Serendipitous Event - Guest Author Akemi Eddy

Serendipity 2011

GRAPHIC NOVEL EXTRAVAGANZA

With Matt Holm, Raina Telgemeier, Gene Yang, Aaron Renier, Jason Shiga and Valerie Wyatt

Saturday, February 26, 2011, at UBC

Report from guest author Akemi Eddy begins, Wow!  What a fabulous event!
 

The program began in the wee hours of the morning with a continental breakfast, book buying and author autographing.  After settling into our seats, we were welcomed by the witty chairperson of the Vancouver Children’s Literature Roundtable, Shannon Ozirny who appeared throughout the day in captioned frames in the comic tradition.

Matt Holm (illustrator of Baby Mouse) presented first, engaging the audience with photos and stories of his childhood which included sister Jennifer Holm (author of Baby Mouse).  His presentation culminated with an audience member helping Matt create a sketch of “Pirate Mouse.”  Be sure to keep an eye out for Jennifer and Matt’s new series, Squish.

Raina Telgemeier was up next with some not-so-fond childhood memories of dental mishaps and corrections upon which her graphic novel Smile is loosely based.   Raina demonstrated her artistic talent by showing us how she captures feelings in her illustrations.

 Finishing off the morning was Gene Yang, author/illustrator of American Born Chinese.  After introducing himself as Computer teacher by day, graphic novelist by night, Jason entertained us with his frank, honest, hilarious demeanor.  He concluded his presentation by demonstrating how he has successfully used the comic format to teach Math concepts to his secondary students.

Aaron Renier and Jason Shiga hosted a limited seating, lunchtime, hands-on workshop.

Valerie Wyatt, 2010 Information Book Award winner for How to Build Your Own Country, concluded the presentations with a Canadian perspective on authoring and publishing.

The day ended with a casual, fun-filled panel of the authors/illustrators mediated by Katherine Shoemaker. 

If you missed the Graphic Novel Extravaganza, next year’s theme for Serendipity is Asian Books for Children on Saturday, February 25, 2012.  Paul Yee is a confirmed speaker at this event.

 Also, the annual Illustrators’ Breakfast will be on Saturday, October 15, 2011, at the Mueum of Anthropology in conjunction with the opening of the temporary exhibit Hiroshima.

Thank you to Moira for the opportunity to attend … it was serendipitous!

And this News Flash, just in from the Vancouver Children's Literature Roundtable:  Oscar Win!

Saturday's Serendipity 2011 on the Graphic Novel was an eye-opening event, especially for those who dont follow graphic novels. It was a fine introduction to the art involved in creating these books. The graphic artists/cartoonists worked their magic before our very eyes (one participant went away with her own Matt Holm drawn-to-order illustration) and the presenters shared the various routes they took as writer/artists on their way to creating their books. We learned about mini-comics in the world of the graphic artists. The closing panel offered interesting interplay among the artists. As the saying goes, you had to be there.

And, we were also treated to Shannon Ozirny in rare form as MC for the program, wittily turned out in black and white, providing a frame or two and a speech balloon or two.

Here's a fitting, and serendipitous link for us, following the Graphic Novel Event: an item from a comic book site, noting Sean Tan's Oscar award. Yes!

(There are a few interesting links within the article, too, if you click on the accompanying URL. In addition, the Comic Book Resources site has news, reviews, videos and blogs, etc. for those of you pursuing graphic novels, etc.). 

Sean Tan wins the Oscar for Lost Thing

Australian creator Shaun Tan's wordless graphic novels have brought him considerable acclaim, including the 2010 Hugo Award for Best Professional Artist, and the French edition of his graphic novel The Arrival won the Angoulme International Comics Festival Prize for Best Comic Book.

Now he has another award to add to his growing collection: The Lost Thing, co-directed by Tan and based on his book of the same name, won this year's Oscar for Best Short Film (Animated).

In an interview before the awards ceremony, Tan told School Library Journal's Chelsey Philpot that Australian producer Sophie Bryne approached him after The Lost Thing won an award at the Bologna Children's Book Fair and proposed making it into a short film. After a bit of persuasion, Tan agreed, and he started what would become a nine-year process: The film was begun in 2001 and finally finished in 2010.

