We are incredibly honored and excited to announce that Tomi Ungerer will be attending the opening of his exhibition, Tomi Ungerer: Chronicler of the Absurd, here at The Carle this weekend. We kick off the opening weekend with an intimate Member reception the evening of Saturday, June 18th, with a presentation by guest curator and children’s literature scholar, Michael Patrick Hearn, to be followed Sunday afternoon by a personal gallery tour with Ungerer and a book signing outside our Shop.
This is truly a special event as Tomi Ungerer is coming overseas for his first trip back to the United States in many years and will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for many to meet this world-renowned artist. As our director Alix Kennedy points out in the introduction to the exhibition catalog for the show, Ungerer’s American publisher Phaidon Press has cheekily called him, “the most famous children’s book author you have never heard of.” While Ungerer’s picture books were extremely popular in the United States during the 1960′s and Ungerer was a well known graphic artist in New York City, his work is not as well known to the younger American generations. Ungerer, winner of the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen award, is still very well known and loved in Europe, with his own museum in his hometown of Strasbourg, France. Together with Phaidon’s republication of many of Ungerer’s out-of-print titles, this exhibition will most certainly inspire new and old fans here at The Carle.
For this exhibition, we’ve picked up everything in print we could get our hands on to sell in our bookstore. This includes all in-print English editions, as well as rare titles in German and French that are still unavailable (or never even published!) in the United States. Click here to browse our selection.
What I love about Ungerer’s work is the respect he gives his child audiences. Words and stories are not watered down. Why use the name tree, when you can say willow? Why say gun, when you can call it a blunderbuss? His well-known picture book characters are not fluffy bunnies, but a boa constrictor, an octopus, a vulture, and a bat, and he makes them lovable, endearing and funny. Ungerer understands that childhood isn’t always rosy and innocent. “Children have to be faced with the absurd,” he says, “because the world is absurd.” Here’s a great video by Phaidon Press of Ungerer talking about this:
Ungerer’s absurd and satirical art often went unappreciated or misunderstood in the United States. In the 70′s he began creating anti-Vietnam War posters and exploring erotic art, causing the children’s book audience to question and even stop buying his work. Ungerer left New York for Canada and then Ireland, where he now lives. For more information, visit Tomi Ungerer’s website (even follow him on Twitter!) or read this recent Q & A over at Publisher’s Weekly or this interview from The New York Times. I’m also excited for the upcoming documentary about Tomi Ungerer, Far Out Isn’t Far Enough, from Fools Day Productions. You can watch a trailer for it here.
In his essay in the exhibition catalog, curator Michael Patrick Hearn says of Ungerer, “one either loves his work or hates it. There is no middle ground.” I, for one, love Ungerer’s work and I think you will too. Hope to see you some time this weekend! And, as always, if you can’t make it to The Carle, order your books online here (include a note in the Customer Note section if you’d like it autographed) and we’ll ship them to you after the weekend.
These famous authors all have something in common. They all use pseudonyms on their books! This could be done for many different reasons. Some authors want to keep books written in different genres separate while others might want to preserve their anonymity. Some might use one pen name to unify books actually written by multiple ghostwriters while others maybe…just use a pseudonym to be funny or mysterious. Some of these pen names are well known, while others might surprise you. I’ve included an image of a popular children’s or young adult book by each author which includes their pen name on the cover. Can you match their real name from the given list below? What other children’s authors do you know use pen names?
1. The True Confessions of Charlotte Doyle by Avi
2. The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss
3. Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll
4. A Cricket in Times Square by George Selden
5. The Disreputable History of Franke Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart
6. A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Bad Beginning by Lemony Snicket
7. The Adventures of Tintin:The Shooting Star by Hergé
8. The Name of This Book is a Secret by Pseudonymous Bosch
9. The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
10. The Secret of the Old Clock by Carolyn Keene
a. Charles Dodgson
b. Daniel Handler
c. Samuel Clemens
d. Emily Jenkins
e. Raphael Simon
f. Edward Irving Wortis
g. Mildred Wirt Benson
h. George Thompson
i. Georges Remi
j. Theodor Geisel
Creating picture books is labor of love and some authors and illustrators have made it a family affair! Today, let’s celebrate the couples who have collaborated with each other to create some of the picture books below. Can you name each pair based on the images from their books below?
