Behind the Book: MORIBITO: GUARDIAN OF THE SPIRIT

Today's Behind the Book is Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit by Nahoko Uehashi, translated by Cathy Hirano and edited by moi. I've already written a little bit about this book here and here, and I think it's brilliant -- fascinating and thought-provoking and exciting and moving, and, in its fight scenes, frankly kick-ass. (If you'd like a plot summary and some non-editorially-biased critical commentary, there's a terrific review up over at the YA YA YAs.) But I want to do something a little different for this BtB and explore not the artistry of the writing, but the artistry of the way in which the writing is delivered: the book design and specs (short for "special effects" or "specifications," which we use interchangeably in conversation). Thanks to designer Phil Falco and the good people of our manufacturing department, this book has a gorgeous, gorgeous package, and their work deserves as much recognition and explanation as any of the work we editors undertake; indeed, I love the look and feel of this book so much that I'm prone to stroking it whenever it's within arm's reach.


First we have the beautiful jacket, created by illustrator Yuko Shimizu. We wanted the cover to convey the book's action and strong central heroine, and to appeal to readers of both traditional novels and Japanese manga. When Phil and our art director Elizabeth Parisi brought Yuko to Arthur's and my attention, we looked through her website and saw that she plays often with all of these ideas, and we unanimously agreed that she was the perfect person to illustrate the novel. (Plus she was able to read the book in its original Japanese!) This cover shows a scene straight out of the first chapter: the female bodyguard Balsa rescuing Prince Chagum from a raging river. But when you unfold the whole jacket, it offers even more:

The broken bridge; the tumbling cart; the fierce soldiers: We loved the action of this image so much we gave the book extra-wide flaps (a la Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows) to provide that much more of the panorama. We also embossed the title and author's name on the front cover and spine, and we printed the whole on a special textured paper with its rough side out (again like the Harry Potter hardcovers).


Here are the endpapers -- bright red to set off the flaps and pick up Chagum's coat from the cover. Although you can't see it, they have a subtle cross-hatched texture to them. (I can't seem to make the image go horizontal in Blogger, sorry.)

Now we're tipping up the book to look at the spine and sides. The hard cover of a book is called its case, and when the front and back covers are one color and the spine is another, as here, it's called a three-piece case. (The paper or cloth that surrounds the case is known as the case cover.) The small strip of yellow just inside the spine, covering the glue, is called the headband; the one on bottom is called the footband.


Here you see the spine of the book, and the front case cover with its "blind stamp" -- an impression on the book with no ink involved. Case covers are also often stamped with foil (cf. Elizabeth's post on A Curse Dark as Gold).


Opening up the book, we see my favorite spec -- blue ink! Isn't that cool? Phil also designed this spring's Orchard Books fantasy novel The Ruby Key by Holly Lisle, and that one is printed in purple. Phil's page design looks both ancient (the distressed pattern, the flower motifs) and modern [the blocky display type, the mid-page folios (aka page numbers)], and he did some beautiful things with the title page and table of contents, especially. (How you can tell you are listening to a book dork: I get excited about tables of contents.)

Finally, Yuko created three gorgeous interior spreads to hint at the suspense and power of the action. Here's the first, but if you see the book, be sure to check out all three -- the last one may be my favorite, as it shows Balsa charging at the awesome, awful monster Rarunga. (And sorry this one's sideways -- Blogger problems again.)


I'm now editing the translation of the sequel (Moribito: Guardian of the Darkness), in which Balsa returns to her homeland of Kanbal and much excellent political drama/martial-arts fighting/emotional healing ensues; Yuko will again be doing the cover and interiors. This series is like no fantasy you've ever read, I promise, and it's eminently worth picking up if you like good fiction, great fantasy, literature in translation, or fine bookmaking.

Pet Plot Thoughts

Most of the April-May SQUIDs went out this week -- 68, I think, for the two-month period, of which 63 were "nos" -- and I believe I had three ms. about boys who wanted dogs. The main character is ALWAYS a BOY, and it is ALWAYS a DOG. When I was eight, I desperately wanted a cat. Why are there no books about girls who want cats? Or girls who want dogs, for that matter? Or boys who want cats? Does anyone keep potbellied pigs anymore? What about rabbits? Iguanas? Snakes? Guinea pigs?

