I love A Little Friendly Advice. I've given the book to teens who also loved it, so it's not odd at all to hear someone come into my store and declare, "I heart ALFA." I enjoyed the book for a million different reasons: the writing, the storytelling, the characters, everything that spun together like cotton candy to make for a sweet, memorable book. Even the cover is fantastic - and it's also true to the story, but more about that later.

I also enjoy the storyteller. Whether we're talking about literature or food, little things or big coincidences, Siobhan Vivian never fails to crack me up. It is my absolute pleasure to present An Interview with -

Wait. Okay, first of all, for people out there who have difficulties pronouncing Siobhan, I'm going to sound it out: Shove-on.

Now we can move on. (But no pushing!)

Which came first, the title or the main plotline?

The title came first . . . though it was not originally A Little Friendly Advice.

I had been strolling through the big Diane Arbus exhibition at LACMA on Easter Sunday 2003. I remember the day exactly, because the museum was totally empty and I could get up close to all the pictures.

One photo in particular caught my eye, and I stared for at least 20 minutes. It was of a tough-looking girl wearing a jean jacket covered in little buttons. I couldn’t exactly make out what was written on them, but one looked to say something like Lost Daddy's Love...

The story exploded into my head right then and there. I ran outside and scribbled a rough plot down on my museum map, and Lost Daddy's Love became the working title.

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Many, many thanks to Siobhan for the conversation, the laughter, and the pins. You rock, lady!

Read my review of A Little Friendly Advice by Siobhan Vivian.

Read the ALFA roundtable discussion between Angela, Alexia, and Little Willow.

Drop by her website and LiveJournal. Siobhan is also a member of The Longstockings.

Let me give you A Little Friendly Advice: Read Siobhan Vivian's debut novel. Now.

Realistic from the get-go and written in present tense, the rhythmic and funny narrative will grab readers right away. It all starts when four people come to celebrate with a birthday girl - one of whom was not invited.

The book begins on Ruby's Sweet Sixteen, when the birthday girl hanging out in her humble house with her mom, waiting for her friends to arrive. She has ziti, a whale-shaped ice-cream cake, and a foil party crown.

Shortly after receiving an old Polaroid camera from her mom, Ruby tests out her gift, capturing her mom in a little white square. The guests start to arrive, and Ruby takes a picture of each one. Her friends are very distinguishable, both in looks and in personality. First is Beth, petite, exuberant, the best friend ever. Next comes maudlin Katherine, who is far more Beth's friend than Ruby's, and two years ahead of the other girls in school. In bounces sassy Maria, thus completing the guest list.

Then the last person Ruby ever expected to walk through the door does exactly that. She takes the opportunity to run out of the door, her friends close behind her. His presence pushes the story forward, as his long-term absence has huge part of her past.

Along comes someone else, someone new. His name is Charlie, and he's a sweet, easygoing boy who likes to make buttons and conversation. Like a picture from Ruby's camera, Charlie will instantly capture the hearts of readers, but it will take a while for their relationship to develop - and he'll patiently wait.

There are plenty of laughs to be had and tears to be shed, sometimes simultaneously, as Ruby re-evaluates her friendships and her parents' divorce. Looking through her new-old camera becomes a way for her to both hide and seek. Stubborn to a fault, Ruby is caught between a rock and a hard place partially because she's put herself there, and she knows it.

Siobhan Vivian delivers her Advice free of clichés. Forgiveness is rarely easy, and friendships aren't always balanced or happy. This book offers subtle metaphors, realistic meanderings and dialogue, and believable events. It also has handmade scarves, Girl Scout badges, a treehouse, and hidden smiles. You'd be wise to consider Vivian's truthful Advice.

I highly recommend this book to teens and adults, and have placed it on my list of Best Books of 2008 (So Far).

Read my interview with the author.

Read the ALFA roundtable discussion between Angela, Alexia, and Little Willow.

Visit Siobhan's website and LiveJournal.

In Daphne Grab's debut novel, Alive and Well in Prague, New York, teenage Matisse feels like a city mouse forced into the life of a country mouse - so, naturally, the first question I asked the author was:

Are you a city mouse or a country mouse?

I grew up in the country but I am all city! The country is wonderful and I love to visit, but, like Matisse, I need bustle and noise around me, and concrete under my feet.

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Visit Daphne's website.

Read my review of Alive and Well in Prague, New York.

How do you miss a person who is still there with you?