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2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
Good luck and we’ll post the answers in the comments on Friday!
Have you been following our Shop’s BookTalk series? One Sunday each month we invite a children’s author or illustrator to our store to talk with us about their books, their work and their childhoods. At 11:30 (before the rest of the Museum even opens) our own Andy Laties, playfully interviews the guest in front of the Shop and everyone is take a seat and join in. We’re recording these conversations, so hopefully soon they will be available here on our website for those of you too far away to attend. If you know Andy, you know that these are not your typical interviews. They’re fun and playful and always manage to unearth something about our guest that you’ve never heard before. Last month, he even got Mordicai Gerstein to sing!
Tomorrow, we welcome Norton Juster as our next guest and it’s sure to be a blast. If you’re in the area, stop on by – it’s free! Norton will be signing his books after the interview, around 12:30 pm. Even if you can’t make it, we always offer the option to get a signed book. So place your order online today here and we’ll get your books autographed for you.
In a follow up to yesterday’s post about books about publishing for kids, let’s turn our attention today toward books for grown-ups. We get a lot of questions from customers interested in learning about how picture books are created or published, usually with the hope that they can launch their own children’s book career. Our best advice is to read, read, read. We might suggest one of Anita Silvey’s excellent books like 100 Best Children’s Books to start. Once you get a good understanding of what’s being published, what’s not being published, what’s deemed a classic, etc., you can start exploring the children’s book creation and publication process.
My two favorite books on this topic to recommend are Molly Bang’s Picture This: How Pictures Work and Uri Shulevitz’s Writing with Pictures. With only a handful of shapes and colors, in Picture This, Molly Bang simplifies the principles of picture book illustration so that even non-artists can understand. She explains how shapes and colors and the way the artwork is composed all contribute to how the viewer will feel about the it. For example, rounded shapes and horizontal lines will make us feel safe and calm, while pointed shapes and diagonal lines will make us feel agitated and scared. Once you see the amount of thought and deliberation that goes into an artist creating an illustration (whether conscious or not!), you’ll never look at a picture book in the same way again. You can read more, including how to use this book as a tool in the classroom, in my earlier post about this book here.
Uri Shulevitz offers an extremely thorough course in writing and illustrating children’s books in his book Writing with Pictures. He explains everything from importance of the storyboard layout and page turns to composition to story content. Shulevitz, an award-winning author and illustrator is the best teacher on this subject and this highly visual book is filled with examples of both picture book illustration and fine art. This book is a must-have for any aspiring picture book creator.
Once you understand the craft and precision that goes into creating a picture book, understanding the publishing business is the next step. I highly recommend Minders of Make-Believe by Leonard Marcus which is an excellent (and entertaining!) resource on the history of children’s book publishing in the United States. To get published these days, it’s really important to have a good knowledge of all the various children’s book publishing houses and to be able to identify which publishing house would be a good match for you. To do that, you’ll need to see who is publishing books like yours already and try to find out the editor and agents of those books.
Resources like The Society for Children’s Book Writers & Illustrators (they’re holding a workshop here at the Museum in March) and the Children’s Writer’s & Illustrator’s Market, which annually publishes a comprehensive listing of editors, agents and publishers accepting manuscripts, can be very helpful. For serious writers and illustrators, there are also advanced degree programs such as those through Simmons College that offer unparalleled opportunities and resources for children’s book careers.
I could go on and on but I think these books are a perfect start to exploring the world of picture book creation. As always, we’re happy to field questions here at the Shop if you have any!
