The CBC Diversity Committee was established in 2012 as one of the committees created by the Children’s Book Council, the national nonprofit trade association for children’s trade book publishers. It strives to increase the diversity of voices and experiences contributing to children’s and young adult literature. Alvina Ling, executive editor at Little, Brown, is a founder and chair, and has edited titles by Grace Lin, Matthew Quick, Bryan Collier, Libba Bray, and Karen Healey.

Ling says that it is important for young readers to have access to books with diverse characters because “it helps foster acceptance and understanding of different people. These titles are for that child who is not seeing himself in the books he’s reading or a child from a different culture to have compassion towards people who are not like him.”

Stacy Whitman, editorial director of Tu, multicultural publisher Lee & Low’s young adult fantasy and science fiction imprint, agrees. She adds, “In our growing multicultural world, kids need to know what it is to empathize with people that are different. I think fantasy and science fiction does that best, because you’re already putting yourself in a setting that is already so different.”

Whitman cites recent projects such as Joseph Bruchac’s Killer of Enemies—a postapocalyptic Apache steampunk novel—and Karen Sandler’s conclusion to the Tankborn trilogy, Rebellion, as examples of non-Northwest European and Tolkien-influenced fantasies.

In recent weeks, #DiversityinSFF was a trending conversation on Twitter, of which Whitman was an avid participant. And though according to her it is very similar to the Race Fail 2009 discussion—in which fantasy and sci-fi fans lamented the lack of diversity in the genres—she hopes that this recent flare up will stir into action those with influence in the industry. “The recent Twitter conversation pushed agents to change their submission guidelines, encouraging people of diverse backgrounds to send their work. The publisher Tor also changed their guidelines. I hope others will do the same.”

And while Putnam editor Stacey Barney agrees that the clamor for more diverse books isn’t a recent one, she has noted a change in the discussion in recent years. “It’s creeping up to the top of more people’s agenda. The tenor in the conversation has changed in a positive way. It’s moved beyond ‘we need to have more black characters or black authors’ to ‘we need characters of color who are experiencing everyday events,’ not historical landmarks or in an urban setting.” She cites Crystal Allen’s How Lamar’s Bad Prank Won a Bubba-Sized Trophy (HarperCollins, 2011) as a great example of this.

Barney, who has edited several books with diverse characters, such as Tara Sullivan’s Golden Boy (2013), about the albino killings in Tanzania, and Kristin Levine’s The Lions of Little Rock (2012, both Putnam), does believe that more can be done to market books and authors of diverse backgrounds.

“I think people miss the point when they argue that there should be more editors of color, which I think is true,” Barney says. “However, what we lack is an infrastructure that will support these books once they’re published. We’ll see more acquisitions when we have more success stories. We have to remember that this is a business. Editors want to acquire books that will get the best marketing launch possible. We just don’t have that in place yet.”

The desire to promote their books is what inspired Malindo Lo and Cindy Pon to start the Diversity in YA tour and website in 2011. The two authors discovered that they were both publishing Asian-inspired fantasies that year, and wanted to celebrate them and all diverse teen literature with this initiative. Relaunched in 2012 with a Tumblr account, Pon and Lo continue to promote books about all kinds of diversity, from race to sexual orientation to gender identity and disability.

And while Lo agrees that there’s been a recent explosion in the blogosphere about the subject, she’s also discovered that writers continue to struggle to get their LGBQT books to the public. “As I have talked to more authors, I have heard stories about many of them—published and unpublished—who have been blocked in their endeavors,” she says. “I’m getting this impression that we’re in this stuck point. I’m hoping that the continued discussion raises awareness of this issue, and that there will be considered effort to change that for the better.”

What can librarians do? Whitman suggests, “The last few years people have been talking about the need for diversity, but it’s time to put our money where the mouth is. Librarians have always had finger on the pulse of what their readers need, but these resources haven’t always been available to them.”

Responding to the point that Sun made during Summer Teen about the importance of diversity in YA book covers, one attendee asked how librarians should act in regards to cases of “whitewashing.”

Logo for Disability in Kid Lit website.

Klise, an author and a librarian replied, “I work at an urban high school in Chicago, and know that to engage my very diverse student population in reading for fun, I need to display books with faces they can identify with. We have to be aware of the [whitewashing] cases. It makes for really provocative conversation for my book club at school. The teens share my outrage—and outrage, when funneled into activism, is what makes the world change for the better.”

Whitman adds that librarians can make sure to include diverse books in their collection development budget, even if their communities are not diverse. “Look for awesome books no matter what the characters’ backgrounds may be. Even if your community isn’t diverse, the world is. Buy your books accordingly. Seek out resources to help you booktalk those titles. The resources are out there; become aware of them and use and share them with your colleagues.”

RESOURCES FOR FINDING DIVERSE BOOKS FOR TEENS AND KIDS

From School Library Journal:

Collection Development
Tamora Pierce’s Fantasy Novel Picks | SLJ SummerTeen
By Tamora Pierce

Straight Talk on Race: Challenging the Stereotypes in Kids’ Books
By Mitali Perkins

LGBTQ Lit: Speaking Out
By Megan Honig

From Diversity to Civil Rights | Nonfiction Notes
By Daryl Grabarek

Jackie Robinson: Remembering an American Hero | Watch and Read
By Joy Fleishhacker

Islam in the Classroom
By Lauren Barack

Books to Celebrate the Everyday Heroes of the Civil Rights Movement
By Rhona Campbell

Resources for Finding Latino Kid Lit
By Shelley M. Diaz

Kick-Starting a New Life | Recent YA Titles
By Mahnaz Dar

Our Bodies, Our Minds | Confronting Self-Image in YA Fiction
By Mahnaz Dar

YA Underground: Books for Teens You Might Have Missed
By Amy Cheney

Interviews
Between Violence and Tenderness: Aristotle and Dante Author Sáenz Talks to SLJ
By Karyn M. Peterson

Lesléa Newman Discusses her Novel in Verse About the Death of Matthew Shepard, ‘October Mourning’
By Mahnaz Dar

The “Radioactive Energy” of Bullies | An Interview with Meg Medina
By Jennifer M. Brown

The Power of Pictures: A Visit with Bryan Collier
By Rocco Staino

Andrea Cheng on Etched in Clay, Which Charts the Courageous Life of Dave the Potter
By Rick Margolis

Looking for Light: In Darkness Author Nick Lake talks to SLJ
By Karyn M. Peterson

News Articles
First Book’s “Stories for All Project” Lobbies for Kid Lit Diversity
By Karyn M. Peterson

Community Angered by Tossed Black History Collection
By Lauren Barack

Picture Book About Islam Ignites Twitter Battle
By Shelley Diaz

Librarians Sound Off: Not a Lack of Latino Lit for Kids, but a Lack of Awareness
By Shelley Diaz

Kid Lit Authors Discuss Diversity at NYPL
By Mahnaz Dar

Blog Posts/Opinion
2013 Middle Grade Black Boys: Seriously, People?
By Betsy Bird

America’s Changing Face | Consider the Source
By Marc Aronson

From The Horn Book:
A Very Good Question
By Roger Sutton

Young dreamers
By Christopher Myers

Indigenous protagonists and people of color
By Elissa Gershowitz

Horn Book Resources for Talking About Race
By Horn Book Staff

Other recommended sites:
Children’s Books by and about People of Color Published in the United States
CCBC Blog
As Demographics Shift, Kids’ Books Stay Stubbornly White from NPR
CBC Diversity (Maintains a Goodreads account with updated booklists of diverse books and resources.)
Stacy Whitman’s Pinterest Board on Diverse YA Fantasy
Disability in Kid Lit
The Brown Bookshelf
American Indians in Children’s Literature
Rich In Color (Reviews YA books that feature or are by people of color.)
Gay YA
De Colores Blog (Reviews books that feature Mexican American characters.)
Diversify YA (A collection of short interviews that focus on all sorts of diversity.)
Cynthia Leitich Smith has compiled resources on diverse books, including multiracial titles with biracial characters.
Forever Young Adult’s new series on diversity in YA
Articles on Diversity on YALSA’s Hub Blog
It Matters if You’re Black or White: The Racism of YA Book Covers
Lee & Low Blog (The multicultural children’s book publisher’s blog.)
First Book Blog (The organization’s commitment to diversity in children’s books.)
Crazy QuiltEdi (Promoting literacy for teens of color, one book at a time.)

Blockbuster books = blockbuster movies

Saoirse Ronan in How I Live Now. Photo by Magnolia Pictures.

Meg Rosoff’s acclaimed How I Live Now (Random, 2004) is about a NYC girl who spends an idyllic summer with her cousins in England right before an unnamed aggressor invades the UK and threatens the world’s existence. Academy Award-winning director Kevin Macdonald is at the helm and Saoirse Ronan and George MacKay star. The film debuts this fall.

The movie adaptation of 2006 bestseller The Book Thief (Random) by Markus Zusak is already building Oscar buzz and will be in theaters on November 15. This World War II drama is directed by Brian Percival, and stars Sophie Nelisse as the titular heroine Liesel, and Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson as her adoptive parents.

Seventh Son is based on the first installment in Joseph Delaney’s “The Last Apprentice” series (HarperCollins). In this dark fantasy, 14-year-old Tom Ward, a seventh son of a seventh son, goes on adventures as the Spook’s apprentice. Sergei Bodrov directs and Ben Barnes, Jeff Bridges, and Julianne Moore star. It features music composed by Tuomas Kantelinen. Originally scheduled to release on October 18, 2013, it will be out in theaters in 3-D and IMAX 3D on January 17, 2014.

Richelle Mead’s NYT-bestselling Vampire Academy (Penguin, 2007) is getting the film treatment in time for Valentine’s Day, 2014. Written by Daniel Waters of Heathers fame, and directed by his brother Mark Waters of Mean Girls fame, the story of best friends Rose, half-human/half-vampire, and Lissa, a mortal vampire princess who wreak havoc and fall in love at St. Vladimir’s Academy, is in capable hands. Starring Zoey Deutch, Lucy Fry, and Danila Kozlovsky, the movie is due out on February 14, 2014.

Positioned to be the next “Hunger Games” franchise, the movie adaptation of Veronica Roth’s Divergent (HarperCollins, 2011), featuring Hollywood’s latest sweetheart, Shailene Woodley, will be in theaters on March 21, 2014.

John Green’s chair on the set of In the Fault of Our Stars

One of the most celebrated YA novels of 2012, John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars (Dutton), also starring Shailene Woodley (Hazel), began filming last week in Pittsburgh, and the acclaimed author has been excitedly tweeting and Tumbling from the set with updates. He will be making a cameo appearance in the book-to-film about two teen cancer patients who fall in love. Ansel Elgort plays the male lead, Auggie, Nat Wolff is cast as Isaac, his best friend, and it was recently revealed that Laura Dern will play Hazel’s mother. No film release date yet.

Fans of Gayle Forman’s If I Stay (Dutton, 2009) can breathe a sigh of relief. The film, starring Chloë Moretz, was dropped by Summit earlier this year, but it has since been picked up by MGM. The tearjerker—about a girl who has an out-of-body experience following a car accident that puts her in a coma and kills the rest of her family—will be produced by Denise DiNovi and Alison Greenspan of DiNovi Pictures. No release date yet.

And while Samantha Shannon’s The Bone Season, just published this month, the first in a projected seven-book fantasy series by 21-year-old recent college graduate, is already building buzz for adult and teen audiences. It was recently chosen as the first Today Show book club selection, and the film rights have been acquired by Andy Serkis and Jonathan Cavendish, founders of The Imaginarium production company.

Jennifer Lawrence as Katniss in The Hunger Games: Catching Fire.

Sequels and more sequels
There’s been lots of casting news for Lionsgate’s final “Hunger Games” installments, based on Suzanne Collins’s books (Scholastic). The studio is currently eyeing Julianne Moore to play President Coin in The Hunger Games: Mockingjay. Natalie Dormer has been cast in the role of Cressida, while Evan Ross is set to play Messalla, Cressida’s cameraman, and Stef Dawson will step in as Finnick Odair’s love interest, Annie Cresta. In the meantime, fans still have Catching Fire to look forward to, in theaters on November 22, 2013.

The Mortal Instruments: City of Ashes is slated to begin production in the fall with Harald Zwart returning to direct, along with stars Lily Collins and Jamie Campbell. A taste of the sequel was to premiere in Cannes, but general consensus on The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones is still pending.

Already banking on Divergent’s future success as a film, Brian Duffield been commissioned to begin working on the sequel, Insurgent (HarperCollins, 2012).

