This Old Blog

I'm doing a little renovation of the old Bartography place. Posting will be slight-to-nonexistent (except for posts like this) until I get all that squared away.

During that time, I imagine that the machinery at my desk and I will be getting along something like this:

I've been ShelfLifed! (ShelfLived? ShelveLifted?)

In connection with my gig Saturday morning at Explore UT, I've been interviewed by the University's ShelfLife@Texas blog. If you're in the mood for random references to Andy Warhol, Howard Cosell, The Daily Texan, Three's Company, or Sophocles, I think you'll be pleased.

"Waiting to be found": an interview with Dianna Hutts Aston

Some folks are lucky enough to have a dream job. My friend Dianna Hutts Aston has managed to get herself two.

In the children's literature world, Dianna is known for the several picture books she's authored, including her Cybils-winning An Egg Is Quiet and the Obama-approved The Moon Over Star.

In San Miguel de Allende, Mexico, however, she's becoming known for her other line of work. Dianna recently founded The Oz Project, a non-profit with a mission to provide disadvantaged children and young adults with "experiences that ignite the imagination and inspire dreams."

Here's how she describes that transformation:

In the summer of 2006, a hot air balloon ride in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico changed my life forever. The experience felt like floating in Glenda the Good Witch’s bubble, pure magic. I realized two things in the air that day: There are no real borders in this world. And there are no limits on your dreams, not a single one. If you can dream it, you can do it. It was especially significant to me because I’d become someone who no longer knew what her dreams were. I had food, shelter and education, and a quiet life as a mother and writer in the Texas suburbs. But I was longing for something else. I just didn’t know what it was.

Dianna discussed The Oz Project with me last week via email.

***

Does your work on The Oz Project complement your work as an author, or tug you in the opposite direction, or both?

Yes. I'm torn all the time, but still the happiest, luckiest person I know. My passion is The Oz Project.

When you're with these young people on their first balloon ride, how do they react to the experience?

Wonder, awe and joy.

And I get to watch their faces. It's an unbelievable joy. ... Kids in rural villages, orphans, street kids, kids with special needs... all the children no one's looking at. They'll remember it forever. One child will follow the balloon and be the Einstein or the O'Keefe or the Churchill who yearns to make a contribution to the world. I remember every single one of them: Lydia, Yvonne, Jorge, Pasqual, Alejandro, so many more. They see a world without boundaries from the realm of the rainbow. Some will follow that balloon. The leaders will raise many up. Some will continue with their lives of no schooling, whipping burros toward the dried grass and dust.

When those first-time balloonists come back to earth -- literally, anyway -- what happens next for them? Does The Oz Project play an ongoing role in their lives?

The balloon trips are mostly rewards for hard work, for displays of leadership. For instance, Betsy James just conducted the first Teen Writers' Workshop (it ended yesterday), and we'll take up the kids who attended. They're ambitious dreamers with the actions to back it up. There are a group of kids at Jalpa, a village outside of town, who are learning English from volunteers who have identified them as leaders and take time each week to go out and teach. So I'm partnering with existing organizations to give balloon trips. The Teen WW is part of Oz and The San Miguel Writers' Conference. We'll get bigger next year. So happy with all of this.

What does the Oz Project need in order to thrive? How can folks outside San Miguel help?

Money is the main thing, and a grant writer. I've been blessed with in-kind services, from graphics to web site design to accounting. I have a man who's going to work with me on grant-writing. A donation of a hot air balloon, a van, a trailer. What I'd really like is for others in the states to take the idea of raising angels and find them in foster care, special needs like blindness and deafness, children's hospitals, ghettos, isolated rural areas. The focus is on targeting leaders, those who persevere despite their circumstances. These children are waiting to be found so they can contribute their talents to the world. There's an Einstein, a Picasso, an Eleanor Roosevelt... just waiting.

