tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-80656277735882807542024-03-05T21:03:42.862+00:00Books and AdventuresNews and adventures from writer Matthew Finch.Matthew Finchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10348184189703706909noreply@blogger.comBlogger80125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8065627773588280754.post-54527596637825449422011-06-19T11:01:00.000+01:002011-06-19T11:01:01.654+01:00Books and Adventures has moved!<div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">After carefully digging up the foundations and hoisting the whole thing on to a flatbed truck, I've shifted the blog over to <a href="http://booksadventures.wordpress.com/">http://booksadventures.wordpress.com/</a>, where you can currently find the <a href="http://booksadventures.wordpress.com/2011/06/19/nnedi-okorafor-interview-part-1-%E2%80%98is-everything-written-and-if-it-is-can-you-rewrite-it%E2%80%99/">first part of my interview with Nnedi Okorafor</a>.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I've also pulled my finger out and fired up the Twitter as well, you can find me at <a href="http://twitter.com/booksadventures">http://twitter.com/booksadventures</a>.</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">If you want to subscribe to the all-new, all-singing Books and Adventures, the RSS feed is here: <a href="http://booksadventures.wordpress.com/feed/">http://booksadventures.wordpress.com/feed/</a></span></div><div style="font-family: Arial,Helvetica,sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><br />
</span></div>Matthew Finchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10348184189703706909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8065627773588280754.post-6674099175706129432011-06-08T04:43:00.000+01:002011-06-08T04:43:20.620+01:00Impending Relaunch of Books and Adventures<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It's been a while since my last update, as my Peruvian project ended in a robbery and a bout of fever - but I'm pleased to say that I'm back on the web, and the Books and Adventures site is about to receive a major overhaul.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The all-new, all-singing, all-dancing site will be launching shortly, including the long-awaited interviews with YA author Nnedi Okorafor and Finnish Education Minister Henna Virkkunen, as well as new features from New Zealand and Australia, where I'm discovering that Sydney is neck-and-neck with New York for the title of 'Matt's Favourite Place on Earth'.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Stay tuned for more from the all-new Books and Adventures...</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Matthew</span>Matthew Finchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10348184189703706909noreply@blogger.com0Sydney NSW, Australia-33.8689009 151.20709139999997-34.2412264 150.78688789999995 -33.4965754 151.62729489999998tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8065627773588280754.post-37951160012909911712011-05-17T00:56:00.000+01:002011-05-17T00:56:46.824+01:00Travel and Tourism for the Ethical Gringo<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">You'll find my latest piece of travel writing for La Vida Idealist up at <a href="http://lavidaidealist.org/2011/05/07/help-or-harm-travel-and-tourism-for-the-ethical-gringo/">http://lavidaidealist.org/2011/05/07/help-or-harm-travel-and-tourism-for-the-ethical-gringo/</a></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Playing sapo in Huamanga, Peru</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Matthew Finchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10348184189703706909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8065627773588280754.post-23118348552646912342011-05-01T18:37:00.000+01:002011-05-01T18:37:24.773+01:00Raising Expectations: Gringo Teachers in Peruvian Schools<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOhyxI6oOOsVp2m-C-Jlm2z6pjlee93YGvxd6tzCVhuIEPRp0bPLPZeQfTZcTVJZhmySXJJZpwpsN1sasJWAqd9vOMYStm3FTzSF_domIkilfUTTj8-06HWcwQ7qv96BSGgsFPprh6KQA/s1600/DSCF0778.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOhyxI6oOOsVp2m-C-Jlm2z6pjlee93YGvxd6tzCVhuIEPRp0bPLPZeQfTZcTVJZhmySXJJZpwpsN1sasJWAqd9vOMYStm3FTzSF_domIkilfUTTj8-06HWcwQ7qv96BSGgsFPprh6KQA/s320/DSCF0778.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div>You can find this weekend's interview with Sue Allsworth, director of San Domingo Savio School in Ayacucho, Peru, <a href="http://lavidaidealist.org/2011/04/30/raising-expectations-gringo-teachers-in-peruvian-schools/">here</a> at La Vida Idealist.</span>Matthew Finchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10348184189703706909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8065627773588280754.post-40183525986424191532011-04-27T18:27:00.000+01:002011-04-27T18:27:22.941+01:00Latest from Ayacucho, Peru: Pascuatoro and the running of the bulls<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Where do we draw the line between animal rights and respect for tradition?</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">In the Peruvian city of Ayacucho, bull running is a recent addition to an Easter celebration that goes back centuries.</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKmHe6m3WvOpTzsUNRAlpiyZkHmxphZUjJKddN6NQ5Im0x9KIfCke7jFKZuHub0uE-Ap5QUxg3MDWO0-FGvnHB-BE90HWhIuwVjjFfe9_0BCCdCcIxVx1AIpU0k2XagAzdtRKROH2XjO4/s320/Jalatoro4.jpg" width="320" /></div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px; text-align: left;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">You can find my latest piece, on the revival of the traditional </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i>pascuatoro</i></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">, at </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.livinginperu.com/features-2126-art-culture-lifestyle-running-bulls-ayacucho-peru">http://www.livinginperu.com/features-2126-art-culture-lifestyle-running-bulls-ayacucho-peru</a></span></div><br />
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</span></div><div style="font-family: Times;"></div>Matthew Finchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10348184189703706909noreply@blogger.com0Ayacucho, Peru-13.1630556 -74.224444399999982-13.2021636 -74.256704899999988 -13.1239476 -74.192183899999975tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8065627773588280754.post-37758376169196495122011-04-20T22:50:00.000+01:002011-04-20T22:50:47.094+01:00Q&A with Ken White, Manager of Educational Programs at Brookhaven National Laboratory<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This week on Books and Adventures we’re joined by Ken White, manager of educational programs at <a href="http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/about_BNL.asp">Brookhaven National Laboratory (BNL)</a>, an advanced research facility run by the U.S. Department of Energy.</span></i><br />
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</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5UitUO1fUEVjzmadhifr0vMpw6aaHXVjwgV1qqRAo-VBBruTH0jlqHLb7rPNaF2agSxB5RInqjMrLBoYHlOQKzJuwc7Sra7xfqJ1nN6sJpacAsE0plwhsnImfDWND15k0rSFUkoDice4/s1600/brookhaven+1.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="224" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi5UitUO1fUEVjzmadhifr0vMpw6aaHXVjwgV1qqRAo-VBBruTH0jlqHLb7rPNaF2agSxB5RInqjMrLBoYHlOQKzJuwc7Sra7xfqJ1nN6sJpacAsE0plwhsnImfDWND15k0rSFUkoDice4/s320/brookhaven+1.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></i><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">BNL was <a href="http://www.bnl.gov/60th/">founded in 1947</a>, with a mandate to promote research across the fields of physics, chemistry, biology and engineering. I began by asking Ken how long BNL has been involved with schools outreach and science education.</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">'The Laboratory has been a supporter of science education pretty much since its inception. Science education and workforce development are part of our mission at BNL, and we have been fortunate to have leadership support to enable greater interaction with our academic community. College students have come here for internships since the early 1950s and the Lab frequently had open houses and school outreach programs well back into the early 1960s. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Over the past six years we have developed hands-on inquiry-based experiences for middle and high school students to enable them to conduct science similar to that of our researchers. These are offered at cost and have become quite popular with local schools. These programs have expanded the way in which we satisfy our responsibility for educating the next generation of scientists.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Successful offerings need to be exciting, with engaging activities that enable students to realize science is accessible to them. The best programs often include a story as well – we try to humanize the program by relating it to our scientific staff actually working on the problems being presented. Programs that show how the academic work applies to real life problems we face as a society tend to do well.'</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What can a visit to BNL do for students in mainstream schooling?</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span></div><a name='more'></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">A visit to BNL becomes a very memorable experience for students. The excitement of science and the magnitude of the facilities, with seven Nobel Prizes being earned here, leaves a lasting impression. Ideally, the visit provides students with relevance to their academics, a bit of career exploration, an understanding of the integration of subject matter, and an appreciation for what science is and can do for humanity.</span><br />
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</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">How can you make cutting edge research accessible to such a wide age range of visitors?</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKkXt1wcT3T1LVg4w5sLfXve-GOGD00caxKDIW9dicEQqQQg4qsRJKe8PU3kxwETYVURAFmKY4OunGEWPZaP5cWn7V1Frzg9QYE5pNBv-ZbRGJiyPR1deepcje5syOZO6gCUlVILNn8gk/s1600/brookhaven+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="212" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhKkXt1wcT3T1LVg4w5sLfXve-GOGD00caxKDIW9dicEQqQQg4qsRJKe8PU3kxwETYVURAFmKY4OunGEWPZaP5cWn7V1Frzg9QYE5pNBv-ZbRGJiyPR1deepcje5syOZO6gCUlVILNn8gk/s320/brookhaven+2.JPG" width="320" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">This can be a challenge because of the depth of training our scientists go through to become world class researchers. Their communication processes become fraught with technical jargon and complex content to the point that researchers in other fields may not fully understand the content. One thing you find out quickly about scientific staff is that they have a passion for sharing their work with interested people. Often, we will work with researchers to help them drop their jargon and put things into laymen’s terms, and to help them clarify the “so what” of their research. This makes for a more enjoyable interaction for both the scientists and the audiences they reach out to.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">What is the lasting impact of a visit to BNL?</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">As noted above, the experience is usually a memorable one. There are several ways for students to stay engaged. Venues would include everything from readings in a bibliography supporting our elementary programs, to summer research experiences, attending open to the public seminars and lectures, or participating in science-based competitions. Another great way is to have the teacher participate in programs such as our “Introducing Synchrotron Science to the Classroom” or the “Open Space Stewardship Program.” In these programs, teachers can work with the Lab, interact with scientific staff and others, and develop and enhance their own skills in guiding students in science classes and research. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Do your educational programs focus on “hard science” or is there scope for students to consider the social & philosophical implications of BNL’s work?</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Much of the work at BNL is on the hard sciences, but there are often considerable social and philosophical implications from our work as well. For example, students working in the nuclear diagnostics area for neuroimaging are deeply engaged in “hard science,” but their results can have a profound impact on the larger understanding of addiction and treatment. Another good example is the work the Lab does on nuclear non-proliferation. This work is technical in nature, but also crosses into policy discussions affecting nuclear material management, control and safeguards. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><br />
</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"></span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">In an age of ruthlessly pragmatic ‘Tiger Mothering’ and an increasing focus on educating children to aid them in a future job market, what can students learn from the ‘blue skies’ research at BNL?</span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">So much of talent in the workplace is in the ability to question, think critically, solve problems, be resilient to failure, and move forward productively toward a reasonably well understood objective, while still being flexible to change. “Blue Skies” kind of research can be a way to learn many of these skills. Be creative and thoughtful, design a means to test your hypothesis, don’t be afraid of failure, and find a way to right yourself. What more could an employer want?<o:p></o:p></span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">You can find out more about the educational programs at Brookhaven National Laboratory at <a href="http://www.bnl.gov/education/">http://www.bnl.gov/education/</a></span></i></div>Matthew Finchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10348184189703706909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8065627773588280754.post-6403813528654273082011-04-19T21:50:00.000+01:002011-04-19T21:50:13.492+01:00Report from Holy Week in Ayacucho<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1d07Z_6ZynKXJTgk9LdHlNFKCEb7KECiCCbJrQz4lzfLBuImHujxhg5BX4FAKRhGJe5DO14n7UQ73myXeTGvK8xsg1LXPojpu71vIOO6KUt4RCE-B7v7ovQzqBPI08CR6nGIFlRS8LYA/s1600/DSCF0818.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1d07Z_6ZynKXJTgk9LdHlNFKCEb7KECiCCbJrQz4lzfLBuImHujxhg5BX4FAKRhGJe5DO14n7UQ73myXeTGvK8xsg1LXPojpu71vIOO6KUt4RCE-B7v7ovQzqBPI08CR6nGIFlRS8LYA/s200/DSCF0818.JPG" width="150" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">You can catch my latest from Holy Week in Ayacucho - including how I ended up taking an impromptu role in a traditional religious procession - at </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.livinginperu.com/travel-2099-ayacucho-semana-santa-peru-ayacucho-kicks-off-holy-week-celebrations">Living in Peru</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">.</span><br />
