Michael Jung's Blog
Posted by Michael Jung
Check out these interviews with picture book author/illustrators and comic book creators that give you the inside story on the path they took to become artists, the inspiration behind their books, and their opinions on the current state of children’s literature.
For people who grew up in the 1960s, the music of Peter, Paul & Mary helped define their generation. Now, Peter Yarrow is re-introducing many of the group's famous folk songs -- including "Puff the Magic Dragon" -- to a new generation of kids through beautifully illustrated picture books and CDs featuring new covers of the songs. I got a chance to talk to Peter about his books for kids -- and wound up learning a lot about his work as a social activist and his bullying prevention program as well.
Originally a commercial artist and standup comedian, Chris applied his considerable artistic and storytelling talents to create great picture books like America the Beautiful, Dear Fish, There’s Nothing to Do on Mars, and his most recent release Dinotrux – soon to be made into a 3-D computer animated movie by DreamWorks Animation. Chris was nice enough to answer my questions and let me in on the story behind Dinotrux. Be sure to check out his interview, it’s a good one!
Who says graphic novels can’t be great children’s literature? Certainly not Jimmy Gownley, the writer and artist of the Eisner nominated comic book Amelia Rules! Check out his interview and find out why Comics Buyers Guide is calling Amelia Rules! “A Peanuts for the 21st century.”
Ever dream of creating and publishing your own independent comic books? Ben Glenndening did – and wound up creating several online comic books and self published comics that draw a lot of attention at comic book conventions. See how a lot of hard work and skill helped Ben become a comic book creator by reading his interview.
A self-published author, Elisa created her own picture book, The Wheelchair, to help teach kids about disabilities. What’s especially remarkable about this book is that Elisa’s artist, Kimberly Gewerth Robb, had muscular dystrophy, which impeded her ability to move her arms – yet didn’t stop her from creating all the illustrations for The Wheelchair. Learn more about their partnership in their interview.
One final word: a lot of times, my interviewees gave such great responses to my questions that I wound up splitting the interview into multiple articles – which you can find by clicking on the links at the end of each interview.
Find more author interviews at Children’s Author Interviews and Online Interview with Young Adult Authors.
Posted by Michael Jung
One of the best parts of being Suite 101’s Children’s Books Feature Writer is the chance to chat with published children’s authors over the phone or via email and ask them all the interview questions their readers would like to ask – everything from where they got the inspiration for a certain book or who they’d like to see their characters played by if their books ever got made into movies. I always get great answers… but don’t take my word for it – click on the author interview links below and see for yourself!
(Note: A lot of times, the interviews are so great they’re too big for a single article – so I split them up into two or even three separate interviews, some dealing with the author’s writing process, others dealing with behind-the-scenes stories. Be sure to read them all!)
Now and then, I get to interview children's authors who base their stories after wonderful childhood memories that they continue to treasure well into their old age.
Gitty Daneshvari isn't one of those authors.
Instead, Gitty based her first children's book, School of Fear, on something kids can really relate to -- horrible childhood fears and phobias. After spending some quality time chatting about Gitty's childhood phobias of elevators, spiders, and bathrooms (yes, bathrooms), I could see why writing she'd be drawn to writing a middle grade book like School of Fear -- which is very funny, but nowhere near as funny as Gitty's own experiences!
Funny, creative and morbid (but in a good way!) are all fitting terms for Alethea Eason’s first middle grade science fiction novel Hungry – a story about a flesh-eating alien from outer space who just wants to be a regular teenage girl and eat hamburgers and M&Ms. With a premise like that, you’d just have to jump at the chance to understand the mind that created this story – and I think Alethea did a great job letting readers in on how she came up with Hungry.
I’m always amazed at the journeys people take that lead them to become authors – especially when the person in question never intended to become an author. For Tom Birdseye, author of popular middle-grade novels like I’m Going to be Famous and A Tough Nut to Crack, this process was all the more fascinating since he didn’t even like writing back in school. How, you ask, did he wind up becoming an award-winning author? Click on the interview above and find out!
Find more author interviews at Online Author Interviews with Young Adult Authors and Interviews with Comic Book Creators and Picture Book Authors.
