A Request for Blog Courtesy Regarding Use of My Original Poems

Sometimes it pays to Google your own name. A few days ago I did…and what did I find? Well, I found one of my original poems posted at another blog. The blogger did acknowledge me as the author of the poem—BUT changed a word in the first line and the ending of my poem. She admitted to having changed the ending so the poem would “go with” the picture she posted. I copied and pasted (in green print) the blogger’s specific post without the picture. Here’s a link to the actual post at sweetladybug.

LETTER FROM THE QUEEN OF BEASTS

by Elaine Magliaro

Dear Chettah

I’m tired of doing the hunting, the preying

While your only job is to watch the cubs playing.

I’m tired of stalking the zebras and gnus

While you lie around on the grassland and snooze.

I’m tired of running, and pouncing, and killing.

I want a career that is much more fulfilling.

I’m tired, so tired. I’m spent to the core.

While I’m hard at work, you just eat, sleep, and snore.

I fetch all the food. You grow stronger…I thinner.

For the next seven days you can catch your own dinner!

I’m going away for a well-needed rest.

I’ll be seeing you soon.

All my love,

La Chetta

this is actually written from a lioness to a lion...but what the heck, had to go with picture... Sounds like things work the same no matter which specie is involved..:) xxoo

Now, here is my poem with its correct ending. Do you think there’s a difference?

LETTER FROM THE QUEEN OF BEASTS
by Elaine Magliaro

Dear Lion,

I’m tired of doing the hunting, the preying
While your only job is to watch the cubs playing.
I’m tired of stalking the zebras and gnus
While you lie around on the grassland and snooze.
I’m tired of running, and pouncing, and killing.
I want a career that is much more fulfilling.
I’m tired, so tired. I’m spent to the core.
While I’m hard at work, you just eat, sleep, and snore.
I fetch all the food. You grow stronger…I thinner.
For the next seven days you can catch your own dinner!
I’m going away for a well-needed rest.
I’ll be seeing you soon.

All my love,
Lioness

Sure, I should have known that people might copy and paste one of my original poems that I had posted at my blog…but I had hoped, being raised as I was, that people would be more courteous and request permission to use one of my poems before posting it elsewhere. My email is available to anyone who reads my blog. The least a blogger should do is to include a link to the post at my blog where he/she found my poem.

I think what really bothers me is that this blogger changed my poem. SHE may think the poem still works—but I don’t think it does! Her change ruins the rhythm at the end—and the near-rhyme is lost.

REQUEST FROM WILD ROSE READER:
REGARDING THE USE OF MY ORIGINAL POEMS

If you would like to post one of my poems at your blog, please do the following:

• Request my permission to use a specific poem via email.
• Send me a link to the blog post in which you included my poem.
• In your post, include a link to the post at Wild Rose Reader or Blue Rose Girls where you found my poem.
• DO NOT change the words of my original poems.
  

Is that asking too much? Let me know what you think.

Keene State College Children's Literature Festival 2007

Grace Lin, Anna Alter, and I had a great time at the Keene State College Children’s Literature Festival last weekend. I enjoy going up to Keene, which is located in the lovely Monadnock area of New Hampshire. I see familiar faces there. There are always children’s authors and illustrators who attend the conference. In addition to Grace and Anna, other children’s book creators who were there included Alissa Imre Geis, Donna Berger, Liz Goulet Dubois, Cheryl Harness, Beth Krommes, and Melissa Stewart.

Alissa Imre Geis, Anna Alter, & Melissa Stewart

Here’s the list of Featured Speakers for the 2007 Festival: Michael Dooling, Kathy Mallat, Richard Peck, Natalie Kinsey-Warnock, and Chris Soentpiet.

Kathy Mallat, an author and illustrator of picture books and a part-time art teacher, was a last minute fill-in for Raymond Bial. Kathy did a great job! I don’t know how she was able to put together such a polished presentation in just a few days. Like me, Kathy also serves as a member of the Festival Advisory Board.

Kathy Mallat & Dr. David White

Natalie Kinsey-Warnock strode to the front of the auditorium playing the bagpipes. She made a great presentation—and brought several of the beautiful handmade quilts her grandmother had sewn. Natalie lives out in the country in the Northeast Kingdom of Vermont. She has a whole menagerie of pets. She rescues animals that have been mistreated or abused.

Natalie Kinsey-Warnock Playing the Bagpipes

Richard Peck received a standing ovation for his eloquent—and outrageously funny—presentation. I jotted down some of his most memorable lines. (I hope I wrote them down correctly.)

• The only way you can write is by the light of the bridges burning behind you.
• You learn most from the experiences you would have avoided if you could.
• Puberty is the death of childhood…not the birth of reason.
• Fiction had better be about the reader—not the writer.
• Fiction is a metaphor for a reader’s life.
• We read fiction to find family.
• Schools don’t build foundations; they build upon foundations.
• Humor is anger that was sent to finishing school.
• Quoting Cicero: Not to know what happened before you were born means to remain always a child.
  