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</span>Matthew Finchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10348184189703706909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8065627773588280754.post-30870747629151678022011-04-16T01:45:00.000+01:002011-04-16T01:45:52.387+01:00Telling Stories From Cultures Not Our Own<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">This week's guest post comes from <a href="http://www.ericmaddern.co.uk/">Eric Maddern</a>, writer, teacher, singer, storyteller and mastermind behind the Welsh retreat centre <a href="http://www.caemabon.co.uk/">Cae Mabon</a>. </span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">As Books and Adventures explores the indigenous cultures of Peru, Eric - an experienced traveller and storyteller - kindly agreed to share his thoughts on </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">'Telling Stories from Cultures Not Our Own'.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">By what right do storytellers tell stories from Africa, Native America, Aboriginal Australia and other similar cultures? Isn’t appropriating and telling these peoples’ stories an extension of colonialism? We stole their lands and livelihoods; we decimated their cultures; we virtually drove them to extinction. Now we want to tell their stories. Isn’t this just the latest stage of colonial theft? It’s not surprising that some survivors from such cultures think so.</span><br />
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<div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Storytellers who want to tell stories from other cultures need to be sensitive to this issue, in terms of both choice of story and where and when the story is told. It seems any story in print is fair game and therefore tellable. But first you have to find a story you like. A storyteller may read dozens of stories before finding one he or she wants to tell. And then it’s not just a matter of liking it. You’ve got to develop a relationship with it. Learning it for telling requires effort. In time you must grow to love your story. If you don’t it won’t survive in your repertoire. The more you love and relate to a story the more meaningful it becomes. It helps if you care about its culture of origin. You have to make the story your own, but in the telling you have to show an appreciation of its source. As you get inside the story so, to a degree, do you get inside the culture itself. The story should help you cultivate an empathy for the culture that you will convey in the telling.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It makes sense to look, initially, for stories from cultures you already have some relationship with, whether it be ancestral, geographic or perhaps through travel. Knowing what is your ‘own culture’ is not always easy these days. The mixing of bloodlines, geographic mobility and increasing globalisation mean that roots and influences can be many and varied. I was born in Australia with Cornish and Scottish ancestry, spent my teenage years in England, travelled for ten years around the world through the Americas, the Pacific and Australasia, and now live in Wales. That’s quite a mix but at least it gives me scope to choose stories from cultures with which I have associations. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">One of the biggest influences on me was the work I did in the Aboriginal communities of Central Australia. This led me to feeling great sympathy for the people. Not surprisingly the first story I ever told was an Aboriginal story. I wanted a tale that would convey the power and beauty of the culture. The story I chose came from ‘Australian Dreaming’, a beautiful coffee table book edited by Jennifer Isaacs. It was from the Dalabon people in northern Australia about how the rainbow bird stole fire from the crocodile.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The story was only a paragraph in length so I was soon embellishing it in the telling. I’d throw myself on the ground to become the crocodile, stand on one leg with outstretched arms to be the bird. After telling this story for years, my publisher – I was writing children’s picture books by then – asked for another story and I sent them ‘Rainbow Bird’. An artist was chosen and the book progressed to the point where ‘the galleys’ were done. The text and pictures were ready to be made into the book. </span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It was at this time that I went to Australia again, my first visit in ten years. Eventually I made my way to Katherine in the Northern Territory to visit a cousin who worked in Aboriginal communities. He took me to Manyallaluk where, it turned out, they knew ‘Rainbow Bird’ story. I had the galleys with me and so showed them to a young man who carefully read the entire text then said: ‘Come to me tomorrow and I’ll tell you the story.’</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The next morning he dictated the story and made me write it down. He wanted to be sure I got it right. This meant I could ask questions for clarification. I wanted to know, for example, whether at the beginning the main character was a man or a crocodile. He was a man. The young man and his friend demonstrated the fire making referred to in the story. And I learned about the nits! It was a much fuller and more satisfying version of the story than my original.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">But back in Britain my publishers couldn’t change the galleys as it meant redoing the whole book. So the picture book remained based on the Dalabon version from ‘Australian Dreaming’, not the more nitty gritty, personal version I’d been given at Manyallaluk. Paradoxically, though it is the picture book I’m least satisfied with, it sells more than any other book I’ve done. Perhaps the title ‘Rainbow Bird’ has the appeal. Would it have sold so well if it had nits in it? Who knows? Fortunately I was later able to get the fuller version published in the ‘Young Oxford Book of World Folktales’ edited by Kevin Crossley Holland.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I was lucky to track down my first story to its source and to be given both a fuller version and, it seemed, permission to tell it. Very rarely will storytellers be able to do such a thing. Even though I feel I have permission to tell the story I’m still careful about where I do. I feel OK telling Aboriginal stories in Britain where there are very few Aboriginal people to speak for themselves. But in Australia I’d be more cautious. If I was trying to get white Australians to appreciate Aboriginal culture it might be fine. But if there were Aboriginal people present I probably wouldn’t, or at least I’d ask them if it was OK first.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Paradoxically I now live in Wales and am often called upon to tell traditional Welsh legends and folktales to Welsh kids and sometimes adults. Perhaps here the difference is that very few Welsh adults can tell the traditional tales and they enjoy hearing them told well. Also, the time when those stories were a really live part of the culture is, for most people, long ago, so there’s not so much of an issue about ownership and rights any more.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">But in other cultures – the Native American for example – the stories are still very much a live part of their culture. Although plenty of their stories are in print and therefore available for retelling (always bearing in mind the context), if you hear a Native American storyteller tell a story which you’d love to tell, you must ask for permission first. And don’t expect it to be granted. Or if it is it may come with a condition. For example I once asked a Lebanese storyteller if I could tell a story she’d told which had been written by a Palestinian man for his daughter. ‘You can tell it,’ she said, ‘As long as you tell it better than I do!’</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">So we have to be sensitive in choosing the stories we tell. Those in the public domain are, by and large, available to tell but, as always, need to be appropriate to your audience. Preferably choose stories where you have some personal connection to the culture of origin. Develop a relationship with the story. Get inside the story and let the story get inside you. Be cautious about telling someone else’s story where it’s clear they’ve done a lot of work on it. You must do your own work to make it yours. And where the story is particularly personal – either culturally or autobiographically – leave well alone. There are plenty of stories to choose from. Find ones you love and love them into life.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Find out more about Eric Maddern's work at </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #0e774a; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: x-small; line-height: 15px;"><a href="http://www.ericmaddern.co.uk/">www.<b>ericmaddern</b>.co.uk/</a></span></div>Matthew Finchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10348184189703706909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8065627773588280754.post-50446061194449333602011-04-09T17:39:00.014+01:002011-04-11T12:30:16.168+01:00Interview: Sally Wendkos Olds, Super Granny<div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Calibri;">Today’s interviewee, Sally Wendkos Olds, is an accomplished writer, with special expertise in child development, families and travel. Sally has 11 books and over 200 articles to her name. Even more importantly, she’s the devoted grandmother of 5 lucky children.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvUV4YCDE9R19zHIuewWYgIEZsule9f-3rVzi735lOyQR6JKz0lgVz66p6j0ackjRZ7ANmnMHmgcnCZVFwquTgjTyDplHNemU_F8mNg1jd8nU2XIcLZ4g_c1MSk3uHO89OYDUHMfkvakE/s1600/Sally+Olds+Super+Granny.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjvUV4YCDE9R19zHIuewWYgIEZsule9f-3rVzi735lOyQR6JKz0lgVz66p6j0ackjRZ7ANmnMHmgcnCZVFwquTgjTyDplHNemU_F8mNg1jd8nU2XIcLZ4g_c1MSk3uHO89OYDUHMfkvakE/s320/Sally+Olds+Super+Granny.jpg" width="212" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sally’s book <i><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Super-Granny-Great-Stuff-Grandkids/dp/1402757166">Super Granny: Great Stuff to Do With Your Grandkids</a></i> is packed with original and exciting activities for modern grandmothers to do with grandkids of all ages, from high-tech intercontinental Skype chats to simply eating your dessert <i>before</i> your dinner!</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sally’s book and <a href="http://omasally.blogspot.com/">award-winning blog</a> address the new breed of grandmothers who don’t look like the fluffy-haired, passive picture-book stereotype of the past. Glamorous, jet-setting, technologically savvy, the Super Granny is more likely to catch up with her grandkids via Blackberry than slump on the sofa with tea and biscuits.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Here at Books and Adventures we recognize that learning and reading is an adventure which children share with many people beyond their immediate family. Friends, teachers and relatives, including grannies, have so much to offer as we learn and grow.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Sally kindly took time for a Q-and-A with Books and Adventures by e-mail. There’s more on her work <a href="http://www.sallywendkosolds.com/">here</a>, and you can find the <i>Super Granny</i> book <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Super-Granny-Great-Stuff-Grandkids/dp/1402757166">here</a>.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Q: The Super Granny ‘doesn’t look like the grandmothers in the picture books….like your own grandmothers or even your own mothers. And you don’t act like any of these either.’ What’s brought about this generational change?</span></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;"></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Calibri; font-size: small;">A: One major reason this generational change came about is the improved health and vigor of today's Super Granny generation, due partly to the fitness revolution, which encouraged women (and men) to exercise more, eat better, and in general pursue a healthier life style. Youthful experiences and attitudes have also played a part: people in their sixties, and even seventies, don't consider themselves old and don't act old ("60 is the new 40"). The new technologies are helpful, but the bigger change is in Super Granny's willingness to use them.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Q: You also note in your book that grandmothering is an ancient tradition in which today’s grandmas still take part. So what common ground is there between Super Granny and her predecessors?</span></span></i></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A: Grandmothers have always been the traditional "next-best-to-Mom" in terms of loving and caring for children. Even today, if a grandmother lives nearby, is healthy, and doesn't have outside work commitments, she's usually the caregiver of choice while Mom is at work or school. And in most cases, you couldn't ask for anyone more loving to your children or better able to take care of them.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Q: How does a busy Super Granny make that time for her grandchildren? Are there sacrifices involved in being a Super Granny?</span></span></i></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A: All through life we set priorities in terms of how we spend our time. No matter how busy a grandmother is, if the will is there to be with your grandchildren (and it usually is), you can manage to carve out some time for them. It's not the quantity of time -- the number of hours we spend -- but the quality, so that when we are with our grandchildren, we are totally with them. This is what matters in any relationship, and what can be meaningful in a really short span of time.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Q: You have experience of living and working in Nepal, which clearly had a major influence on your life. What did you learn from Nepalese grandmothers? Is it truly possible to be a Super Granny without a cellphone, Skype account and plenty of frequent flyer points?</span></span></i></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A: Sure, you can be a Super Granny without all those techno gadgets. The grandmothers I met in the hill villages of Nepal didn't have any of them! Of course, the ones I met did live close to their grandchildren and were a constant presence in their lives. It's harder, of course, when grandmothers (like me) live far away from our grandchildren and don't have the time or the means to visit frequently, but still there are so many ways of reaching out. I do use phone, email, and Skype -- but also snail-mail. Kids love getting letters, poems, and cards that they can actually touch -- in addition, of course, to presents!</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I have lived far from three of my grandchildren ever since they were born, so I am especially aware of the need to make extra efforts to have a relationship across the miles. And that's why my book points out so many activities that Super Grannies can do long-distance -- some that I have done myself, some that other grannies told me about.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Q: ‘Grandparents and grandchildren share a common enemy.’ What does a Super Granny, devoted to her grandchildren and armed with a roster of cool and creative projects, feel about the current debate around ‘Tiger Mothering’ and ‘Attachment Parenting’. Is having a Super Granny going to help a child get into law school? Or is it all about fun and frivolity?