The list is called, "25 Best Australian Children Book Blogs and Websites" and our very own SCBWI: The Blog is the very first one included (that's why you get twenty-four more!)
It's lots of fun to explore this Australian lens on our industry... and so many books by Australian creators!
Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee
For our third post celebrating World Kid Lit Month 2023, translator and translation activist Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp brings us up to date with the new books on the blog, and highlights some of the amazing ways readers have been celebrating #WorldKidLitMonth offline in the real world... Thank you, Ruth!
This is the third of four posts by the World Kid Lit team this September! Read all four posts!
Ruth Ahmedzai Kemp is a literary translator working from Arabic, German and Russian in English. A passionate advocate of world literature for young people and diversity in children's publishing and education, she is co-editor of ArabKidLitNow! and Russophone Kid Lit blogs, and writes about global reading for young people at World Kid Lit, Words Without Borders, and World Literature Today. She also promotes language learning and creative translation for young people through her workshops in schools.
Helen Wang is a UK-based translator of children's literature from Chinese to English. Her best known translation is the novel Bronze and Sunflower by Cao Wenxuan, winner of the Hans Christian Andersen Award, 2016. She runs the blog Chinese Books for Young Readers.
It's not just about the titles that get called out, or have their out-of-context salacious bits read aloud at public hearings. It's about the overall chilling effect of the challenges and bans that make librarians hesitant to bring in any other books that might be challenged -- and this directly impacts books that represent communities that traditionally have been under-represented, especially Black and LGBTQIA2+ communities.
As the lead paragraphs of the article by Marlaina Cockcroft that sums up the results of SLJ’s 2023 Controversial Books Survey read:
“The surge in book challenges nationwide is having a chilling effect on school librarians, who are more likely to avoid buying books or to remove titles from collections because of their content than they were last year...
“Thirty-seven percent of librarians said book challenges influenced their purchasing decisions for the library, up from 27 percent in 2022, an effect that spans all grade levels. Twenty-four percent of respondents said they’d experienced harassment over books or displays in their library.”
The article -- and report -- are well-worth reading.
Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee
Time flies! We’re almost halfway through #WorldKidLitMonth 2023! More and more people and organisations are joining in, and it’s brilliant to see #WorldKidLitMonth on social media, in the news, in the press, on the radio. If you’re new to World Kid Lit Month, we recommend jumping into our website worldkidlit.org and having a good nosy around. When something catches your attention, keep going, follow the links and see where it takes you. Enjoy!
Jackie Friedman Mighdoll:
My kids love math – numbers, patterns, logic, coding! Since they were
little, I’ve looked for stories that naturally include math concepts. There
are plenty of counting books out there, but we’ve found the best math books
do more than just count. They provide a variety of ways to engage young
listeners and make them think – about the numbers and more. Today I
highlight one classic and two new math picture books from Japan, Norway, and
India.
The 2023 List: Children’s and YA Books in Translation
WKL team: Here at Project World Kid Lit, we keep track of published translations for young readers. Here’s the 2023 list. // We compile this list to help readers find translated children’s & young adult books from around the world, whether it’s for a school or family reading project, or to celebrate #WorldKidLitMonth in September. It's arranged by publisher. // This year, so far, we know of over 200 books translated into English from 26 languages: Arabic, Bengali, Catalan, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Hebrew, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Latvian, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Russian, Slovenian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish, Ukrainian, and Vietnamese. // If you know of any titles we’re missing, please send us the details. (We’re looking for children’s and YA titles publishing in 2023, that were translated into English from any language, anywhere).
This is the second of four posts by the World Kid Lit team this September! Read all four posts!
Helen Wang is a UK-based translator of children's literature from Chinese to English. Her best known translation is the novel Bronze and Sunflower by Cao Wenxuan, winner of the Hans Christian Andersen Award, 2016. She runs the blog Chinese Books for Young Readers.
