Book Lists

Indie Spotlight: Children’s Bookstores in 1917

By on December 29, 2017   /   Book Lists  

Inside An Unlikely Story

Independent bookstores are springing up everywhere–in cities and suburbs and small towns across the country. And why are they thriving?  Because  despite predictions about the inevitable end of bookstores and physical books, it turns out that a whole lot of people like to go to a real place, browse, buy, and read real books, and meet and talk with others who have read them.   Book chains try to give customers a uniform and predictable  experience in all their stores.  But every indy is unique, reflecting the owners’ ideal of what a bookstore could be. The bookstores we’ve highlighted this year certainly show  this variety of visions.
And we’ve noticed  trends continuing this year:  authors founding bookstores, new bookstores in small towns helping to revitalize the town center, store book clubs, strong links to communities.  And , always, great book recommendations from staff readers. Heres a brief look back, with Indie Spotlight dates for each ship in case you missed the full interview.   Be prepared to add to your tottering must-read pile!

Parnassus Books , Nashville TN, Jan 30.
Parnassus was founded by author Ann Patchett and publishing veteran Karen Hayes. Manager Mary Laura Philpott describes it as a store full of nooks and corners. When you visit, one of their many shop dogs—Sparkman “Sparky” VanDevender, Opie Brennan, Belle Bock, Bear Gardner, Mary Todd Lincoln Coffman or Eleanor Roosevelt Philpott—may great you and accompany you to the shelves. They recommend Breaking Stalin’s Nose by Eugene Yelchin and Awkward by Svetlana Chinakova for fiction, and for nonfiction Courage to Soar by Simone Biles and Maps by Aleksandra Mizelinski.   Visit them at www.parnassusbooks.net

Treehouse Books, Ashland OR Feb. 27,
In business 39 years. Jane Almqist and Cynthia Salbato say of their shop, “we are a bridge between the world of imagination and ordinary reality.” Isn’t that exactly what readers are looking for in a book? The owners grew up in the back yard of Disneyland, and this is reflected in the store’s Wizard Apothecary and Secret World Vault. “We love to encourage our guests to be their most magical selves while they are in Ashland and to take some of that enchantment with them into their daily lives. “ They dress as Lady Jane Owl and Cynthia Ravenwitch while in the store. The store holds story-themed art activities and takes book clubs to a new level in their Wizard Academy, with its monthly themed story games. They also love to feature both some undiscovered books. Among their recommendations: Book Scavenger by Jennifer Chambliss Bertman, My Diary from the Edge of the World, by Jody Lynn Anderson, and When the Sea Turns to Silver by Grace Lin

Voracious Reader, an Independent Bookstore for Young Readers with an Appetite for Books. Larchmont NY (March 31)
Voracious Reader opened 10 years ago during the time when bookstores were thought to be bad prospects. But time was right for them. Francine Lucidon describes the shop’s atmosphere as “super friendly,” especially on Fridays when Franklin, the Cavalier King Charles spaniel store dog greets customers. Francine especially likes to bring in books by exciting debut authors she meets at regional conferences. Her book club for 8-11 year olds, Uncommon Corps of Ravenous Readers, reads Advance Reader’s Copies of to-be published books and discusses them over pizza one Friday each month. Members can graduate to a similar club called YA Alliance when they turn 12. She recommends The Thing About Jellyfish by Ali Benjamin, Maybe a Fox by Kathi Appelt, and the Pixie Piper books by Annabelle Fisher.   Visit them www.thevoraciousreader.com

Linden Tree Books, Los Altos (April 28)
Their motto? “Where imaginations grow.” Co-owner Diane Edwards describes the Linden Tree staff as “literary matchmakers” who are trained in simple interview techniques to help young readers find their next favorite book. The shop has a Linden Tree Page Turners club for young people to get together once a month to discuss what books they’ve been enjoying. They recommend Spy School by Stuart Giles, Connect the Stars by Marissa de los Santos, and Frogkisser! By Garth Nix.  Visit them at www.lindentreebooks.com

