When I visit schools for a presentation on The Day-Glo Brothers, I wear a daylight-fluorescent green tie, just to make sure there’s visual example right up front of what the book is about. Well, imagine my surprise and delight this week at Barton Hills Elementary when the “Guest” sticker I received in the school office matched my tie exactly. (I’m glad I didn’t go with the Fire Orange tie.)
I enjoyed more of those same feelings this week when I saw two new blog posts about the book. I’m so grateful that this book resonates with folks enough for them to take the time to write about it. It truly is an honor.
From Margaret Perry at Little Lamb Books:
The Switzers created something that drastically changed the way we live all because of natural curiosity and experimentation. If that’s not a story we want to tell our children, then I don’t know what is.
And from Cybils judge J.L. Bell at Oz and Ends:
One reason I thought The Day-Glo Brothers stood out even more from other good nonfiction picture books is that it’s the first popular book on its subject. It required original research from private sources and old articles. It had to explain unfamiliar science about “daylight fluorescence.”
Thanks, Margaret and John!
I was already happy to hear that Kirkus Reviews would be sticking around, thanks in large part to a fellow Austinite, but now I’m even happier: The resurrected Kirkus has given Shark Vs. Train its second starred review:
Lichtenheld’s snarling shark and grimacing train are definitely ready for a fight, and his scenarios gleefully play up the absurdity. The combatants’ expressions are priceless when they lose. A glum train in smoky dejection, or a bewildered, crestfallen shark? It’s hard to choose; both are winners.
The side of my brain that doesn’t deal in absurdity was intrigued this week by David Elzey’s post bio-diversity –
Though my voice caries little weight in this world, I’d like to see a ten-year moratorium on biographies for children on any subject for whom there is already adequate coverage in print. More books like The Day Glo Brothers [thanks, David!] and Mermaid Queen, stories of people readers never heard of, and fewer books about the usual faces that populate history. Fewer “brand” names and more obscure ones. I know that children’s authors are doing what they can to bring more obscure characters to light, what I’d like to see is more of a push by publishers to get these stories out there.
– which was followed in short order by Joe D’Agnese’s account of his new picture book biography, Blockhead: The Life of Fibonacci, which was 14 years in the making. That’s six years longer than it took The Day-Glo Brothers to make it out into the world, which is pretty sobering. Yet D’Agnese manages to put even his wait into perspective as he considers the personal story of one of his sources, mathematics professor Herta Taussig Freitag:
How can I complain about a book’s long genesis? Imagine leaving your home forever, and putting your career on hold for six years while you worked as a chambermaid. How many of us would have given up? Yet she clung to her passion.
A neat piece of news about The Day-Glo Brothers came my way yesterday: Korean publisher Munhakdongne has bought translation rights. I don’t know how long it typically takes for a translated version to become available, but it’s a pretty safe bet that you’ll get to have a look at it here just as soon as I get my hands on a copy.
Shark Vs. Train had some great news of its own this week, in the form of its first review — and a starred one, no less, from Publishers Weekly:
This is a genius concept … Just when readers will think the scenarios can’t get more absurd, the book moves into even funnier territory. … Lichtenheld’s watercolor cartoons have a fluidity and goofy intensity that recalls Mad magazine, while Barton gives the characters snappy dialogue throughout.
(You should know that Tom Lichtenheld supplied lots of snappy dialogue himself.)
Finally — and I do mean “finally!” — it looks like my young-adult nonfiction project with Dial has a title that will stick, after having had several that turned out not to be so sticky. Can I See Your I.D.? True Stories of False Identities is scheduled to publish in spring 2011. I’ve spent the past week responding to final edits, and soon I’ll get to see sketches from illustrator Paul Hoppe.
But it’s Paul Hoppe, so really my only question is just how terrific they’re going to be…
You can have your Valentine’s Day chocolates. For me, nothing today could be sweeter than the fact that the Cybils (Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards) have given the 2009 prize for nonfiction picture books to The Day-Glo Brothers.
Well, actually, what makes this award sweeter still is seeing my friend Liz Scanlon’s All the World right there above The Day-Glo Brothers on the list of this year’s winners. Congratulations to Liz and to our books’ illustrators, Marla Frazee and Tony Persiani, and to all of this year’s winners and finalists — and a huge “Thank you!” to all the Cybils panelists and judges. I hope you’re all savoring today and getting tomorrow off.
The latest edition of my occasional newsletter, Bartography Express, just went out to subscribers and will be available online to the public through the end of this month.
It includes the story of how I found out — and almost didn’t — about the Sibert Honor won by The Day-Glo Brothers a few weeks back.