In terms of child development, I understand the desire for a pet is generally read as the child's desire to take care of something (have power over it, if you like) as s/he is being taken care of -- the same instinct that leads kids to play with dolls or ask for little brothers or sisters. Not to mention, of course, entertainment or cuddle value. I did get a cat when I was eight -- a kitten we adopted from a nearby farm, and which I named Miranda -- but it scratched me every time I got close, and eventually I became scared of it, to the point that we had to return it to the farm. The two emotions I remember most clearly about the whole thing were my shock and fear when I woke to the cat sitting on my bed one morning, and my profound relief as we left her again at the farm. . . . If I were making this story into a text for publication instead of a random anecdote, the point I would probably try to make out of it is not that I wasn't ready for a cat (which may have been my parents' interpretation -- and which might also be true), but that I wasn't ready for that cat, or she wasn't ready for me. I had wanted any cat, and all cats are not created equal. What matters, as in most things, is finding the one that works with you.

Anyway. I guess indoor pets do not offer as many possibilities for plots as dogs do, as dogs can ramble all over the neighborhood with the main character and generally cause more trouble. But if the story is about the desire for a pet, why is it always dogs and boys? Or are there recent books I'm not aware of about cats or other non-canine pets? Your thoughts?

Of References and Readers

In the course of a recent child_lit discussion about food in children's literature, specifically in the Chronicles of Narnia, a listmember remarked "But [children] don’t easily tolerate something that’s assumed to be normal but isn’t normal to them. What do all our brilliant editors – Cheryl? – think on this point?" I wrote a response that I thought might interest some of you, so I'm cross-posting it here, with some amendments. (And yes, I admit I'm posting tonight partly to make another diagonal line in the calendar.)

I work on a lot of translations, so I usually deal with this problem not so much in terms of outdated references [the problem that Narnia presented us for discussion] as cultural unfamiliarity. . . . For instance, in the first-draft translation of our marvelous Japanese fantasy novel out this month, Moribito: Guardian of the Spirit, Chapter 2 described the main character as taking a bath indoors in a bathhouse, then going outdoors to another hot pool in the garden. This is of course entirely standard behavior in Japan, where bathhouses are an established part of the culture, but it would seem odd to an American child, who would be much more likely to view a bath as a place for hygiene than for relaxation or socialization (and two baths -- perish the thought!). Taken to the word level, this is also the debate over "Americanizing" British or Australian texts -- changing "jumpers" to "sweaters" -- and even in American books, we deal with it in "aging" a text: Will a third-grader understand the word "anticipation"?

The editorial options when faced with something that would likely be strange or difficult for the target audience are:
  1. To let it stand as-is: The reader can pick it up from context, or it's not significant enough in the overall reading experience to change, or it can be looked up, or it's a mystery whose answer they can discover as they age. (I'm still learning some of the references in the Lord Peter Wimsey novels -- "Vagula, blandula," anyone?)
  2. To emotionally contextualize the reference: The Narnian example we were dealing with on child_lit was that Father Christmas gives the Pevensies a tea tray for Christmas, which would be a wonderfully luxurious present amidst the privations of WWII but perhaps makes less sense to the well-fed children of the post-war years. But if the books were revised so it was established in the text that the Pevensies were usually very hungry, that they never saw sugar or hot tea or any of the other delicious things on a tea tray, then we readers might have the same reaction to the tea tray that they do, and the reference would make perfect sense. [Note that I am not advocating that such a change be made -- I'm just observing one way that the problem might be solved.] Or, in the third-grade book, if you see the kid simmering with excitement about getting to see his new baby brother, jumping up and down as his father escorts him down the halls of the hospital, then the meaning of "anticipation" should be clear.
  3. To explain the reference outside the narrative text: For instance, in the lovely Australian novel The Slightly True Story of Cedar B. Hartley, which we published a few years ago, my boss Arthur Levine suggested to the author, Martine Murray, that we add a glossary at the back of the book to define fun Aussie terms like "footy" and "drongo" and "hoon around." This allowed us to keep those words but also to feel that the reader wouldn't be totally lost in the language. E. Lockhart also does this in her most excellent The Boyfriend List and The Boy Book -- the main character Ruby Oliver is a huge movie buff, and when she refers to an old film most contemporary teenagers might not have seen, she uses a footnote to explain the reference. (E. recently had a post on her blog asking teenage readers to fill out a survey about what references they recognized and what needed footnotes for the third Ruby book -- a pretty smart use of the Internet, I thought.)
  4. To change it: "jumper" to "sweater," or "anticipation" to "excitement," or just by adding a little context. In our wonderful Spring 2009 novel Marcelo in the Real World, the religiously-interested narrator refers in passing to Ezekiel jumping on dry bones. The reference made sense to me, thanks to many hours spent in Baptist Sunday Schools, but I knew other readers may not have had such a religious education, so I suggested to Francisco that we add the phrase "in the Bible" to tell these readers where "Ezekiel" came from. The line now reads something like, "I think of Ezekiel in the Bible, jumping on dry bones" -- a change that barely slowed up the action and yet made the reference clear.
  5. To delete the reference altogether if it's not fully necessary in the text.
When I come upon a reference or word that gives me pause, and which I think might cause the child reader pause in turn, I try to figure out which approach to the difficulty seems to be the right one -- including, of course, leaving it alone -- and then I suggest that to the author or translator. We discuss it as needed (sometimes extensively) and settle on a plan of attack. All of these decisions are made on a case-by-case basis, as what works for one book may not work in another, and a reference that doesn't work at one point in the book may be perfectly fine later. To return to the Moribito example, the translator (Cathy Hirano), author (Nahoko Uehashi), and I decided to cut the reference to the first of the two baths, because:
  1. The baths took place early in the book, so the reader may not have fully committed to the story, and we didn't want to give that reader an excuse to put the book down because s/he found something difficult or weird. If the two-bath reference had come in chapter 12 or 13, say, instead of chapter 2, when the reader is fully invested in the characters and the (awesome, unlike-any-Western-fantasy-you'll-read, kick-ass) action, then we might have left it alone.
  2. Along similar lines, the main plot of the book has not yet started (that happens in the very next scene), so having two baths was slowing up our getting to that action.
  3. While the book draws on elements of Japanese culture, it is a fantasy set in a fantasy world, so we were neither being untrue to Japanese culture nor losing the opportunity to teach children about it by changing the reference.
And that is the way it was published. We editors think about this a LOT, trying to imagine our ideal reader for each book, what that reader will tolerate, what adult gatekeepers think child readers will tolerate, whether the reference really detracts from the pleasure of the book (my first priority in editing as in reading -- pleasure), and so forth. But the final decision is always the author's.