And he's already thinking ahead to the next film: Tan told SLJ that while he was in LA for the Oscar ceremony, he would be meeting with some people about making a feature-length film of another of his books, The Arrival.

AND FROM THE HERALD SUN (MELBOURNE AND VICTORIA)

This link is to a more conventional source the Australian newspaper in Sean Tan's home city, Melbourne ... a little story with a photo of Sean Tan holding his Oscar. Roundtablers who enjoyed Sean Tan at a VCLR Illustrators' Breakfast a couple of years ago will enjoy seeing his face once again.

SEAN TAN WINS THE OSCAR FOR BEST SHORT FILM (ANIMATED)

"Up Maryscope" at the Longhouse Serendipity

Here's a look at "our Mary" working the Longhouse as ambassador for school libraries: can you name the well-known -- even venerable -- local personalities she's telling about school libraries and their important relationship to literacy?

Mary meets Lt-Gov Steven Point ...

... and then can be found chatting up Bob Heidbreder and Jo-Anne N.

Here she is with Marisa and 2003 Gov-Gen
award-winning author Glen Huser (Stitches).
NOTE: Glen is also a TL who worked as
the Edmonton School District TL Consultant.

_____________________________________

Here are some more skill-testing questions, the answers having been shared with those of us who attended Serendipity this year:

Author Nicola Campbell (Shi-shi-etko), named for the Nicola Valley, has an auntie who is a well-known writer. Do you know who that writer is? (Maria Campbell, author of Half-breed)

Do you know where author Earl Einarson (The Moccasins) grew up and where he works? What part of BC is the ancestral home of Earl Einarson (born Earl Stanley)? (Earl is from the East Kootenays but grew up in a large foster family in East Vancouver and currently teaches at BCIT).

Who said, "Writing for me began as reading ... the deep seeds of humanity were planted ... it allowed me to fly"? (Earl Einarson)

Who said, "You should save your best writing for children"? (Leo Yerxa, author/illustrator)

Who said, "Our people don't come unscathed to the pen"? (Lt Gov Steven Point)

Do you know what the language of the Metis is called? Who is writing and illustrating the alphabet book for this language? (Michif. Julie Flett is writing and illustrating the Michif Alphabet Book; she recently illustrated Zoe and the Fawn. The Michif language is still spoken in the midwestern US and some scattered Canadian locations. Michif, according to the website Native Languages of the Americas, is "a unique French-Cree creole using French nouns, Cree verbs, and some local vocabulary borrowed from Indian languages like Ojibway or Dene.")

Do you know to what nation Richard Van Camp belongs and what book he has recently released? If you know the book, do you know which child is the Dogrib baby? (Van Camp is a member of the Dene Dogrib Nation of the Northwest Territories.)

Do you know how Leo Yerxa put the magic into the illustrations for Ancient Thunder? (The Canada Council for the ARts 2006 Jury's comments: "Through a unique creative process, and with poetic honesty, Leo Yerxa’s emotionally powerful images transport us, with the echo of ancient hoof-beats, over the Great Plains. Using the motif of traditional dress and a rich palette, Yerxa creates compositions that illustrate the mystical connection between horse and humanity." Yerxa, an Ojibway from Ontario, spent years creating leather-like paper to create the realistic fringes on the shirts that depict the plains horses.)

The answers to all these questions unfolded for us last Saturday, and (aside from occasional squirrel discomfort), most of us sat spellbound for all of it.

So what do I mean by "squirrel discomfort"? Ab Ed Administrator Deb and I, along with a number of our district colleagues, attended Serendipity last Saturday, to listen in awe to the welcome by Dr Richard Vedan, to the words of Lieutenant Governor Steven Point, and to a number of First Nations and Metis writers and illustrators.

