Bye-Bye, Waiting for Action: a Parks & Rec-inspired song about voting

Parodies for Charities proceeds are now going to When We All Vote. Many thanks to those who responded to this poll with the more challenging, more interesting option for P4C to commission from itself. You too could have a ridiculously specific song of your very own; commission away!

To the tune of "Bye-Bye, Li'l Sebastian," a.k.a. "5,000 Candles in the Wind"

verse
Yelling? Caring loudly? Here’s the thing:
there’s hope and change your words can bring.
But once—that’s the whole amount—
you get to mark a choice that you know will count.
 
chorus
Bye-bye, waiting for action.
We needn’t be the saddest faction.
Bye-bye, waiting for action.
You might be the one to change the wind.
 
verse
Up and down your ballot, have your say.
Who’s all done, and who should stay?
Wear your mask, or be remote.
Somehow, cast your stinkin’ vote!
 
chorus
Bye-bye, waiting for action.
(‘Cause last time needs a full retraction.)
Bye-bye, waiting for action.
You might be the one to change the wind.

Bookstores, libraries, and All This

Before All This, my dear Horn Book colleague Cindy and I went on a field trip to a number of bookstores and libraries and took pictures for a planned article about, in short, creative shelving; we also put out a call to booksellers and librarians for their own photos. The exact purpose of the article morphed, because All This came and everything morphed. But we're proud of what it morphed into: Books beyond buildings, about the why and how of supporting bookstores and libraries these days, with resources gathered by intern Mikayla.

The photos we took show how, within their buildings, booksellers and librarians help readers find their way to information, education, entertainment, and comfort. Over the past few months, as pretty much everyone needs at least some of those things, they've found ways to do that beyond their buildings.

A lot of what I know about books, the book industry, and readers comes from my years at Brookline Booksmith. When it became clear this year that I wasn't going home for Passover, my Haggadah came from there, too.

Support bookstores and libraries, booksellers and librarians. See here for some ideas.

Things I've learned lately

• Focusing on reading (or on anything) is hard when a situation like this is new, but it gets easier.
• A little extra writing time is a good thing.
• Restricting yourself can teach you a lot about physical description via what you want to do and can't. For instance, my instincts have taught me that "she pressed her hand to her mouth" is a realistic way to convey that a character is stressed out.
• The world of e-books and digital galleys is a useful one and a complicated one. (I will have learned more things about it soon.)
• It is possible to be busy, to feel busy, or both in any situation. It's also possible to create a highly structured routine.
• Meeting, reading, and talking is great over Zoom and the like. Singing in unison is less great, but sometimes still worth it.
• Holidays that aren't perfect are extra-memorable.
• Creating something silly really is good for mental health, as others have realized. (On a related note, Parodies for Charities proceeds are currently going to Americares.)
• Breathing with a bandana over your nose will fog up your glasses.
• I own more comfy t-shirts than I realized.
• There are a lot of side streets I hadn't explored within walking distance of my home.
• I'm hugely lucky in a huge number of ways.
• There are amazing people in hospitals, nursing homes, grocery stores, pharmacies. Driving garbage trucks and delivery vehicles. Teaching classes online, livestreaming art, clapping or singing out windows. Doing essential or enriching things I hadn't thought of, and probably things I still haven't thought of.

I suspect there's more learning ahead, both while this is going on and when we try to get back to normal. Wishing you good health, good books, and good people to connect with.

Jo Didn't Start the Fire

When one is lucky enough to see song parodist Randy Rainbow and an excellent adaptation of Little Women in the same weekend, one writes a song parody. 

Little Women

Sisters four

Concord, Mass

Civil War

Beth’s bit—

I’ll admit

I about sobbed

Scorched dress

Sold hair

Who asked you, Professor Bhaer?

Pickled limes

Trying times

Greta was robbed.

Jo didn’t start the fire.

It was Amy’s rages

that destroyed the pages.

Jo didn’t start the fire.

No, she didn’t light it.

She just tried to write it.

*with apologies to Billy Joel

Dear A-Decade-Ago Me...

Dear A-Decade-Ago Me,

There's good stuff coming.

You'll be a bookseller for a few years, and get more out of it than you expect. You'll also get a few let's-do-better blog posts out of it, but those will help you zero in on your own beliefs. (And you'll see more attitudes in line with some of them--partly because the discussions will get more visible, and partly just because you'll learn where to look.) When you move from bookselling to working with reviews (yes, Past Me, that will happen), your conversations about what to shelve where will come up more often than you think.

There's lots of writing and lots of revising in your future, 2010 Me. Yes, you'll find a great agent.  You'll also work with a variety of thoughtful critique partners, and by the end of the decade, you'll be in a group cohesive enough to collapse into in-joke giggles at some point in most meetings.