Grace, Anna, Alissa, and I visited the Festival Gallery Collection. We saw the owls that Anna and Alissa had created for the Festival Owl Project. Abigail Marble contributed OWL #87 to the collection. That means that Dr. David White, Festival Director, needs just 13 more owls to reach his goal of 100 owls for the Centennial Celebration of Keene State College in 2008-2009. Grace has decided that it’s time to start work on her “Keene” owl.

Grace, Elaine, Anna, & Alissa

Three Really "Keene" OwlsEric Carle's Owl

Anna Alter's Owl

Alissa Imre Geis's Owl

After the conclusion of the festival, the featured speakers, members of the festival advisory board, student volunteers, artists who had donated an owl in the past year, and David and some close friends joined together for a sumptuous dinner of prime rib, bake stuffed shrimp, stuffed portabella mushrooms, rice pilaf, fresh vegetable medley, and individual almond tortes served with fresh strawberries, balsamic vinegar, and whipped cream.

Donna Berger, Chris Soentpiet, & Eric DuboisAnna, Alissa, & Grace

We capped off a wonderful day with a visit to David & Ken's Irish cottage.

I can’t wait for the 2008 Keene State College Children’s Literature Festival. I bet you’d like to know who the speakers will be, wouldn’t you? Here’s the lineup: Steven Kellogg, Andrew Glass, Eric A. Kimmel, Polly Horvath, and Jerry Pinkney!

Robert's Snow: Starring Alissa Imre Geis

Today, I am happy to be posting a blog interview with Alissa Imre Geis, a Robert’s Snow artist I know. Alissa is a close friend of Grace Lin, a well-known author and illustrator of children’s books and the co-founder of Robert’s Snow: for Cancer’s Cure. You can bid on Alissa’s beautiful snowflake, Hope in Winter, in the third Robert’s Snow auction, which will be held from December 3rd to December 7th.

Grace & Alissa admiring the 2007 snowflakes at the Robert's Snow Artist Open House that was held at the Child at Heart Gallery on October 6th

Alissa Imre Geis
A Self Portrait

Interview with Alissa Imre Geis

Elaine: When and where did you meet Grace Lin?

Alissa: After graduating from RISD (the Rhode Island School of Design) in 1998, I moved to Somerville, Massachusetts and got a day job at a children’s bookstore. When the other employees heard I’d just come from RISD, they said, “Do you know the other RISD girl?” It turned out to be Grace. It also turned out that she lived just down the street from my new apartment.

Elaine: How did you become such close friends?

Alissa: When I left school, I didn’t quite realize how much I’d taken living in an artistic community for granted. My necessary day job, even though it was in a children’s bookstore, was about mostly giving the correct change and alphabetizing. Grace’s apartment was like a little island of RISD in Somerville. It was there I met Anna Alter and Linda Wingerter. We talked about books and did fun crafty things like make piñatas or apple pie. This was just before The Ugly Vegetables came out, so I got to see what it was like to be a working illustrator. Grace was generous about talking about her experiences getting into publishing. It was so encouraging to see her success and be able to ask questions.

Elaine: When did you decide you wanted to be an illustrator of children’s books?

Alissa: I have always loved books, and telling stories. I’ve been drawing since before I can remember. I do remember a time before I could read, when I was sitting in the public library choosing books to take home by the illustrations. I would study them, so young but so critical. I used to copy the illustrations from book jackets. I especially loved John R. Neil’s pen and ink drawings for the Oz books. I would try to copy them but this was so frustrating, (I was only 10 years old.) So, I settled for coloring the illustration in my paperback copies in with colored pencils. Drawing what I was reading about or illustrating my own stories has always been the source of my work.

It wasn’t until I was in high school, with college applications looming that it all came together in the idea of being an illustrator, as an occupation. I remember reading Trina Schart Hyman’s autobiography, and seeing a bridge from a girl who likes to draw and a job as an illustrator.

Elaine: Can you tell us about your first published book?

Alissa: My first book was Winnie Dancing on Her Own by Jennifer Richard Jacobson, published by Houghton Mifflin in 2001. The project started a year earlier in September of 2000 when I got the manuscript. I had just left the Boston area to move to Los Angeles because my husband was going to architectural school. It was my first actual illustration job and I’d left all my illustration friends on the other side of the country.
I remember getting the manuscript and reading it twice. There were so few physical descriptions of anything. I panicked, what was I suppose to draw? I sent an email to the editor in which I tried to ask a small question to give me a hint of what direction to head in, without letting on that I had no idea what to do at all.

The editor, who was wonderful with a shaky first time illustrator, tactfully reminded me that I was the illustrator and that they wanted to see what I came up with. I read the manuscript again and started to see what freedom I had. I catalogued details, so that I wouldn’t contradict the text and let my imagination go. I love the first round of sketches where everything is unfolding. There are so many delightful surprises. Sometime I will sit back looking at a drawing and say “Is that what you actually look like?”

It was a wonderful project. I was working full time at children’s bookstore, which made deadlines harder but living with a full-time student there was such an environment of industry.

Elaine: What medium/media do you usually work in?

