The order of Amazon reviews

On any given Amazon page, every square pixel is a sellhole. No matter where you are on the site, it feels like you're only one click away from a "place order" button.

So I was all the more surprised to find a chink in that force-to-buy field. (And before I proceed, let me state that I am routinely impressed with Amazon's innovations and experiments.)

A book's Amazon home page includes a section called "Editorial Reviews." At the bottom of that section is a link "See all Editorial Reviews." Here is that page for Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman.

Boys of Steel had the good fortune to earn starred reviews from three publications. On its "See all Editorial Reviews" page, you can scroll to a one-line excerpt from each of those reviews (submitted in that tidy format, I believe, by the publisher).

In other words, good marketing—short, bolded, positive.

However, the review listed first (and therefore visible before clicking "See all Editorial Reviews") is longer and not starred. While it does come across as positive, and while I do greatly appreciate it, actually only its last line is subjective; the rest is summary.

So I asked Amazon what I thought was an easy question with a win-win answer: Would you please move those three starred review excerpts to the top so customers will see them on the book's home page? (Many customers, I'm sure, don't click through to "See all Editorial Reviews" and instead go straight to the customer reviews.)

I felt my request was clearly expressed, yet at least four Amazon reps either misunderstood or gave me misinformation.

One said we cannot edit or delete any reviews; I clarified that I'm asking only to rearrange them.

One duplicated two of the starred reviews and inserted them above the original three. (It may be the only time in my career I can point to five starred reviews in a row, so I won't quibble.)

One did say, essentially, no problem, but then did precisely nothing.

Finally one told me that, if I understood correctly, the publisher needs to enroll a book in the Advantage program before the author could make such changes.

This request had already taken too much time and I didn't want to bother my publisher with such a small issue. However, because I figured it would be a one-time procedure, I did ask.

Random House kindly looked into it and reported back that we can't change the order.

This means Amazon told me to involve the publisher even though Amazon knew (or should have known) that the review order must stay as is (almost certainly due to contracts certain publications have with the site).

What this seems to say is that Amazon prioritizes doing what's best for a review publication over doing what's best for the products to be reviewed (and sold).

Above I mentioned that every Amazon page is packed with sales tools and incentives. It can overwhelm a customer, and the more incentives they add, the harder it is to focus on any one of them. Yet here is an obvious one that they dismiss.

I realize that, for many books, simply leading with excerpts from starred reviews is not going to stimulate a dramatic spike in sales. But it will most likely make some difference, and certainly have more of a positive effect for any particular book than negative effect for any particular review publication.

Spontaneous interview about Bill Finger

At the Southern Festival Books in Nashville on 10/10/09, the Bill Finger Appreciation Group kindly did a brief, off-the-cuff interview with me that touched on Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman and my research on Bill Finger. They were kind to let me post it here as well:

Biography vs. pathography

When I first blogged about biography, I didn’t imagine I would be able to come at the same subject from as many angles as I now have, including the following:

1. dialogue in picture book biographies
2. picture book biographies for all ages
3. picture book biographies on lesser-known figures
4. the morality of writing biography
5. picture books for older readers (as an “official” category)
6. how libraries shelve picture book biographies
7. biography vs. storyography

Now for another head-to-head, this one between the sanitized biography and the warts-and-all one.

In “A Biography of the Biography,” an article in the 11/9/09 Newsweek, writer Malcolm Jones examines the examiner, the quintessential English man of letters, Samuel Johnson, with particular reference to biography.

Several of Johnson’s quotations have been in my file for years, but I’ve never read a book that he wrote. Still, this article confirmed that I like Johnson beyond his witty one-off observations.

In 1773, Johnson said, “If a man is to write A Panegyrick, he may keep vices out of sight; but if he professes to write A Life, he must represent it as it really was…”

I touched on this idea in the fourth link of that bulleted list above, and I agree. The goal of a biography is to approach the truth about a person. That truth must also be provocative, but in an organic, not sensationalistic, way.

Some say a story is only as good as its villain. Some people profiled in biographies play both the hero and villain role, at different times. All hero, noble as it is, can get boring. We like to see the dark side in others because it helps us confront our own dark sides. And when a person doesn't seem to have a dark side, we tend to mistrust him, or at least the biographer.

The Newsweek article claims that “the story of a life has been our most durable and most enduringly popular literary form.”

I would’ve said fairy tale, but perhaps I’m misunderstanding the author’s definition of “popular literary form.” Then again, I’m not all that surprised. Most of us are, on some level, people-watchers, and all of us are influenced by others. We aspire to others’ good behavior and we view bad behavior as a cautionary tale.

This overlaps with another point I made in that fourth link:

In our time alone [biography] has multiplied into a dizzying number of forms—authorized, unauthorized, oral biography and autobiography, the group biography, the biographical novel, not to mention the online biography. What is Facebook, or most blogs, but a slew of autobiographies constantly in progress?

As I'd written, the more we post online about ourselves, the more raw material future biographers will have to refer to (though not all of it will be useful). Thanks to the Internet, more people than ever before (or so it seems) have been converted into autobiographers.

The article states that

the history of biography can be said to parallel, where it does not overlap, the history of the erosion of private life. There's no denying the proliferation of what Joyce Carol Oates defined as “pathography”—works in which a biographer fastens on to every loathsome detail of a subject's life, with the result that the subject is not cut down to size but simply cut down.

