Random Acts of Publicity: Shout-Out to Merrily Kutner's Z IS FOR ZOMBIE

As part of Darcy Pattison's Random Acts of Publicity Week, I'm giving a well-deserved shout-out to friend Merrily Kutner's picture book Z Is for Zombie, illustrated by John Manders.

Selected as a "Read On Wisconsin!" book by that state's First Lady, Jessica Doyle, Z Is for Zombie will be read and discussed by elementary school students across Wisconsin during the month of October. Also, the book has recently been reissued in paperback by publisher Albert Whitman. Just in time for Halloween!

Light a spooky Halloween candle for Z Is for Zombie during the upcoming Banned Books Week. Back in 2002, the book was challenged in a library in Oregon for having "graphic illustrations inappropriate for young children." Fortunately, the book was retained and the freedom to read prevailed. (And now you're all going to have to get your hands on a copy to see what all the fuss was about!)

For more villainous verse sure to turn any reluctant reader into a bookworm, check out Merrily's The Zombie Nite Cafe, illustrated by Ethan Long. Looking for something a little less spooky? Try Merrily's "fuzzy bunny" book (as she calls it), Down on the Farm, illustrated by Will Hillenbrand.

Love picture books and want to learn how to write your own? Merrily is teaching an online course through UCLA Extension this fall. You can take it from anywhere in the world. Click here for more info.

"Monsters and Miracles" Family Day at the Skirball Part 2: Tao Nyeu and Erica Silverman

Sunday at the Skirball was jam-packed with family fun as L.A. celebrated some of its local children's authors and illustrators.

Tao Nyeu presented Bunny Days and her widely-acclaimed debut, Wonder Bear. The latter book sent my son into a "playing-with-magical-hats" phase last year. Of course, I was more than happy to indulge him.

(Come to think of it, I bet Rene Magritte had a relationship with his hat akin to the one the boy and the bear have in Wonder Bear. Speaking of hats, I love Eric's collection in the film Mr. Magorium's Wonder Emporium. Am I digressing enough?)

Here's an avid magical hat collector after returning from a personal intermission, trying in vain to catch up with Tao.

Here's Erica Silverman, children's book author and librarian extraordinaire, getting audience members with imaginations to raise their hands. Erica went on to assure everyone that as long as you have a brain, you have an imagination.

Why did we all have to summon our imaginations? Because Halloween came in May, as Erica led us through a spirited reading of Big Pumpkin.

Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeek!!! That ghost's about ready to jump off the page!

Warning: don't read this book unless you're prepared to get cravings for a gigantic slice of pumpkin pie.

From Halloween to horses, Erica lassoed the audience in for selected readings from her endearing Cowgirl Kate and Cocoa series.

Erica recently launched the sixth installment of Cowgirl Kate and Cocoa, Spring Babies, with a fun event at Once Upon a Time Bookstore in Montrose, complete with a real, live pony. Yes, the pony was actually inside the store. Too cool!

Erica wraps up her presentation. And, finally, I must be really smitten with the mohawked boar, seeing as I've given him so much frame space in all my photos. I guess he seemed like the silent partner to my eye.

Another digression: The boar comes from the land of Noah's Ark at the Skirball, another exhibit to definitely check out.

Now I'm over and out...

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss! L.A.P.L. librarians Karla Valdez and Erica Silverman organized a fabulous Read Across America event at the Echo Park Branch Library today in honor of the "Good Doctor's" birthday.

Refer to the above photo for the names of volunteer author readers in attendance. An amazing crowd of kids turned out for the two-hour "Dr. Seuss Day" read-a-thon.

Author Ann Whitford Paul reads the book Little Monkey Says Goodnight, inspired by one of her sons.

Ann engages the audience. "Little monkey says goodnight!"

L.A.P.L. librarians Karla Valdez and Erica Silverman make sure everyone can see the pictures with extra copies of Little Monkey Says Goodnight.

L.A.P.L. librarian and author Erica Silverman reads her picture book, Big Pumpkin.

It takes a lot of strength to move the biggest pumpkin the witch has ever grown. Who will help her move it, so that she can make her yummy pumpkin pie?

I had a blast reading Jan Thomas's Can You Make a Scary Face?, even though I suffered a major shoe malfunction doing the chicken dance. More on that later, or maybe not (If anyone knows an excellent cobbler, send word my way:).

How to Spell "SCIESZKA"

Whew, it's taken months of laborious work (enough to keep me away from this blog and my family), but I think I finally figured out how to spell "Scieszka," as in Jon (or is it "John?").