Our friends at the Authors Guild are doing some important education and advocacy around Artificial Intelligence, in particular the unauthorized use of copyright-protected content to train generative AI -- though I do think we should be calling it "re-generative" because these systems are not creating anything new, they're regurgitating and remixing human-created creative work.
This piece, Practical Tips for Authors To Protect Their Works from AI Use, is very instructive.
In it, the Authors Guild suggests a "No AI Training" notice be used, something like:
NO AI TRAINING: Without in any way limiting the author’s [and publisher’s] exclusive rights under copyright, any use of this publication to “train” generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies to generate text is expressly prohibited. The author reserves all rights to license uses of this work for generative AI training and development of machine learning language models.
It's well-worth checking out.
Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee
September is #WorldKidLitMonth, a wonderful time to discover world literature and translation for children and young adults. Perhaps you’ve never thought about children’s books created in another country and another language? Or would like to see what’s new in the international world of children’s books?
The World Kid Lit team is active all year round, collecting
information, making lists, writing blogs and so much more. And in September, we
try to encourage everyone to join in. This year it’s our 8th World
Kid Lit Month, and our website is better than ever. Take a look, dip in, search
for books by country, language, target reader age, author, illustrator, translator
– browse any way you like! Most of all, enjoy!
If you relish a challenge, try reading your way around the world, or playing World Kid Lit Month Bingo! You can download maps and bingo charts on the World Kid Lit website. We have lots of ready-made resources that you can download for free. It can be fun to do these challenges with friends, as a family, or as a class.
We’re also keen to learn from you! Tell us what you're reading! We're on social media as @worldkidlit - remember to use the hashtag #WorldKidLitMonth. Or you can contact us via the World Kid Lit website.
A few words about the World Kid Lit team - we're a group of volunteers around the world who come together through our interest and love of children's and YA books. You can find out more about us here.
How did World Kid Lit Month start? - The hashtag #WorldKidLitMonth was first used on social media in 2016 by Marcia Lynx Qualey, Lawrence Schimel and Alexandra Büchler. This was followed by the blog, also in 2016. A campaign emerged for greater visibility of world literature within English-language children's and YA publishing. It's part of a broader campaign for inclusive and representative literature for children - books that represent our global population in all its diversity.
Improving visibility - It wasn't always easy to discover children's books from other countries, as publishers don't always highlight when a book is translated, what language it was translated from, or who the translator was (please, always #namethetranslator). Project World Kid Lit evolved to help English readers all over the world discover global authors, illustrators and translators.
Working collaboratively - The World Kid Lit website was founded with the aim of shining a spotlight on a vibrant and growing area of children's and YA publishing. It also aims to be a hub connecting readers with many other organizations championing world literature for young people. We're delighted to work with SCBWI!
Translation in SCBWI - SCBWI has translator members and there is a Translation section on the SCBWI website.
SCBWI's Global Translator Coordinator is the award-winning translator Avery Fischer Udagawa, translator of Sachiko Kashiwaba’s novel Temple Alley Summer, illustrated by Miho Satake, (Restless Books, 2021), which won the 2022 Mildred L. Batchelder Award.
This is the first of four posts by the World Kid Lit team this September! Read all four posts!
Helen Wang is a UK-based translator of children's literature from Chinese to English. Her best known translation is the novel Bronze and Sunflower, by Cao Wenxuan, winner of the Hans Christian Anderson Award, 2016. She runs the blog Chinese Books for Young Readers.
It's September, and most kiddos are back to school after the summer break.
Maybe because we ourselves were kiddos at one time, and our formative years were shaped by this pattern, September still has that 'time to get back to work' feel.
Only, now I'm an adult, and kind of work all the time.
I can almost hear you say that. Then again, maybe that's just ME saying that.
Either way, I'd like to share a challenge that's partly inspired by the wonderful Debbie Ohi, who's been sharing on social media (like here on Instagram) how much fun she's having with a new artistic technique - collage.
