New Día Booklist Brochures from ALSC

Interested in discovering recent books from cultures around the world? Would you like tips to share with parents and caregivers to help their child learn to read? Check out the latest Día book list brochure. Provided in PDF format, the brochure includes suggestions for children's books available in several languages, resource websites, and literacy tips. The literacy tips for parents are featured in English/Spanish; and now available in English/Chinese! Additional titles are featured in the book list addendum.

Also, there is still time to register your Día activities, where they will be shared with libraries across the country. You’ll receive complimentary stickers and buttons to promote your events. Parents and others interested in Día can search for local programs and events, and librarians can review activities to learn from your successes. Sign up now to register your Día 2012 program.

Information is available on the Día website.

Thank you to Linda Mays, ALSC Program Officer, for today's guest post.

Creativity Interview: Guadalupe Garcia McCall

I’ll begin by saying:  Who has her first book coming out this fall?  My guest Guadalupe Garcia McCall. Her verse novel, Under the Mesquite, will be published in September. I met Guadalupe through e-mail, and we soon discovered our many connections including a love of nature.  Congratulations on your verse novel, Guadalupe and welcome to Bookjoy Creativity Salon!

1. So how does it feel to have your first book published?
GGM: This is an amazing feeling, indescribable. When the ARCs first came in, I walked around the house holding it like a baby, carrying it everywhere. I would stand it on the counter and look at it while I cooked. I stood it next to me on my desk and watched it while I worked on novel number 2. I think I read it in ARC form like 20 times because it was such a dream come true.

2. Tell us about your publishing journey.


Under the Mesquite (Sept. 2011)

 GGM: It has really been quite a journey. Under the Mesquite started as a collection of poems I wrote over many years when I wanted to "show" my students how easy writing poetry can be. They would say, "This is hard," and I would show them how easy it was by just taking a memory and turning it into a poem in class. Of course, I had to rewrite it for every class, so by the end of the day, the poem was usually revised several times. I started collecting these "little poems" and when I had about 35 of them, I sent them out. Emily Hazel, my editor at Lee & Low, saw the potential for a novel in verse in them, and the rest is history.

3. Did you always want to be a writer?
GGM: Oh, yes, always. My first memories of writing are special. My father taught me to write so that I would be "prepared" for school in the United States. I loved listening to the pencil "whisper the words" as it travelled on the paper with his hand guiding mine. But the one who really put the idea in my head was my third grade teacher, Mr. Hernandez. After he read one of my stories (I was in a bilingual classroom, so I wrote it in Spanish) he asked me if I had written the story by myself. I said I had, and he said, "Someday, you're going to be a writer." Of course, hearing him say it cemented it in my head. It's amazing the profound effect a good teacher can have on us. If Mr. Hernandez hadn't said it quite like that, I might not have grown up believing it.

4. Have you always thought of yourself as creative? How do you nurture your creative life?
GGM: I have always loved the arts. My father, who was a carpenter, was very creative. He used to play the guitar, sing, and draw. One day, I came home from school crying because my teacher had given me a zero on a drawing of the earth. He sat down and taught me how "easy" drawing could be. It opened up the world of art for me.

My mother too was instrumental in helping me find my creativity. She recognized that I was "artistic" before I did and enrolled me in singing, dancing, and acting classes in Mexico when I was in elementary. I love to sing (although, I am not good at it) and still draw. I nurture my creative side by staying close to nature. I find nature is the most artistic entity of all. The movement of the elements as they interact is dance, the sounds of water and fire and air is music, and everything that happens on our planet is performance, and it's all out there, a feast for the senses, if we just open our eyes and feel and look with our hearts.

5. You are an experienced and committed teacher. What are your key challenges as a teacher? As a writer?
GGM: As a teacher and as a writer and as a mother and also as a person, I find that my biggest challenge in life is patience. I am not as patient as I'd like to be with myself or others. I like to finish things fast. I love movement and productivity. It comes from having two very hard working parents and also being somewhat of a perfectionist. So, every day I pray for patience and force myself to wait for perfection to come at its own pace and dressed in its own favorite outfit, not mine.

6. Are you working on other writing projects?
GGM: Oh yes. Absolutely. I am always writing. I finished revising Six Little Sisters last month. It is a multicultural novel (prose) with lots of magic realism, and I hope to find it a home someday soon. And now I am finishing up another novel-in-verse tentatively titled I Am Joaquin. It is a multicultural YA historical piece based on the conflicts in South Texas resulting from the Plan de San Diego in 1915. I have to say I am really taken by the voice of Joaquin and the story he has to tell. I Am Joaquin deals with rebellion and social injustice, but, at the heart of it, is a story about a boy, his family, and the girl he loves.

7. What do you do to relax?
GGM: Believe it or not, I write to relax. To sit in front of the computer means that I have time away from everything else that is ordinary and average. To sit in front of the computer means that I am on "vacation" from my life. I love to sit and daydream and think profoundly about life. Don't get me wrong, I am a social person. I have many friends and I love to talk, but to be able to sit and think, that is special. That's having time for myself. Time to do what I want.

