The list was long. You might even say epic. And you were patient.
So, so, so.
Megan Whalen Turner has chosen her favorite series title suggestions!
1. Annux from Joan
2. The Queens’ Thief from Rachel
3. Annals of the Thief from (a different) Rachel
MWT says: Because I like the word Annals
4. The Thief’s Progress from Leslie
5. The Hook Crook Books from GE
6. A Series of Sovereigns from (the same) Leslie
7. Megan Whalen Turner’s Award-winning series of AWESOME from Taryn
MWT says: And if that’s not over-the-top enough…
8. It’s-really-not-just-one-genre-and-I-can’t-even-really-tell-you-if-it’s-children’s-or-YA-or-neither-and—I-really-really-can’t-tell-you-anything-about-the-plot-or-even-all-the-titles-without-giving-away-all-the-best-parts-but-please-just-trust-me-when-I-tell-you-that-You-Have-To-Read-These-Books series from Karibeth
9. The Merry Manly Magus from inkasrain
10. Obsidian Door from Jane
11. The Peninsula Series from Nico
and a special bonus to
The Eugenissey from Aileen
MWT says: Because they’d need something to carry them on their Eugenissey and what better than an arc?
Congratulations to all eleven winners!
Oh, you want to know what the series title will really be? We would tell you, but if we think too much about it, we have to go lie down.
Oh, all right. Well, it’s really Daniel Roode. But he had us fooled (and believe me, we know our Elvis). Daniel just finished working on his first picture book. It’s called Little Bea and we’ll be publishing it in the spring of 2011. Daniel flew in to talk about the dummy for his second book—it’s also about Little Bea and her friends, including Bear (pictured here in an Evan Lysacek-inspired moment). Will hound dogs be next?
THE 20th ANNIVERSARY OF SOMETHING BIG HAS BEEN HERE, BY JACK PRELUTSKY
It’s 2010, the thirty-fifth anniversary of Greenwillow Books, the wonderful children’s publisher started by Susan Hirschman. Happy anniversary! It’s also the twentieth anniversary of Something Big Has Been Here, my second “big” book of poems for Greenwillow. The first big book, The New Kid on the Block, was published six years earlier, and I hope to discuss it in a blog later this year. However, I’d like to say that The New Kid…weighed heavily on me as I worked on its successor. After all, many of the ideas that went into The New Kid on the Block were the result of over twenty years of almost compulsive observation, musings, and note-taking, and now I only had six years worth of material to work with. Nevertheless, I felt that I needed to make the second book at least as good as the first, lest I suffer reviews that said something like, “While not up to Mr. Prelutsky’s usual standard, this is still a serviceable volume of…”
It took me almost a year to write Something Big Has Been Here, whereas I’d raced through The New Kid on the Block in less than two months. I’m fairly certain that I could never do anything like that again, and in fact each successive “big” book has taken longer to write than the one that preceded it. As I worked on Something Big, one idea led to the next, and after a while my mind simply opened up and considered just about anything that crossed my path as fodder for a poem. This way of working has stayed with me and continues to be my modus operandi. Now I’d like to tell you about the origins of three of those ideas, and how I turned them into poems for Something Big Has Been Here.
My wife and I were at a large souvenir shop in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Outside the shop was a single boot, about six feet tall, cobbled of some unknown material. I immediately took out my notebook and went to work. I thought about what sort of being might wear a boot like that, and I wondered if there was such a person (or creature) roaming around, searching for its other boot. Then I thought about the footprint that such an individual would leave…that did it! Ten minutes later, I’d written my title poem.