You'll serve on an award committee. As much as you'll learn from the other members, committee work will also, paradoxically, teach you a lot about your independent thoughts on what makes good books and what makes good representation.

Some things will surprise you. Like that Suzanne Collins/Jeff Kinney collaboration, and when Make Way for Ducklings gets turned into a trilogy.

Some things really won't surprise you. You'll love a lot of books. You'll go to lots of great book events, and you'll celebrate the Newberys with blueberries every year, just because it rhymes. You'll continue to be an Anne-girl fangirl, which will feed into your interest in adaptations. Harry Potter won't have faded from your life when the decade ends (pro-tip: if you're going to read it aloud over Skype, do so with an audience tolerant of terrible voices. That audience is your sister). You probably also won't be surprised to learn that the surprises mentioned above are fake, because what's the point of a blog without April Fool posts? (There really is a Hunger Games prequel on the way in the next decade, though. If we're defining decades as beginning with the zero-year, which we clearly are in this post.)

There's not-great stuff coming, too, in your small world and in the larger one. That's how decades work. Silliness is usually at least part of the answer. For example, selling song parodies in exchange for charitable contributions.

Oh, and you'll start a blog a few months into the decade. Thanks for that.

Sincerely,
You, a Decade Later

Book awards and blog tours!

So we picked some winners (and honors and notables). It was fun! I learned a lot about books and awards and what makes the former deserve the latter, and about Jewish history and diversity, and about my own thoughts on the role of Jewish books in the larger diverse-books conversation. It was especially meaningful to start my term on the Sydney Taylor committee in the first year the award was included in the ALA Youth Media Awards announcement, along with other deserving affiliate awards.

Being on the committee feels full-circle for me because of a strong personal connection with Sydney Taylor's books; I've learned this year that such connections are more common than I realized. Case in point: Younger Readers Category winner All-of-a-Kind Family Hanukkah, an original story about Sydney Taylor's characters that satisfies even the most loyal of AoaKF superfans. I interviewed author Emily Jenkins and illustrator Paul O. Zelinsky for the Horn Book's Out of the Box blog as part of the Sydney Taylor Book Award Blog Tour, and the care they put into every detail of the book is clear from their answers.

The STBA Blog Tour continues all week, all over the Internet:

SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 2019
Emily Jenkins and Paul Zelinsky, author and illustrator of All-of-a-Kind Family Hanukkah
Sydney Taylor Book Award in the Younger Readers Category
At Out of the Box at the Horn Book

Barb Rosenstock and Mary GrandPré, author and illustrator of Through the Window: Views of Marc Chagall's Life
Sydney Taylor Honor Book in the Younger Readers Category
At A Fuse #8 Production at School Library Journal

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 11, 2019
Jonathan Auxier, author of Sweep: The Story of a Girl and Her Monster
Sydney Taylor Book Award in the Older Readers Category
At The Prosen People at The Jewish Book Council

Jane Breskin Zalben and Mehrdokht Amini, author and illustrator of A Moon for Moe and Mo
Sydney Taylor Honor Book in the Younger Readers Category
At 100 Scope Notes at School Library Journal

The Sydney Taylor Book Awards at ALA's Youth Media Awards
At the Association for Library Services to Children (ALSC) Blog

TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 12, 2019
Rachel Lynn Solomon, author of You'll Miss Me When I'm Gone
Sydney Taylor Honor Book in the Teen Readers Category
At Good Reads with Ronna

Elissa Brent Weissman, author of The Length of a String
Sydney Taylor Honor Book in the Older Readers Category
At Mr. Schu Reads

Susan Kusel & Rebecca Levitan, leadership of the Sydney Taylor Book Award Committee
At The Children's Book Podcast

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2019
Vesper Stamper, author of What the Night Sings
Sydney Taylor Book Award in the Teen Readers Category
At Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Erica Perl, author of All Three Stooges
Sydney Taylor Honor Book in the Older Readers Category
At From the Mixed Up Files of Middle Grade Authors

THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14, 2019

Blog Tour Wrap-Up at The Whole Megillah

Reflections on the 2019 Sydney Taylor Book Awards at ALA at Susan Kusel's Blog

10th Anniversary of the Sydney Taylor Book Award Blog Tour at The Book of Life

I have a new agent!

I'm thrilled to share that I'm now officially represented by Amy Stern of the Sheldon Fogelman Agency!

Amy and I found each other through #DVPit, a pitch contest for diverse voices. We also overlapped briefly in grad school, but only knew of each other; apparently in this case, the Internet is smaller than Simmons. We had a great phone conversation about my MG contemporary novel before signing, and it's clear that our visions align. I'm having fun revisiting the manuscript with our discussion in mind, and I can't wait to see what comes next!

I want to add that my experience with #DVPit has been really positive--for the obvious reason above, but also because of the diverse, supportive community of querying authors that has formed around it. I hear the next one's in October...just sayin'.