Revisiting Caribbean children's book covers and illustrators

LMH publishers

As a writer and editor of children’s books, I find it difficult to understand how illustrators can take on the job of creating illustrations for a story they have not read. Very often, I am told, the artists have no time to read a manuscript, just give them the art brief. I contend that, with the best will in the world, an art brief cannot capture the nuances, the mood, the essence of a story to feed the artists’ creativity, so they are sometimes surprised at the requests for changes as they do not fully understand what is required to complement the story. No wonder some persons complain that the book covers and illustrations for Caribbean children’s books are rarely exciting, and we don’t get anything new by way of technique or vision.

 

My other complaint is the blanket expectation that a children’s book automatically means  whimsy or cartoons; and the lack of appreciation for the requirements of stories for the different age groups within the genre of children’s books. Writers often choose to specialize in writing for specific age groups, perhaps illustrators should do so too. But, since this section of publishing is not well developed in the Caribbean, perhaps there is little incentive to invest time and talent here.

What goes into the design of a book cover? Obviously the intended readership is of extreme importance. If we think of children’s books as covering the age range 0 to 14 years, we need to remember that there are several divisions within this range.

Carlong Publishers

 Easy divisions

0- 3 years –picture books

3-6 years – picture books

6-8 years – picture story books/ early chapter books

8 to 12 years – chapter books/novels

12 to 14 – chapter books/ novels

These age divisions may vary for different publishers. For example, some publishers now use

9 to 13 as a ‘tween age – not quite young adult not completely past chapter books.

These divisions are necessary as guides to writers, illustrators, and readers/purchasers of books. Children's reading readiness, their interests and needs vary from one group to the next, and books should reflect this.

 Can you tell, just by the covers of the books in this post, which age groups are being targeted?

Unfortunately, there is still a tendency to respond to the term children’s books as covering just the picture book ages. Whenever I am asked to read in the children’s section of any function, I point out that although I am an author of children’s books, my stories are for ages 8 and up. I was once asked to read at a morning session at a bookstore where the normal attendance was in the 6 and under age group. I had to abandon my reading plan in favour of something suitable for that age group. Fortunately, the bookstore now has an afternoon session for older children, and both audience and myself were more comfortable when I returned to read for this group.

Carlong publishers

I bring up the importance of the age divisions again, because in the Caribbean, the production of books for children is still, for the most part, in its infancy. The Book Industry of Jamaica (BIAJ) has just recently,for 2011, introduced two sections for children’s book awards- Picture books and Chapter books. Previously there was just one section.They need to consider adding a third, for the YA group (Young Adult).It is not fair to lump together books meant for different age groups in any competition. What standard criteria for judging can be used? A book meant for the YA group will differ from books for adults and should be judged separately. Notwithstanding all this, the fact is that many adults enjoy books for children, and many children

can enjoy books meant for older age groups.

Which brings me back to the problem of book covers. Book designers, of necessity must consider the ages of the intended readership. Illustrations for books in the different age ranges must obviously reflect  the difference in the interests of the readers. What works for one group will not necessarily work for another.

In light of this discussion, I pose this question - who is the best judge of a good book cover?

Jack Mandora

We all know what we want a cover to do – attract readers and buyers. A good cover will also reflect the story’s purpose and appeal specifically to the target age group. In the long run, many of us use very subjective judgements, and your guess may be as good as mine.However, a good story with popular appeal will sell whether the cover has or doesn’t have outstanding artistic appeal. My guess is that many Harry Potter fans, for example, would not really care if the book cover was just plain brown paper with title and author.

Diane Browne

LMH

LMH

Featuring Anansi

Featuring Anansi

 

 

The Anansi festival in Kingston on Saturday afternoon, was a great deal of fun. Many children turned out and thoroughly enjoyed the storytelling. So,too, did the adults in the audience. The storytellers were very good and enlivened their presentations with a lot of interaction with the audience.

Unfortunately the link-up with a similar festival in Miami didn’t come off , so we didn’t get to see Geoffrey Philp launching his new book Marcus and the Amazons.

But back to the storytellers. It struck me again how different storytelling is from reading from one’s book for an audience.

Storytelling demands performance artistry. Constant interaction with the audience is key. The storyteller has to be sharp and utilize the mood of the audience to enhance the story. For example, one story teller, Adzika Simba asked a boy to be the goat in the story. He refused to get up but she wove him and his reaction into the story - to the amusement of the audience.

Another storyteller, Joan Andrea Hutchinson showed how Anansi looks when he is thinking up a plot to outwit persons in the story. “Hand at him jaw. Hand pon him head. Hand pan him jaw”.The children enthusiastically mimicked these actions everytime the story called for Anansi to think.

Amina Blackwood Meeks showed how cockroach did the Dinki Mini ( a traditional Jamaican dance ) and the boy called out to be cockraoch copied the dance to the delight of the audience.