Apparently, this is a modern approach: “Nineteenth-century biographers weren't interested in flaws or the interior lives of their subjects.” This surprised me. Haven’t we all read multiple times that our ancestors (of most any era) were just as prurient as we are?

The article credits Lytton Strachey’s 1918 book Eminent Victorians with “proving that biography could aspire to art.” This, too, surprised me, because I would’ve thought that any book would’ve had that potential by 1918; by that year, literature was already enlightened, relatively speaking.

More than one of my biography posts have already concurred with this statement: “There is no longer any such thing as the definitive biography.”

Great figures (whether great in a positive or negative way) earn multiple biographies. Today there are also biographies (or memoirs) of people who were not previously well-known. Not all of those books are good, but this development is. Isn’t the best story the one you haven’t heard yet? If so, that means there are many best stories.

Yet when it comes to the lives of others, great or ghastly, famous or anonymous, “we will never know all we want to know.”

Biography vs. storyography

Life is not simple.

Writing a book about a life is not simple.

Now even determining what word to use to describe a book about a life is not simple.

It used to always be “biography,” end of (true) story.

Then, to quote the sharp blog Fomagrams, “In a 1998 article for School Library Journal Julie Cummins proposes the word storyography as a way of differentiating whole-life biographies from those that choose to focus only on a section of the subject’s life.”

The term is intriguing, though it hasn’t gone mainstream. (Maybe that’s partly why it’s intriguing.)

Fomagrams cites the elements of storyography, according to the Continuum Encyclopedia of Children’s Literature:

• picture book format
• incident-focused
• possessing child appeal, or from a child’s perspective
• not part of a series
• shaped by traditional story components

Fomagrams sees two problems with storyography.

First is “the necessity of omission.” However, as I mentioned in a post about library shelving of picture book biographies, a biography is but an interpretation of a life. It’s not a birth-to-death live blog—it can’t include even a fraction of the incidents that added up to the actual life of the subject.

If something occurred in person but is omitted in print, does that reduce the book’s truthiness? And that’s just deliberate omissions. What about events that remain unknown to everyone (or most everyone) besides the subject? Given these inevitable and understandable limitations, all biographies are, on some level, fictionalized, or perhaps I should say stylized.

Second is accuracy: “Nowhere in the definition of storyography is there any mention of the accuracy of the details.” With storyography, if story is the priority, is that at the expense of facts? In other words, do storyographers tweak the truth if the truth does not suit their narrative flow?

I assume many people writing picture books about real lives aren’t familiar with the term “storyography.” They’d describe their books as either biographies or fictionalized biographies; either label makes clear where the book stands with regard to accuracy.

Fomagrams concludes, “Biographies are nonfiction. Storyographies are semi-nonfiction.”

But that seems too sweeping. Take, for example, Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman. From conception to publication, I considered it, without pause, a biography, and not just because that’s easier to pronounce than “storyography.”

Yet here are those storyography elements again, now with a check where Boys of Steel qualifies:

• picture book format - check
• incident-focused - check
• possessing child appeal, or from a child’s perspective - check
• not part of a series - check
• shaped by traditional story components - check

Regarding the second bullet, my story proper (meaning the illustrated portion) covers roughly only ten years, 1930-1940. A librarian noted the following: “Your book contains biographical information, but is not a biography, per se. It contains biographical info about the two men as it specifically relates to the subject of their cartoon, but not a great amount about other parts of their lives.”

That seemingly puts it in storyography territory. Point: storyography.

Yet the book ends with a three-page, text-only author’s note exploring what happened after Superman (the merest mention is made of their lives before him). Its word count almost equals that of the illustrated portion’s. Though that hardly makes the book comprehensive, perhaps it nonetheless nudges it back into biography, even if some kids will not read the author’s note. Point: biography.

Yet that story proper is told in a narrative, not journalistic, style. Point: storyography, even though I don't believe the definition of “biography” precludes narrative style.

That leaves Fomagrams's astute point about accuracy as the final factor.

Since I can back up every fact I used in Boys of Steel, I stand by classifying it as a biography. Point: biography.

Yet if there is (as I believe) such a thing as a factual storyography, Boys of Steel is also that. Point: storyography.

Match: storyography?

Actually, when taking into account one other point, maybe a tie.

Boys of Steel is currently the only standalone book on Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster.

Being the only book on a topic does not automatically entitle it to whatever status its author wants, but I do feel that if such a book, however short, is factually sound in all that it does include, then it’s the closest we have to a (point:) biography, and therefore becomes our de facto one until further notice…

Three things you don't want to hear...

...at an author appearance, all of which a kind (and honest) host recently told me just before I began an evening book fair presentation:

“This is a disease school.”
“I don’t think the turnout will be good.”
“Cheerleading practice is next door.”

Still, the microphone worked, people did show up, and I did not get sick.

Yet.

11/8/09 addendum: Now I did.

A core title for New York City middle schools

On 11/3/09, I was one of the authors appearing at the New York City School Library System’s annual fall conference. The night before, a librarian who’d been before said it’s a “madhouse.” My take? Well-attended, yes. Chicken feathers in the air, no.