Here at The Carle Museum, we’re a magnet for book lovers of all ages. And many of these book lovers have big dreams. Whether they’re six or sixty-three they have dreams of publishing their very own picture book. Believe me – I’m one of them! But how to get started? We get that question a lot from customers in our bookstore and so we keep a section on our shelves of books that help newcomers through that tricky process. Books ABOUT books, if you will.
We have so many books on this topic, that I’ll split it up into two posts. Today I’ll just talk about those books for younger readers. These books are perfect for those budding authors and artists who know they’re destined for big things. My favorite suggestion is an oldie, but a goodie. A 1986 title, How a Book is Made by Aliki concisely covers all aspects of how a picture book becomes published, from author to editor to designer to printer and so on. Of course, some of the printing information is now out of date, so keep that in mind when sharing with your children or students.
Eileen Christelow also has a pair of wonderful books for children titled What Do Illustrators Do? and What Do Authors Do? In easy-to-read (and funny!) comic book formats, Christelow covers the challenges of going from an idea to draft to the final product, showing how little changes can make a big difference when laying out your book.
Helen Lester’s book, Author: A True Story, shows one author’s journey toward publication. What I love is her honesty. She’s upfront with the feelings of disappointment you may feel when manuscripts get rejected by publishers and the need to be strong and keep moving along with your dream. “I wrote a second book and sent it to a different publisher. The second publisher sen the book back. ‘No thank you.’ I decided I’d never write again. Until the next day, when I felt better. I wrote another book.”
Books like Artist to Artist: 23 Major Illustrators Talk to Children about Their Art offer a wide selection of artists talking about their own personal experiences with making books. Recognizable children’s illustrators like Eric Carle, Maurice Sendak, and Leo Lionni talk about how they got their start in making art and offer advice and inspiration to aspiring young authors and illustrators.
These books are a great start to learning about how authors and illustrators make a career out of doing what they love. They explain the process, complete with its ups and downs, and best of all, these books inspire. They’re all great to use at home or in the classroom when embarking on a book making project. I still remember my elementary school’s Author and Illustrator Day. We spent weeks writing and and illustrating our own stories and then the teacher laminated and spiral bound them for us. Then our parents were invited to come in and browse all our books. It was a very significant moment for me as a young child to feel so validated – I had published a book! – even if it wasn’t quite the real thing. So keep those dreams alive and stay tuned for the big kid publishing post tomorrow!
Do you do a book making unit in your classroom? Did you ever attempt to write or illustrate a book when you were a kid? Let us know in the comments!
I wanted to take a moment to welcome to our blog a new guest contributor, author Jeannine Atkins! Not only is Jeannine the author of many books for children, including her newest, Borrowed Names, she also teaches Children’s Literature at UMass-Amherst. She’ll be here offering her expertise, thoughts and recommendations on new and fabulous picture books on our blog for the next few months and we are so lucky to have her! Feel free to read more about Jeannine on her website and her blog and be sure to browse her books on our Shop website. Stay tuned for Jeannine’s Top of the Shelf posts each week. Welcome Jeannine!
It’s really hard to believe that children’s book legends Katherine Paterson and Michael Rosen will both be at The Carle, together, presenting at our annual Eductator’s Night, but it’s true! This Wednesday, November 10, 2010 from 4:00-6:00 pm in our Auditorium. Excuse me while I gush, but the chance to meet such amazing authors is a dream come true for me!
I grew up reading so many of Katherine Paterson’s books and I was particularly captivated by her book Lyddie (which spurred a trip to the Lowell mills where I got to try my hand at weaving cloth and pretend I was Lyddie. I was a total historical fiction buff as a kid). Keeping up with our tradition of hosting the National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature (Jon Sceiszka graced us with his medal-wearing presence two years ago), Katherine Paterson will be talking about her own journey through publishing and discuss the importance of reading.
