From: Megan Schliesman <Schliesman>
Date: Fri, 11 Apr 1997 14:33:00 -600

I am posting this message a second time in response to the requests received. I hope it works!

Megan Schliesman

Last weekend (April 4-5), there was a conference on the UW-Madison campus on Radical Change: Books Open to the 21st Century. The theme developed out of the work of Eliza Dresang of Florida State University in Tallahassee (and formerly of the Madison Metropolitan School District), who is writing a book titled Radical Change: Literature for Youth in an Electronic Age (H.W. Wilson, 1997) and Kate McClelland of Perrot Public Library, Old Greenwich, Connecticut.

One aspect of the conference was book discussion in which conference participants had the opportunity to discuss books which represent one or more of the three characteristics of Radical Change that Eliza and Kate have identified. Below is a brief description of each of these characteristics along with a list of the books that were discussed in book discussions at the conference. We would like to invite the CCBC-NET community to talk about these and other books as they relate to your ideas and understanding of Radical Change as presented below:

Characteristics of Type 1 Radical Change Books:
-Graphics in exciting new forms and formats
-Words and pictures reaching new levels of synergy
-Nonlinear and nonsequential in organization and-Offer the possibility of reading interactively in a variety of ways
-Encourage the reader to make connections for him/herself
-Have multiple layers of meaning

Characteristics of Type 2 Radical Change Books:
?ature multiple perspectives on one topic/theme
-Incorporate previously unheard voices
-Provide child readers with perspectives not previously presented
-Provide children the opportunity to speak for themselves

Characteristics of Type 3 Radical Change Books:
?al with the external chaos of the world
-Provide unstoppable information on topics previously forbidden
?pict the importance of community; relationship to nonparent adult
    or peers
-Contain endings that are not necessarily happy

The books on the discussion list at the conference were:

Anno's Magic Seeds by Mitsumasa Anno. (Philomel, 1995) Bein' with You This Way by W. Nikola Lisa. Illus. by Michael Bryant.
    (Lee and Low, 1994) Black and White by David Macaulay. (Houghton Mifflin, 1990) Kofi and His Magic by Maya Angelou. Photographs by Margaret
  Courtney-Clarke. (Clarkson Potter, 1996) The Magic School Bus in the Time of the Dinosaurs by Joanna Cole.
    Illus. by Bruce Degen. (Scholastic, 1994) One Afternoon by Yumi Heo. (Orchard, 1994) Two Mice in Three Fables by Lynn Reiser. (Greenwillow, 1995) Christmas in the Big House, Christmas in the Quarters by Patricia C.
   and Fredrick L. McKissack. (Scholastic, 1994) Scooter by Vera B. Williams. (Greenwillow, 1993) The Song of Mu Lan by Jeanne M. Lee. Trans. from the Chinese.
   (U.S. edition: Front Street, 1995) Starry Messenger: Galileo Galilei by Peter S?s. (Frances
    Foster/Farrar Straus Giroux, 1996) This Land Is My Land by George Littlechild. (Children's Book Press,
   1993) What Jamie Saw by Carolyn Coman. (Front Street, 1995) Bull Run by Paul Fleischman. Illus. by David Frampton.
    (HarperCollins, 1993) An Island Like You by Judith Ortiz Cofer. (Melanie Kroupa/Orchard,
    1995) Speaking Out: Teenagers Take on Race, Sex, and Identity by
    Susan Kuklin. (Putnam, 1993) Tonight, By Sea by Frances Temple. (Richard Jackson/Orchard, 1995) Toning the Sweep by Angela Johnson. (Richard Jackson/Orchard, 1993)

So let's start thinking and talking Radical Change in terms of these and others books!

Megan Schliesman Cooperative Children's Book Center School of Education UW-Madison schliesman at mail.soemadison.wisc.edu
Received on Fri 11 Apr 1997 03:33:00 PM CDT