Alisa: I have three ways of working: gouache painting, gray-scale pencil drawings and found paper collage. Each of the three had their own place, on book covers, inside chapter books and in the design of my website respectively. It was so exciting when an editor, who had seen examples of all, called and offered me a manuscript (Our Friendship Rules) where she wanted me to incorporate all three.

Sketch and Color Illustration of Alexandra

Black and White Illustration of Best Friends Alexandra and Jenny

Elaine: Are you currently working on any new projects? Do you have a new book coming out some time in the next year or two that you would like to tell us about?

Alissa: Things have been quieter in my studio since I decided to start a family. Our Friendship Rules was the first project I took after my son was born and balancing his needs with deadlines was quite an act. I am working on several first drafts but they just progress more slowly. I have been taking small projects like the snowflake for Robert’s Snow and an owl for Keene State College. I’ve been doing school visits. I keep my hand in and plan for a time when he’ll be in school part of the day.

This is the owl Alissa created for the Keene State College Festival Owl Project.

Elaine: I attended the Robert’s Snow Artist Open House in Newburyport. I found your explanation of how you came up with the idea for your 2007 snowflake and the research you did very interesting. Would you care to share that with my blog readers?

Alissa: The idea for my 2007 snowflake was so slow in coming. So I started the way I always start when I feel I have no idea, by collecting things catch my eye. At the time, I was still in love with swallows and the patterned insides of envelopes. I sketched and read from my bird book and took a day long break where I try not to think about it at all. As an illustrator a project usually starts with the gift of a text. In this case, I was text-less and as I drifted I wanted that anchor. I thought of Emily Dickinson's "hope is thing with feathers" and got a copy of the full poem. There I found a structure but also a problem. The bird in the poem sings to bring hope. My swallow doesn’t sing. Swallows actually makes a call that sounds of scissors opening and shutting, not at all hope inspiring.

I liked the swallow, the sketch, but I liked the poem. I was caught. I thought my snowflake was splitting into two halves. Then I remembered I had the whole back of the snowflake. I could have both but I needed a songbird.

Alissa's 2007 Snowflake Hope for Winter

So my research turned this funny corner. Usually I am choosing my image by sight for its shape, its color or pattern. Instead I was using my ears, listening to winter bird songs on a birding website. I ended up choosing a purple finch, which I had seen many times in my own backyard but had no idea that it sang so sweetly.

You can read about the whole process of making my snowflake at my blog, where I did a step-by-step series.

Here is the snowflake Alissa created for Robert's Snow in 2004. I really wanted it--but I was outbid. Guess who owns it? Anna Alter!
A few other things:
When I set out to draw, my ideas are vague. It is not like Athena coming fully grown out of Zeus’s head. I am not copying out an image from in my head. Drawing is rather more like hiking in the woods and following a sense of direction. I know I am going over that way, because the text is like a loose map. It keeps correcting my course with ideas of what I think I want, with what the text requires but mostly just with those little tugs of instinct. Almost always I listen to music while drawing, which distracts the overly critical part of my brain enough that I can feel those little tugs and keep going. And keeping myself going is critical, because each mark, each sketch builds on the previous and it takes many, many sketches to get to the right one--just like it can take miles of walking to get out of the woods.

Note: The Moonbeam Children’s Book Awards results are out and Our Friendship Rules won the gold medal in the Best Picture Book - All Ages Category.

REMINDER: WIN A PRIZE!!! I do hope you’ll stop by to read all of my Blogging for a Cure articles and to comment about the artists and their work. I have a special prize for some lucky person who leaves a comment at any of my six posts featuring a Robert’s Snow artist: a limited edition giclee print of an illustration from Grace Lin’s book Robert’s Snow! That’s right folks! Here’s a picture of the print that I picked up at the Child at Heart Gallery.

Each time you comment at one of my Blogging for a Cure posts about a Robert’s Snow artist, I’ll put your name in a hat. If you comment at all six posts, your name will go into the hat six times! The drawing will take place on November 19th, the day bidding begins on the first of three Robert’s Snow 2007 auctions. I also have several consolation prizes for commenters who don’t win the “big” prize: five small prints of the Robert’s Snow mouse(mice).

Here is a link to my Blogging for a Cure article about Robert's Snow artist Scott Bakal.

Blogging for a Cure: Week #3

Week #2 of Blogging for a Cure brought us articles about and interviews with many more talented picture book illustrators who have created snowflakes for Robert's Snow 2007. I was so busy last week that I didn’t get an opportunity to read all of the posts featuring Robert’s Snow artists. I intend to read all of the Blogging for a Cure posts once my schedule isn’t so hectic.

You will find the schedule for Week #3 of Blogging for a Cure below. Every day some of the Robert’s Snow 2007 artists will be featured at different children’s literature blogs. Robert’s Snow is a unique fundraiser. The proceeds from its three 2007 auctions will go to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute for cancer research. Read all about Robert’s Snow: for Cancer’s Cure here.