More information:
Read an interview with Guadalupe at BookTalk on the Lee & Low website.
Visit Guadalupe's website.

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day to each of you who visits my blog! In Spanish, this day has various names. My favorite is El día del amor y de la amistad  because the name celebrates both love and friendship.

Love is all around ... all year long. My book for teens, Dizzy in Your Eyes, is a collection of 50 poems about love.

"Teachers in need of a fresh new avenue for teaching poetic form, lovers of language, and teens in search of a broader definition of love will find it here.” - School Library Journal



Introducing a Teacher and a Writer

Let me introduce you to two new friends, both bright and talented Latinas. I enjoyed lunch with each of them while we were at NCTE in Orlando last year. First, congratulations to Dr. Carol Brochín Ceballos for recently receiving the Outstanding University English Language Arts Educator Award from the Texas Council of Teachers of English Language Arts. Yea, Carol! Carol is a faculty member in the English Department at UT El Paso, the department I studied in for my Bachelors and Masters degrees. The program she's in didn't exist when I was a student in my home city. How the campus has changed, and Carol is a wonderful addition. Carol and I share the pleasure and perspectives of being from the Texas border.

Now let me introduce you to a new writer from Florida, Christina Díaz Gonzalez, who has published her first book, The Red Umbrella. How exciting! Her book is published by Knopf, a division of Random House that has been very supportive of my work including my work on Día. Christina, a lawyer, is teaching me about the Cuban experience in the U.S., especially in Florida. I'm wishing Christina a long and rewarding writing life.

1. Tell us about yourself.

CDG: I am the author of The Red Umbrella, a young adult novel that is loosely based on my parents’ and mother-in-law’s experience in coming to the U.S. from Cuba through the historic Operation Pedro Pan (the largest exodus of unaccompanied minors in the Western hemisphere---over 14,000 Cuban children were sent to the US by themselves during 1960-62). Having my debut novel published was a dream come true. I remember getting the call from my editor at Random House and how I literally did a "happy dance" when I realized people everywhere would be reading what I wrote. What made it made even more special was the fact that this book was a tribute to what my parents and the over 14,000 Cuban children experienced during Operation Pedro Pan. I was going to get to tell a version of the immigrant story and showcase that incredible spirit of American generosity. I couldn't have asked for more!

2. Do you think of yourself as creative?

CDG: This is an interesting question because I’ve never considered myself to be creative…I was just a girl with a very vivid imagination who loved to read and write. However, the more I think about it, I suppose all writers are creative… so yes, I guess I am creative!

3. How do you nurture your creativity?
CDG: I am inspired by so many things. Sometimes it’s art, music, books, movies, tv or just observing the world around me. I try to stay open to all ideas…wherever they come from.

4. What are your challenges in your creativity practices? Is fear an element?
CDG: Oh my, fear is ALWAYS something to be reckoned with and overcome. Self-doubt tries to rear its ugly head while I’m writing and it is a battle to ignore it. Then, when the book is done, there are the nagging questions of whether others will love it. I’ve found that the only way I can move forward is to focus on the story itself and trust that others will enjoy reading it as much as I enjoy writing it.

5. Do you have a space that helps you be more creative?
CDG: I don’t have one particular spot for creativity. It all depends on the book I’m writing. It seems that certain books call for me to be in a bright, sunny spot and other require a more gloomy setting.

6. How do you find time to be creative; to develop your creative life? Do you set aside a regular time each day or go on a retreat, etc?
CDG: I am always thinking of different stories and scenes for the book I may be writing, but I sometimes have to force myself to set aside time to put it all down on paper (or in my case type it on my laptop) because life (and laundry) seem to get in the way. Thankfully, I have a critique partner (similar to a gym partner) and we check-in with each other to make sure the writing gets done!

Teens Talk to Pat

Pat is the featured author on Random Buzz this week, February 1-5. Each day, she’ll respond to questions about her new book, Dizzy in Your Eyes: Poems about Love .

Random Buzz is an online book community that teens can come to, to discuss upcoming books and connect with other avid readers and authors. There are over 55,000 members. Random Buzz offers teens the opportunity to receive ARC’s, participate in activities hosted by the Head Buzzer, win rewards and review books.

Dizzy

  It’s always an exciting moment to hold a first copy of one of my books in my hands. I tend to stare at the envelope suspecting what’s inside. When a Texas librarian suggested the idea of writing a collection of love poems for teens, I was initially a bit hesitant since I always have a list of the books I want to write, and such a book had never been on my list.

I began the poems that became Dizzy in Your Eyes: Poems about Love in 2005 supported on the journey by Nancy Hinkel, my wonderful editor. I became more intrigued when teachers and librarians across the country encouraged me saying that boys and girls really liked love poems, that boys sometimes copied the poems and signed their names. Now, that’s an incentive. The book is about all kinds of love, and my hope is that any group or class each person will find at least one poem that speaks to him or her. Enjoy!