Over the past forty years or so, I’ve visited several thousand schools and have often been invited to partake of the school lunch. Although these lunches have improved over the years, most of them were an ordeal for me…but I always smiled as I ate them. Anyhow, all those dreadful meals were the inspiration for “Grasshopper Gumbo,” which I’ve recited in hundreds of school cafeterias, often under the withering glare of a lunch lady. I hereby apologize to all the lunch ladies. There’s something about me that mosquitoes love. If you’re on a picnic in mosquito country and want to ensure that you won’t be bitten, you don’t need any fancy potion. Just bring me along. I can practically guarantee that the critters will focus all their attentions on me and leave you unscathed. When, in the dim reaches of time, I was a little boy and went to summer camp, one of my nicknames was Kid Calamine. Every single morning, I’d have to go to the infirmary and be smeared head to toe with calamine lotion to help relieve the itching from hundreds of mosquito bites. Even when I had a tan I was mostly pink. The poem, “Mosquitoes, Mosquitoes!” is intensely personal and comes from the
heart.
That’s it for now. Perhaps I’ll tell you about other ideas and poems in a future blog.
Jack Prelutsky was the nation’s first Children’s Poet Laureate. He has filled more than fifty books of verse with his inventive wordplay, including Something Big Has Been Here, which was released in a new paperback edition last month! He lives in Washington State.
As most devotees of Greenwillow know, Kevin Henkes is the creator of many beloved picture books featuring well-known mice characters. There’s Owen, Julius, Wemberly, Chester, Chrysanthemum, and Wendell, and of course, the indefatigable Lilly. Yes, they’re delightful characters, each and every one, most with their own books.
However, whenever I bring home a new Henkes picture book, the one question Mike asks me (more about him later) is, “Where’s Mr. Slinger? Is Mr. Slinger in it?” (That’s actually two questions, but you get the idea.) I’m convinced I live with the world’s biggest Mr. Slinger fan. Now you probably know who Mr. Slinger is—Lilly’s teacher, who made his debut in Lilly’sPurple Plastic Purseandwas later featured in Lilly’s Big Day(where he married the school nurse, Ms. Shotwell.) Well, Mike has been teaching high school English in Brooklyn for over 20 years—he’s afraid to teach the little people—and he really enjoys Mr. Slinger.
When we’re at home, we’ll read the new Lilly books aloud (okay, so we don’t have kids, but we still like to read the books aloud), and Mike always wants to be Mr. Slinger. Once he even insisted that I make him tasty cheese snacks. When I finally asked Mike why he likes Mr. Slinger, he replied, “Slinger is wise, patient, firm yet com-passionate and capable of the unexpected and endearing gesture. I also love his interpretive dances.” (Believe me, he actually said that—it’s not easy living with an English teacher.) In Brooklyn, Mike has different annoyances to contend with. The jingly quarters and musical purses in Slinger’s class have been replaced by cell phones and iPods and whatever technological gadget is coming. But I think we can all agree: the simple truths and humanity of the Slinger character, and the Lilly books in general, will endure.
Mike would also like to say something to Mr. Henkes: “Kevin, isn’t it time for another Slinger book—or perhaps a series. Lilly? Nowhere else to go with her. But Slinger? Get him out of his ‘hood and into another ‘hood. There’s a lot he can do. Resolve mice gang wars, perhaps? (Think Sidney Poitier in To Sir with Love, II.) Do your duty, man!”
Note to Marketing: Mike is also still waiting for the Mr. Slinger T-shirts…
Here at Greenwillow, tchotchkes (pronounced exactly the way you’d think) are very important to us. They remind us of days gone by, of old friends, of running gags. They brighten cloudy March afternoons. Some of them even dance for us. Here is a tribute to our tchotchkes, those venerable little baubles that make an office into a home away from home.
Barbara
Tums: Relieves heartburn fast. Calcium rich. Great berry flavor.
This is a candle for St. Barbara, for whom I was named. St. Barbara was shut away in a tower, pounded on the head with a mallet, flogged, and ultimately beheaded. Nevertheless, she remained true to her calling and performed miracles. Although venerated as a saint for centuries, the Vatican removed her feast day from the calendar in 1969. Another under-appreciated saint, just like moi.