In the followup discussion, another listmember posted a link to a fascinating article by the British author Anne Fine on updating her own books' references: Read it here.

Utter Silliness

I am posting today for the sole pleasure of making a little diagonal line in the calendar on the right. See it? Whee!

But in order to make up for wasting your time:
  • The Reading Reptile, a most excellent independent children's bookstore in my dear hometown of Kansas City, MO, is holding a Debt Depletion Auction featuring many signed books and original picture-book art. There's some awesome stuff there, like the original Arlene Sardine cover art or paintings by Jon J Muth, and three days left to bid -- have at it!
  • A fabulous mac-and-cheese recipe (via Jeremiah).
  • Things I highly recommend to you: in movie theatres, Ironman; on Broadway, August: Osage County; in children's books reading, The Penderwicks on Gardam Street; on the Internet, Roger Ebert's new blog.
  • And the Happiness of the Week: It carries me up to Prospect Heights and down to Kensington; it's usually on time, even though I'm often not on time for it. It is rarely overcrowded, and its staffpeople unfailingly polite. My thanks to you,
the B67 bus!!!

Three Links That Made Me Laugh Hard This Week

The World Beard and Mustache Championships

Actual text from the website: "With his superstyled partial beard which NPR's Robert Siegel once dubbed a 'hair pretzel,' Willi Chevalier practically owns the partial beard freestyle category. Indeed, Willi has won this category at all WBMCs in memory with the exception of the 2003 WBMC when he was on injured reserve following an unfortunate encounter with a power drill." Check out all the photos in the gallery.

Joe Posnanski's Account of His Best Sportswriting Day Ever

"The first question came, and it was something like: 'So, did you think you had it in you to beat the great and unbeatable Russian?'

"And Rulon Gardner said: 'Well, when I was growing, I used to wrestle cows on our dairy farm …'"

Sarah Jessica Parker's Hat in This Picture

Like Dr. Seuss and Patricia Field started an accessories line together. The Fug Girls are their usual brilliant selves in the dialogue.