</span></span></i></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A: There are many styles of grandmothering, just as there are styles of mothering. Some Super Grannies focus on fun and frivolity, while others are more interested in stimulating their grandchildren's intellectual curiosity and offering projects that will, in fact, help children achieve in school and in life.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">There's no one right way for everyone. When I was researching my book, I was struck by all the different ways that the grandmothers I met related to their grandchildren. So some of the activities in the book don't have any goal other than enjoying your time together, while others are more oriented toward education. You have to allow for individual differences in families and in individual personalities of both granny and child.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A Super Granny might relate one way to one grandchild and a different way to another. As long as you let all your grandchildren know that you love them, you don't need to be the same kind of grandmother with each one.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Q: The research on parenting and child development is advancing all the time. Have your opinions on how we should bring up our children changed dramatically over the years between your roles as Super Mom and Super Granny?</span></span></i></div><div style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px;"><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">A: My opinions about the important issues in raising children -- being sensitive to their individual needs and encouraging them to follow their own interests and abilities, while helping them to become competent and caring members of society -- have not changed. What has changed is my attitude.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">I have discovered over the years that some of the things I worried about as a young mom -- and even an older one -- didn't come to pass, and that lets me be more relaxed with my grandchildren than I was with my children. I care about and love my grandchildren as much as I did (and do) my children, but I don't worry so much about them, and as a result I can enjoy them more. This is one of the glories of being a grandmother!</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><br />
</div></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">Find out more about being a Super Granny at Sally Wendkos Olds’ site - </span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: small;"><a href="http://www.sallywendkosolds.com/">http://www.sallywendkosolds.com/</a></span><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">.</span></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;"><br />
</span></span></i></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: arial, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: normal; margin-bottom: 0pt; margin-left: 0in; margin-right: 0in; margin-top: 0in;"><i><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Calibri;">My latest news from Peru can be found at </span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: separate; font-family: 'Times New Roman'; font-size: small;"><a href="http://lavidaidealist.org/2011/04/09/escrutineo/">http://lavidaidealist.org/2011/04/09/escrutineo/</a></span></div>Matthew Finchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10348184189703706909noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8065627773588280754.post-28372998680226190972011-04-05T18:32:00.000+01:002011-04-05T18:32:33.950+01:00Nnedi Okorafor, Akata Witch Review at Brooklyn Rail<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">My review of Nnedi Okorafor's new Young Adult novel <i>Akata Witch</i> is now online at <a href="http://brooklynrail.org/2011/04/books/home-truths-and-african-magic">http://brooklynrail.org/2011/04/books/home-truths-and-african-magic</a>, and available in print across NYC.</span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
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</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Later this month, you'll find an in-depth interview with Nnedi right here at Books and Adventures.</span></div></div>Matthew Finchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10348184189703706909noreply@blogger.com0Brooklyn, NY, USA40.65 -73.94999999999998940.555797999999996 -74.061632499999988 40.744202 -73.83836749999999tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8065627773588280754.post-19930459735856924382011-04-05T13:05:00.001+01:002011-04-11T12:30:42.022+01:00New Zealand Book Month Extended in Christchurch<span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">A quick update from New Zealand Book Month (NZBM), which has been extended into April for Christchurch after the recent earthquake.</span></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcHAx9QutkkGoGzlf8C3f32zim9OE9mIt5BvCjaxoId8z3gDeVBbaf6oxKJzj4azJQjC7_2PfxXUs6PsBavUBAhU4eunQIhTS_pbVUz1RhiSs0nftBqKXlPa6QOI8K0_2qm8TCpBmBxE0/s1600/nzbm+small+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcHAx9QutkkGoGzlf8C3f32zim9OE9mIt5BvCjaxoId8z3gDeVBbaf6oxKJzj4azJQjC7_2PfxXUs6PsBavUBAhU4eunQIhTS_pbVUz1RhiSs0nftBqKXlPa6QOI8K0_2qm8TCpBmBxE0/s200/nzbm+small+web.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-size: 13px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="border-collapse: collapse; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: 13px;">Sadly numerous NZBM events in the city have been cancelled, including workshops with comic book writer Steve Malley, and the exciting 'Create an NZ Superhero' online competition - but libraries are still playing a major part in the recovery effort.</span><br />
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</span></div><div class="gmail_quote"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Carolyn Robertson, the city's Libraries and Information Manager, told Books and Adventures, 'I think books and library services were absolutely instrumental in helping people cope in the aftermath. The quake occurred on a Tuesday. By the following Sunday, there was a library story teller at every shelter with books, rhymes, and songs. The children's responses varied from shelter to shelter: at one, they were very hyper and upset, at another they were painfully shy and needed lots of encouragement to even sit on the mat. So the library staff had to pull out all their tricks, and adjust the programme to meet different needs. </span></div><div class="gmail_quote"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"></span><br />
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</span></div><div class="gmail_quote"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">'Parents were having to queue for hours to get money, grants, information and so on, but the presence of our storytellers meant they could concentrate on the survival business and know their children were being well cared for - and within their eye sight.</span></div><div class="gmail_quote"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj16CLhRSIItEUGTzSoI84Q03whm46KbN-dxtDXA55hIj_uzlBVzoweAc6_PsM6fbj_rl5-0NW7GJapvdQt0uuFZ9V2Ms73S-E0oiQNs1YEh879db-9BIYMBCA1u9A0gO5ACdrah32jAEM/s1600/Books+Change+Lives+logo+fin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj16CLhRSIItEUGTzSoI84Q03whm46KbN-dxtDXA55hIj_uzlBVzoweAc6_PsM6fbj_rl5-0NW7GJapvdQt0uuFZ9V2Ms73S-E0oiQNs1YEh879db-9BIYMBCA1u9A0gO5ACdrah32jAEM/s200/Books+Change+Lives+logo+fin.jpg" width="199" /></a></div><div class="gmail_quote"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">'We currently have eleven library sites open and our customers are thrilled to be enjoying these services again. We have stepped up our Mobile Library service, targeting the worst hit parts of the city, roads permitting, as well as taking pre-school outreach and other programmes further into the community. Some of our libraries are being used to accommodate essential council services, but we're busy looking for ways to establish temporary sites or alternative services where there's need and demand.''</span></div><div class="gmail_quote"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="gmail_quote"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Carolyn is pleased that NZBM were able to extend their activities for people in Christchurch: 'NZ Book Month provides events that are fun and don't involve much financial outlay. One of the things that gets some people down is the endless focusing on the quake and its impact. We also need to escape a bit - and we're already planning for next year!'</span></div></div>Matthew Finchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10348184189703706909noreply@blogger.com0Christchurch, New Zealand-43.5320544 172.63622540000006-43.6544069 172.42638240000005 -43.4097019 172.84606840000006tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8065627773588280754.post-80373996098911603382011-04-02T14:57:00.000+01:002011-04-02T14:57:31.883+01:00Rimaykullayki!<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Rimaykullayki...or, ''hello'" in Quechua!</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">After my three month project with </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><a href="http://behindthebook.org/">Behind the Book</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> in New York, I'm now in Ayacucho, Peru, delivering professional development and curriculum advice for staff at San Domingo Savio School.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Books and Adventures will continues to feature its usual mix of articles and interviews, but for the next month or so, you can also find a personal account of my Peruvian experiences at </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><a href="http://lavidaidealist.org/tag/matt-finch/">La Vida Idealist</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Stay tuned to Books and Adventures for charter schools, New Zealand Book Month, science teaching in the USA, Super Grannies and the secret of Finland's education success.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">But drop in on </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><a href="http://lavidaidealist.org/tag/matt-finch/">La Vida Idealist</a></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> if you want to know the meaning of this picture...</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqb0i7jdBOUvZlRFxpdgj6m7ebmabDz0d8QqK5vRHhZDIWMMqLfmUqEzGG1OizgAX5ZPDQYY0wQ515Nqcr1qFbB-_Hib8wAoNMVJFjcDiamk6OGxQiopHwCpK1iLFG6bZiX1_RktWpOus/s1600/shoeless+matt.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjqb0i7jdBOUvZlRFxpdgj6m7ebmabDz0d8QqK5vRHhZDIWMMqLfmUqEzGG1OizgAX5ZPDQYY0wQ515Nqcr1qFbB-_Hib8wAoNMVJFjcDiamk6OGxQiopHwCpK1iLFG6bZiX1_RktWpOus/s320/shoeless+matt.jpg" width="148" /></a></span></div>Matthew Finchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10348184189703706909noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8065627773588280754.post-67193724937872312092011-03-26T20:53:00.002+00:002011-03-27T14:01:06.459+01:00Nnedi Okorafor: (Re)Writing Destiny<div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Next month’s issue of the New York arts journal </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><a href="http://brooklynrail.org/">Brooklyn Rail</a></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> features my review of <a href="http://nnedi.com/">Nnedi Okorafor</a>’s new Young Adult novel, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Akata Witch</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0PrQwTdZYBryck-kTD0VXfFwySI8VBCz3S6t5SQ_vYlkb9lRmv2IeWD5fHSXiYiX-EBolrjYH3CllVRCWJVX3_OnsDs4niSwDlbBhVnRfums_y7Ncsab3ksvq6YyjggPLGeyjgeUGA4w/s1600/akata+witch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj0PrQwTdZYBryck-kTD0VXfFwySI8VBCz3S6t5SQ_vYlkb9lRmv2IeWD5fHSXiYiX-EBolrjYH3CllVRCWJVX3_OnsDs4niSwDlbBhVnRfums_y7Ncsab3ksvq6YyjggPLGeyjgeUGA4w/s320/akata+witch.jpg" width="221" /></a></div><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I think Nnedi is one of the most important YA authors writing in English at the moment. Her books blend science fiction and fantasy in epic adventures, which draw heavily on African culture and beliefs. </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Zahrah the Windseeker</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">, Nnedi’s Wole Soyinka Prize-winning debut, is my all-time favourite book for young people. I wrote on it a few months back, <a href="http://booksadventures.blogspot.com/2010/08/zahrah-windseeker-by-nnedi-okorafor.html">here</a>.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Raised in Chicago by Nigerian parents, Nnedi was a teenage tennis star forced into more sedentary pursuits by a bout of scoliosis when she was at college.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">When we met on my recent <a href="http://booksadventures.blogspot.com/2011/03/ive-become-that-kind-of-jet-setter.html">trip to Chicago</a>, she told me:</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> ‘I would not be writing but for the paralysis. I’d never have thought to pick up a pen. I was only nineteen, really athletic, but scoliosis painted my life.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">‘It was like destiny making me write. It was terrible, brutal and completely changed my life in a very specific way. Destiny is brutal, it does not care about you.’</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span lang="EN-US"></span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Destiny, and the limits of our freedom to question its demands, is a major theme of </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Akata Witch</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Its hero, 12-year-old Sunny, is an American-born girl who moves to Nigeria with her parents. As an albino and an </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">akata</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> (a derogatory term for black Americans), she is an outcast within her community. Yet when she begins to develop strange powers and joins the secret society of Leopard People, it seems Sunny may have a part to play in saving the world from apocalypse…</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Nnedi freely admits she’s a fan of putting teenage protagonists through the Hero’s Journey as described by Joseph Campbell:</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> ‘I LOVE the hero’s journey. I can’t get enough of it. Coming of age is a magical time, in-between, full of conflict. And writers love conflict!’</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">What makes </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Akata Witch</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> stand out from other fantasy quests, is the marginalized quality of the heroic protagonist. Sunny is not ‘the chosen one’ nor even, like Harry Potter, a key player in the battle for the survival of the world.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">When Sunny and her friends are sent to frustrate a child-murdering sorcerer’s attempt to summon a monstruous spirit, they are merely one more team in a long line of failed, dispensable young magicians.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Sunny is explicitly told by her elders that she is effectively cannon fodder: ‘The world is bigger than you are, it will go on without you.’