haven’t been to eBay yet so that’s my next stop. After that, I think I might have to trek into Manhattan and hunt it down at the indie bookstores; they most likely won’t have it in stock but they’re more likely to hunt it down for me than my local B&N*.

Anyhoo, the hunt is on for French Milk. I will find it. Just watch me.

*This is one of those things they don’t tell you about Queens – there isn’t a worse place to live if you want an indie bookstore. Truly. I have yet to find one at all. And even if I do find it, I will no doubt be forced to take the subway and a bus or two there. And I could be all noble and make that trek, but it most likely ain’t happening. It’s easier for me to go to Books of Wonder or McNally Robinson in Manhattan than someplace in Queens. Which brings us full circle as to the likely reason there aren’t any indies in Queens…

Yee-haw! Time for a round-up!

Bad blogger, bad blogger! In addition to my round-up, I still have to chat about the Dining section and the preview at Little, Brown yesterday. And I'm going to Lit-Fest tomorrow so there will be lots to share about that as well, n'est-ce pas? Got the secret to creating more hours in the day? Please share it. Please.

• Queens Library may have the #1 circulation in the country, but NYPL gets a collection of Katherine Hepburn memorabilia, gifted to the library by her estate. We don’t have anything like that at QL that I’m aware of. See, this is why I mildly entertained the idea of focusing on archival studies in library school. I want access to these beautiful items. Thanks to my weekly AL Direct email for this tidbit.
  
  Along the same lines, this was why I always wanted to work at HarperCollins – I’d do just about anything to see Ursula Nordstrom’s original letters.
  
  
• Also courtesy of my AL Direct email, Germany’s Library of the Year has been awarded to a small prison library, JVA-Münster, winning over all the showier public and academic libraries. I found this article particularly interesting given the controversy in the States lately about religious texts in our prisons. I’m not a big fan of loveliness in prisons – otherwise, why would it be considered a punishment to be there? However, I am in favor of the library being the one and only lovely place. When 80% of the prisoners use the library, and are bettering themselves by doing so, I can’t help but be a fan of that. I’d like to believe that if anything will help a prisoner succeed once they’ve rejoined society, it’s being literate and educated. But that’s just my naïve view…
  
  
• Visit the Longstockings page where Caroline Hickey tells a scary Halloween story that actually happened to the poor Longstockings crew. Some crazed B&B proprietor went completely berserk on them during their retreat and left our gals hunting for a place to stay on a rainy autumn night. I couldn’t help but wish that I was a writer so that I could have been there to be part of the story. Also, I thought that those sorts of things are horrific when they’re happening but – goodness gracious! – they make the Best Stories Ever. And even though I'm not a writer, I have to guess that it is life moments like this that make perfect fodder for creativity.
  
  
• Lastly, this past Tuesday we held an in-service meeting for the children’s librarians. We started off with a speaker who passed on frightening information about lead poisoning – she scared the crap out of everyone in the room, rightly so. To lighten things up, we ended with a visit from Amy Hest. I’m a bit sentimental about Mrs. Hest’s work – when I started working in a children’s room in Salem, Oregon at 22 years old, When Jessie Came Across the Sea was the first children’s picture book I bought for myself. Having just gotten married myself, I was incredibly sentimental about the moment at the end when Jessie gets the proposal. So I was awfully gushy about meeting Mrs. Hest. Luckily, there was no reason to be nervous – she was lovely and engaging. Not to mention that she inspired an entire room of children’s librarians to be writers: we get to swim laps in the morning, write in our pajamas, and be steps away from the ice cream in the freezer?!?! Sign me up for that gig!!!!
  
  By the way, I tried to load a nifty little cover picture of Mrs. Hest's newest book, Remembering Mrs. Rossi, but my computer connection hates me. Truly. It's out to get me. So use your imaginations...or check out the link to Amazon. Apparently my computer can do hyperlinks but not images. Curse you, technology!!!!

And goodness gracious, lots of posts coming about food and books. You know, once someone figures out that time machine thing.