Speaking of which, if you’re one of those folks who isn’t sure whether it’s pronounced “SY-bert” or “SEE-bert,” there’s always the option suggested by a friend of mine: “see-BEAR.”
Or maybe “sy-BEAR.”
At the end of yesterday’s did-we-really-cram-all-that-awesomeness-into-a-single-day Austin SCBWI conference, several of us local folks assembled onstage to offer what were billed as “9 Habits of Highly Successful Authors and Illustrators” (which, in keeping with the day’s unofficial theme, we managed to cram into less than 30 minutes).
Here’s what I had to say on the subject:
I’m not sure if you would call this a habit, or a strategy, or a pathology, but being hardheaded was absolutely essential to my getting published.
When it comes to your creative work, I think you have to have the ability –- the SITUATIONAL ability -– to believe that you’re right and everyone else is wrong — for example, when your picture-book biography of the guys who invented Day-Glo gets rejected by 23 editors but you keep submitting it anyway.
But for that to be an ABILITY and not merely a chronic case of delusional thinking, you have to do more than just believe strongly in your own work.
You also have to know the market. You have to know your audience. You have to know your technique. And you have to take seriously the feedback you receive.
Then, based on knowing all those things, you simply reach a different conclusion about your prospects than all those people who keep telling you “no.”
And notice how I called it a SITUATIONAL ability. If “I’m right, they’re all wrong” is your M.O. -– if it’s your approach to EVERYTHING you create –- then you’re just acting like a jerk.
That tends to work against you.
As folks recover from the conference, I’m sure there will be lots of thorough posts about the goings-on there. I may add links to more as I spot them, but here are the bloggers whose accounts I’ve seen so far:
Don Tate
Shelli Cornelison
Kirby Larson
E. Kristin Anderson
Carmen Oliver
Cristin Terrill
P. J. Hoover
Jessica Lee Anderson, P. J. Hoover, and Jo Whittemore
Vonna Carter
Samantha Clark
Heather Powers
Grey McCallister
Sara Lewis Holmes
Greg Leitich Smith
Though I’ve been busy this past week wrapping the final draft of my YA nonfiction project for Dial and gearing up for next weekend’s (now sold-out) Austin SCBWI conference, I’ve also been paying some attention to the kind things that folks have been saying about The Day-Glo Brothers since last Monday’s Big News from Boston.
A few of my favorites have come from:
BookMoot: Sometimes it is personal
I’m afraid I may now be on the hook to pay more attention to conference-goers’ shoes than comes naturally to me.
Original Content: I Can’t Believe It! I Know Another Award Winner!
Until Gail said so, I hadn’t realized quite how long the whole name of the award is. I think I’ll stick with “Sibert Honor” so I don’t pass out in the middle of trying to get all the words out.
How To Be A Children’s Book Illustrator: ALA honors for Austin authors
You read that right: All three Austin authors with ALA-honored books, plus Caldecott Honoree Marla Frazee, will be on the faculty for next Saturday’s conference.
Unabridged: ALA Midwinter in Boston
Why didn’t I think of Day-Glo cupcakes?
But my absolute favorite thing online this past week is on page 17 of last Monday’s Cognotes, the ALA’s conference newspaper. In the bottom-right photo, check out who that much-lauded lion is checking out…
Today has been one of the best days of my life, and if you’re reading this, you’re one of the reasons.
The American Library Association media awards (Newbery, Caldecott, etc.) were announced today, and The Day-Glo Brothers was honored as a runner-up for the Robert F. Sibert Informational Book Medal.
And that was great, absolutely. But it wasn’t the best part.
The best part has been hearing from so many people — by email, phone, Facebook, Twitter, blog post, and hugs and kisses (thanks, Darlin’) — who are so happy to share in this good news (and to laugh about this). Some are lifelong friends, some I met only in passing last week, and one was someone I had lost track of years ago and never expected to hear from again. Many are themselves writers and artists, and some had great news of their own to be congratulated on today, which I was only too happy to do.
The sense of community that I have cherished ever since I first realized that there was a children’s literature community has been in overdrive today. I haven’t gotten any (OK, much) work done today, but I haven’t minded a bit. Without that community, these past nine-plus years would not have been nearly as fun, and today would not have been one of the best of my life.
Thank you.
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.
When I visit schools for a presentation on The Day-Glo Brothers, I wear a daylight-fluorescent green tie, just to make sure there’s visual example right up front of what the book is about. Well, imagine my surprise and delight this week at Barton Hills Elementary when the “Guest” sticker I received in the school office matched my tie exactly. (I’m glad I didn’t go with the Fire Orange tie.)
