A plug for Nancy Garden's talk

At breakfast in the Exhibit Hall this morning I met Nancy Garden, who is giving a presentation this afternoon at 3:15 on "From There to Here: Gay and Lesbian Kids' Books In Transition."

We had an interesting talk about kids, and bullying, and how literature can connect with all this, and she knows a lot and was very thoughtful.

See her 2006 book, Endgame, about a kid who is bullied and what results. I plan to read it.

She also mentioned two other books to me:

The Misfits, by James Howe
The Revealers, by Doug Wilhelm

I can't go hear her speak, because I need to attend the session on library website makeovers, but based on our conversation, I'm sure she'll be great! I hope someone else blogs it for me.

Talk with YA and Children’s Authors

Janet Ruth Young – The Opposite of Music

Why she chose to write a book and how…some advice to potential writers

• Woke up one day in May 2001 and she did not want to go to work…
• She felt that she had not lived up to her original dreams of becoming an author
• She had a story running through her head because her family had a history of mental illness.
• She had a little voice telling her to revisit this idea.
• She made a plan to quit her job and work on her novel
• She created a small manuscript and submitted for evaluation –
• She won the Penn NE Award for new writers
• She worked in “micro-chapters” and assigned herself one of these a day
• The titles began as "The Scientists" and ended up as "The Opposite of Music"
• She submitted her book as an independent writer but used many books to help her along the way.
• She polled the publishers to get a feel for her ideas
• While the publisher was interested, she need to work on revisions
• The tone had to be tweaked and the voice must be true to her characters
• She had tried to not preach but the publisher believed that half the book was missing
• She made revisions…and then time went by…and she was eventually rejected
• She made a new plan…to submit to more editors and more publishing companies
• But this time she placed time constraints on the publishers
• Finally she received an offer and negotiated for the best possible contract
• But more revisions were asked for…more than she was willing to concede
• Ultimately, she learned that she had to compromise…but her book was published!

Susan Lubner – Noises at Night & Ruthie Bon Bair: Do not go to bed with wringing wet hair

• She writes children’s picture books
• She loves to write in rhyme
• She published 2 short stories in college
• But got a “real job” after school
• She took a course or workshop on writing children’s stories
• Sold her first short story to a magazine
• She showed the manuscript of her first book, only 350 words on 2 pieces of paper
• Then she held up the large stack of papers involved in the revisions
• Words are kept to a minimum in writing picture books
• The only descriptions are one necessary for the storyline
• Her first book was sent out 30-40 times
• Ideas- everyday occurrences, watching nature, her reading or watching of the news, visuals, personal experiences with embellishment,
• Even though these stories are short…sometimes they take years to write…
• Suggest being part of a writers group to help develop their stories

Then the group was treated to a reading of Ms. Lubner’s book Ruthie Bon Bair… complete with her Ruthie “head of hair” on her head. It was enjoyable to hear her wonderful rhymes out loud.

Meet the Millenials (facilitated by Stephen Abram)

Besides the inexplicable fact that these 12-17 year-olds are listening to the very same bands that my peers were listening to when we were in high school (Bon Jovi, Pink Floyd, Queen, etc.) it was great to hear exactly what they think of libraries and life in general.

If you work with teens, or if you don't, you need to spend time listening to kids their age. There are too many stereotypes about teens being the troubled group in our libraries, but when you ask them questions about their lives in general, they are articulate, clear, and know exactly what they want.

When this particular group of teens answered that most of them did NOT have myspace or facebook accounts, people were surprised, and Stephen mentioned that he is used to working with older teens, assuming that it is an age difference. However, when I was in library school a few years ago, I recall this same issue coming up and believing that there is a big difference between the "normal" mainstream image of a teen in urban settings and the teens who live in small towns and rural environments.

Living in southern VT and working in western MA, I see a huge difference in both the interests of teens and the access they have to information and trends. They tend to be far behind their urban counterparts. This is not a bad thing, but it means that we all need to pay attention to our own communities, rather than assuming that all teens are alike, that they all want exactly the same thing, that they all listen to the same music, watch the same movies, wear the same clothes or read the same books. Thanks to big business and the corporatization of America, there certainly is the tendency for that to happen, but the information reaches different communities at different times, and that affects how the people who live there see the world.

Just think - one teen in this session said the closest Barnes & Noble is an hour's drive from his house. I'll bet his public library is closer.

But my favorite quote from one of the teens was (in talking about doing research for school projects) "...Books help because you can’t publish a book with false information."