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Viewing: Blog Posts Tagged with: E.B. White, Most Recent at Top [Help]
Results 1 - 25 of 28
1. HarperCollins Creates an Illustrated Timeline of Charlotte’s Web

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2. Best Last Lines of Books, Revisited

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48328I recently read a masterpiece by Richard Yates titled Revolutionary Road. You may have read it, or seen the movie starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet.

The entire book left me in awe, frankly. But why I’m posting today is the ending was just so perfect. A man is sitting in his chair while his wife prattles on and on, perhaps representing the banalities and sometimes-pettiness of suburban life, the smallness of minds. She goes on uninterrupted for almost two full pages. Then he comes the final paragraph:

But from there on Howard Givings heard only a welcome, thunderous sea of silence. He had turned off his hearing aid.

Wow. The end.

A thunderous sea of silence.

And by best last line I should say, best ending for that specific book. For Revolutionary Road, the man turning off his hearing aid was just right. Shutting out the noise.

Anyway, that ending reminded me of all old post I had written maybe four or five years ago. Since I think it still has entertainment value, here you go . . .

——

Stylist magazine has put together a list of The Best 100 Closing Lines from Books. Here’s a few of my favorites . . .

The Great Gatsby, F. Scott Fitzgerald

“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past.”

Animal Farm, George Orwell

“The creatures outside looked from pig to man, and from man to pig, and from pig to man again; but already it was impossible to say which was which.”

Charlotte’s Web, E.B. White

“It is not often that someone comes along who is a true friend and a good writer. Charlotte was both.”

The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest, Steig Larsson

“She opened the door wide and let him into her life again.”

The Catcher in the Rye, J.D. Salinger

“It’s funny. Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.”

Brokeback Mountain, Annie Proulx

“There was some open space between what he knew and what he tried to believe, but nothing could be done about it, and if you can’t fix it, you’ve got to stand it.”

The Book Thief, Markus Zusak

“A last note from your narrator. I am haunted by humans.”

The Beach, Alex Garland

“I’m fine. I have bad dreams but I never saw Mister Duck again. I play video games. I smoke a little dope. I got my thousand-yard stare. I carry a lot of scars. I like the way that sounds. I carry a lot of scars.”

The Old Man and the Sea, Ernest Hemingway

“The old man was dreaming about the lions.”

Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro

“I just waited a bit, then turned back to the car, to drive off to wherever it was I was supposed to be.”

A Tale of Two Cities, Charles Dickens

“It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known.”

The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood

“Are there any questions?”

The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini

“I ran with the wind blowing in my face, and a smile as wide as the valley of Panjsher on my lips. I ran.”

The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck

“She looked up and across the barn, and her lips came together and smiled mysteriously.”

The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, Mark Twain

“I got to light out for the Territory ahead of the rest, because Aunt Sally she’s going to adopt me and sivilize me, and I can’t stand it. I been there before.”

The Outcast, Sadie Jones

“He didn’t think about it, he went straight to a seat facing forwards, so that he could see where he was going.”

Before I Die, Jenny Downham

“Light falls through the window, falls onto me, into me. Moments. All gathering towards this one.”

They also compiled a list of 100 Best Opening Lines from Books.

—–

As an author, I guess it’s something to think about. It’s even more important with picture books. As James Marshall once told me in an interview, “The ending is what people remember. If the book fizzles at the end, they remember the whole thing as a fizzled book. It’s important to have a very satisfying ending for the reader. They’ve entered a world and now they are leaving it.”

Perhaps my best closing line comes from Hiccups for Elephant:

“Ah-choo!”

From A Pirate’s Guide to First Grade, as “Red” enters the library:

“I passed the mess and crossed the halls. Until thar she blew — me treasure!”

From longer works, I especially like the closing lines from Along Came Spider:

“Without looking back, Trey nodded, yes, tomorrow, then stepped inside, yes, and was gone.”

Here’s the closing lines from Bystander:

“All the while quietly hoping — in that place of the heart where words sputter and dissolve, where secret dreams are born and scarcely admitted — to score winning baskets for the home team. To take it to the hole and go up strong. Fearless, triumphant. The crowd on their feet. His father in the stands, cheering.”

Recently a reviewer wrote that the last line of The Fall brought tears to her eyes, that it wasn’t until the final moment that she fully realized the book had touched her in that way.

I don’t think it was the brilliance of the last line, but more the culmination of feeling. Here it is anyway:

TheFall

“I guess I will remember everything. Your friend, Sam Proctor.”

And while I’m updating this section with recent titles, I also like the last lines of Before You Go, if you don’t mind me saying so:

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“He didn’t know what would happen with Becka. Maybe that’s why he needed to be alone on the beach, to watch the sunrise, to be okay with himself, despite everything. Sometimes life seemed impossibly hard, full of car wrecks and souls that shined like stars in yellow dresses. So much heartbreak and undertow. Jude bent down, picked up a smooth white stone, measured its heft in his hand. And he reached back and cast that rock as far as he could.

Just to see the splash.”