When Matisse moves from New York City to the small town of Prague, New York, she feels like a city mouse forced into the life of a country mouse. She misses the sights and sounds of the metropolis, especially after she is chased by a crazy goose and woken by a rooster. Most of all, she misses her father. He was diagnosed with Parkinson's disease six years ago, and his severe decline in the past year prompted his family move. Theoretically, a change of scenery could be good for them, but the family barely speaks about his disease. Matisse is embarrassed and uncomfortable when her new neighbor mistakes her parents for her grandparents, and she is determined to keep her father's condition a secret from her classmates. She'd rather ignore the emails and phone calls from her concerned life-long best friend and make new friends who don't know what's going on at home. Instead, these interesting acquaintances - tell-it-like-it-is Violet, ultra-popular Marco, "rebel without a cause" activist Dylan, and hopeful young farmer Hal - surprise her with their reactions to her home life.

As the child of artists - her mother is a painter and her father a sculptor - Matisse is named accordingly. Because of that, I kept wishing that she would discover an artistic talent and express herself on canvas or on paper somehow. A physical manifestation of her emotions would have been a great climax. Without spoiling the book's conclusion, I'll say that I wouldn't mind seeing another book with Matisse as she comes to term with her father's illness and reconnects with her parents and maybe even with her old friend Cesse, all the while growing more into the person she will become.

Alive and Well in Prague, New York by Daphne Grab will be available in June. This is the author's debut novel.

Read my interview with Daphne Grab.

Over sixty years ago, Astrid Lindgren wrote stories about Pippilotta Viktualia Rullgardina Krusmynta Efraimsdotter Långstrump for her daughter. In 1945, the book Pippi Longstocking was published in Sweden. Five years later, it was published in the USA. Several additional stories followed. In 2007, one hundred years after Lindgren was born, Viking released a new edition of Pippi Longstocking, with a new translation by Tiina Nunnally and new illustrations by Lauren Child.

I really enjoyed this edition. I liked the original novels by Astrid Lindgren when I was younger, and I haven't revisited them in decades, so this was a nice piece of escapism on a Sunday morning.

I appreciate the work that went into this book. Translating is never easy, especially when it comes to artistic endeavors such as stories, lyrics, and poems, which are dependent upon language, word choices, and meter. I salute Tiina Nunnally for translating something so close to the original. If two translators both use the same adjectives, chances are, that's what the original author did write (or intend, or infer, or - I'll be quiet now, because that's another discussion about translations and literal interpretations vs. intentions!)

I have read many of Lauren Child's books and have come to embrace her style. She uses pieces and patches to create her collages and pictures, an interesting combination of photography and illustration. (See my separate post about Lauren Child's works.) I think the illustrations in this edition are adorable AND match the text. See a picture of Pippi and Mr. Nilsson.

This edition also gets kudos for its typesetting. Most of it is straightforward, but every so often - just often enough without being too often - there's a sentence or two that runs backwards or sideways, or there's a bold word or two. This too is Child's style. In this particular book, one of my favorite restructured lines is a sentence about Mr. Nilsson's tail that is actually shaped like a tail. That makes me happy because I like emblematic verse. (You can thank Charles Dodgson for that, because I was first exposed to emblematic verse in his book, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. You can see The Mouse's Tale as it was meant to be seen/read here.)

Since I am an über nerd, I decided to compare the first chapter of the new edition of Pippi Longstocking to the Oxford Children's Modern Classics edition. I read it line by line, then re-read it paragraph by paragraph. The text of the two editions are remarkably similar, with the biggest differences in the first chapter being Pippi's song about the pancakes and the name of the monkey. In the Oxford edition, he is Mr. Nelson; in the new edition, he has been restored to his proper Swedish name, Mr. Nilsson.

This book was nominated for the 2007 Cybils Awards in the middle grade category. However, the rules of the awards require nominated titles to be new works published in English during the nomination year. Though the Cybils permits translations, there's a difference between new works and revamped older works. Were this an original sequel to Pippi Longstocking, a new story based on original characters, that would be eligible in my book. This would be like the new stories Harriet the Spy (though, admittedly, I've yet to read those). Were this a new retelling of a story that was a new work and reinvented the story, like Just Ella did for Cinderella, that would be eligible too. But since this new version of Pippi matches older editions nearly word-for-word (again, kudos to Tiina Nunnally), we couldn't call it a wholly new work and couldn't consider it for the awards.

I could, however, read it this morning and feel six years old again. Kudos again to Tiina Nunnally for translating the original text and to Viking for giving readers a new edition of Pippi to read, to share, and to treasure. If Viking/Nunnally/Child offer editions of the other Pippi books, I will certainly read those as well.