</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Destiny seems to have brought Sunny from the US to Nigeria to discover her powers, but it doesn’t guarantee her survival, or even victory.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">As Nnedi puts it, </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">‘Destiny has always been something I’ve been fascinated with, but also resisted. Is everything written? And even if it is, can you rewrite it?’</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I’ll be featuring more from my interview with Nnedi on <i>Books and Adventures</i> in the month of April, and you can find my review in the forthcoming issue of </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><a href="http://brooklynrail.org/">Brooklyn Rail</a></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">. </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Akata Witch</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> is released in the US by Viking Juvenile on April 14th - find out more at <a href="http://nnedi.com/sunny.html">Nnedi's site</a>.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="border-collapse: collapse; margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Coming soon on <i>Books and Adventures</i>: charter schools, interviews with Finnish Education Minister <a href="http://www.minedu.fi/OPM/Ministerioe_ja_hallinnonala/opetusministeri/">Henna Virkkunen</a> and Super Granny <a href="http://omasally.blogspot.com/">Sally Wendkos Olds</a>, guest writing from <a href="http://www.ericmaddern.co.uk/">Eric Maddern</a>, and reports from Peru as I begin my new project training teachers in Ayacucho.</span></span></div>Matthew Finchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10348184189703706909noreply@blogger.com2Lima, Peru-12.0433333 -77.0283333-12.714847800000001 -77.9621713 -11.3718188 -76.0944953tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8065627773588280754.post-85473586957717223922011-03-23T08:01:00.000+00:002011-03-23T08:01:21.504+00:00A Child's Adventure in the Swedish Countryside: Scandinavia House NYC feature at Playing By the Book<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Zoe Toft's blog <a href="http://www.playingbythebook.net/">Playing by the Book</a> has just posted my short feature on <em>A Child's Adventure in the Swedish Countryside</em>, an installation designed by Sarah Edkins for the American Scandinavian Foundation at Scandinavia House, New York City.</span><br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfzH-lLDB1yPvgJnW6NZVVTWXvLQ7AeOCwH-E8M-rq53KOTUsksIDYSDalkomsWLBk7FkD-Jp-I1qbcf6Xz_p57Noi0hwXXG6Wh0PYo8TteH_yE_hkOhRQLTgw5dXXV7FJ4lz4gpNynFY/s1600/SH-exterior.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="216" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfzH-lLDB1yPvgJnW6NZVVTWXvLQ7AeOCwH-E8M-rq53KOTUsksIDYSDalkomsWLBk7FkD-Jp-I1qbcf6Xz_p57Noi0hwXXG6Wh0PYo8TteH_yE_hkOhRQLTgw5dXXV7FJ4lz4gpNynFY/s400/SH-exterior.jpg" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Scandinavia House, NYC (c) Jonathan B. Ragle</td></tr>
</tbody></table> <span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">You can find my piece on this exciting children's book exhibit here: <a href="http://www.playingbythebook.net/2011/03/21/a-child%E2%80%99s-adventure-in-the-swedish-countryside-children%E2%80%99s-literature-installation-at-scandinavia-house-nyc/">http://www.playingbythebook.net/2011/03/21/a-child%E2%80%99s-adventure-in-the-swedish-countryside-children%E2%80%99s-literature-installation-at-scandinavia-house-nyc/</a></span>Matthew Finchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10348184189703706909noreply@blogger.com1New York, NY, USA40.7143528 -74.005973140.4541228 -74.47289210000001 40.9745828 -73.5390541tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8065627773588280754.post-40135844894710738652011-03-21T03:17:00.001+00:002011-04-11T12:31:50.941+01:00New Zealand Book Month: Interview with Lincoln Gould of Booksellers NZ and Jo Ockey, World's Smallest Library, Whanganui<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">While I prepare to move my next literacy project with Domingo Savio school in Peru, on the other side of the world New Zealand Book Month continues.</span><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcHAx9QutkkGoGzlf8C3f32zim9OE9mIt5BvCjaxoId8z3gDeVBbaf6oxKJzj4azJQjC7_2PfxXUs6PsBavUBAhU4eunQIhTS_pbVUz1RhiSs0nftBqKXlPa6QOI8K0_2qm8TCpBmBxE0/s1600/nzbm+small+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcHAx9QutkkGoGzlf8C3f32zim9OE9mIt5BvCjaxoId8z3gDeVBbaf6oxKJzj4azJQjC7_2PfxXUs6PsBavUBAhU4eunQIhTS_pbVUz1RhiSs0nftBqKXlPa6QOI8K0_2qm8TCpBmBxE0/s200/nzbm+small+web.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">On February 22nd, a magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck the city of Christchurch on New Zealand’s South Island. Among the many people left in need of assistance after the quake were booksellers, some of whom had been hit by the previous tremor in September 2010.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">At the close of 2010, New Zealand had already begun to address the legacy of the previous quake through initiatives like Scholastic’s special picture book <em><a href="http://www.3news.co.nz/Quaky-Cat-draws-international-support-for-Christchurch-/tabid/423/articleID/201217/Default.aspx">Quaky Cat</a></em>, designed to help children cope with the shocking events they had experienced. Now, the city finds itself once again recovering from a natural disaster, and a number of bookstores have been badly damaged.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Zoe Toft at Playing By the Book was one of many bloggers who drew our attention to various relief schemes and aid programmes being run by the children’s book world, here: <a href="http://www.playingbythebook.net/2011/03/02/books-for-families-in-christchurch-new-zealand/">http://www.playingbythebook.net/2011/03/02/books-for-families-in-christchurch-new-zealand/</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Lincoln Gould, CEO of trade association <a href="http://www.booksellers.co.nz/">Booksellers NZ</a>, joined Books and Adventures for an interview.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">He told us by e-mail that international booksellers’ organizations have been quick to offer their support: ‘In particular, the American Booksellers’ Association has not only donated generously to the Relief Fund but has also offered help based on their experience in providing assistance to Members following the Katrina disaster.’</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">‘Every effort is being taken to restore the availability of books to readers,’ Lincoln explained. ‘One group, Paper Plus, have established a special scheme to allow customers in other parts of the country to donate books for distribution in Christchurch. The Board of Booksellers NZ will administer its own relief fund, used to assist member booksellers in practical ways. One idea is that the expenses might be met for Christchurch members to attend this year’s annual conference, which by necessity has been moved from Christchurch to Wellington.’</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Details of the relief fund can be found here: <a href="http://www.booksellers.co.nz/book-news/christchurch-booksellers-relief-fund">http://www.booksellers.co.nz/book-news/christchurch-booksellers-relief-fund</a></span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj16CLhRSIItEUGTzSoI84Q03whm46KbN-dxtDXA55hIj_uzlBVzoweAc6_PsM6fbj_rl5-0NW7GJapvdQt0uuFZ9V2Ms73S-E0oiQNs1YEh879db-9BIYMBCA1u9A0gO5ACdrah32jAEM/s1600/Books+Change+Lives+logo+fin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" r6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj16CLhRSIItEUGTzSoI84Q03whm46KbN-dxtDXA55hIj_uzlBVzoweAc6_PsM6fbj_rl5-0NW7GJapvdQt0uuFZ9V2Ms73S-E0oiQNs1YEh879db-9BIYMBCA1u9A0gO5ACdrah32jAEM/s200/Books+Change+Lives+logo+fin.jpg" width="199" /></a></div><br />
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Meanwhile, in the North Island community of Whanganui, New Zealand Book Month took on a celebratory form as Jo Ockey and the team at <a href="http://www.openstudios.co.nz/">Open Studios</a> opened the <a href="http://www.wanganuichronicle.co.nz/local/news/swap-and-share-at-the-worlds-smallest-library/3942698/">World’s Smallest Library</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Based on an idea <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/somerset/hi/people_and_places/arts_and_culture/newsid_8373000/8373906.stm">piloted in the UK</a>, the project sees a working telephone booth in Whanganui transformed into a tiny book-swapping venue.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">‘We’ve got stuff for all ages - everything from books for wee ones right though to the oldies,’ Jo told us via e-mail. ‘I have been trying to get folks to swap their favourite, not just any old book! There’s a real mixed bag: To Kill a Mockingbird up next to hand-bound books.’</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The World’s Smallest Library is also the World’s Smallest Publishing House. Poet David Merritt will be taking up a residency at the micro-library during New Zealand Book Month. There’s a method to David’s madness as he perches on a park bench with a pile of old Reader’s Digests and Jeffrey Archer potboilers. Jo explains: ‘David makes new books from recycled ones – he cuts and stamps and in about 6 minutes creates these beautiful new editions with his own poems inside. David’s a very quiet man but every so often he may recite from the books too!’</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The phone booth library is a bit of fun for local residents, but there’s also a serious point for Jo and the rest of the Open Studios team of community artists. ‘NZ Book Month gives us a chance to show the rest of the country a good side to our city. Over the past 6 years, we’ve had some bad press, but I want our town to realize how clever we all are – and understand that sharing is caring! Whanganui is a beautiful town with some spirited folks, and tons to do!’</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">For more information on the scheme, visit <a href="http://www.openstudios.co.nz/">http://www.openstudios.co.nz/</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Up next on Books and Adventures, more NZ news from the Create a Superhero project in quake-stricken Christchurch itself, interviews with Wole Soyinka prize winner <a href="http://www.nnedi.com/">Nnedi Okorafor</a> and Finnish education minister <a href="http://www.minedu.fi/OPM/Ministerioe_ja_hallinnonala/opetusministeri/?lang=en">Henna Virkkunen</a>, plus charter schools and the future of US education. Stay tuned!</span>Matthew Finchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10348184189703706909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8065627773588280754.post-73157335690152540072011-03-16T14:09:00.000+00:002011-03-16T14:09:53.360+00:00I've become THAT kind of jet-setter...<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">So, I'm in Chicago for 36 hours, mostly to interview the great Nnedi Okorafor, and I've finally reached that point where <b>there's no time for exploring.</b></span><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b><br />
</b></span></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTNGm_-PoLxaADgdUr0sGsRvNy78VSBoZvcsImHAWO9k6Habshn1QLiJzNrvDoem3f2XvhV581XFzzGHbbtHOgUGQMb8PZhDv86r4NAjmgK_Okgo1YueFH1LLpp8NuUI3ztgKZd2tPrK4/s1600/Chicago+Skyline.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="260" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTNGm_-PoLxaADgdUr0sGsRvNy78VSBoZvcsImHAWO9k6Habshn1QLiJzNrvDoem3f2XvhV581XFzzGHbbtHOgUGQMb8PZhDv86r4NAjmgK_Okgo1YueFH1LLpp8NuUI3ztgKZd2tPrK4/s400/Chicago+Skyline.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Chicago Skyline</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;"> by </span><a href="http://www.flickr.com/people/jstephenconn/"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">J. Stephen Conn</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">. Used under a </span><a href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/deed.en"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">Creative Commons license</span></a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: x-small;">.</span></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><b><br />
</b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Nnedi and I met at <a href="http://www.yassaafricanrestaurant.com/">Yassa</a>, a great Senegalese restaurant on the South Side of Chicago, and </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">the sum total of my Chicago tourism has been the journey out there from O'Hare Airport. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">To be fair, it was a pretty epic journey, involving 2 trains and a bus which wound through a rather desolate low-rise stretch of boarded-up and barred shopfronts. On the bus, a Vietnam veteran began to lecture a group of teenagers who were skinning up right under the driver's nose.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">'I'm glad to see your education ain't going to waste,' he growled sarcastically. But the boys were smooth talkers and somehow the vet's stern monologue on the importance of getting an education was turned around until he was admitting that he didn't mind the occasional toke, and it all ended in hugs and handshakes. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">When I stepped off the bus and through the door of Yassa, the world seemed to come alive. The restaurant is bright, welcoming and decorated with displays of African goods, from sculpture to musical instruments and even perfumes! </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The television was tuned to <a href="http://www.africa24tv.com/">Africa 24</a>, and despite my best attempts to dredge up my schoolboy French, I'm afraid their political pundit's commentary escaped me.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Between the sorrel drink and maffe (a kind of lamb stew), I was totally sold on Yassa's menu. Nnedi's grilled tilapia looked great too, although I figured it's bad manners to take food from the plate of the person you're interviewing!</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">I hadn't realised that African restaurants also serve as general stores for African clothes, music and African DVD's, so I was pleased to pick up a Nollywood movie about a crime-fighting female journalist - although they didn't have Nnedi's recommendation, <i><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1219253/">Warrior's Heart</a></i>.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Despite all this adventure, I'm going to be told off by my friends when I return to New York. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">'You didn't do the <a href="http://www.chicagoline.com/architectural.php">architectural boat tour</a>?' </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">'You didn't go to <a href="http://www.hotdougs.com/">Hot Doug's</a>?' </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">'You didn't go to <a href="http://www.latebarchicago.com/music">Do the Moon Hop</a> at Late Bar?' </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">(My friends all have very different ideas of what constitutes a good time).</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">But there's work to be done, so I'm sitting in the Holiday Inn Express, with a terrible coffee and a lot of writing to be done before they kick me out at midday. I've finally become <b>that</b> kind of jet-setter. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">It's probably good that I haven't activated <a href="http://twitter.com/booksadventures">my Twitter accoun</a>t - I might mutate into one of those terrible corporate travellers who spends all their times tweeting complaints about the Chicago transit system or the quality of hotel breakfasts.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Much better to celebrate yesterday's fine meal with one of the greatest living writers, and crack on with the day job. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">If I'm lucky, there's time for </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">a pilgrimmage to the <a href="http://www.threadless.com/retail">Threadless store</a>. As New York continues to mutate me into a hipster, I feel the need to buy <a href="http://www.threadless.com/product/1235/Attack_of_Literacy">this shirt</a>. Don't you?</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