Reading a story or part of a story from one’s book demands a different kind of presentation. Obviously one uses whatever opportunity presents itself for interaction with the audience, but since one is reading from the written word there is not much opportunity to ad lib and change the format, so a reading is rarely dramatic enough to engage all of an audience in the same way storytelling can. And this became obvious as the readers followed the storytellers. Children were listening, but were not as attentive or engrossed as with the storytellers. Many used the opportunity to visit the book tables on the outskirts and get their faces painted or watch a presentation on spiders put on by the Institute of Jamaica.

A good time was had by all. I was only sorry that I had to leave before it all ended. Congratulations to Kelly Magnus and the BIAJ. I hope this becomes an annual treat.

Anything is possible

Anansi Reading by Shannon

Advice to my writing class: If you are going to write for children, successfully, you need to recapture that sense of the newness and wonder of things. The world might be old but a child is new to it and anything is possible.

There’s an ad running on television which tickles me every time I see it. I am not advertising the product, but in essence, the ad shows two young girls watching their mother put cream on her face. They ask her why, and she explains that it makes her look younger. They ask if it really works and she assures them it does.

Cut to the girls plastering the face of their sleeping grandfather with the cream. One says “ He’s going to look so young  when he wakes up." The other agrees “ He’ll look like a baby.”

ANYTHING is possible to the young..

So, release your imagination

Writing for Children

How to Write

For Children

April turned out to be a very busy month. Not much time for blogging. The part I liked best was starting my annual (nowadays) teaching stint of eight weeks  –  four weeks writing for adults and four weeks writing for children. Students register for both, even if they think they are only interested in one segment. Sometimes they find their feet in the segment in which they were not initially interested.

Last week we started the Writing for Children segment. That introductory two hours is always fun. As writers for children know, you have to get in touch with your inner child; be able to see things through the eyes of a child; recapture the wonder of the newness of things.In that first class as we do exercises intended to ‘remember when’, usually the adults begin to grin, sometimes giggle, and generally relax as they share stories of their early youth.

I am looking forward to the results of this week’s homework  –   to lie on the floor in a room in the house and see things from the perspective of a very small child. I have had some real funny responses. One student once said that while on the floor she realized that her household helper had not swept under the bed for some time and got so angry she couldn’t complete the exercise. Obviously she missed the opportunity to recognize those lovely dust bunnies and scary objects from a child’s imagination.

I'm a Winner!

Hectic weekend of activities with the Book Industry Association of Jamaica (BIAJ) - awards ceremony, illustrators workshops, readings etc.
Just briefly announcing that my book Bernie and the Captain's Ghost won the Best Children's Chapter Book Award for 2011. I am very pleased.

http://carlongpublishers.com/book_listing_subject.php?id=32

for all results of this competition see '
http://bookindustryja.com/content/biaj-eleventh-biennial-biaj-national-publishing-and-writing-awards-2011

Writing tips for children's writers

Don't mind the 'foreign' voice on the previous post.  Write4Kids allows their writing tips to be re-posted. As an editor, one of the most frustrating tasks is to have to wade through a poorly presented manuscript. In the Caribbean, a gem can sometimes be discovered from a new writer who hasn't learned all they should about how a book gets published, so I will skim through all the manuscripts which reach me. However, it is a real turn off when it is immediately obvious that a writer has not taken the time to learn at least some of the basics of his/her craft. Maybe this 'foreign' voice will help to convince some to do so.

Your enthusiasm is good, but you want the editor to catch your enthusiasm, so please take some time to learn how to present your work. There are lots of sites on the Internet giving free advice to writers.  Here's one -
Write4Kids blog;  http://www.write4kids.com/blog/2011/03/07/do-you-need-kids-to-write-for-kids/

Submitting to Children's Book Publishers: 3 Steps to Avoiding Rejection...

How not to sell your books

A book marketing newsletter I subscribe to makes this very important point:

All of marketing consists in creating relationships. Real relationships: friends, lovers, partners, warriors, fans.

Another good point is made by a subscriber describing how she sold many copies of her book at airports, restaurants etc, just by carrying copies of the book and telling people face to face about it- Instant sales.
I know I'm going to vex a few persons who might read this post, but I suspect other Caribbean (Maybe it's only in Jamaica???) writers have my experience with this relationship and face to face selling thing.It's another hazard of our small populations.