NOTE: I have linked to the blogs that will be posting features about the Robert’s Snow artists this week—not to the specific posts. Jules and Eisha of 7-Imp have created a special page that includes a list with links to all the Blogging for a Cure posts. Their list is updated every day.

Monday, October 29
Dan Santat at Writing and Ruminating
Joanne Friar at The Longstockings
Alissa Imre Geis at Wild Rose Reader
Diane Greenseid at Just One More Book!!
Sean Qualls at Brooklyn Arden

Tuesday, October 30
Ann Koffsky at Book Buds
Bill Carman at A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy
Gretel Parker at Finding Wonderland
Matt Phelan at A Year of Reading
Stephanie Roth at Writing with a broken tusk

Wednesday, October 31
Shawna Tenney at Kate's Book Blog
Adam Rex at Booktopia and Welcome to my Tweendom
Mo Willems at MotherReader
Rolandas Kiaulevicius at a wrung sponge

Thursday, November 1
Karen Lee at sruble's world
Diana Magnuson at A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy
Melissa Iwai at Brooklyn Arden
Victoria Jamieson at AmoXcalli and Cuentecitos
Molly Idle at The Shady Glade
Meghan McCarthy at A Fuse #8 Production

Friday, November 2
Tracy McGuinness-Kelly at Sam Riddleburger's blog
Sara Kahn at Kate's Book Blog
Sylvia Long at Whimsy Books
Jeremy Tankard at the excelsior file
Holli Conger at Please Come Flying

Saturday, November 3
Susan Miller at Your Neighborhood Librarian
Ellen Beier at What Adrienne Thinks About That
Hideko Takahashi at The Silver Lining
Judith Moffat at Jo's Journal
Wendell Minor at Wild Rose Reader

Sunday, November 4
Joy Allen at Check It Out
Robin Brickman at Greetings from Nowhere
Lauren Stringer at laurasalas
Nancy Wallace at In the Pages . . .

Lives In the Balance

WARNING: This is not a typical Wild Rose Reader Poetry Friday post. It’s an anti-war protest song and poetry post. The thought of writing up a post like this never entered my mind…until last Sunday. I had just returned home from dinner with my daughter at a local restaurant when my husband told me that there was something he wanted me to watch on his computer. It was a YouTube video of Jackson Browne’s song Lives in the Balance. I knew the song well. It was more than twenty years old. I definitely had an emotional reaction to the 2005 video that paired images with Brown’s lyrics. The song may be old—but the words seem written for the 21st century, for the times in which we find ourselves today.

It was the men of my generation who fought in Vietnam. I still remember the day I began to re-evaluate our country’s involvement in the Vietnam War. It was in the spring of 1969—my first year of teaching elementary school. My sister telephoned me after I returned home from work that day. She asked, “Didn’t you go to high school with S. D.?” “Yes,” I answered. Then she said words that brought anguish to my heart and tears to my eyes: “I just read in the paper that he was killed in Vietnam.”

S. D. was a big bear of a guy. A graduate of Boston College, he was one of the sweetest, kindest, finest young men I knew. Before that day, I had never been touched personally by war. Now there was someone I cared about who was killed far away in a foreign country. I would never see him, talk to him, or laugh with him…ever again. It was so sad. I couldn’t begin to imagine the grief that his family was going through.

After that, I began to think about all the soldiers who were sent to fight in that war…about the innocent people who lived in a country where a war was being waged…about the soldiers and civilians who were injured, maimed, killed…about the people who lost their loved ones.

In the late sixties and early seventies, thousands of college students and other Americans held anti-war protests and sit-ins all over the country. Young men burned their draft cards. My fiancée—who is now my husband—went to an anti-war gathering on Boston Common to hear George McGovern speak.

That war changed our country. It changed my husband. It changed me. Evidently, it didn’t make a lasting impression on many of our political leaders.

After watching the YouTube video, I felt a flush of emotions coursing through me. Memories returned of a dear friend I had lost. I thought about people like Joan Baez—folksingers who wrote and performed songs that spoke to my generation.

Poets, like those folksingers, often range against the machine—even children’s poets. Watch Browne’s Lives in the Balance video. Then read the three poems I selected for this post. The first was written by Wislawa Szymborska, winner of a Noel Prize in Literature. The other two poems were written by the award-winning children’s poets Myra Cohn Livingston and Eve Merriam.

THE VIDEO

Lives In the Balance


THE POEMS

The End and the Beginning
by Wislawa Szymborska

After every war
someone has to clean up.
Things won't
straighten themselves up, after all.

Someone has to push the rubble
to the side of the road,
so the corpse-filled wagons
can pass.

Someone has to get mired
in scum and ashes,
sofa springs,
splintered glass,
and bloody rags.

Someone has to drag in a girder
to prop up a wall,
Someone has to glaze a window,
rehang a door.

Photogenic it's not,
and takes years.
All the cameras have left
for another war.

You can read the rest of the poem here at Poetry 180.

