“It was a wonderful night celebrating some of the stars of children’s publishing,” said Renee McGrath, a librarian with New York’s Nassau Library System, about the two-hour event sponsored by SLJ and the Association of American Publishers.

More than 200 media specialists and youth librarians gathered for dinner and to hear the authors and illustrators speak at the Holiday Inn as part of the many events that kicked off Book Expo America.

“I liked the diversity of authors, with three who are very established and two who are newer to librarians,” said Tiffany Emerick, a librarian at Valley Elementary School in Bensalem, PA, referring to Stephens, a TV producer, and Valente, an adult fantasy and science fiction writer, who are writing their second book for the youth market. “I also appreciated that they wrote and illustrated for a diverse age level.”

In preparation for the dinner, moderator and SLJ’s Book Review Editor Trev Jones, says she stayed up until the wee hours of the morning reading Stephen’s The Fire Chronicle (Knopf, 2012), the second book in the “Books of Beginnings” series, about three siblings on a perilous quest to find their parents. Stephens, who’s taking a break from the world of television, said that as a preschooler he “wanted to be a writer-or a T-Rex”.

Valente told the audience about her love of libraries. Her first kids’ book, The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland In a Ship of Her Own Making (2011), debuted at number eight on the New York Times bestseller list last May-and her second book in the series, The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There (2012, both Feiwel), about a girl from Omaha who’s spirited away to fairyland, is expected out in October.

“Valente was the perfect closing speaker, and I had tears in my eyes as she shared her love of libraries,” said Emerick, whose publisher Macmillan will post her remarks on its website.

Marian McLeod, a librarian at Connecticut’s Darien Library, tweeted that the evening was “librarian heaven,” as Collier, Frazee, and Green charmed the audience with stories about their works.

Frazee, who has received two Caldecott Honors for her work, showed slides of her family growing up and the books that paralleled particular family and publishing events over the last 25 years. Her latest book, Boots & Shoe (S&S, 2012), was inspired by the recent addition of a puppy to her family.

Green (above) , author of the New York Times number one bestseller, The Fault in Our Stars (Dutton, 2012), discussed growing up in Orlando and his mother’s social activism.

Collier, who has written a Caldecott Honor and a Coretta Scott King-winning title, spoke about his artwork, particularly, Fifty Cents and a Dream (LittleBrown, 2012), which is about the young Booker T. Washington and is written by Jabari Asim,

The audience ended the evening on a high note.

“These authors made the audience consider the infinite possibilities, from the realistic to the fantastical,” said Susannah Richards, an associate professor of education at Eastern Connecticut State University. “There was something for every reader.”

Emerick is already looking forward to attending next year.

“I was honored to attend, and I love that it said “first annual” on the invite so I can look forward coming for years to come!”

See also:

SLJ 2012 Day of Dialog: Keeping Middle Schoolers Engaged

The Horn Book’s editor in chief Roger Sutton and 2010 Boston Globe-Horn Book Award-winning author Rebecca Stead (W hen You Reach Me, Random House) announced the winners today at BookExpo America in New York.

“The Boston Globe-Horn Book awards are unique for so many reasons-the winners are books that are frequently unusual or under-the-radar choices,” says Sutton. “Because of the small judging panel, there’s always an excellent chance for surprise. Each year, the judges uncover some amazing treasures that I think will delight adult readers as much as the intended audience of children and young adults.”

Celebrating its 45th year, the Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards are among the most prestigious honors in the field of children’s and young adult literature. Winners and two Honor Books are selected in each of three categories: picture book, fiction and poetry, and nonfiction.

Following is a list of this year’s winners and honors:

Picture Book Award Winner:

Extra Yarn (Balzer + Bray, a HarperCollins imprint) by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Jon Klassen

When young Annabelle finds a small box containing a never-ending supply of yarn of every color, she does what any self-respecting knitter would do: she knits herself a sweater. Then she knits a sweater for her dog. She continues to knit colorful garments for everyone and everything in her snowy, sooty, colorless town-until an archduke gets greedy.