It was during the talk by Writer/Illustrator Leo Yerxa that I became aware that a squirrel had entered the Longhouse and that it seemed to be drawn to his words, despite efforts by some to shoo it out. Not one who always appreciates opportunities to commune with the natural world, being somewhat unaccustomed to creatures other than my retired dog Molly and the coyote we avoid in our nightly walks, I muttered uncomfortably to Deb -- she recalls it as quite possibly something about the furry rat! Thank goodness Deb was there to point out the remarkably spiritual event of the attendant creature ... I, being less attuned and perhaps too pallid, would most certainly have missed that point!


One more question -- What is a googlemoment? (I am going to share that answer: It is some inquiry so profound you need to run to the computer to find out everything you can about the subject!)

ADDENDA:

• If you undertook last week's visual and geographic literacy challenge and studied the photographs of the new Ike Barber Learning Centre at UBC a little less than a week before the official opening, you would have seen the card catalogue area of the Old/Main Library in the finishing stages of restoration. You would have seen the clock tower from inside the SLAIS reading room in the new Learning Centre, as well as the Koerner Library from the same vantage point. New structures included the lecture hall and a view of the industrial-design main staircase in the new central foyer. If you had attended the opening, Chris Ball of UBC Libraries told us at our SLRCCC meeting this week, you might have mistaken the friendly fellow at the main desk for a librarian ... but it was, in fact, Ike Barber himself thoroughly enjoying the opening-day awe of the many visitors to this fabulous new facility.
  
• Two comments appeared on last week's blog in response to the social bookmarking article. Yahoo! Lana and Val H were ready to talk about this tool. Lana used a new gmail account to post her comment after several unsuccessful attempts. If Lana persisted and grappled with problems in being able to comment, know that she is very tech-savvy. I had sent her a gmail invitation as gmail is a great tool but it does appear to be the easiest way to respond to blogger. Go back in the archives to last week's three blogs and check the comments.
  
• The weeding article I offer in the blog below is by Doug Johnson. Some of you may have noticed that Doug commented on this blog on February 3 (see blog for Feb 1). Doug is the Director of Media and Library Services in Mankato, Minnesota, and is a prolific writer, blogger, and presenter on the subject of school libraries and technology integration with teaching and learning. Blue Skunk is his blog (see sidebar).
  
  
  

February is Black History Month

Here are two great Black History resources for high-school students:

Library and Archives Canada presents Under a Northern Star, a virtual exhibition of accounts of early Canadian settlers whose lives represent true and successful challenges to racism and slavery. Dr Afua Cooper from the U of T introduces the exhibition: "What is brilliant about these collections is that each one speaks to the historical experience of African Canadians in different parts of the country at different time periods. Moreover, each one tells a story of the important contributions Blacks made to Canada as pioneers, enslaved persons, explorers, citizens and settlers."

BC's Amazing Black Pioneer: Crawford Kilian's book Go Do Some Great Thing: The Black Pioneers of British Columbia tells the stories of Black settlers in British Columbia. Kilian has been revising the book for a new edition. In this The Tyee article he discusses Mifflin Gibbs: "Abolitionist agitator and a worker on the underground railway in Philadelphia. Shoeshine boy, boot merchant, and newspaper publisher in gold-rush San Francisco. First competitor with the Hudson's Bay Company in gold-rush Victoria. Builder of B.C.'s first railway, in the Queen Charlotte Islands. Victoria city councillor and acting mayor. Member of the Yale Conference that framed the terms of B.C.'s entry into Confederation. America's first elected black judge, in Little Rock, Arkansas. U.S. consul in Madagascar in his 70s, and founder of a bank on his return. He died rich in 1915, aged 94." Look for excerpts from the revised edition in upcoming issues of The Tyee and check Kilian's Pioneers blog.


MORE RESOURCES

Google for Educators

The 2Learn.ca Education Society -- Alliance of Alberta Education, Alberta Teachers' Federation, U of A Faculty of Education, Telus

eScrapbooking -- Here are some great electronic, educational, experiential, engaging strategies that combine photos, memorabilia, poetry, narrative, quotes, stories, and more. Sample projects included on the site.