I also recommend reading another version of this poem translated from the Polish by Stanislaw Baraczak and Clare Cavanagh, which can be found in Poems New and Collected 1957-1997. The book was published in 1998 by Harcourt.
Here are two short children's poems that speak volumes:

O SAY
by Myra Cohn Livingston
"...neither shall they learn war any more."
Isaiah 2:4
Micah 4:3

Can you see
the bursting bombs?
Soldiers
fall
to
unknown tombs?
tanks?
jet fighters?
smoking guns?
dead guerillas?
bloody dunes?
crumbled buildings?
cities burned?

We never learned.
We never learned.

(Livingston's poem was taken from her book Remembering and Other Poems, which was published by Margaret K. McElderry Books in 1989.)

Fantasia
by Eve Merriam

I dream
of
giving birth
to
a child
who will ask,
"Mother,
what was war?"

(Merriam's poem was taken from A Sky Full of Poems, which was published by Dell Publishing Company in 1986. The poems in the book had first appeared in three of Merriam's earlier books.)


The Poetry Friday Roundup is at Literary Safari this week.

Enjoy the weekend. I’ll be away at the Keene State College Children’s Literature Festival.

PEACE!

The Tailypo: A Ghost Story

Here is a no-fail, sure-to-delight kids, just-spooky-enough-but-not-too-scary American folktale from Appalachia that I recommend reading to children in the early elementary grades at Halloween…or at any other time of the year. The following book was always a favorite with my students. They L-O-V-E-D it! My students would request that I read this book several more times during the year. The Tailypo also became a traditional Halloween read-aloud in the classrooms of teachers to whom I recommended this book.

THE TAILYPO: A GHOST STORY
Told by Joanna Galdone
Illustrated by Paul Galdone
Clarion, 1997

This is a tale about an old man who lives in a one-room cabin “in the deep, big woods.” One day, he goes off hunting with his three dogs—Uno, Ino, and Cumptico-Calico. After many hours out hunting, the wind begins blowing hard. The old man knows it will get dark soon so he heads for home—with just one “skinny rabbit.”

The old man cooks up the rabbit and eats it. Then he sits back in his rocker and looks at the moon rising in the sky as the wind whistles round his cabin. Just as he’s dozing off, “a most curious creature crept through a crack between the logs in the wall.” The creature has a “BIG, LONG, FURRY TAIL.”

Now what do you suppose the old man does? Cower in his chair? Nope! Jump into his bed and pull the covers up over his head? Nope! Bolt out of his cabin and run off into the darkness? No way! Why, as soon as he spies that varmint in his house, he grabs his hatchet and hacks off its tail! Yep! That varmint creeps back through that crack in the wall and takes off. Then the old coot cooks up the critter’s furry tail and eats it! Yessirree, that’s what he does because he’s still hungry!

Once his belly is full, the old man goes to bed. He isn’t asleep for long when he hears a scratching sound. The old man calls out, “Who’s that?” A voice answers, “Tailypo, tailypo, all I want is my tailypo.” The scratching continues. The frightened old man calls his dogs—and they chase that thing off into the woods. Then the old man goes back to bed.

In the middle of the night, he’s awakened by the sound of something trying to get into his cabin—something that keeps making that SCRATCHING sound. He hears that voice saying: “Tailypo, tailypo, I’m coming to get my tailpo!” The old man calls for his dogs again. They chase that wild thing into the swamp. Once everything is quiet, the man returns to bed.

Before morning arrives, the old man’s awakened by something down in the swamp. He thinks it’s the wind—but when he listens closely he hears a voice crying: “You know, and I know, all I want is my tailypo.” The old man summons his dogs—but they’re nowhere to be found. He shuts and bars his door and goes back to bed.

THEN…just before daylight, the old man gets a strange feeling that there’s something in the cabin with him. That something starts climbing up the bed covers. First, the man sees two pointed ears poking up over the foot of his bed…then he sees “two big, round, fiery eyes.” That varmint has returned to get its tailypo! The man tells the creature he hasn’t got it—but the creature insists he does. It jumps on top of the man and scratches everything to pieces. Well, almost everything—the chimney of the old man’s house is the one thing left standing in the deep, big woods. That’s all.

But folks who live in the valley say
That when the moon shines and the wind blows,
You can hear a voice say:

“Tailypo, tailypo,
now I’ve got
my tailypo.”

Read this old tale with the overhead lights turned off and electric jack o’ lanterns turned on, use some scratching sound effects, and read the varmint’s words in a quavering, ghostlike, wailing voice—and you’re sure to send shivers of delight down children’s spines.


Suggested Art Activity: The first time I read this story aloud to my students I didn’t show them the illustrations. I told them to imagine what the “tailypo” creature looked like to them. When I finished reading the book, I gave my students construction paper and asked them to create their own versions of the creature. It was interesting to see how the creature was perceived by each child.

Blogging for a Cure: Week #2

Week #1 of Blogging for a Cure was a blast. Reading about so many talented artists was informative and fun. You will find the schedule for Week #2 of Blogging for a Cure below. Every day some of the picture book illustrators who have created snowflakes for Robert’s Snow 2007 will be featured at different children’s literature blogs. Robert’s Snow is a unique fundraiser. The proceeds from its three 2007 auctions will go to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute for cancer research. Read all about Robert’s Snow: for Cancer’s Cure here.