I gave a workshop on drawing readers into a story from the first line. With a crushing amount of titles competing for readers’ attention, sometimes the first sentence is the only chance a reader will give a book. The stakes are too high for it not to be compelling in some way.

While I was signing, one librarian pitched me a curious question. In the author’s note of Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman, I mention that in the 1970s, Joe Shuster lived in Queens, New York. The librarian asked me for his former address. I didn’t know offhand but could think of at least one source from my research that might narrow it down; if not, she could always go through the phone book microfiche at the New York Public Library.

However, I ended up sparing her that and being astounded at the same time. The newspaper article I had in mind did give Joe’s address—his exact address, down to the apartment number.

It was jarring to see that printed in a paper, though I think that may have been a more common practice at the time—and again, it was probably in the phone book anyway. Though Joe was in a bad place then, he was still a celebrity of sorts, and though he was an unrecognizable celebrity to most of the population, people even further from the public eye are entitled to privacy. Yet I doubt that article prompted even one person to show up at Joe’s place. On one level, that’s relieving. On another, it’s sad.

The same librarian also told me wonderful news that I had not yet heard: the New York City school library system had selected Boys of Steel as an English Language Arts (ELA) core title. As she explained, that means that every city school that includes grades 6, 7, or 8 had to order the book!

Each title selected falls into one of four themes that the Department of ELA believes “will motivate middle school students to read more”: Empowerment and Resilience, Love, Taking Action and Changing the World, and Creativity and How Things Work.

I feel what Jerry and Joe did fits all four categories, but guess which one they placed it in? Answer on page 45.

I didn’t take photos at the conference (it was the standard landscape—books on tables, people behind tables), but I did take one en route. It is an ad that just so happens to be part of my life philosophy. It's also a sentiment that most modern authors—well, most modern anybodies—might do well to keep in mind:

A little site that's outlasted GeoCities

Ten years ago today, I launched my first site, MTN Cartoons. I had already published two books and did give mention of that on the site, but as the name suggests, it was primarily an online cartoon portfolio. I remember thinking that the way I enabled viewers to scroll through the selected inventory I posted was especially efficient. Looking at it now, or even then with a right mind, it was/is so, so not.

The site is still up, though I have not updated it since 2005, which was already a year or two beyond when I began focusing mostly on writing. The past two summers I intended but failed to give it the overhaul it needs. It would’ve been good to do it this year, to capitalize on all the 10th anniversary festivities surrounding it (totally kidding), but northeast summers are just too sweltering for work of that intensity (kind of not kidding).

When I do revamp it, I imagine it divided into three sections: writing, cartooning, and speaking. This blog will somehow be migrated. And the name of this blog will become the name of the site as well. In fact, it already is, even though the site itself does not yet reflect that. Try, give it a.

Curiously (to me anyway), the date that site launched, November 3, 1999, has a connection to two and possibly three of my current projects, all on the same subject. The year before, November 3, 1998, Bob Kane, the only man credited as the creator of Batman, died. The myth that he was the sole creator had died decades earlier, though that still has not led to an official change on the credit line. I hope to be able to announce some Bill Finger news here shortly.

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.

Wikipedia fossils

Recently I gave my "professional" assessment of Wikipedia. Here's a brief tangent on Wikipedia, more of an archeological observation.

As I research, I copy any online articles I reference and paste them into a single Word document (along with interview transcriptions, notes from books, and notes from print articles). It creates one long but easily searchable file to account for my facts.

All of those articles remain static, constant, inert, unchanging, frozen...all except Wikipedia. When I look back at any given Wikipedia article I screen corralled and compare it to the article as it currently appears online, they are, of course, never the same.

What I kept is a fossil, a trace of a subject that has evolved. Often the changes are in the name of encyclopedic approach, but that tends to make the revised article less quirky. The small details or seemingly isolated facts are the first (along with typos) to be cut.

On writing projects that go on long enough for a Wikipedia article I've used to be more than just superficially updated, I end up copying and pasting multiple versions of it. And I date each one, too. If only real archeology were so easy.

A tale of two creators

In an earlier post, I expressed frustration that some libraries have shelved Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman in the 740s (drawing and decorative arts). I feel it is a biography of Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster and should be shelved with other picture book biographies.

First of all, Jerry was a writer, not an artist! Superman was written before he was drawn! The 740s classification applies to only half of the team!

I will stop shouting. After all, we are in a library.

If people regularly checked library catalogs for books on Siegel and Shuster, there'd be no issue.

However, the reality is that the majority will come across a book on such a topic by chance, not intention. Even people who would enjoy a book on Siegel and Shuster may never look for one because it seems unlikely to exist.

And it seems to me that the greatest chance for a browser to make this unexpected discovery is if the book is in biography.

Why? At one time or another, most school kids go to the picture book biographies section…because they have to. They are assigned a report on a historical figure. So they browse, looking for a subject that grabs them. But mine can’t from several shelves over.

