To view this email as a web page, click here. Hbook.com | Review of the Week | Interviews | Read Roger | Out of the Box | Calling Caldecott | Books in this issue | Subscribe October 12, 2011 Five questions for Claire A. Nivola Artist memoirs Finding home Boo to you! Superior supernaturals From the Editor Five questions for Claire A. Nivola By Jennifer M. Brabander An earlier picture book by Claire A. Nivola, Elisabeth, told about the true experience of her mother, Ruth, a Jewish child whose family fled Nazi Germany. In Orani: My Father’s Village, author-illustrator Nivola takes readers along on a remembrance of her childhood visits to the small Sardinian town where her father was born. 1. Tomie dePaola’s New York Times review of Orani called your illustrations “the heart and soul and brilliance” of the book, but the text also paints a vivid picture of the village. The descriptions are both childlike and child-friendly, and you’ve recounted, with a remarkable lack of sentimentality, both the good (honey and bountiful fruit) and the bad (flies and scorpions). Was it difficult keeping the nostalgia at bay while immersing yourself in your childhood memories? Claire Nivola: My father used to describe his native island of Sardinia with two words, orrori e delizie, horrors and delights. In the Mediterranean, the bright white light of the sun casts commensurately dark shadows; it is a place of contrasts. As a child, I was always eager to go back to Orani and, once there, to stay longer. A good part of its appeal was that it was so real and intense. The people were real and intense, ecstatic things happened there and terrible ones, nature itself was beautiful but not pretty. Read More… Artist memoirs By Kitty Flynn Three notable children’s-book illustrators bring their own histories to life. Marisabina Russo tells a story based on her mother’s experience in wartime Italy in I Will Come Back for You: A Family in Hiding During World War II. A young Jewish girl lives in Rome with her family until Italy joins forces with Nazi Germany and life becomes perilous for Jews. Russo’s gouache paintings in the warm colors of a northern Italian village depict both the happiness of family togetherness and the tension and fear of wartime. Family photos on the endpapers bring the story (a companion to Russo’s Always Remember Me: How One Family Survived World War II) even closer to child audiences. (5–8 years) Read More… Finding home By Roger Sutton Three new picture books consider the meaning of home: an around-the-world house tour, a fantastic underwater exploration of coral reefs, and an intergalactic search for a safe haven. Kids will love choosing a favorite new home from Giles Laroche’s If You Lived Here: Houses of the World. Do you want to live in a log house? A chalet? A house on stilts? Invitingly detailed cut-paper collages show fifteen different kinds of dwellings with information on how each is constructed and where each is located. I want to move to the “floating house” in the Netherlands. (4–8 years) Read More… Boo to you! By Elissa Gershowitz Halloween’s not just for little boys and ghouls. Here are some funny, eerie, and downright creepy titles to scare up readers of all ages. The goofiest of the group is David LaRochelle’s picture book The Haunted Hamburger and Other Ghostly Stories. Ghost siblings Franny and Frankie demand a story before bed. Of course, one is never enough, and Father Ghost is persuaded to tell three. The humor is freewheeling and perfectly calibrated—diapers! lipsticky smooches! yuck!—for the book’s audience. Paul Meisel’s illustrations lend an exaggerated tongue-in-cheek quality. Perfect for Halloween (but too good not to read all year round). (6–8 years) Read More… Superior supernaturals By Martha V. Parravano While much in the YA paranormal genre is formulaic, here are three novels that think outside the box. In Blood, the first installment in K. J. Wignall’s Mercian Trilogy, the eternally sixteen-year-old William, Earl of Mercia, has just awakened from one of his decades-long hibernations (he is of course undead), and he needs lifeblood; Eloise, an unhappy teenager, is living on the streets. The two meet and begin an odd yet tender friendship. In a plot-driven story the reader and Will wind through his history together, the complexities and careful twists intriguing enough to keep the pages turning. (14 years and up) Read More… FROM THE EDITOR Martha Parravano’s reviews of “superior supernaturals” above reminds me that there will always be books that survive genre fatigue: just when you think you can’t look at another vampire (or dystopia, or fallen angel, or fantasy intrigue) story, one comes along to renew our understanding of just why these themes resonate with writers and readers. The trick is finding them, and I’m grateful to the Horn Book staff and reviewers who somehow manage to persevere through each new boxful of fat teen novels with misty photos of dreamy-eyed girls on their covers to unearth (heh) the ones that really matter. Having seen previous reading trends come and go, I do wonder when the craze for YA vampire and other paranormal stories might change. It will; it always does. Will the current surfeit of the futuristic and fantastical make readers turn again to the here and now, or perhaps to historical fiction? We shall see. Roger Sutton Editor in Chief Send questions or comments to newsletter@hbook.com. LINKS TeachingBooks.net curriculum resources Hbook.com Review of the Week Interviews Blogs Books in this issue Subscribe CONTACT INFO Editorial: Newsletter@hbook.com Advertising: aberman4@optonline.net This message was sent to ##emailaddress## by Hbook.com The Horn Book, Inc. 56 Roland Street, Suite 200 Boston MA 02129 800-325-1170 e-mail: info@hbook.com Unsubscribe

