It's never too early

If you haven’t already read it, and if you enjoy slow, sinking feelings about the state of the culture, click your way on over to this story in the Gray Lady about product placement in books for eight-year olds. This at HarperCollins, home of the Poppy Stories, among, of course, many others. There’s one (1) book yet to go in that series, by the by—but no word yet on whether the mouse prefers Nike or Converse. (I’m pushing for Dr. Martens.)

For those who want deep background or are just morbidly curious about this sort of thing, this blog submits Alyssa Quart’s Branded as well worth reading. (This even if the sexed-up cover makes you feel like you're reading just the sort of thing the book is critiquing. Those of you interested in jacket design will notice that some editions of Branded flash navel, and some don't. I guess you order from Amazon or Powell's depending on how sexy you feel at the moment. Eh—I digress. Read the book.)

A Blogger’s Valentine

It’s a pleasure to note here that Lightship was today announced as the winner of a Cybil for Best Nonfiction Picture Book of 2007! (A Cybil, or a Cybils? I have trouble with my singulars and plurals where the Cybils are concerned.) Regardless, it’s the Children’s & YA Bloggers’ Literary Awards. It was an honor to find Lightship among a great pack of nominees a few weeks back, and an honor to receive today's news. Thank you to the Cybils Team, the panelists and judges, and a high tip of the hat to Susan Thomsen for the original nomination!

Rand McNally it ain't

Here I am on the last (maybe next to last) leg of my Moonshot journey and I'm still for the first time coming across things like the online Consolidated Lunar Atlas. Just start clicking around. You will say "Whoa," even if you're not normally that type of person.

Evolution

When it rains it pours

And, Lightship is now an ALA Notable Book, and a finalist for a Cybils (Children’s & YA Bloggers’ Literary Awards), in the category Nonfiction Picture Book. Thank you librarians, and thank you bloggers!

Good news at sea

Last night, while burning the midnight oil on Moonshot (the 7:30 oil, actually), I had the good fortune to receive one of those mythic calls from an American Library Association meeting: the kind where a committee chairperson gives you good news while the rest of the committee cheers in the background. I’d heard tell of such calls, but this was my first, and the news was that Lightship was chosen as a Robert F. Sibert Honor Book. The Sibert Medal “is awarded annually to the author(s) and illustrator(s) of the most distinguished informational book published in English during the preceding year.” Peter Sís took home the Sibert this year (the gold one), for The Wall, and then Lightship and Nic Bishop's Spiders were the two Sibert Honor Books. Mitt Romney might point out that just because you win the silver in one event doesn’t mean you won’t win the gold in the next, but that’s beside the point. Though I was too frazzled by the inner workings of the Apollo 11 command module to convey fully my excitement when I got the call, this is great news for Lightship and I am indeed grateful to the committee for their recognition of the book. And, this comes on the heels of other good news, including the book’s inclusion in the New York Public Library’s annual 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing list, and its selection by Booklist as their Top of the List choice for picture book for 2007, a real honor. So, my sincere thanks to the committee at the Association for Library Service to Children, the New York Public Library, and Booklist. One would be a fool indeed to get into this business for the awards, but recognition of the work by people who take books as seriously as these librarians do is a gratifying, validating, and appreciated thing, and deserves the public thank you.

At the intersection of Lang and Lucas

Science-fiction films tend to fall into one of two camps: there are films which work in earnest to predict and portray things to come, and there are films which simply wrap sci-fi garb around good old pulp adventure and fantasy stories. It’s that former category that’s been most on the mind and DVD player as I’ve worked on Moonshot, well represented by Fritz Lang’s Frau im Mond, from 1929 (terrific, and the movie that gave us the countdown), Destination Moon, from 1950 (lousy, but with a few good visual moments), and Stanley Kubrik and Arthur C. Clarke’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, from 1968 (whoa, still). Some beautiful and prescient work in each of those movies.

And yet—it’s a sassy, take-charge gal with a distinctive hairdo from that second camp that keeps coming to mind as I paint the Lunar Module. It’s Princess Leia, and I keep hearing her say, “You came in that? You’re braver than I thought.”