Blue Willow Bookshop, Houston TX (May 31 )
This book shop opened in 1996 and was named for the Blue Willow style of china. The owners ignored the economic downturn and have succeeded. Blue Willow offers “opinionated advice” and has a book club for middle-grade girls called “Another Shade Blue.” They also take part in an annual Tweens Read festival in October. They recommend, among others, The Green Glass House by Kate Milford and Beyond the Bright Sea by LaurenWolk.  Visit them at www.bluewillowbookshop.com

Read With Me, A Children’s Book and Art Shop, Raleigh NC (June 30).
This new shop has an unusual arrangement, with adult books on one half of the store, and children’s books on the other. Books are chosen with good visual art in mind, and there are numerous book-related art activities planned including a cartooning workshop for ages 11-14. The shop offers local art for sale. Some favorite books at the store for this age are Kwame Alexander’s Out of Wonder, and Ben Hatke’s Mighty Jack. Visit them at www.readwithme.com

Eyeseeme African American Children’s Bookstore, University City Mo. (August 30)
Jeff Blair and his wife Pamela founded this bookstore because they wanted their own and other kids to know they were part of a great heritage and history that precedes and goes beyond slavery, reconstruction, and the Civil Rights Movement. Jeff says this is the only bookstore “devoted exclusively to promoting positive African American images and African American history while advocating for academic excellence.” Some of the books they recommend for middle-graders include the Eddie Red Undercover series by Marcia Wells and The Kidnapped Prince: The Life of Okuida Equiano by Ann Cameron. What they would like most to see published would be adventure series set in pre-colonial Africa. Visit them at www.eyeseeme.com

An unusual feature of Kid’s Ink, Indianapolis (Oct. 30) is that everything is painted white to make the books stand out. It is sometimes called “The Train Store” because they have always had a train track and they sell trains. They like the nonfiction books they stock to have indexes, tables of contents, and recommended reading. Among the fiction they like for middle-graders are Pam Munoz Ryan’s Eco and Jason Reynold’s Ghost. Visit them at www.kidsinkbooks.co

Unlikely Story Bookstore & Cafe, Plainville MA. (Nov. 29) Best-selling children’s author Jeff Kinney and his wife opened this shop in their home town in 2015 in protest against Amazon and defense of the physical book . It has renewed Plainville’s downtown center. Their hope, well founded, was that despite the small size of the town, Jeff’s fame could bring people in and other authors in addition to Jeff to make appearances. 
They recommend the Thirteen Story Treehouse books by Andy Griffiths, called “the Jeff Kinney of Australia”; The Key to Extraordinary by Natalie Lloyd; and The Way Home Looks Now by Wendy Wang-Long. The shop has a whimsical atmosphere with flying books and a quiditch game with a snitch. Lots of author events including of course Jeff Kinney. They recommend the Thirteen Story Treehouse books by Andy Griffiths, the Jeff Kinney of Australia,, The Key to Extraordinary by Natalie Lloyd, and The Way Home Looks Now by Wendy Wang-Long Shang. Visit their website at www.unlikelystory.com

Readers, how’s this for a happy New Year adventure resolution?  When you want a new book in 2018 , browse and buy it (and maybe a couple of new titles you wouldn’t have thought of) at an Indy shop.  There’s probably one near you and if not, there should be one at a day-trip distance.  What a pleasure.

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Adventure, Intrigue, and Korea, OH MY!

By on December 22, 2017   /   Author Interviews, Book Lists, children's bookstores, Fiction, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, independent bookstores  

One of the perks of being a teacher is the authors who grace our school halls, no matter where in the world those halls stand. Korea is such a place, currently front and center in recent events.

First, let me say, as a teacher and author, I appreciate the process: long hours, extensive research, pondering, the wrestling and wavering of ideas, bits of your heart and soul on paper. I value how one’s experiences provide rich content for the stories we create and how those events can touch the lives of students in the classroom. I especially love when students are able to connect to the person behind those words.

Meet author, Anne Sibley O’Brien, and her middle grade novel, In the Shadow of the Sun, an adventure story set in North Korea.