A dystopian horizon

Directed by Wes Ball, the movie version of James Dashner’s NYT-bestselling The Maze Runner (Delacorte, 2009), about a group of teens trying to survive in an enclosed environment called “The Glade,” is set to premiere in theaters on February 14, 2014. Patricia Clarkson has joined Dylan O’Brien (Thomas) and Kaya Scodelario (Teresa) in the cast as Chancellor Ava Paige.

A film based on Andy Mulligan’s Trash (Random, 2010), seems to be on its way to theaters soon. Rooney Mara (NGO worker named Olivia), Martin Sheen (Father Julliard), and Wagner Moura are now on board. Three street kids—Raphael (Rickson Tevez), Gardo (Eduardo Luis), and Rat (Gabriel Weinstein) live in an unnamed third-world country picking trash, and discover a mysterious bag that triggers a life-changing chain of events. Stephen Daldry is attached as director and Richard Curtis will write the script. Production starts in Rio de Janeiro and it’s already slated for a May 2014 release from Universal.

Many kidlit fans can attest that Lois Lowry’s Newbery-winning The Giver (Houghton, 1993) is the precursor to many of today’s dystopian YAs. Finally, the wheels for a film adaption have been set in motion. Brenton Thwaites will play an aged-up Jonas (the Receiver of memories) and Jeff Bridges is cast as the title character. Meryl Streep is in talks to play the society’s Chief Elder, tasked with assigning roles to the young denizens of a seemingly perfect world. Philip Noyce is attached as director and no release date has been yet announced.

Another pre-Hunger Games may be coming to a theater near you. Scott Westerfeld’s “Uglies” series (S & S) is possibly in the pipeline again. The Australian author revealed via Twitter in July that Davis Entertainment and Lola VFX are in talks to team up and produce his NYT-best-selling trilogy, which chronicles the adventures of Tally Youngblood, a teen who unravels her “pretty” world’s ugly secrets.

SLJ Best Adult Book for Teens The Age of Miracles (Random, 2012) by Karen Thompson Walker, finally has a director lined up for its highly anticipated movie adaptation: Catherine Hardwicke, of Twilight-fame. River Road Entertainment’s Bill Pohlad will produce and Seth Lochhead is writing the screenplay based on the novel about a teen’s coming of age while the Earth’s rotation has begun to slow down.

Rick Yancey’s The 5^th Wave (Putnam, 2013) is inching closer to the big screen. Tobey Maguire’s production company has acquired the rights, and Oscar-nominated Susannah Grant is adapting the dark novel about Cassie’s struggle to survive on an Earth that is slowly being destroyed by aliens.

Paramount Pictures has acquired rights to Joelle Charbonneau’s The Testing (Houghton Harcourt 2013), a YA novel in which a teen is selected for a United Commonwealth program that selects the best and brightest to become possible leaders of the slowly revitalizing post-war civilization. Very few survive The Testing.

Classic kidlit on screen

Photo by Disney.

Maleficent, the Robert Stromberg-directed Disney film that stars Angelina Jolie as the title character, Elle Fanning as Princess Aurora, and Brenton Thwaites as the prince, will tell the story of Sleeping Beauty from the Queen’s point of view. It is set to release on July 2, 2014.

Jennifer Garner, Steve Carell, Ed Oxenbould, and Bella Thorne have been filming Disney’s Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, based on the award-winning picture book by Judith Viorst that follows young Alexander through the trials of one very bad day. Coming to theaters on October 10, 2014, the live-action movie is directed Miguel Arteta, and was adapted by Rob Lieber.

The Cinderella fairy tale is also getting another treatment in a film directed by Kenneth Branagh. The star-studded cast includes Lily James as the title character, Richard Madden as Prince Charming, Cate Blanchett as the evil stepmother Lady Tremaine, Helena Bonham Carter as Cinderella’s Fairy Godmother, Hayley Atwell as Cinderella’s biological mother, and Stellan Skarsgard as the Grand Duke. It’s due in theaters on March 13, 2015.

The classic French novella The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupery will get a star-studded cast for its future film animated adaptation.  Marion Cotillard, James Franco, Rachel McAdams, Jeff Bridges, Benicio Del Toro, Mackenzie Foy and Paul Giamatti are already on board to voice characters in sweet story about a pilot who crash-lands in the desert and meets a boy who claims to have fallen to Earth from his home on an asteroid. Bridges will voice the pilot and Cotillard is in talks to take on the part of a rose. Mark Osborne is attached to direct.

Warner Bros. is making a movie based on the Archie comics series. The long-running comic about a teen and his friends set in the fictional Riverdale will be adapted by Roberto Aguirre-Sacasa and directed by Jason Moore. It will feature the comics’ first openly gay character, Kevin Keller, and rivals for Archie’s heart, Betty and Veronica, among other Riverdale residents.

Warner Bros. is also in final negotiations to pick up the movie rights to the iconic “Encyclopedia Brown” (Penguin) children’s book series for an adaptation to be produced by Roy Lee and Howard David Deutsch. Donald J. Sobol wrote 28 books, from 1963 until his death in 2012, about the intrepid young detective and his friends.

For middle grade moviegoers

Laika Entertainment has scheduled a release date for The Boxtrolls on September 26, 2014, a stop-motion animated film based on Alan Snow’s graphic novel series “The Ratbridge Chronicles” (S & S). Graham Annable and Anthony Stacchi have teamed up to direct this project about a boy who allies himself with boxtrolls, cabbageheads, pirates, rats, a retired lawyer, and other silly characters to save the town of Ratbridge from villainous kidnappers. The cast of voice actors includes Elle Fanning, Simon Pegg, Ben Kingsley, Toni Collette, Nick Frost, and Jared Harris.

Disney has teamed up with the Weinstein Co. to develop a book-to-film adaptation of Eoin Colfer’s Artemis Fowl (Disney, 2001). The movie will be based on the first two books in the “Artemis Fowl” series, which chronicles the adventures of a 12-year-old criminal millionaire mastermind. Screenwriter Michael Goldenberg will handle the script for the live-action film, while Robert DeNiro and Jane Rosenthal will producer alongside Weinstein.

In development

Addison Timlin and Jeremy Irvine are set to star in Fallen, an adaptation of Lauren Kate’s best-selling YA series about fallen angels. Produced by Lotus Entertainment and Mayhem Pictures, the film will be directed by Scott Hicks and has been adapted by Kathryn Price, Nicole Millard, and Michael Ross.

Film rights to Emmy Laybourne’s Monument 14 (Feiwel & Friends, 2012) have been acquired by Strange Weather Films. The YA novel focuses on a group of 14 kids who survive an apocalyptic event, and must continue to battle the elements from the shelter of a superstore. Director/Screenwriter Brad Peyton is attached.

Universal Pictures has landed the film rights to Lauren Oliver’s next young adult novel, Panic (2014). Marc Platt will produce the project. The realistic novel is described as Oliver’s return to the grittiness of her first book, Before I Fall (2010, both HarperCollins), which was optioned by Fox 2000.

Ally Carter has two series optioned for film. The rights for “Gallagher Girls” have been acquired by Tonik Productions. These best-selling books share the stories of a group of sexy high-school-aged spies. The “Heist Society” series (both published by Disney/Hyperion) is now with Lionsgate with Max Handelman and Elizabeth Banks attached as producers. This series follows a reformed teen thief as she tries to make good and get out of the family con business.

Bryce Clyde Jenkins (from left), Skai Jackson, Anika Noni Rose, Wood Harris and Harrison Knight star as the Watson family in the Hallmark Channel movie The Watsons Go to Birmingham. (Photo courtesy of Crown Media)

On the small screen
Christopher Paul Curtis’s 1995 historical fiction novel, The Watsons Go To Birmingham, has been adapted for the Hallmark Channel by Tonya Lewis Lee. Directed by Kenny Leo, the film centers on an African American family living in the town of Flint, Michigan, who visit their grandmother’s home in Birmingham, Alabama in 1963, a turbulent time during the civil rights movement. The cast includes: Anika Noni Rose, David Alan Grier, Skai Jackson, LaTanya Richardson, Wood Harris, Bryce Jenkins, Pauletta Washington and Harrison Knight. It will have its world premiere on Friday, September 20 (8pm ET).

Kass Morgan’s The 100 (Little, Brown, 2013), a postapocalyptic YA novel, will premiere as a television series on The CW in its 2013–14 midseason.

Roald Dahl’s 1990 illustrated children’s book, Esio Trot, about elderly lovebirds and tortoises, will be adapted into a movie for the BBC, starring Dustin Hoffman and Dame Judi Dench as the couple. Dearbhla Walsh will direct the project, which starts filming in England next month.

 See also:

Page to Screen: Summer Reading Blockbusters, Dystopian Teen Lit, and Childhood Classics

Page to Screen: Upcoming Kids’ Books Set for Film Adaptations

The lauded young adult novel—a story about Junior, a Spokane Indian who transfers from his school on the reservation to a rich, white school—received a starred review from School Library Journal, and is recommended for a grade 7–10 audience. In the original review, Chris Shoemaker says, “The teen’s determination to both improve himself and overcome poverty, despite the handicaps of birth, circumstances, and race, delivers a positive message.”

Nevertheless, Queens parent Kelly-Ann McMullan-Preiss stepped forward last week with the support of about eight other parents to request that an alternative assignment be given to their children. McMullan-Preiss cited the repeated discussion of “masturbation” as the main reason for her complaint, according to the Daily News.

Attempts by SLJ to reach administrators and school library staff for comment were unsuccessful,  however the original story has since made the rounds on several news outlets and through social media, and on Twitter, the author has responded personally. Alexie, after a banning of his book unrelated to the Queens controversy, also said recently in an interview on the National Coalition Against Censorship blog that, “I have no objection to a parent not wanting their kid to read my book. But when they try to control a school’s curriculum, that’s when the fight is on. So the second they try to make it a policy, no, I can’t think of when it’s acceptable because whatever the text, you can teach and learn from it.”

Alexie’s publisher echoes those sentiments. Megan Tingley, executive vice president and publisher of Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, tells SLJ that, her company is “proud” to be the publisher of the book, and that the company is “opposed to censorship of any kind.”

She adds, “We are dismayed about the recent decision of a middle school in Queens, NY, to remove the critically acclaimed book from its required reading list.” The book, she says, “is a story about hope and resilience. We applaud Sherman Alexie’s triumphant work of contemporary fiction, which shares a Native American experience that is both poignant and uplifting and has enlightened and engaged countless readers.”

The NCAC has also come out in support of Alexie. Its Kids Right to Read project coordinator Acacia O’Connor notes that, “Studies have shown that students who have some semblance of choice, read more. Alexie’s book is often selected for reluctant readers because it’s so popular and kids really feel that the characters and their experiences speak to them.”

She also says, “The message of this book is entirely positive and uplifting. I’m sure it was selected because highlights a teen character that has confronted adversity. If the parents have some objection to reading a specific title, we always encourage that an alternative is offered instead. If the book was selected by the teachers or school media specialist, it was for a reason.” The NCAC plans to honor Alexie in November 2013 for his work on free speech.

Institute of Museum and Library Services

The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) continues to be an avid supporter of the country’s museums and libraries in the area of early childhood learning. It has an extensive database of awards that institutions can apply to annually.

The National Leadership Grants for Libraries supports projects that address the challenges faced by the library field in innovative ways, and that have the potential to advance practice at a national level. Successful applications are programs that seek innovative responses to the challenge(s) identified in the proposals, and will have national impact. The deadline for the next award is February 01, 2014. The prizes range from $50,000-500,000.

For libraries planning to create a brand-new program that will focus on early learning, IMLS’s Sparks! Ignition Grants for Libraries could be the right opportunity. These smaller awards encourage libraries to try out and evaluate specific innovations in the ways they operate and the services they provide. Sparks Grants support the implementation of promising and groundbreaking new tools, products, services, or organizational practices. Successful proposals address problems, challenges, or needs of broad relevance to libraries. The 2013 grants were already awarded, but the 2014 guidelines will be made available approximately 90 days before the deadline. In the meantime, interested applicants should use the 2013 guidelines as a reference. The prizes range from $10,000 to $25,000.

Dollar General Literacy Foundation

Celebrating 20 years of helping individuals learn to read, the Dollar General Literacy Foundation has continuously partnered with schools and libraries. In addition to its relationship with the American Library Association (ALA) and the American Association of School Librarians (AASL) to provide aid to school libraries affected by natural disasters, the Foundation has also established Summer Reading and Youth Literacy grants.

The Youth Literacy award provides funding to schools, public libraries, and nonprofit organizations to help students who are below grade level or experiencing difficulty reading. For libraries wanting to create new or expand existing literacy programs, purchase new technology to support early literacy initiatives, or acquire materials for literacy programs, this grant is available to institutions that are located within 20 miles of a Dollar General store. The 2013 Youth Literacy Grant recipients will be announced on August 21, 2013, and the guidelines for the 2014 awards will be available early 2014.

