Thoughts on Newbery: Looking Back

For those who just stopped by and are interested, here are links to all of my “Thoughts on Newbery” posts.

Thoughts on Newbery: Wha…?

Thoughts on Newbery: Animal Fantasies

Thoughts on Newbery: Some Kids Weigh In

Thoughts on Newbery: “Now vee may perhaps to begin. Yes?”

Thoughts on Newbery: Shh, don’t tell Nina…

Thoughts on Newbery: Voice

Thoughts on Newbery: Suspense

Thoughts on Newbery: If Harry Potter Was Eligible Would I Nominate It?

Thoughts on Newbery: Reading Old and Young at the Same Time

Thoughts on Newbery: In The Style Of

Thoughts on Newbery: Historical Fantasy

Thoughts on Newbery: What About Sequels?

Thoughts on Newbery: Final Preparations

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CLNE: The Opening Page

Children’s Literature New England is a unique and wonderful organization that held the most wonderful summer institutes for twenty years. I started attending in 1999, was a speaker in 2005, and a book discussion leader for the final institute in 2006. Now, for anyone who wants a taste of CLNE, I highly recommend their new venture as described in the following email sent out to previous attendees a few days ago.

Dear friends,

We are delighted to announce CLNE’s exciting new venture, a colloquy titled THE OPENING PAGE to be held May 8-11, 2008 at the Inn at Essex in spectacular Vermont. The colloquy will feature superb speakers, including M.T. Anderson, Susan Cooper, Sarah Ellis, Janice Harrington, Arthur A. Levine, Katherine Paterson, Pam Muñoz Ryan, and Brian Selznick. The program builds on the solid work of two decades of CLNE summer institutes.

Visit our website http://www.clne.org for details and an online registration form. If you can attend, we recommend that you enroll quickly. Space is limited. We hope you can join us! We would appreciate it if you would forward news about the program to others who might be interested.

As we begin the new year, we remain grateful for the CLNE community. In that context we note the recent death of upstate New York school librarian and powerhouse enthusiast for books for the young, CLNE stalwart Micki Nevett. We also thank CLNE speaker and participant Monica Edinger for posting the eulogy for Micki on her blog, Educating Alice https://medinger.wordpress.com (see 12/20/08 posting for the eulogy). If you go to the 12/18/08 posting you can read or add to the many comments written in memory of Micki.

May we stay strong, stay brave, and may we see one another soon!

Cheers from the CLNE Board.

http://www.clne.org

clne@visi.com

Detailspotting

“Mostly, however, readers – and especially younger readers – wanted to know about the minutiae of how the fiction was stitched together. The children who asked questions or made comments almost all homed in on exact points of detail.” (From John Mullan’s “Material Worlds.”)

Educational philosopher Kieran Egan notes that collecting is particularly pronounced from ages 8 to 15. We think often of collections in terms of things — stuffed animals, plastic dinosaurs, every single Warrior book; but kids also collect information. Whether it is everything about the Yankees or Harry Potter, if it is something they adore they want to know it all. This helps explain, I think, why some are so attentive to details in beloved books. In the case of Harry Potter or His Dark Materials, those that are besotted with the worlds of those books want to know everything about them and so they collect every bit of information they can find about those worlds. John Mullan’s report on readers’ questions at a recent Guardian book club event with Philip Pullman is a great example of this.