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The Robber and Me
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From: Ginny Moore Kruse <gmkruse>
Date: Fri, 06 Mar 1998 09:43:02 -0600
After reading Marc Aronson's remarks about the original narrative in German of Holub's The Robber and Me, I keep thinking about the fragility of communication.
Marc pointed out important elements of Holub's style, of Holub's vision for Boniface's story, of Holub's voice. As a reader, I need to remember that there are countless styles and voices employed by writers born in the USA who write in one dialect or another of American English. How important it is to retain each author's voice. How essential it is for that voice to be "heard" by his/her readers. This all compounds the challenges and responsibilities of the U.S. editors seeking fresh stories, autobiographies and memoirs written right here, not to mention those first written in other languages.
There are market considerations, and we're naive if we think those aren't immediate. Book publishing is an industry. Most writers from other nations, not to mention those writing in a language other than English, are unfamiliar to young readers, booksellers, teachers, librarians and parents in this nation. The story must be compelling and compellingly written. The jacket art must draw attention. This is why the Association for Library Service to Children (ALA) gives the Batchelder Award to the U.S. publisher. It's a huge commercial risk to publish a previously untranslated book of substantial length in a nation whose young consumers have been schooled in malls and by TV, etc., to look for the familiar, the label, the series, the brand. With that in mind, how amazing it is that The Robber and Me was even published. What a fragile thread links one story first written in Germany with young readers in the USA today!
What were some of your considerations, Marc, when you were deciding whether or not to get serious about publishing The Robber and Me? Did you ask translator Elizabeth Crawford for her opinon? for a partial translation? Tell us more about Holub, too, and about discovering his first book and then keeping in touch in some way with --- hmm, with whom? ... Ginny
************************************************ Ginny Moore Kruse (gmrkruse at ccbc.soemadison.wisc.edu) Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) A Library of the School of Education University of Wisconsin - Madison
Received on Fri 06 Mar 1998 09:43:02 AM CST
Date: Fri, 06 Mar 1998 09:43:02 -0600
After reading Marc Aronson's remarks about the original narrative in German of Holub's The Robber and Me, I keep thinking about the fragility of communication.
Marc pointed out important elements of Holub's style, of Holub's vision for Boniface's story, of Holub's voice. As a reader, I need to remember that there are countless styles and voices employed by writers born in the USA who write in one dialect or another of American English. How important it is to retain each author's voice. How essential it is for that voice to be "heard" by his/her readers. This all compounds the challenges and responsibilities of the U.S. editors seeking fresh stories, autobiographies and memoirs written right here, not to mention those first written in other languages.
There are market considerations, and we're naive if we think those aren't immediate. Book publishing is an industry. Most writers from other nations, not to mention those writing in a language other than English, are unfamiliar to young readers, booksellers, teachers, librarians and parents in this nation. The story must be compelling and compellingly written. The jacket art must draw attention. This is why the Association for Library Service to Children (ALA) gives the Batchelder Award to the U.S. publisher. It's a huge commercial risk to publish a previously untranslated book of substantial length in a nation whose young consumers have been schooled in malls and by TV, etc., to look for the familiar, the label, the series, the brand. With that in mind, how amazing it is that The Robber and Me was even published. What a fragile thread links one story first written in Germany with young readers in the USA today!
What were some of your considerations, Marc, when you were deciding whether or not to get serious about publishing The Robber and Me? Did you ask translator Elizabeth Crawford for her opinon? for a partial translation? Tell us more about Holub, too, and about discovering his first book and then keeping in touch in some way with --- hmm, with whom? ... Ginny
************************************************ Ginny Moore Kruse (gmrkruse at ccbc.soemadison.wisc.edu) Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) A Library of the School of Education University of Wisconsin - Madison
Received on Fri 06 Mar 1998 09:43:02 AM CST