The Summer Reading grants provide funding to help with the implementation or expansion of summer reading programs. Programs must target Pre-K through 12th grade students who are new readers, below grade level readers, or readers with learning disabilities. The 2013 Summer Reading Grant recipients have already been announced, but the 2014 applications will be available January 2014.

Target Foundation

For libraries that are trying to maintain and build up their storytimes, even while facing looming budget cuts, the Target Early Learning Reading Grant can make a world of a difference. Each award is $2,000, and applications are accepted between noon CST March 1 and noon CST April 30 of every year. The Target Foundation aims to fund programs that foster a love of reading and encourage young children, preschool through third grade, to read together with their families.

LEGO Children’s Fund

LEGOs are a childhood staple, and are also useful tools in early learning play. Now the company has created the LEGO Children’s Fund, which provides quarterly grants for programs, either in part or in total, with a special interest to early childhood education and development. Winning programs should also place a strong emphasis on creativity. Interested applicants must complete an eligibility quiz, and then be approved and invited to submit a grant proposal. There are no restrictions on grant amounts, but typical awards are between $500 and $5,000.

Better World Books

Better World Books LEAP Library grants are awarded to institutions that present “Game Changing” ideas which help advance a compelling literacy project. The proposed program should address the literacy needs of underserved populations in the community. Each year, there’s a total of $30,000 in funding available, and the maximum grant amount per project is $15,000. Interested libraries can download the application form on this page, complete it, and return it per the instructions on the form. The 2013 applications were due by April 2013, and the guidelines for next year’s award are to be determined.

Ezra Jack Keats Foundation

Named for the acclaimed author/illustrator, the Ezra Jack Keats Foundation offers minigrants of $500 to public schools and public libraries for programs that support literacy and creativity in children. The projects don’t have to be related to Ezra Jack Keats’s books, but they are welcomed. For inspiration and better idea of the types of programs it has funded, check out the Foundation’s website. Applications for the minigrants are usually due by mid-March.

Libri Foundation

Rural libraries often have limited budgets and staff, and not enough funding for new books for their collection, or to give away for family libraries. The Libri Foundation is a nationwide non-profit organization which donates new, quality, hardcover children’s books to small, rural public libraries. Qualifying libraries should be in a rural area, have a limited operating budget, and an active children’s department. In the past the books have been used for storytelling; toddler, preschool, and after-school programs; summer reading; “book buddy” programs; and early childhood development programs. For more information and to apply by August 15 deadline, visit the website.

First Book

First Book is a non-profit organization that also provides free or discounted books to educators working with low-income families. To see if your library is eligible and to apply for these resources, complete the online registration form available on the site.

Whether at a national, state, or local level, each of these awards require a thorough understanding of your community’s needs, a detailed description of how the funds will be implemented, and most importantly, why should your institution be selected. Rachel Payne, Brooklyn Public Library’s coordinator of early childhood services, suggested that IMLS’s new report on the role of museums and libraries in early learning would be a good starting point for libraries that are applying early learning grants. Growing Young Minds: How Museums and Libraries Create Lifelong Learners cites dozens of examples and 10 case studies, and highlights 10 key ways libraries and museums support children’s early education and summer learning.

Marc Simont created the cover for SLJ‘s
December 2002 Best Books issue.

Acclaimed children’s book creator Marc Simont, who illustrated nearly 100 children’s books, died on Saturday, July 13. He was 97. His many honors include a Caldecott Medal in 1957 for the art in Janice May Udry’s A Tree is Nice (1956), and Caldecott Honors for illustrating Ruth Krauss’s The Happy Day (1949) and his own The Stray Dog (2001, all HarperCollins).

The Paris native, who was born in 1915, was influenced by his Catalan father—Joseph Simont, a staff illustrator for the magazine L’Illustration—to pursue a career in the arts. He attended art school in Paris and immigrated to the United States at age 19, where he trained at the National Academy of Design in New York, alongside Make Way for the Ducklings Caldecott-winner Robert McCloskey. Simont lived his last days in West Cornwall, Connecticut.

During his long career, the prolific author/illustrator collaborated with publishing heavy hitters such as Ruth Krauss, James Thurber, and Margaret Wise Brown, and his art is represented in collections as far afield as the Kijo Picture Book Museum in Japan. His impact, however, is not limited to the children’s literature sphere. He was selected as the 1997 Illustrator of the Year in his hometown of Catalonia, and The Lakeville Journal, a community newspaper near his recent home in Connecticut, regularly featured his political cartoons.

Luann Toth, managing editor of School Library Journal’s book review, served on the Caldecott Committee that chose The Stray Dog as an honor book in 2002. The heartwarming tale chronicles the adoption of a charming dog by two siblings. “We fell in love with the book’s gentle humor yet distinctive line. Simont’s expressive and gorgeously rendered watercolors capture the emotions and energy of the simple story and make it irresistible,” she shares. “Looking back over his long and amazing career, it’s easy to see Simont’s well-earned spot among the greats of children’s literature.”

Kate Jackson, editor-in-chief at Harper Children’s, remembers Simont as a great illustrator and an even greater person. She met Simont for the first time when he dropped off a manila envelope containing the story and art for The Stray Dog, hoping that the publisher would add it to its list. “Reading the story as I looked through the art, I remember thinking that it was absolutely perfect and beautiful as it was,” she tells SLJ.

From editorial to sales, all of Harper’s departments were keen on the book’s presentation, Jackson says, adding, “Anne Hoppe, who was already a great admirer of his work, volunteered to participate in the editorial process as well. It was an altogether joyful experience: a labor of love for the house. As much as the editorial group cherished him, the designers adored him.”

Philip Nel, children’s literature professor at Kansas State University and biographer, recalls his short but memorable experience with Simont. While researching for a biography on the husband-wife team Crockett Johnson and Ruth Krauss, Nel reached out to the artist about his relationship with the pair. “Simont was the illustrator for Krauss’s The Happy Day; and he was such a gentleman,” Nel says. “He was so generous in sharing his memories of the couple and faxing his correspondence about their projects. His passing marks the end of a certain generation of artists that worked on children’s books even before Maurice Sendak: Syd Hoff, Robert McCloskey, P.D. Eastman, Georges Prosper Remi [Hergé].”

Nel also says was struck by the soft-spoken and kind artist’s willingness to help someone he didn’t know, and how he continued to create children’s books late in life, winning Caldecott Honors more than 50 years apart.

Notably, Simont was also responsible for the art in books for older readers. He completed the unique illustrations in Bette Bao Lord’s In the Year of the Boar and Jackie Robinson, and was the longtime collaborator on the “Nate the Great” series (Delacorte) about a child detective and his dog assistant, Sludge. Beverly Horowitz, publisher at Delacorte Press, tells SLJ, “We were deeply saddened to hear the news of Marc’s death. His artwork is iconic to Marjorie Sharmat’s Nate the Great, and will continue to identify the series as a treasured classic to generations of readers.”

Simont illustrated the first 20 books from 1972 to 1998.

Toth described his works as “timeless treasures that will live on for generations to come.”

Adds Jackson, “He was a wonderful, generous, and kind human being, in addition to being so creative. It was such a privilege to know him.”

Simont is survived by his wife, Sarah Dalton Simont, and his son, Marc Dalton Simont.

From The Horn Book: Marc Simont’s Sketchbooks

“Hispanic-Latino families are pioneers in adapting new technologies in their communications practices and approaches to parenting and learning,” Dr. Michael H. Levine, executive director of the Joan Ganz Cooney Center, tells School Library Journal. “The new AJC initiative is intended to better understand those research-based practices and policies that will support young families to grow and prosper in a digital age.”

Adds Emily Kirkpatrick, vice president of NCFL, “We are continually working to develop, implement and improve innovative programs to support and accelerate intergenerational learning among families. [AJC] is a great step towards linking research to program development, merging new technologies with vital learning opportunities.”

The origin of AJC was spurred by the Hispanic-Latino Families & Digital Technologies Forum that convened last June in Washington, DC. Present at the event were experts representing organizations like the Pew Hispanic Center, National Council of La Raza, and the National Center for Latino Child & Family Research. AJC released last week a synthesis [PDF] of that discussion, complete with a report reviewing existing research and best practices in the field. Some of the key points examined included the vast differences among Hispanics from various countries of origin, language and education attainment, and immigration and socioeconomic status.

Mark Lopez, the associate director of the Pew Hispanic Center, points out that “ownership rates and uses of these new digital technologies vary widely within the Hispanic-Latino population, particularly by education level, generational status of immigration, and dominant language,” while Monica Lozano, impreMedia CEO, emphasizes the transformative influence effective digital media use can have on immigrant communities. She argues that, “while the access gap between social groups is diminishing, an information gap remains, making digital literacy a key concern in today’s society.” Participant interviews from the day are also available to the public on YouTube.

AJC would like to work with libraries in the future as a viable location for research and implementation of the council’s findings, although Levine says that would probably not occur before 2014. In the meantime, several field studies are already underway.

AJC will support field studies directed by Dr. Vikki Katz of Rutgers University examining the roll-out of the national Connect2Compete digital media literacy initiative in California and Arizona. It will also conduct an analysis of a national survey conducted by Ellen Wartella of Northwestern University of media usage by Latino parents and their children ages 0–10.

Levine encourages librarians interested in participating in or serving as a site for future research to contact Lori Takeuchi directly. Librarians should specify how such research would serve their local community as well as libraries and Hispanic families more broadly.

Ingrid Abrams

The post by Rosenblum, the founder of Current TV, posited on the growing irrelevance of libraries—and earned the ire of librarians and library supporters everywhere. After several discussions over Twitter on how best to respond, Abrams and Binder established LCML, they say, so that people from all walks of life could share how libraries have made an impact on their lives.

With ongoing budget cuts being made to libraries across the country, their grassroots endeavor aims to bring attention to the resources that these institutions provide to their communities. Of the nearly 50 posts published since its inception on May 13, the majority of entries on LCML are from library users—not library staff.

“We don’t mind submissions from librarians, but we prefer non-librarian [posts],” Abrams tells School Library Journal. “We do our own advocacy, and that’s important. When I advocate, it’s me fighting for my job. But this platform is for the voices that are not being heard. These messages are straight from the patrons themselves.”

Posts highlight the variety of ways that public and school libraries have influenced and shaped the lives of these users, from being a home away from not-so-safe home to helping a person with Asperger’s socialize with other people. In a recent entry, children’s book author Tim Federle shares, “[The library] saved me and changed my life. It was a free workspace in a city defined by its expenses. I wrote vast chunks of my first novel at a library. I return to it now as a kind of church, where the only praying I do involves hoping I’ll complete a chapter before the security guards start switching off the lights.” Other authors have told their own library stories, including Sara Farizan and Marilyn Johnson.

Library staples like storytime, research, internet use, and books are also mentioned on the micro-blog, showcasing the diverse needs of the general community.

“Rosenblum implied that only poor people use library for internet. I don’t appreciate that a place that serves under-resourced people is considered bad,” Abrams says. “But average people use the library every day. We try to show that by posting a variety of users: authors, teachers, and students.”

One high school student from Saegertown, PA goes a step further and includes on the site his petition to stop library cuts in his own school district; it’s been widely shared.

Abrams and Binder encourage all types of submissions, whether visual, video, or anonymous. They can also be sent through the Tumblr website, email, or regular mail. Abrams adds, “We hope that LCML can be a standing reminder that libraries do matter. Even if we don’t always have the funding to back that up, we have the people to back that up.”

Taking place only a couple of months after India’s Declaration of Independence, Gandhi’s historic 24-day Salt March that began on March 12, 1930, is considered by many to be the turning point of his  nonviolence campaign. Forbidden by law to gather salt from the sea, the Indian people were at the subject to the British taxes on this resource that Gandhi noted was, “Next to air and water,…perhaps the greatest necessity of life.” The same high taxes made cloth unaffordable to the impoverished people. And so, Gandhi inspired them to spin their own fabric, and to walk to the beach to gather their own salt, “step by step to freedom.” In the lyrical Gandhi: A March to the Sea McGinty recounts the momentous trek, (which the leader began with only 70 companions), from his ashram community near Ahmedabad to the coast by the village of Dandi. A perfect tie-in to curriculum on the American colonies’ Boston Tea Party, Gandhi’s fist full of salt was a powerful, nonviolent call to action for India, and to the world that finally took notice of the plight of that nation’s population.

Incorporating quotations from the iconic figure’s speeches, McGinty’s poetic prose weaves historical fact into a stirring account of a divided people coming together behind a charismatic leader to take the first steps toward establishing self-rule. Highlighting Gandhi’s belief in a united country, without regard to religion or caste, the book’s text is matched in beauty by Thomas Gonzalez’s sweeping landscapes and mixed-media depictions of the thousands of people who eventually joined the march. Alternating between emotion-filled close-ups and bird’s-eye views of the man and the epic event, the stunning illustrations will draw in students from the elementary through middle school grades, as they offer a look at another country’s cry for freedom.

