Year: 2016
-
25 Children’s Book Creators Contribute Childhood Work for Anthology
The anthology is entitled, Our Story Begins: Children’s Authors and Illustrators Share Fun, Inspiring, and Occasionally Ridiculous Things They Wrote and Drew as Kids. It will include contributions from 25 authors …
-
Candlewick Press Acquires New Middle-Grade Novel From Newbery-and National Book Award-Winning Legend Katherine Paterson
Somerville, MA — Candlewick Press will publish a new novel by Katherine Paterson, the two-time Newbery Medalist and National Book Award winner whose stories, including such indelible classics as Bridge to …
-
Announcing the 2017-2018 Texas Bluebonnet Award Master List
AUSTIN – Children’s authors Jon Scieszka and Steven Weinberg joined students from the central Texas area in announcing the 2017-2018 Texas Bluebonnet Award (TBA) Master List on November 5 at …
-
Four Debuts on the NYT Children’s Best Sellers Lists
The following books made the list: Middle Grade Hardcover: The Best Bear in All the World by Paul Bright and others, illustrations by Mark Burgess (Dutton) Children’s Picture Books: Nanette’s Baguette by Mo …
-
Watch the 67th Annual National Book Awards Live on Twitter and Facebook
New York, NY (November 4, 2016) — Building on the success of last year’s livestream of the National Book Awards Ceremony and the excitement around this year’s first Finalist announcement on …
-
U.S. Department of Education Releases Guidance on Early Learning
03The guidance reminds state and local officials about the opportunities available under ESSA to strengthen early education. It also provides examples of how states and local communities can support academic …
-
Author Claudette Hegel Donates Complete Newbery and Caldecott Collection to the Children’s Book Council
New York, NY – Monday, November 7, 2016 – Minnesota-based author and literacy volunteer Claudette Hegel has donated her complete collection of the John Newbery and Randolph Caldecott Award winners to the …
-
Applications Open For The 2017 AASL Awards Program
CHICAGO, IL — Applications for the American Association of School Librarians’ (AASL) 2017 awards season are now available. AASL members are encouraged to nominate a colleague or themselves to be lauded …
-
PW’s Best Children’s Books of 2016 Announced
Titles featured on the picture books list include Jazz Day: The Making of a Famous Photograph by Roxane Orgill, illus. by Francis Vallejo (Candlewick) The Journey by Francesca Sanna (Flying Eye) Leave Me …
-
First Book and Pearson launch #ReadUP: A Non-Partisan Call-to-Action for Education and Literacy
For every use of the #ReadUP hashtag through November 8, 2016, First Book will donate a book to a child in need, with funding from Pearson of up to $10,000. …
-
Nominations Open For 2017 Lemony Snicket Prize For Noble Librarians Faced With Adversity
CHICAGO, IL — Librarians face adversity every day, whether they are defending a challenged book, responding to collection and building damage after floods and fires, remaining open as a safe space during …
-
Two August House Titles Honored as 2016 NAPPA Winners
Atlanta, Georgia (October 31, 2016) — An exciting year for thrilling book collections just got even more exhilarating with the announcement of the 2016 NAPPA winners. Parents will recognize the …
-
22 Talented Educators Will Share Expertise Throughout 2016-17 School Years as Scholastic “Top Teaching” Bloggers
NEW YORK, NY — Scholastic (NASDAQ: SCHL), the global children’s publishing, education and media company, has announced the 2016–17 team of 22 exceptional preschool–grade 8 educators to serve as bloggers …
-
The Big Questions
Contributed by SF Said
I write children’s books because I believe they’re the books that change people’s lives.
My favorite book as a child was Watership Down by Richard Adams. I re-read it as an adult, trying to understand why I’d loved it so much. More than a thrilling adventure story about rabbits, I saw it was a story about the big questions of human life: Who are we? Where do we come from? Where do we belong? How should we live?
I think that’s why it meant so much to me. My family’s roots are in the Middle East. My ancestors were Iraqi, Egyptian, Kurdish, and Circassian Muslims. I grew up in Britain in the 1970s, where such origins were unusual. Negotiations around identity, difference and belonging were daily facts of my life. Even my name was an issue. Sabah Falah Said is an ordinary Arabic name, but unpronounceable in English! Whenever it came up, people would question it to such an extent that I ended up using initials.
So when I read Watership Down and saw that the hero of the rabbits’ myths was called El-Ahrairah, it struck a very deep chord. The greatest rabbit who ever lived had an Arabic-sounding name? That gave me what Junot Diaz has described as a feeling of seeing myself reflected; realizing my background could be something more than a burden.
A children’s book had given me a way to think about myself and my place in the world. So now I put everything I have into writing children’s books. I put years and years of work into making each book the best it can possibly be, making them as thrilling as I can, but also filling them with those big questions; Who are we? Where do we come from? Where do we belong? How should we live?
In my first book, Varjak Paw, these questions are explored through cats and dogs. Varjak is a cat who makes friends with a dog and learns that a dog can be the best friend a cat could ever have.
My new book, Phoenix, is set in a galaxy where humans and aliens are at war. The humans have even built a great spacewall to keep the aliens out. The main characters are a human boy on the run and an alien girl he meets. She’s a refugee from the war who has grown up in camps, hated and feared by humans. But they discover that they have more in common than they thought—and together, they might even save the galaxy.
I didn’t write Phoenix about a specific situation in the real world. I wanted to explore those ideas of identity, difference, and belonging that I’ve been living with all my life, and that I think lie at the roots of so many situations, all over the world.
Things have changed so much since my childhood. People are on the move as never before; hundreds of millions of us now live outside our countries of origin. One response to that is to build walls. But another is to build bridges of understanding— as my characters in Phoenix must do to survive.
Young people everywhere are hungry for stories to help them navigate this world. My highest hope is that a book like Phoenix might help them think about the world, their experiences of it, and other people’s experiences as Watership Down helped me. I love the idea that children’s books can be bridges connecting people, showing them that however different someone else might be, the things which unite us are greater than those which divide us. And that difference can be a source of richness: something to be celebrated, not feared.
SF Said is the Nestlé Smarties Book Prize–winning author of Varjak Paw. He was born in Lebanon in 1967, but has lived in London since he was two years old.
-
How Audiobooks Can Help Struggling Readers
Teachers, parents, and librarians have found that children benefit from hearing complex words and sentences not typically present in ordinary conversation. Advances in digital technology also allow teachers to bring …
-
America’s Youth Have Spoken: Hillary Clinton Is Generation Z’s Choice for President
NEW YORK, NY — Channel One News, a Houghton Mifflin Harcourt company, today announced Hillary Clinton the winner of OneVote 2016, Channel One News’s nationwide mock election for students in …
-
Happy Picture Book Month!
Throughout the month, authors, illustrators, literacy activists, and other children’s book devotees celebrate the enduring power of the illustrated book. Visit picturebookmonth.com and KidLit TV to join the fun!
-
Remembering Author Natalie Babbitt
Born in Ohio in 1932, Babbitt knew that she wanted to become an illustrator at age nine, when she received a copy of Alice in Wonderland illustrated by John Tenniel. Her …
-
Kid Lit Helps Kids Be Who They Are
Parr writes books with the goals of empowering children to be strong, kind people, and of helping make complex messages about feelings more accessible to kids. Kids today still need …
-
#MyCreativeYear: Why Creative Teens Should Share Their Story
NEW YORK, NY — Today’s teens have many ways to connect and share with their peers including online, social media, texting and more. Even though there are countless options available, …