Posted by Michael Jung
Ever wonder how science fiction writers came up with the ideas for your favorite book series – or how certain authors write romantic comedy? Check out these interviews with YA authors on the inspiration behind their books, their creative writing process, and their opinions on children’s literature.
One word of advice – most of the time, the authors gave such interesting responses to my interview questions that I couldn’t possibly fit them all in a single article, so I split the interview up into multiple articles. Find them all by clicking the links at the end of each author interview!
What can one say about Shannon Hale? Talented (she's written novels that are received well by both children and adults), funny (check out my coverage of a hilarious routine she did at a benefit auction a while back), and a heck of a nice person too! Shannon's busy schedule makes it hard for her to give interviews, but she kindly made time to answer some of my questions on her books via email. Check it out -- she's a lot of fun :)
Find more links to interviews at Children's Author Interviews and Interviews with Comic Book Creators and Picture Book Authors.
Posted by Michael Jung
We've all heard people shout it as they're walking out of the movie theater:
"The book was way better!"
And in many cases, they're right. Whether it's due to a director's ego, too many script rewrites, or just the limits of filmmaking, most movies based on books don't enjoy a successful screen translation.
For many kids and children's lit enthusiasts, this can be particularly disappointing when they see the characters and plot of a favorite children's book or young adult novel torn to shreds on the scene -- just look at Babe: Pig in the City or director Doug Liman awful version of Steven Gould's Jumper. Even when a movie does a decent job of translating the book's story to the screen, many fans of the book are disappointed that all of their favorite scenes weren't included.
Every now and then though, a movie comes along that actually ends up being considered just as good if not BETTER than the book(s) it was based on. While these sort of observations are completely subjective, here are three films I thought deserved to be elevated to the level of true children's classic movies.
1. Mary Poppins (1964) -- Whether its Julie Andrews' singing, Richard M. Sherman and Robert B. Sherman's amazing songs, or Dick Van Dyke's incredibly bad Cockney accent, there's a magic to this movie that I haven't seen in most films -- children's or otherwise. Definitely one of Andrews' best performances.
2. The Wizard of Oz (1939) -- Now personally I still prefer the original book and the subsequent Oz series. (Anyone who doesn't know about the later books should check out my Review of Ozma of Oz) but any children's movie that's been around for seventy years definitely has something special. From Judy Garland's rendition of Over the Rainbow to Margaret Hamilton's classic take on the Wicked Witch of the West (can you believe the woman taught kindergarten before she got cast as the Witch?) MGM's film is definitely one people can enjoy year after year.
3. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone (2001) (Also known as Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone outside of the U.S.) While later fims in the Harry Potter series don't always successfully capture the books' plots (not really the films' fault -- you try adapting 700 pages of plot into a 2 hour movie) the first film was one of the best literal translations of a children's book to the screen. Some might say Chris Columbus was too slavishly faithful to Rowling's novel, but I found it gratifying to watch a film that seemed to jump straight out of the book.
Anyway, those are my three choices for best children's classic movies. What are yours? Feel free to lay your two cents down!
Find out more interesting facts about movie versions of Mary Poppins and The Wizard of Oz at Children's Films Based on Popular Books for Kids and see lists of children's movies at Popular Children's Movies to Rent.
Posted by Michael Jung
While reading author Janette Rallison's blog, I came across this quote in her blog entry, "The Other Thing That Bothers Me About a Lot of Contemporary YA Literature":
"it worries me that all of the non-fantasy YA books I’ve read recently are excessively turbulent, dark, and angsty. I’ve read book after book and not only is the reading material depressing, I’m wondering if all teenagers have awful, horrible lives. Oh and as a corollary, I’ve also learned that guys are basically evil and untrustworthy. Girls aren’t much better—at least not if they are pretty."
She goes on to list a lot of the dark issues used by these books, including cheating boyfriends/fathers, drug users, fatal car crashes, and unplanned pregnancies.
Now personally I've always read more middle grade fiction, which tends to be (at least in my experience) more humorous and fanciful than a lot of YA lit (although bad things do still happen to good people -- just look at the Baudelaire orphans in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events).