While Gandhi takes place at the height of man’s career and popularity, the events in Bradbury’s fictional A Moment Comes occur just months before his assassination. The title is inspired by “Tryst with Destiny,” a speech given by Gandhi successor and protégé Jawaharlal Nehru, the first Prime Minster of India, on the eve of India’s official independence and partition, August 14, 1947: “A moment comes, which comes but rarely in history, when we step out from the old to the new; when an age ends; and when the soul of a nation long suppressed finds utterance.” The three main characters in the young adult novel struggle with obtaining their own kind of independence, even as each passing day hearkens the dawn of a newly-partitioned India and Pakistan.

Though the story has brushes of the love triangle trope often found in young adult novels, the plot’s true stars are the perspectives offered by the three very different narrators and the roles they play against the backdrop of this tumultuous period. Each struggles with the trappings of their station: a Muslim clerk to a British official, surrounded by Sikh servants who despise him; a rebellious young white woman who wishes she could love whomever she wants; and a quiet Sikh servant girl, who must provide for her impoverished family, while every day fearing assault. Readers will sympathize with Tariq, the Muslim teen who will do whatever it takes to study at the university level in England, emulating the heroes of Indian independence, Gandhi, Nehru, and Muslim leader Muhammad Ali Jinnah. The aspiring scholar’s dream is endangered when a childhood friend manipulates him into involvement with a group that is terrorizing the retreating colonizers and the Sikh majority. At the same time, Tariq’s family begins to make arrangements for moving to the area that in two months’ time will appear on maps as Pakistan.

The young people’s worlds collide when Tariq finds a potential sponsor and benefactor in Mr. Darnsley, one of the British cartographers carving up India into the two religious states. The boy uses his charm and good looks to win the Oxford man’s flirtatious daughter Margaret to his side, hoping that she will put in a good word and help him realize his dream of an advanced degree. The beautiful Anupreet looks on, still coping with a near rape, and worrying about her family’s safety. The novel’s dramatic climax unites these teens, despite their differences, and the story ends on a tenuous but hopeful note on August 15, the official establishment of the two separate countries.

Whether focusing on Gandhi’s belief that Hindus and Muslims must work together to create a united India, comparing India’s fight for independence to the American colonies’ battle, or recognizing Gandhi’s nonviolence principles in Dr. King’s civil disobedience movement, Gandhi and A Moment Comes offer springboards for discussion on prejudice, imperialism, independence, and freedom.

Photo by Sonya Sones

Longtime School Library Journal blogger Elizabeth Bird, the New York Public Library’s youth materials collections specialist, can add published author to her name this year. Her festive debut picture book, Giant Dance Party (HarperCollins, 2013), is about a girl who overcomes her stage fright by teaching blue fuzzy giants how to dance. SLJ caught up with Bird recently to discuss her unique path to publication, how her work as a children’s librarian informed her experience as a first-time author, and whether Lexy and the giants will be making a repeat performance.

Can you tell us about your path to publishing Giant Dance Party—from writing the manuscript to publication?
It all began in 2009. I had already intended to write a picture book, but I’m the kind of person who waits for the universe to dump something directly into my lap, which is exactly what happened. So when they give people advice about how to get a picture book published, don’t listen to me. My story is strange and wonderful. I found an email from the illustrator Brandon Dorman. I love his work so much. I had mentioned him several times on my blog, and included him on an end-of-the-year roundup list of best book jackets for his work on Jack Prelutsky’s The Wizard (HarperCollins, 2007). He’s just the nicest man ever born. Brandon emailed me and said, ‘Hey, let’s do a picture book together. You write and I’ll illustrate.’ He just had one stipulation: ‘I want to do giants leaping.’

And I responded, ‘Ok!’ We came up with three different picture book ideas, all of which involved giants leaping in some way. He presented them to his editor at Greenwillow, and they picked up two of them, which was remarkable! I got my full two-book deal.

Brandon is the [busiest] man in the world. He does the covers for all of the good books out there, like the “Fablehaven” series (Atheneum), and pretty much every fantasy title on the shelves today. We just couldn’t schedule it. Then our editor left Greenwillow, and whenever that happens you’re left in limbo. We ended up with Virginia Duncan, who turned out to be a godsend. She took one look at my manuscript and said ‘we’re going to have to make some changes.’ And thank God she did; she had the greatest notes. When we began the project, the giants were gross and disgusting, like typical giants. And now, they’re furry and blue. There’s something about furry blue giants that kids adore. I hold up this book in front of kids and they just gravitate towards it like nothing else. The giants’ clothes have never changed, but the giants themselves have become seriously fuzzified.

That took about four years, then.
There were a lot of starts and stops along the way. And then publication dates get pushed back. You think you’re coming out one season and woops, no, you’re coming out on another season. As it turned out, my 35^th birthday was the book release day, so it was fate. It was ‘happy birthday to me.’

What was it like working with Brandon Dorman as an illustrator, especially with your unique relationship?

Usually you submit a manuscript to a publisher and the publisher pairs you up with an illustrator. Author and illustrator usually have no contact at all, working separately with their own edits. Our [collaboration] was very strange in a way. He would send me sketches of what he was thinking of, and I would email him storylines. A few things changed without us being in contact. The blue furry giant thing happened when we were between editors. I didn’t have much say in that, but I was very happy with it. It worked out incredibly well.

And I don’t know how often this happens, or just that Greenwillow is very invested in the quality of their books, but they had me go through the art when it was almost done and I was able to give notes. For example, at one point Lexy was writing with yellow paint, and I couldn’t see the letters very well. And I mentioned that I’d like a little multiculturalism in a scene with a group of girls, and they changed that. I was allowed to make changes to the art because Brandon is a digital artist. That would not have been possible, or even an option if I was working with someone like Paul Zelinksy, who works with more traditional methods.

Do you think your work as a librarian informed your experience as a debut author?
Absolutely. On the one hand, it informed the writing. The book had to be something that could be read aloud. Not every book has to be read aloud to a large group, but it really helps, particularly when you’re doing bookstore appearances. I’ve seen authors and illustrators use PowerPoint, music, and all sorts of things for presentations. I knew that it would just be me reading the book. I do involve furry blue dance warmers and have kids do a dance party, but I needed the words to work. It had to be a story I could read aloud over and over, so that a parent could potentially read it over and over, and not get sick of it.

On the other hand, I was prepared to read in front of groups, because as a librarian I have to do storytimes as part of my job. So far, I’ve had to share Giant Dance Party to classes of three-year-olds one day, and a group of eight- and nine-year-olds the next. And I also have read for adults. You have to be able to read for any group. And each time you have to do it in a different way, and I wouldn’t have been able to do that if I didn’t have my children’s librarian experience. They don’t tell you that to publish a picture book you have to be a performer.

Tell me a little bit about your life after publication. What kind of promotion did you have to do?

For all that I do promoting other people, it is hard to promote myself. It’s hard to go out there saying: ‘Look at me. Me, me, me.’ I kind of already do that in my line of work, but when I usually promote myself, I’m also talking about library events or free programs. But this time is different, because I’m asking people to spend money on me. There’s actually a really good blog, called The Shrinking Violets Promotions, done by two authors who were really shy in terms of self-promotion, which focuses on very simple things that writers can do.

Slowly, I’ve been getting more comfortable with it. It’s fascinating what now constitutes book promotion. Of course you have to make your book video, so I made four. And they involve me being a giant and demonstrating the four different dances highlighted in the book. That was fun. And the publisher had a request that didn’t occur to me: create a Pinterest page for Giant Dance Party, so I did that. I had never created a Pinterest—let alone Tumblr—account. Now these are things that you kind of have to do. My sister made me a website, which is fantastic. On it, I have a teacher’s guide, and recently my publisher asked me to add Common Core guidelines, which I will be doing next. That’s the advantage of being a librarian: I have access and knowledge of these things already.

Now that you’ve had a picture book published, does it change the way you review books on your blog?
Book reviews are a huge part of my blog. There’s another dance picture book this year called Flora and the Flamingo (Chronicle, 2013) by Molly Idle. I had to stop myself from saying, ‘if you buy only one dancing picture book this year, buy that one’ and say instead, ‘if you buy two dancing picture books, buy mine and Flora’. And that’s what I’ve done at my appearances: share related picture books about dancing, parties, and giants. I usually suggest titles like Flora and Jack Prelutsky’s Awful Ogre’s Awful Day (Greenwillow, 2001).

In terms of how I review picture books, my respect for published authors has increased tenfold. You can respect how well an author does something, but until you try to do it yourself, you really don’t respect them enough. My appreciation has also increased for writers of easy readers. It’s like writing a haiku. If you can write a good easy reader such as Mo Willems’s “Elephant and Piggie” titles (Hyperion), then you are a god, as far as I’m concerned.

What would you like children and parents to take away after reading Dance Party?
The book is based very much on my own youth. I took ballet and Scottish dance classes as a child. Lexy, the main character, has stage fright, and is afraid of performing on stage. She finds a way to overcome her fear by helping other people. Dancing with a group was not a problem for me, because on the stage you can’t see the faces in front of you. I didn’t suffer from that particular stage fright, but I was afraid of speaking in public. I want people to take away from the book the fact that these things can be overcome. If you have a fear of some sort, you’re not stuck with it for your entire life. Lexy as a character is very proactive. She thinks that she’s avoiding the problem, but in fact it’s leading her to the solution. And I think that’s actually not a bad way of tackling your problem: hitting it from a different side.

I can’t imagine you having stage fright.
Isn’t it crazy? I was the quietest. In school I never said a word in class. Even now, if you put me in a classroom setting, I never will speak. It’s sort of a holdover. It took me a long time to get over that. I credit librarianship for helping me break out of my shell.

How did you come up with the name of Lexy?

I have a niece named Alexa. The main character was named Alex at first, and then I realized that it was probably not a good idea. She was much younger when I first started the book, but she’s going to pass out of the picture book world very soon. There’s a reason writers don’t put their nieces, nephews, or children’s names into books. I didn’t want to set a precedence for my kids, who would one day ask me, ‘Why is my name is not in a book? You put Alex’s name in the book.’ So I amended it slightly. Let’s just hope that my daughter never catches on to that.

Will we be seeing Lexy and the giants on another adventure?

Probably not with the giants. Spoiler Alert: There are leprechauns at the end of the book. And when they get to the end of it, kids assume that there will be another story, and it will involve leprechauns. But not all books with an ambiguous ending lead to a sequel. Mo Willems’s Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus (Hyperion, 2003) ends with him seeing a truck and wanting to ride it, but there is no sequel with him driving a truck. There are definitely more picture books in my future, but I don’t know if it will be a sequel. We’ll have to see.

Authors and illustrators on SLJ‘s Day of Dialog “Informational Picture Books” panel. (l. to r.) Jonah Winter, Kathleen T. Isaacs (moderator), Thomas Gonzalez, Jim Arnosky, Jennifer Berne, and Elisha Cooper.

Nearly 250 librarians got an information boost from the first panel of authors and illustrators at School Library Journal’s annual Day of Dialog, the pre-BEA event. Moderated by Kathleen T. Isaacs, author of Picturing the World: Informational Picture Books for Children (ALA, 2013), the lively discussion offered Jim Arnosky, Jennifer Berne, Elisha Cooper, Thomas Gonzalez, and Jonah Winter the chance to share more information about their creative processes, who they write for, and why they choose to create nonfiction for young readers.

The prolific Arnosky said he gets inspiration for his work as an outgrowth of his interest in the natural world, which can be seen in his recent Shimmer and Splash (Sterling). “Once I learn about one animal, I wind up learning about a dozen more. My wife and I just get in a truck, go where they live, and stay there for months. It’s a self-perpetuating thing for me.” An illustrator as well as an author, his creative process sometimes starts off as a movielike stream of images, which later gets populated by facts. He knows he’s latched onto a future project when a subject continues to occupy his thoughts. “A book is a special medium; it’s like a poem, or a good song. And it stays with you and becomes a part of your mind,” he shared.

Jonah Winter

Winter also compared writing an informational title to another art form. “An author is like a sculptor. You scrape away at the marble until an actual figure appears.” While writing picture book biographies such as You Never Heard of Willie Mays?! (Random), he is conscious of the images that go along with the story, mindful of the pacing and the format’s usual 32-page count.

Berne agreed with the sculptor motif, and added that, as an author carves away, “somehow the right path appears” which allows you to figure out “what needs to go and what needs to stay.”