The Day-Glo Brothers and other nonfiction about notable siblings

As much as I've made about the daylight-fluorescence aspect of The Day-Glo Brothers, the sibling relationship between Bob and Joe Switzer -- night and day opposites, in many respects -- is central to the story as well.

In looking around for other children's and young-adult nonfiction about notable sets of siblings from previous eras of American history, I've been surprised by how few are represented. (Where are the Marx Brothers? Frank and Jesse James? Donny and Marie?) For some additional context about sisters and brothers, I've assembled a list of my favorite titles. There are undoubtedly other worthy books that I've overlooked and would do well to add in updates to this post -- I'd love to hear your suggestions.

Footwork: The Story of Fred and Adele Astaire
by Roxane Orgill, illustrated by Stéphane Jorisch
Candlewick Press
2007
If you're not sold on Footwork by the time you get to young Fred and his older sister in costume as a dancing lobster and champagne glass, then you're harder to please than even the most jaded vaudeville crowd. But take notice: The Astaires eventually won them over, too.

Good Brother, Bad Brother: The Story of Edwin Booth and John Wilkes Booth
by James Cross Giblin
Clarion Books
2005
Until April 14, 1865, Edwin was more famous than younger brother and fellow actor John Wilkes. But the story offered by Giblin is more complex than that, with "good" Edwin's earlier career nearly undone by his drinking, "bad" John Wilkes' heroic feats on stage (34 performances in 18 roles during one four-week engagement), and the brothers' own awareness that their affection could not survive even a discussion of their political differences.

Harriet Beecher Stowe and the Beecher Preachers
by Jean Fritz
G. P. Putnam's Sons
1994
In one of the most famous American families of the mid-19th century, the girls were not allowed to follow their father into the ministry, and the boys were not allowed not to. Fritz winningly relates how, with her history-changing Uncle Tom's Cabin, Harriet proved herself the best sermonizer of the lot.

Sisters Against Slavery: A Story About Sarah and Angelina Grimké
by Stephanie Sammartino McPherson, illustrated by Karen Ritz
Carolrhoda Books
1999
The Grimkés didn't just transform themselves from slaveowning Southern belles into abolitionist Quakers -- they went further, pushing against the prejudices within their adopted faith and the 19th-century restrictions on women speaking out in public about anything.

The Two Brothers
by William Jaspersohn, illustrated by Michael A. Donato
The Vermont Folklife Center
2000
In this absolute gem based on a true story, Jaspersohn and Donato tell of the heartrending separation in the 1880s of Prussian brothers Heinrich and Friedrich Eurich, followed by their coincidental, goosebump-inducing reunion along a fenceline between two Vermont farms.

To Fly: The Story of the Wright Brothers
by Wendie C. Old, illustrated by Robert Andrew Parker
Clarion Books
2002
If there's a shortage of books about other notable siblings, there's a surplus of titles about Orville and Wilbur Wright. But there's always room for the likes of this contribution by Old and Parker -- accessible, insightful, and soaring.

Up Close: Robert F. Kennedy, Crusader
by Marc Aronson
Viking
2007
Aronson embraces both fact and speculation in his engrossing, eye-opening account of an ill-fated life entwined with those of older brothers Joe and Jack.

A Bartography Sampler

For those of you stopping by my blog for the first time, welcome! This month, I celebrated my grandfather Whacker's centennial, considered my good fortune to live in the Texas Triangle, and provided a black-lit glimpse of my debut book. Here's a bit of what else you'll find in the archives.

• Beyond the Big Idea: a five-part tutorial geared toward young readers about how to track down more information on a subject covered in a nonfiction book
  
• It's almost as if the bats are a metaphor for something: "Much of my time surrounding yesterday's Austin SCBWI conference was meticulously planned -- but meticulous planning will get you only so far."
  