Ever read Mental Floss? Try this online blog, Fun with Venn and Euler

HOT TOPICS

CLA Copyright Press Conference - This 8-minute video press conference features Don Butcher, Executive Director, Canadian Library Association, who speaks up for the rights of average Canadian users which are ignored by the proposed new copyright legislation influenced by the Hollywood lobbyists and the American Digital Millennium Copyright Act.

AUTHORS

Writer/Illustrator Ian Wallace will be in town and is available for full or half days of readings on May 6, 7, and 8. Contact Meredyth or me for more information.

Julie Burtinshaw: In an email earlier this week, Rennie wrote, "If you would like a name for a terrific upper intermediate, early high school author visit, try out Julie Burtinshaw, a local author/presenter. She is very interactive with the students and well prepared. Some titles by her: Adrift, Dead Reckoning, The Freedom of Jenny, and a new one coming out for high school students called The Perfect Cut. You can contact her at burtinshawtrue@gmail.com or #604-878-7144." Or try her blog. Karen C adds, "The Freedom of Jenny ... is based on the migration of an African American family to California, then Victoria and then the Gulf Islands prior to and into the Civil War."

EVENTS

Serendipity 2008 First Nations Writers at the Longhouse

A Celebration of First Nations Writers and Illustrators of Children's Books

Saturday, February 23, 2008. 8:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.

First Nations Longhouse, 1985 WEST MALL , UBC.

Registration, coffee and book sales 7:30-8:30 a.m. Program begins at 8:30 a.m.

For more information go to VCLR website -- http://www.library.ubc.ca/edlib/table/index.htm

This year, come to hear Leo Yerxa, author and illustrator of Last Leaf, First Snowflake to Fall , A Fish Tale, and Ancient Thunder; Richard Van Camp, author of A Man Called Raven and What's the Most Beautiful Thing You Know About Horses?; Diane Silvey, author of The Kids Book of Aboriginal Peoples in Canada; Julie Flett, illustrator of Zoe and the Fawn and The Moccasins; Earl Einarson, author of The Moccasins; and Nicola I. Campbell, author of Shi-Shi-Etko.

TL Studio

Monday February 18 - Come jing and blog with us! Online registration -- or just come.

VPL "Speak Up 2008 Series: My Virtual World"

Tuesdays Feb. 19, 26, March 4, 11 at 7:00pm, VPL Central Branch.

The "Speak Up" website is not yet functioning, but you can find details by looking at the VPL Current Events Calendar. Here are the topics: Feb. 19: On-line Privacy; Feb. 26: Gaming; Mar. 4: Information Online; Mar. 11: Social impacts of our Virtual World.

TOC Training for Horizon and Library Operations - March 4 and 5 (2 parts)

Tell TOCs to sign up now online for this two-part training: Mar 4, Room 100 (Lab), VSB - Horizon Training; Mar 5, Moberly School Library - Library Operations.

They will need to attend both to get priority call-out for school libraries. Thanks, Denise and Gwen, for agreeing to present with David and me.

Spring Weeding - Feb 28, March 6 (2 parts)

See you at Dickens for two workshops, Thursday, February 28, and a week later on Thursday, March 6. Online registration.

WINTER TONICS

Have you registered for Winter Tonic?

Here are some other February "tonics" if you are looking for something to replenish your spirit, a little flair or fun or food for thought or passion to enhance your work in school libraries. Why not choose one or two --

• find a great gift or "branding" item for a teacher-librarian or for yourself at Cafepress. Here's where Sylvia got her bumper sticker that reads, "I am the librarian your mother warned you about." A new wardrobe item always helps the spirit.
  
• check out the best source of powerpoint templates at Brainy Betty. Put PIZZAZZ into your presentations.
  
• how about something fun to do on FAT Tuesday (Feb 5) or Mardi Gras? Try heading out to hear The Burke Street Blues Band now booked for Mardi Gras night (8-11 pm) at DaDeO New Orleans Diner and Bar, 3305 Cambie (at 17th-- former Tomato Restaurant location) 604-874-1053 -- and it's our friend Alan Zisman on keyboards!
  