Cooper said he relishes working on a project because, “you start off ignorant at first, but then your curiosity takes over, and you fall in love with it.” He added, “there’s an art in the gathering, but an art in the carving down.”

Illustrator Gonzalez, who recently completed work on Alice B. McGinty’s Gandhi (Amazon), spoke from an artist’s point of view. “The pace is given to me, which is a little bit of a challenge, but at the same time it forces me to resolve any issues. I do like to sneak things in here and there; working on a book then becomes like leaving your fingerprint.” Winter responded, “And, that’s what makes a picture book interesting though, the liberties the illustrator can take.”

Thomas Gonzalez and Jennifer Berne

With the current resurgence of nonfiction, especially in light of Common Core State Standards, the need for accuracy in informational books is as important as ever. While the panelists believe that getting the facts right is always a goal, some of them had different opinions on the level of accuracy needed for a children’s title. Gonzalez makes sure to steer clear from anachronisms in his illustrations, “I do spend a lot of time researching on the time period and the subject’s background. You don’t want to include an iPhone in a picture book about Gandhi.”

Berne said she felt strongly that authors are charged with presenting someone’s life to the world, and it’s a crime to change historical facts. “You can see a life through 100 different kinds of lenses, but it still has to be the truth. I feel a real responsibility to the person I’m writing about.” Her On A Beam Of Light: A Story Of Albert Einstein (Chronicle), offers a different look at the famous scientist’s life.

Winter argued, “I believe in staying true to the essence of the figure, but there may be some details that need to be excluded or even altered for the condensed picture book format, which I’ll mention in the author’s note. I know this is a bit controversial, but I want to tell a good story.”

Cooper quipped that in his picture book Train (Scholastic), the trains actually run on time, as opposed to real-life schedules. He shared that the author’s goal is to be factual, but he or she has to move the story forward, and there are countless choices to be made. “We have to draw a line in a certain way.”

(l. to r.) Jim Arnosky and Elisha Cooper

Arnosky, who writes about the natural world, also noted that he treats, “a tree as if it were a historical figure. I feel a responsibility to that tree. And, I don’t want to add anything in my books that kids will have to unlearn later.” Arnosky said he is also very aware of his audience, and is sure to include vocabulary found in everyday conversation. He said candidly, “I don’t use a dictionary. I never did, because if I were talking to my grandsons I wouldn’t try to find a better word, I’d just talk. I make these books for children that are waiting to see another story about animals.”

Berne shared that she writes for kids, and for the adults who read the books to young readers. “It absolutely has to be as good for the adult reader. I try to imagine a whole crowd of people at different ages,” she said, adding that she likes to take into account what the subject of the biography would think about the work as well.

Cooper pictures a smaller audience in his head: “I write for a small group of people who are close to me, who I love and respect.”

The “Real World Horror” panel at SLJ‘s Day of Dialog 2013 included  (l. to r. ) authors Elizabeth Wein, Julie Berry, Elizabeth Scott, Matthew Quick, Adele Griffin, and moderator Karyn Silverman.

Following Holly Black’s keynote on her recent foray in horror, a panel of YA authors shared with nearly 250 children’s librarians what inspired them to write about “tough stuff” at SLJ’s annual pre-BEA Day of Dialog event. Moderated by Karyn Silverman—SLJ blogger and librarian and educational technology department chair of the Little Red School House & Elisabeth Irwin High School—the panel’s discussion flowed from dark to light, touching on topics such as school shootings and Nazi Germany.

Matthew Quick, author of The Silver Linings Playbook on which the Oscar-winning film is based, grew up in a blue collar town “where you didn’t talk about depression or mental health,” and where being a young man who cried about books meant that there was something “profoundly wrong with him.” Quick didn’t read much YA fiction as a teen, but revered Mark Twain, Charles Dickens, and Ernest Hemingway as father figures. His new title, Forgive Me, Leonard Peacock (Little, Brown, 2013), centers on a potential school shooter, and was galvanized by a deeper look into recent alarming events. “Literature is the place where I can tell the truth as I see it. I’ve met so many kids that are like Leonard: kids that so many people would easily dismiss, when really they are dark storms on verge of crisis. I wanted to explore what happens when kids don’t pull the trigger,” shared the former educator-turned-author.

Adele Griffin took inspiration from a personal tragedy when writing Loud Awake and Lost (Knopf, 2013): very much like Amber, her main character, Griffin’s own brother experienced a life-altering car accident that left him and his family indelibly scarred. “Fiction can be so humbling. I don’t know why I got the privilege to write this story, but my brother had to experience the actual tragedy,” she confessed. She enjoys writing for teens because “they’re on the brink of their own lives, and have a certain suppleness to their character. They’re willing to be changed and can still be changed.”

Elizabeth Wein. Code Name Verity author, also endured a similar cataclysmic car accident that resulted in her mother’s death, and left her brother quadriplegic to this day. “This experience in my background is what drives me to write about horrible things, and how despite them, you go on living,” she shared. Wein’s new title, Rose Under Fire (Hyperion/Disney, 2013), is a companion novel for the acclaimed Verity, and follows another brave female pilot who is caught behind enemy lines during World War II and is detained in a Nazi concentration camp.

Known for her hard-hitting novels, Elizabeth Scott’s works are a far cry from the “issue-books” and frothy “Sweet Valley” series that were prevalent during her teenage years. The idea for Heartbeat (HarlequinTeen, 2013), about a girl whose mother is brain-dead and being kept alive by machines for the sake of the unborn baby, came to Scott when she read an obituary about a woman in a similar situation. The author opined, “everyone has a well of misery somewhere in their lives and some people are drawn to it more than others. Writing about the dark places that some of us don’t want to see is incredibly liberating, because you’re telling something that needs to be said.”

Quick shared that he tries to make order out of chaos in his books, and he hopes that readers can understand that “It’s not just chaos. We’re not alone.” His biggest fear is not connecting with people through his writing. “You just hope that when you stick your hand out someone will be there to shake it,” he said. Scott is most afraid of people’s inaction. “I’m afraid of people who look away when something bad is happening. How it can be obvious that someone is suffering, and how easy it is to look away.”

Despite the heavy themes, Silverman pointed out that in each of the panelists’ books, redemption came in the form of friendship, and that in these stories, making connections with other people continued to be a saving grace. Julie Berry, author of All the Truth That’s In Me (Viking, 2013), loves titles with romance, but “one of the things that makes me nuts is when romantic stories are spun so that the love interest is the total focus for the main character. Without friends we’re toast—girls should know that their lives gain richness not from some guy, but by a core of female friends.” The mostly-female panel emphatically agreed.

Friendship is the definitive theme in Wein’s Verity, and makes a comeback in her latest book, she noted. While conducting research on Nazi concentration camps for Rose Under Fire, she discovered a common thread: “From reading the survivor accounts, I gathered that if you didn’t have people to count on, then you wouldn’t make it. Friendship had to be present so that my character could survive.”

Wein added that the underlying theme for her new book is hope, something that the authors agreed the real world—and the teens they write for—need to see more each day. In a place where Sandy Hook and other tragedies continue to be in the news, YA novels can be conduits for teen readers.

And Berry argues that this is good for kids. “The scales are falling from their [teens’] eyes. They see the news; they see the truth in their communities. There is no guarantee that you can make it through life unscathed. There are no answers, but the novel is the closest we can come to approach them; there can be a messy resolution, or a blossom of hope.”

Despite her usual policy of abstaining from heated political interactions on social media, Messner continued the conversation, refusing to be intimidated.

“I’m a writer. Recommending books is probably what I do most in my social media life. Those who follow me are accustomed to that,” Messner tells School Library Journal . “This book connects with what’s going on in the news today. I didn’t think anything of it.”

She explains, “I was at first perplexed about how someone from outside of my Twitter feed, who does not even follow me, could have found my tweet.  And when I looked at the person’s feed and profile, I realized that he or she had to be someone that has set up a search for Islam, and made it their mission to seek out anyone that had something positive to say about the religion.”

The Twitter battle of words was witnessed by many of the author’s supporters and friends, including educators and librarians. A few of them added the title to their future purchase lists, or brought awareness of the book to their own audiences.

Educator and writer Michelle Cusolito, who teaches at Lesley University in Cambridge, MA,  was spurred on to suggest Golden Domes to her local bookstore, Eight Cousins in Falmouth, MA, and to create a Pinterest page for World Religion resources, with Khan’s title its first entry. “What most upset me about the situation was that all Kate wanted to do was promote openness and diversity, and this person was trying to stop that and intimidate her,” Cusolito tells SLJ. “My immediate response is, ‘I have to buy it.’ The second it hit my table, both my kids read it.”

Lauren Strohecker, a school media specialist at McKinley Elementary outside of Philadelphia, PA, tells SLJ that she sympathizes with Messner’s situation, and was disappointed that what Messner meant to be an act of sharing incurred such blowback. “It’s really hard to find books on religion appropriate for younger age groups in a K-6 school library,” Strohecker says. “But it’s important to have these titles available. Kids should have the opportunity to expand their worldview at any age.”

Strohecker has already added Golden Domes to her purchase list for the next school year because of its broad appeal, and plans on using it in a unit about colors. “It’s a book that I can integrate on subjects other than religion,” she explains.

The discussion took place over the course of a few days, with both sides coming to a standstill. Messner says she was shocked at the other party’s continuous harassment and religion bashing, but ultimately chose not to block the person, “Because that conversation—the fact that it happened—opened a lot of people’s eyes to the need for more conversations. Sharing books is powerful, and I think responding to hate with poetry and education is just about the best we can do in this world.”

Strohecker agrees. “We have the choices every day. How do we respond to hate? More hate? Or hope and stories and education? That’s a better route. And if we have that conversation with kids now, we’ll be less likely to see reactions like this one in the future.”

For a list of resources that can be used by parents, classroom teachers, and librarians, see also: Islam in the Classroom

They may be young, but teacher Arturo Avina’s talented kindergarteners are already celebrities in their own right. Students at the Los Angeles Unified School District Olympic Primary Center are the stars of a short-film adaptation of Harry G. Allard Jr.’s beloved children’s classic Miss Nelson Is Missing (Houghton Mifflin, 1977). Over the course of two months, Avina directed the youngsters, filmed the scenes, and, with the help of the budding actors, edited the movie with technology available in most classrooms. The video uses songs by Garbage, Bjork, Blondie, and Madonna to emphasize the story’s montages, and the class can be heard on the background as part of the soundtrack.

Inspired by a similar experience from his elementary school years, Avina embarked on the project with a script he had written while working at a previous school. Each scene had to be shot separately, with the bulk of it being completed during recess and after school.

Even though there was a script already in place, the students had a large say in how each scene was filmed, what lines they chose to make their own, and how they wanted to portray their characters. “Even though I gave up all my breaks to work on this project, it was well worth it to see how their oral language skills improved, and how it gave them something to look forward to every day,” Avina tells School Library Journal.

The video was a collaborative effort, with support from the principal, teachers, students, and parents. “I would sometimes assign difficult lines as homework, or parents would have to stay after school until kids were done for the day,” Avina says. “Even in the editing process, I ran it by the kids each time. We would play with different camera views, effects, and filters. We would discuss how we wanted our story to begin and end. I tried to expose them to the process and let them give as much input as they could.”

The tools that Avina and his class used to create the film weren’t that out of the ordinary. With only a new video camera, the iMovie and Garage Band software found on any Apple computer, and his iPhone for recording the children’s singing voices, they created their musical production. Using Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, and other social media channels, Avina promoted the film to networks of teachers and librarians. It caught the attention of the media and education leaders, such as SLJ blogger Betsy Bird, and teacher-librarian Shannon Miller.

Miller contacted Avina via Twitter and arranged a Q&A Skype session between her own kindergarten students in Van Meter, IA, and his class. “One of the reasons why I reached out to him to connect with our class was because I wanted his kids to take ownership of their great accomplishment,” Miller tells SLJ. “It was really sweet to talk to them and how they worked together and thought of their ideas.”

Arturo Avina

Though the schools are almost 2,000 miles apart, the students shared much in common. “We’re a very rural school in the middle of cornfields, so many of my students haven’t ever been anywhere else,” Miller says. “And it’s the same thing for Art’s kids. Though they’re in a busy city like Los Angeles, they’re just as isolated as we are. He’s given a lot to his kids by connecting them to people on the other side of the country.”

The two classes have also done some collaborative brainstorming and storytime together, and they plan to exchange even more ideas via Skype, including a Tux Paint art project that Miller’s kindergarten class has already begun. She explains, “We have to continue to share and promote stories like this one. A story of how we as teachers can empower kids and help them find their voice and tools to connect with kids all over the world.”

Don’t miss this new video with outtakes and bloopers from Avina’s original Mrs. Nelson film.