Welcome to the Neighborhood


My thought process on seeing this yesterday:
  1. Oh wow -- ninjas live in Park Slope!
  2. But wait -- the true ninja would never advertise his or her whereabouts so crudely. Therefore, ninjas do not live in Park Slope.
  3. But the true ninja would know that his or her enemies would think that the true ninja would never advertise his or her whereabouts so crudely. Thus the true ninja might go ahead and advertise his or her whereabouts in just that fashion to lull the enemies into a relaxed stupor and slay them. Therefore, ninjas live in Park Slope.
  4. But the enemies would know that the true ninja would know that the enemies would think that the true ninja would never advertise his or her whereabouts so crudely. Therefore, the enemies would not fall for the ploy; therefore, the true ninja would not make such a ploy; therefore, the sign-writer is lying, and ninjas do not live in Park Slope.
  5. But the true ninja would know that the enemies would know . . .
  6. Ad infinitum.
  7. Perhaps the ninja's enemies marked his or her house so that other enemies would know where the ninja lives and kill the ninja on behalf of the first enemies.
  8. Or perhaps it's actually the first enemies' house and the ninja marked it so that the second enemies would kill the first enemies.
  9. Or perhaps it's a decoy house to draw out all the enemies, and the ninja actually lives next door.
  10. The Ninja Next Door: Now there's a title for a picture book.
  11. Perhaps the Staten Island ninja has moved to Brooklyn!
  12. Perhaps a ninja is behind me right now.
  13. (And as you're reading this, one could be behind you.)
  14. . . .
  15. . . .
  16. . . .
  17. Perhaps I should stay away from that street.

The Quote File: Sentences

"I'm probably more interested in sentences than anything else in life." -- Tom Robbins

"My sentences are all I have. My life has always been an engagement with words. I do not have very much of a physical life. I write, I edit, I teach. And in all of these activities the focus of my attention is sentences. Sentences are continuous with my inmost being." -- Gordon Lish

"The sentence is my primary element, my tool, goal, bliss. Each new sentence is a heart-in-the mouth experiment." -- Cynthia Ozick

"My whole theory of writing I can sum up in one sentence: An author ought to write for the youth of his own generation, the critics of the next, and the schoolmasters of ever afterward." -- F. Scott Fitzgerald

"You must convince yourself that you are working in clay and not marble, on paper and not eternal bronze; let that first sentence be as stupid as it wishes. No one will rush out and print it as it stands. Just put it down; then another." -- Jacques Barzun

"All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence you know." -- Ernest Hemingway

"To get the right word in the right place is a rare achievement. To condense the diffused light of a page of thought into the luminous flash of a single sentence, is worthy to rank as a prize composition just by itself. . . . Anybody can have ideas--the difficulty is to express them without squandering a quire of paper on an idea that ought to be reduced to one glittering paragraph." -- Mark Twain

"It is my aim, and every effort bent, that the sum and history of my life, which in the same sentence is my obit and epitaph too, shall be them both: He made the books and he died." -- William Faulkner

Happinesses of the Week

Two Happinesses this weekend, for whichever week you care to count them. On Friday Jeremiah and his lovely wife 2.0 (long story) took me and another friend to his parents' house in central upstate New York. From there we all took a day trip to Cooperstown and the Baseball Hall of Fame, which is a beautiful and entertaining place, if sadly lacking in Royals information and memorabilia. (The Boys in Blue get one display about half the size of a batters' box, while the St. Louis Cardinals are everywhere . . . which may indeed be their respective contributions to baseball history, but I was indignant on behalf of my hometown.) Anyway, the best part of the weekend was the people I was with -- especially Jeremiah's parents, who were kind and generous and funny and wise and excellent cooks. So in gratitude to both couples, young and older:

The Conways!!!

Then after we returned to Brooklyn, I went for my Sunday run in Prospect Park, and this came up on the iPod:



"Jesus Walks" by Kanye West. I am not giving it the typical large-red-letter three-exclamation-mark treatment because while it's a Happiness aesthetically -- a terrific song with witty, meaningful lyrics (and, speaking personally, a beat that is just right for my running pace) -- it also has a great and important message that is worthy of a little more seriousness, and one that everyone should listen to. If you've never heard the song or seen the video before, please watch it. (It gives me goosebumps.) Kanye has also made two other videos for the song that serve as companions: Part 2, Part 3.

"Poetics" by Howard Nemerov

You know the old story Ann Landers tells
About the housewife in her basement doing the wash?
She's wearing her nightie, and she thinks, "Well hell,
I might's well put this in as well," and then
Being dripped on by a leaky pipe puts on
Her son's football helmet; whereupon
The meter reader happens to walk through
And "Lady," he gravely says, "I sure hope your team wins."

A story many times told in many ways,
The set of random accidents redeemed
By one more accident, as though chaos
Were the order that was before creation came.
That is the way things happen in the world,
A joke, a disappointment satisfied,
As we walk through doing our daily round,
Reading the meter, making things add up.