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</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Next time on <i>Books and Adventures</i>: more news from New Zealand Book Month, reports from a Q&A with charter school pioneer Geoffrey Canada, and, of course...Nnedi Okorafor.</span></div>Matthew Finchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10348184189703706909noreply@blogger.com0Chicago, IL, USA41.8781136 -87.629798241.6224856 -88.0967172 42.1337416 -87.162879199999992tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8065627773588280754.post-40030931872457740322011-03-13T18:41:00.000+00:002011-03-13T18:41:18.279+00:00New Zealand Book Month: Interview with Nikki Crowther<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj16CLhRSIItEUGTzSoI84Q03whm46KbN-dxtDXA55hIj_uzlBVzoweAc6_PsM6fbj_rl5-0NW7GJapvdQt0uuFZ9V2Ms73S-E0oiQNs1YEh879db-9BIYMBCA1u9A0gO5ACdrah32jAEM/s1600/Books+Change+Lives+logo+fin.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj16CLhRSIItEUGTzSoI84Q03whm46KbN-dxtDXA55hIj_uzlBVzoweAc6_PsM6fbj_rl5-0NW7GJapvdQt0uuFZ9V2Ms73S-E0oiQNs1YEh879db-9BIYMBCA1u9A0gO5ACdrah32jAEM/s200/Books+Change+Lives+logo+fin.jpg" width="198" /></a></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">When a teenage photography apprentice picked up a 25-year-old fantasy novel to while away a long train journey through New Zealand, he could hardly have known that his choice of reading would lead to a knighthood and a piece of Kiwi cinematic history.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">But for movie director Sir Peter Jackson, J.R.R. Tolkien’s </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Lord of the Rings</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> would become one of the books that changed his life.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">This March, the people of New Zealand are being encouraged to share the books closest to their hearts as New Zealand Book Month announces that ‘Books Change Lives!’</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Undeterred by the tragedy of the recent earthquake, the campaign is running over 200 events across the country, from the ‘<a href="http://www.wanganuichronicle.co.nz/local/news/swap-and-share-at-the-worlds-smallest-library/3942698/">World’s Smallest Library</a>’</span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> in a Whanganui phone box to a nationwide giveaway of four million ‘Books Change Lives’ vouchers.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Throughout March, Kiwis will find these discount vouchers in their schools, banks, gas stations and letterboxes – a free gift from New Zealand’s booksellers and publishers to readers old and new. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">‘New Zealand Book Month celebrates books and reading – all books, any books – and takes that message out to an audience who do not necessarily frequent libraries and bookshops. We have strong ongoing support from committed and passionate readers,’ Book Month director Nikki Crowther told me by e-mail, ‘but we wanted to extend our message to lapsed and occasional readers, and to parents of young children – to remind and re-engage them: with books, and the value that books can bring to all of our lives.’</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Across the world, </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Books and Adventures</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> – always a lover of Kiwiland - has found organizations recognizing the power of the book, especially in the early years of childhood. Australia’s </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Paint the Town Read</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> scheme, which <a href="http://booksadventures.blogspot.com/2010/11/paint-town-read-interview-with-rhonda.html">featured on the blog last November</a>, has encouraged parents to read with their children right from the maternity ward. New York Presbyterian Hospital’s Reach Out and Read program, which I also wrote on for </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Books and Adventures <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">(<a href="http://booksadventures.blogspot.com/2010/09/reach-out-and-read-at-new-york.html">here</a>)</span> <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-style: normal;">and DNAInfo (<a href="http://www.dnainfo.com/20110310/washington-heights-inwood/waiting-rooms-become-reading-rooms-on-world-read-aloud-day">here</a>)</span></span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">, ensures that their child patients each receive a book at every clinic visit from birth until the age of five.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">That’s not to say that the Kiwi book lovers are being prescriptive with their scheme. Nikki explained:</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">‘As far as we’re concerned, any book you enjoy is a good book. Choosing a book for oneself is an important step to becoming a passionate reader, and we hope to empower as many people as possible by having them choose the right book for them.’</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">To help readers find that special book, Nikki and her team have instigated a national conversation around the books that have changed Kiwis’ lives. Not everyone will read a book, as Peter Jackson did, and find themselves making a multi-million-dollar movie adaptation – but many of us have special favorites that have sustained us through significant moments in our lives. </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Some of these choices can be very revealing: a <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2006/apr/06/books.booksnews">British survey of male and female readers in 2006 </a>suggested that men and women had very different senses of what constituted a ‘life-changing’ read, and Nikki Crowther admitted that the results of her survey in New Zealand were equally surprising: </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><a href="http://draft.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=8065627773588280754&postID=4003093187245774032" name="_GoBack"></a></span><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">‘So many people voted for the classics! Do people feel compelled to pick what they think they “ought” to love, rather than the books they really couldn’t put down and raved to all their friends about? </span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">‘My first life-changing book was </span><i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Ballet Shoes</span></i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> by Noel Streatfield. There have been many since – perhaps it was rather cruel to ask other folk to choose just one. I certainly couldn’t. I always reckon that the next book I read will be the next life-changer…!’</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcHAx9QutkkGoGzlf8C3f32zim9OE9mIt5BvCjaxoId8z3gDeVBbaf6oxKJzj4azJQjC7_2PfxXUs6PsBavUBAhU4eunQIhTS_pbVUz1RhiSs0nftBqKXlPa6QOI8K0_2qm8TCpBmBxE0/s1600/nzbm+small+web.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcHAx9QutkkGoGzlf8C3f32zim9OE9mIt5BvCjaxoId8z3gDeVBbaf6oxKJzj4azJQjC7_2PfxXUs6PsBavUBAhU4eunQIhTS_pbVUz1RhiSs0nftBqKXlPa6QOI8K0_2qm8TCpBmBxE0/s200/nzbm+small+web.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
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<span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">While New Zealand Book Month was born among Kiwi publishing insiders, it’s supported by a network of passionate volunteers across the nation.</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"></span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">‘I’m completely awestruck by our “activists”,’ admitted Nikki, ‘in terms of the time, energy and ideas that they put into promoting books and reading in their local communities. We’re taking the message that “Books Change Lives” out to a much wider audience than the traditional places where books exist – so that it touches people sitting at home in front of the TV, or listening to the radio, or visiting their local bank.</span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">‘We hope to promote the notion that books can be a part of everyday life – and that by giving people a good reason to pick up a book during March, we will encourage just some of them into starting a regular reading habit!’</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><br />
</span></span></div><div class="MsoNormal" style="line-height: normal;"><span lang="EN-US"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">To find out more about New Zealand Book Month and its nationwide program of events in March, visit <a href="http://www.nzbookmonth.co.nz/">http://www.nzbookmonth.co.nz/</a></span></span></div>Matthew Finchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10348184189703706909noreply@blogger.com0New Zealand-40.900557 174.885971-49.1954425 159.944565 -32.6056715 -170.172623tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8065627773588280754.post-76754511994015834192011-03-11T16:07:00.001+00:002011-03-11T20:52:21.185+00:00World Read Aloud Day at New York-Presbyterian Hospital, Manhattan<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Busy times here at <em>Books and Adventures</em>. Caught up in the celebrations for World Read Aloud Day, I managed to turn in a photo story for local Manhattan news website DNAInfo.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">You can check out the great work of New York-Presbyterian Hospital's Reach Out and Read program at <a href="http://www.dnainfo.com/20110310/washington-heights-inwood/waiting-rooms-become-reading-rooms-on-world-read-aloud-day">http://www.dnainfo.com/20110310/washington-heights-inwood/waiting-rooms-become-reading-rooms-on-world-read-aloud-day</a></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Next - New Zealand Book Month's Nikki Crowther joins us to discuss book token giveaways, Kiwi lit culture, and her own life-changing reads...</span>Matthew Finchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10348184189703706909noreply@blogger.com0Washington Heights, New York, NY, USA40.8501001 -73.935414940.817638099999996 -73.993779899999993 40.8825621 -73.8770499tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8065627773588280754.post-85934573640518037222011-03-10T23:45:00.000+00:002011-03-10T23:45:11.124+00:00World Read Aloud Day, Part 2: Q and A with Pam Allyn<div style="text-align: center;"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-small;">For the first part of this featured interview with Pam Allyn, click <a href="http://booksadventures.blogspot.com/2011/03/world-read-aloud-day-interview-with-pam.html">here</a>.</span></div><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Continuing our interview with Pam Allyn, founder of LitWorld, we moved on from World Read Aloud day to the wider work of her non-profit organization in fighting illiteracy around the world.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><em>Are literacy challenges the same in developing countries as in a place like New York City?</em></span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">In some significant ways, literacy challenges are far more extreme in developing countries. In other ways, they are more alike than you might care to think. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">In terms of differences, the developing world has only just come to the idea of mandatory primary education. It is only in recent years that the expectation that all children must attend school is adhered to (and in many cases, still not completely). This is of course a good and great thing, but most of the developing world was not prepared to handle all the children who then poured into schools. As a result, there are far too few teachers per child (in Liberia, the average ratio in a classroom is 90:1), hardly any classroom supplies at all, and not nearly enough structures in place to train teachers on an ongoing basis or to provide state of the art learning that will help children move forward and stay in school. The conditions are grueling and difficult, for teachers and children alike. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">In the developing world, we have access to extraordinary resources, especially literature written specifically for children, that teaches children how to read and conveys important big ideas. In fact, the materials used to teach reading can be too dense: they’re not written at a level children can understand and don't do enough to draw a child into a world of words. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Even here in the United States, we do not guarantee equity of access to all children. High poverty districts are far more likely to have fewer books and computers in the classroom. And this is 2011! We still use outmoded forms of teaching in classrooms all over this country, and sad to say, the testing mania has driven us back to some terrible teaching practices that I haven't seen since I was a child. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Just when we have to teach innovatively and creatively, we are all across the world teaching out of fear and insecurity, and that is not going to raise children to be the innovators and creators we hope and know they can all be.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><em>Do your literacy schemes like use a particular approach to teaching and learning literacy? Are you subscribers to a particular philosophy of education?</em></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I am a fierce advocate for what I call a "toolkit" approach to the teaching of reading. There are skills every child needs to learn to read; these include phonics, but also include fluency, stamina and comprehension. One without the others is a waste of time. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I believe in an integrated approach that will both help the child decode words but also beyond that help him to soar through them and transcend the work on the page to see reading as a joy, an art, a pleasure. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">One of my heroes is Paolo Freire, who famously asked women in rural villages to tell their own stories as a way to learn to read and write. He was convinced that narrative is the force that drives us in everything we do and that was how he taught women how to read, was by asking them to tell the stories of who they were. I advocate this in my work with children; if they write about their experiences, both imaginative and real, and then read them back, they have a far better chance of becoming lifelong readers. They understand the power of story. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">When I started LitWorld, I was thinking a lot about the most vulnerable children I had met, especially those who had been displaced or traumatized, and I wondered if teaching writing could actually HELP to build resilience. Teachers of such children often focused on their trauma. I wondered if by writing narratives that told the stories in ways that would give hope and strength, we could teach the child how to read and write, but also how to grow strong. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I developed the Seven Strengths model in response to that: learning based around Belonging, Compassion, Esteem, Friendship, Confidence, Curiosity, and Hope. We end up raising healthier children emotionally because they can use literacy as a tool for their own sustenance.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><em>In much of the world, literacy and education are not seen as a priority for girls and women, but is this really true of the USA, where you also run your Girls’ Clubs? </em></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">At first we thought it would simply be fun for the girls here to join our worldwide network. We thought that the needs of girls here are more taken care of, and there wouldn't be such a demand for the Clubs in the USA. What startled me here is how necessary they are HERE too. The girls we work with in Harlem tell us that the Clubs have been lifesaving. They feel very vulnerable and isolated in their communities, and find it difficult to talk in class. Here in the Clubs, we provide a sanctuary.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">You can find out more about LitWorld <a href="http://www.litworld.org/about/">here</a>, and about Pam at her own website, <a href="http://pamallyn.com/">http://pamallyn.com/</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Next time on Books and Adventures, we head down under for the opening days of New Zealand Book Month!</span><br />