• Original Manuscript: What-nik?!?: A short story, told from the perspective of a professional-wrestling-crazy American boy, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Soviet launch of Sputnik
  
• Project: The Day-Glo Brothers: Collected posts about my first book, a nonfiction picture book to be published by Charlesbridge in July 2009
  
• Project: S.V.T.: Collected posts about my second book, a mysteriously titled, thoroughly ridiculous picture book to be published by Little, Brown in 2010
  
• Project: Masqueraders: Collected posts about my third book -- a YA nonfiction project originally code-named "Pasta," and subsequently referred to as both Impostors and Masqueraders -- to be published by Dial
  
• Socialit: Reports on conferences, workshops, shindigs, and other gatherings of folks in the children's book business
  
• Thanks, Granddad: A version of the eulogy I delivered for my grandfather, Ernest E. Lewis
  
• U.S. History Reading: Book reviews and suggested reading for various periods and themes in American history
  
• "Why I Want an Agent" Week: The mental inventory I took shortly before the right agent and I finally connected
  
• What am I working on?: Let's not forget the ongoing work of researching, writing, and revising manuscripts and trying to market the results.
  
• What am I waiting for?: And this. There's lots of this.

The Day-Glo Brothers' debut at Explore UT

The lineup and schedule are set for readings from me and three other Austin-based children's authors as part of Explore UT next Saturday, March 7:

10 a.m. – Liz Scanlon presents A Sock is a Pocket for Your Toes
11 a.m. – Chris Barton debuts The Day-Glo Brothers
1 p.m. – Brian Anderson presents Commander Zack Proton
2 p.m. – Jane Peddicord presents from Night Wonders

Details about the readings are here, and details about Explore UT are here.

See you there!

Not your father's Pokemon

Yesterday 5-year-old F invited me to play Pokemon cards with him. I'm still not entirely sure what that's supposed to entail, other than beating your old man for a varying number of amorphous reasons that never quite seem to add up.

A little of that goes a long way, and to change the subject I got my old box of baseball cards down from a closet shelf so I could show him how his forebears did card-collecting.

"Can I have this one?"

"Sure."

"Can I have this one?"

"You bet."

This was working out great. And then, maybe two minutes into exploring that box I hadn’t opened in two decades, what did we find? A 1983 Topps rookie card for Hall of Famer Tony Gwynn. In pristine condition.

I put the box away.

Behold the rare Tonygwynn, which
evolves into something worth $60

No, I don't know who Editorial Anonymous is

A lot of folks have asked me that these past few days. Sorry.

But I do know that she or he has put together one helpful set of publishing definitions for the perplexed. And I was going to link to it anyway, even before EA was kind enough to include a Day-Glo Brothers photo as an example of a book that isn't printed in CMYK.

Here's the original photo:


Wanna see what it looks like under black light? Here goes:

Day-Glo Spotting #4

London, England (photo by Jimmy Ogden -- thanks, Jimmy!)

A sneak preview of The Day-Glo Brothers

Here in Austin on Saturday, March 7, The Day-Glo Brothers is going to be a small part of "the biggest open house in Texas."

The public debut of the book (and of me as an author) will be one of the many, many goings-on at Explore UT, a huge, campus-wide to-do designed to give school-aged kids a taste of what the University of Texas has to offer.

The festivities at the Perry-Castañeda Library (PCL) will also include presentations from other local children's book creators Liz Garton Scanlon, Christy Stallop, Brian Anderson, and Jane Peddicord. When the schedule is confirmed, I'll post that here.

I've mentioned before that I've done research at the PCL for some of my books, and The Day-Glo Brothers is among them. A December 1932 article in Popular Science ("Homemade Ultra-Violet Lamp Produces Magic 'Black Light'") inspired the work that led to Bob and Joe Switzer's discovery of daylight fluorescence, and it was there at the PCL that I first laid eyes on the actual article -- in glorious black-and-white.

If you'd like an advance peek at some reading material that's a little more brightly colored -- nearly four months before its publication date -- I hope you'll come on by.