The new Jacket Knack Blog

Check out Jacket Knack, a new blog that talks about covers on kids' books. Julie Larios and Carol Brendler post every Monday.

They are posting in depth and fascinating discussions, as well as many examples of book jackets. This week Brenda continues the discussion about the Liar cover controversy and interviews Nnedi Okorafor, an African-American author of young adult fantasy novels.

For those who aren't familiar with publishing, writers rarely have much input on the cover of their book. It is always an exciting day when my friends see their book cover for the first time.

Historical Treasures of Children’s Literature #2 -Struwwelpeter

An early picture book I just discovered is Struwwelpeter.
I found the Struwwelpeter statue in downtown Frankfurt. The man holds his gun in the statue--at the end of one of the stories the rabbit holds (and shoots) the gun. The girl on the left is the one who burns up in her story. Look at the water flowing from the cats' eyes!


About a week ago I took a walk close to where I live in Frankfurt and found this bench.


The writing on the placard states that Heinrich Hoffmann is a picture book writer.

I’d never heard of him. So I came home and learned more. Hoffmann was a doctor and lived most of his life in Frankfurt. He wrote his first picture book as a Christmas present for his children in 1844, supposedly because he didn’t like any existing children’s books.
There is information about him at the Struwwelpeter museum (which I plan to visit soon) in Frankfurt. (Site is in German.)
There is also information in Children’s Literature Association Quarterly, a journal and of course on Wikipedia.

Hoffmann’s stories were very popular and translated in many languages. It seems that his books influenced later picture books, as in both the types of stories told and the illustrations.

Hoffmann’s most famous work is Struwwelpeter: Merry Stories and Funny Pictures, published in 1845. It was one of the best know picture books in the 1800’s. The first English translation was in 1848.

This book contains violent stories and images by today’s picture book standards: a girl burns up because she plays with matches, a tailor chops off a boy's thumbs because he sucks them, and a rabbits shoots a gun at a man.

Another photo of the Struwwelpeter statue in downtown Frankfurt.


Mark Twain also translated this book (Slovenly Peter, 1891) when he was lived in Berlin, but it wasn’t published until 1935.

To read the book go to this link at Project Gutenberg which is a great place to find older, out of copyright books. Their main page is here.
Struwwelpeter can also be found here.

My previous Historical Treasures of Children’s Literature #1 blog post is here. It discusses The Tragical Death of an Apple Pie, (about 1840), an ABC picture book which doesn’t use the letters I, T and U.

VCFA residency--lectures, workshops, readings and more

VCFA residency was fast-paced, intense, incredible, as always. I love residency. It is so energizing to be with so many writers who are committed to children’s literature.

Julie Larios has wonderful information about many of the lectures on her blog--a great place to get a small taste of VCFA. Uma Krishnaswami gives a 60 second whirlwind synopsis of her lecture on her blog--go there and read it. I already used some of what she presented while revising a book this past week. Excellent info.

I learned so much from my workshop with Kathi Appelt and Uma Krishaswami. I submitted first drafts of three stories. One I submitted feeling it would be a good learning book. In my opinion the workshop is a place to learn how to improve my writing, as well as a place to get feedback on a story. But other writers felt this book has potential (and one writer had dreams about it); I still believe it is a learning book--it is a concept book--but will revise for fun and to figure out how to make the story work better. I like revising. Also, I now have some excellent ideas of how to revise another super fun book, which is one of those books where the characters got involved in the story creation. But the most important part of the workshop is learning how to look at everyone’s stories, both raw and more polished and learn how to find the heart of them, and what the possibilities are, so each story can be made the strongest possible and become a story that children will love.

One of my favorite parts of residency (well I love all of it: the workshop, the lectures, the discussions) is the readings. It is such fun to hear faculty read from works in progress, and often these are truly works in progress--as they revised them moments before, or even while reading. Then a few years later, we get to read the final text in the printed book.
The readings are open to the public, so if you are in Montpelier during a residency, come up to campus and enjoy.

My presentation went well and generated many questions. I discussed atypical arcs in picture books--these are more common than most readers or writers realize. I covered the eleven most common atypical arcs. Understanding the possible arcs (or structures) that can be used instead of (or in addition to) the standard Aristolean plot arc allows the writer more flexibility, and gives unity to our books. A point that I feel is very important is that we should layer arcs. The strongest picture books use more than one narrative arc. If anyone wants to read the essay I based my presentation on, send a message to my email which you can find under my profile, and I’ll forward you a copy.

For the next five months my advisor/mentor is VCFA faculty member Shelley Tanaka, who is also a Canadian editor at Groundwood books (which publishes Canadian, not American writers.) She won the Orbis Pictus award earlier this year for her book Amelia Earhart. I look forward to another incredible semester. I will learn so much from her about writing both fiction (novels) and non-fiction picture books.

Vermont College of Fine Arts Residency

I am in Montpelier, Vermont, ready for the start of my third residency at VCFA for the MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults.

Julie Larios, a faculty member and an incredible poet, will be posting each day about residency. Go visit her blog and read about it.
She posts awesome poems too--check out her Poetry Fridays. She also has written some great books of poetry for children and adults.

This residency I am on the picture book panel.
I wrote a long essay, "Finding Unity: Crafting a Spine in Pictures Books with Atypical Narrative Arcs" for a packet, and that is what my presentation is based on.

As I worked to put my presentation together, making it a presentation for an audience, rather than an academic essay, I came up with a catchy title: "deviant rule-flouting picture book narratives." (Yes, the title is all in lower case.)

It looks like the panel is scheduled for Wednesday morning next week. I'll post a little more about my topic afterwards.

Vermont College is such an incredible place. The next ten days will be intense, exciting. I look forward to my workshop group (with Uma Krishaswami and Kathi Appelt) and all the great lectures and readings and other activities.