Here are excerpts from e-mails a librarian and I exchanged on the subject; the way I pulled out key comments may make it read as clipped, but the full dialogue was harmonious, an honest sharing of concerns and constraints. I learned a lot from her. And I could not convince her to move my book to biography.

patient librarian: Your book contains biographical information, but is not a biography, per se. It contains biographical info about the two men as it specifically relates to the subject of their cartoon, but not a great amount about other parts of their lives.

pushy author: No picture book biography—no biography period—ever tells the “full” story of a person. It is an art form that typically examines a life through the lens of what that life became famous for. This is especially true with picture book bios since their format limits how much info they can include.

patient librarian: It is also about two men, so if we wanted to classify it as a biography, we would classify it as a “collective biography” and shelve it in 920. Our biography section contains mainly single-subject biographies, with a few exceptions (the Wright brothers, for example, have the same last name and we’ve decided to shelve books about them in the biography section under Biography/Wright).

pushy author: If Siegel or Shuster had individually done something else noteworthy, my argument might not hold up. However, Superman was the sole lasting achievement of either one. They are forever linked and almost always discussed as a unit, whereas most other people who star in picture books are known for solo achievements—presidents, athletes, composers, etc.

In any event, I disagree that it does not include enough biographical material to be reshelved. Unlike many other biographical picture books, mine includes a three-page afterword about the rest of their lives, including info that has not been published before. This afterword alone uses more words than most picture book biographies have total!

As you’ve seen, the book is classified as a biography on the copyright page. And because it’s the first book in any format on Siegel and Shuster, it is (for the time being, anyway) the biography on them.

patient librarian: I agree that your book has enough biographical material to include in our “Easy Biography” (E/Bio) section (picture book biographies aimed at 4-8-year-olds). The reason we did not shelve it there is because it is about two people, unrelated, with different last names.

pushy author: [I listed a handful of nonfiction picture books and wrote if any of those were shelved in biography, I feel mine should be, too.]

patient librarian: With a couple of exceptions, they are shelved in the E/Bio section, but they are all single-subject bios (except the Astaire one, and they were related, with the same last name). Biographies are shelved by their subject’s last name, so this does matter.

pushy author: If this were a book about the parallels between Lincoln and Kennedy, for example, I would understand how it might be problematic to shelve under one or the other. Yet this is a unique (or at least rare) case of a duo that history treats as a single individual for their singular creation.

A book with multiple authors is shelved by the last name of the first author listed, not in a special section for books with multiple authors. It seems to me that the same should apply for book with multiple subjects. As it stands, semantics, not content, determined where my book was shelved, and that doesn’t make sense to me.

When the first illustrated picture book bio of the Beatles comes out (hard to believe it hasn’t already), will you shelve it with music, collective biography, or biography? I am guessing the latter, under “B.” But that is again semantics, because those four musicians happen to have a name for their collective. (Same would hold true for, say, a musical act whose name is simply the names of the musicians, such as Simon and Garfunkel.)

And this is the same situation as Siegel and Shuster—a bio of multiple individuals’ joint achievement. Since Siegel and Shuster have no name for the collective, I would argue it makes sense to shelve under “Siegel” (he originated the concept and is always listed first in the partnership). Alphabetically, Shuster is right there next to him anyway!

patient librarian: We shelved Yeah! Yeah! Yeah!: The Beatles, Beatlemania, and the Music that Changed the World by Bob Spitz in the music section. A few libraries have it shelved in Biography (under “Beatles”), but as you pointed out, those four individuals share a collective name.

Simon and Garfunkel’s Bookends by Pete Fornatale is owned by four libraries in CT, all of whom have it shelved in music, likely for similar reasons as your book being shelved in the 740s in the majority of libraries in CT.

The multiple-authors point is an apples-and-oranges thing; it doesn’t really apply to subject classification. I know this all seems like semantics, but there are guidelines behind the semantics. When you catalog 400+ books a month, these guidelines are crucial to keeping your collection consistent.

the last word from the patient librarian: I think we’re just going to have to agree to disagree on this one!

Where do you think the book should be shelved?

A book ordering dilemma

On October 16, I had the pleasure of being the luncheon speaker for 200 media specialists and reading teachers at a conference in Topeka triple-sponsored by the Kansas Association of School Librarians, the Kansas State Department of Education, and the Kansas Reading Association.

But they called it the Kansas Reading Conference rather than the KASLKSDOEKRA.

By-the-numbers:

Duration of my presentation, in minutes: 60
Number of normally separate presentations it consolidated: 4
Number of slides in my PowerPoint: 70
Number of slides featuring me in a Superman costume: 2
Number of book suggestions I got from the audience: 1
Number of good book suggestions I got from the audience: 1
Number of copies of Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman I sold afterward: 24 (one carton)
Number of people who wanted a signed book but didn’t get one: well…

Writers asked to speak at events are in a tricky spot. Do we ask our host organization to order books generously or do we let them decide the quantity without our input?

If we ask them to order generously, it may require a greater up-front expense than they are prepared for (even assuming they can return unsold books). Further, unless we’re a big name, it may imply that we have an inflated sense of our appeal. And if the host does place a bigger order but doesn’t sell many, our embarrassment may be compounded.

However, if we keep mum, we run a greater risk—missing sales, as happened here. As the number of books dwindled, a few attendees gestured for me to stand up and peer around the wall behind where I sat, as if I needed to see the (humbling) line to motivate me to bring in more copies, stat. I didn’t want to be inconsiderate to the people waiting so I didn’t do that, but vendors (past whose display tables that line stretched) later told me there were as many as 75 more people who wanted a signed copy. Some of those people even stayed in line to personally (and politely) tell me that they were bummed the book sold out as quickly as it did.