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3. What Is It? Fables & Parables For All Readers

Today I thought I’d take a closer look at the differences between fables and parables and come up with some recommendations for readers of all ages who enjoy a little learning with their leisure. A fable is: a short story that conveys a moral to the reader, typically with animals as characters. A parable is: a short story designed […]

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4. Trailer Unveiled For Charlotte’s Web eBook

Earlier this year, HarperCollins Children’s Books announced that three E.B. White novels will be published as eBooks for the first time: Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little, and The Trumpet of the Swan. The company has created a book trailer for the digital edition of Charlotte’s Web.

The video embedded above features a young reader, a cute pig, and a special message crafted with spider web. Earlier this year, the team at BBC.com conducted a survey and found that Charlotte’s Web was voted the most popular children’s book of all time.

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5. Animal Stars of Literature: INFOGRAPHIC

Animals Infographic 200 (GalleyCat)What are your favorite stories starring animal characters? The helpucover team has created an infographic to explore Memorable Animals From Literature.

The image features several literary icons including Snowball from George Orwell’s 1984, Wilbur from E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web and Piglet from A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh. We’ve embedded the full piece below for you to explore further—what do you think? (via SeattlePi.com)

Animals Infographic (GalleyCat)

 

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6. Charlotte’s Web is Most Popular Children’s Book Ever

Charlotte’s Web by EB White has been voted the most popular children’s book ever, according to a new survey from BBC.

To come up with the list, BBC Culture’s Jane Ciabattari polled dozens of critics from around the globe. These experts were asked to name the best English-language children’s books of all time for readers 10 and younger. The survey included feedback from NPR’s Maureen Corrigan; children’s books editor of the Sunday Times Nicolette Jones; Lev Grossman, books editor at TIME, among others.

The critics named 151 titles in total. Winnie-the-Pooh by A.A. Milne;  Little Women by Louisa May Alcott; and Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, also made the top 10.

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7. Crappy first draft

The joy of a crappy first draft. Can there be joy in such a thing? According to the Publication Coach, Daphne Gray-Grant, there is.

In fact, she says, “producing one is exactly what will turn you into a professional writer.” As writers, we may abhor that crappy first draft. How could such garbage have come from our own fingers dancing on the keyboard? 

If that is you, Gray-Grant says to ask yourself some questions. Who else is going to see the yucky thing? More than likely, no one. If so, then what does it matter? It is called a rough draft, after all. No one does anything perfect the first time, so there is no need to beat yourself up for adhering to human nature.

She list several reasons why crappy first drafts are important to writers. It will help you write faster. One of the things I love about NaNoWriMo is that November is the one month a year I can turn off my internal editor. It is a freeing experience, writing without the agony of perfecting every word and sentence. This is a first draft, a beginning, a place for you to tell yourself the story. Throw up the words on the screen and clean up later. Gray-Grant says there is a momentum that builds by piling up words, and that allows more to flow at a quick pace. 

According to Kathleen Duey, a recent WIFYR instructor, real writing takes place in the rewrite. The best writers don’t necessarily have talent as much as they have a commitment to rewriting. How do you divide up your dedicated writing time? If you could dash out a crappy first draft, that would free up more time to come up with a good second draft and an even better third. 

So, embrace that crappy first draft. It is an unavoidable necessity that is part of the process. Get that first draft out of the way in order to have something to work with. As E.B. White has said, “The best writing is in the rewriting.” 

(This article also posted at http://writetimeluck.blogspot.com)


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8. Fusenews: Knowing your funny from your droll

With Comic Con NYC later this week, publisher previews on the rise, and various work-related meetings, talks, and speeches I’m just the teeniest tiniest bit busy this week.  But no matter!  It is you, dear readers, that give me what for and how to.  For you I would forgo all the sleep in the world.  And as luck would have it, my 5-month-old baby is currently taking me up on that offer.

Onward!

  • KraussHouse Fusenews: Knowing your funny from your drollSometimes when I am feeling pensive I attempt to figure out which authors and illustrators currently alive today will, in the distant future, be so doggone famous for their works that people make pilgrimages to the homes they once lived in.  I suspect that the entire Amherst/Northampton area will become just one great big tour site with people snapping shots of the homes of Norton Juster, Mo Willems, Jane Yolen, and so on and such.  Thoughts of this sort come to mind when reading posts like Phil Nel’s recent piece A Very Special House in which he visits the former home of Ruth Krauss and Crockett Johnson.  It is entirely enjoyable, particularly the part where the current owners reenact a photo taken on the porch with Ruth and Crockett 65 years later.
  • So they announced the Kirkus Prize Finalists last week.  Those would be the folks in the running for a whopping $50,000 in prize money.  The books in the young reader category are split between two picture books, two middle grade titles, and two YA.  You can see all the books that were up for contention here and the final books that made the cut here.  Heck, you can even vote on the book you’d like to see win and potentially win an iPad for yourself.  I don’t think they needed the iPad as a lure, though.  I suspect many folks will be voting left and right just the for the fun of it.  Thanks to Monica Edinger for the links.
  • In other news, we have word of a blog made good.  Which is to say, a blog that figured out how to make a living off of its good name.  When people ask for YA blog recommendations I am not always the best person to ask.  I don’t monitor them the way I monitor children’s book blogs.  Pretty much, I just rely on folks like bookshelves of doom and The Book Smugglers to tell me what’s up.  Now The Book Smugglers are becoming publishers in their own right!  eBook publishers no less.  Nice work if you can get it.
  • Louise Rennison wrote a rather amusing little piece about how her British slang doesn’t translate all that well across the pond, as it were.  Fair enough, but don’t go be telling me we Yanks don’t know humor.  That’s why I was pleased to see that at the end of the article it says, “Louise Rennison will be discussing humour on both sides of the pond, and other interesting things, with her fellow countryman Jim Smith (author of Barry Loser and winner of the Roald Dahl Funny prize 2013) and American author Jon Scieszka (author of many hilarious books including Stinky Cheeseman and most lately Frank Einstein) – in a panel event chaired by Guardian children’s books editor Emily Drabble, run with IBBY at Waterstones Piccadilly, London, on 7 October 2014.”  Why that’s today! Give ‘em hell, Jon!  Show ‘em we know our funny from our droll.  Then find out why their Roald Dahl Funny Prize is taking a hiatus.  It’s not like they lack for humor themselves, after all.