That said, I've also read many YA books, from Robert Cormier's Tenderness and Fade to Christopher Pike's thrillers, that are full of psychotic teenage serial killers, depressed suicidal teens, and one or two disturbing cases of incest. And mind you, these are popular (and in certain cases award-winning) books that have a wide readership.
So what do you think? Are current (and I suppose past) YA books "excessively turbulent, dark and angsty"? And if they are, why do you feel they are so popular? Is this a reflection on the sad state of our society or are readers trying to cathartically release the pent up emotions within them?
Posted by Michael Jung
Growing up, one of my favorite children's books to read was The Search for Sara Sanderson, a children's comedy-mystery written by Thomas McKean. It's a hilarious and often silly book about three kids who decide they want to get their widower father a new wife for his birthday.
Rather than go to a dating service (this book was written way before eHarmony or Match.com) the kids file a fake missing-person's report with the NYPD for a 35 year-old blonde haired blue eyed woman who loves kids -- only to find that three other people have already filed an identical report.
Since this is a children's book and not real life, the kids decide to investigate on their own, and discover that the missing person is Sara Sanderson, a would-be heiress who disappeared after an unscrupulous relative tries to get rid of her before she can collect her inheritance. Naturally the kids try to track down Sara Sanderson, and end up having to deal with incompetent thugs, a crooked lawyer, and an obsessive-compulsive cleaning woman.
As much as I remember enjoying this book, I also remember that I would have never even known about it if I hadn't been crawling on my hands and knees in some obscure part of the library before finding it hidden among all the other books on the shelf. Even though I recommended it to a lot of friends, I never saw it displayed prominently on a shelf or in a recommended reading display (which is why I sometimes snuck it onto those displays when the librarians weren't looking :)).
Style-wise The Search for Sara Sanderson doesn't have the distinction of J.K. Rowling or Lemony Snickett (although it was an easy and fast book to read). It probably didn't get a ton of recognition from the New York Times or receive any prestigious awards. Even today it doesn't show up on a lot of web searches -- but it sure provided my eight-year-old self something fun to read and re-read over the summer months.
Don't get me wrong -- I think it's great the New York Times has a bestseller list for children's books and that the American Library Association provides lists of recommended children's books. But sometimes I feel that all the emphasis we place on these resources can make us overlook a lot of other more obscure children's books that can provide kids with an enjoyable reading experience and help make them enthusiastic readers.
So my question to you is this -- What were some of your favorite books growing up that DIDN'T make the ALA or New York Times' list of children's classics?
Don't worry about listing books that you think other people never heard of -- in fact the more obscure these books are, the better. Hey, they gave us a lot of enjoyment when we were kids -- it's time to let them have their moment in the spotlight!
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Posted by Michael Jung
Welcome! My name is Michael Jung and I am the new Feature Writer for Suite 101's Children's Books section. Whether you're a teacher looking for ideas you can use in a lesson plan, a frantic student looking for information for your book report, or just a lover of children's books checking to see if your favorite stories got some well-deserved Suite 101 exposure, I hope you find your visit entertaining and useful!
The purpose of this blog is to provide a fun, informal place for me to jot down my thoughts on children's literature (and boy, do I have a lot of them!) and to provide YOU -- the reader -- with a place to share your thoughts on my blog entries, recommend favorite children's books, and suggest future articles!
Want to see a favorite (and possibly obscure) children's author profiled on Suite 101? Would you like to know what inspired a certain children's book? Is there a favorite story from your childhood with a forgotten title you'd like to see tracked down and reviewed? This is the place to make those requests and ask those questions -- not just to me but also to our many talented writers who contribute to the Children's Books section!
In the coming days, I'll be posting more blogs asking these questions and giving you the chance to post your questions/requests in the appropriate entries. Until then, feel free to respond to this blog entry and tell me a little something about yourself!
By the way, if any children's authors would like to have their published picture, middle-grade, or young adult novel reviewed here, please feel free to contact me at:childrensbooks@suite101.com!
Thanks everyone! I hope to hear from all of you soon!
Michael