Book Review Wednesday: Don’t Call Me Sidney

 

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Today on Book Review Wednesday, we welcome Jane Sutton and her main character Sidney. Jane’s picture book, Don’t Call Me Sidney  just launched last week and I am so happy to have her here at Creative Chaos. Jane is a New England author of seven books for children. According to her website, Jane likes to laugh, ride her bike, watch the Red Sox play baseball, do crossword puzzles, travel, and dance and sing along to rock music.

Sidney, and his friend Gabie the duck, were imaged by Italian illustrator, Renata Gallio. It may have been more appropriate to invite Sidney for a poetry Friday post. Yes, Sidney the pig is a poet– a poet with a problem. You would have a problem too, if you couldn’t find anything to rhyme with your name.

The funniest thing about Sidney’s problem is that he creates it himself. He is not poet enough to restructure his lines, instead he chooses to rename himself “Joe,” a name with plenty of rhyming possibility.  In doing this, Jane digs a deeper more meaningful problem for Sidn–, I mean Joe. Who is he really, and what’s in a name? Sidney solves his problem and revises his poetry on his own, to make a very satisfying ending.

In addition to wonderful facial and body expression, Renata Gallio creates character by giving Sidney a never-ending supply of scrap paper. Throughout the book, we see Sidney’s thought process on the papers that trail behind him or are taped to furniture, walls, and buildings.  (Like Sidney, I often have purses and pockets full of scrawled scraps. Ah… the life of the writer.) This is a wonderful example of the illustrator extending the story. Renata Gallio uses acrylics, collage, pencil and a muted palette to create Sidney and his friends.

Welcome Jane and thanks for bringing Sidney. Just a few questions:

Most picture book authors expect to wait two to three years for their manuscripts to go from contract to pub date. I understand that you sold the Don’t Call Me Sidney manuscript in 2001, but it is only just being released this week. Congratulations! Can you give us a short history of the obstacles this manuscript faced on the road to publication?


Don’t Call Me Sidney was originally Don’t Call Me Mortimer, a sequel to The Trouble With Cauliflower, published in 2006.  When we learned the sequel wouldn’t work out, my editor and I decided that I should rewrite the text with new characters since the second book would have a different illustrator. It took a long time to find the right illustrator for the project. But she was definitely worth waiting for! Actually, I think the extra wait has made the release of the book feel all the sweeter. I’m dancing in the streets! No neighbors have called the police as yet.

Seeing an illustrator’s interpretation on a manuscript you’ve sold can be a moment full of fear and joy. Did you have any preconceived notions about Sidney? Had you imagined Sidney as a pig? How much artistic input does Dial encourage from its authors?

I originally pictured Sidney as a monkey, but that was back when he was Mortimer, who turned out to be a koala bear. When Renata Gallio took over as illustrator, I had no idea what animal she would choose. I was thrilled to see the sketches for the pig and with his friend Gabie, a duck. What I value in illustrations–besides their being pleasing to look at, funny, and clear as to what’s happening–are facial expressions. And Sidney’s emotions are very apparent via Renata’s facial expressions. I especially appreciate the love so clearly shown between Sidney and his mom. And by the way, I dedicated the book to my own son, so that aspect is especially sweet to me. Sorry, I’m getting ferklempt.

OK, I’ve recovered. You asked about artistic input encouraged by Dial from authors. I’ve had several editors at Dial, and each has been very welcoming of my input. We’ve had constructive, mutually respectful dialogue about the artwork’s depiction of text and sub-text.


Your last two books have been illustrated by overseas artists. Do you see a different aesthetic sensibility between American and European or Australian illustrators?

Wow, that’s a really interesting question, Anna. Jim Harris, the illustrator of The Trouble With Caulilfower, is an American who lives in New Zealand, but his seeing koala bears in a zoo in Australia influenced his choosing of that cute little guy for the main character, and he made his diminutive size and other features realistic. With the new book, I think that the Italian illustrator Renata Gallio’s buildings look very European, and I love them, and I want to leave for a trip to Italy immediately.

Many of your books, including Don’t Call Me Sidney, are packed with humor. How do you approach humor in a picture book manuscript? How much of the humor is a part of the original story idea and how much of your work is amping up the yucks in revision?

 

Another good question. You’re making me think here, Anna! Humor is always there from the beginning for me. A good laugh for me is better than (fill in the blank with a noun). As I revise, I look for opportunities to add more. I was thrilled with the additional humor the illustrator brought to the book. For example, as Sidney is thinking up more rhymeable names, she has him writing them on post-it notes, which I think is adorable.  Along with my original concept for a book, there’s always a message, but I try to be subtle about it.

 

Hmmm… fill in the blank with a noun? If I asked my boys they’d say toilet, underwear or poop. That works right?

