Registered!

I'll be attending the ALSC Preconference "Drawn to Delight:  How Picture Books Work (and Play) Today" this June at the Corcoran.  I'm not a children's librarian, but I do work with children and art in museums using the Visual Thinking Strategies that inform Megan Lambert's Whole Book Approach to picture books.  If you're wondering what VTS and WBA are all about, I highly recommend (another acronym) SLJ's two-part series on "Art in Theory and Practice" by Wendy Lukehart (1/1 and 2/1/2010).  For more information about the preconference, see below:
 
"Drawn to Delight: How Picture Books Work (and Play) Today"
Friday, June 25 from 8:00 a.m. - 6:30 p.m., Washington, D.C.

Learn to better utilize picture books in your library's programming by seeing these books through the eyes of the people who create them!  Art directors, museum educators, and award-winning illustrators will take you through the creative and collaborative journey of picture book development during this inspirational Preconference at the Corcoran Galley of Art in Washington, D.C.  Studio demonstrations, hands-on opportunities and original art door prizes are just a few of the elements that await participants.
 
Why the ALSC Preconference?

• Provides you with a one of a kind look into the world of picture books--you won't find a more in-depth, day-long workshop on the subject anywhere else!
• Learn from more than 15 top authors and illustrators including three Caldecott medal winners, two Caldecott honor winners and one Belpré medal winner.
• Transfer the knowledge gained back to your library to provide better experiences for young patrons and families reading picture books.
• Hands-on opportunities during artist-lead small group studio sessions taking place throughout the gallery.
• Unbeatable ALSC member rate of $195 for the entire day; this includes: preconference registration, continental breakfast, lunch, evening reception, admission to the Corcoran Gallery of Art, and a chance to win original art work by the illustrators.
• If you're not attending the ALA Annual Conference that's not a problem!  You do NOT need to register for conference to attend the preconference.

Register here! 
Tickets: Advance: ALA Member $249; ALSC Member $195; Retired Member $180; Student Member $180; Non-Member $280.  Onsite cost is $325 for all.
Event Code: ALS1

[Me again.]  I hope to see you there!  Along with Jerry Pinkney, Brian Selznick, David Small, Laura Vaccaro Seeger, Kadir Nelson, Yuyi Morales, and Timothy Basil Ering.  But if you can't make it, not to worry:  I'll write about it here, too.

Pinkney's Lion and the Mouse lie down with the lamb

Or rather, the antelope.  One of my favorite details of Jerry Pinkney's Caldecott Medal-winning The Lion and the Mouse (Little, Brown, 2009) is the homage to Edward Hicks's Peaceable Kingdom paintings (with Serengeti animals) on the back cover, under the dust jacket.  Pinkney discussed the influence of Hicks and other artists on his work in The Lion and the Mouse in an interview with Reading Rockets ("A playful, peaceable kingdom"). 

We have a Peaceable Kingdom at the National Gallery, and I look forward to sharing Pinkney's interpretation of the theme with visiting students alongside Hicks's.  Thank you, Mr. Pinkney, and congratulations!

[Sadly, I don't have a digital image of Pinkney's Peaceable Kingdom to post; but you'll want to peek under the dust jacket of your own copy to find it anyway.]

Poetry on ice?

Literally, according to this reference in Louise Borden's The Greatest Skating Race: A World War II Story from the Netherlands (illustrated by Niki Daly; Margaret K. McElderry, 2004):

She could cut letters and words in the ice of the canal
with the blade of her skate,
like the long-ago Dutch poets.

Who were these Dutch poets?  Did they really cut poems in the ice?  Vondel and Bredero wrote poems about skating during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries (known as Europe's Little Ice Age), and some of Vondel's poems are even short enough to skate (two words: U / Nu!).  The whole thing is probably apocryphal, but it's a lovely image nonetheless.

[The painting is by Hendrick Avercamp, A Scene on the Ice (1625).  You might recognize it from Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian (actually, it belongs to the National Gallery, and you can skate there, too).]

Paint me a poem in reverse

I met Justine Rowden, author of Paint Me a Poem: Poems Inspired by Masterpieces of Art (Boyds Mills, 2005) at KidlitCon '09 (we had exchanged email before then, and she had kindly sent me a review copy of her book).  In Paint Me a Poem, Justine pairs each of thirteen paintings from the National Gallery of Art's collection with an original poem that offers just one new and unexpected way to look at it.

My favorite of Rowden's poems was inspired by Andre Derain's Flowers in a Vase, a still life I probably wouldn't have stopped to look at if I passed it in the Gallery.  Justine imagines two of the flowers (pink roses, also shown in a detail image) jostling one another for space in the vase.

The quality of the reproductions in Paint Me a Poem is excellent.  Unfortunately, as Justine informed me, the cover image of Cat and Kittens by an anonymous 19th century American artists was reversed!  The interior image is correct, and the book is being reprinted.  [Breaking news!  Laura at Author Amok reports that Paint Me a Poem has just been reprinted.]

What one detail of Cat and Kittens captures your imagination?  Poems welcomed but not required!

[Poetry Friday is at GottaBook today.  Thanks, Greg!]