When our school librarian announced an upcoming author visit, I was intrigued to learn that the author, Anne Sibley O’Brien, had grown up in South Korea as a daughter of medical missionaries. A prolific picture book author, Ms. O’Brien’s first novel for middle school kids, In the Shadow of the Sun, unfolds in North Korea, a country currently in the midst of rising tensions around the world.

When my class and I pick up an author’s work, I remind them we are looking inside the mind of another person. We are immersing ourselves into a world that has been created from nothing. If someone else was to tell the same story, it would be voiced from a totally different perspective. In Ms. Obrien’s case, we are not only privilege to her writing acumen, but also bicultural experiences that provide sustenance in the backdrop of a foreign land.

Book Synopsis: North Korea is known as one of the most oppressed countries on Earth, with a dictatorial leader, a starving population, and harsh punishment for rebellion.

Not the best place for a family vacation.

Yet, that’s exactly where Mia Andrews finds herself, on a tour with her aid-worker father and fractious (would irritable be better here?) older brother, Simon. Mia was adopted from South Korea as a baby, and the trip raises tough questions about where she feels she really belongs. Her dad is then arrested for spying, just as forbidden photographs of North Korean slave-labor camps fall into Mia’s hands. The only way to save Dad: get the pictures out of the country. Thus, Mia and Simon set off on a harrowing journey to the border, without food, money, or shelter, in a land where anyone who sees them might turn them in, and getting caught could mean prison — or worse.

 Author Interview

In the Shadow of the Sun, Anne Sibley O’Brien

Please tell us about In the Shadow of the Sun and how you came to write it.

Our family arrived in Korea in March 1960, when my parents were hired by the Presbyterian Church to do medical missionary work. I was seven. We lived in Seoul and Daegu and on the island of Geoje, and I attended Ewha Women’s University for my junior year of college. Along the way I became bilingual and bicultural, and that background has influenced the content of some of my books, including the folktale 바보 온달, published as The Princess and the Beggar (now out of print) and my graphic novel of the Korean hero tale, The Legend of Hong Kil Dong: The Robin Hood of Korea. 

Those books were both inspired by retellings of traditional Korean stories. In the Shadow of the Sun, however, is a completely original story, and a modern one. The inspiration for the book was a radio interview in which my attention was drawn to the people of North Korea in a way I’d never thought of them before. (More about the story here.) That led to a ten-year process of research and writing, including several remarkable encounters with North Koreans who had defected.

You can find more about my childhood and background, photographs and videos, responses to the novel, and whether I’ve ever visited North Korea, on the novel’s blog, InTheShadowOfTheSunBook.com. There is also an activity guide created by Island Readers and Writers.

How do the events in your book tie into our current events with North Korea?

In the Shadow of the Sun is the first fictional portrayal of contemporary North Korea for young English-speaking readers. When I was writing it, I never anticipated just how much the DPRK would be in the spotlight!

The picture of North Korea that’s presented in the media is such a cartoonish one. I think it’s important to consider not just the government but the people, everyday citizens who have no say in what their leaders do. Of course, my plot is a completely imagined one, but I’ve tried to weave in bits of current North Korean politics and society — and most of all, people — in a way that will give readers a glimpse of what it might be like to live there today. In the Author’s Note, I also recommend other books and films which can add more context. I hope that people might come away from the novel with a sense of the humanity of North Korea’s people.

 

 

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Dealing with Mental Health Issues in Middle Grade Literature

By on December 20, 2017   /   Diversity, Fiction, For Librarians, For Parents, For Teachers, Op-Ed  
Mental Health in Middle Grade Literature

Mental Health in Middle Grade Literature

(EDITED TO ADD: Responsibility in these kinds of topics is of the utmost importance. There are many books that do NOT handle issues like these appropriately–and some that increase stigmas rather than assuage them–so please make certain that books are informed whenever they assert any kind of mental illness. Familiarize yourself with the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, build relationships with professionals, and be careful that books you recommend are supportive and empowering rather than detrimental. 

It is important to represent these children in the fiction they read, but it is essential that they be represented well.)

So I’ve been thinking a lot lately about mental health and neurodivergence in children’s literature.