 Here's how it usually goes: You are at a function, or you meet persons you know well or not-so-well and after the greeting the conversation will go something  like this:
Friend/Foe:   I hear you have a new book out
Me:              Yeah came out earlier this year
F/F               What's the title again?                                                                                                            
Me               Bernie and the Captain's Ghost (Could be another title) It's a children's book
F/F               Where can I get a copy?
Me               It's in the book stores (Duh!)
F/F               You don't have a copy with you?
At this point you'd better say no, because if you say you do and hand it over this is what is likely to happen
F/F              Looks interesting. My son/daughter/nephew/niece/godchild/grandchild would like this.How much is it?
So you give the price gleefully smelling a sale.Then F/F says: "I don't have any cash on me, but call me later at ....... OR  I'll get it to you later" - and walks away with your book.

AND THAT IS TOO OFTEN THE END OF THAT STORY. F/F is never in when you call and if you buck up him/her later you'll get a kind of blank look. He/she can barely remember having taken your book and attitude will suggest you are planning a scam on him/.her.(You're sure I didn't pay you ?)

Then, of course, writer gets shame and drops the issue. Unfortunate!! People who would never think of going into a restaurant and not paying, have no qualms about getting your book for free. It's a mind set we seem to have- books should be borrowed or gifted, but never bought.

At a launch, people (F/Fs) will come expecting to buy a copy of your book,but after that, it's like pulling teeth with your bare hands.
Is it just me with this experience?????

Whose 'tongue'?

Geoffrey Philp posted reference to this article on facebook recently

http://www.3quarksdaily.com/3quarksdaily/2011/02/decolonizing-my-mind.html

It contains extremely interesting observations on colonization in Africa and India, and how ‘natives’ were  colonized more by language than the gun. 

Here's an extract:          

When done right, the native comes to elevate and mimic his master’s ways, to see his own culture as inferior, and to look down on his past as ‘a wasteland of non-achievement’. He begins to defer to the colonizer’s ideas on fundamental things like beauty, art, and politics. In time, he begins to understand himself and his culture through the eyes of the colonizer—using the latter’s concepts, categories, and judgments. Before too long, he turns into a proxy for his master: colonialism with a native face.
How does the colonizer gain such control? The easiest method is to actively spread his language among the natives, and to simultaneously denigrate the language of the natives as crude and unfit for proper education.

Consequently, the article continues, ex-colonial writers are still rated by their expertise in, and given recognition for use of the ‘mother’ tongue.  Release from this straight -jacket, it seems to suggest, is for writers to return to writing in the native ‘tongue’.

The Caribbean colonial experience is similar, except that the majority of us, coming from Africa, very early lost our languages and our cultures, which were replaced by a (still) confusing mix (adaptations)  –  of what was forced on us, together with our dim memories.  We were thoroughly creolized. So while Indians and Africans never really lost their languages , what do we in the Caribbean have to fall back on?

Our language debate continues  –  local dialects(languages) versus standard ‘Mother tongue’. It is hardly realistic to write a story about children in Jamaica, for example, and use standard English dialogue only, when the majority of our children speak variations  of our creole.

 My Awakening

In my story Good Morning Corner in a collection entitled Ramgoat Dashalong, the protagonist, a wayward street boy, named Ginseng  is taken off the streets of Kingston  by his grandmother to live with her in her rural home high in the hills of Portland. Ginseng is very uncomfortable and regularly ridicules the customs of these rural folk, is disobedient to his grandmother and rude to the older folk.  He is anxious to return to the street life he left behind. The villagers only tolerate him because of their respect for his grandmother.

Then, one night during a storm, he has a magical encounter with his ancestors and begins to understand the importance of family and community.

One of the ancestors, a powerful African woman, gives him the lecture which changes his attitude.

Great –great-great grandmother Addie stood over him. Her voice filled the cave like thunder rolling in from a far distance. Her words echoed  and re-echoed as if to make sure that all who listened, heard and understood.

“Ef you nuh know where you a come from, you cyan know where you a go. The future can ongle come out a the past. One,one smaddy nuh have no strength. Strength come from all the living which everybody roun you do fi you, and wid you.”

In my first draft I had her delivering these words of wisdom in standard English!  although she had previously been using the creole. That’s my colonial heritage – Creole is for entertainment, mostly laughter. To be taken seriously, her wisdom had to be delivered in Standard English.

I was horrified when I realized how my thought processes were working, so  I revised and creolized her speech.  But even then , in writing the words, they came out nearer standard than how she would sound,realistically.

Of course I had in mind the fact that our dialogue is one of the main reasons agents say that our fiction will not be attractive to foreign publishers or to a foreign audience. Since we, as yet, have no standard way of writing the creole each writer is on his own when it comes to how he presents dialogue. It remains an interesting dilemma -  more so in writing for children than for adults. ( Both teachers and parents are uncomfortable with what goes against the Ministry of Education's preferences. After all, the children have to pass standard English exams!!)

 I tell students in my writing classes that I have no answers.  I do what feels right at the moment. The debate will go on for a while yet.