<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><br />
</span>Matthew Finchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10348184189703706909noreply@blogger.com0New York, NY, USA40.7143528 -74.005973140.4541228 -74.47289210000001 40.9745828 -73.5390541tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8065627773588280754.post-70879605577589873572011-03-09T14:34:00.001+00:002011-03-10T23:46:12.536+00:00World Read Aloud Day: Interview with Pam Allyn, Director of LitWorld<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_EO18IeTgV6rHyaURSuYmjHWoZHeHpd1c4daQ9Ac75DKbV7xj1_ihDeF23ja1k6KWnSb0x3MYkKkgKzUn3OFiEIf6W72DcD3OIOet_JBaUodsgyKCeLlz0ej-HoLf6UjTRLSP7V2mOXI/s1600/litworldwrad2011badge.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" q6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj_EO18IeTgV6rHyaURSuYmjHWoZHeHpd1c4daQ9Ac75DKbV7xj1_ihDeF23ja1k6KWnSb0x3MYkKkgKzUn3OFiEIf6W72DcD3OIOet_JBaUodsgyKCeLlz0ej-HoLf6UjTRLSP7V2mOXI/s320/litworldwrad2011badge.jpg" width="247" /></a></div><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Today is <a href="http://www.litworld.org/worldreadaloudday/">World Read Aloud Day</a>, an event which draws attention to the 774 million people in the world who cannot read or write.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The event is run by LitWorld, an international non-profit organization based here in New York which seeks to cultivate literacy initiatives around the world.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">At 1am I will be <a href="http://secure.timessquare.com/Events/NYC_Events/LitWorld_Presents_World_Read_Aloud_Day/">reading in Times Square</a> from my prize-winning children’s story <a href="http://abctales.com/story/m-e-lehmann/shark-mind-rabbit">‘Shark with the Mind of a Rabbit’</a> in support of World Read Aloud Day. LitWorld’s goal is for people around the world to read aloud for a grand total of 774 million minutes on 9th March, drawing attention to the challenges faced by those on the planet who cannot enjoy their right to literacy.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">In just 4 years, LitWorld has managed to extend its work in literacy advocacy across 35 countries. With initiatives including Girls’ Reading Clubs, workshops for literacy leaders in developing countries, family reading initiatives and book supply to low-income communities, the non-profit takes on literacy challenges wherever it may find them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">I was joined by <a href="http://www.litworld.org/leadershipteam/">Pam Allyn</a>, director of LitWorld, on the eve of World Read Aloud Day.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">She said, ‘World Read Aloud Day is an advocacy event for all people, to really raise our voices together through the act of reading aloud itself. This is where WRAD is special. We have children and adults all over the world on March 9th reading aloud with the idea that their voices are going to matter for each other. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">‘Literacy is the linchpin for all the UN Millennium Development Goals. The statistics are staggering and untenable. Women who are educated even to fifth grade are sixty percent more likely to vaccinate their own children. High poverty areas have higher rates of illiteracy worldwide. Children who are not in school have poorer nutrition and girls who drop out get pregnant earlier. But beyond the plain facts that a literate person can read a medicine bottle, navigate a subway, apply for a job and keep one, there are more spiritual benefits to literacy. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">‘A child who can read can comfort himself, make himself laugh, find refuge in a good story and discover the magic of the imaginative universe. It should be a human right to be happy, and reading makes us happy. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">‘</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Literacy is democratizing. When we have access to information, we know ourselves and the world far more deeply. We can take action and stand up for what is right. We can advocate for ourselves, our children and for each other. And we can connect with all humanity. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">‘If I could not read or write, I would miss the way I can connect with others, with friends and even strangers who have touched my life in so many ways through notes, emails and messages. It's an extraordinary power, literacy. Someone once asked, what is the opposite of fear? And the answer was love. With all this talk about data and accountability in schools, at the end of the day, being literate teaches us how to love. Love of people, love of ideas, love of story. And that's what I'd miss most.’</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">You can find out more about World Read Aloud Day and the wider mission of LitWorld at <a href="http://www.litworld.org/">http://www.litworld.org/</a>. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Pam joins us again for a Q and A session on Books and Adventures next time - click <a href="http://booksadventures.blogspot.com/2011/03/world-read-aloud-day-part-2-q-and-with.html">here</a> for the second part of this interview.</span>Matthew Finchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10348184189703706909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8065627773588280754.post-73531246327675120322011-03-07T01:19:00.000+00:002011-03-07T01:19:12.258+00:00Alex Simmons Interview, Part 3. Kids Comic Con: ‘Giving Comics Back to Kids Again’<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span><br />
<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">For the previous parts of this interview with Alex Simmons, click here: <a href="http://booksadventures.blogspot.com/2011/02/alex-simmons-interview-part-1-blackjack.html">http://booksadventures.blogspot.com/2011/02/alex-simmons-interview-part-1-blackjack.html</a></span></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><em>‘When your children are growing up, you suddenly realise – I’m not Batman, I’m Batman’s Dad!’</em></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
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</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2Gj_mPXn23b1993tmzFZ99R-OiJiPqZwT0MTCp-gttFdKCqAfzIBdzIiwK-oUuUD8Hvi7bSw1xm64RBiMF7eDx-CfyiO0bqK7RZHiTaGxqRDhyphenhyphenJtr6_qWdy5Y8x_xvzD5TWWicLV4ll4/s1600/KIDS+COMIC+CON+2011.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" l6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi2Gj_mPXn23b1993tmzFZ99R-OiJiPqZwT0MTCp-gttFdKCqAfzIBdzIiwK-oUuUD8Hvi7bSw1xm64RBiMF7eDx-CfyiO0bqK7RZHiTaGxqRDhyphenhyphenJtr6_qWdy5Y8x_xvzD5TWWicLV4ll4/s320/KIDS+COMIC+CON+2011.JPG" width="207" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Comic creator, writer and educator Alex Simmons’ main community endeavour these days is the international <a href="http://www.kidscomiccon.com/">Kids Comic Con</a>, which gives children their own comic book event at a time when so much of the industry seems focussed on marketing to geeky adult males.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The Comic Con originated when Alex provided a children’s activity area at Wizard World's Chicago Con around 1998. Many visitors used the area as a babysitting service while they toured the convention, but that small side event was enough to provoke Alex’s creative streak.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">‘That experience validated what I already suspected - that we needed events specifically for kids. Overall, the comic book industry is geared towards selling to guys in their thirties - and in economically depressed times, they’ll continue to follow the money.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">‘It’s another symptom of the way we are short-changing our children in society at large. We keep giving them failure, anger and frustration. They are the future – and that doesn’t just mean training up a new generation to look after us in our old age – it means giving them their own lives, their own opportunities and choices.’</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Alex’s yearly Comic Con brings together artists and publishers, librarians and educators, to give children and their caregivers just such opportunities to explore the world of comics. Attendees participate in workshops and meet with the men and women behind the adventures of their favourite characters. In 2010, the Convention went to Senegal to bring their brand of fun along with an art exhibit called, 'The Color of Comics‘ to an African audience of children, fans, educators and – hopefully – future comics creators!</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Alex couches his sense of mission and personal responsibility in terms of comic books. ‘I love sidekicks like Robin from Batman or Short Round from Indiana Jones – as a kid, I was inspired by junior heroes who were an integral part of helping the hero win. Later I went through the stage of life where you identify with Batman. And then your children are growing up and you suddenly realise – I’m the parent that gets killed now! I’m not Batman, I’m Batman’s Dad!’</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Alex’s acceptance of his role as a parental figure and mentor is part of his unique success as the mastermind of Kids Comic Con – ‘How come it was me of all people who set this up? It wasn't that i was the only one on the planet who could do it... But i was the one committed to making it happen. Obsessed, even. I had the contacts in the comic book industry and the connections with educators too.’</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Alex didn’t do this alone, though. ‘Much of what we’ve achieved would never have happened without Eugene Adams, Director of Collaborative Education at Bronx Community College. Working with him is endlessly remarkable, endlessly rewarding. He’s been a kindred spirit who gave the Comic-Con a plan, a venue, and a staff of volunteers. If we hadn’t made it happen with all that support, then we’d have been asleep at the wheel.’</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">A large part of the work of Kids Comic Con involves empowering young creators with the latest technology, using free workshops and outreach sessions to give a taste of the software used in modern comics production. Last month’s Books and Adventures <a href="http://booksadventures.blogspot.com/2011/02/interview-with-cody-pickrodt-comics.html">interview with Cody Pickrodt</a> showed how hard it can be for young creators with no computer skills to work in this medium.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Kids Comic Con offers a wide range of opportunities for young people to develop such technical skills. Even the convention website was originally designed by students at Borough of Manhattan Community College. </span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Alex says, ‘The future is in danger of separating us into technological haves and have-nots. People need access to the means by which they can make a living, and more and more that means technology. Not every child we work with may grow up to be a graphic designer, but they’ll surely need more from a computer than just Facebook.’</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">For more information about attending the Kids' Comic Con, check out their web site at: <a href="http://www.kidscomiccon.com./">http://www.kidscomiccon.com./</a></span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Kids Comic Con brings together many strands of Alex Simmons’ work over the past 20 years: a sense of social and historical consciousness, seen in his 1930s adventure stories; a duty to empower young readers and writers with critical thinking, as found in his Archie-meets-Obama story; and above all, a sense of wonder and desire to explore and engage with the world around us.</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">‘No child is born with a desire to fail. It’s our mission to fire their sense of wonder and of possibility. To empower them to believe in the thoughts which occur to them, and give themselves time to consider the value of their own ideas.’</span></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br />
</div><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">For more information about Alex Simmons visit his web site at <a href="http://www.simmonshereandnow.com/">http://www.simmonshereandnow.com/</a></span>Matthew Finchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10348184189703706909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8065627773588280754.post-83183357706800000532011-02-28T02:24:00.004+00:002011-03-02T12:43:23.591+00:00Alex Simmons Interview, Part 2: Archie Meets Obama and Palin<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">For the first part of this interview with Alex Simmons, click </span><a href="http://booksadventures.blogspot.com/2011/02/alex-simmons-interview-part-1-blackjack.html"><span style="font-size: x-small;">here</span></a><span style="font-size: x-small;">.</span></em></span></div><div style="text-align: center;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">Comic creator Alex Simmons’ most recent work has been a two-part story for Archie Comics. In it, Barack Obama and Sarah Palin visit the high school at Riverdale, home to all-American teen Archie Andrews and his friends since the 1940s.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhmBf5OCEEvKS36L7VFa1HjaSHLjLUaain7zNyke0YfqnXhDeMG5ov-brrOY3zsJYMG7e3ZDHVedWsNfvGMTbhO_GP8LLWP7nEyMLEpuj883HSJw9VCGQzfF1RrezMRP6ZA8tQaNjePtk/s1600/archie+world+tour.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="200" l6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhmBf5OCEEvKS36L7VFa1HjaSHLjLUaain7zNyke0YfqnXhDeMG5ov-brrOY3zsJYMG7e3ZDHVedWsNfvGMTbhO_GP8LLWP7nEyMLEpuj883HSJw9VCGQzfF1RrezMRP6ZA8tQaNjePtk/s200/archie+world+tour.jpg" width="132" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Archie's World Tour by Alex Simmons</td></tr>