Picture Book Honor Winners:

And the Soldiers Sang (Creative Editions) by J. Patrick Lewis, illustrated by Gary Kelley

And Then It’s Spring (Roaring Brook Press, a Macmillan imprint) by Julie Fogliano, illustrated by Erin E. Stead

Fiction Award Winner:

No Crystal Stair: A Documentary Novel of the Life and Work of Lewis Michaux, Harlem Bookseller (Carolrhoda Lab, an imprint of Lerner) by Vaunda Micheaux Nelson, illustrated by R. Gregory Christie

Lewis Michaux opened the National Memorial African Bookstore in Harlem at the end of the Great Depression with an inventory of five books and a strong faith that black people were hungry for knowledge. For the next 35 years, his store became a central gathering place for African American writers, artists, intellectuals, political figures, and ordinary citizens. In a daring combination of fiction and nonfiction and word and image, 36 narrative voices are interwoven with articles from the New York Amsterdam News, excerpts from Michaux’s FBI file, and family papers and photographs.

Fiction Honor Winners:

Life: An Exploded Diagram (Candlewick) by Mal Peet

Code Name Verity (Hyperion) by Elizabeth Wein

Nonfiction Winner:

Chuck Close: Face Book (Abrams) written and illustrated by Chuck Close

Chuck Close’s art is easy to describe and especially attractive to children because he creates only portraits-in almost every possible medium with an intriguing trompe l’oeil effect. This book explores how his life story and so-called disabilities relate directly to his style. In this Q&A-style narrative, Close himself answers with a clear voice without a hint of famous-artist self-aggrandizement or angst.

Nonfiction Honor Winners:

The Elephant Scientist (Houghton) by Caitlin O’Connell & Donna M. Jackson, photographs by Caitlin O’Connell and Timothy Rodwell

Georgia in Hawaii: When Georgia O’Keeffe Painted What She Pleased (Houghton) by Amy Novesky, illustrated by Yuyi Morales

Sutton appoints an independent panel of three judges to choose the awards. This year’s judges are: chair Thom Barthelmess, curator and lecturer, Butler Children’s Literature Center, Dominican University in Chicago, IL; Lauren Adams, high school English teacher and former The Horn Book editor; and Megan Lambert, instructor at the Center for the Study of Children’s Literature at Simmons College in Boston, MA.

The winning titles can be written or illustrated by citizens of any country, but they must be published in the United States.

Check out a complete list of previous winners.

See below for more coverage of SLJ 2012 Day of Dialog:

• Walter Dean Myers Vows to Close the Reading Gap

• Keeping Middle Schoolers Engaged

• Pushing the Picture Book Envelope

• #SLJDOD Twitter Feed

• Pictures from SLJ 2012 Day of Dialog

The best nonfiction books also aren’t afraid to show a strong point of view, says author-editor Marc Aronson, another member of the panel on “Dynamic Nonfiction for Kids and Teens: Exploring informational books that spark curiosity and stimulate inquiry.” In fact, “the key to the Common Core is the idea that all nonfiction inherently has a point of view,” says Aronson, referring to our nation’s new education standards, which will require young learners to read 55 percent informational texts by the time they reach eighth grade and 70 percent nonfiction texts as high school seniors.

So do kids’ book authors ever write nonfiction that’s aimed at plugging holes in K-12 schools’ curriculums? asked panel moderator, Susan Marston, editorial director of Junior Library Guild, a collection development service that’s owned by SLJ‘s parent company, Media Source. “I don’t worry about the curriculum,” says Fleming. Instead, she concentrates on finding stories that kids will find genuinely interesting.

That’s also Sue Macy’s approach. “If it’s a good story, it’s a good story,” says Macy, a panelist and the author of Wheels of Change: How Women Rode the Bicycle to Freedom (National Geographic, 2011). “I write about topics that aren’t in history books, aren’t in the textbooks, topics that I wish were in them,” says Macy, who drew the biggest laugh of the session when she explained how people once worried that the shape of a bicycle seat might cause a woman to have an orgasm.

As for those conventional textbooks, Aronson would love to get rid of the ones that target state histories: “It’s the worst idea ever,” he explains. As nonfiction writers, “our goal is to create an immersive experience” for young readers and offer them stories that that they will truly care about.