By the time this photo was taken, the Barnes & Noble staff member was still there, but most of the books weren't:

To emphasize the point, one vendor stood at the spot where the line (at its longest) ended. She’s holding out her arms—click to enlarge. The signing table in the foreground sets the perspective.

In this case, I did not know in advance how many copies of Boys of Steel would be on hand. And if I had, I would not necessarily have thought it was too few.

But, as with many other authors, I do tend to sell more copies at events where I speak rather than at festivals or even bookstores where I simply sit at a table. A presentation may make a person realize he is more interested in a subject than he thought.

So going forward, when asked to speak, I will be a bit bolder. I will request that the host estimate how many books we could sell on a good day—and order more. This event reminded me that I might not be the only disappointed one if we don’t.

Anecdote, part 1 of 2:

In my presentation, I mentioned that my first job out of college was at a publisher known for its high-end coffee table books. I joked that coffee table books are more often displayed than read. After, one of the vendors who’d heard my talk told me the book on her coffee table is Boys of Steel. (I didn’t ask if she’d read it.)

Anecdote, part 2 of 2:

That same woman told me that, months ago, her 24-year-old son, a Barnes & Noble employee, had brought the book home and raved about it. (Thank you, son.) She had to bring so much to set up at the conference that she forgot to bring the book to get it signed for her son. So, like I did for the others short-changed, I signed a makeshift bookplate.

Then she asked if I’d be willing to leave a voice mail for her son, saying he’d love that. I said, “Will he love that or is this a mom thing, like what my mom would do—well-intentioned but not necessarily appreciated?” She laughed and assured me that he would indeed love it, so I somehow found the words to leave a message.

End of anecdote

Never to Kansas before 2009, then twice in ten months—with, it looks like, return trips likely. The “Superman’s First Home on Earth” author visit tour may get a second life.

Browning in black and white

Today I ran my workshop "The Language of Cartoons: What's So Funny?" at the all-boys Browning School in New York City. The participants were a small group of 12th graders whose Spanish teacher assigned them to adapt a portion of a Spanish-language novel into a graphic novel(la).

They went in not realizing they speak Cartoon. I went in not speaking Spanish.

They left realizing they speak Cartoon. I left not speaking Spanish.

Heroes vs. superheroes and a southern weekend

From October 8 to 10, I was in Nashville—first time in Tennessee. I spoke at a dream school called Ruby Major Elementary and appeared at the wonderfully run Southern Festival of Books. Buzz Aldrin spoke there, too, and I reckon the awe I felt to be near him came close to rivaling the awe he must’ve felt to be the second man on the moon. Yes, it was that profound for me. Twelve humans in history have walked on a celestial body other than Earth whereas I haven't even been to Mexico, and now one of them stood a foot away from me in the hospitality room, deciding between a box of raisins or a granola bar. (I recommended the raisins. His wife recommended neither.)

Why was Ruby Major a dream school? For starters, they responded to my first e-mail within hours and booked me by the end of that school day. I wish they were all so fast!

It only went up from there. Here was my warm welcome:


 

The following photos are courtesy of the school and photographer Bill Bernal:

 




 

After I spoke, my host was kind enough to mention I would be appearing at the festival over the weekend in case any kids wanted to bring their parents by. I found this so conscientious and considerate.

But what I found most revealing about the character of the school was a discussion the media specialist had with the kids before I arrived. She challenged them to distinguish between a hero and a superhero.

I’ve had this discussion myself—mostly with myself. I took notice when reviewers of Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman referred to Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster as heroes. Anyone who’s been to this blog before knows the reverence I have for Jerry and Joe, but I don’t call them heroes.

Yes, they were persistent, and yes, they overcame intense hardship, which takes a level of strength many don’t have. But the more liberally we use the term “hero,” the less value it has. Jerry and Joe certainly created a heroic ideal, and they were pioneers of the imagination, but I generally reserve “hero” for a different order.

Boys of Steel has taken me to numerous schools, libraries, and conferences across ten states, but I believe the Southern Festival of Books was the first with no major connection to Superman, Siegel and Shuster, or me. (Ohio is where Jerry and Joe lived. Kansas is where a young Clark Kent lived. The Northeast is where I live. And so forth.)

As I was walking into my hotel, a woman was storming out. I heard her stop and tell the security guard/doorman/concierge/unsure “I can’t stay here.” He said something and she left. A few minutes later, I didn’t mind my own business and asked him what irked her so.

“No room service.”

The festival took place at War Memorial Plaza in downtown Nashville. Here I am zooming in on my books:



 

My first of two appearances was a panel about marketing books in the digital age. It was the first panel I've been on where I was the only writer. The other panelists were entrepreneurs and publisher executives and lordy lordy were they sharp.

This panel took place in Nashville's House of Representatives. It was by far the most, well, stately location I've spoken in. So just before the panel began, I had to take a photo of us on the political Jumbotron:



 

It turns out that my unassuming hotel thick with tourists was actually tourist-worthy in and of itself. It holds a distinction that no other site in the state can claim:


And typical me, I didn't get my photo taken in front of the 6th floor guest rooms.

Educator __________ Week

Today a Borders in Connecticut kindly hosted me as part of Educator Appreciation Week. I had written it down on my calendar as Educator Awareness Week.

