When the New York Times reviewed The Day-Glo Brothers last month, my younger son had some questions for my wife — which he asked out of earshot of me.
“It used to be that nobody liked Daddy’s book, right?” asked five-year-old F, knowing all about the 23 rejections the manuscript received before Charlesbridge acquired it.
“That’s right.”
“But now, everybody likes it.” Meaning, even someone in New York.
“It’s gotten good reviews, yes.”
“Isn’t there anybody anymore who doesn’t like it?”
“Well,” my wife said, “there was one reviewer who said the bright colors gave her a headache, so she didn’t really like it.”
“Oh, thank goodness,” F replied. “I thought I was the only one.”
What arrived in the mail yesterday? My very first hardcover copy of Shark Vs. Train!
And what else?
Shark Vs. Train refrigerator magnets.
New Year’s Day brought the announcement of the finalists for the 2009 Cybils (Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards), and I’m beyond honored and delighted that The Day-Glo Brothers has made the shortlist for Non-Fiction Picture/Information Books.
The other finalists in this category are:
14 Cows for America, by Carmen Agra Deedy
Down, Down, Down: A Journey to the Bottom of the Sea, by Steve Jenkins
Faith, by Maya Ajmera, Magde Nakassis, and Cynthia Pon for the Global Fund for Children
Life-Size Zoo: From Tiny Rodents to Gigantic Elephants, An Actual Size Animal Encyclopedia, created by Teruyuki Komiya with photographs by Toyofumi Fukuda
Mermaid Queen: The Spectacular True Story Of Annette Kellerman, Who Swam Her Way To Fame, Fortune & Swimsuit History!, by Shana Corey
Moonshot: The Flight of Apollo 11, by Brian Floca
Check out the Cybils site for more details about each of these nominees, and for the shortlists in these other categories:
Easy Readers & Short Chapter Books
Fantasy & Science Fiction (Middle Grade)
Fantasy & Science Fiction (Young Adult)
Fiction Picture Books
Graphic Novels
Middle Grade Fiction
Non-Fiction Middle Grade/YA
Poetry
Young Adult Fiction
The mail on Christmas Eve included a hard copy of the Spring/Summer 2010 catalog from Little, Brown and Company Books for Young Readers, featuring — to my immense delight — a couple of good friends of mine on both the front and back covers.
That alone would have made for a happy holiday. But better still was the book that my beloved gave me the next day: Daniel Pennac’s delicious The Rights of the Reader. I could quote from it all day long, but will stick to just this one:
Time to read is always time stolen. (Like time to write, for that matter, or time to love.)
Thanks for stealing a little time to read what I’ve had to say this year. And here’s to more stolen time for all of us in 2010, for each of those purposes above.
This weekend, The New York Times has reviewed The Day-Glo Brothers, which all by itself would be just terrific. But better still is this particular piece of the review:
In Barton’s description of the breakthrough moment, which can stand for all such moments, you can almost hear the echo of Moses and the burning bush: “When the billboard came into view that afternoon, what the brothers saw astonished them. From more than a mile away, it looked like the billboard was on fire!”
As someone who spent eight years shepherding this book along, I really thought I had considered every possible angle on the Switzers’ story. Not the Moses one, though.
Less than a week after declaring to a friend (for the final time, as it turned out) that I saw Twitter as one more datastream than I could handle — well, I’m now on Twitter:
http://twitter.com/Bartography
Why? Because of context — or the lack thereof. I’m typically a slow writer and slow blogger, and what slows me down more than anything is my need to put things into context, like I’m doing right now.
But Twitter’s 140-character maximum makes context not just unnecessary but impossible. So as observations and announcements and news and other information come along — such as my agent’s new website — I can get them into circulation much more quickly and frequently, and follow up them here later.
I’d wondered how I would possibly juggle my presence on Twitter, this blog, Facebook, LinkedIn, and my email newsletter without them feeling redundant to others or overwhelming to myself, but it all seems obvious now:
Twitter: For me, this is a forum solely for matters relating to children’s/YA literature. And given how broadly that can be defined, isn’t that plenty?
Facebook: This is a more personal space, though not that much more personal, and with less emphasis on my literary life, though not that much less.
LinkedIn: Here, I’m all business, though much more for connecting with folks than for updating them on my doings.
Bartography Express: This is for anybody who can easily get their fill of me in a bimonthly newsletter. If that’s you, please sign up on my home page.
Bartography: I expect to use this blog for the same sorts of posts and with the same frequency as you’ve seen here recently. Context included.
Those would be The Siren Song by Anne Ursu, Knucklehead: Tall Tales & Mostly True Stories of Growing Up Scieszka by Jon Scieszka, The Evolution of Calpurnia Tate by Jacqueline Kelly, and Mare’s War by Tanita Davis.
And I just got word that my branch library is holding Suzanne Collins‘ The Hunger Games for me. It’s a good time not be on deadline.
This past Tuesday, Susan at Chicken Spaghetti was the first to let me know that The Day-Glo Brothers was named to School Library Journal’s list of the best books of 2009. That piece of wonderful news is still just as surprising today as it was then.
Thank you, Susan, and thanks to everyone who has bought, championed, or otherwise believed in this book.
We’re more than two days into the holiday shopping season, so you’re pretty much done, right?
No?
In that case, why don’t you wait a few days before wrapping things up for the year?
This coming Saturday, Dec. 5, I’ll be signing copies of The Day-Glo Brothers at Austin’s Arboretum Barnes & Noble. I’ll be there between 12 noon and 2 p.m as part of the Brentwood Christian School Holiday Book Fair, and if you drop by to say hi during that time, you can also get yourself in the running for a free advance copy of Shark Vs. Train.
***
“Almost four years.” It says here, that’s how long it took author Phillip Hoose to convince civil rights pioneer Claudette Colvin to participate in the book he wanted to write about her arrest for refusing to give up her seat on a bus in Montgomery, Alabama, in March 1955 — nine months before Rosa Parks was arrested for the same.
That not only shows some serious patience and persistence, but it also suggests quite a bit of diplomacy on Hoose’s part — otherwise, it seems Colvin would have been plenty sick of him after all that time. It all paid off pretty well, I’d say.
I just sent out a new edition of my occasional newsletter, Bartography Express (available online through the end of this month).
In it, you’ll find a few things you may have already read here, as well as some great news about The Day-Glo Brothers and Shark Vs. Train that I haven’t spilled here yet. So, if you’re curious, check it out…