In this latest installment of our roundup of new book-based releases, you’ll find updates on already touted future movies as well as news of recent titles that have been optioned for future projects.

Coming Soon

The following adaptations, in order of release date, will be debuting in movie theaters in the coming weeks and months.

Following the success of the Academy Award-winning animated short The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore, William Joyce’s picture book, The Leaf Men and the Brave Good Bugs (HarperCollins, 1996), will make its way to the big screen as a longer animated film entitled Epic (PG). Directed by Chris Wedge, and featuring the voices of Josh Hutcherson (Nod), Amanda Seyfried (Mary Katherine), Colin Farrell (Ronin), Jason Sudeikis (Bomba), and Beyoncé Knowles (Queen Tara), it’s coming to theaters on May 24.

Queen of teen lit Judy Blume’s 1981 young adult classic Tiger Eyes is finally getting a  theatrical debut; the big screen and video-on-demand releases are set for June 7. Directed by Blume’s son Lawrence, the film was given the green light for a film adaptation after more than 30 years in print. It chronicles the story of Davey (played by Willa Holland) a young girl attempting to cope with the sudden death of her father. Amy Jo Johnson (Gwen Wexler) and Tatanka Means (Wolf – Martin Ortiz) also lead the cast.

Based on Tim Tharp’s 2008 National Book Award YA finalist (Knopf, 2007), The Spectacular Now is making the rounds a several independent film circuits, including the 2013 Sundance Film Festival. Directed by Alexandre Aja and showcasing the rising teen stars Miles Teller (Sutter) and Shailene Woodley (Amy), it will have a limited release this summer starting August 2.

Logan Lerman returns to his demigod roots on August 7 in Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, the sequel to Percy Jackson: Lightning Thief, both based on Rick Riordan’s bestselling series. Much of the cast has returned, including Brandon T. Jackson (Grover Underwood) and Alexandra Daddario  (Annabeth Chase). Some new characters to watch for are Douglas Smith as Tyson, Percy’s half-brother, and Leven Rambin as Clarisse La Rue, the daughter of Ares.

Forget about vampires and werewolves—on August 23, the Nephilim (or super-powered half-angels) will take over in The Mortal Instruments: City of Bones, the adaptation of Cassandra Clare’s bestselling series (S & S). Lily Collins portrays Clary Fray, a New York City teen who is thrown in the middle of a secret world of demons when her mother (Lena Headey) is attacked by one. Then she meets Jace (Jamie Campbell Bower), who is the key to understanding who (or what) she really is.

No list would be complete without including the next chapter of the “Hunger Games” phenomenon. Jennifer Lawrence (Katniss), Josh Hutcherson (Peeta), and (Liam Hemsworth) Gale reprise their roles in the action-packed Catching Fire on November 22. Joining the love triangle is a new cast of characters and the talented actors that will portray them, including Jena Malone (Johanna Mason), Philip Seymour Hoffman (Plutarch Heavensbee), and Amanda Plummer (Wiress).

In the Pipeline

Below are several book-to-movie adaptations scheduled to hit theaters next year, for which fans are already anxiously waiting.

The Maze Runner (Delacorte, 2009) by James Dashner is set for a February 14, 2014, release date; the film will be directed by Wes Bell from a screenplay by Noah Oppenheim (redrafted by Grant Myers and T.S. Nowlin), for 20th Century Fox. Leading the cast will be Dylan O’Brien; with Will Poulter (Gally) and Kaya Scodelario (Teresa) also on board to star.

Divergent (HarperCollins, 2011) by Veronica Roth will be released on March 21, 2014, directed by Neil Burger from a screenplay by Evan Daugherty. The star-studded cast began filming April 8 in Chicago, where the futuristic story is set. Getting a “Hunger Games” treatment, the up-and-coming Shailene Woodley (Tris Prior) plays the lead, and she will be surrounded by industry veterans, including Kate Winslet (Jeanine Matthews), Theo James (Four), Jai Courtney (Eric), Ashley Judd (Natalie Prior), Tony Goldwyn (Andrew Prior), Mekhi Phifer (Max), Maggie Q (Tori),  and Zoë Kravitz (Christina).

Classics, At Last

Below are a few book-to-movie adaptations that fans have been awaiting for a long, long time.

Disney’s live-action movie based on Judith Viorst’s 1972 well-known picture book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day (S & S) is making tiny steps closer to the screen. Miguel Arteta is set to direct, and Lisa Cholodenko and Rob Lieber are writing the screenplay. Steve Carrell and Jennifer Garner are set to take on the roles of Alexander’s parents.

Madeleine L’Engle’s beloved A Wrinkle in Time (Farrar, 1962) is to finally be made into a feature film with a script written by Jeff Stockwell, who penned the screen adaptation of A Bridge to Terabithia for Disney in 2007. Disney currently has the rights to the book and is working on the new version with Bedrock, which had negotiated rights to the property from the L’Engle estate.

And while Jane Austen’s first published novel has been remade again and again, a new iteration might be making it to the big screen that is quite different than its predecessors. Panorama will produce, finance, and rep foreign sales for a film adaptation of the bestselling mash-up novel Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (Quirk, 2009) by Seth Grahame-Smith. David O. Russell has written the screenplay but is not officially attached yet as director. Several producers and directors have been linked to the project in the past few years, with Natalie Portman reportedly cast in the lead. However, many of principals have left the project, and Lily Collins announced recently that she will be starring.

Building Buzz

Several more adaptations have been announced in recenty, although firm details about those projects are continuing to unfold.

John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars (Dutton, 2012) will be produced by Fox 2000 and directed by Josh Boone from a screenplay by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber. It will star Shailene Woodley (Hazel), yet the role of Augustus “Gus” Waters has not yet been cast. Currently it’s one of the most sought after roles in Hollywood, with many young male actors vying and testing for the part. Some of those actors in the running are Brenton Thwaites, Nat Wolff, Nick Robinson, Noah Silver, and Ansel Elgort. Rumored to be in the running: Logan Lerman and Aaron Taylor-Johnson. Stay tuned!

Made official only yesterday, Lionsgate has hired Jack Thorne to adapt R.J. Palacio’s bestselling and award-winning Wonder (Knopf, 2012). David Hoberman and Todd Lieberman are producing for Mandeville Films.

Stephanie Sanditz is writing the screenplay for a film adaptation of Cassandra Clare’s “The Infernal Devices” (S & S)  for Constantin Film.

Piers Ashworth is writing the screenplay based on Kristin Cashore’s Graceling (Harcourt, 2008) for Reliance Entertainment & Kintop Pictures. The film version will be produced by Deepak Nayar, Tabrez Noorani and Leigh Ann Burton.

Director Mikael Håfström has signed on to direct an adaptation of Roderick Gordon and Brian Williams’s Tunnels (Scholastic/Chicken House, 2007) for Relativity Media. The screenplay is being written by Andrew Lobel, Joel Bergvall, and Simon Sandquist.

Producer David Heyman is eyeing an adaptation of Leigh Bardugo’s Shadow and Bone (Holt, 2012).

CBS Films is pursuing film versions of Marie Lu’s Legend and Prodigy (Putnam), with Jonathan Levine attached as director.

Stuart Beattie is writing a screenplay of Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke & Bone (Little, Brown, 2011) for producers Joe Roth and Palek Patel at Universal Pictures.

Michael Scott is writing the screenplay to adapt his own book The Alchemyst (Random, 2008) for producers Mario Andreacchio, Konstantin Thoeren, Stefan Brunner, and Scott and Barry Krost at AMPCO Films. Eric Bress was previously attached as director, but has reportedly dropped out of the project.

Annie Sage’s Septimus Heap: Magyk (HarperCollins, 2004) is getting a screenplay written by Peter Craig for producers Karen Rosenfelt and Angie Sage at Warner Bros. David Frankel is set to direct.

Director Rob Letterman has signed on for an adaptation of R. L. Stine’s Goosebumps (Scholastic) from producer Neal H. Moritz, for Sony Pictures and Scholastic Entertainment.

Screenwriter Charlie Kaufman will take on Patrick Ness’s Chaos Walking: The Knife of Never Letting Go (Candlewick, 2008) for Doug Davison at Lionsgate.

Catherine Fisher’s Incarceron (Dial, 2010) has been newly optioned by AMBER Entertainments, replacing its previous agreement with Fox that had Taylor Lautner attached to star.

Producers Tobey Maguire and Graham King are looking to bring Rick Yancey’s The 5th Wave (Putnam, 2013) to the screen through GK Films.

Producers David Katzenberg and Seth Grahame-Smith are bringing Maggie Stiefvater’s The Scorpio Races (Scholastic, 2011) to the big screen with Warner Bros.

Director Tim Burton will be adapting Ransom Riggs’s Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children (Quirk, 2011) from a screenplay by Jane Goldman.

Warner Brothers, Heyday Films, and Benderspink will be collaborating on Dan Krokos’s The Planet Thieves (Tor, 2013). Producers Pouya Shahbazian and David Heyman are reportedly attached.

Meanwhile, on the Small Screen

Film producers aren’t the only ones mining the bookshelf for great ideas. Production is already underway for such popular series as Lauren Oliver’s Delirium (HarperCollins) and The Selection (HarperCollins, 2012) by Kiera Cass. The re-vamped pilot of Cass’s work is cross between The Bachelorette and the “Hunger Games” series; the now older cast stars Yael Grobglas (America Singer), Michael Malarkey (Prince Maxon), Celia Massingham (Celeste), and Lucien Laviscount (Aspen Leger). The CW drama is being written by Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain, and directed by Alex Graves.

Shonda Rhimes, creator of ABC television shows Grey’s Anatomy, Private Practice, and Scandal, is producing a version of Debra Driza’s sci-fi thriller MILA 2.0 (HarperCollins, 2013). Dave DiGilio will write the drama project, with Betsy Beers also producing.

FilmColony has acquired Lizabeth Zindel’s Girl of the Moment (Viking, 2007), hoping to adapt the YA novel as a half-hour comedy series. Development executive Melanie Donkers will produce, with Richard N. Gladstein and Zindel signed on as writers.

As-Yet Unpublished

Several film adaptations are reportedly in the works for as-yet unpublished works.

Acquired in a major literary auction, Cristin Terrill’s debut novel All Our Yesterdays, set to be published by Disney-Hyperion this September, has already been optioned by Global Produce and Gold Circle Entertainment. Brian Miller has been tapped to adapt Terrill’s novel for film. The book is “set in the near-future when a young woman must travel back in time to kill her first love before he destroys her present-day world,” according to the publisher.

Columbia Pictures has preemptively acquired the rights to Arwen Elys Dayton’s YA novel Seeker (Delacorte, 2015), with the Mark Gordon Company attached to produce the film adaptation. Producers include Hannah Minghella and Michele Wolkoff, with Rachel O’Connor and Eric Fineman. The futuristic trilogy will focus on Quin Kincaid “who has been put through years of brutal training for what she thinks is the noble purpose of becoming a revered ‘Seeker.’ Only when it’s too late does she discover she will be using her new found knowledge and training to become an assassin,” according to the publisher.

Slated for publication in 2014 by Penguin, the first title in Sally Green’s new series of books will be adapted for the screen by producer Karen Rosenfelt for Fox. Half Bad launches the series about two factions of witches that are locked in an eternal battle between evil and good.

Illustration by Mark Tuchman

School Library Journal’s fifth annual Battle of the Kids’ Books (BOB), our online elimination contest between 16 of 2012’s best children’s and teens’ fiction and nonfiction books, has crowned a winner: Vaunda Micheaux Nelson’s No Crystal Stair (Lerner/Carolrhoda). The final match was decided on April 1 by last year’s victor and the 2013 Big Kahuna, Frank Cottrell Boyce.

In her biographical documentary novel about Lewis Michaux, Nelson “recounts her great-uncle’s enterprising and unflinching efforts to enrich and empower fellow African Americans” with the establishment of the African National Memorial Bookstore in Harlem. It has already garnered several accolades, including the Coretta Scott King Book Honor, the Horn Book-Boston Globe Award, and SLJ Best Book.

“Watching from the sidelines was exciting, enlightening, and nerve-racking. My fingernails couldn’t have taken much more, so I’m glad the battle is over and thrilled, obviously, with the outcome,” Nelson tells SLJ, noting that she anxiously kept track of the exciting results as each match brought her title closer to the finish line. “Hooray! What an honor to have been amidst the 15 other wonderful contenders. All of the judges—Paul Griffin, James Patterson, Catherine Gilbert Murdock, and Frank Cottrell Boyce—in their commentaries, gave me thoughtful new ways of seeing Lewis, his journey, and his contribution.”