Bonus Link: Visit The Longstockings, a group of authors who named themselves after Pippi!

On Friday, August 3rd, I got up bright and early - which I always do, but this time, I had a very special purpose. I had been invited to speak on a panel with four other lit-happy bloggers at The Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators conference. Our panel was entitled Having Our Say: Blogging About Children's Literature. I was flattered to be in such good company and looked forward to meeting my fellow panelists - Gina from AmoXcalli, a. fortis and TadMack from Finding Wonderland and Readers' Rants, and Kelly from Big A, little a - in person.

Sadly, Gina had become ill earlier in the week and was unable to attend. However, she truly was a part of our panel, as she created the bulk of our PowerPoint slideshow, which she then put online. Thank you so much, Gina, for all of your hard work. I hope that you are feeling better and that we do meet up in the future.

Kelly and I met up in the morning and discussed the wonders of technology and travel until TadMack and TechBoy arrived. Before we knew it, it was time for the conference to begin, and poor a. fortis was still stuck in traffic. Kelly, TadMack and I scurried into the grand ballroom, where nearly one thousand people had already gathered, and listened to the hilarious welcome speech from Lin Oliver, the SCBWI Executive Director.

The faculty members - anyone speaking on a panel - then lined up and introduced themselves one by one (or group by group - go, Class of 2k7!), with each person saying one word that represented his/her/their panel or mood. When John Green introduced himself and added, "Nerdfighters," a young woman screamed loudly to show her support.

Yes, that was me.

I apologized to Kelly and TadMack for bursting their eardrums. Shortly thereafter, we took to the stage, introduced ourselves, and said:

"Controversy . . .
" . . . conflict . . . "
" . . . and connectivity."

Oh, how I adore alliteration!

a. fortis arrived shortly after the introductions. We all headed over to the room where our panel was going to be held. While telling each other our life stories and discussing new and classic stories, we reviewed the slideshow, which ran throughout the panel.

Once our room filled up, we filled an hour with talk and laughter. I know we could have talked all day about the importance of literacy, free speech, and communication. After briefly introducing ourselves, we talked about our love of literature and of blogging while TadMack clicked through screenshots of various lit blogs and online events. We talked about The Cybils, Toon Thursday, Poetry Friday, The Edge of the Forest, readergirlz, the upcoming 1st Annual Kidlitosphere Conference as planned by Robin Brande, MotherReader's The 48 Hour Book Challenge, 7-Imp's 7 Kicks, The Carnival of Children's Literature, Chasing Ray's various events (the Summer Blog Blast Tour and Wicked Cool Overlooked Books plus the upcoming Winter Blog Blast Tour, Radar Recommendations, and One-Shot World Tour), Class of 2k7, The Longstockings, and more.

Many thanks to the bloggers, authors, and readers who attended our panel. Thanks also to those who sent us notes of support and good luck wishes.

I have an idea for next time: broadcast the panel live on the internet - podcast, anyone? - or incorporate a chat element, making it accessible to the everyone who can't attend in person and encouraging them to take part and ask questions.

Joey is Bree's best friend. Bree talks to her when no one else is around - and that's been happening an awful lot lately, with Bree's mom at work and her older brother off doing his own thing.

Then a new girl moves in across the street. Confident, cool, and bossy, Cassie immediately impresses the younger girl. Will Bree leave behind her old buddy for a new one? She just might, seeing as how Joey is an imaginary friend. Hopefully, Cassie won't find out about her . . .

Caroline Hickey's debut novel is adorable. Cassie Was Here gently captures one girl's impressionable summer and is set in the suburbs. Even if you've ever had an imaginary friend, you've probably needed a real friend - and you might have learned the hard way, like Bree does, that a good friend shouldn't make you do things you don't want to do. Recommended for ages 8 and up.

Give this review a positive vote!

Read my interview with the author!

Cassie Was Here by Caroline Hickey gently captures one girl's impressionable summer. (Read my full-length book review.) I thought the book was adorable, so I placed it on my Best Books Read in June 2007 list. Caroline responded to the news with a "Yee haw!" Then we talked some more.

I never had an imaginary friend myself. I had Twinkie, my Siamese cat, who acted as my best friend, my confidante, and my captive (though discerning) audience. Did you ever have an imaginary friend?

Of course! I had an imaginary friend named Lulu when I was about three years old, but she only lasted a few weeks. If I'd had one when I was eleven, I would have wanted her to be just like Joey.

Why make your main character, Bree, eleven years old instead of, say, six?