Anyway, I came up with what has proven in early trials to be a promising mnemonic for spelling our outgoing Ambassador's name. Please bear with me while I work out the kinks:

1. You start with the word "science," as in the great Scieszkan Science Verse (sure to convert the science averse, by the way). Both words share the same initial four letters. Stop after #4:

S-C-I-E

2. Okay, next comes ska music, because it has to, right? So we get: S-C-I-E-S-K-A

3. Wait, not so fast. We still have that pesky "Z" to deal with, something that might be known as a "free radical" if we follow the science metaphor. That crazy, zany "Z" interrupts the rocksteady beat of S-K-A music by wedging itself between the "S" and "K." Thus, we get:

S-C-I-E-S-Z-K-A

4. Voila! Now spelling "Scieszka" is a piece of cake, right? As you may have guessed, I've returned to the deep recesses of my linguistic laboratory, trying to decipher the actual pronunciation of "Scieszka." I've made some major breakthroughs and expect to reemerge in the winter of 2012 with exciting results.

In the meantime, here's a partial SCIESZKA acrostic (with sincere apologies to those who know their trocheedactyl from their pteradactyl):

HOW TO SPELL "SCIESZKA"

It starts with an "S,"

A nod to the Stinky Cheese Man.

And follows with a "C,"

'Cuz only Scieszka can--

Can masterfully pull an "I,"

Which stands for irreverently wry,

Proceeded by "E," woops, excuse me,

(Interrupting this poem to say that Jon helps all Guys Read).

In case you missed it once, there's a second helping of "S,"

And now it's all too easy to say that Jon's the ________ .

Instead of that, I have a question.

What the heck is "Z" doing there?

Whenever people try to spell,

It ends up everywhere.

Oh, "K," I haven't forgotten

That you're the penultimate letter,

Who stands before "A" of "Ambassador, hey,

No one could have done it better!"

Many thanks to Mr. Jon Sciezka Scieszka, our esteemed inaugural Children's Literature Ambassador, for representin'!

Read more Scieszka appreciations at A Year of Reading blog by clicking here.

Jacqui Robbins's TWO OF A KIND Book Release Alert (Imagine You Saw This on 6/7/09)

Fuse #8 Inspired "Top Ten Favorite Picture Books of All Time"

This is my all-time favorite picture book list as of March 31, 2009. It was different yesterday, and it will be different tomorrow. As I change, so does it.

I tried to choose books that I have lived with for some time, but not all books behaved themselves (thank goodness) and listened to my futile attempts to impose order on them.

Maybe in a few years my list will contain books by Mo Willems, Laura Vaccaro Seeger, Adam Rex, Emily Gravett, Amy Krouse Rosenthal, Mini Grey, and so many other contemporary talents.

Disclaimer: Only one of the books on the list did I fall in love with as a child (i.e. under age 8), but it wasn't because of my discerning tastes. I had little exposure to picture books as a kid.

Some Scholastic book fair books, a couple of Golden Books, and a few Dr. Seuss "Beginner Books" provided my foundation in picture books. I was only read to on Christmas Eves, and they were the same couple of Christmas-themed books at that.

I fell in love with most of these books as an adult, or an emerging adult, as the #10 selection makes clear.

#10 The Gashlycrumb Tinies by Edward Gorey. I first discovered this book as a poster (I had no idea that it was adapted from a book). I was in middle school at the time and didn't know anything about Edward Gorey, or Jonathan Swift for that matter.

It spoke to my burgeoning sense of satire, and I took it home that day to hang on my closet door. I've never looked at ABC books the same again.

#9 The Big Orange Splot by Daniel Manus Pinkwater. It's probably because I am literally and figuratively Mr. Plumbean.

#8 Zoom by Istvan Banyai. This book will either send you hurtling into an existential dilemma, or it will help you appreciate "the size" of life and the universe. That's power.

#7 Little Blue and Little Yellow by Leo Lionni. Abstract art with a heart. And someone said it couldn't be done. If we listen carefully enough, even torn pieces of paper have something to tell us.

#6 The Carrot Seed by Ruth Krauss and Crockett Johnson. This book should be issued to every kindergartner the world over and reviewed at the beginning of each school year through post-graduate studies. A powerful message of believing in what nobody else will.

#5 The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. I fell in love with this book as a kid. My fingers read the holes like Braille, and my eyes salivated at the textured colors of Eric Carle's incomparable collage art.