• read this article to affirm the importance of your work as the information literacy specialist in your school: The more things change ... by IVOR TOSSELL from Friday's Globe and Mail, January 24, 2008.
  
• read this Richmond News Community Profile for Family Literacy Day; it's about Richmond TL Carole Wilson who is still making a difference after thirty years in the teaching business. Some of you may know Carole in her capacity as an instructor with the UBC Teacher-Librarianship program.
  
• find out more about blogging and its applications for school libraries: Teacher-Librarians Connect ... by Publishing Online, from Charles Best (Coquitlam) TL Judith Comfort provides lots of ideas. Check out her BCTLA workshop, online resources and activities which are blogs.
  
• register for something -- Feb 8 is Literacy Day at Killarney or Technology Day at Magee; Feb 12 is Winter Tonic at Gladstone; Feb 6 is Shari Graydon here at the VSB; Feb 18 is TL Studio at Kerrisdale; Spring Weeding (two sessions, last week of Feb and first week of March) at Dickens and Cheriee is promising much livelier refreshment to make the session fun... see VSB website and click onto Current Professional Opportunities.
  
• choose to attend one or two events put on by the Vancouver Children's Literature Roundtable: Authorfest 2008 is Feb 6 at UBC. Serendipity 2008 is, this year, to be a celebration of First Nations Children's Authors and Illustrators and is being held at the First Nations Longhouse at UBC all day Saturday, Feb 23. Membership to the Vancouver CLR is $15. For more information, read Tough City Writer's blog.
  
• bone up on the issues around new proposed Canadian copyright legislation which, as secondary TLs heard from Aaron M at their monthly meeting, could seriously affect us in schools because of the omission of educational fair-use clauses and of any educational representation. Aaron referred us to Michael Geist's blog for more information. Dr. Geist is the Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law at the U of Ottawa and was educated at Osgoode Hall Law School, Toronto, Cambridge University, UK and Columbia Law School in New York. He is concerned with internet and technology law as well as privacy issues.
  
• read some more: I am passing along this Michael Geist article "Law Eases Net Snooping: Privacy watchdog fears new copyright regs" (Tuesday's The Tyee). Anne S forwarded it after our discussion at our secondary TL department heads' meeting.
  
• check out this article from eSchool News to consider the perspectives of American educators on educational fair-use clauses: "'Fair Use' confusion threatens media literacy."
  
• attend a lecture at the VPL: Speak Up 2008: My Virtual World, Tuesday Feb 19, 2008, 7:00 PM - 9:00 PM, Alice MacKay Room. The Speak Up series brings together many voices, perspectives and experiences, and provides an opportunity for public dialogue. This year's series explores the role of technology in our lives. "Online Privacy: Is There Any?" will feature panelists Mary Carlson (Office of the Information and Privacy Commissioner, Province of BC); Inspector Kevin McQuiggin (Vancouver Police Department); Richard Rosenberg (BC Freedom of Information and Privacy Asosciation). And it's free!
  
• find out who's blogging and what they are talking about. Click onto one or more of the Related Bloggers in the sidebar of this blog to see what the discourse is, more globally, for school libraries. Susan at Magee suggests Kathy Schrock's Kaffeklatsch blog January entry entitled Youtube is Cool! which would follow nicely with the secondary TL department heads discussion last week.
  
  I have recently added Doug Johnson's Blue Skunk blog. I enjoyed reading, amongst his archives, articles with such enticing titles as Rules for Pod People..., "BS" Literacy, and Librarians Behaving Badly. Joyce Valenza's Neverendingsearch on SLJ offers such articles for your consideration as these: Google as white bread? (and ICT lit matters) or Databases: Can We Get Teachers to Love Them? I have also added James Herring's Weblog. Schrock, Valenza, Johnson, Herring ... have I missed any of the BIG names in the world of school libraries?
  
  Thanks, Lana at Byng, for passing along this link to school bloggers with loads of examples, as well. Reading Rules is only one example of a school library application for blogging. And we are awaiting a new blog from one of our own French Immersion TLs, to be launched next week, I believe. I will be linking it here.