</tbody></table></div><div style="text-align: left;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Alex has previously written numerous stories for Archie, including Archie’s World Tour and a series which reimagines the easygoing Jughead Jones as a hard-boiled private investigator, but writing two of the most recognised political figures in America today was a special challenge…</span></div><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikw_-hu3juc5kfZ0lvnY12GegoGjpR5OaqsKhOg67AOVbSLhPoP_4NAh9qNvN68Ww7dNpoUdtjKNzyp-7Fj0IahiY_0dJKBW1fjVc8tTPX5u2l9dr1cZXqG6_cjP6ryHB951d_mAcNfHI/s1600/JUGHEAD_203_lr.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" l6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEikw_-hu3juc5kfZ0lvnY12GegoGjpR5OaqsKhOg67AOVbSLhPoP_4NAh9qNvN68Ww7dNpoUdtjKNzyp-7Fj0IahiY_0dJKBW1fjVc8tTPX5u2l9dr1cZXqG6_cjP6ryHB951d_mAcNfHI/s320/JUGHEAD_203_lr.jpg" width="208" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Alex Simmons reimagines Jughead Jones as a 'semi-private investigator'</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">'Victor Gorelick, the Senior Editor at Archie, called me requesting a story featuring President Obama and Sarah Palin. My first pitch was based on environmental issues, but we felt this was too edgy. A comic like this is not a soapbox for political views – although we also don’t want to paint these heavyweight politicians as sweet or innocent. The challenge was finding a way into these real-life characters through the Riverdale mindset.’</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4JhrjgJohCFoVAp9OixU4TthvsQ-Oo-VmCGAFQueOBfM5v5irpAebjb8hKN1xsk9Tf5V36_FKZJfrTtAJUa9LsuDoatlsPMFV7IKdSRCxeS1-na87o_MQI-DYq6h6es6-D4dwHCo_iwY/s1600/archie-obama-vlrg-730a_grid-5x2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" l6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4JhrjgJohCFoVAp9OixU4TthvsQ-Oo-VmCGAFQueOBfM5v5irpAebjb8hKN1xsk9Tf5V36_FKZJfrTtAJUa9LsuDoatlsPMFV7IKdSRCxeS1-na87o_MQI-DYq6h6es6-D4dwHCo_iwY/s320/archie-obama-vlrg-730a_grid-5x2.jpg" width="208" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Barack Obama and Sarah Palin visit Riverdale in Archie Comics issues 616-617, written by Alex Simmons</td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Alex’s finished story focusses on spin and media manipulation. Rival candidates for the class presidency, Archie and Reggie both lose sight of their moral compass when their respective campaign managers, Veronica and Trula, encourage them to pose for photographs with Obama and Palin! The implied endorsement sends their popularity skyrocketing, but the politicians catch wind of the media manipulation and descend on Riverdale to assert control of their public images.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Alex explains how the media came to be at the heart of this high-profile political story: </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">‘This comes back to the idea about balance which shaped my <em>Blackjack</em> story about the Touaregs: one man’s insurgent is another man’s freedom fighter! I felt I couldn’t weigh in on specific issues which divide the parties. But politicians are politicians – they have to do certain things to get where they are – and it’s important that we hold them to account. So the message behind my story is one of responsibility for your actions in the public arena.’</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Archie and Reggie eventually repent and redeem themselves by taking responsibility for the media spin done in their name by Trula and Veronica. For this plot twist, Alex drew inspiration from Republican presidential nominee John McCain’s personally gracious defeat speech on the day of President Obama’s victory, in which he stepped back from what had been an aggressive campaign and chided those among his supporters who booed Obama’s victory.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">‘In the Archie story, I wanted to show what should happen – politicians being true leaders and taking responsibility for things done in their name. Comic books are fun, but especially when they’re aimed at children, a positive message never hurts.’</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Next time on Books and Adventures, we look at Alex’s greatest contribution to comics for children, the international <a href="http://kidscomiccon.com/">Kids Comic Con</a> convention.</span>Matthew Finchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10348184189703706909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8065627773588280754.post-89033362158627299572011-02-23T06:33:00.003+00:002011-03-02T12:39:15.824+00:00Alex Simmons Interview, Part 1: Blackjack<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">This week, our <em>Books and Adventures </em>interview is with Alex Simmons, who has written for the stage, screen and radio alongside work as an educator, performer and comics creator. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">O</span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">ver the course of a 20-year career, Alex has founded the Kids Comic Con and taken it around the world from Buffalo, NY to Senegal, created the African-American comic-book adventurer Blackjack, and even brought Barack Obama and Sarah Palin to Riverdale in a special two-part story in Archie Comics.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">In a conversation that covered everything from 30s movie serials to the outreach work of Bronx Community College, Alex demonstrated that Books and Adventures are his business.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Appropriately for Black History Month, we began by talking about his character Arron Day, a globe-trotting soldier of fortune known to the world as…Blackjack.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBQID73QIjWzgsedSP6CUumzV5TA1-N0Af6WODNQUyyxvQQAhTow0WwKD-qzLk-nJ6i06d70CHOWFpL5GcZJB05ZI7KjhgaRlEbyt4JUEtHfYFBOV2R9oV20EEEMmtU4zUrvrthSfkg9M/s1600/blood+and+honor.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><img border="0" j6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgBQID73QIjWzgsedSP6CUumzV5TA1-N0Af6WODNQUyyxvQQAhTow0WwKD-qzLk-nJ6i06d70CHOWFpL5GcZJB05ZI7KjhgaRlEbyt4JUEtHfYFBOV2R9oV20EEEMmtU4zUrvrthSfkg9M/s1600/blood+and+honor.jpg" /></span></a></div><em><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">‘In the 1930s, we were prepared to go out and explore. To inspire kids to be good adults.’</span></em><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">In his teens, Alex Simmons attended a film club on New York’s West 40th Street, showing old movie serials such as <em>Captain Marvel</em>, <em>King of the Rocket Men</em> and <em>The Phantom</em>. One particular show stayed with him.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">‘<em>Daredevils of the Red Circle</em> stood out,’ Alex explains. The </span><a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0031207/"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">1939 serial</span></a><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"> followed a trio of acrobats turned private investigators, who seek revenge for the death of a family member. ‘<em>Daredevils</em> had a black character: he was the butler to one of the main characters...and his name was “Snowflake”!</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVIN-xCk-JMJSHtN7GrfIRaEGNDxjgGxcCeTrlkG0YQVWd8PLfKqF_DVLAtbBPN1bxXuQviI4QQlEnBkQB8b_v3M7awTNtimQE34o_e7qf5iOaPQRpx110w5-NWGQFPOhPE4wwVT4GMpk/s1600/snowflake.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="189" j6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVIN-xCk-JMJSHtN7GrfIRaEGNDxjgGxcCeTrlkG0YQVWd8PLfKqF_DVLAtbBPN1bxXuQviI4QQlEnBkQB8b_v3M7awTNtimQE34o_e7qf5iOaPQRpx110w5-NWGQFPOhPE4wwVT4GMpk/s200/snowflake.jpg" width="200" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Fred Toones aka "Snowflake"</span></td></tr>
</tbody></table><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">‘He was an awful stereotype, rolling his eyes, with this high-pitched voice, but I remember one episode where the heroes were trapped in a garage filling with fumes…The stereotype suddenly falls away, Snowflake helps break into the garage and rescue the others. It’s his one moment of competence. Of course, nobody even acknowledges this, and within a minute he’s straight back to the old characterization.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">‘Watching that serial made me think – this was the 1930s. There was a black presence. We were there. And not just rolling our eyes and waving our hands in the air! I wanted to tell stories about the African American presence in this time, when parts of the world were still full of mystery and wonder, when we were willing to go out and explore! Unlike now when we’re so jaded by technology and shaped by the media that the devout can go to confession through an iPhone app.’</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Alex came up with Blackjack in 1988 as a conduit for telling stories about the 1930s and writing an African-American presence back in to our vision of those times. Arron Day, adventurer for hire, grew up travelling the world with his soldier-of-fortune father. As he takes on enemies both foreign and domestic, he explores his father’s legacy and rights the wrongs of a blood-soaked past.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvP6V3d3xtvBv9BldpSEATUqP9EqdmPa5z1gzceSH3twXXW2PctHcJKLMpJ7xWUKcRENHEz5Xbyl1_j1KbQ8qtpigrihEKtqyviI6BTW9sBqUrVW7R9x4YZC-gN4C-5aGGpfG0CnM0ROw/s1600/blackjack.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><img border="0" height="200" j6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvP6V3d3xtvBv9BldpSEATUqP9EqdmPa5z1gzceSH3twXXW2PctHcJKLMpJ7xWUKcRENHEz5Xbyl1_j1KbQ8qtpigrihEKtqyviI6BTW9sBqUrVW7R9x4YZC-gN4C-5aGGpfG0CnM0ROw/s200/blackjack.jpg" width="129" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Arron is a two-fisted protagonist in the style of Indiana Jones, but also a thinking man’s action hero, perceptive and astute. In the Blackjack stories, Arron’s ability to pick out a face in the crowd or spot a secret glance between two conspirators is often the key to his survival and ultimate success in saving the day. Alex, who wrote the stage play <em>Sherlock Holmes and the Hands of Othello</em>, acknowledges a certain debt to the man from 221b Baker Street:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">‘I’m a big fan of Conan Doyle’s writing and I wanted Arron to be an intelligent hero, without being a carbon-copy Sherlock. He doesn’t pull together evidence to make elaborate deductions, like Holmes – but Arron is supremely observant.’</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Arron is accompanied in his adventures by Tim Cheng, a dignified Asian servant who Alex wrote as an intelligent and independent figure - ‘my apology for Charlie Chan.’ </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Tim falls into Arron's service after Arron wins a New York brownstone 'and everything in it' during an unseen adventure prior to the first Blackjack story.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">The Blackjack comic toys with the old Green Hornet/Kato dynamic by having Arron suspect that Tim resents being ‘owned’ by another man. In the storyline <em>Blood and Honor</em>, Arron and Tim are called on a mission to China, during which Tim’s trustworthiness is put in doubt - but Tim’s secret loyalty proves to be to his family, rather than Blackjack’s enemies. By choosing to live in New York with his bride, alongside Arron as a friend and partner, Tim ultimately redeems the loner hero whom he serves.</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA8VjUgz3XyvEezrAtrWd-tHvx5qu0MxctmeJC1oX954luuCUUsQ1ihHbCDgrNwHgW4QTPlRLQNxXHW4nuQVD_XtdsFkIeC7MRuZn8s1If4kyQ6v52JbkGX5flq8D_qWx6EQlNGGTqdEc/s1600/blackjack2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><img border="0" j6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgA8VjUgz3XyvEezrAtrWd-tHvx5qu0MxctmeJC1oX954luuCUUsQ1ihHbCDgrNwHgW4QTPlRLQNxXHW4nuQVD_XtdsFkIeC7MRuZn8s1If4kyQ6v52JbkGX5flq8D_qWx6EQlNGGTqdEc/s1600/blackjack2.jpg" /></span></a></div><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Alex’s commitment to redressing past prejudice extends to the villains Arron confronts on his travels. The first Blackjack comic sends our hero to the Middle East, a location suggested to Alex by his mentor, the celebrated editor-illustrator Dick Giordano.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">‘We wanted to open the Blackjack series with a story that showed Arron to be a globetrotting hero. This got me thinking of those prejudiced old Thirties movies again. I couldn’t have all the Middle Easterners be dumb bad guys who go ‘Aieeeee!’ when they die. So I focussed on the Touareg people, nomads who had fought against the colonial powers.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">‘In <em>Second Bite of the Cobra</em>, Arron faces a principled, intelligent villain – a Touareg rebel gone sour, robbing from his own people. So the final showdown between hero and villain is also a crisis of conscience, with the Touareg leader forced to recognise that he’s betrayed his own beliefs.’</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Alex always envisaged Blackjack as a legacy character whose heroic mantle is passed down through the generations. Arron’s father Matthew appears in the series seen through the prism of his son’s memory, and Alex even played Matthew, alongside his own son as the young Arron, in the flashback scenes of a 2001 radio play. Alex also laid plans for a sequel series running in the present, where Arron’s estranged grandson finds himself drawn back into the family business.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">With comic books and even a radio show to his name, Blackjack remains a compelling character and a great contribution to the roster of African-American heroes. But his greatest adventures are surely yet to come…</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Next time we move from Alex Simmons’ original creations to a famous American comic-book brand, which Alex took into the 21st century by bringing Barack Obama and Sarah Palin face to face with none other than…<em>Archie</em>!</span><br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI1b8_CONS4QovCLE_ErMjnjCU5PTcoTyyErK4TlrpQAFBMjfhpNRociS2lw2-xLU8UK4Z9fVzJgESPL3e7pqe_pCcnAz6frDbj5NwYU8Yqx6ertuDE7mJR-RGYiEo3aGZioRcSJpUbDw/s1600/archie-obama-vlrg-730a_grid-5x2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" l6="true" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI1b8_CONS4QovCLE_ErMjnjCU5PTcoTyyErK4TlrpQAFBMjfhpNRociS2lw2-xLU8UK4Z9fVzJgESPL3e7pqe_pCcnAz6frDbj5NwYU8Yqx6ertuDE7mJR-RGYiEo3aGZioRcSJpUbDw/s320/archie-obama-vlrg-730a_grid-5x2.jpg" width="208" /></a></div><div align="center"></div><div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;"><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">For part 2 of this interview, click </span></em><a href="http://booksadventures.blogspot.com/2011/02/alex-simmons-interview-part-2-archie.html"><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">here</span></em></a><em><span style="font-size: x-small;">.