What are some things that make your school programs unique? Can you give us a sneak peak at how you’ll bring Sidney to classrooms this fall?

I won’t claim uniqueness on this, but I show the kids really messy drafts as I talk about my writing process. I like to emphasize that good writing entails a lot of rewriting. Teachers love that message. They’re in the back of the room, nodding and smiling and thinking, “See? I’ve been telling you guys that all year, and now a professional writer is telling you!” My programs are interactive. I engage in dialogue with the students. It probably helps that I can use my humor and that I’m immature (or charmingly childlike, depending on your point of view), so I relate well to kids.

 

Since Don’t Call Me Sidney features a poetry-writing pig, I plan to offer rhyming activities—simple ones with younger children and, with older children, I’ll explore other forms of poetry and talk about how rhyming poetry can sometimes inhibit meaning. I take requests from teachers for the types of programs I offer; for example, since I’ve written four novels, sometimes I’ll do a session on character development or writing from one’s own experience. Now that teachers are pressured to meet standards, I’m giving them guidelines about my books matching those scary, looming language arts standards, plus follow-up activities they can use.

Marketing is more and more the responsibility of the author these days. What marketing events or activities are you planning around the launch of Don’t Call Me Sidney?

Dial provided a detailed kit about promotion, and I have tried to be very conscientious, bordering on compulsive, about it. I created an author’s page on Amazon, updated my website, and announced the book to alumni magazines, Facebook, and listserves.  I’m making the rounds to local bookstores and libraries with a page of reviews from School Library Journal, Booklist and Kirkus that has a bookmark stapled to it and a little note about my willingness to do events, etc. I have no dates to share yet, but hope to be doing several story hours this summer, school visits in the fall, and appearances on Letterman and Oprah (OK, those last 2 are just daydreams).

 

Wow! I love the idea about the bookmark stapled to the review sheet. Thanks for the advice, Jane and thanks for bringing Sidney to Book Review Wednesday. Next time you come to Maine, bring your bike and we’ll do a ride. Enjoy the launch of Don’t Call Me Sidney.

Five on Friday

1. Today begins writer’s camp weekend. I get to read some work. I’m choosing the piece I feel most uncomfortable about and hoping for some direction or spark.

2. I finished a week of LL Bean orientation and feel confident about wearing the Bean Green shirt with pride.

3. Our garden looks beautiful because my wonderful husband bought seedlings and planted and weeded and watered while I was…

4. …finishing my final writing packet of my second VCFA semester! I still need to do my end of semester evals and polish my presentation but I am essential done and looking forward to…

5. Riding in the Prouty. Now, only my family donated to my triathlon efforts on behalf of our local YMCA and I totally understand that. But I’ll be riding with a group of children’s writers on the "Bike Writer" team in honor of the amazing Norma Fox Mazer. I hope some of you will find $5 or $10 that you could donate to cancer research. Thanks so much!

Five on Friday

1. Deadlines approacheth. I’m working on a difficult revision of a picture book with civil rights information. Questions such as how to be developmentally appropriate, not be preachy, and show not tell are swirling around my computer today. It doesn’t matter how long we’ve been writing for children these always seem to be the crucial questions.  Also working on my picture book presentation for the VCFA July residency.

2. My second triathlon is on Sunday morning. The experience of the first has taken away some of my pre-race jitters so I’m mostly excited. I’ve decided that triathlons are sort of like child birth. You forget the pain after you enjoy the emotional high of the finish line.

3. Good news on the job front! I’ll be teaching an integrated 5/6th grade Language Arts and Social Studies class at The Friends School of Portland coming September. The four morning a week schedule should be perfect for completing my VCFA critical thesis. (You can remind me I said this when I’m pulling out my hair in November.) LL Bean has also hired me to a retail sales job at their camping department. Stop by if you’re in Maine this summer and I’ll show you some tents!

4. My son was part of a Civil War reenactment this week. I have to say, it was a little uncomfortable watching our children in this romanticized version of war especially when we are in a war right now. We need to ask our children to contemplate the effectiveness and cost of battle to reach political ends. By teaching war do we beget more war or preclude it? What is worth fighting for?

5. Again, with the Civil War… I always felt that my understanding of this atrocious loss of life was always distilled to the lowest common denominator. "The good north was fighting to free the slaves from the bad south." As I’ve gotten older and done some study of my own, I find that the facts are much more nuanced than that. Why do we persist in teaching this distilled version?

PS: if you see me on facebook this weekend, tell me to get back to work.

What’s with that race and religion stuff in the NESCBWI eval?

First, I want to thank Anindita Sempere ( ) and Greg Fishbone for an amazing conference. The expertise of faculty was fabulous, the keynoters engaging and informative and the company… well I absolutely thrive and am inspired by all the wonderful NESCBWI members.