And it’s not just the authors who closely tracked the results; publishers got in on the action, too, including Nelson’s editor Andrew Karre, editorial director of Carolrhoda Books. Karre says he believes Lewis Michaux would’ve been tickled by the BOB tournament results. “The idea of books struggling to beat all odds would’ve made so much sense to him,” he tells SLJ. “We’re really proud to have helped bring this book to fruition.”

Penguin Young Readers Battle of the Kids’ Books Trophy

At Penguin Young Readers, a trophy of goodies awaited the person who correctly guessed the most accurate outcomes in this year’s BOB. In a tradition that began four years ago (at the time, among only four editorial assistants), this year, 20 staffers pooled together bags of candy to be part of the publisher’s in-house BOB competition. Then Dutton editorial assistant Andrew Harwell (now an editor at HarperCollins) and Dial assistant editor Heather Alexander created the papier-mâché trophy and helped orchestrate the complicated Harry Potter-like point system.

As one of this year’s organizers, assistant editor Claire Evans, explains, “Each person prints off the bracket from the SLJ website and fills it out (including their Undead Poll pick). Each day the score keeper will update the scores and send them along to our commentator who will send out a mass email summarizing the verdict, the scores, and anything else that piques his interest. First round picks are worth two points, second round picks are worth four points, and third round picks are worth eight points. If you guess the ‘Back from the Dead’ book correctly, you get 12 points (like Harry Potter’s snitch), and getting the overall winner right is worth 16 points.”

Schools and libraries across the country also participated in the “March Madness”-style competition. In Texas, district library director Donna Cook incorporated BOB into Pollok’s Central High School programming. “It was a lot of work, but I’ve been astonished this week with all the chatter around the school about those books. I ended with 137 kids making at least one prediction and most making five or more,” she tells SLJ. “In the first weeks I was thinking, ‘I don’t know if I’ll ever do this again.’ Now I’m thinking ‘I have to do this again.’”

Most of the Penguin participants had slotted John Green’s In the Fault of Our Stars (Dutton, 2012) for the win because of its acclaim, but no one expected No Crystal Stair to go all the way. Alexander, chiming in from Paris, checked her work email to hear the final results, and was happy to find that she has the honor of walking away with the coveted sugary Penguin prize.

“I voted for Code Name Verity as my Undead Pick,” she says, a choice that gave her the most amount of points. “I felt so bad about knocking it off my brackets so early. So now that I have the trophy for a year, I can embellish it and make some much needed repairs to it.”

Below is a roundup of all of the resources and links for this year’s Battle of the Kids’ Books. We hope that next year can join in on the fun! Congrats to all of the contenders!

How did your school or library celebrate Battle of the Kids’ Books? Feel free to share in the comments section.

SLJ Coverage:

SLJ’s Battle of the Kids’ Books Final Results
SLJ’s Battle of the Kids’ Books Round Two Results
SLJ’s Battle of the Kids’ Books Round One Results
SLJ’s Battle of the Kids’ Books Starts Today

Downloadable Graphics

For many, seeing which fun illustration SLJ art director Mark Tuchman would create next was almost as important as finding out which book made it to the next round. From a complete bracket listing of the contenders to the colorful winner’s circle image of a bespectacled Lewis Michaux-shaped tome, fans can still download full scale, high resolution graphics designed for BOB.

Peanut Gallery

Reactions and comments from the internet, via social networking sites, blog posts, and news stories are highlighted in several Peanut Gallery blog posts, making it an interactive activity.

Pinterest

The image that always accompanied Roger Sutton’s commentary on BOB judges

For the first time ever, BOB results and fan-made art and displays were featured on SLJ’s Pinterest account this year.

Commentary

SLJ blogger Liz Burns kept track of her BOB predictions on her A Chair, A Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy blog, sharing her opinions on the judge’s assessments.

The Horn Book’s Roger Sutton put the judges in the hot seat, pitting their analyses against each other. His most important criteria? Which author-judge was the most critical of the books, discussing both faults and strengths of each competitor?

Other No Crystal Stair and Vaunda Micheaux Nelson resources:

No Crystal Stair Editor Reacts to BOB Win

Picture: Vaunda Micheaux Nelson and R. Gregory Christie at the Horn Book Colloquium

No Crystal Stair Wins Coretta Scott King Book Honor Award

2012 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award Winners Unveiled

Teaching Books.Net: This Meet-the-Author Book Reading with Vaunda Micheaux Nelson

Ava Nadel and Sonia Manzano
Photos by Ed Gourdine

An audience of 230 budding writers and their loved ones greeted Sonia Manzano with cheers and excited whispers on March 22, welcoming the celebrated Latina actress and 15 Emmy Award-winning screenwriter as the special guest speaker for the opening event of Girls Write Now’s CHAPTERS Reading series. Best-known as “Maria” from the long-running PBS show Sesame Street, Manzano has recently added acclaimed young adult author to her list of many accomplishments: her Revolution of Evelyn Serrano (Scholastic, 2012) garnered a Pura Belpré Honor.

After a clip of Sesame Street “Maria” milestones, the crowd was treated to a reading from Manzano’s historical fiction novel, which is set in1969 Spanish Harlem. The book’s backdrop includes the rising popularity of Young Lords Party—a Puerto Rican activist group. The author shared with the crowd that the title character’s struggles were modeled after the feelings and issues she herself experienced during this tumultuous time.

“The story of Evelyn trying to choose between her more traditional mother and her radical grandmother came from my own self-conscious feelings about being Latin at that time,” Manzano said. “I felt invisible, because I wasn’t being reflected in society.” She went on to give writing advice and words of encouragement and empowerment.

Mentor Pam Bayless and teen writer Suleyma Cuellar performing her poem, “Is There More to Life?”

The first of an ongoing reading series, this debut night of CHAPTERS included 18 teen participants, who read their best poems, personal essays, short stories, or excerpts from longer works to a group of teachers, friends, family members, and mentors. The selections ranged in tone, from the poignant subway ride reflection, “Not Just a Stranger” by Mariah Teresa Aviles, to the morbidly funny paranormal romance, “Luca” by Mennen Gordon. Many of the performances were a collaborated effort and featured not only the mentees, but included mentors as well.

Now in its 15th year, Girls Write Now is the first organization in the country with a writing and mentoring model exclusively for girls. It pairs talented, at-risk public high school students with women mentors in all areas of writing professions. It also boasts a 100 percent high school graduation and college attendance rate, and many of these young women have writing honors such as the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards already under the belts. Some of the mentees go on to become published writers, like CHAPTERS emcee and poet Jeanette Anderson, whose work has appeared in The Broome Review and Mslexia.

Sponsored by Open Road Media, and supported by Writers House LLC, Penguin, and Random House Children’s Books, the CHAPTERS series continues with stellar authors like Adele Griffin on April 19, Gayle Forman on May 17, and Marcia Ann Gillespie on June 14. All of the readings will be hosted held Scholastic headquarters and occur from 6pm to 8pm ET.

As dwindling funds and looming budget cuts reach many of the nation’s public libraries, 12 institutions received $5,000 mini-grants to support programming in their diverse communities. After a time-intensive process, the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) recently gifted these Día Family Book Club Program awards to expand El día de los niños/El día de los libros (Día) into an ongoing yearlong celebration. The winning libraries give SLJ some insights into how they garnered the much-needed funds.

Founded in 1997 by children’s author Pat Mora—with the help from the National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish-Speaking (REFORMA)—Día (Children’s Day/Book Day), “emphasizes the importance of literacy for children of all linguistic and cultural backgrounds” and culminates yearly on April 30. The winning libraries ranged widely in diversity of population, grant application-savvy, and level of experience in celebrating Día.

The grant announcement came right on time for Linda Atkinson of Joliet Public Library, IL. The early childhood literacy coordinator had been looking for a way to expand programming for her growing Latino community, and was already planning the library’s first official Día celebration. “The 2010 Census showed us that Spanish-speakers make up a third of our city’s population,” she tells School Library Journal. “We had already started a bilingual storytime to address that change. For us, Día is every day.”

Joliet will be using its grant funds to host a six-week bilingual family book club which will focus on early literacy skills, with guest appearances by Spanish storyteller Marina Morino, folk dancers, and Paleta the ice cream man, Atkinson says.

Lucía Gonzalez is not a stranger to the Día party. The library director at North Miami Public Library, FL, has celebrated the book fiesta in every institution she has been employed. She piloted a similar book club program when she began as director two years ago. Because of her past experience, the mini-grant was a perfect fit for what she had already implemented at the library, she tells SLJ.

A predominantly Haitian American community, North Miami’s first book club session will kick off with visits by a Haitian American author to the participating 12 elementary schools in the area, and then continue with book club meetings every two weeks. “There will be a facilitator and a translator, and a bilingual book discussion led by local storyteller Lilian Nerette Louise,” says Gonzalez. “Parents will have the experience of reading books together with their children. They are mostly working parents and it’s very hard to get them to the library. We’re also offering them a nice sit-down dinner.”

The mini-grants are part of the Everyone Reads @ Your Library grant awarded to ALSC from the Dollar General Literacy Foundation, and applicants had be located within 20 miles of a Dollar General Store, distribution center, or corporate office.

In fact, the East Branch Library in Irving, Texas is housed in the same building as the city’s local Dollar General, and Senior Librarian Corine Barberena sees the grant as an opportunity to recharge its Día program, which hadn’t been organized in the past few years. Her “Books Matter at Your Library” program will be mostly after school, and will be incorporating technology as part of the bilingual storytime portion. Barbarena anticipates using some of the grant funds to purchase an Elmo Digital Visual presenter and the online picture books website, Tumblebooks, to project the print text in order to facilitate English and Spanish language learning, she tells SLJ. However, she plans to go the traditional route for the program launch on April 29: the Artes de la Rosa group from Fort Worth will be performing Pinocchia, a bilingual version of Pinocchio.

Barberena says the service-oriented Irving community has already responded to the impending program with interest. “We have a long list of partners, and hope to work with them to host the bilingual book club sessions in various venues, including the parks recreation center and many of the schools,” she notes. “The library is housed in the county Human Services building, so all of the local social service agencies will be advertising and promoting for us.”

Florida’s Orlando Public Library youth programs assistant Jackie Padilla and youth outreach coordinator Natalie Houston also found that having strong relationships and partnerships with local businesses and talent was a big plus in applying for this award. Community groups, Houston says, can “either help spread the news about programs, or donate their time and services. We’ve used a local deejay for entertainment, a Cuban bakery for refreshments, etc. But these relationships have to be built over time.”

Houston, who wrote the grant for this award, says another boon in their favor was that they had already done a lot of the research needed for the application for previous grants. Most of the legwork had been completed before the deadline, which helped them reach the quick turnaround date. Padilla stresses the need to understand and continually evaluate programs and community. This will be Orlando’s seventh Día program, and the library will extend the celebration into the whole year until next April with bilingual storytimes and its “Cuentame un cuento /Tell Me a Story Book Club.” Some of the picture books featured will include Susan Middleton Elya’s Say Hello to Spanish as an introduction to vocabulary, and a perennial favorite, a Fisher Price CD with Spanish cultural songs as the final giveaway.

Most of the winning libraries tell SLJ that they will use the grant to aid in longstanding children’s services goals.

Youth services librarian Lani Revell, at the City of Palmdale Library, CA, hopes to encourage an intergenerational connection among with the four programs that the min-grant will be funding in her library. Some of the books discussed will include Tony Johnston’s My Abuelita and Grace Lin’s Where the Mountain Meets the Moon. “These stories emphasize storytelling and sharing memories with the whole family,” she says.

Tina Viglucci, Hispanic services manager at Gail Borden Public Library, Elgin, IL, will integrate her book club within Gail Borden’s STEM-focused programming. As a precursor to the library’s summer reading activities, its sessions will introduce children to community gardening during its “Forest Fiesta,” and even focus on geology when it becomes a stop on the Super Croc—the largest crocodile fossil unearthed—tour, hosted by Project Exploration. The “Libros Books Family Fiestas” program will target the 8–11 age group. “We saw that attendance at the library usually started to drop off around third to sixth grade. We hope that these programs will help plant the seeds of literacy,” says Viglucci.

Tracee Yawger, head of children’s services for Montgomery County’s Norristown Public Library, PA, began a Día celebration with her local elementary school when the 2010 Census showed a dramatic 196 percent increase of the town’s Hispanic population. Yawger credits school principal Jeanette Fernandez for fostering a climate of inclusion for Hispanic parents. “Because of our partnership with the school, we were able to have a library card drive to make it easy for Latino parents to get kids cards without being intimidated, since they’ve already provided personal information to the school,” she tells SLJ. “Now, 86 percent of the student body has cards.” Working with volunteers from Bryn Mawr College’s “Mujeres” group and the school district’s parent association has also proved to be a huge resource, she says.