 

Much More to be Explored in our stories

Once, when I was teaching a short writing course in Trinidad, a student mentioned that she had written a story  for children about a whale washed up on a beach in Trinidad. The overseas publisher to whom she sent it wrote back to say that the story was unrealistic as there were no whales in the Caribbean.

Click on the link below and read this article  

http://repeatingislands.com/2011/01/30/orcas-seen-along-western-coast-of-puerto-rico/


Much more waiting to be explored in our stories for children

Aspects of Fantasy in Caribbean Children's Books - The Great Divide

Dancing Princesses collage by Shannon

The Great Divide

Without Disney many modern children would not know the classical fairy tales which so fired the imaginations of many of us who are now writers of children’s stories. Indeed, in my country, it is no longer easy to just walk into a book store and pick up a book of fairy tales. They have to be specially ordered.

Interestingly enough, there are increasingly modern variations of these stories, but of course the fantasy remains.

My questions for those who want to write fantasy for children in the Caribbean, in particular,are – what are your reference points? Do you know the heroes/villains of the fantasies children are now watching via video games/cable/television? In your writing can you make reference to these characters with which your readers would readily identify? Can you create the kinds of characters in keeping with the modern child’s expectations?

This comment was made on an earlier post on my blog by a reader:

“I'd like to know, do you think every author should strive to create new creatures, the classical, old ones like vampires, elves, dwarfs, wizards with sharp hats, fairies, etc. are too ordinary already?”

 It's not that they are ordinary, but perhaps passé unless you can give them new attributes and situations which can fire the imaginations of the now generations.(e.g Harry Potter; Disney's Frog and the Princess where the princess turns into a frog when they kiss.)

Many of the characters in the games the children play or the creatures they watch on cable have the same age-old characteristics – there are heroes and villains, (helped by techno 'magic') people in distress, rivalries and conquests, etc.where good fights evil  – win or lose – these never die, but they are in new forms and garments and have new kinds of powers suitable to this age of technology.

I think that this post came to mind because of the voices complaining that our (Caribbean) children's stories are overwhelmingly from the past  –  heavily folkloric or about a quaint rural past.

General advice if you are writing for children is to get to know the modern child. Don’t just depend on your childhood memories. Life is very different for many children, these days. If you have none of your own, get access to children through schools and  children’s organizations;  volunteer to read or assist in some form. Libraries can help you to determine what the children prefer to read. Search the web to see what games are popular. People your fantasy with new creatures; modernize the old ones.

A writer like Helen Williams in Delroy in the Marog Kingdom (Billy Elm) is, I think, on the right track.  My ‘don’t like fiction’ grandson enjoyed this book.

The joyful thing about fantasy is that there is no limitation on your imagination.

For example, as enchanting as some of our River Mumma stories are, perhaps she could do with an update. What if she had hair extensions or Rasta locks and a name change to Sista Tall Hair?  What could happen  when, intrigued by dance hall music, she wants to come on land to dance (sounds a bit familiar?) What other characters would you put in that story? Would she go online to a search engine to find out how to change to human form? Or how to dance with a fishtail? Or start her own dancehall sessions on the reef?

What if our Cinderella (new name) falls in love with the prince who is the son of King Dudus? The glass slipper might be a lost cell phone instead! –  "Call to be picked up at 12 o'clock", but her credit was stolen by the jealous sisters! ( The I-Twos!!)  The ball of course would be a dancehall session. What adventures would she have? And could she influence change in the 'kingdom'?

There are no new stories, just different ways to tell them!

Since I wrote this post, I now have a story on amazon - ebook about a Jamaican Mr King and His daughter

Check it there

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ESEWI6I

Tek Mi! Noh Tek Mi!Caribbean folktales Link
**http://carlongpublishers.com/view_book_details.php?id=191&sid=32&lid=13

Are you a writer?

If when you wake up in the morning all you can think about is the story you are writing or the next story you want to write, you ARE a writer. I adapted that from a statement made by Whoopi Goldberg in Sister Act 2.

So what are you doing about it? Are you actively writing? That’s the only way to truly become a writer. Keep writing and re-writing until you are satisfied with what  you have written.

Here are a few tips:

Write something every day- even a page or two.

Read every book you can put your hands on in your chosen genre.

Link up with other writers and don’t be overly sensitive to criticism.

Hone your language skills. Review the grammar and language arts skills you learned at school. There are books to help writers with the mechanics of the language.

Get editing help if you need it BEFORE presenting  your manuscript to a publisher. There is nothing more off-putting to an editor than poorly presented copy.

Search the Internet for sites which can give you information on your areas of weakness.

If self-publishing, be sure to have the work edited by an experienced editor.

Learn how to submit to agents and publishers. In the Caribbean the process is usually quite informal. Check publisher sites for submission guidelines and follow them.

Happy writing! I am hoping to see more Caribbean children’s books published in 2011