Over the weekend, I had no responsibilities so I was happy to meet people (whom I could remember since I wasn’t in Director-land) and listen to some concerns in my brandie new position as Northern New England RA. One that I heard more than once was about the demographics questions on the evaluation sheets. I inserted those into the eval last year so I thought I could explain the thinking behind that.

The theme of last year’s conference, if you remember, was "Many Voices." I chose that theme because it is important to me that every child recognize themselves (or someone like themselves) in books that we write, illustrate and publish. To that end, many of the workshops had to do with sensitive portrayals of various cultures, issues and concerns in "mulitcultural" publishing, etc. I made a sincere effort to recruit and hire well-qualified authors and illustrators of color onto the faculty in the hopes that this would ultimately draw new minority voices to the membership of NE SCBWI.

But how would we measure that?

I designed the demographic questions to be short and to the point so that we could collect data and establish a baseline from which we could see how the membership trended. We hope to collect this data for the next 5 or so years.

But what about that religion question? Why do you need to know that?

Well, I am Jewish. And I always feel that when I fill out those questionnaires that just saying that I’m "Caucasian" leaves my cultural identity uncounted. I’m sure there are others from various cultures who feel that way too.

Of course it is your choice to respond to the demographic questions at all, but now you know why they are there.

Summing Up

It’s been quite a long time since my last post. Much has been going on and since it is too long to explain I’ll just sum up. (Did you get the Princess Bride allusion there?)

Jobs: I’ve applied to a writing specialist job at Bates and a teaching position at the Friends School of Portland. I’ve been interviewed at the Friends School so it seems that is more likely to come through. Contacting the Bates folks today to follow up. I also applied to LL Bean’s for retail sales position at the Bike, Boat and Ski shop. I was psyched when they called to offer me the job. I went in to fill out all my paper work, watch their harassment video (not how to, but how not to), and get cleared by their health department. Turns out that the job I was offered was a "level 5" position which requires lifting a 50 lb. box to the height of 76 inches. I did 40 safely, but needed spotting on 45 and help on 50. So bad news…no Bike, Boat and Ski job. Good news…they called yesterday and offered me a position in camping. Discount, here I come. Summer weekends, good-bye.

Triathlon: I’ve been training like crazy and after watching the Polar Tri last Saturday, I’m really excited about the celebration that my first race will be. The race is coming up soon, next Saturday, May 22nd, there is still time to donate to the cause. All money goes to help with YMCA scholarships for camp and membership. The "Mighty Mama’s" (our team) is so close to our $200 goal. Please help.
And because I’m a crazy girl, I’ve already signed up for my next Tri with the Bath Y. (Not a fundraiser) so I’ll get a chance to do all three sections and be timed for both transitions.

VCFA/Writing: I’ve been chugging away churning out picture book manuscripts this semester and have at least 2 or 3 that I feel are submission quality. One is with an editor now and I’m hoping to hear something soon. I need to revise my novel and start subbing to agents but things have been so busy that I’ve had to put that on hold.

Book Review Wednesday: Um… I’m really sorry. I just haven’t kept up and there’s really no excuse except, well, all the other stuff I’ve been doing.

Illustration: The Great Goose Auction is over and I’m trying to find out what happened with my two painted eggs. More on that later. My Fufu And Fresh Strawberries illustrations are awaiting an input of funding to The Telling Room in Portland. They are hoping for grant money to make the design and publication possible. Right now, I’m working on illustrations for my picture book Roar which I will show at the Illustrator’s Academy this Sunday. I’m also working on my poster for the showcase and trying to get my portfolio together too. I’ve been happy doing the whole portfolio thing on line so it’s kind of a pain to get all the images together, printed out and assembled in the book. So on that note, here are some images to take a look at. Enjoy.

ALA National Library Week

This is ALA National Library Week and today is National Library Worker Appreciation Day. I owe a special debt of gratitude to the Curtis Memorial Library’s children’s librarians. It all started about 14 years ago when we moved to Brunswick, Maine. Then, the library was small and cozy and the children’s section was headed by the spirited Phyllis Fuchs. Phyllis was pleased as punch when I said that I’d like to volunteer. She let me join her as she read picture books to toddlers both in the library and those watching community cable at home. When I had my own children, Phyllis was there every week at Finger Fun for Babies. Thank goodness for those weekly sessions where I could speak with other adults and beat the isolation of early mothering.

The newly renovated Curtis Memorial Library opened and Phyllis decided to retire, but a group of amazing librarians took her place.  Pam, Robin, and Melissa in particular have been especially helpful on my journey to become an author/illustrator. They are quick to jump on-line on my behalf when I ask, "Have you got a list of books that use the This is the House that Jack Built, construction," or "I’m looking for ballet books for boys," or "What do you love that’s new?," or "Which of these books do 5th grade boys really love?" The always know where to find the answers.