NOTE: I have linked to the blogs that will be posting features about the Robert’s Snow artists this week—not to the specific posts. Jules and Eisha of 7-Imp have created a special page that includes a list with links to all the Blogging for a Cure posts. Their list is updated every day.

Monday, October 22
Mark Teague at The Miss Rumphius Effect
Sharon Vargo at Finding Wonderland
Christopher Demarest at Writing and Ruminating
Rose Mary Berlin at Charlotte's Library
David Macaulay at Here in the Bonny Glen

Note: My daughter really liked the snowflake Sharon Vargo had created for Robert's Snow 2005...so I bought it for her as a Christmas present.

Sharon Vargo's 2005 Snowflake

I emailed Sharon that December and told her that I had won her snowflake and was planning to give it to my daughter as a very special Christmas surprise. Do you want to know what Sharon did? She autographed a copy of Bessie's Bed and sent it to me so I could give it to my daughter along with the snowflake. I was so touched by her thoughtful gesture!

Tuesday, October 23
Carin Berger at Chasing Ray
Marion Eldridge at Chicken Spaghetti
Sophie Blackall at not your mother's bookclub
Erik Brooks at Bildungsroman
Brian Lies at Greetings from Nowhere

Wednesday, October 24
Elisa Kleven at Rozzie Land
Consie Powell at Becky's Book Reviews
Jimmy Pickering at Shaken & Stirred
Frank Dormer at What Adrienne Thinks About That
Sheila Bailey at Lizjonesbooks

Thursday, October 25
Julia Denos at Interactive Reader
Rebecca Doughty at A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy
Brian Floca at A Fuse #8 Production
Margaret Chodos-Irvine at readergirlz

Friday, October 26
David Ezra Stein at HipWriterMama
Juli Kangas at Sam Riddleburger's blog
Ginger Nielson at Miss O's School Library
Margot Apple at Jo's Journal

Saturday, October 27
Julie Fromme Fortenberry at Your Neighborhood Librarian
Sarah Dillard at The Silver Lining
John Hassett at cynthialord's Journal
Abigail Marble at Please Come Flying

Sunday, October 28
Ashley Wolff at A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy
Barbara Garrison at Brooklyn Arden
Kelly Murphy at ChatRabbit

These are the Robert’s Snow artists that will be/have been featured at Wild Rose Reader.


October 16: Scott Bakal

October 29: Alissa Imre Geis
November 3: Wendell Minor
November 9: Susan Kathleen Hartung
November 15: Mary Newell DePalma
November 18: Wade Zahares

REMINDER: WIN A PRIZE!!!
I do hope you’ll stop by to read the my Blogging for a Cure articles and to comment about the artists and their work. I have a special prize for some lucky person who leaves a comment at any of my six posts featuring a Robert’s Snow artist: a limited edition giclee print of an illustration from Grace Lin’s book Robert’s Snow! That’s right folks! Here’s a picture of the print that I picked up last week when Grace, Janet Wong, and I visited the Child at Heart Gallery to see the snowflake exhibit. Each time you comment at one of my Blogging for a Cure posts about a Robert’s Snow artist, I’ll put your name in a hat. If you comment at all six posts, your name will go into the hat six times. The drawing will take place on November 19th, the day bidding begins on the first of three Robert’s Snow 2007 auctions.

I also have several consolation prizes for commenters who don’t win the “big” prize: five small prints of the Robert’s Snow mouse(mice).

Blogging for a Cure Day #7

Here we are at Day #7. It’s been fun reading about so many of the talented artists who have created snowflakes for Robert’s Snow 2007, a series of auctions that will raise money for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and cancer research. Below you will find the list of today’s Blogging for a Cure posts featuring five of the snowflake artists. You can read more about Robert’s Snow: for Cancer’s Cure and view the snowflakes here.

Sunday, October 21

Matthew Cordell at Just Like the Nut

Maxwell Eaton III at Books and Other Thoughts

Roz Fulcher at Goading the Pen

Susie Jin at sruble's world

Susan Mitchell at Check It Out

(7-Imp has a special Blogging for a Cure page that includes a list with links to all the posts that have featured the Robert’s Snow artists and 2007 snowflakes to date.)

Note to Blog Readers about Blogging for a Cure: When Jules of 7-Imp put out her call in September for bloggers to interview/feature artists who had created snowflakes for Robert’s Snow 2007 at their blogs, a number of artists had not yet sent in their snowflakes to Dana-Farber. As time was of the essence to get Blogging for a Cure underway, we worked with the list of artists whose snowflakes were already in possession of Dana-Farber. Therefore, not all the participating artists will be featured. This in no way diminishes our appreciation for their contributions to this worthy cause. We hope everyone will understand that once the list of artists was emailed to bloggers and it was determined which bloggers would feature which artists at their blogs, a schedule was organized and sent out so we could get to work on Blogging for a Cure ASAP. Our aim is to raise people’s awareness about Robert’s Snow and to promote the three auctions. We hope our efforts will help to make Robert’s Snow 2007 a resounding success.

