Lamp Lighters and Seed Sowers: Tomorrow's YA (keynote address for Publishing Perspectives Conference: YA: What's Next?)

I'm honored to be giving the keynote address at the upcoming Publishing Perspectives Conference, "YA: What's Next?," which will be held this coming Wednesday in the Scholastic Building in New York City.

My talk, "Lamp Lighters and Seed Sowers: Tomorrow's YA," will feature illustrations by my husband-collaborator, William R. Sulit.  These images have been modeled with 3-D software and amplified by small human interventions, including the lovely "real" hand shown here, which was donated to the cause by my niece, Miranda.

If any of you wish to attend this half-day event—which will feature Ellie Berger, Carl Kulo, David Levithan, Eliot Schrefer, Mara Anastas, Jennifer Brown, Andrew Losowsky, and many more—let me know.  I might just have a discount coupon for you.

Opening words from my talk:

In the days following the colossal storm called Sandy, stories held us captive, terrifying aerial views, the news that began to leak in from friends.  Trash bags strapped on like shiny boots, brand-new adults walked through rising fumes and fresh flotsam, looking for signs of ordinary life.  Heartbroken by saturated eggplants and devastated garden fruits, they crouched to gather seeds.  Asking What can we do?, they collected blankets, baked tins of lasagna, emptied their personal libraries of books and took their spontaneous gifts into darkened neighborhoods.  Meanwhile, the 19-year-old Rutgers student who lost both her parents to a capsized tree and will now raise three younger siblings on her own, was reaching into some impossible well of suddenly-now-adultness to help others suffering the ravages of weather.

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Returning to New York City for the Publishing Perspectives YA: What's Next Conference

We have felt—we still feel—paralyzed by the storm.  Those of us who love New York City and the Jersey Shore, those with friends in Connecticut and south, have watched the news and wondered about how those affected will survive the immediate flood waters and losses, and about how we, entrusted with this world, will somehow correct the devastating weather course we are on.  We have thought about those who died in the terror of the moment.

Shortly before the storm hit, I was invited by Dennis Abrams to return to New York City on November 28th for the second Publishing Perspectives conference, this one titled:  "YA: What's Next."  I said yes in a second (ask Dennis).  The first Publishing Perspectives conference was so well conducted, so informative and classy, that it is a thrill to return, this time as a panel moderator, to that Scholastic stage, where Taylor Swift sat in her signature red not so long ago.

I am always grateful on those days when I travel to New York City.  I know I will feel especially grateful for the ground beneath my feet as I make my way to the Scholastic headquarters on Wednesday, November 28, for the half-day event (9 AM to 1 PM).

I'll be moderating the panel, "YA: What's Next," where I'll be joined by David Levithan (author and VP and Publisher at Scholastic Trade), Francine Lucidon (owner of The Voracious Reader Bookstore), and Eliot Schrefer (2012 National Book Award finalist).

The full slate of speakers can be found at the link here. 

Finally, thank you to Ed Nawotka, the editor-in-chief of Publishing Perspectives, who has published so many of my stories on people who matter in publishing—Ruta Sepetys, Tamra Tuller, Michael Green, Lauren Wein, Pamela Paul, Jennifer Brown, Vaddey Ratner, Alane Salierno Mason, Eric Hellman, among them.  Click here to read my most recent story, an interview with 2012 National Book Award finalist Patricia McCormick.

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Endangered/Eliot Schrefer: Reflections

Hold a book in your lap and it will take you some place.  If you let it take you.

This morning I have sat with Eliot Schrefer's Endangered, which is to say that I've been living in the Congo.  That skittering spectrum of butterflies.  That sizzle of manioc and wild garlic.  Those high, rattling screams of animals, and of war. 

Sophie, our guide, is a teen whose American father lives in Miami, and whose mother has stayed behind in her own country to lead a bonobo sanctuary.  In the opening pages, Sophie saves an orphaned bonobo from a cruel fate by buying him from a starving pedestrian.  It's not the right way to save this endangered species, but it is the only way, and soon Sophie, now at living for the summer at her mother's sanctuary, becomes this scrawny, mangled Otto's best friend. 

Paradise is, however, short-lived.  A coup has occurred.  All madness breaks out in a part of the world whose mineral resources make it wealthy beyond compare, but whose people have learned to live with little and survive on less.  Sophie will have to journey through a war-torn country to safety.  She will have to earn the trust of bonobos, find a way to eat, determine what matters most, keep her Otto safe, allow Otto to protect her.  She will have to understand love and its limits.  Along the way Schrefer's readers come to know a part of the world and a species of animal that deserves our knowing—and attention.

Schrefer comes by his love for bonobos honestly, having spent some time in the Congo himself.  (He has the photos to prove it!)  He (and his book) exude, as well, great purpose—elevating readerly compassion with a determined heroine, hinting at the complexity of life in a fragile country, making it clear that survival comes, always, at great cost.  It's the perfect conversation book, the perfect story for a classroom, the perfect ticket to the Congo.

Three final things:

The photographs above are not of bonobos, but they are the closest I had in my own photo library (images snapped in Berlin last summer).

I loved reading, in the acknowledgments, that my friend and former editor Jill Santopolo had a hand in shaping Eliot's book.  Everything that Jill touches sparkles. 

If you want to see pictures of Eliot debuting his book at Children's Book World this past Friday, go here. 

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The view from Scholastic (and what makes a children's book great)

After all was said and nearly done at the Publishing Perspectives "What Makes a Children's Book Great?" Conference, we gathered on Scholastic's rooftop lounge and took a look out across New York City.  What a view, and what a day.

Dennis Abrams, who hosted my panel, has captured the content of this conference impeccably (as the man tends to do).  Here's his report, with help from Alex Mutter.

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The Scholastic Edition of Dangerous Neighbors

This is simply to thank Paul W. Hankins (a very funny man, a great and opinionated reader, and a friend of Lawsy's, meaning a friend of mine) for writing these words to me this morning:  "BTW, Beth. Dangerous Neighbors is now on Scholastic's Reading Counts list. I put it out on the front display yesterday afternoon. We'll see who bites today."

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