As Debbie wrote in that post,
"I have no idea if I'll ever use this for illustrating children's books, but I'm having so much fun just PLAYING right now." —Debbie Ridpath Ohi
Maybe ask yourself, what does play look like in your creative process? Can you play with poems? With composing in a different language? With music? With art yourself?
How can we add play to the mix of our lives as we all juggle our must-dos and want-to-dos?
Some play might be just what we (and our creative work) need.
Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee
Seeing Novels from Both the Writing and Publishing Sides by Austin Ross, published earlier this month, includes some hard-earned wisdom. Some insights that resonated for me:
I have to constantly remind myself that it’s the writing that matters most. What becomes dangerous is when I focus my creative energy on the publishing circle of that Venn diagram—thinking of what might sell or attract an agent’s interest rather than what I want to write. —Austin Ross
and
We have no control over whether our work will be remembered or not, so we may as well have a little fun along the way.... I find myself wanting to go back and tell the eight-year-old version of me this same thing: writing should be fun, damn it. I would tell him, “Worry less about being ‘a writer’ and just write. Write what you love, and let the chips fall where they may.” —Austin Ross
It's well-worth reading.
Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee
The new owner of the nearly century-old publisher is the private investment firm KKR. You can read about the deal here in Publishers Weekly.
This means we still have a "big five" of corporate publishers in the US, avoiding the consolidation of giant publishers which isn't particularly good for we creators of children's, tween, and teen books.
Part of being a creator is keeping up with the big news in our industry...
Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee
Where to find it?
Well the first place to go is the Official SCBWI Conference Blog - at https://scbwiconference.blogspot.com/
Jolie Stekly, Debbie Ohi, Jaime Temairik, and Justin Campbell have you all set...
You can also check out your favorite social media channel with the hashtag: #scbwiSummer23
We hope you'll be inspired, too!
Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee
First timer orientation is today (Thursday Aug 3, 2023 at 4pm Pacific) and then the virtual conference starts on Friday Aug 4 at 8:30am Pacific. You can see the full conference schedule here.
Don't miss out on Keynotes (Lisa Yee, Frank Morrison, Doug Salati, and Angeline Boulley!)
Panels (Agents & Editors, Art Directors, Debut Authors!)
Breakout Sessions (More than 35 of them!)
A Half-Day Intensive Just for Illustrators (With amazing faculty!)
Pitch Sessions with Acquiring Agents and Editors (Make sure to addend the "How to Pitch to Editors and Agents" breakout session first!)
Portfolio Showcase for Illustrators (So many illustrators have advanced their craft and career by participating!)
Website and Social Media Consults (one-on-one 20 minute expert advice!)
Online Socials and Peer Critiques (find more of your community!)
And make sure to bookmark the SCBWI Conference blog, where Jolie Stekly, Debbie Ohi, Jaime Temairik, and Justin Campbell will be live-blogging the conference!
Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee
On July 28, 2023, Sophia Stewart reported in Publishers Weekly about a new start up publishing house, Bindery.
The goal is to have micro-imprints where an influencer, in concert with their fans/followers, chooses one book that will get published by the publishing house that year. The success of that book, ostensibly driven by the influencer's authentic enthusiasm (a.k.a. promotion), is then shared 50% for the author, 25% for the publishing house, and 25% for the influencer.
From my perspective, this changes the game in a few ways:
Seems that the way publishers interacted with influencers in the past was to try to get the influencer themselves to write a book. But they're not necessarily good at being authors. (No shade, it's a different skill set).
And previously, when influencers got behind a book they didn't write and the book succeeded, the influencer didn't share in that success in any material way.
Since no one's been able to harness the viral enthusiasm of book influencers on social platforms like TikTok (even folks who've had their books succeed in that way aren't exactly sure how it happened, and no one has the formula to do it on demand) this is new attempt to leverage that influence and set a book up for the kind of viral success #booktok has become famous for.
However this shakes out, it will be fascinating to follow!
Illustrate, Translate, and Write On,
Lee
