Helen Isobel Sissons Award Call for Submissions

P.A.C.E (Canada) is now accepting submissions to the Helen Isobel Sissons Canadian Children's Story Award. This award is a cash grant and is intended to encourage the development of literature for young children.

Clicky here to get linked to the bookcentre for the full post.

This is not for a picture book however, but just for a manuscript. In fact I quote: "If illustrations are central to the storyline, a brief description of these should be included with the manuscript. Please do not include original artwork." (from the submission guidelines part. A description of the illustrations, NOT actual illustrations! :)

Characters in sequence or from different angles

Next week is the week where we build 3-D characters in my class again. I always love that class. It's so fun. After we build them, we draw them. In a sequence amongst other things. Here to inspire are some images from my slideshow for my class that demonstrate sequence and angles. Character development anybody?

Getting Started in Children's Books Panel at the VPL

There is a free event happening at the Downtown Vancouver Public Library on Feb. 28th that is called 'Getting Started in Children's Books Panel'. For those of you in Vancouver, might be fun to check out seeing as ... it's free and open to the public. Have some good questions ready to ask the panel! That's what they're there for!

Thanks for sending this my way Remy!

Happy Chinese New Year

To celebrate the new year of the Rabbit here is a cover from a Picture book I have not read, but really love the cover art for. Hurrah!

Hansel and Gretel Slideshow

While looking at the fantastic Jillian Tamaki blog today for some fun ideas for my level 2 class, I came across this post which I hadn't checked out before. It has a link to a slideshow to the NewYorker on different illustrations on the theme of Hansel & Gretel. Well, of course I'd have to repost that! Jillian Tamaki posted her favorite on her blog, I will post my favorite on this one. Love her favorite too, but this one's more my heart.

Jillian Tamaki: Subconscious influences

Here's something that really rings a bell when it comes to how important Children's picture books can be and how they influence you in a subconscious way big time.

This bit is from an interview Jillian Tamaki did with Hellen Jo in Bust Magazine. The whole interview is good but the part I thought was so on point in relation to the topic of this blog hereeeee is right here below. In fact, when Helen mentioned Candy Candy I was reminded that I too was once into Candy Candy and that there was a candy shop really close by where me and my friend used to buy bubble gum to get the Candy Candy comics in them (and of course pig out on the candy) I also used to have a Candy Candy poster that I totally worshipped. I can remember thinking how absolutely beautiful Candy Candy was and then I'd go out and pretend to be her... and so did my friend Miriam...so really, people must have just seen two identical Candy Candys walking down the street when they saw us instead of some little six year old German kids in Teneriffe:

Jlllian: I hate questions about “influences”, but let’s try this: I find some things are “conscious” influences, for example, buying a artist monograph or watching a lot of French New Wave films because they speak to you in an artistic way. But some influences are “subconscious”, like your favourite picturebook you studied for hours as a child, or a piece of art that was in your childhood home. Do you agree? What are your “conscious” and “subconscious” influences?

Hellen: I’ve always believed that everything you consume or absorb or witness in life, whether you liked it, hated it, or had no opinion about it, influences your creative output in some way. As much as I can control the quality and content of my work, I can’t completely filter what I see or hear, nor can I really control how those things will affect me. I definitely agree with you that there are “conscious” and “subconscious” influences, and I’ve had many of both. As far as “conscious” influences go, the most obvious ones are my favorite comic book creators, including Taiyo Matsumoto, Xaime Hernandez, Julie Doucet, Charles Burns, Dan Clowes, Junji Ito, Suehiro Maruo… the list goes on and on. All of these cartoonists deal in some way in their writing and art with the horror of coming-of-age, which is my primary motivation. Similarly, coming-of-age horror films fit that niche nicely for me, of which my favorites are Tale of Two Sisters, Let the Right One In, and the Whispering Corridors.

In terms of “subconscious” influences, I’d say the most important one was probably the Japanese girls’ comic, Candy Candy. As a comic, I can’t really say much about it, because I owned a Korean version when I was too young to be able to read it, but the drawings! I’d always liked drawing when I was a kid, but I think Candy Candy was the first book I’d seen where I thought the images were absolutely beautiful. The characters had large sparking eyes, they were constantly surrounded by furious floral windstorms, and everyone wore a tuxedo or frilly lace dress at all times. I stared at those drawings for hours, and I think I was eventually convinced that the only good art was pretty art. I don’t believe that now, but it has definitely affected my preferences in comics and the style in which I draw.

Charles Keeping: The Highwayman

So I was re-reading Charles Keeping tonight in an effort to perhaps see something there that I hadn't seen before and to convince myself that I should agree with it receiving the Kate Greenaway medal that it did in 1981.

Yes, I am desperately trying to find something that would make me want to agree to give it this award because I grew up with all sorts of scary stories when I was little in Germany like about ghost ships and dead horse heads that hung in alleys that talked (Falada) and sisters that got murdered by being rolled down the hill in a barrel with nails in it (the original Cinderalla)... and so yes, I am a bit supporter of letting children also be exposed to stories that can be scary but still, I just can't get over how super gruesome this book is and how I would NOT want to read it to any child!

Maybe when they'd be at least 9, and even then.... I don't know....

The illustrations which are amazing no doubt, are adding so much extra horror to the Alfred Noyes poem that would otherwise be up to the listener themselves to decided just how scary they want to make it. It's a great example of how illustration can add to the text and make it richer. And yes, I think it's an fantastic work by Keeping, amazing really, BUT... I do not think it should have received the Kate Greenaway medal which is awarded by Children's Librarians for illustration in Children's Literature and young readers. It seems a bit of the wrong category. What do you think?