CharlottesWeb Fusenews: Knowing your funny from your droll*sigh* That Jarrett Krosoczka. He gets to have all the fun. One minute he’s hosting the Symphony Space Roald Dahl celebration and the next he’s hosting the upcoming Celebration of E.B. White.  I mean, just look at that line-up.  Jane Curtin.  David Hyde Pierce.  Liev Schreiber (didn’t see that one coming).  Oh, I will be there, don’t you doubt it.  You should come as well.  We’ll have a good time, even if we’re not hosting it ourselves.

  • This may be my favorite conspiracy piece of 2014 (which is actually saying something).  Travis Jonker lays out 6 Theories on the End of Sam and Dave Dig a Hole by Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen.  Needless to say, I’m firmly in the “dog as Jesus” camp.
  • And speaking of conspiracy theories, were you aware of the multiple theories that abound and consist of folks trying to locate the precise geographical coordinates of Sesame Street?  There’s a big Sesame Street exhibit at our Library of the Performing Arts right now (by hook or by crook I am visiting it this Sunday) and that proved the impetus for this piece.  Lots of fun.
  • Hey, how neat is this?

On Saturday November 8, 2014, the Smithsonian’s National Museum of African Art (NMAA) in Washington, DC will host the 22nd annual Children’s Africana Book Awards (CABA).  CABA was created by Africa Access and the Outreach Council of the African Studies Association* to honor authors and illustrators who have produced exceptional books on Africa for young people.

And who’s that I see on the list of nominees?  None other than Monica Edinger for Africa Is My Home!  Two Candlewick books are listed, actually.  Well played there, oh ye my fellow publisher.

  • Daily Image:

I admit it. I’ve a weakness for paper jewelry.  Today’s example is no exception:

PaperJewelry 500x342 Fusenews: Knowing your funny from your droll

Wood pulp. A marvelous invention. Thanks to Jessica Pigza for the image.

share save 171 16 Fusenews: Knowing your funny from your droll

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9. 4 Ways I Boost My Creativity


Happy Poetry Friday! See the link at the end of this post to this week's round-up.

I'm not sharing a poem today. Instead, I'm continuing our current discussion on creativity. As Jill said in Monday's post: "Creativity is tough to define and tougher still to write about." I agree!

I did find a satisfactory basic definition at OxfordDictionaries:

"Creativity: The use of the imagination or original ideas, especially in the production of an artistic work."
But there are so many facets to creativity that it's hard to encapsulate the concept in one sentence. That's why I loved how Jill shared so many great quotations on the topic in her post. I'd like to add another quote to the list:
“Creation is in part merely the business of forgoing the great and small distractions.”
--E.B. White
I came across this E. B. White quote in a book I read recently: Manage Your Day-to-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus & Sharpen Your Creative Mind, (Amazon Publishing) edited by Jocelyn K. Glei of 99u. The book is a compilation of quotes, interviews, and essays from experts in productivity and creativity. Interestingly, the tips often overlap with those in the article Jill linked to: "The Psychology of Writing and the Cognitive Science of the Perfect Daily Routine" by Maria Popova.

I don't believe there really is such a thing as a "perfect daily routine." We are each unique, and what works to activate one person's creativity might stifle someone else's. Also, I often have to adapt my routine to fit what's currently going on in my life. However, I've found 4 specific suggestions in Manage Your Day-to-Day that are really helping me resist "the great and small distractions":

1. Great Work Before Everything Else: 
"Do your most meaningful creative work at the beginning of your day, and leave 'reactive work'—like responding to e-mail or other messages—for later."
I recently made a rule for myself: No email before 10 a.m. It's been amazing to me how much this one simple rule has helped. Now instead of getting lost in email for an hour or more at the start of my day, I get lost in my current work-in-progress. Yay! I also have a second, related rule: check email no more than three times per day. This has really helped me be more focused and efficient when I do check email.

2. Jump-Start Your Creativity: 
"Establish 'associative triggers'—such as listening to the same music or arranging your desk in a certain way—that tell your mind it’s time to get down to work."
I call my "associative triggers" my "writing rituals" and I shared them last March when we did a series of posts about our writing routines.

3. Feel the Frequency:
"Commit to working on your project at consistent intervals—ideally every day—to build creative muscle and momentum over time."

