Bestselling romance novelist Danielle Steel has landed a book deal for a picture book for kids.
Doubleday Books for Young Readers will publish Pretty Minnie in Paris in fall 2014. Janklow & Nesbit Associates agent Julie Just negotiated the deal with editorial director Frances Gilbert. Gilbert will edit and Kristi Valiant will illustrate the book. Here’s more from the release:
Steel has one passion that her fans might not know about—her love for dogs. Pretty Minnie in Paris is inspired by the adventures of Steel’s own teacup Chihuahua, and her love of Paris—where she resides part of the year. Steel’s picture book tells the stylish tale of a fashionable Parisian pup out on the town … Steel lives in San Francisco and Paris, which inspired many of the scenes in Pretty Minnie in Paris. Over the years she has raised several beloved dogs, and this October 2013 brings the release of her next nonfiction work, Pure Joy (Delacorte Press), a memoir of Steel’s most beloved family pets.
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
As far as I’m concerned, every good blog post should begin with fiction starring Gregory Peck. What we have here is one of the luscious finds boasted by Greg Hatcher over at the site Comic Book Resources. I’m a big fan of Hatcher because when he does round ups like this one he always takes care to mention a lot of collectible children’s literature. In this post alone you’ll see what the going price is for a good old hardcover Oz or Narnia title, as well as his discovery of Millions of Cats. I remember that when I conducted by Top 100 Picture Books Poll that Millions of Cats was the surprise Top Ten winner. Folks continually forget to give it its due.
- Collecting Children’s Books has the usual plethora of wonderfulness up and running for your consideration. First Peter discovers and prints out the complete shortlists of Newbery contenders between the years of 1973-75 (something I wish they still did) and then in a different post considers the state of recent children’s books and whether any of them have been made into Broadway musicals. None that I can think of, since A Year With Frog and Toad isn’t exactly contemporary. Coraline did sort of make it to Broadway a year or so ago (or was that considered off-Broadway?), but that’s the only one I can think of.
- Hey hey! While we were all sleeping the candidates nominated for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award were announced. You can see the full list of candidates from countries all over the country here. If I had the time and ability I would familiarize myself with all those names that are unknown to me. On the American side of things, however, here are the USA representatives: Ashley Bryan, Eric Carle, Julius Lester, Grace Lin, Walter Dean Myers, Anne Pellowski, Jerry Pinkney, Reading is Fundamental, and Allen Say. Good luck, guys (and well played Grace for being the youngest). Here’s hoping some of you make it to the final consideration. After all, the Lindgren is the largest monetary award a children’s writer or illustrator can win.
- It was a good week for finalists of all sorts, actually. The National Book Award finalists were released last week and included Paolo Bacigalupi’s Ship Breaker, Kathryn Erskine’s Mockingbird, Laura McNeal’s Dark Water, Walter Dean Myers’ Lockdown, and Rita Williams-Garcia’s One Crazy Summer. How interesting it is to me that non-fiction didn’t make even a sin
Ah, the "problem parent in young adult lit." Or so says the recent essay in the New York Times, written by Julie Just.
Before I go on, let me just rant -- do we ever see children and teens comment about their representation in adult books? Whether they are absent, or too good, or not available? Please send the links my way if you have. Sure, it is interesting to see how (x) is portrayed in books, with x being just about anything: parents, school, college, siblings, work, economics, etc. What isn't interesting is when the approach is so "me, me, me" by the writer. That is, the adult reader who reads young adult books and cares primarily about how the teens they read about perceive the adults in their life. It's like eavesdropping on kids in a mall, wondering if the teens think your clothes are cool or if your haircut is too "soccer mom." Adults, if your primary interest in books is how adults are portrayed? Read adult books.
I'm not saying Just does this. I'm just saying that's a rant I've been wanting to make for a while.
Topic.
Just looks at what has become a popular topic in the blogosphere: how parents are portrayed in teen books. Just notes that "the bad parent is enjoying something of a heydey."
Having just finished Wait Till Helen Comes, I am quite aware that bad parents have always existed in books for kids and teens.
What is interesting, though, is how we define "bad." What does it mean to have a "bad" parent? Would teens define this differently than an adult, and is that part of the issue of when an adult reads a young adult book and gets insulted? Just uses the example of the father in Sara Zarr's Once Was Lost to illustrate today's "bad" parent: "In a typical scene, from “Once Was Lost,” by Sara Zarr, a dad whose wife is at a “recovery center” after a D.U.I. needs help shopping at a supermarket. He shouldn’t be filling the cart with vegetables, his 15-year-old daughter says. “It’s all . . . ingredients,” she explains patiently. “Who’s going to cook this stuff?” He stands by in confusion as she selects precooked chicken breasts."
Before going further, I greatly appreciate the fact that a father is being taken to task for not knowing how to cook. One of my personal pet peeves is when a parent is judged "bad" based on sexist roles; thus, the mother who does not cook is usually code for "bad." But to step further back -- really? "Bad" is now about not cooking? As you may recall from my reading of Once Was Lost, I have a different definition of "bad": "Just like Sam's mother isn't "teh evil" because she drinks, neither is Sam's father "teh evil." Neither of these parents are portrayed as bad, terrible, no-good people; rather they are real people, not perfect, with flaws, people who try and do the best they can."
Just provides a historical overview of parents in young adult lit. (Agree or disagree with her take on various parents and books. That is part of the fun of commenting on an essay.)
This is where things get interesting. As the reader decides the take away from Just's essay.
Just leaves part of this to the reader -- is the problem not with the "problem parents," or the books, or the depictions, but is the problem the real parents?
Just says, "many contemporary young adult novels seem to reflect genuine confusion over what the job of parent consists of, beyond keeping kids fed and safe. This isn’t surprising, after a decade in which “overparenting” became almost a badge of honor and you could sign a child up for a clay-modeling class only to find that y
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Thanks so much for linking to my UK kidlit tour! Yes, the musical Matilda looks wonderful. The songs have been written by Tim Minchin, a very funny and usually quite acerbic comic so I can’t wait to hear how they’ve turned out.
Ah, but there IS a rather comprehensive list of children’s book awards — the Database of Award Winning Children’s Literature (www.dawcl.com) which is kept stunningly up to date by librarian Lisa Bartle. According to the site, “DAWCL has over 8,300 records from 91 awards across six English-speaking countries (United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, England, and Ireland). ” Although I will admit that neither the Jo Osborne Award or the Zena Sutherland Award appears in the database, this is still one ding-dang useful resource. (Who knew that the Society of School Librarians International gave out an award?)
Brooke, this link may have seriously improved my quality of life. Thank you! I had absolutely no idea. To the internets!
Here is another taxidermy-related image for your blog! Sophie Blackall’s window case, part of the Drawn in Brooklyn show: http://sophieblackall.blogspot.com/2010/09/drawn-in-brooklyn.html
Brilliant! The mark of the first stuffed penguin. Love the hat. Thanks, Sergio!
Off Broadway seems to be the home of Children’s Books into musicals today “Freckleface Strawberry-The Musical” is playing at the New World Stages of course my favorite musical based on a children’s book has got to be The Secret Garden which actually was on Broadway back in the early 90’s.
I’ll grant the requirement was “recent,” but if someone else brings up “The Secret Garden,” how can I resist? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h7_a5nqWC_c