Squids 101: What I Like to See in an Artist's Portfolio

I went to an SCBWI portfolio viewing at the Society of Illustrators this afternoon. All of the portfolios there were very organized and professional, but for the benefit of illustrators who may not have had much guidance in putting a portfolio together, here are some things I like to see in them:
  • Your best work. Don't put substandard pieces in your portfolio just to fill out the book.
  • All the styles and/or media you feel proficient in. If you're comfortable doing black-and-white line art as well as watercolor and acrylic, feel free to put all three in, though I then suggest organizing the portfolio by medium so I can look at your style and skill in each one. Some illustrators create a separate portfolio for each style/medium, which is good to see if we're having a one-on-one critique, but less practical for general portfolio viewings like today's.
  • Illustrations involving human beings, particularly children, but also covering a decent range of ages, races, genders, settings, and especially expressions. I don't mean that you have to have twenty portraits in your portfolio where the first is an old black woman rejoicing, the next a two-year-old Asian boy crying, the third George Clooney beaming: Just be sure that your illustrations include more than smiling white people.
  • N.B.I.: It's the smiling there that can really annoy me -- when I look at a picture of 10 kids on a school bus, say, and all of them have the exact same vacant beaming expression, then you're not creating individual characters so much as a group stare, which might feel warm but will also feel flat. I'm looking for the individuality that comes out of your characters -- a sense of how real and alive those people are, no matter what medium or style you use.
  • N.B.II.: If you are at all inclined towards caricature or portraiture, it's nice and fun to include a portrait or illustration of some easily recognizable famous figure as rendered by you. (Andy Rash and Sean Qualls are experts at this.) This allows me to get a quick handle on your style by seeing how it compares to the real person. Moreover, the biographical picture book is alive and well, so it's good to know you can recreate real people with accuracy and verve.
  • Illustrations involving animals, either anthropomorphized or real -- whatever your style is best suited for. I would suggest that you have at least two or three of the following common picture-book animals somewhere in your portfolio: a dog, a cat, a dinosaur, a cow, a pig, a chicken, a duck, a horse, a rabbit, a wolf, an elephant, a mouse, a tiger.
  • While we're talking common subjects, it could be useful and fun to have pieces showing your unique take on any of the following: a ballet class; firefighters or fire trucks (or other cars and trucks); a farm; dinosaurs (again); a goodnight scene. These subjects may be familiar, but they never go away completely, and we'll always be looking for new takes on these old stories. (This is not a requirement by any means.)
  • A few (3-4) pieces with the same subject, ideally a few consecutive spreads from the same story (extra points for having the text on the page). This could be an original story or a familiar text -- Mother Goose rhymes and fairy tales are good choices for their familiarity (though I must say that most first-time illustrators will probably not be able to get either a Mother Goose book or a fairy tale retelling published in an overcrowded market). This allows me to see how you handle the same characters in different perspectives, positions, and situations; what parts of the written narrative you choose to highlight in your picture; how you transition from one scene/emotional atmosphere to another; and how you choose to advance the story through your illustrations.
  • Better still: A sketch dummy of your current project, with perhaps one piece of final art. It is probably not wise to make full final art of a book until it's sold, as the editor and art director will likely have some suggestions for you, but I love seeing sketch dummies, as they show how you sustain a story over 32 pages and how you handle your characters and their emotions.
  • N.B.: It's fairly common to see a couple of consecutive letters from an ABC in a portfolio, and while it's always interesting, it ends up being more of a stylistic demonstration than a narrative one. If you're going to spend the pages in a portfolio, narrative progression is generally more compelling, revealing, and useful.
  • If you have an interest in doing book jackets for novels, make some mockups of new jackets for already published books. I'll throw out three covers that could be fascinating to revisit: Eragon by Christopher Paolini, Twilight by Stephenie Meyer, and Saffy's Angel by Hilary McKay. (Not that there's anything wrong with those original covers -- just that they provide a wide range of subject matter and characters for you to reillustrate.)
  • A few pieces showing the thing you're most passionate about or you most enjoy illustrating (if they weren't already incorporated in the above). That will likely be the thing you're best at illustrating as well, and it's great to know you're fantastic at and love to create sea scenes, for example, in case a manuscript set on the beach comes across my desk.
  • Samples, postcard-size or larger, including your name, phone number, e-mail address, snail-mail address, and website, and at least one piece of your very best work, as chosen by a couple of honest friends. A good sample makes me think, in order, (1) "Ooh, I love this piece!" (2) "Ooh, I want to see more!" and (3) "Ooh, I'll check out her website right now!" Any sample smaller than a postcard means it's difficult to see the art properly and start the process at (1), which is why I request that specifically.
  • N.B.: If you have not yet published a book and you do not have a website, please make one. I have heard illustrators say that it's difficult to maintain a website on top of everything else they have to do for their careers, and I sympathize; but there is no better way (besides this portfolio) to show me the whole range of what you're capable of, and sometimes a website is even better, as I can share it more quickly with colleagues and access it 24/7. Even a blogspot account (a la Dan Santat) is useful in showing the range of your work and the new stuff you're working on.
When I look at a portfolio, what I'm really trying to see is the illustrative equivalent of a writer's voice: the kinds of things you like to draw; your skill at rendering real life (even if said life involves dragons or fairies); the qualities of your unique style; how that style transforms real life; its emotional range; how that style might be applied to the manuscripts I have on my desk or future manuscripts that might come my way. So it is important to note that the bullet points above are all suggestions and not prescriptions: If you don't like drawing animals and you're not good at them, then by golly don't include them in your portfolio. Show me who you are illustratively, what you're good at and what you have a passion for, and the best projects will come out of those things.