Día events are not just for the Latino population. Yawger plans to have all storytimes in English, Spanish, and American Sign Language (ASL), “to give the program a more inclusive feel because we can all benefit from this.”

Herb Landau, library director of the Lancaster Public Library, PA, wants to emphasize the ways the different cultural groups of his community are the same. “Our patrons come from backgrounds as varied as Latino, Amish, Nepali, and Egyptian,” he says. “Our library’s citizenship class has at least 28 nationalities represented. Food is a common denominator, and so we decided to modify our popular adult multicultural cooking program for families and children: Cocina y Culturas Familiares/Cultures and Cooking for Families.”

Coordinated by children and teen services manager Jessica Pérez Blasko, Lancaster’s program will include three family book club readings of a multilingual children’s book which will focus on a type of universal food such as flatbreads: tortilla (Mexican), roti and naan (Indian), pancakes (Kenyan), matzo (Jewish),  and pita (Greek). For grant applications, it’s important that applicants respond to needs of the community after thorough assessment, Landau says, adding, “We found that events food in our community generally draws in people. A local joke is that eating is a hobby here. Think out of the box and be imaginative.”

Only 12 libraries received the mini-grants but that shouldn’t stop libraries from celebrating the special day. Día promotes reading and appreciation of different cultures.

Vilma Martinez of Springdale Public Library, AK, who will be hosting a multicultural-themed book club called MOSAIC, suggests displaying and reading multicultural books during storytime. “Make your regular storytime fun and interactive. Decorate with balloons and have refreshments. Even hang up a piñata. It doesn’t have to be too expensive,” she says.

Elizabeth Marcus, children’s librarian at Finkelstein Memorial Library, Spring Valley, NY, encourages those who want to make their own fiesta to use already established partnerships to make your celebration special. “We’re libraries. We have and are built-in resources.”

Illustration by Mark Tuchman

For some, March Madness means watching college teams fighting to the finish in a yearly basketball tournament. But for kid lit fans, it hearkens the return of School Library Journal’s fifth annual Battle of the Kids’ Books (BOB). The online elimination contest that pits 16 of 2012’s best children’s and teens’ books kicked off today, March 12, with celebrated YA author Kenneth Oppel’s verdict: R. J. Palacio’s middle grade novel Wonder (Random) versus Steve Sheinkin’s distinguished Bomb (Roaring Brook/Flashpoint).

Oppel and many of the most popular authors writing for kids, comprise a panel of judges that will decide the contenders’ fates in a winner-take-all competition. The authors will read two books, and after close analysis will determine which title advances to the next round. This stellar group includes James Patterson, Franny Billingsley, Marie Lu, and Thanhha Lai. The judges have no easy task before them. They must decide between nonfiction and fiction, children’s and teen, historical fiction and contemporary works.

Fans can follow and comment on the action on the Battle of the Kid’s Books blog. There, readers can keep track of which favorite meets its doom or rises to the top by downloading the illustrated bracket. Readers also had the opportunity to save their darlings in the Undead Poll, which closed on Sunday, March 10. If a book meets its end early in the competition, it might have the chance to rise from the ashes in the last round, which will be judged by last year’s winner (and Big Kahuna) Frank Cottrell Boyce. He will choose among the Undead Poll winner and the last two books left standing. The grand prize winner will be announced on April 1.

Fatima Ptacek with Manhattan kindergarteners dressed as The Cat in the Hat during Read Across America Day. Photo by Luke Fontana.

A lucky kindergarten class in midtown Manhattan’s PS/IS 111 received a real treat on March 1 in honor of Saturday’s Read Across America Day. Wearing their handmade, Cat in the Hat-inspired paper hats and sitting patiently in their school library, they were greeted by a stellar storytime volunteer with a recognizable voice. “Hola, I’m Dora,” Fátima Ptacek began, as the stunned, pint-sized audience members’ hands flew to their mouths.

A member of the Screen Actors Guild Foundation children’s literacy program BookPALS, the 12-year-old actress—fresh off her leading role in the Academy Award-winning short Curfew—shared Susan Middleton Elya’s No More Por Favor (Putnam, 2010) and the Dr. Seuss classic Mr. Brown Can Moo! Can You? with the rambunctious crowd. Ptacek encouraged kids to read as much as they could because “reading helps you take all kinds of journeys. When you read you become part of the story.” She also praised the children present (who all spoke at least one other language at home) for their knowledge and creativity.

The reading was co-hosted by the Brooke Jackman Foundation (BJF), an organization headed by Erin Jackman, a former teacher at the school, who lost her sister on 9/11; BJF aims to be a living legacy to the 23-year-old who had dreams of becoming a social worker and had a passion for literacy and helping children. The PS/IS 111’s school library is named after Brooke Jackman and has been stocked by the organization, in addition to its after-school library.

PS/IS 111′s principal Irma Medina said she appreciates her school’s active relationship with both the BJF and BookPALS, and especially Ptacek’s participation. “Kids should see other kids reading, and that it’s active part of our daily lives. In English, Spanish, any language, it enriches us,” she told School Library Journal. She also praised her school’s librarian, Rose Guerrero, who is new to the school this year but has already immersed herself in the school’s day-to-day routine, she said.

Ptacek, whose favorite books include the “Sisters Grimm” (Abrams) and “Harry Potter” (Scholastic) series, and Jon Steinbeck’s Of Mice and Men, credits her librarians, teachers, and parents for instilling in her the love for reading. She encourages librarians to promote reading, and to use any technique or method possible to give the power of literacy to the next generation, because “books are beautiful.”

BFJ works with many other libraries, schools, homeless shelters, and Family Justice Centers, and has distributed 20,000 Brooke Packs (backpacks filled with books and school supplies) to children and families in need in the New York tri-state area. BJF most recently partnered with BookPALS in December at an event for Sandy victims in East Rockaway, NY.

“We have the books, and they bring them to life,” said Erin Jackman, executive director of the BJF.

In fact, 2013 already promises a packed calendar of book-related film projects based on popular kid and young adult titles. Check out this roundup of releases that will have your students and patrons heading to the theater—and, hopefully, to bookshelves as well.

Coming Soon

The following adaptations, in order of release date, will be debuting in movie theaters in the coming weeks and months.

Oz the Great and Powerful (PG), starring James Franco, Michelle Williams, and Mila Kunis, opens in theaters everywhere on March 8. Directed by Spiderman trilogy master Sam Raimi, it’s inspired by Frank L. Baum’s classic, The Wizard of Oz.

Hoping to replicate the Twilight saga’s runaway success, the film version (PG-13) of Stephenie Meyer’s The Host (Little, Brown, 2008), which chronicles the tale of Melanie Stryder’s (Saoirse Ronan) struggle against a parasitic alien that wants to use her to destroy humanity, premieres March 29.

The Roaring Twenties come to life in Baz Lurhmann’s dizzying adaptation (PG) of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby. On May 10, moviegoers will watch a star-studded cast, including Leonardo DiCaprio (Jay Gatsby), Carey Mulligan (Daisy Buchanan), and Tobey Maguire (Nick Carraway). Though not a children’s book, it’s certainly a high school curriculum favorite.

Logan Lerman, fresh off his leading role in Perks of Being a Wallflower, steps back into demigod shoes on August 16 in Percy Jackson: Sea of Monsters, the sequel to Percy Jackson: Lightning Thief, both based on Rick Riordan’s bestselling series.

The first title in Cassandra Clare’s “The Mortal Instruments” series, City of Bones (S & S, 2007), will be making its way to the big screen on August 23. Lily Collins portrays Clary Fray, a teen from New York City who discovers the secret world of Shadowhunters (super-powered half-angels) when her mother (Lena Headey) is kidnapped by a demon.

The Seventh Son will be coming to theaters on October 18. This dark fantasy is based on the first installment of Joseph Delaney’s “Wardstone Chronicles” (HarperCollins), The Spook’s Apprentice. Ben Barnes plays the title character, and Jeff Bridges and Julianne Moore also star.

Sci-fi classic Ender’s Game (St. Martin’s Pr., 1985) by Orson Scott Card will finally be getting the film treatment in this November 1 release. Asa Butterfield, the movie’s star who has been in several book adaptations (Hugo Cabret, Boy in the Striped Pajamas), portrays a military child genius who must save the world from evil aliens. Gavin Hood is both the director and screenwriter. The cast also includes Abigail Breslin (Valentine Wiggin0, Hailee Steinfeld (Petra Arkanian), Harrison Ford (Colonel Hyrum Graff), and Sir Ben Kingsley (Mazer Rackham). Not originally published as a YA novel, it has an avid teen following.

In the Pipeline

Below are several book-to-movie adaptations, scheduled to hit theaters next year, for which fans are already anxiously waiting.

The Maze Runner (Delacorte, 2009) by James Dashner is set for a February 14, 2014, release date; the film will be directed by Wes Bell.

Vampire Academy (Penguin/Razorbill, 2007) by Richelle Meade is also set for a February 14, 2014 release; the film adaptation, called Blood Sisters, will be directed by Mark Waters from a screen play by Daniel Waters. It will star Zooey Deutch (Rose Hathaway), Lucy Fry (Princess Lissa), and Danila Kozlovsky (Dimitri).

Divergent (HarperCollins, 2011) by Veronica Roth will be released on March 21, 2014, directed by Neil Burger from a screenplay by Evan Daugherty. It reportedly will star Shailene Woodley (Tris) and Kate Winslet.

Building Buzz

Several more adaptations have just been announced in recent weeks, although firm details about those projects are continuing to unfold.

John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars (Dutton, 2012) will be produced by Fox 2000 and directed by Josh Boone from a screenplay by Scott Neustadter and Michael H. Weber. It reportedly will star either Shailene Woodley or Hailee Steinfeld.

Gayle Forman’s If I Stay (Dutton, 2009) will be produced by Summit Entertainment and directed by RJ Cutler. It will star Chloë Moretz (Mia).

Marcus Zusak’s The Book Thief (Knopf, 2006) will be produced by Karen Rosenfelt at Fox 2000 and directed by Brian Percival. It will star Sophie Nélisse (Liesel), Geoffrey Rush and Emily Watson (foster parents), Ben Schnetzer (Max), and Nico Liersch.

A live-action adaptation of John Rocco’s Blackout (Hyperion/Disney, 2011) will be produced by John Rocco and Ivana Schecter-Garcia at Fox 2000. Will Davies is writing the screenplay. A director has not yet been named.

A new version of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden will be produced by Guillermo del Toro and Mark Johnson from a screenplay by Lucy Alibar. It will be reportedly set in the American Southwest. A director has not yet been named.

Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book (HarperCollins, 2008) will be produced by Disney and directed by Ron Howard.

Lois Lowry’s The Giver (Houghton Mifflin, 1992) will be produced by Nikki Silver and reportedly directed by Phillip Noyce. It is set to star Jeff Bridges (The Giver).

Kendare Blake’s Anna Dressed in Blood (Tor Teen, 2011) will be produced by Stephenie Meyer for Fickle Fish.

Not Yet Published

Several film adaptations are reportedly in the works for as-yet unpublished works.

An adaptation of Margaret Stohl’s Icons (Little, Brown, 2013) will be produced by Alcon Entertainment from a screenplay by Massy Tadjedin. A director has not yet been named.

The film version of Josin L. McQuein’s Arclight (HarperCollins/Greenwillow, 2013) will be produced by Universal Pictures/Imagine Entertainment from a screenplay by Matthew Sand. A director has not yet been named.

Meanwhile, on the Small Screen

Film producers aren’t the only ones mining the bookshelf for great ideas. Television network Nick Jr. has already premiered its new CG-animated series The Tales of Peter Rabbit on February 19; it follows the adventures of Peter Rabbit and many other of Beatrix Potter’s beloved animal characters. Other small-screen adaptions include:

Kiera Cass’s The Selection (HarperCollins, 2012) is set to premiere on the CW network. It will be directed by Mark Piznarski, written by Elizabeth Craft and Sarah Fain, and will star Yael Grobglas (America Singer), Peta Sergeant (Commander Gaia Woods), and Sean Patrick Thomas (Sylvan Santos).

Lauren Oliver’s Delirum (HarperCollins, 2011) will debut on Fox. It will be written by Karyn Usher and produced by Karyn Usher, Peter Chernin, Katherine Pope, Paul Mazur, and Mitchell Kaplan at 20th Television. It wills tar Emma Roberts (Lena), Daren Kagasoff (Alex), and Billy Campbell (Thomas Fineman).

Jenny Han and Siobhan Vivian’s Burn for Burn (S & S, 2012) will be produced by Barry Josephson Entertainment. A network has not yet been named.

Lucy Maud Montgomery’s beloved classic Anne of Green Gables will get yet a modern-day, contemporary update with this adaptation produced by Joan Lambur at Breakthrough Entertainment. A network has not yet been named.