In the post on my writing rituals, I talked about how I was in the middle of a "100-day, one hundred words a day (OHWAD) writing challenge." That worked at the time because I was writing a first draft. Now that I'm revising, I've modified it to a "100-day, fifteen minutes a day (FMAD)" challenge. I've committed to work at least 15 minutes/day, six days a week for 100 days. (I don't count my days off in the total.) I deliberately chose a very doable goal--15 minutes--that I could accomplish even when I have a day filled with other commitments. The challenge is working well for me so far: I began revising Chapter One on Day 1. Today is Day 27, and I'm now up to working on Chapter Eight.

4. Make Progress Visible:
"Make your daily achievements visible by saving iterations, posting milestones, or keeping a daily journal."

On Day 1 of my FMAD challenge I created a table in a Word document called Revision Log. In that document, I note such statistics as my start time, time spent, starting page and chapter, ending page and chapter, starting word count, and ending word count. Looking at my log now, I can see that my writing sessions have ranged from 20 minutes to over 2 hours. Without doing the math, I'd guess that I average about an hour a day. (If I wanted to get really fancy, I could put the stats into a spreadsheet and let it calculate my productivity rate.) For me, this log is a great psychological boost because I often fall into the trap of thinking my writing isn't going anywhere when in fact I am making slow, but steady, progress.

These are just four of the suggestions in Manage Your Day-to-Day that have helped me. Even if none of these ideas appeal to you, I hope that my sharing them here will nudge you into thinking about how to support your own creativity. Are you already happy with your routine/process? If so, we'd love to know what works for you. Please tell us via the comments.

I'll leave you with one last quote, from Jonah Lehrer's Wall Street Journal article "How To Be Creative:" 
"But creativity is not magic, and there's no such thing as a creative type. Creativity is not a trait that we inherit in our genes or a blessing bestowed by the angels. It's a skill. Anyone can learn to be creative and to get better at it."
Lehrer's article ends with "10 Quick Creativity Hacks" you may be interested in checking out. And for ten tips on how to make more regularly, see "How to Create the Habit of Writing" by Leo Babauta at Write to Done.

Reminder: Today's the last day to enter for a chance to win an autographed copy of Barbara Krasner’s picture book biography Goldie Takes a Stand  (Kar-Ben Publishing)!


Now you can head over to be inspired by all the Poetry Friday poems. This week's round-up is at former TeachingAuthor  Laura Salas's blog.

Happy writing!
Carmela

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10. The Legacy of Ursula Nordstrom

You probably enjoyed Charlotte’s Web or Harriet the Spy at one point in your life. But do you know who edited those great kid’s books?

After covering the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) Summer Conference last weekend, I caught up with the New York Public Library’s Youth Materials Collections Specialist Betsy Bird and Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast blogger Julie Danielson, co-authors of the brand new book, Wild Things! Acts of Mischief in Children’s Literature (co-written with Peter Sieruta).

Q: Could you tell us more about the life and work of the great children’s book editor Ursula Nordstrom? What are some of the books you recommend from this great editor?

Betsy Bird: ”Ursula’s list begins to resemble nothing so much as a Who’s Who in children’s literature after a while. She had this crazy sense of humor that went well with her ability to spot potential children’s literature talent.

I mean, seriously, who would have looked at Shel Silverstein‘s rather explicit cartoons in Playboy and thought ‘There’s the man that children everywhere will love!?’”

(more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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11. E.B. White "Did you ever see an Indian..."

A few days ago (June 11) was E.B. White's birthday. Most people know--and love--Charlotte's Web and Stuart Little. 

Do you remember his reference to Indians in Stuart Little?

It is that part where he's fixed up a birchbark canoe and plans to take Harriet out for a ride in it. There's a string tied to it, though, that he can't untie. He's really annoyed. Harriet says they could go anyway and let the string drag behind them. Stuart is not keen on that at all. On page 122, he says:
"Did you ever see an Indian paddling along some quiet unspoiled river with a great big piece of rope dragging astern?"
Harriet says that they could pretend they are fishing, but Stuart says
"I don't want to pretend I'm fishing."
As his prior statement suggests, he was imagining Indians. I don't know that it'd be accurate to say he was playing Indian. He wasn't doing anything with feathers and paint, but he definitely has an image in mind of an Indian in a canoe. Nice that it wasn't an image of an Indian on a horse!

Curious if he'd written anything else about Native peoples, I started digging a bit and found a poem called "An Indian Burial Mound" published in 1922 in Art and Archeology. It is as follows:
The sculpted buttes cut cameo-wise
Against the bold blue skies,
Above the grave.
No catafalque, no lordly marble tomb;
But,--in his native hill side carved,-a room
His bones to save.
The tomb profaned, simple would show his needs;
A shard or two, a strand of turquoise beads
The spirit crave.
Here ruled his tribe before we bade them go.
Here buffalo and deer paid tribute to his bow.
Here lies a brave!
Time for some analysis! That'll come. Later. Gotta run for now!
 

