At first it seemed a reunion of UP students – from different decades. During the chatting that always precedes the “serious” Booktalk, the four of us present – Beaulah, Mich, Steve and I – discovered that we came from the same alma mater. Mich, our baby of the evening was a new graduate, Steve and I were in the school five years apart and Beaulah was there a decade earlier! And here we all were, gathered at McCafe, brought together by our love for books and reading and our mutual aspiration to be published. And so we began.Steve Lupton, a poet and a veteran of our Booktalks started things off with C.S. Lewis’ classic Chronicles of Narnia. This dearly beloved tale by this wonderful, wonderful writer was repackaged for the times, with a cover featuring scenes from the movie. Inside, there was also a section of photos, again from the film.
Beaulah said that she could see why publishers would repackage a classic, to make it appeal to a different audience. Even the format of the book can be changed, it can be abridged again to appeal to different market sectors. This brought to my mind the Reader’s Digest abridged books which introduced me to the great works of world literature. For her part, Mich was reminded of the Grolier’s series on world literature.
I was up next. I told the others that I had originally planned to share “Shen of the Sea,” a winner of the Newberry Award in 1925. Beaulah took this opportunity to reintroduce and explain what the Newberry, Caldecott, Carnegie, and Kate Greenaway Awards are.
As we waited for the others to arrive, however, Beaulah had brought out her usual four or five book selection and I fell in love with Rebecca Emberly’s “My Mother’s Secret Life.” Among the things I noted about this book was the fact that the book did not start with the story. From the moment you opened it, the dedication page, even the copyright page, was illustrated beautifully with cut-outs. The whole theme of the book was present even on what are normally “boring” pages and you are then encouraged to read about the teeny tiny but very important details of publication.
As a mother, the title appealed to me tremendously. I DO have a secret life. And I DO wonder what my daughter thinks it is. The text itself had a life, a rhythm and a beat which I appreciated as much as I loved the truly beautiful visuals.
Beaulah, our Regional Advisor, was next. Her book, Max Deluxe, by Maira Kalman, was thicker than most picture books and presented in a very attractive manner. Beaulah said that she had in fact not even read the text yet because she was still busy “reading” the visuals. She enjoyed the entire look of the book, from the end paper to the pictures inside to the contents. Experiencing the book is like taking a vacation with Max the lead character, she said. She felt that once she had relished the pictures, she would probably move on to relishing the text, to reading it out of sequence, to reading the words and the pictures again and again. All in all, Beaulah said, it was “very clever storytelling in words and pictures.” It is hard to classify as to what grade level the book is for. Beaulah, like me, is of the opinion that perhaps such classifications should not even be done. This is a book for anyone, adults and children alike.
Before we moved to Mich, we were joined by Chito and Minerva of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. Interestingly enough, they had been sitting at the table across from us the entire time, wondering if the group talking and talking and talking was indeed the Booktalk which they had come to attend. Fortunately, Chito had the sense to call me and I was rude enough to answer my phone even while Beaulah was talking.
In any case, we moved on to Mich, our youngest attendee that evening. Mich is a graphic designer who had just graduated from college. She presented her book, which is actually her undergraduate thesis. It has two distinct components - a book, and a nonbook part.
There were many, many, many comments about this young lady’s work and none of them were negative. I think we could have stayed there the entire night, feeding her suggestions on how to get published or, just as good, how to publish it herself if she would like to explore that option. Mich was taking notes every few seconds and at the end, seemed to me to have a rather stunned look on her face. We were all at the point of “make sure you invite us to your launch!” so sure were we that her product would find a market.
I personally love the idea of this project because it is a very non-preachy way of teaching our children about art topics. I go so far as to believe that she could make an entire series of this work!
Chito and Miner were there because of a beloved project that grew and grew and which they were now trying to find other directions for. This was the free storytelling sessions at the Inquirer library. It started with simple storytelling sessions for children, and it soon included tips on how to storytell and later a tour of the Philippine Daily Inquirer Operations. Written up regularly in the paper, sponsors had poured in and the children were now getting free snacks and books along with their storytelling.
Basically, we told them that they could link up with publishers who could sell them books at special rates. We also kept asking them “why?” In other words, before expanding, we advised them to first figure out and keep remembering what their basic objectives were.
Again, based on the smiles of everyone present and the fact that we went overtime – I'd say that this particular booktalk was a success. We learned a lot, talked a lot, listened a lot, had a lot of fun.
Dominique Garde Torres
ARA, SCBWI Philasia
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