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Artist memoirs
   • I Will Come Back for You: A Family in Hiding During World War II by Marisabina Russo, Schwartz & Wade/Random, 5–8 years.
   • Always Remember Me: How One Family Survived World War II by Marisabina Russo, Atheneum, 5–8 years.
   • Drawing from Memory by Allen Say, Scholastic, 9 years and up.
   • The Ink-Keeper’s Apprentice by Allen Say, Perfection Learning, 12 years and up.
   • The House Baba Built: An Artist’s Childhood in China by Ed Young as told to Libby Koponen, illus. by Ed Young, Little, Brown, 7–11 years.

Finding home
   • If You Lived Here: Houses of the World by Giles Laroche, Houghton, 4–8 years.
   • Coral Reefs by Jason Chin, Porter/Flash Point/Roaring Brook, 4–8 years.
   • The Three Little Aliens and the Big Bad Robot by Margaret McNamara, illus. by Mark Fearing, Schwartz & Wade/Random, 3–6 years.

Boo to you!
   • The Haunted Hamburger and Other Ghostly Stories written by David LaRochelle, illus. by Paul Meisel, Dutton, 6–8 years.
   • Bone Dog by Eric Rohmann, Roaring Brook, 4–8 years.
   • Alvin Ho: Allergic to Dead Bodies, Funerals, and Other Fatal Circumstances written by Lenore Look, illus. by LeUyen Pham, Schwartz & Wade/Random, 6–10 years.
   • This Dark Endeavor: The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein by Kenneth Oppel, Simon, 12–16 years.

Superior supernaturals
   • Blood [Mercian Trilogy] by K. J. Wignall, Egmont, 14 years and up.
   • Daughter of Smoke & Bone by Laini Taylor, Little, Brown, 14 years and up.
   • The Scorpio Races by Maggie Stiefvater, Scholastic, 12 years and up.

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Having seen previous reading trends come and go, I do wonder when the craze for YA vampire and other paranormal stories might change. It will; it always does. Will the current surfeit of the futuristic and fantastical make readers turn again to the here and now, or perhaps to historical fiction? We shall see.

Roger Sutton
Editor in Chief

From Notes from the Horn Book, October 2011

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In Blood, the first installment in K. J. Wignall’s Mercian Trilogy, the eternally sixteen-year-old William, Earl of Mercia, has just awakened from one of his decades-long hibernations (he is of course undead), and he needs lifeblood; Eloise, an unhappy teenager, is living on the streets. The two meet and begin an odd yet tender friendship. In a plot-driven story the reader and Will wind through his history together, the complexities and careful twists intriguing enough to keep the pages turning. (14 years and up)