One way of doing that is by giving students both print and digital content, says Brenda Murray, Scholastic’s senior editor for nonfiction and Discover More, a series that pairs traditional books with specially developed digital titles. “Nonfiction, and especially, digital materials are important for kids,” says Murray, and “help motivate readers, especially reluctant readers.”

That’s a message that Aronson can get behind. “This is a revival tent, and I want you to be my apostles,” he told the crowd of hundreds of librarians, publishers, and other children’s book lovers. “Please put nonfiction books into digital form. If we want kids to have the best in nonfiction with a point of view, those books must be available in either paper or digital. Amen!”

From Left: Sharon Creech, Joan Bauer, Eoin Colfer, James Dashner, Jennifer Hubert Swain, Rebecca Stead

Middle school students are a “hormonally charged” bunch who are “full of complex contradictions” and just “want a voice,” say authors who participated in SLJ‘s 2012 Day of Dialog on June 4 at New York’s Jacob Javits Convention Center.

Rebecca Stead, winner of the 2010 Newbery Award for When You Reach Me (Random, 2009) and a panelist in “Minding the Reading Gap: How to Keep Middle School Readers Engaged,” says she draws on her own childhood experiences when writing to “build a story out of small moments.” Her latest, Liar & Spy (Random), a funny tale about destiny, goofy brilliance, and courage, is expected this August.

Joan Bauer, who received a 2001 Newbery Honor for Hope Was Here (Putnam, 2000), says she was haunted by “middle school ghosts” during a recent visit to her old school, where she was reduced to a “social zero.” She now uses the power of fiction to share her past experience and give readers hope that the pain does end.

Sharon Creech, 1995 Newbery winner for Walk Two Moons (HarperCollins, 1994), says during author visits, she often sees a shy child holding one of her books close to their chests, and then approach her to say, “How did you know this was what I was thinking?”

Eoin Colfer, author of the “Artemis Fowl” series (Hyperion) says he still can’t understand why he was forced to read classics such as Henry James’s The Portrait of a Lady, ” about an American heiress who travels to America, instead of Nobel Prize-winning English author William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, about British schoolboys who are stranded on a tropical island. His favorite reading spot was the trunk of his family’s car.

James Dashner, who writes the “13th Reality” fantasy series, describes himself as “supernaturally dorky” during his middle school years. His “most magical” moments growing up in Georgia were spending his summers sitting in front of the air conditioner and reading.

The topic of ebooks drew mixed reactions from panelists, with Colfer warning that books shouldn’t compete with technology. Dashner agreed, adding “anything that gets kids reading can’t be bad.” Meanwhile, Stead sees the convenience of ereaders, saying she was touched when her son, a middle schooler, recently put a paperback to his nose and remarked on the distinct smell of print books.

To see what other had to say about this and other Day of Dialog panels on Twitter using the hashtag #SLJDOD.

(l. to r.) Amy Krouse Rosenthal, Jon Klassen, Tom Lichtenheld, D.B. Johnson, & Mac Barnett

The picture book isn’t dead—in fact, it might be entering a golden age, say some of the most talented and innovative children’s book creators during SLJ’s Day of Dialog.

Moderated by New York Public Library Youth Materials Collections Specialist, Betsy Bird, the panelists on “Pushing the Picture Book Envelope” gave the audience a visual delight that included a presentation of each book trailer, along with rousing commentary from each creator.

Bird, also an SLJ blogger, dubbed Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld, collaborators on Wumbers (Chronicle), the Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers of children’s literature for their ability to bring “the sound of numbers” in their latest book by using word and number gymnastics. Lichtenheld cites William Steig’s CDB! (S & S, 1968), a collection of pictures with captions written in code, and MAD Magazine, as visual influences, while Rosenthal mentions her love for “tinkering with language” and wordplay as the inspiration behind their work. She says this title appeals to children who aren’t necessarily born readers but who need to be led to the “reading party” through nontraditional themes.