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12. Wee folk, not twee folk

From the wee folk of long ago (fairies, leprechauns, pixies…) to Hans Christian Andersen’s Thumbelina, and to Mary Norton’s The Borrowers, sentient beings of very small size have fascinated, delighted, and horrified us, but they never fail to capture our attention. In writing this piece I discovered there are far more books about wee folk […]

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13. From Things I’m Reading

“The difficulty of getting rid of even one half of one’s possessions is considerable, even at removal prices. And after the standard items are disposed of—china, rugs, furniture, books—the surface is merely scratched: you open a closet door and there in the half-dark sit a catcher’s mitt and an old biology notebook.”

—E.B. White, “Removal,” One Man’s Meat

“…you should think of will-power as something that never exists in the present tense, only in the future and the past. At one moment you have decided to do or refrain from an action and the next moment you have already done or refrained; it is the only way to deal with will-power….I offer this advice without fee; it is included in the price of this book.”

—Mrs. Hutchins, the narrator of Muriel Spark’s A Far Cry from Kensington

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14. Top 100 Children’s Novels #1: Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White

#1 Charlotte’s Web by E.B. White (1952)
349 points

I’m sure this will be number one again, and for good reason. A magical barnyard that maintains its “barn”ness. Amazing stuff. – Heather Christensen

I know, I know it’s so predictable but I loved this book as a kid (despite having a terrible fear of spiders) and still love it as an adult. It has changed and grown with me – and isn’t that the testament of something that is truly great? As a kid I saw it as a book about friendship and now I see it is a book about loss. It’s deep stuff. And nothing is better than the audiobook read by E.B. White. I like to have it on in the background while I do mundane things like clean and fold laundry hoping that I will absorb some of his genius. – Sharon Ozimy

Because it has to be here. I adore this story of friendship and farm smells. Even if a child has never experienced farm life up close, they will immediately identify with Fern’s desire to rescue Wilber and put doll clothes on him. As a rule I am not drawn to talking animal books, but when it comes to geese with speech impediments I’m putty-utty in the masterful E. B. White’s hands. - DaNae Leu

My second grade teacher read this to our class in the 1960’s. This was my first experience with chapter book. I’ve read it again several times as a child and a teacher myself. – Dee Sypherd

The first chapter book that I read by myself and the first chapter book I read out aloud to my own boys. Timeless language, animal characters… lovely – Charlotte Burrows

A children’s book that has stood the test of time and never grows old. – Pam Coughlan

All of my boys have had this classic read aloud to them, then we watch the movie with popcorn and candy. It’s a rite of passage into the club of reading in our family. – Tess Alfonsin

I read this book for the first time during the summer between 3rd and 4th grades. It was then that I decided it was more interesting to lay in bed and read rather than watch cartoons. I was hooked from the very start, and I could barely put the book down long enough to eat or sleep. – The Sauls Family

Humble. Radiant. Terrific. Some Pig. – Hotspur Closser

I’ve never looked at a spider or a pig in quite the same way since. – DeAnn Okamura

” ‘Where’s Papa going with that axe?’ said Fern to her mother as they were setting the table for breakfast.”

And here we reach the end of the Top 100 Children’s Novels poll results. I think what I’ve learned from redoing my old polls is that some books are so firmly entrenched in the public consciousness that it is impossible to conduct a poll of this sort and expect them to be anywhere but #1.  And you, Charlotte’s Web, you will always be number one to American children and adults everywhere.

The plot, as it appears in Anita Silvey’s Everything I Need to Know I Learned From a Children’s Book reads, “In Charlotte’s Web, Charlotte, a spider, serves as the main protagonists; Fern, a young girl, plays a supporting role.  Both females work to sve the life of Wilbur, the runt pig of the litter.  In fact, the reader learns to appreciate an entire group of talking animals and watch their interactions in the barn.  Than at the state fair, Charlotte asserts the power of the pen – in this case the words she weaves in her web.  With just seven words, she convinces everyone that Wilbur, “some pig,” is truly something special and must

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15. Some (Sixty Year Old) Pig!


E.B. White was a respected American essayist when he published his odd, endearing, fantastical books for children. Charlotte’s Web is now sixty years old, and the New York Times’ article “Some Book” by Michael Sims gives the scuttlebutt.

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16. Super Special Golden Kite Luncheon Guest: Richard Peck is in the House!

Nobody every became a writer, said Richard Peck. We write in admiration of writers who are better than we are.

The book on my desk these days, he says, is STUART LITTLE. (He's currently writing books from the perspective of a mouse.) The one voice our story never needs is ours, he says.


I'm not getting pointers from STUART LITTLE. I'm getting companionship from E.B. White. That's the advantage of our field: we can talk to dead people.

STUART LITTLE was published in 1945, Richard says. E.B. White could give Stuart little an adult voice, because back then, children heard adult voices. Today the take orders from the leader of the peer group.

Why does STUART LITTLE live on? Because he's the smallest, most vulnverable character in the story, and he's the hero, Richard said.

Here is the sacred secret of what we do, Richard says:

A story is always something that never happened to the author.

E.B What was never a mouse or a spider.
J.K. Rowling never attended Hogwarts.
Stephenie Myer never got bitten by a you-know-what.

Every book begins in the library with the hope that it will end there, he says.

His message to young people: Unless you find yourself on the page very early in life, you will spend your life looking for yourself in all the wrong places.