Lush description of a gothic and ghostly Prague beckons readers from the first page of Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke & Bone. Art-student Karou is a seemingly normal teenager; no one knows that the strange creatures from her sketchbook are in fact her family: chimaera, part human and part animal. When she meets an angel with wings of fire, the two are drawn together by a powerful force, and Karou discovers a parallel, war-torn world that is the key to her true identity. Taylor builds a fantasy realm with mythic creatures, human desires, and battles of biblical scale. The climactic revelations connect many strands, leaving the reader both satisfied and eagerly anticipating the sequel. (14 years and up)

“It is the first day of November and so, today, someone will die.” Maggie Stiefvater’s The Scorpio Races, inspired by legends of deadly fairy water horses, begins rivetingly and gets even better. Stiefvater masterfully combines an intimate voice with a fully evoked island setting with a plot full of danger, intrigue, and romance. Sean Kendrick is tied to his stable job by his love of a water horse; Puck Connolly has been orphaned by the vicious creatures, but she is desperate enough to enter the perilous race. Tension builds until the final scene: the thrilling, bloody race along the edge of the sea. Stiefvater sets not one foot wrong as she takes readers on an intoxicating ride of their own. (12 years and up)

—Martha V. Parravano

From Notes from the Horn Book, October 2011

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The goofiest of the group is David LaRochelle’s picture book The Haunted Hamburger and Other Ghostly Stories. Ghost siblings Franny and Frankie demand a story before bed. Of course, one is never enough, and Father Ghost is persuaded to tell three. The humor is freewheeling and perfectly calibrated — diapers! lipsticky smooches! yuck! — for the book’s audience. Paul Meisel’s illustrations lend an exaggerated tongue-in-cheek quality. Perfect for Halloween (but too good not to read all year round). (6–8 years)

Bone Dog by Eric Rohmann takes place on Halloween night. When skeletons come out of the graveyard to taunt trick-or-treater Gus, he’s protected by the ghost of his beloved, recently deceased dog, Ella. The skeletons’ corniness (“You’ve got guts kid . . . but not for long!”) doesn’t detract from Gus’s grief or the book’s moving scenes of boy and dog together. The forceful black lines and high contrast of Rohmann’s relief prints give his potentially spectral characters pleasing solidity. (4–8 years)

For chapter book readers, Lenore Look’s Alvin Ho: Allergic to Dead Bodies, Funerals, and Other Fatal Circumstances also combines humor and death. A misunderstanding leads second-grader Alvin’s classmates to first think GungGung, Alvin’s grandfather, has passed away–then to believe he’s a zombie. Copious illustrations by LeUyen Pham capture moments both silly and sad as Look tackles real-kid worries in a truly funny story. (6–10 years)

For older readers who prefer their Halloween macabre, Kenneth Oppel’s This Dark Endeavor: The Apprenticeship of Victor Frankenstein is just the thing. When sixteen-year-old Konrad Frankenstein contracts a mysterious illness, his twin brother Victor — headstrong and rash — risks his own neck to concoct the Elixir of Life. Secrecy, a love triangle, and ultimately deception complicate this meticulously researched and highly original Frankenstein prequel. (12–16 years)

—Elissa Gershowitz

From Notes from the Horn Book, October 2011

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Kids will love choosing a favorite new home from Giles Laroche’s If You Lived Here: Houses of the World. Do you want to live in a log house? A chalet? A house on stilts? Invitingly detailed cut-paper collages show fifteen different kinds of dwellings with information on how each is constructed and where each is located. I want to move to the “floating house” in the Netherlands. (4–8 years)

Animals need homes too, and coral reefs supply shelter to thousands. As in his Redwoods, Jason Chin’s Coral Reefs combines a fantasy journey with real science facts to immerse readers in a natural ecoscape, this time “the cities of the sea.” Pictures of a girl reader swimming amidst all manner of tropical fauna extend the informative text. (4–8 years)