</span></em></span></div>Matthew Finchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10348184189703706909noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8065627773588280754.post-76768295506126374942011-02-19T02:21:00.001+00:002011-02-19T04:54:30.900+00:00Interview with Cody Pickrodt, Comics Creator<div style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif; font-size: x-small;"><em>A former teacher in public schools now inspires a new generation of comics creators in Brooklyn and beyond</em></span></div><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">'Sometimes it felt like babysitting,’ comic book author Cody Pickrodt says of his days teaching in the California public school system. ‘There’s not enough money and not enough choice, when we need something more like a university, which caters to what the kids want to do.’</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Cody is speaking to me in Café Grumpy, ‘a perfect café for comic book artists: big tables and not too loud.’ It’s located on a snowy streetcorner in Greenpoint, a world away from the West Coast schools where Cody first became involved in education. As an art teacher within the state, he would drive from school to school delivering sessions which increasingly came to focus on his first love, comic books. Returning to his native New York, Cody turned his passion into a profession as the leader of comic book workshops first for <a href="http://www.3rdward.com/">3rd Ward</a>, and then for <a href="http://www.uproarart.org/">Uproar Art</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Cody’s passion for comics in fact began in the city – specifically, in Chinatown. The young Cody’s Chinese-American mother took him on shopping trips where he developed a taste for Asian comic book imports.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">‘I went from Disney comics straight to manga,’ Cody tells me. ‘I couldn’t read what they were saying at first, but the pictures told the story nonetheless. After a while, I even learned how to read Chinese, which after all is just another set of pictures. This was twenty years ago, well before the current popularity of manga today. And I actually learned something then, which I can't say for the quality of manga that kids read today.'</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Cody feels it’s vital to encourage a new generation even as Hollywood promotes comic adaptations from <em>Spider-Man</em> to <em>Superman</em> and <em>Tamara Drewe</em> to <em>Scott Pilgrim</em>. </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">‘It’s easy to forget that comics are actually on the wane. Graphic novel sales have dropped significantly in the last year. The boom in comics became a glut, and it’s only now that the industry is shrinking that there’s room to take creative chances. It’s a great time for young, original creators to jump on board.’ </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Cody has done his part to foster this new generation of talent among both students and teachers, having trained a new generation of instructors at 3rd Ward, including comics teacher </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.funkyjewels.com/">Joanne Sherrow</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Now Cody’s workshops are available for all ages from Kindergarten to 12th Grade, via Max Goodman’s non-profit organization Uproar Art, featured <a href="http://booksadventures.blogspot.com/2011/02/interview-max-goodman-uproar-art.html">last time on Books and Adventures</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Working around a simple 6-panel page format, Cody uses a variety of techniques and tricks to get creativity flowing among his classes. In one activity, students may pass their comic book to a partner between panels, creating a collaborative work.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">‘These classes work with all ages from infant to adult,’ says Cody, although he’s particularly impressed by Kindergarteners, who he says ‘focus and really get into it’. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">In common with Uproar’s director Max Goodman, Cody believes that many subjects can be taught via creative, practical art activities. The comic book form lends itself to almost any subject on the curriculum. And, taught in small groups – 6 students is the optimum number – Cody’s classes enable students to find their own creative impulses and express them through the comics medium.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Cody’s own journey from those Chinatown manga to his current output has been a painstaking one. Cody's first comic book, <em>Night Swim</em>, boasting a 200 copy print run, was drawn, printed and individually assembled entirely by hand, prior to his experience using computers. Today his work, largely aimed at an adult audience, includes two concurrent narrative comics alongside countless cartoons, illustrations and the art project <em>Men with Whom I Share the Same Height</em>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Cody works from a movie-style script, writing up to twelve issues in advance and creating thumbnails before moving on to a Zen-like drawing process. </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">‘It sounds odd, but I try not to think about drawing while I'm drawing. I'll put on a movie or a listen to the news in the background, or just think about something else entirely, daydream even--anything to occupy that analytical part of my brain while I work. You achieve a purer line that way.' </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Cody’s current series <em>Francine Way</em>, born during his studies for an BFA in Sequential Art, follows a teenage girl, interested in survivalism, who leaves her home for the nearby woods. Her illusions about a life of solitary freedom are shattered when she meets a feral boy, living rough in the wild, who may be linked to a series of violent and disturbing events in the town.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">‘It’s a kind of Nancy Drew story with a twist,’ says Cody, ‘about an outsider girl who wants to find out who’s behind this mystery, but who also doesn’t want to jeopardize her friendship with this fellow outsider.’ </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">More about <em>Francine Way </em>and Cody’s other work – some only suitable for adult readers – is available at </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><a href="http://codypickrodt.com/shop">http://codypickrodt.com/shop</a> </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">In March, Cody will run a one-day parent and child workshop for Uproar Arts, sharing his expertise and giving families a taste of comic book creation. To find out more and get in touch with the Uproar team, visit </span><span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.uproarart.org/">http://www.uproarart.org/</a></span>Matthew Finchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10348184189703706909noreply@blogger.com0Brooklyn, NY, USA40.65 -73.9540.519760999999995 -74.1834595 40.780239 -73.716540500000008tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8065627773588280754.post-15440043610905088242011-02-14T12:07:00.002+00:002011-02-19T04:55:09.776+00:00Interview - Max Goodman, Uproar Art<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Never mind the nightlife and the skyscrapers, one of the most exciting things about New York is the commitment of the many artists and educators who serve their community through not-for-profit work. Over the coming weeks, Books and Adventures will be speaking to some of these American heroes striving to provide the best possible start for their city’s children.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Today we speak with Max Goodman. Max is a young artist and educator who, in 2009, founded <a href="http://www.uproarart.org/">Uproar Art</a>, a Brooklyn-based non-profit organization which delivers weekend workshops and after-school classes to the local community. A talented jeweler in her own right, Max has assembled a team of artist-educators who offer courses on everything from recycled art to creating your own comic book.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Max is a dynamic and independent figure - she created her own first job in NYC by contacting <a href="http://www.3rdward.com/">3rd Ward</a>, who were advertising their own arts classes, and convincing them to take her on as an instructor! Although she had intended to teach in New York schools, the constraints of the system led her to found her own non-profit organization for arts education.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">‘When I arrived in January 2009, there was a hiring freeze in the district,’ Max explains. ‘Founding Uproar Art gave me the chance to commit fully to my students without giving up my own art-making practice. It was a great way to give back to the young art-making community without sacrificing my own art.’</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Max believes that an artist-educator who remains committed to their own practice can offer students new ways into learning, beyond the traditional classroom.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">‘Pattern, rhythm and symmetry can all be used in art, but they're concepts repeated in math and music. Working with paints and metals helps students understand chemistry in a way that a science textbook could only illustrate flatly on a page. Frequently, students who feel they cannot achieve in other subjects are able to find an outlet in the arts, and in this way art keeps students in school who otherwise might drop out.’</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Max gives the example of an 8-year-old student who spoke no English when they first met: ‘Her eyes lit up when she was in my art room, because she could follow the visual examples and create a beautiful piece. She expressed herself without worrying about the boundaries of language. That kind of outlet is absolutely invaluable in our world of standardized tests and rubrics.’</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">We’ve discussed British educational assessment on Books and Adventures <a href="http://booksadventures.blogspot.com/2010/12/lesson-of-league-tables.html">before</a>, but Max’s comments highlight the issues raised by testing on this side of the Atlantic, where there is a move to regulate education at a more national level. Max is ambivalent about this move:</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">‘I believe that funding for education should be sourced and therefore equalized on the national level, but I do not think it's reasonable to expect students everywhere to pass nationalized standardized tests. Individual communities understand the challenges facing their students, and should be afforded more local control over curriculum. A national curriculum should definitely be offered, but expecting students who speak English as a second language, or those with learning disabilities, to test the same as their peers is absolutely unproductive.’</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">As Max’s home patch in Brooklyn undergoes gentrification, wealth brings new opportunities and resources to the community – but it can also divide a neighborhood. On a recent visit to Bedford-Stuyvesant, I spoke with a local parent who decried the privileged do-gooders who parachuted in to a deprived area – but were free to leave the community’s problems behind at the end of the day. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Max’s team at Uproar Art are sensitive to these issues and committed to the place where they live: ‘We seek to ease tension and conflict - to make sure we're serving the community that has existed before the influx of wealth as well as the newcomers.’ </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Wherever possible, Uproar Art offers free and low-cost workshops alongside their comprehensive range of classes. ‘Eventually, we'd like to be a resource for children with an interest in the arts who may not have the means or support to pursue it extra-curricularly, as well as for the students that have the support system in place. We’re hoping to offer sliding scale payments for classes over the coming year.’</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Max’s ethical commitments extend to opposing the involvement of the private sector in public education: ‘I think no for-profit entities should be allowed to play any role in our educational system. When I was a student in the Philadelphia public school district, a for-profit company sought to take over our schools in order to use them as a fertile captive audience for advertising. Education is for the good of the students and of the society in general, and somebody seeking to profit from that loses sight of these moral truths.’</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">Uproar is on the cusp of finishing its incorporation process, which will enable it to accept grants for future projects – and Max’s team are already looking ahead to the months and years beyond. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">‘Our first year of business has gone well: we've found many allies in the local community, and have been welcomed with open arms into local studios. In the coming year we'd really to work more directly with local schools. It's time to start reaching out to the parts of the community that don't have access to programs like ours.’ </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">In the immediate future, Max is excited by launching her own workshop on <a href="http://www.uproarart.org/?page_id=17">Organic Sculpture</a> in Lefferts Garden. It’s based in part on the work of <a href="http://www.morning-earth.org/ARTISTNATURALISTS/AN_Goldsworthy.html">Andy Goldsworthy</a>, who makes temporary artwork from found items in the environment.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: "Trebuchet MS", sans-serif;">‘Before now it's been difficult to find a location that parents and art studios were both comfortable allowing students to make nature based art, but I'm very excited to see what my 6-8 year old sculpture students discover in our own back yard. In addition to teaching Organic Sculpture we also offer a Recycled Art course. Because of our strong community focus we're always looking for ways to blend art making and the environment, and luckily there's no shortage of other environmentally friendly non-profits ready to partner with us - friends like Glenn Robinson at <a href="http://bagsforthepeople.org/">Bags for the People</a> or Annie Novak of <a href="http://rooftopfarms.org/">Rooftop Farms</a>.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS;">To find out more about Uproar Art and get in touch with Max and her team, visit <a href="http://www.uproarart.org/">http://www.uproarart.org/</a>.</span>Matthew Finchhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10348184189703706909noreply@blogger.com0Brooklyn, NY, USA40.65 -73.9540.519760999999995 -74.1834595 40.780239 -73.716540500000008