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17. Fusenews: Croquet and Pentanque (together at last)

Lovegoods Fusenews: Croquet and Pentanque (together at last)Maybe half a year ago I mentioned that Ms. Lucy Knisley had created a cartoon poster for the first four Harry Potter books.  Now with the final Potter movie coming out, the posters are at long last complete.  They follow the plots of the books, not the films, but the look of the characters can be amusingly cinematic at times.  And for the record, if I were a tattoo-minded dame, I would adore getting this image of Luna Lovegood and her pop.

But that’s not really my top news story of the day.  How could it be?  No the top news story is that it is once again time for the Summer Blog Blast Tour.  Twice a year a cadre of bloggers for child and teen books gather together to interview some of the luminaries in the field.  Chasing Ray has the round-up, so seek ‘em out and read ‘em up.  I know I will.

When I lived in London for a time (it was like a little Intro to New York) I would periodically buy the newest issue of Time Out London and find interesting places to visit.  One day the mag highlighted a toy museum.  It was called The Museum of Childhood and it was fascinating.  I was too intimidated to take any pictures, though, so I sort of forgot that I even went.  Years have passed and I see that author/illustrator David Lucas has also been to that same museum and he has written about it in the post What do TOYS Think of Us? Stick around for the moment when he starts talking about panpsychism.  Looking at all those ragamuffin bits of much loved cloth and felt reminds me of my library’s own original Winnie-the-Pooh.  He is, after all, of the British persuasion.

  • Yay, Sunday Brunch!  Over at Collecting Children’s Books my partner in writing crime (we’re doing a Candlewick book with Jules from 7-Imp) has a delightful post that is well worth your time.  My favorite parts include the childhood of a future Brat Packer, a reason why Erin E. Moulton’s Flutter is unique, and a vote for “The Year’s Creepiest YA Novel.”  Hooked yet?
  • Marci, this is for you. Remember how we were trying to figure out how one would go about creating Quidditch croquet?  Well . . .
  • And since thi

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18. Where the actual and the imaginary meet

From Hawthorne to Twain to White to Roth: if American fiction and personal essays “are at times nearly impossible to distinguish,” it’s “because they share a common ancestor.” (Thanks, NYRB.)

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19. Fusenews: I speak for the trees . . . and oatmeal

Lest we forget that book banning and free speech issues are conversational topics appropriate beyond the brackets of Banned Books Week, a recent news item has me lost for words.  A federal appeals court has ruled, and this is true, that an Ohio high school teacher “has no First Amendment right to make assignments about book-banning or to select particular books for her students.”  Come again?  Well apparently a teacher decided to do an assignment on banned books with her class (of high school students, recall).  So they each picked a book that had been banned. . . and then their parents found out.  So because she was distributing racy literature like, oh say, Heather Has Two Mommies, the teacher’s contract was not renewed and she lost her appeal.  You may read more about the case here.  Thanks to Leslea Newman for the links.

  • Now that’s interesting.  I had not heard that Jacqueline Woodson’s novel Locomotion had been turned into a stage play.  Once in a while a book to theater adaptation just makes perfect sense.  This is one of those cases.  I suppose verse novels make excellent adaptations.  Huh!  Food for thought.
  • Funniest dang thing I’ve seen all day.  Bar none.
  • Feeling the absence of my Top 100 Novels poll results?  Well, much of my information came from Anita Silvey.  Now Anita turns it all around by starting a blog of her own.  Called Book-A-Day Almanac, the premise is that she will recommend a children’s book every day for a year.  At the end of the year, she’ll then turn those posts into a book.  Shoot.  That’s a good idea.  Clearly I’ve got to get around to turning my own polls into books.  Thanks to 100 Scope Notes for the link.
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20. Charlotte’s Web Cover Fetches High Price at Auction

Garth Williams‘ original graphite-and-ink cover for the E.B. White classic, Charlotte’s Web sold for $155k at auction. Altogether, 17 bids were made via internet, phone, and mail on the Heritage Auctions item.

Besides the original cover, another three items were included in the lot: “a 14 x 16.5 in. ink drawing of a web that was used to create the decorative end paper design for the book, and two 9 x 8 in. watercolors of the cover design.”

According to The Washington Post, the auction organizers originally estimated it would go for $30,000, but it exceeded expectations by more than 500 percent. 42 of Williams’ art pieces were sold in the same auction and in total, the collection grossed more than $780,000. The New York buyer for Charlotte’s Web preferred to remain anonymous.

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

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21. Small Packages


Baby anything is cuter than its adult version. A blanket statement, I know, but I’m really hard-pressed to think of an exception. Kittens, puppies, tadpoles, lambs--all more precious than the bigger model. Even double chins, chubby thighs, sparse hair and drool are adorable if the person sporting them is still what my grandparents would call knee-high to a grasshopper. Almost every creature seems to have a tender spot for new ones. This is probably nature’s way of keeping often annoying, frustratingly dependent beings from being eaten, I’ll wager. Baby things particularly register with me. Perhaps it’s from being a big sister, or growing up in a religious tradition where women are assigned value based exclusively on motherhood, or maybe even a natural immaturity, but whatever caused it did a bang-up job of making an impression. One of the most enduring pictures in my head of a cute baby thing is an early illustration in the paperback version of Charlotte’s Web where Fern is bottle-feeding a newborn, newly-rescued Wilbur and gazing at him adoringly. How could you not save such a ridiculously darling baby thing? I doubt her zeal would have been as…um…zealous if he had been a full-grown, tusk-wielding boar, but tiny piglet Wilbur is another story. In the Little Golden Book Classic Baby Farm Animals, each youngster is shown at its most endearing. I’m not much of an outdoor girl, but these illustrations make me want to at least visit a farm. Someday. If we don’t stay too long.