Moreover, they know me. They know my kids. They often know about my work in progress, or research and will save things on my behalf. They know how long this journey has been, how hard I work, (or don’t- I loved the day that I walked in to get a book and Melissa, after reading my Facebook update said, "Aren’t you supposed to be working on your illustrations?") Some people long for a place where everybody knows your name. For me, that place is my community library.

I hope that the next time you elect your community officials you’ll communicate to them how important the library is for your community. Perhaps when you hear that your taxes are going up, you’ll consider the library collection, physical requirements, and library workers who do so much to help so many by providing access to information through books, computers, and other media. Perhaps you’ll think about the women I listed above, about how as women, last year they earned 77% of men’s median earnings, the same as the wage gap in 2002. Perhaps you’ll agree that when we all chip in, our communities prosper economically, and educationally.

To Melissa, and Pam, and Robin, I hope you enjoy the flowers I sent. It was a small symbol of my endless appreciation for all you do.

For more information on how you can help save libraries go here.
For more about ALA National Libary Week go here.
For more about National Library Worker Appreciation Week and info on pay equity go here.
For links to other authors and their essays and lists about loving libraries go here.

Five on Sunday

1. Today was the most beautiful day. It must have been close to 80 degrees. We went to a lovely church service with fabulous music: bell ringers, choirs, a brass quartet and organ. The sermon was thoughtful and thought provoking. Chris made a lovely dinner and we ate on the screen porch. Between al fresco dining and the first Red Sox game…Spring is officially here.

2. Does anyone know how to get your puppy to actually go to the door or tell you when they need to out? We thought we had the potty training down but there seems to be some regression.

3. More deadlines coming up quickly. To do this week:

  • VCFA forum assignment
  • VCFA revisions
  • Complete VCFA paper
  • New sketches for Roar! dummy and work on Jacob Jones revisions for agent packet.

4. Reading: The Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick fabulous prose. Lyrical and riveting.

5. Weekly training totals 3/29-4/4:
Running- 7.25 miles
Swimming-1000 yards
Biking- 47.35 miles

Weeks until the Tri for the Casco Bay Y- 7
If you’d like to donate to my "Mighty Mama’s" triathlon team please donate online!

Book Review Wednesday: The Matzah that Papa Brought Home


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Books with a “This is the House that Jack Built” format often use the first line as the title of the book. However, the first line is just a starting point from which to build the actual story. “This is the house that Jack built,” is not about the house at all but about the community around the house. Similarly, The Matzah that Papa Brought Home, by Fran Manushkin, illustrated by Ned Bittinger, is not about matzah at all but about the Passover seder.

 

With tight and lyrical rhyme, Manushkin captures the high points of the Passover Seder from a child’s point of view. The narrator is clearly the child of the “Papa” who brought home the matzah. The child voice is unmistakable in the fourth spread into the story, when we read, “This is me standing tall and proud/ to ask the Four Questions nice and loud/ during the Passover Seder we shared/ to eat the feast that Mama made/ with the matzah that Papa brought home.” This passage reveals that the narrator is the youngest child in this family and the illustration portrays a sweet six-year-old girl who is glowing with the responsibilities of her question-asking task. My inner-child especially connected with the line, “This is “Dayenu,” a very long song/ that we sang with our stomachs growling along…”

 

Bittinger’s paintings are rendered in oil paint on linen using deep shadow and glowing light to intensify emotion and lead the eye of the viewer around the painting. From the feast, to clearing the table, to the child trying to sneak a bit of matzah, the images capture the chaos and order of a Passover Seder. My favorite image is of the narrator sitting on Papa’s lap, each of them taking pinkies full of wine to diminish their pleasure while reciting the plagues. The figures are bathed in light, the background a deep brown/black but in the middle values, frogs and locusts hop, and rains fall on enslaved Hebrew workers. This dreamy sequence allows two stories, Manushkin’s and the Exodus, to be told at the same time. www.franmanushkin.com/thematzahpapabroughthome.htm

 

The only issue I had with the book was the line, “This is the feast that Mama made with the matzah that Papa brought home.” I stumbled over this line when reading it aloud to my boys and we all looked at each other. My son said, “The roasted chicken [in the illustration] didn’t come from the matzah.” I agreed. Obviously, the feast was made to go along with the matzah but the syntax suggested that the whole feast was made from the matzah.

 

Scholastic published the book in 1995, and it is well worth the interlibrary loan. If you are looking to buy the book, it was reprinted in paperback in 2001 and should be available for order through your nearest Indie-bookshop. Happy Passover to all!