For further advice on picture-book publishing, I recommend Marla Frazee's website (click on "Studio") and, always, the list of SCBWI Publications. And any editors, designers, or artists who happen to read this, please feel free to offer your own suggestions as well.

Baby Got Book

(Inspired by this shirt on ShelfTalker, I wrote new lyrics for this classic Sir Mix-A-Lot song of my youth.)

[Female voice]
Oh, my, god, Becky, look at her book. It is so big. *scoff* She looks like, one of those, librarians' girlfriends. But, you know, who understands those librarians? *scoff* They only talk to her, because, she looks like a total bibliovore, 'kay? I mean, her book, is just so big. *scoff* I can't believe it's just so thick. It's like, out there. I mean -- gross. Look! She's just so ... smart!

[Sir Reads-a-Lot]
I like big books and I can not lie
You other brothers can't deny
That when a girl walks in with a big fat book
And glasses on her face
You're all thrilled, wanna talk to her quick
'Cause you notice she's reading Dickens
Deep in the tote she's carrying
I'm hooked and I can't stop staring
Oh baby, I wanna get with you
And read you all night
My homeboys tried to adjust me
But that text you got makes me Book Lust-y
Ooh, Tolkein -- elves!
You say you wanna get in my shelves?
Well, use me, use me
'Cause you ain't that average bookie
I've seen them readin'
To hell with their speedin'
She's Zinn, Prynne,
Got it goin' like Jane Austen
I'm tired of magazines
Sayin' e-readers are the thing
Take the average intellectual and ask him that
She gotta cook much book
So, fellas! (Yeah!) Fellas! (Yeah!)
Has your girlfriend got big books? (Hell yeah!)
Tell 'em to read it! (Read it!) Read it! (Read it!)
Read that healthy tome!
Baby got book!

(LA face with New York volume)
Baby got book!

I like pages galore
And when I'm in an indie bookstore
I just can't help myself, I'm actin' like an animal
Now here's my scandal
I wanna take 'em all home
And uhh, double-up, uhh, uhh
I ain't talking 'bout Dan Brown
'Cause his books are made for clowns
I want 'em real thick and juicy
So find that juicy novel
Reads-A-Lot will grovel
Beggin' for a piece of that cover
So I'm lookin' at bestsellers
Patterson and them fellers --
Give me Joseph Heller
And I'll keep my women fine spellers
A word to the bookmarked sisters, I wanna get with ya
Good grammar's my bit, yeah
And I gotta be straight when I say I wanna *read*
Till the break of dawn
Tolstoy got it goin' on
A lot of simps won't like this song
'Cause them punks like to slim it and skim it
And I'd rather drink and think
'Cause I'm glossy, and I'm saucy
And I'm down to be your Mr. Darcy
So, ladies! (Yeah!) Ladies! (Yeah!)
You wanna roll in my barouche? (Hell yeah!)
Then open up! Ain't no doubt!
Even Steve Jobs got to shout
Baby got book!

Baby got book!
Yeah, baby ... when it comes to females, Cosmo ain't got nothin' to do with my selection. Two hundred pages? Ha ha, only if that's one chapter.

So your girlfriend reads like Ripa, with audiobooks on her speakers
But audio ain't the same thing, it's just cheatin'
My tall bookshelves they don't want none
Unless you've got spine, hon
You can do side bends or sit-ups
But please don't lose that brain
Some brothers full of folderol
Gonna tell you that your books ain't gold
So they don't beck you, reject you
And I pull up quick to recheck you
So Cosmo says it's bad to be smart
That ain't my library cart!
'Cause your mind is open and your curves are kickin'
And I'm thinkin' 'bout stickin'
To Paris and Lindsay in the magazines:
You ain't it, Miss Thing!
Give me a reader, I'll feed her,
Pullman and Franzen need her
Some knucklehead tried to dis
'Cause Harry Potter's on your list
Guy might read but he's still a fool
Eight hundred pages so cool
So ladies, if lit's your love
And you wanna make like Nabokov
Dial 1-800-READSALOT
And we'll read those banned novels.
Baby got book!