Out & About: October 20, 2007

The Brookeshelf has moved. Here is the new address—http://brookeshelf.wordpress.com/

Found at Paradise Found: Here is a post with a list of Prizes from Robert’s Snow Illustrators. It includes links to the blogs that are offering the prizes. (Thanks to Jules of 7-Imp for this link.)

I am offering this limited edition giclee print of an illustration from Grace Lin's book Robert's Snow as a Blogging for a Cure prize!

Cynthia Leitich Smith has an author interview with Sylvia Vardell of Poetry for Children. Sylvia talks about her book Poetry Aloud Here! Sharing Poetry with Children in the Library. Sylvia is also the author of Poetry People: A Practical Guide to Children’s Poets.
Jules and Eisha have added a new page to their blog Seven Impossible Things. The new page has a comprehensive list of the Blogging for a Cure snowflake and illustrator features. It’s updated daily.

From the Children’s Book Council

Hot Off the Press: A Sneak Peek at Publishers’ Newest and Hottest Titles (Last updated on October 13, 2007)

For Children’s Book Week (November 12-18, 2007)

Promoting Children’s Book Week

Children’s Book Week Banners and Logos
Paraphrasing from the CBC website: Share your enthusiasm for Children's Book Week with the community. The CBC banner ads can be dowloaded onto your computer and used to link your website to ours, so that visitors can learn more about Children's Book Week and how to celebrate this longstanding tradition.

Blogging for a Cure Day #6

Check out this new Blogging for a Cure page at 7-Imp. It has a comprehensive list of snowflake and illustrator features that will be updated on a regular basis. Below you will find the list of today’s Blogging for a Cure posts featuring five of the artists who have created snowflakes for Robert’s Snow 2007, a series of auctions that will raise money for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and cancer research. Read all about Robert’s Snow: for Cancer’s Cure here.

Saturday, October 20

Linas Alsenas at A Wrung Sponge

Theresa Brandon at The Shady Glade

Karen Katz at Whimsy Books

Judy Schachner at Kate's Book Blog

Sally Vitsky at Shelf Elf: read, write, rave

Note to Blog Readers about Blogging for a Cure: When Jules of 7-Imp put out her call in September for bloggers to interview/feature artists who had created snowflakes for Robert’s Snow 2007 at their blogs, a number of artists had not yet sent in their snowflakes to Dana-Farber. As time was of the essence to get Blogging for a Cure underway, we worked with the list of artists whose snowflakes were already in possession of Dana-Farber. Therefore, not all the participating artists will be featured. This in no way diminishes our appreciation for their contributions to this worthy cause. We hope everyone will understand that once the list of artists was emailed to bloggers and it was determined which bloggers would feature which artists at their blogs, a schedule was organized and sent out so we could get to work on Blogging for a Cure ASAP. Our aim is to raise people’s awareness about Robert’s Snow and to promote the three auctions. We hope our efforts will help to make Robert’s Snow 2007 a resounding success.

Artist Anna Alter with Her Snowflake at the Child at Heart Gallery

You have just a few more days to view the snowflakes in person at the Child at Heart Gallery in Newburyport, Massachusetts. The exhibit will remain at the gallery through October 22nd.

There will be a second exhibit of the snowflakes at the Danforth Museum of Art in Framingham, Massachusetts, from October 30th through December 2nd. A special open house viewing will be held at the museum on Sunday, November 4th.

Poetry for Halloween

I’ve already written two posts about some Halloween picture books that are just perfect for reading aloud in October. (Click here to read Great Halloween Read-Alouds for Little Listeners and here to read my review of The Three Bears' Halloween.) I also posted links to several lists of suggested Halloween books. Now, how about some books with POEMS about Halloween, monsters and witches, and other things that go bump in the night?

BEWARE, TAKE CARE
Fun and Spooky Poems by Lilian Moore
Illustrated by Howard Fine
Henry Holt, 2006

This posthumous collection contains fifteen poems that were published in some of Moore’s earlier poetry books, including Spooky Rhymes and Riddles and See My Lovely Poison Ivy. Beware, Take Care includes poems about ghosts, dragons, monsters, and other spooky subjects. The book is intended for younger children.

Click here to read the review I wrote of Beware, Take Care last fall at Blue Rose Girls.

One of my favorite poems in this book is Lost and Found.

LOST AND FOUND
by Lilian Moore

LOST:
A Wizard’s loving pet.
Rather longish.
Somewhat scaly.
May be hungry or
Upset.
Please feed daily.

P.S. reward.

FOUND:
A dragon
Breathing fire,
Flails his scaly
Tail
In ire.
Would eat twenty LARGE meals
Daily.
If we let him.
PLEASE
come and get him.

P.S. No reward necessary.