http://www.amazon.com/Baby-Animals-Little-Golden-Classic/dp/0307021750

http://www.randomhouse.com/golden/lgb/timeline.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garth_Williams

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22. blood thirsty

Charlotte was Blood-Thirsty: Character Paradoxes

Charlotte, from E.B. White’s Charlotte’s Web, is remembered as a character of great warmth for her friendship with the unlikely pig, Wilbur. Poor Wilbur, once the runt of the litter and saved only by the whim of a girl, is fattened up and ready for slaughter. (This is a story set on a working farm and, as such, it’s not a story of cruelty, but of practicality.) Only the spelling abilities of Charlotte save him.


Charlotte makes friends with Wilbur and even travels with him to the fairgrounds, so she can weave webs above his stall there. She has great wisdom, great commitment to her friend, and she’s blood thirsty. Well, she’s a spider, she has to be blood-thirsty, doesn’t she? Otherwise, she won’t eat. But in the context of friendship, it’s a sobering fact, a repugnant habit.

What paradoxes have you built into your characters to make them interesting?

  • Beautiful until she opens her mouth and croaks.
  • Obedient, yet with a love of taking risks.
  • Explorer with a formal dress at the bottom of her backpack.
  • Athletic, but has a weakness for doughnuts.
  • Self-reliant, yet lonely.
  • Dangerous, yet gentle.

To find appropriate paradoxes, you can work against the setting or with the setting. Of course, Charlotte would be “blood-thirsty” because spiders inject victims with venom that liquefies their insides; okay, technically then, not blood-thirsty but just on a liquid diet. But it works.

Do research about your character’s job, role, location, etc. Take for example, a football player from Kansas.

The cliched image of football players are rough, tough, not-so-smart (except the quarterback) big-muscled guys. A paradox would be a love of opera or ballet.

A Kansan lives in the prairies and is used to howling winter winds, farm life, livestock and tornadoes. A paradox would be someone with agoraphobia, or fear of open spaces.

What paradoxes can you add to your characters to enliven them?

Related posts:

  1. American Fantasy: The Underneath

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23.

Blogger of the Week:
Mark Garvey, Text Arts...

As an English Major, I have a special place in my heart for William Strunk and E.B. White's The Elements of Style. (I have a copy--the one illustrated by Maira Kalman--on my nightstand and often peruse it pre-slumber.) Author Mark Garvey is also a fan of the well-regarded classic guide to usage and offers the ultimate tribute to Elements in his upcoming title Stylized: A Slightly Obsessive History of Strunk and White's The Elements of Style (pubbing in October).

Mark recently began his blog Text Arts, devoted to other beloved books, where he shares excerpts, info and insights on an interesting mix of literature--recent posts discussed work by David Foster Wallace, Marcus Aurelius and Jack Handey.

You began Text Arts in February. What motivated you to start blogging? What did you hope to accomplish?

I started the blog after finishing my latest book, Stylized, which is a history of and an homage to Strunk & White's The Elements of Style. After working on that book, I was in the mood to write about more of my favorite books and writers, and the Text Arts blog seemed the perfect venue for sharing my enthusiasm for the kinds of writing I enjoy. And I thought it might have the added benefit of helping fans of Strunk and White find out about my book.

Your posts feature commentary on and excerpts from a variety of books. How do you decide what to feature? What can readers expect from a Text Arts post?

The books and excerpts I feature in my Text Arts posts are drawn from my favorite writers, it's as simple as that. My tastes, like anyone else's, are my own, but my hope is that readers coming to the site will be excited by some of the excerpts and be intrigued enough to go seek out the books and, I hope, enjoy them. I try to feature interesting and entertaining excerpts that are indicative of the works as a whole. I'm not terribly up-to-the-minute in my reading, but I've been at it a long time, and I have collected a long list of favorites. Many are old books, but their age or their currency doesn't really matter so much to me. I just love to read and talk about good writing--no matter what era it's from.

Tell us more about your upcoming book Stylized. What prompted you to work on this project?

I've had a soft spot in my heart for The Elements of Style since high school. It has always seemed to me that Elements draws together, in concentrated form, the most fundamental and helpful attitudes about writing, and it is one of the books that made me want to be a writer (and editor) in the first place. A few years ago, I noticed that 2009 would mark the book's 50th anniversary, and the time seemed right for a book that considered the history and influence of Strunk and White's little book. I was lucky enough to work with the cooperation and generous help of both the Strunk and White families, and I had the pleasure of interviewing many of my favorite writers for the project.

Stylized includes more biographical detail about William Strunk than has ever been published before, including some wonderful photographs. I was also able to include some of the correspondence between E. B. White and his editors at Macmillan (the original publishers of The Elements of Style), as well as a number of notes from White to readers of Elements. E. B. White may have been the best letter writer of the twentieth century, and I'm thrilled to be able to reproduce some of his letters and notes in my book. In all, I'm excited and honored to able to pay homage in this way to a book that's been such a big influence in my life.