#4 Blue Hat, Green Hat by Sandra Boynton. There should be a law against how funny this book is, it just steals laughter from your belly. Wow!

#3 Harold and the Purple Crayon by Crockett Johnson. I don't know if the word "genius" is applied often enough to the work of Crockett Johnson, but this is Nobel Prize material. And the ending, oh... be still my beating pun heart.

#2 On Beyond Zebra by Dr. Seuss. Dr. Seuss proves he's the Einstein of kidlit with this book. It took a while for the world to "get" E=mc², blowing the roof off Newtonian physics. Dr. Seuss blows the roof off the alphabet and language itself with this book.

Cool kidlit scholar Philip Nel writes in Dr. Seuss: American Icon, "...On Beyond Zebra is Seuss's Finnegans Wake." 'Nuff said?

#1 The Red Tree by Shaun Tan. After reading this book, I'd been wondering since 2005 how long it would take the world to discover Shaun Tan. Then came The Arrival, and the world started taking notice.

Please do yourself a favor and read this book. Show someone you love them by sharing a copy of this book. Achingly beautiful artwork overflowing with humanity-- it's not something you see everyday.

That's it! Thanks, Betsy Bird, for giving me something to sweat and churn over for one month in coming up with this list. Unfortunately, I didn't burn any calories doing it, but I did have a lot of fun contemplating great picture books!

P.S. Notice how many of my faves feature the names of colors? I didn't mean to do that, really. My brain just has a mind of its own sometimes.

Writer2Writer Revision Workshop with Lisa Yee

On March 1st, Squiddy and I made our way to the Flintridge Bookstore and Coffeehouse to visit with Peepy. Oh yeah... her sidekick, Lisa Yee, was also there presenting a Writer2Writer workshop on revision. It was kind of hard to hear Peepy with Lisa yacking away in the background, but we somehow managed.

I took the above photo of the two when Lisa presented her first Writer2Writer workshop at Flintridge last summer. (Check out this much better picture Lisa took by clicking here.)

Before the revision workshop began, Squiddy cemented his Peepy fandom with the help of a yummy dish from Little Tokyo. What the heck am I talking about? Click here for all the visual details. Just remember not to bite at the tempura, unless you want a mouth full of pixels.

So it's taken me a month to write this post, but that's part of the point. You see, I've been diligently revising it day and night, night and day, continually since some of Lisa's words of wisdom on revision must have seeped into my brain between joke-telling sessions with Squiddy and Peepy.

What was the great take-away from the day? Well, there was the joke about how many Peeps it takes to change a lightbulb, and who could forget the one about why the squid crossed the road, but there was also something Lisa said-- that revision is all about the chance to do something over, a chance we don't usually get in real life, but one that is freely available in writing.

That's when a light went off (yes, probably one a Peep screwed in), and I realized why I love writing so much. It's a do-over's paradise. It's for those of us who secretly thrill to changing through four and a half outfits before deciding what to wear to the library. (Okay, maybe five, but it's important to color-coordinate with the covers of the books you're checking out.)

So, go forth, writers, and change your minds, try different words on for size, take advantage of the ability to make complete do-overs. Take inspiration from Bill Murray's character in Groundhog Day. It's never done until you get it right.

P.S. Absolutely, definitely check out Lisa's first foray into YA, Absolutely, Maybe.

And Now on to What This Blog Is About

My son and I headed to downtown Los Angeles for the "6th Annual Feria del Libro: A Family Book Fair" this past Saturday. We had the great fortune to catch one of my former UCLA Extension Writer's Program instructors, Alexis O'Neill, (a.k.a. A Lexus? Oh, kneel!) in action.

Here she is in the above photo releasing a gigantic book-eating butterfly into the atmosphere. She also managed to somehow squeeze in two lively performances of her books, Estela's Swap and The Recess Queen.

I must admit that for the past year I've had "push 'em and smoosh'em, lollapaloosh 'em, hammer 'em, slammer 'em, kitz and kajammer 'em" stuck in my head at various times.

This delightful refrain comes from The Recess Queen, and don't tell me I didn't warn you. This book will infect you with its rhythm. I think the CDC is in the process of issuing a global warning.

Now that I've seen Alexis perform it with hand/arm gestures, the rhythm infection has spread from my brain to my limbs. It makes it hard to hold my fork steady when I'm eating.

By the way, look out for that book-eating butterfly. Its caterpillars have such voracious appetites that they have been known to consume entire library budgets. This is especially worrisome in the L.A. region.

More to follow...