Virginia The GWB 10th anniversary bowl is full of a potent mix of Susan Hirschman’s and my txhicnkeickjs. You see here, among other things, “the world’s oldest dog”–this little dog has been at Greenwillow since the beginning of time. Steve Geck was kind enough to bring all of the Greenwillowites a commemorative Canadian flag pin from the great SARSALA of 2003. One of my favorite txhichinckneks is the purple plastic thistle. I got it in Scotland when Susan Hirschman and I went to visit Diana Wynne Jones and took a little side trip to Edinburgh.
Tim Chad Beckerman gave me this . . . I don’t know what you’d call it . . . when he left Greenwillow, and he told me that I had to keep it forever. Neither of us remember where he got it from; resident historian Barbara Trueson believes it used to belong to Nancy Geller. There is a probably pathological absence of personal effects, decorations, and plants in my office, but I am nothing if not resolute when it comes to keeping promises. So atop a battered filing cabinet this cowboy sits, watching over me and waiting for our next adventure.
Martha Every fall the Children’s Book Council holds the Extreme Trivia Challenge. The contest is otherwise known as The Golden Bunnies. Because the top two teams get trophies of, yes, golden bunnies! I’ve been lucky enough to be on both a first place and a second place team, and my trophies glow from their prominent place on my desk. Right beside the glass pumpkin that Marlane Kennedy sent me from the real-life Circleville Pumpkin Show that figures in her book Me and the Pumpkin Queen. And some wonderful tiny stone sculptures from Marybeth Kelsey. And a sand dollar from a friend who visited the Oregon coast.
Paul Some days you may find me lying flat on my apartment floor with my legs raised on the sofa, and other days you may find me walking around the office at a 45-degree angle, all because of occasional horrible lower back pain (which happens with more frequency as I get older–Oh, and by the way, I’ll be 106 in October!). But you will always find my trusty smiling Nick Jr. pillow on my office chair to help ease that pain! Thanks Smiley-Pillow Guy!
Sylvie This bowl was passed on from Libby and Susan, to Tara, to me. Many of the stones and seashells were added by other Greenwillow staffers throughout the years; collected from Italy, France, Florida, the Caribbean, and other beaches of the world. I love all the different textures; of the items and of the bowl itself. Now it sits on my bookshelf, and sometimes I like looking at that bowl even more than looking out my window…it has history, and tells so many stories!
Steve When I walked into the office on my first day of work, hanging from the ceiling was a beautiful wicker mobile. Janina Domanska, who illustrated Under the Greenwillow, bought it for Libby Shub. Libby passed it on to Robin Roy, and it now resides with me. I have it above an air vent, so it’s always revolving.
We’re not quite sure how the black sheep cookie jar came into the Greenwillow fold. I’m fairly certain it wouldn’t be worth appraising on Antiques Roadshow. But we consider it part of the family–as long as it’s full!
Michelle My colorful assortment of mechanical dragons and other toys have followed me from various jobs in Maryland to Greenwillow here in New York. Sheila Rae is new; the Greenwillow contribution to my collection. The crystal heart was given to me by my aunt when I was laid up in the hospital after an emergency appendectomy. They’re all special for one reason or another, but my oldest office toy, and my most precious, is the little mechanical robot that I’ve had as long as I’ve been old enough to make memories. When you wind him up and lay him down on his back, his little arms pinwheel around until he does a backflip and then pushes himself to standing. Then he walks. After at least 25 years of life, he still works. I keep him around to help me remember two important lessons: 1) Never take yourself too seriously. 2) If you get knocked down, no matter how many times, the best thing you can do is pinwheel your arms, do a backflip, and keep moving forward.
Lois
Move over, Elvis . . . ! I used to be able to see the Statue of Liberty from my roof deck in Brooklyn. We were out there early in the morning and late at night, and I never caught her doing the mamba. But a friend gave me this gem for my birthday, and now I’ll never see her any other way.
