The Sydney Taylor Book Award 2011 Blog Tour begins today with three stops!
Resistance is a 2011 Sydney Taylor Honor Book in the Older Readers Category.
Read an interview with author
Carla Jablonski at
Jewish Comics with blogger Steven Bergson.
Here's a teaser:
Steven: When did the idea for writing the Resistance books come to you? Was there a particular event that occurred which inspired you to write it?
Carla: The war in Iraq, actually, got me wondering about what it would be like to live in an occupied country. I was also interested in the tensions between an experience as it is happening vs. history or hindsight.
Read more...
Leland Purvis is the illustrator of the graphic novel,
Resistance.
Read an interview with Leland at
Shelf-Employed with blogger Lisa Taylor.
Here's a teaser:
Lisa: In
Resistance, you often use Paul’s sketchbook to portray people or events in the story. I found it interesting that, in most cases, Paul’s sketchbook depicts events not through the filtered eye of the young boy, but as they are. In my mind, that tells a story in itself - that the behavior of Nazi Germany was so horrific that exaggeration, even for an imaginative young boy, is impossible. Was that the point that you were trying to make, or does the sketchbook have another purpose in the story?
Leland: The sketchbook serves a couple of purposes, which is why you were sensing a dual-role, essentially. On the one hand it was a narrative device by which Paul could be valuable to the Maquis resistance in a credible way. Also it does provide a look into Paul's head about his reaction to the town and people around him. We very much included panels that were strictly Paul's P.O.V. This has continued into the sequels.
Read more...
Modeh Ani: A Good Morning Book is a 2011 Sydney Taylor Honor Book in the Younger Readers Category. Its predecessor,
The Bedtime Sh'ma, was the 2008 Sydney Taylor Book Award winner in the Younger Readers Category.
Read an interview with author
Sarah Gershman at
Biblio File with blogger Jennie Rothschild.
Here's a teaser:
Jennie: Many Jews do not write out God and instead use a substitute, such as G-d. However, throughout your book, you use God. Why did you make this decision and do you have a response to those who are critical of it (I noticed it came up in the Amazon reviews of the Bedtime Sh'ma.)
Sarah: My main motivation was to make the book accessible to people of all backgrounds. That being said, there are also Rabbinic opinions that say that writing God in English is not the same thing as writing God's full name in Hebrew. We were careful not to do that in the Hebrew portions of the book, as well as on the Bedtime Sh'ma CD.
Read more...
Tune in tomorrow for interviews with
Linda Glaser (author,
Emma's Poem: The Voice of the Statue of Liberty) at
ASHarmony,
Claire Nivola (illustrator,
Emma's Poem) at
Lori Calabrese, and
Evelyn Krieger (
One is Not a Lonely Number) at
Ima On and Off the Bima.