(Little in the middle but she got much book) [4x]

"Since There's No Help," by Michael Drayton

Since there's no help, come, let us kiss and part,
Nay, I have done, you get no more of me,
And I am glad, yea, glad with all my heart,
That thus so cleanly I myself can free.
Shake hands for ever, cancel all our vows,
And when we meet at any time again
Be it not seen in either of our brows
That we one jot of former love retain.
Now at the last gasp of Love's latest breath,
When, his pulse failing, Passion speechless lies,
When Faith is kneeling by his bed of death,
And Innocence is closing up his eyes,
Now, if thou wouldst, when all have giv'n him over,
From death to life thou might'st him yet recover.

Picking Up the Place

I fooled around a little bit over on my website tonight, updating the annotated list of books I've edited and my speaking engagements for the rest of the year. I forgot to add that I've agreed to be the workshop leader for the Missouri SCBWI Spring 2009 retreat in Hermann, which will focus on novel revision, building off many of the ideas in "The Art of Detection."

It is a sad, sad thing that I keep getting behind on my Happinesses of the Week. But here they are for the last two weeks:

The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins!!!

The kick-ass YA action must-read of Fall 2008, published by the good people of Scholastic Press. There has been buzz going around about this book in-house since the manuscript arrived last summer, and I finally received an ARC a couple weeks ago. You can read a plot summary here, but that doesn't convey the sheer suspense and urgency of this book. . . . There is action or a major plot twist in every chapter (the great genius of The Lightning Thief and its sequels too, you'll note), but more importantly Katniss is a fabulous protagonist, equal parts cold-blooded competitor and sympathetic teenage girl, and the writing is lean and strong, just like her. (And there's romance, too!) I finished it in two days and loved every minute. Watch for it this autumn.

And for last week:

My Captain Underpants erasers!!!

My authors know I am slightly fetishistic about these erasers, which Scholastic gave out as a promotional item some years ago. I snagged a whole package of them from Marketing once, and I guard them jealously, as they make red pencil, green pencil, blue pencil, you name it, disappear like the Captain in pursuit of Professor Poopypants.

Finally, the Happiness for this week:

America's Next Top Model!!!

This show is usually a top competitor for "Frivolous Reality Show that Takes Itself Way Too Seriously," mostly thanks to Tyra, but everyone seems to be having a lot of fun this cycle, and so this is the best season in a long time. My money is on Anya to take it all, but you never know who the judges might turn on next . . .

End of update. And someday I will post something serious and substantive again, I swear.

A Request from Arthur

Arthur asked me to pose the following question here:

I’m scheduled to do a Q&A session at this coming weekend’s SCBWI conference in Washington, that has the following description:

“What the heck is an eff’n Gee?”: An editor answers your questions about the mysterious language of publishing.” And further description might be: "Come prepared with questions you’ve had about the publishing process: from confusing technical language you’ve heard and read, to difficult concepts you’ve struggled with in group and individual feedback. Arthur Levine will do his best to demystify and enlighten.”

What I’m looking for are some other good examples of confusing or opaque lingo that I should come prepared to discuss at this session….

Care to chime in? Leave your editorial head-scratchers in the comments and he shall answer all this weekend. (He also has been known to post his talks over at http://www.arthuralevinebooks.com/blog.asp, so keep an eye out over there.)


Eye of the Tiger

This is pretty brilliant. (Hillary supporters: Please approach with a sense of humor.) Via Andrew Sullivan:



James and I volunteered for Barack's campaign in Philadelphia on Saturday, going door-to-door in North Philly. In doing so, I realized that the most important thing about his candidacy for me really is his character, just like that video says: that he understands and embraces complexity and nuance. That he spoke up for Hillary when people booed her at one of his rallies yesterday. That he has taken the long view on many issues, like nukes and the home foreclosure crisis. That he is a good writer, as his marvelous "A More Perfect Union" speech showed. I am not saying he's perfect -- no politician is -- but I think he has demonstrated the wisdom, vision, and organization that make him the right person to lead our country out of the morass of the Bush years, and I hope he wins tomorrow and becomes our candidate.

That is all.

"homage to my hips" by Lucille Clifton

Audio, read by the poet

these hips are big hips
they need space to
move around in.
they don't fit into little
petty places. these hips
are free hips.
they don't like to be held back.
these hips have never been enslaved.
they go where they want to go.
they do what they want to do.
these hips are mighty hips.
these hips are magic hips.
i have known them
to put a spell on a man and
spin him like a top!