I knew creating an imaginary friend for an older character would be tricky, because some people would say it wasn't plausible. But I found a lot of research about how kids cope with change and new situations, and how imaginary playmates are a sign of creativity and intelligence. And in the end, the book is fiction, and fiction is about exploring ideas. This is one I chose to explore.

( Read more... )

Listen to the first chapter of Cassie Was Here.
Swing on over to Caroline Hickey's website.
Drop in on The Longstockings.

POP QUIZ

Question #1: Jenny Han is:

a) an author
b) a blogger
c) hilarious
d) all of the above

Jenny Han's debut novel Shug is as sweet as the title implies. From the first chapter - make that the first page - I knew I had found a book I would treasure and recommend. If you are in middle school, or if you have or work with kids in middle school, put this title on your must-read list. (Read my full-length book review.)

After reading Shug, I visited Jenny's website and discovered her blog. These online resources revealed that Jenny knew her fair share of pop culture. We talked back and forth via our LiveJournal blogs and discovered that we both loved the television show Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the 80s film Teen Witch, and the book series The Baby-Sitters Club, among other things.

I interviewed her last year, and now The Edge of the Forest is allowing me the opportunity to chat with her again. Ladies and gentleman, I present you with the blogging writer of the month: Jenny Han!

In case anyone here has yet to read your awesome novel, Shug, please tell them about the story.

Shug is about a twelve year old girl who isn't quite ready to grow up just yet. She longs for change and at the same time, she fears it, especially when it comes to love. Oh yeah, she's crazy about her ex-best friend Mark, who's gotten a little too cool for school.

What do you hope readers think as they read the final page and digest the book's sweet contents?

I hope that readers feel that it's a truthful ending that's really a beginning. That's what I love about books, the way you know an ending is when things start to really get good. I hope they know that Annemarie is going to be okay, that life is hard sometimes, but that there are also really sweet, unexpected moments that come when you least expect them.

( Read more... )

Read my first interview with Jenny Han.

Shug was released in hardcover in 2006 and will be available in paperback in fall 2007. Look at the adorable cover, then read the first chapter online.

This interview was the Blogging Writer feature in the March 2007 edition of The Edge of the Forest, a children's literature monthly.

Georgie's been overlooked plenty in his life, mostly by strangers. He's nine and only 42 inches (3 and a half feet) tall. He has a medical condition called dwarfism that means he's a lot smaller than most kids his age and that he will never be as tall as his average-sized parents. Some people look over Georgie's head or turn the other way, or just think he's a lot younger than he really is. Sometimes, this is mean, but mostly, they're just uncomfortable and unsure of what to do or say.

Since kindergarten, Georgie's been buddies with Alex, and he knows that his musician parents are always there for him. But now he's feeling overlooked by his loved ones too. His mom's pregnant, his best friend's mad at him, and his partner in class is known as Jeanie the Meanie. What's a kid to do?

THE THING ABOUT GEORGIE is a brand-new juvenile novel written by Lisa Graff, who dropped by Bildungsroman as part of her week-long blog tour. To find out more about the author, dwarfism, kazoos, a cat who thinks he's a dog, and how to get a free copy of the book, please keep reading!

Congratulations on the release of your debut novel! How did it feel the first time you saw THE THING ABOUT GEORGIE on a store or library bookshelf?

I first saw the book in the Barnes & Noble by my house, and it was a pretty surreal experience. I kept thinking, "What on Earth is MY book doing on the shelf? They only put real authors up there!" It may take a while to sink in, I guess.

Prior to writing this story, how much did you know about dwarfism? Later, while doing research, what was the most surprising fact or story you came upon?

I didn't know too much about dwarfism, really, except that it is a recessive condition, which means that dwarfs are frequently born to parents of average height. One of the most surprising things I learned while researching was how many different types of dwarfism there are (about 200 diagnosable kinds), and that each type manifests itself in a completely different way.

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Would you like a free copy of THE THING ABOUT GEORGIE? The first three people to send an email to thethingaboutgeorgie@harpercollins.com will get a free copy of the book. It's so easy!

Simply address an email to thethingaboutgeorgie@harpercollins.com
. . . with the subject line Georgie Giveaway
. . . and in the body of the email, please tate your name, your mailing address, and the fact that you read the interview at here at Bildungsroman

Follow Lisa's blog tour this week!
Monday: The Longstockings
Tuesday: Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast
Wednesday: Big A little a
Thursday: Bildungsroman
Friday: A Fuse #8 Production
Saturday: MotherReader
Sunday: Gothamist

Don't forget to check out Lisa's official website!