SKELETON BONES & GOBLIN GROANS
Poems for Halloween
Written by Amy E. Sklansky
Illustrated by Karen Dismukes
Henry Holt, 2004

This collection, which has lighthearted poems about Halloween candy, jack o’ lanterns, a skeleton’s bones, Cyclops, zipping bats, and a haunted house that’s for sale, is a good book of poems to share with preschoolers and children in the early elementary grades as the end of this month approaches. The beaded canvas illustrations are bright and colorful and set a festive tone in celebrating a holiday that usually sends shivers of delight through children.

Most of the poems in Skelton Bones & Goblin Groans rhyme. Some do not—including the haikus Mummy and Grave. One of the most engaging poems in the book is House for Sale!

House for Sale!
by Amy E. Sklansky

Two fireplaces. Eat-in-kitchen.
Atmosphere you’ll find bewitchin’.
Lots of bedrooms. Space galore.
Slightly creaky hardwood floors.
Walk-in closets you can fill.
Stunning view atop a hill.
Asking price is very good.
In a lovely neighborhood.
All in all, just what you wanted.
(BY THE WAY, THIS HOUSE IS HAUNTED.)

If you read that poem to children, you know they will be able to provide the final word in the last line.

Do check out this page at Amy Sklansky website. There you will see a two-page spread from Goblin Groans & Skeleton Bones. It includes the full text of two poems: After Trick-or-Treating and Jack O’ Lantern.


I’ll end this Poetry Friday post with a witch poem I wrote many years ago.

THERE WAS A WITCH
A Poem by Elaine Magliaro

There was a witch who liked to race
Her supersonic broom through space.
At six o'clock last Friday night
She blasted off at speed of light.
She whizzed past Mercury and Mars...
Then headed off toward distant stars.
Across the galaxy she sped,
A black peaked helmet on her head.
An interstellar traveler, she
Explored the Milky Way with glee.
She chased swift comets here and there.
She watched bright supernovae flare.
She zipped through clouds of cosmic dust…
A witch bewitched by wanderlust.
There was a witch, I’m sad to say,
Flew near a big black hole one day.
It sucked her in just like a bean.
You won’t see HER on Halloween!



Kelly Fineman has the Poetry Friday Roundup this week.

Blogging for a Cure Day #5

Here is the list of today’s articles featuring the Robert’s Snow artists. Remember that 7-Imp always has the most up-to-date links for the Blogging for a Cure posts.


Friday, October 19

Graeme Base at Just One More Book

Denise Fleming at MotherReader

Jeff Mack at AmoXcalli

Jeff Newman at A Year of Reading

Ruth Sanderson at Book Moot

Blogging for a Cure Day #4, Out & About with Grace Lin & Janet Wong

Wow! It has certainly been interesting and informative reading all the Blogging for a Cure posts about the Robert’s Snow artists so far this week. There's one illustrator who was a body builder--and the artist I interviewed, Scott Bakal, was even noted in a comment to have nice "rock star" hair. I think it's possible we could have a whole bunch of candidates for Fuse's HMOCL! What do you think? And we still have another month to go!!!

Here’s a list of blogs to visit today. Always check at 7-Imp daily for the most up-to-date links for the Blogging for a Cure posts.

Thursday, October 18

Brooke Dyer at Bookshelves of Doom

D.B. Johnson at Lessons from the Tortoise

Erin Eitter Kono at Sam Riddleburger

Sherry Rogers at A Life in Books

Jennifer Thermes at Through the Studio Door

Out & About with Grace Lin & Janet Wong (Again)

I had two outstanding days to start off my week. As I wrote in an earlier post, I spent Sunday with Grace Lin and Janet Wong. We stopped by the Child at Heart Gallery to show Janet all the gorgeous snowflakes. Here’s a picture of Grace and me at the gallery.

Then off we went to have dinner at The Grog in beautiful downtown Newburyport, Massachusetts. I didn't take any pictures at the restaurant--so here's one I took of Grace and Janet last spring.
On Monday, I cooked up a batch of potato pancakes and brought them to Grace’s. Janet came over after her visit to a school in Cambridge. We feasted on the pancakes and talked about writing. Grace read to us from a story that she has been working on. I think it would be a great book! Grace and Janet critiqued one of my poetry manuscripts and gave me some good advice.

Janet and I got see an advanced copy of one of Grace’s new picture books—Bringing in the New Year. If you are an admirer of Grace Lin’s art, you are absolutely going to LOVE this book!!! It will be out in January…along with Grace’s sequel to The Year of the Dog. The sequel is entitled The Year of the Rat—and it’s another terrific book!
Monday night we went off to Cambridge for some delicious, rich, super chocolaty hot chocolate at L. A.Burdick. Care to sip some rich, warm, velvety liquid chocolate—chocolate worthy of a poem??? Then this is the place to go!

Well, I must go care for my two cats. Suzie has kidney problems and a urinary tract infection. Abby’s got stitches in her right ear. I have a much thinner wallet and four bottles of prescription kitty medications. Lots of trips to the veteranarian with cats who have medical problems can be quite costly. We need a program like SCHIP for pets!!!

This is Abby. She is a real character! She makes us laugh.

This is Suzie. She is really gentle and has a sweet disposition.