Can you offer some advice to writers new to the blogosphere?

I'm a newbie in the blogging world myself, so consider the source. But I have learned a few things so far:
  1. Set up a schedule that you can live with. Don't promise your readers new daily posts if you don't have the time, energy, and ideas to deliver on that promise.
  2. Find an easy way to keep track of ideas for blog posts--they'll hit you when you least expect it. For this purpose, and for my other writing projects, I carry a small digital voice recorder; it's about the size of a disposable lighter. Have idea > click button > record idea. It's even easier than carrying a notebook and pen.
  3. Build up a "bank" of ideas--at least titles--so you've got some choices when it comes time to write and post.
  4. Keep the posts professional, sharp, and well-edited. Before you make them public, ask a trusted friend to look them over for clarity and correctness. (
  5. Enjoy yourself. If you're having fun, chances are your readers will, too.
Tell us about your most recent post.

Visitors to Text Arts this week will find a somewhat atypical post--longer than usual, and more polemical. I'm usually not quite so worked up. I wrote it in response to some articles and blogs I've read in recent weeks that were using the occasion of the 50th anniversary of The Elements of Style to take potshots at the little book. That kind of foolishness doesn't sit well with me, so I used my platform to do a little venting. It's all in good fun, though. Mostly. And I think blogs can benefit from a little dustup now and again.

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24. Living in the Town of Giants

Below is another reflection on the life of a publicist from Michelle Rafferty. Rafferty has been a Publicity Assistant at Oxford University Press since September 2008. Prior to Oxford she interned at Norton Publishing for a summer and taught 9th & 10th grade Literature. She is chronicling her adventures in publishing every Friday so be sure to visit again next week.

While growing up in the Midwest my understanding of New York City was formed by shots of Rockefeller Plaza on the “Today Show,” and Monica Geller’s apartment in Friends. At the same time a different, more romantic notion existed in my head, similar to what Woody Allen envisioned when marrying an old and new New York in the film Manhattan: a city that “existed in black and white and pulsated to the great tunes of George Gershwin.” Since moving here 10 months ago, I’ve dispelled my preconceived, romantic notions of New York, learned that Manhattan has more to offer than Rockefeller Plaza, and am now just another commuter with a vacant stare and headphones, unmoved by the subway screeches and jolts I used to find alarming. But in many ways I’m still in awe and I and wonder if I always will be.

In E.B. White’s famous essay, “Here is New York,” he recalls “what it felt likes as a young man to live in the same town with giants”—his giants being those columnists, critics, and poets he idolized as an aspiring writer himself. White writes that being on the same island as them made him burn “with a low steady fever,” and when he walked by the house of F.P.A., “the block seemed to tremble…the way Park Avenue trembles when a train leaves Grand Central.” I myself am constantly in awe at the “big giants” I find myself in proximity with everyday. I have conversations with authors renowned in their respective fields; I’m always one or two degrees separated from the producers, editors and reporters of the publications, radio, and television programs I revere, which makes it difficult at times not to blurt out “I love your work!” And our enormous contact database, well it would be a lie if I said I was never tempted to abuse it.

In my short time here, I’ve learned that on the outside, becoming a New Yorker doesn’t take long: wear all black, don’t advert your eyes, and only carry a map if it can fit into your wallet—better yet, get a Blackberry with access to Google Maps. But what is a New Yorker on the inside? Does amazement have to stop? If it did, why else would everyone continue to cram themselves in such a tiny space? This seems to be what E.B. White is getting at when he wrote, “the city makes up for its hazards and deficiencies by supplying its citizens with massive doses of a supplementary vitamin—the sense of belonging to something unique, cosmopolitan, mighty and unparalleled.” I think that only when this supplementary dose stops taking affect, when amazement has manifested itself in every way possible, a person can leave. And then maybe, nostalgia leads them back to where they came from originally.

In Manhattan, Diane Keaton’s character, Mary, tends to disavow her New Yorker prowess in moments where her intellect and sexuality leave her feeling vulnerable. She says things like, “I’m just from Philadelphia: I mean, we believe in God,” or “I’m from Philadelphia. My family’s never had affairs.” Although Mary’s words are superficial, they are poignant because they show how New York can suddenly make us encapsulate the “virtue” of the places we left behind—whether we believe in that virtue or not. For example, I’m from Indiana where we “watch the fireplace for hours in the winter and take long country road drives in the summer.” Those New Yorkers who truly miss virtues like these return to them. Those who are content with keeping them a romantic notion until the day they die will stay on the island. Or they will continue their search for something else, and maybe even tell their tale of New York to a stranger in a pub along the way. And that stranger will decide they want to take a shot at it. So they come to the city and live their New York story, which is passed along, maybe even in the form of a novel, poem, portrait, or script. That is how I imagine the “greatest city in the world” stays alive. And maybe it is youth tinged optimism, but I hope my own New York story goes on for a long time.

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25.

illustration by Garth Williams
Charlotte A. Cavatica: Bloodthirsty, Wise And True

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