Mac Barnett, author of Chloe and the Lion (Hyperion), crosses into the meta-fiction category, breaks down the fourth wall, and gives him and illustrator Adam Rex active roles as protagonists in their rambunctious picture book. Influenced by Jon Stone’s classic, The Monster at the End of This Book (Random, 1971), which also speaks directly to its audience, Barnett says he’s always enjoyed fiction that escaped the artifice of the “book” and strains the tension between text and image. Evident in the book trailer, this author/illustrator pair’s tongue-and-cheek humor elicited peals of laughter from the audience.

Jon Klassen, an Irma Black Award Finalist, opened with a trailer to This is Not My Hat (Candlewick), the sequel to his award-winning I Want My Hat Back. He says kids are just looking for a good story. Like one of his favorites, P. D. Eastman’s Sam and the Firefly (Random, 1958), picture books have to grab readers’ attention right from the start.

D. B. Johnson, author/illustrator of Magritte’s Marvelous Hat (Houghton Harcourt) and a longtime illustrator of picture books, made a splash with his surreal Magritte’s Marvelous Hat. He believes authors and illustrators of children’s books have to “embrace the nonsense,” let imagination and creativity manifest in new and groundbreaking ways, and not be so tied down by the latest trends. As long as visual language continues to be kids’ native language, then the picture book will continue to be successful, he says.”There’s a purity in it” that can’t be achieved through other mediums.

Maurice Sendak’s recent death was on the panelists’ minds, with Johnson calling him a god. Klassen admired Sendak’s ability to look right at a reader and “tell it to you straight.” Barnett agreed that Sendak was among the first picture book trailblazers, stating that the form is still an arena suitable for innovation and challenge, and contrary to popular belief, we just might be entering into a new golden age of the picture book.

From left: Emily Danforth, R. J. Palacio, Ellis Weiner, J. Anderson Coats

It was R.J. Palacio’s brief encounter with a little girl who had a facial deformity that motivated the author to finish her first book.

“This girl was seared in my mind,” says Palacio, whose Wonder (Knopf, 2012) was released earlier this year to critical acclaim.

Palacio and three other first-time children’s book authors spoke at the “Stellar Debuts: Celebrating new and noteworthy arrivals to the publishing scene” panel during SLJ‘s Day of Dialog on June 4 at New York’s Jacob Javits Convention Center.

Five years ago, Palacio says, she and her two young children sat next to a girl who looks like Auggie, the fifth grade main character in her book, about an ordinary kid with an extraordinary face who’s about to enter a mainstream school for the first time. “My youngest son, who was three at the time, started crying. And my oldest son looked shell shocked.” Palacio and her kids fled the scene in a hurry, but it “ignited this well of feeling in me, and I thought what life must be like for them.”

A graphic designer by day, Palacio says writing Wonder was cathartic and “a giant act of atonement” because she wishes she would have acted in a “kinder way.”

Ellis Weiner, a writer since 1976, says he was inspired to write for kids after reading a description of pasta puttanesca in Lemony Snicket’s first book. “I wanted to write something funny,” says the author of The Templeton Twins Have an Idea (Chronicle), about the hilarious and wacky adventures of 12-year-old twins. “But if I wrote a comic novel for adults, I’d have a small readership-and a small advance.” Weiner ended up putting a full recipe for meatloaf in his book.

J. Anderson Coats’s says she’s been writing since she was 13, but the 11 previous attempts “were awful.” When she wrote her debut novel The Wicked and the Just (Houghton Harcourt), about two feisty teens in 13th-century Wales, she thought it would never be seen. “But I consciously chose to write something the way it needed to be told.”

The voices in her novel “come from a geeky place: research,” say the author, explaining that her book is about an obscure event in history, the violent and bloody 1293 Welsh rebellion. “I listened for voices that emerged,” says Coats. “The characters [in her book] come from history, but I had to make it accessible for a modern audience.”

When asked if she had an audience in mind or just wrote her book hoping it would find a readership, Emily Danforth says The Miseducation of Cameron Post (HarperCollins), a coming-of-age novel about a girl who had been kissing another girl hours before her parents die in a car crash, stemmed from the “gay 14-year-old me.”

“I would have benefitted from Cam’s story,” says Danforth, who received her MFA from the University of Montana and initially wrote her novel as a short story. “But I only write for me, initially.”

