Meet me at the Scholastic reception desk

Several months ago, my longtime author friend Bill Doyle told me that Scholastic had redone their lobby. It’s been almost twenty years since I lived in New York City and I’ve been to Scholastic only once or twice since then. I don’t remember what it used to look like. On 4/23/19, after a school visit in Mahopac, NY, and the day before a school visit in Manhattan, I got the chance to see how it looks now.

The focal point of its new, minimalist design is a long reception desk “composed” of rows of books by Scholastic authors; the books wrap around both sides of the desk. But the books are not actual books by Scholastic authors. Rather they are other books (of equal height) papered over with a solid-colored jacket (either orange or gray) marked only with an author’s name (no title).

And though none of my Scholastic books are mainstream bestsellers, I’m included.

Bill spotted my name front and center, second row down. Though the placement is surely arbitrary, it is an honor to be part of the desk at all; Scholastic has published many hundreds of authors over the years and all are not represented.

Weirdly, however, I saw my name on at least three spines. This is definitely an oversight, a glitch in the system; I noticed only one or two others who also appear more than once. Also weirdly: all three of my books are in the same row.

Look closely and you can see them shelved between these names:

book 1—Melinda Salisbury and Jennifer Serravallo
book 2—M.T. Anderson and Sally Christie
book 3—Daniel José Older and Richard Egielski

 books 1 and 2

book 3

As I said, an honor. 

Museum, synagogue, schools, women's club

In one week, I spoke and/or signed at four diverse venues, three in the Washington DC area:

• 12/8/18 two museums in the Smithsonian system, the National Museum of American History and the National Air and Space Museum
• 12/9/18 Temple Emanuel, Kensington, MD
• 12/11/18 two schools in Milwaukee as part of the Scholastic program My Very Own Library (MVOL)
• 12/13/18 Washington-Tokyo Women's Club, Bethesda, MD

At the museums, I gave no talk; I simply sat and signed. Thirty Minutes Over Oregon: A Japanese Pilot's World War II Story tied in nicely with the focus of both sites.

This was my third time participating in MVOL; the first time was also Milwaukee (2/17), second was Newark (6/17). In 2/19, I'll be doing it again, in Kansas City, MO. 

In this program, Scholastic (specifically the Book Fair division) generously arranges a group of authors (in my experience, four at a time) to visit two schools in one day. These are schools that serve a low-income population. Scholastic not only covers all expenses (including a nice dinner) for the authors but also donates one copy of one of each visiting author's books and three other books to every student who hears him/her speak! 

The population of the two schools I visited is nearly 100% black. (I'd visited one of the schools on my previous trip to Milwaukee.) The kids asked thoughtful questions and exhibited delicious manners. At both schools, they dressed in red and black (reminiscent of Bob Kane's original Batman design). As usual, I wish we had more time together. 

The authors with whom I had the pleasure of MVOLing were Jo Watson Hackl (first time meeting), Angela Cervantes, and Jess Keating:

also pictured: Clifford; photo via Jo's Twitter feed

En route to one of the schools, my kind escort, Katy Wick, and I had to stop to take a photo because I found myself...

(It's a barber shop. See the scissors in the starburst/fireworks design?)

At Temple Emanuel, as I've done many times before, I emphasized the Jewish aspects of the stories behind Superman and Batman. (Jerry Siegel, Joe Shuster, Bill Finger, and Bob Kane were all Members of the Tribe.)

The talk for the WTWC was the first of its kind for me. The audience was over 100 club members, nearly evenly split between Japanese and American women (all of whom have lived in Japan), many of whom were or are military or diplomatic spouses.

This included Yoko Sugiyama, the wife of Shinsuke Sugiyama, the current Japanese Ambassador to the U.S. Of course she wasn't there for me, but I was honored just the same.

with Mrs. Sugiyama and Alex Johnston, 

the member who kindly invited me to speak

A highlight of the event came during the Q&A when we heard from a woman who lived through and remembers the Doolittle Raid of 1942 (which was part of the impetus for the events that take place in Thirty Minutes Over Oregon). She was, of course, a young girl at the time. She said the planes were flying so low over Tokyo that they almost grazed rooftops (similar to how Nobuo's plane flew low enough to buzz treetops). She and other kids waved to the planes until they noticed that those planes did not have the red rising sun symbol of Japan but rather a star...meaning they were Americans.

Thank you again to all my hosts this week. I have been enriched by each experience.

“Bill the Boy Wonder,” Scholastic Book Club edition: “I cried”

In 2013, Scholastic produced a Book Club (paperback) edition of Bill the Boy Wonder: The Secret Co-Creator of Batman, which I’ve previously mentioned only in passing (in 11/13). I guess this mention is not much more than in passing, either. But at least now I give a link.

Bill with my other SBC exclusive to date,  

Vanished: True Stories of the Missing

 

And now I get to quote “The hero we deserve,” the humbling 5/1/14 post on the Scholastic blog On Our Minds:

…a book came across my desk to catalog that ROCKED my world—Bill the Boy Wonder by Marc Tyler Nobleman. … I was impressed by the comic book style presentation of the facts in Nobleman’s book, and his use of primary sources brings a tear to the eye of this librarian! It’s a great nonfiction title to use in the classroom, considering the Common Core; there are comprehensive author’s notes and a bibliography. Seriously, though, I have to admit—I cried (beach scene, page ~35).

Thank you, Deimosa Webber-Bey, for writing those kind words, and thank you again, Scholastic, for publishing my words.