"Hey, you're a teacher! I've heard about you people!" And I was planning to lead my short talk with that joke-like statement, but I ended up cutting it. And the rest of the talk. Because there was no audience.

As many authors will tell you, these things happen. And in retrospect, they make for great entries in books.

I did an Educator Appreciation Week event at Borders in 2005, and attendance then was fairly brisk. But it was also opening day. Plus I think there were cookies. Today, the rain boded well, but apparently this was one of the last days of the event. Also, no cookies. While teachers did show up, not enough at any one time to do my presentation.

Still, I did manage to sell a few copies of the two books I was there to introduce (Vocabulary Cartoon of the Day and Quick Nonfiction Writing Activities that Really Work). Plus I also brought over the store's copies of Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman and sold a few of those, too. That wasn't my plan, but the books just so happened to be face out on a shelf in the line of sight behind the table they'd set up for me. You can't expect an author to disregard that.


The highlight, however, did not have to do with my own books. I was talking to 4th grade teacher whose young son rushed up holding Goodnight Goon by Michael Rex. The boy was so excited that I blurted out that I am friends with the author-illustrator and could ask if he'd send a signed bookplate. I assured Mike, and consider this notice for other author friends, that I won't make a habit of that. Probably.

Capes in the classroom

In posts on the Golden Age of Picture Book Biography, the importance of teaching about lesser-known figures, and the one discouraging response I've gotten from a school, I've touched on the role books like Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman (i.e. nonfiction books with a pop culture bent) can play in school.

I'm far from the only one.

I just stumbled across a battalion of lesson plans specifically about superheroes (not all of which are tied to books).

Here's a substantial one.

Here's one that starts off strong yet soon takes an alarming turn. For all the good it does in validating a topic some view as frivolous, it undermines that open-mindedness by scandalizing something of utmost innocence.

How you found me: part 4

Lots of click-throughs to this blog result from straightforward searches including "Boys of Steel" and "picture book biography."

Lots, but luckily, not all.

This is part 4 in an irregular series revealing some of the funconventional search phrases—all verbatim, most strange—that have led people here:

• boys are mesmerized by Superman
• amazing story exposed
• basketball hair bands
• children's writer Jonathan Nobleman
• how to write a children's book writer's bio
• lyrical engaging highly visual picture books
• picture books that use the word folks
• some biographies that people have wrote
• autobiography of a school library book
• shelving books boring
• steal me a tear
• I'm eagerly waiting for involve myself
• Manhattan phone book of 1950
• what age will you be in November 15 1993-2009
• Hey, Sydney University and other interested souls: If you wish to use my information, writings or images for any purpose whatever you need to contact me for permission first. Who knows? I may even grant it.

That last one, obviously, is my favorite so far.

Celebrate Children's Book Day

Today my environment was sunny and rainy at the same time.

The sun part: I was a first-time participant in a vibrant, longstanding book festival at Sunnyside, the historic home and grounds of Washington Irving, in Tarrytown, NY.

The rain part: rain.

At times today, Celebrate Children's Book Day felt well-attended, but I'm told that when the weather is clear, this event is beyond crowded.

Among the personal highlights:

• Unlike some sacrificial souls, I did not have to wear a sweltering Clifford costume.
• I saw some writer friends.
• I made some new writer friends.
• For the first time in my career, someone buying a book (Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman) asked if the copy was a first edition. I was weirdly pleased to check and find that it was a second edition. (The customer was not as pleased, but bought it anyway, and I refrained from assuring her that a first edition will not be worth any more in the future.)
• I had the honor of meeting and sitting next to Jules Feiffer, man of many distinctions including cartoonist and screenwriter, and author of The Great Comic Book Heroes (first edition 1965 and probably worth a ton). We didn't exactly pose but here we are:
  

Bonus: His wonderful daughter and fellow author Kate was there, too.

Note: I did not write most of those books that appear to be in front of me. It's just the angle of the photo.

And a highlight not only of the event but of the entire research portion of my career:

A person I plan to write a book on is Australian and running toward his 80th birthday. He's not well known in America but appears to be in Australia, having risen to the top of two disciplines there (one of which is politics, but that's not the discipline I'm going to write about). To test the level of awareness, I tend to ask Australians I meet if they know of this person.

I happened to chat with an Australian at the event, but for some reason, I did not ask her my "Australia question." A short time later, a charming older Australian couple stopped by. In my experience, it is unusual to meet even one Australian at such an event, and any more than that is especially curious.

So I got back to business and asked this couple (who turned out to be the parents of the first woman) if they knew the name.

They just so happen to be very good friends with him.

Out of all the crikillions of people in Australia, they just so happen to go back a long way (seems at least half a century) with my future subject.

Given my subject's high rank in politics, I wasn't fully confident I'd be able to reach him directly when the time comes. Now I have an e-mail scribbled on the back of a promotional postcard that means I probably will. I shudder to think of all the steps I would've taken without this.

150 signatures

People who scribble in books usually fall into one of two categories: authors or toddlers.

This tale is about a lesser-known third category—and it is a cautionary tale. Booksellers beware.

Once upon 2005, I went into a Barnes & Noble in New York to see if they had any of my books. To my surprise, they did, and I asked a bookseller if I could sign them. He asked me for ID.

