Booktalk, 2007 March 12

Questions on reincarnation and publishing the works of children. Talk about books with no authors credited and which are part of a series. Discussions about beloved tomes being banned in certain libraries. All this was part of our Booktalk last March 12, 2007, which was held as usual at McCafe in Makati from 6 to 9 pm.

Present at the Booktalk were Beaulah, me Nikki, Nubbin Macaraeg an old friend and Agence France presse writer, and Florence Hu - a new friend, full time wife and mother to her son Ian, whom she also brought along. Later, we were joined by two more. Neni , also an SCBWI member and now busy retiree, writer, speaker, a woman who seems to find the time to do everything, and Gon Buñag who introduced himself as a grandfather.

As SCBWI RA, Beaulah started the meeting by explaining the concept, rhyme, and reason for the Booktalk, and then we got down to the serious business of sharing.

I went first with my book The Crazy World of What If. It is a non-fiction book, which is a rare thing for me to share. Normally, I tend to favor fiction. But The Crazy World of What If presents scientific fact and trivia in a more interesting manner than most. It is fun to read and in the end reinforces the belief that the world is put together in a wonderdul way and we should be glad that the what ifs (what if you had no bones, what if rockets were never invented) are not. The illustrations are very clever and lightened up what at times were fairly serious topics. The language was simple but accurate. There is a glossary at the end, which is also well illustrated.

It was noted the book had no credited author. We concluded that it is probably part of a series and packaged as such. Some authors are dismayed by books such as this as they are not properly credited. Neni noted that the questions in the book were excellent for writing excercises. She in fact liked the questions so much that she borrowed the book so she could copy some of them for numerous workshops which she taught.

Our child guest, seven year old Ian Hu, amused himself amused himself throughout the Booktalk by reading the books on the table. Judging from the way this young man was pouring over this particular book, what I had initially thought of as a book for older children could possibly have an attraction for 1st and 2nd graders as well. Ian in fact went through the book twice!

Nubbin followed with the Encyclopedia of the World's Greatest Unsolved Mysteries. In contrast to my book, this dealt with speculative science. It is a young adult book which he in fact borrowed from his niece. He liked the fact that while the authors John And Ann Spencer were in fact members of paranormal organizations, the book was well researched and tried to present all side of the questions. Photos were included, rather than illustrations.

This kind of book is very popular. Through the various generations present at the booktalk, we all remembered with fondness the books of this genre which we read in our not so distant youth. For a writer, this is a little easier to write. It is the kind of book that is easy to read and makes you think.

I noticed that Ian did not even attempt to reach for this book.

Beaulah's book was Tell Me Again About the Night I Was Born, written by Jamie Lee Curtis and illustrated by Laura Cornell.

Beaulah pointed out that in the recent years there has been a "boom" in celebrity children's authors, the most famous of which would probably be Madonna. Beaulah herself said that she actually bought Madonna's later crop of children's books because she liked the stories, the art, and the production quality. In fact, she said that should would have bought those books even if they were not written by Madonna. As for celebrity authored children's books in general, the group that evening sadly agreed that most of them, not all, stand out and become commercial successes mainly because of the celebrity status of the writer and not because of any outstanding writing. For publishers, it was obvious that these kinds of books are a sure sell.

This particular celebrity author of the book that Beaulah brought, however, has won critical acclaim for her works. The title is nice and it is very well written. I personally think that a good book is basically one that really appeals to you. And I must admit that while waiting for the others to arrive, I actually read the book that Beaulah brought from cover to cover. As a mother, and there were four mothers around the table, the book brought back for me memories of the night when I myself gave birth. Everyone of course has had the experience of having been born, so this book should really appeal on a certain level to everyone. It was well illustrated and showed a very good partnership between the book's two creators, the author and the illustrator. It dealt with contemporary issues, which in this case was adoption.

This book, I noticed, Ian read with great interest.

Florence took her turn and showed a book written by her son, which she herself has laid out and printed by computer. The title was Pied Piper and the People of Pepperonco. We suggested that she use the internet to explore different websites and publications which publish works of children.

A word on this:

While the Booktalk is normally for adults who write for children, we did have a tiny bit of extra time and so we looked at Ian's works as well. However, for those of you out there whose children are creative geniuses, we suggest that you try http://www.stonesoup.com or ask your children's schoolteachers if your children's work can be published in the school paper. Both the Philippine Daily Inquirer and the Philippine Star also have excellent children's sections.

That said, I'd say that Ian's work was excellent and Florence's initiative in printing it was very empowering. More mothers in my own opinion, should do this.

Neni, who after some effort finally found us, came next. I love having this lady attend our Booktalks as she is such a teacher. She came with books marked with place holders and a poster of Newberry Award winners. I half expected her to pull out index cards to read her lecture! In any case, she stated that in the US, the "Academy Awards" for children's Literature are the Newberry and Caldecott Awards. Teacher Neni told us that the Newberry was founded in 1922 and the Caldecott in 1938.

The book she shared was EB White's Charlotte's Web. She noted that EB White is a known stylist who co-authored Elements of Style, a reference book which was invaluable to me long ago in college. The detail of the story as well as the theme appealed to her. It was also very amusing to have a literate spider as one of the main characters.

Then followed the schmoozing.

We looked over Neni's poster of Newberry Award winners and identified books we had read. Beaulah pointed out that the most recent Newberry winner, The Higher Power of Lucky, is being banned in certain libraries because the book used a certain word that some found offensive. Not surprisngly, this got us started on our usual long and heated discussion about the perils of cencorship.

Gon talked next, about reincarnation - about his belief in it, stories he has heard, and how we each should be careful about being regressed. All we could was urge him - write about it Gon, write about it!

Finally two projects were proposed. The first was an award for Filipino chidlren's books, similar to the Newberry, the second a movie festival of films based on winning children's books.

The group finally broke up at around 9 pm, and we went our separate ways. The end of a totally enjoyable evening filled with new bits of knowledge.

Dominique Garde Torres
ARA, SCBWI Philasia