But that’s not all! Oh no. No, no, no. As if that wasn’t exciting enough, Michael Rosen, the former Children’s Laureate of the United Kingdom, is flying all the way across the pond to join Katherine. Most Americans know Michael through his popular version of We’re Going on a Bear Hunt illustrated by Helen Oxenbury. Michael is a master of rhythm and poetry and his books make wonderful read-alouds. Here’s a great video I found of Michael reciting We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.
He’s a true natural story teller and, I hear, hysterically funny in person as well!
The event is free, as part of our annual Educator’s Night (click here for more info) and so it’s no surprise that it is already sold out. (Call 413-658-1126 to be put on a waiting list).
But even if you can’t attend, we’d still love to send you a signed book. We’re accepting pre-orders online until Tuesday November 9, 2010 for autographed copies of any of Katherine Paterson or Michael Rosen’s books. Place your order now and we’ll get them signed by the authors and shipped to you after the event on Wednesday. And be sure to check out the other amazing authors who’ll be coming to The Carle in November in our new “To Be Autographed” section on our Shop website.
September is creeping up on us and while I’ll miss summer, Autumn in the Pioneer Valley has to be one of my most favorite things. Apple picking, fields of cornstalks and pumpkins, the gorgeous leaves and crisp hiking weather… And for many of you teachers and students, fall means back to school! I graduated from my Master’s program from Simmons College at The Carle back in May and it’s really hard for me to believe I won’t be going back to class when the rest of the grad students come back through our doors in a few weeks.
Especially when I hear that this fall for the first time they are offering a class in picture book illustration taught by Caldecott-winning illustrator Mordicai Gerstein! Students will learn the thought and process behind creating picture books straight from a master. I can’t imagine a better opportunity than that.
Many people have observed that The Carle is perfectly situated in the heart of children’s book country. We can boast the names of so many amazing children’s authors and illustrators who call the Pioneer Valley home. (Seriously, get me started and we could be here all day.) I feel so fortunate to have been able to take Simmons classes with their amazing Boston professors as well as have access to The Carle’s local resources, such as their original art archives, extensive research library and, oh yeah, visits to local artist studios. It’s the very best of both worlds.
So even though I won’t be attending class this fall, I’ll still look forward to seeing the students and teachers coming through each week. We’ll also have to take this opportunity to stock up on autographed Mordicai Gerstein books! Click here to see what signed books we already have in stock.
We are incredibly honored and excited to announce that Tomi Ungerer will be attending the opening of his exhibition, Tomi Ungerer: Chronicler of the Absurd, here at The Carle this weekend. We kick off the opening weekend with an intimate Member reception the evening of Saturday, June 18th, with a presentation by guest curator and children’s literature scholar, Michael Patrick Hearn, to be followed Sunday afternoon by a personal gallery tour with Ungerer and a book signing outside our Shop.
This is truly a special event as Tomi Ungerer is coming overseas for his first trip back to the United States in many years and will be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for many to meet this world-renowned artist. As our director Alix Kennedy points out in the introduction to the exhibition catalog for the show, Ungerer’s American publisher Phaidon Press has cheekily called him, “the most famous children’s book author you have never heard of.” While Ungerer’s picture books were extremely popular in the United States during the 1960′s and Ungerer was a well known graphic artist in New York City, his work is not as well known to the younger American generations. Ungerer, winner of the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen award, is still very well known and loved in Europe, with his own museum in his hometown of Strasbourg, France. Together with Phaidon’s republication of many of Ungerer’s out-of-print titles, this exhibition will most certainly inspire new and old fans here at The Carle.
Tomorrow, we welcome Norton Juster as our next guest and it’s sure to be a blast. If you’re in the area, stop on by – it’s free! Norton will be signing his books after the interview, around 12:30 pm. Even if you can’t make it, we always offer the option to get a signed book. So place your order online today 
It’s really hard to believe that children’s book legends 