Authors regularly walk into stores unannounced and ask to sign stock. Most of those authors, including me, are unrecognizable to the general public. Yet that was the first time a bookseller wanted me to prove I was the person I said I was.

Every previous time, I'd wondered why the bookseller didn't.

This time, I asked why he did.

He said he didn't used to. Once, however, the author of a successful mass-market paperback series strolled in and got instant permission to sign all copies of his books that the store carried—all 150 copies. (Other authors—I'll wait a moment while you dream of a store carrying that many copies of your books.)




Welcome back.

Only after that author left did the store determine that he was not, in fact, the author.

His prank had ruined 150 books. His crime was identity theft. His weapon was a Sharpie.

And he's still out there.

Back to school visit

Today was my first school visit of the 2009-2010 academic year, aptly coinciding with the first day of fall.

But first, my GPS had some fun at my expense, which has been happening more and more lately:

Time I was scheduled to start speaking: 9:10 a.m.
Time I started driving: 7:20 a.m.
Time GPS said I'd arrive: 8:29 a.m.
Time I arrived: 9:04 a.m.
Number of wrong turns it sent me on: who knows/too many

Arriving with only six minutes to spare was later than I think I've ever been for a school visit...yet for the record, I was not late.

And in any event all was good when I saw the welcome:

My host had converted the subject matter of Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman into a "read power" message for the students.

While signing books after I spoke, a second grader gave me this charming drawing (her first comment refers to two drawings I had done during the presentation):

She also gave me permission to post it here. And she included Superman's distinctive spit curl! Yet she made it even more distinctive since this is how it usually curls (look carefully—it's a letter):

This visit also marked the first time I spoke to kindergartners since my older child became one. That was, not surprisingly, an emotional trampoline. For me. I don't think the kindergartners much cared!

They were more focused on telling me what their dads wear to work.

A first: Early on, one called out "Are you real?" I said yes but he looked unconvinced. So I let him pinch my arm.

He was still unconvinced.

Wikipediagilisticexpialidocious, part 2 of 2

As a writer, I’ve found Wikipedia to be invaluable in research, despite some editorial backlash and if used in a certain way. Reasons 1 through 3 are here, and reasons 4 through 6½ are here:

Contributor motivation

Writers and editors who contribute to Wikipedia don't earn money or widespread recognition. Unmotivated by these corruptible catalysts, their output shoots up the integrity scale. They’re wikifying out of love for whatever subject they’re writing about, and people are often experts on what they love.

Immediate sourcing

Given longstanding industry protocol, not to mention space limitation, print articles almost never cite sources. Wikipedia articles do, or if they don’t, they’re flagged so researchers know to proceed with caution.

If a fact on Wikipedia lacks citation, I don’t use it unless I can back (front?) it up with a reliable source elsewhere. Weaker Wikipedia articles may not help in and of themselves, but they can set you down multiple paths to better info. And that's a strength—Wikipedia has become the essential orientation point on most any topic.

Detail magnet—but especially “modern” details

I couldn’t resist titling this post the way I did (though I did first try “Supercalifragilisticexwikipedia”). However, Wikipedia is actually not “supercalifragilisticexpialidocious.” According to the film Mary Poppins, that word is all you can say when there’s nothing to say.

Wikipedia is about saying it all. Sort of.

It’s the first major fact repository to incorporate information in real-time. Yet this creates an imbalance, giving a texture to “current” subjects that past subjects don’t have.

Take the Kanye West/Taylor Swift incident during the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. It was promptly added to both of their Wikipedia entries, plus the entry for the VMAs. Will it end up being a defining moment for either artist? It’s too early to tell, but probably not. A Hollywood “controversy” like it happens several times each week, making many previous ones insignificant.

To contrast, the people who wrote the Wikipedia entry on pre-Wikipedia subject Huey Lewis and the News did not (according to the references cited) go back through period articles from Rolling Stone, People, Musician, Seventeen, and other magazines (whether extant or defunct) that covered the band during their 1980s heyday. Most of those articles are not online, and therefore understandably beyond the reach—or at least the commitment level—of the average Wikipedia researcher.

Yet if someone were to dig up such articles, they would surely provide the kind of nuances that a Wikipedia contributor documenting a contemporary topic often includes.

In other words, the entry for Kanye West will have lots more anecdotal info than the one for Huey Lewis and the News.

I do long for a Wikipedia that more deeply mines the recent past for “forgotten” facts, but that’s an immense expectation. Hopefully, as more publications digitize their archives, that will enhance Wikipedia's scope. Yet what about the magazines like Musician that don’t exist anymore? Who owns that content? Will it ever be digitized? What irresistible HLATN factoid is there and only there and will be lost to most of us for all time unless some enterprising Wikipedian unearths and shares it?

In the end, this imbalance between current and past topics is not a negative. To criticize Wikipedia for being more thorough about certain contemporary subjects than certain past subjects misses the point. The fact that it’s detailed about any subjects is a good thing.

The half-reason

A year ago, some kind soul gave my book Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman the Wikipedia treatment. You don’t need to investigate the IP addresses to learn that it was not me. The proof is simpler. Just look at my name within the article: not hyperlinked. Though I write about myself here, I, like most writers, know it’s bad form to do so on Wikipedia.