And when the world is too much with us, head for outer space, along with The Three Little Aliens and the Big Bad Robot by Margaret McNamara and illustrated by Mark Fearing. When their mother sends them out into the universe, Bork, Gork, and Nklxwcyz each choose a different planet — and only sensible (albeit three-eyed) Nklxwcyz remembers Mama’s warnings about the Big Bad Robot. This “Three Little Pigs” takeoff pops with dialogue as it zooms about the solar system. (3–6 years)

—Roger Sutton

From Notes from the Horn Book, October 2011

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Marisabina Russo tells a story based on her mother’s experience in wartime Italy in I Will Come Back for You: A Family in Hiding During World War II. A young Jewish girl lives in Rome with her family until Italy joins forces with Nazi Germany and life becomes perilous for Jews. Russo’s gouache paintings in the warm colors of a northern Italian village depict both the happiness of family togetherness and the tension and fear of wartime. Family photos on the endpapers bring the story (a companion to Russo’s Always Remember Me: How One Family Survived World War II) even closer to child audiences. (5–8 years)

Drawing from Memory, author-illustrator Allen Say’s rendering of his adolescence, takes the form of an album, with text, photographs, drawings, and paintings all harmoniously enlisted to convey events. Drawing covers roughly the same period as Say’s autobiographical novel The Ink-Keeper’s Apprentice, and at the center of this book, as before, is the artist’s relationship with his sensei, Noro Shinpei, a popular cartoonist in postwar Japan who took Say on as an apprentice when the boy was thirteen. A moving and immediate coming-of-age story set within the context of a long life and vocation. (9 years and up)

In 1934, three years after Japan invaded Manchuria, Ed Young’s father built a large brick house in Shanghai’s “safest part…where the embassies were.” The house became a wartime refuge to his family of seven, many other relatives, and three Germans. In The House Baba Built: An Artist’s Childhood in China, by Ed Young (as told to Libby Koponen), Young maintains a child’s-eye view, focusing on life in the house, slipping in only the most salient historical turning points. Creating collages of beautifully integrated textured materials and family photos interwoven with hand-drawn portraits, sketches, paintings, architectural diagrams, and more, Young pays tribute to his father’s ingenuity in giving his children a happy childhood. (7–11 years)

—Kitty Flynn

From Notes from the Horn Book, October 2011

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Photo: Anther Kiley

An earlier picture book by Claire A. Nivola, Elisabeth, told about the true experience of her mother, Ruth, a Jewish child whose family fled Nazi Germany. In Orani: My Father’s Village, author-illustrator Nivola takes readers along on a remembrance of her childhood visits to the small Sardinian town where her father was born.

1. Tomie dePaola’s New York Times review of Orani called your illustrations “the heart and soul and brilliance” of the book, but the text also paints a vivid picture of the village. The descriptions are both childlike and child-friendly, and you’ve recounted, with a remarkable lack of sentimentality, both the good (honey and bountiful fruit) and the bad (flies and scorpions). Was it difficult keeping the nostalgia at bay while immersing yourself in your childhood memories?

Claire Nivola: My father used to describe his native island of Sardinia with two words, orrori e delizie, horrors and delights. In the Mediterranean, the bright white light of the sun casts commensurately dark shadows; it is a place of contrasts. As a child, I was always eager to go back to Orani and, once there, to stay longer. A good part of its appeal was that it was so real and intense. The people were real and intense, ecstatic things happened there and terrible ones, nature itself was beautiful but not pretty.

Though the contrasts grew sharper as I thought back on the village to write the book, I had felt them as a child, and I knew, as children do, that this was Real Life. If I hadn’t been writing for children and if my paintings didn’t tend toward the beautification of reality, I would have made a book that was even less sentimental than this one; I would have made it “passionate without sentimentality,” the words my father used to describe his mother, the grandmother I barely knew.

2. You’ve said about previous books of yours that the text usually comes first (either your own or another author’s), and then you create the illustrations. Was that true for Orani?