This time sans guns and smokes

In the early 2000s, upon learning that I was a cartoonist as well as writer, my Scholastic editor Virginia Dooley proposed an update to a 1960s book that used cartoons to teach vocabulary. She (postal) mailed me samples from the book. The cartoons included pistols, cigarettes, and other elements you would not see in a children’s book today.

The book may not have been aimed at young people.

In any case, the idea was to create 180 cartoons, one for every day of the school year—new words, new gags. It seemed like a fun challenge.

Vocabulary Cartoon of the Day (grades 4-6) came out in 2005.

A keynoter at a SCBWI conference I’d attended sometime before then said that in 1945, the average schoolchild’s vocabulary consisted of 10,000 words…and now, only 2,500. 

At professional development seminars where I spoke, I would tell the audience that, if nothing else, this book would help increase that number to 2,680.

After repeated requests at those professional development seminars, we did a second one for a younger age range (illustrated by the total pro Mike Moran). It came out in 2010.

In late 2013, I went looking for those cartoons Virginia sent me more than a decade ago. I didn’t remember that they were not sent digitally. But when I didn’t find them either on my computer or in my file, I asked Virginia. She also could not find or remember the source but did not think it was Scholastic.

So I took to Google. But it turns out my searches for books with “vocabulary” and “cartoon” in the title were for naught.

The title of the book, I believe, was Word-a-Day, by Mickey Bach. It came out in 1964, and it does appear that it was indeed published by Scholastic (or at least one edition was).

Apparently, Mickey Bach (1909-1994) churned out these illustrated vocab builders (they were not called vocabulary cartoons) from the 1940s to the mid-1980s.

Here are a few demonstrating why the plan was redo rather than reissue:

Guns.

Smoking.

Boozing.

Beating.

Heaps of thanks to the kind and resourceful Rebecca Knab of Loganberry Books for solving this mystery, especially with so little to go on.

READ. By All Means.

The title of this post is the title of a recently announced Scholastic global initiative to emphasize to children the importance of reading.

"READ By All Means" includes a "Reading Bill of Rights" which includes the line "We believe...that young people need to learn to read nonfiction for information and literature for imagination."

I immediately signed up as a supporter and hope you will, too. However, while I feel this Bill of Rights line is true in what it says, at the same time I feel it may inadvertently reinforce a problematic belief that some kids have: nonfiction is only about information. More to the point, some kids believe that information—and therefore nonfiction—is dry.
I know the line was written to be practical and punchy, not exclusionary, and I realize that kids won't be reading this Bill of Rights but rather benefiting from adults heeding its call.
I also know I'm reading too much into this, and likely sounding petty for nitpicking over word choice when a critical larger task is at hand.

However, that task is to motivate young readers...and that compact description of nonfiction will not get some of them pumped about it. While the line doesn't say nonfiction is not imaginative, it almost implies that by saying literature is. (Also, "literature" includes nonfiction. I believe the word here should be "fiction.")

Yes, we do read nonfiction to pick up information, but also to ignite the imagination. Well-written nonfiction can be as entertaining and breathtaking and harrowing as fiction (while still being informative). Of course Scholastic has long demonstrated this by the books they publish. But it doesn't come across in that Bill of Rights line.

What would I suggest as an alternative? I don't know that a single word could replace "information" and serve the purpose. Perhaps the whole line could be reworked to something like "...learn to read fiction to discover imaginative new worlds and nonfiction to discover real worlds we never knew." Not as punchy, I know, but maybe it makes up for it with playfulness.
Scholastic made it to their 90th anniversary by doing something right, again and again. No matter my little quibble, I'm confident their noble initiative will be a success.

Meanwhile, those who write true stories for young people will continue to work hard to shed the image of nonfiction as being purely academic.

By all means.

Vocabulary Cartoon of the Day: a prequel?

In 2005, the only book I've both written and illustrated came out: Vocabulary Cartoon of the Day (grades 4-6).

It was the result of a Scholastic editor I'd already written several books for asking if I'd like to update a book of the same name that had been published during the Space Race. It wasn't that the words defined then were no longer in use and it wasn't that the cartoons were no longer funny (though there was some of that). It was that the cartoons included things that are no longer considered "kid-friendly." Guns. Cigarettes. Sixties hairdos.

So I came up with a new list of 180 words and a kid-friendly cartoon built around each of them. No weapons. No carcinogens. No cars, either, but that's just because I don't like drawing boxy things.

Then I built a presentation around the book for professional development seminars. For three years, educators asked if I'd do a similar book for grades 2-3. Each time, I passed word to Scholastic. Apparently vocab books were not selling, so each time, they said no. Except the last time.

Only this time, I only wrote. My drawing style was deemed not cutesy enough for kids that young, which is sometimes true. They hired cartoonist Mike Moran, and the book looks great. He handled revision requests speedily and graciously. I asked if his name could also be on the cover but that is not house style for this Scholastic imprint.

Two other noteworthy differences in this book: one, we provide an index, and two, teachers provided the words. Last year, I put out a call for entries to second and third grade teachers, soliciting words they would like their students to learn; I received hundreds of suggestions. Every vocabulary word defined in the book came from the lists the teachers e-mailed me. So it is co-authored, in a sense, by its audience.

The book is due out in February and the cover recently went online:

As with the first book, I would have chosen a different cartoon for the cover (one in which the gag is more visual), but otherwise, I'm thrilled with how it came out.