H A N S
C H R I S T I A N
A N D E R S E N
A W A R D
N O M I N A T I O N
The U.S. Board on Books for Young People named Paul Fleischman the United States' author nominee for the 2012 Hans Christian Andersen Award, an international award given every other year to an author and illustrator for a body of work judged to have made lasting contributions to children's literature. Twenty-seven countries submitted nominations, reduced to a short list of five that included Paul Fleischman. The winner was Marķa Teresa Andruetto of Argentina.
Sid Fleischman was the U.S. author nominee in 1994. Peter Sis, the illustrator of The Whipping Boy and many other Sid Fleischman titles, was the 2012 winning illustrator. You can see information about the nominees and the list of past winners at ibby.org.
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J u s t P u b l i s h e d
THE DUNDERHEADS
BEHIND BARS
Illustrated by David Roberts
Stars of their classroom after outwitting Miss Breakbone, the Dunderheads take a crack at Hollywood fame--only to land in a mystery not in their plans. Lights, cameras, and thievery collide in a summertime caper requiring all their sundry skills, illustrated once more by the wickedly witty star of pen and ink, David Roberts.
The Dunderheads (2009) won the PEN Center USA Literature Award for Children's and Young Adult Literature, the Horace Mann Upstanders Book Award, and was shortlisted for the Kate Greenaway Medal.
"All of the dark, dry comedy of its predecessor..." ~ Publishers Weekly, starred review
"Subversive and exuberant..." ~ School Library Journal, starred review
Candlewick Press
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With my Stage Left team, from left: Billy Brewer, Doug Beiswenger, and Sherry Warner.
S E E D F O L K S
now available for the stage
I'd written for the stage off and on for years without the benefit of actually being in a play. It was time to expand my theatrical education, something I did last year when I served on the stage crew for Pacific Repertory Theatre's production of Annie in Carmel, CA. Who knew how much clowning, eating, and texting goes on in the wings? How challenging canine actors can be? Why a costume should never be hung on a fire alarm? I've put those lessons and more to use in a large-cast adaptation of Seedfolks, scripted for a minimum of 7 females and 6 males along with a nonspeaking troupe of 8 or more. The play is a spoken musical, with spoken rather than sung numbers establishing the characters. There's music, dance, new scenes, and answers to many of the questions I get about Curtis, Maricela, and other characters.
For rights and a script, contact Buddy Thomas at bthomas@icmtalent.com.
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NPR chooses Seedfolks ~ Vermont chooses Bull Run
Louisiana chooses The Dunderheads
NPR's Backseat Book Club--created for the benefit of young hostages to public radio--made
Seedfolks its April 2012 selection. Readers were invited to submit comments, questions, and photos of their own gardens. You can hear my
All Things Considered interview with Michele Norris
here.
The Vermont Humanities Council has picked
Bull Run for its statewide Vermont Reads program. Reaching back to the Civil War, the program will pair
Bull Run with Stephen Crane's
The Red Badge of Courage. Interviews with the author and Civil War scholars will be featured on Vermont Public Radio during May 15-18, with readings, discussions, performances, and other events transpiring in the fall of 2012. I'll take part in several of these during September 21-23, 2012. For more information, click
here.
Louisiana's 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders have made
The Dunderheads the winner of their division of the Louisiana Readers Choice Award for 2012. As one who spent a fabulous summer in Lafayette, putting cane syrup on pancakes at breakfast and dancing at Randol's at night, I couldn't be prouder.
Mille mercis! For more information, click
here.
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L O G O M A N I A C S !
Paul Fleischman's new play for adults receives its premiere
Ladies and gentlemen--step inside and prepare to behold a freak show like no other!
A parade of 26 word obsessives, one surname for each letter of the alphabet...Men who don't simply use language to communicate, but who lose themselves for years among its labyrinths--playing like children, collecting, dissecting, seeing mathematics and music where you and I see simply letters...Builders of verbal wonders as colossal and rarely glimpsed as the overgrown pyramids of the Mayas...Each man's tale more astounding than the last...Every one of them true!
SEE Daniel Nussbaum's retelling of Genesis via vanity license plates!
MARVEL at George Perec's novel written without the letter
e!
GAWK at Flann O'Brien's exhaustive, acid-tongued Catechism of Cliche!
WEEP at Ludwig Zamenhof's poignant attempt to end war through his invented language!
A hymn to our instincts for play and creativity, performed in the style of a carnival sideshow with music composed by Annette LeSiege, Actors Shakespeare Company presented
Logomaniacs at New Jersey City University in Jersey City. Read a review
here.
For rights and a script, contact Buddy Thomas at bthomas@icmtalent.com.
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"O n e B o o k"
P r o g r a m s
C h o o s e
S E E D F O L K S
Watsonville, CA is the latest city to choose
Seedfolks for its community reading program. The book is a collection of vignettes by 13 characters describing the first year of a community garden in a Cleveland immigrant neighborhood. Its short length, multicultural cast, suitability for adults as well as children, and availability in Spanish (see below) have led it to be used in One Book programs around the country.
VERMONT used the book as its One-State One-Book choice. There were discussions, dramatizations, readings on Vermont Public Radio, and the participation of dozens of groups--from the Friends of Burlington Gardens to the Vermont Refugee Resettlement Project--in communities up and down the state. For information on Burlington's splendid community gardens and views of my visit, click here.
RACINE, WI gave away copies of the book, encouraging readers to leave them in public places when finished, posting comments and following the book's journey via BookCrossing.com. Discussions in Spanish, a screening of Greenfingers, writing and virtual gardening at a women's prison are a few of the many activities that took place. The book was chosen as well for the statewide reading program, Read On Wisconsin.
TAMPA, FL gave away more than 15,000 copies of the book and used it in conjunction with Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, encouraging citizens to volunteer in an array of community improvement projects.
NEWBURGH, NY connected the book to a month-long multicultural celebration of words, art, and dance, with concerts and classes on everything from found sculpture to African drumming. The local newspaper serialized the book in both English and Spanish.
"Dear Paul Fleischman: I've bought 20 copies of Seedfolks and given them away."
--PETE SEEGER
The book has been used in connection with
school gardens at every level, performed by community theaters, and used in school-wide and district-wide reads. I've posted an
article--included in the new paperback edition--on
how the book came to be written. Click
here for a newspaper article on how
a New York teenager put the book into action. An
audio of the book is now available from
Audio Bookshelf. If you're interested in using
Seedfolks in a school or community reading program, contact HarperCollins at authorvisits@harpercollins.com. Click
here to download HarperCollins'
teacher's guide to the book.
"The size of this slim volume belies the profound message of hope it contains."
--CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR
Seedfolks in Spanish
Translated as
Semillas, Seedfolks is now available in a Spanish paperback edition from Scholastic's
Lectorum Publications.
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C O M P O S E R S
L I V E !
Joyful Noise: Poems for Two Voices may be the only Newbery book never to be translated into another language--but composers rushed in where translators feared to tread. Quite a few have set selections from the book to music over the years, captivating works I can now share with you. Did you think all composers are dead or that questions have only one right answer? Listen to these very different treatments of the same poem.
The first is the work of
Shirley Hoffman Warren, one of five
Joyful Noise poems she set to music, all performed at SUNY in New Paltz, NY, where she lives. "I often strive for a slightly off-balance feel," she says--wonderfully evident here. To hear more of her work, visit her website at
www.washalee.com .
The second was composed by Brian Holmes and was recently performed by the Peninsula Girls Chorus in Burlingame, CA. To learn and hear more, go to myspace.com/brianwholmes.
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