CN: Yes, as always I began with the words. In fact, before I began final sketches, the idea and words and initial sketches went through many changes over many years. At first, I had thought of the story as including more of my father and his perceptions of his hometown. A beautiful series of reminiscences he had written, entitled Memorie di Orani, were published in 1996 in Italy, eight years after his death. But I came to realize that I could not use, nor do justice to, his poetic retellings of his lived experience and that I had to take the task on from my own point of view entirely.

3. The book is a distillation of the numerous trips you made to Orani as a child. Did you take your own children to visit the village when they were young, and did their perceptions of the place change how you saw it?

CN: I took my children to Orani twice when they were young. My son and daughter, being very different people, reacted very differently, helping to confirm, now that I think of it, my own perceptions. My daughter plunged right in, instantly inebriated by the attention, the freedom of movement, the companionship of all those black-eyed eager children who were somehow related to her. Within minutes she disappeared, led by the hand, as I had once been…She loved it! My son cowered. When people in Orani see a child, they hug and kiss him or her, and children there are inured to these shows of affection. My son felt under attack. Too many people, too many of them talking in voices that are too loud. Too much food forced on him. Too much going on all at once. Instead of exhilarating, he found it overwhelming. These two reactions sum up the experience of Orani: it is more nourishment than one can get anywhere else, and it is, after a few days, more than one can take. One arrives starved for the love and vitality it can give, and one leaves drained to the core. I’m exaggerating, of course, but living in America one does become dependent on a certain quota of anonymity.

4. In your author’s note you mention that you still go back to Orani. Were you able to travel there while working on the book?

CN: Yes, I took one trip back after I had painted only one or two of the illustrations. I made a few notes while actually looking at doors, windows, etc. It has always been extraordinary to me how little one sees until one needs to make a drawing of something. I tell children, “try to draw your mother’s face — you’ve certainly looked at it enough — try to draw a bicycle.” The rule held for me with Orani; I knew the feel of it, but I had to go back and really look to see it. And even so, my illustrations do not capture the texture, ruggedness, and exhilaratingly intimate scale of that corner of the world.

5. In the book, your child self returns home to New York City and wonders how many others in your hometown have an Orani of their own. What other insights did your visits to Orani give you? How did having that “complete world . . . just the right scale for a child” affect you as a child and/or as an adult?

CN: Orani wasn’t the only place we traveled back to. My parents had good friends in Florence, Milan, and Rome. Sometimes we flew first to Paris. My parents were very European, and many of their friends in America were European immigrants who, like they, had left Europe in the late 1930s because of the war. So I was somewhat steeped in, and very familiar with, the different view of life held by Europeans — a kind of resignation, sometimes fatalism, at best a worldly acceptance. The notion that everything can be changed, anything can be made better, that one can start over, is very American.

Both perspectives are true, of course, and one needs both. Access to both is maybe the greatest gift I have gotten from straddling two continents. In Orani, what I am calling the European attitude ranges from (to me) infuriating resignation to mature acceptance. As my relationships with my cousins continue into maturity, they have taught me both the trap of fatalism and the wisdom of acceptance.

Orani also inoculated me against snobbery. My father was almost entirely self-taught, having barely attended school, and most of my relatives have never pursued higher education. Yet the depth of his and their intelligence is evident to me. The family trade was masonry, what we here might call construction work. In America, when my father made sculptures for buildings in public spaces, I sometimes assisted him, and the ease with which the two of us moved among the electricians, carpenters, plumbers, and masons on the job made me proud. Orani taught me to relate to people with directness and lack of pretence. In America, people often commented on my father’s charm and immediacy of presence. Only recently have I realized that not only most everyone in his extended family, but most everyone in the village of Orani shares this quality of genuineness.

Finally, from Orani, or maybe from having both Orani and America in my experience, I have come to know fully that nothing is all good or all bad. There are prices to pay for a tight-knit, traditional, organic community, for all its benefits, just as there are prices to pay for the mobility, choices, and breadth of modern life, for all its virtues. Nothing, in short, is simple.

—Jennifer M. Brabander

From Notes from the Horn Book, October 2011

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