The award-winning author explains that’s one of the main reasons he accepted the role as National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature in January—to publicize the problem.

During his many visits to juvenile detention centers over the years, Myers met kids who were functionally illiterate. “Not kids who were uninterested, but kids who could not read.”

The keynote speaker at SLJ‘s 2012 Day of Dialog spoke to a rapt room of attendees about his own personal experience growing up poor in New York City’s Harlem. By 13, his life began to unravel with his uncle’s murder . Myers’s dad sunk into a deep depression and his mother began drinking again to cope. The young Myers once had to lift his drunk mother off the sidewalk and carry her home.

“I was devastated,” he says. “But it’s not something you can tell your teacher about.” Around the same time, Myers became a knife-wielding gang member, who guarded an older teen. But there’s one thing he credits for helping him choose a different path.

“I found literature,” says the 74year-old award-winning author, who as a child would visit the George Bruce branch of the New York Public Library on 125th Street in Harlem to read Robin Hood and other adventure stories. By reading, he explains, “I came out of that. I had a different worldview than just my misery.”

The statistics are dismal, Myers says. Out of the four Anglophile nations-the US, Great Britain, Canada, and Australia-the largest reading gap exists here, followed by the UK. The author says he sees the problem first-hand in the tons of fan mail he receives. While he used to be able to separate letters written by elementary and high school students, he can no longer do so because the “writing has gotten so bad.”

“A huge amount of these kids are from the lowest economic status and are minorities,” Myers explains. “That’s one reason people are hesitant to talk about it-they don’t want to blame minorities or poor people.

The issue isn’t going away because “one major problem is our silence about it,” continues Myers, whose father worked as a janitor and mother cleaned apartments. “But I don’t mind speaking about this. I know it’s a problem. Kids need to read, especially poor kids and kids in urban areas.”

Since accepting his ambassadorship in January, Myers has done his best to spread the word about this issue, but says, “Our society doesn’t want to see the problem” of our growing illiteracy and incarceration rate, citing one in four black men in New York City has been in jail. “And this will have repercussions for years to come.”

His main concern? “I’m wondering where the next generation of readers is going to come from,” Myers asks. “What’s going on in schools is a reflection of what’s going on in society. There’s a gap. There are huge pockets of language poverty.”

Myers says his goal is to attract readers, “finding that special book for that child,” which isn’t easy considering that most disadvantaged kids look around and accept the bleakness that surrounds them. “[They] see people like them, with the same skin color, and say ‘this is my future,’” Myers says.

“When I talk to young people about literature, that reading will bring them $20,000 more a year [in salary], that education is going to make a difference in their lives, they know it’s the correct answer. But they don’t believe me.”

Myers stresses the importance of introducing books, especially to babies and toddlers from three months to five years old. “All research says that kids at school are at such diverse levels,” he says.” “And if they don’t catch up by fifth grade they will never be lifelong readers.”

Another important suggestion? To give more books to teens. “Change the educational system to deal with unequal scholars,” he says, explaining that in New York City the dropout rate is 47 percent.

“I want to reach kids,” Myers explains. “I want to reach out to them and invite them in.”

See below for more coverage of SLJ 2012 Day of Dialog:

• Video: Keynote by Walter Dean Myers
  

• Keeping Middle Schoolers Engaged
  

• Pushing the Picture Book Envelope

• #SLJDOD Twitter Feed
  

• Pictures from SLJ 2012 Day of Dialog

• Even more pictures from SLJ 2012 Day of Dialog

First up, one of my favorite events every year, the Editors’ Buzz panel (Monday, 4:15pm). This is the chance for six editors to introduce the one upcoming book about which they are most excited. (Last year’s event, for example, included The Night Circus and Running the Rift.) This year’s titles with potential teen appeal:

The People of Forever Are Not Afraid by Shani Boianjiu (Hogarth, Sept.). The author is a National Book Foundation “5 under 35″ honoree. Her novel is about girls coming of age in the Israeli Defense Forces.

In the Shadow of the Banyan by Vaddey Ratner (Simon & Schuster, July). A novel told by a young girl coming of age among the Cambodian killing fields, fighting for survival.

Read more on Adult Books 4 Teens…