My 500th Post, Just As I Like It

Three years and a bit, some good thoughts (I hope), and much silliness: 500 posts. I thought about posting "The Anniversary" by John Donne, one of my very favorite poets (and a poem which gets quoted in Busman's Honeymoon, if you, like me, enjoy tracking down Dorothy Sayers's references); but then I thought it would be more appropriate to post a bit of the play after which this blog is named, As You Like It. This is from my favorite scene, Rosalind's School of Love (to quote Harold Bloom), Act IV, Scene i:

ROSALIND
Am not I your Rosalind?
ORLANDO
I take some joy to say you are, because I would be talking of her.
ROSALIND
Well, in her person, I say I will not have you.
ORLANDO
Then in mine own person I die.
ROSALIND
No, faith, die by attorney. The poor world is almost six thousand years old, and in all this time there was not any man died in his own person, videlicit, in a love-cause. Troilus had his brains dashed out with a Grecian club; yet he did what he could to die before, and he is one of the patterns of love. Leander, he would have lived many a fair year, though Hero had turned nun, if it had not been for a hot midsummer night; for, good youth, he went but forth to wash him in the Hellespont and being taken with the cramp was drowned and the foolish coroners of that age found it was 'Hero of Sestos.' But these are all lies: men have died from time to time and worms have eaten them, but not for love.
ORLANDO
I would not have my right Rosalind of this mind, for, I protest, her frown might kill me.
ROSALIND
By this hand, it will not kill a fly. But come, now I will be your Rosalind in a more coming-on disposition, and ask me what you will. I will grant it.
ORLANDO
Then love me, Rosalind.
ROSALIND
Yes, faith, will I, Fridays and Saturdays and all.
ORLANDO
And wilt thou have me?
ROSALIND
Ay, and twenty such.
ORLANDO
What sayest thou?
ROSALIND
Are you not good?
ORLANDO
I hope so.
ROSALIND
Why then, can one desire too much of a good thing?

. . . . . . .
ROSALIND
Now tell me how long you would have her after you
have possessed her.
ORLANDO
For ever and a day.
ROSALIND
Say 'a day,' without the 'ever.' No, no, Orlando; men are April when they woo, December when they wed: maids are May when they are maids, but the sky changes when they are wives. I will be more jealous of thee than a Barbary cock-pigeon over his hen, more clamorous than a parrot against rain, more new-fangled than an ape, more giddy in my desires than a monkey: I will weep for nothing, like Diana in the fountain, and I will do that when you are disposed to be merry; I will laugh like a hyen, and that when thou art inclined to sleep.
ORLANDO
But will my Rosalind do so?
ROSALIND
By my life, she will do as I do.
ORLANDO
O, but she is wise.
ROSALIND Or else she could not have the wit to do this: the wiser, the waywarder: make the doors upon a woman's wit and it will out at the casement; shut that and 'twill out at the key-hole; stop that, 'twill fly with the smoke out at the chimney.

And my other favorite lines from this play:

All Thou Writers for Children

Hie thee over to Todd Alcott's LiveJournal and read his reflections on E.T.: the Extraterrestrial. If E.T. were a book, it would be a perfect middle-grade fantasy novel, for all the reasons Mr. Alcott describes. Pay special attention to the advice (both Mr. Alcott's and Bob Dylan's) to "invert the cliche," and to the fact that all great fantasy has a larger emotional or moral metaphor working within it. . . . That's what separates the Rowlings and Pullmans and Constables from the people who play with elves and dragons.

That said, I can guess why Mr. Alcott's six-year-old son prefers Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark to E.T. -- it is much easier and more pleasurable to identify with heroes and fighters against the Dark Side than it is to identify with Elliott, who starts out as your standard unpowerful (and kind of whiny) eleven-year-old middle child, and then achieves a domestic greatness (he helps a friend) rather than a lasting heroic one. That domestic greatness sets him on the way to later heroic greatness, certainly, but the pleasures of this particular journey may be better understood and appreciated by adults than by children. So perhaps E.T. wouldn't make a perfect middle-grade fantasy novel, but a perfect adult fantasy novel about a middle-grader -- the 1980s California alien equivalent of Jim the Boy. Hmm.

"When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer," by Walt Whitman

When I heard the learn’d astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander’d off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

+++

This month is proving too crazy to post a poem a day for National Poetry Month again, but I am going to try to share some old favorites, and I hope you are all out there reading and writing and reciting and remembering it every day of the year.