As a bit of background, I’ve worked with teens and tweens in various capacities for most of my adult life, providing mentorship and guidance to kids from all sorts of backgrounds. And I’ve seen all types; enough to know that neurodiversity—that idea that everyone’s brain works differently—is the order of the day. Every child is different.

But in those differences, I’ve also seen a lot of hurt. Social structures come easy for some kids, but not for others. Some excel at math, while others look at numbers and see Greek. Many, many struggle with deep insecurities when they see the difference between themselves and those kids who are celebrated by the culture at large. And sometimes those differences in cognitive function provide enough pain and disruption to a kid’s life that they leave any sense of normalcy behind.

Some Kind of Happiness by Claire Legrand (image by Sean Easley)

Some Kind of Happiness by Claire Legrand (image by Sean Easley)

That’s a painful place to be. Students who find themselves on the margins of what we call “mental health” often experience an overwhelming sense of confusion and sadness as a result. They feel lost, adrift, and often, alone.

It’s part of our nature, I think, to believe that when hard times come, we are the only ones facing them. And when a child’s daily experience consists of a consistent string of hard times and marginalization—of any type—that sense of loneliness and hopelessness can grow even greater. As those feelings grow, so too does the gulf that these kids experience between them and the world at large.

This isn’t just something to only consider once a kid gets older and their “brain has developed,” as some might say. Statistics from the National Alliance on Mental Illness say that half of all mental health conditions begin by the time a child turns fourteen. Half. That means half of all people with these mental health issues are first experiencing these issues when they are readers of middle grade literature.

And yet, when I start seeking out books for this age group that feature these kinds of kids, the pickings are often slim. This is the time in these kids’ lives when they’re discovering what their life is going to be like—what they are going to be like—and they (and the adults in their lives) have to work hard to find examples of other kids coping with these experiences.

Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus by Dusti Bowling (image by Sean Easley)

Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus by Dusti Bowling (image by Sean Easley)

I’ve overheard parents say that they don’t want their kids reading “books like that,”—referring to those books that address mental health issues—because they don’t want their kids “exposed to that sort of thing.” This is exactly the problem, though. The kids whose parents want to shelter them from neurodiversity and neurodivergence often end up with distorted understanding of kids in their own schools who experience life differently from them. And a child who’s experiencing these feelings of differentness and otherness needs to know that their experience isn’t something to just discount. Their life has infinite value, even if they don’t realize or believe it yet.

That’s where the educators, librarians, and authors of middle grade come in. It’s our responsibility to give these kids access to books they can see themselves and learn that they fit in the world, just like anyone else. They need to know that it’s okay to claim a spot on the map and make it their own.

And I have been grateful to find more books and authors doing this lately. Books like the Alvin Ho series by Lenore Look and Kenneth Oppel’s psychological horror The Nest give us a look at kids exhibiting some OCD tendencies. Dusti Bowling’s Insignificant Events in the Life of a Cactus centers on a girl with physical challenges, but her close friend deals with his Tourette’s throughout the book in a very positive way. Patrick Ness’s A Monster Calls, Anne Ursu’s Breadcrumbs, and Claire Legrand’s Some Kind of Happiness all give heartfelt portrayals of depression. Donna Gephart’s Lily and Dunkin provides a deep rendition of a boy dealing with bipolar disorder. And Anne Ursu’s The Real Boy puts a beautiful fantasy twist on neurodiversity.

The Nest by Kenneth Oppel (image by Sean Easley)

The Nest by Kenneth Oppel (image by Sean Easley)

These are still only the tip of the iceberg. It’s important that kids with cognitive differences be normalized because—in reality—the existence of these kinds of differences IS normal. These kids are all around us. They are us. Librarians and teachers know how common those differences are, and often do a wonderful job of celebrating those books that will reach these kids where they’re at. And putting those books in the hands of kids who don’t have those cognitive “differences” will go a long way to building compassion, understanding, and acceptance of kids who feel unloved, confused, and unaccepted.

What books have you loved or recommended because they gave honest, normalizing portrayals of neurodivergence? Add your suggestions in the comments below!

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