I’ve never written a Wikipedia article about anyone or anything else, either. Several years ago, I did lightly edit a couple. (One was on Bill Finger, the uncredited co-creator of Batman. I don’t remember the other but do remember that my tweak was only grammatical.)

And though I don’t plan to write or edit other Wikipedia articles, this is one writer who is grateful for the people who do.

Wikipediagilisticexpialidocious, part 1 of 2

As a writer, I am on Wikipedia daily. If an article is properly cited, it can be as—if not more—useful than many books. At times, I trust it more than brand name encyclopedias.

One study found Wikipedia as accurate as Britannica.

Yet some editors and writers’ guidelines ask writers to avoid using Wikipedia as a source because it is “user-written.”

But users are people, too. To expand, here are six-and-a-half weasons why Wikipedia is worthwhile.

Amateur doesn’t mean unprofessional

We all know good cooks who don’t work in high-end restaurants. And many of us have been crushed by good tennis players who’ve never appeared in the US Open, or even a town tournament.

Likewise, there are plenty of good writers (and researchers) who don’t do it for a living, yet luckily, plenty of them volunteer their time and minds for Wikipedia.

Books get it wrong, too

Conversely, a published book is not always a polished book. Despite best efforts, books still go to print with mistakes. I’ve read them. And written one or two. (But only one or two.) Writers have to doublecheck all facts, whether from a book or a site or the inside of a Snapple bottle cap.

Multiple brains for the price of none

A typical book has one editor (and a copy editor, but here I’m talking about mistakes in content, not grammar). An article on Wikipedia can have any number of editors. While that may indeed mean more chance for errors, at the same time it suggests a greater chance that more errors will be fixed.

Say a magazine writer turns in a 1,000-word article with 10 mistakes and his editor catches 8. The scale with a Wikipedia article is almost always greater—say 10 writers build a 1,000-word article with a total of 28 (initial) mistakes. Yet it may attract as many—if not more—editors as writers. Through group effort, all mistakes may be weeded out. While the “amateur” article had more than twice as many initial mistakes, it ends up with none; meanwhile, the “professional” article still has two. And once published, print mistakes can’t be changed as quickly as Wikipedia mistakes.

A Wikipedia article is like a piece of bread on the ground. You can always count on not one but many ants to show up fast and go to work on it. Same with a Wikipedia article, subbing in editors for ants. (Not an insult. Ants are hard workers. Not to mention freakishly strong for their size.)

Consider this experiment. Writer A.J. Jacobs tested Wikipedia by posting an article on it with numerous deliberate errors. He felt the article had reached healthy condition two days and 373 edits later. Here’s the link (from Wikipedia itself).

Tomorrow: reasons 4 through 6½, including the scoop on the title of this post.

Most did shave, actually

The New York Public Library children's section, under the sure stewardship of Betsy Bird, hosts a regular program called the Children's Literary Café.

The theme of the one I had the honor to participate in: "Men Who Write Children's Books, Live in the New York City Area, and Shave Irregularly."

Yet all four of us showed up facially groomed (for the most part):

Mike Rex = goatee
Jon Scieszka = little hair patch under lip (name?)
Brian Floca = smooth (though he had a full beard when I pitched this idea to Betsy)
me = two-day stubble

It was standing room only and a discussion that (for me, anyway) ended too soon. The audience was most gracious and mostly non-face-shavers (i.e. women).

We didn't get the chance to take a photo until a while after it ended, by which point Jon had unfortunately already left, but here he is, and here are the rest of us:

Use the key above to match the name to the facial hair. You get one freebie: Betsy is the one in the dress.

9/14/09 addendum: Betsy's post about this.

ComiXology podcast on "Boys of Steel"

ComiXology kindly interviewed me about Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman, and asked some meaty questions.



Here's the original link.

Picture books for older readers are like Bigfoot

Picture books for older readers are like Bigfoot. Although lots of people have caught a glimpse of them, so many still don't believe in them. I wish I could be as sure about upright hominoids, but picture books for older readers do exist. I managed to capture some on film. And more proof came via a heartening e-mail I received from teacher and blogger Keith Schoch, who kindly gave me permission to share it here (in slightly condensed form):

First of all, I'm a big fan of Boys of Steel: The Creators of Superman. My fourth grade class dug it as well, and what really impressed them was that at first they thought they didn't care about these two guys, but by book's end, they cared a lot! And then when I stumbled upon your site today I thought it was pretty cool to read your About Me and find that this is precisely what you're attempting to do now as a writer. [MTN: This refers to a former version of my About Me in which I explained that I like to write books on people whose achievement is well-known but whose name and back story are not (i.e. everyone knows Superman, few know who created him, when, or why).]

Good, good stuff, Marc. I say that not just as a teacher, but as someone who is constantly poking and prodding other teachers in the upper primary and middle grades to use picture books to enhance their instruction. I conduct workshops on that topic, and also host a blog aimed at teachers of grades 3-8 called Teach with Picture Books. It features summaries, themes, guiding questions, teaching suggestions, cross-curricular extensions, author profiles, and related links.

As a companion site to my workshops, I also put up a static site called Picture Books in Middle Grades, which offers reasons why teachers of the upper primary and middle grades should be using picture books in their instruction. Many teachers use this site to get their colleagues on board and to squeeze some money out of their administrators for purchasing picture books for the classroom. You might want to check out a post [in which] your book is featured prominently.