CCBC-Net Archives
Message from the Editor of Pedro and Me
- Contemporary messages sorted: [ by date ] [ by subject ] [ by author ]
From: Ginny Moore Kruse <gmkruse>
Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2001 14:21:46 -0600
Marc Aronson edited the Sibert Honor Book Pedro and Me while he was at Henry Holt and Company. Here is a message to the CCBC-Net community from Marc:
It is immensely gratifying to see that Pedro and Me is being used so well, and that adults and young readers are having the same reaction to it that I did: Judd is a wonderful storyteller whose medium happens to be the graphic novel, and whose subject is telling the truth.
Just now Judd and Pam are involved in a new cause. Pam is part of a team that is analyzing documents that the tobacco companies had to release as part of their settlement with the government. They are trying to find out how what the companies knew about teenagers and how to reach them, so that we can use the same techniques to educate young people about AIDS, about smoking, about ways they can live better instead of being manipulated into harming themselves. One of the first things they learned was how clever and resourceful the companies are. They identified the many different reasons kids have for smoking, and then they developed a product and a campaign to cater to each taste.
The obvious thing we can learn from the companies is to recognize how many different kinds of teenagers there are. And that is exactly what the Sibert folks did in honoring Judd. For some young readers, fiction is the uncontested favorite. For others it will be traditional nonfiction, and for still others it will be the graphic novel (though there is also probably plenty of overlap). I think we are at the beginning of a very exciting moment in nonfiction for older readers where we begin to use visuals as part of our storytelling with the same degree of invention and insight as we have grown accustomed to seeing in picture books. DK was the pioneer in this, and for a decade all of us have looked for ways to combine their visual dazzle with richer text. Winslow's experiments with book/web links are one important step in that direction.
I hope that the Sibert award helps everyone in children's books to recognize what a potentially lively, creative, and innovative field nonfiction is, and to stop seeing it as a merely useful adjunct to classroom lessons. Honoring Pedro and Me was a wonderful step in that direction.
Marc Aronson, Carus Publishing
Ginny Moore Kruse gmkruse at education.wisc.edu Director, Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/ A Library of the School of Education, University of Wisconsin Madison 4290 Helen C. White Hall, 600 N. Park Street Madison, WI 53706, U.S.A.
Phone: 608&3721 or 720 Fax: 608&2I33
The Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) is a noncirculating library for adults with an academic, professional or career interest in contemporary or historical literature for children and young adults.
Received on Tue 06 Mar 2001 02:21:46 PM CST
Date: Tue, 06 Mar 2001 14:21:46 -0600
Marc Aronson edited the Sibert Honor Book Pedro and Me while he was at Henry Holt and Company. Here is a message to the CCBC-Net community from Marc:
It is immensely gratifying to see that Pedro and Me is being used so well, and that adults and young readers are having the same reaction to it that I did: Judd is a wonderful storyteller whose medium happens to be the graphic novel, and whose subject is telling the truth.
Just now Judd and Pam are involved in a new cause. Pam is part of a team that is analyzing documents that the tobacco companies had to release as part of their settlement with the government. They are trying to find out how what the companies knew about teenagers and how to reach them, so that we can use the same techniques to educate young people about AIDS, about smoking, about ways they can live better instead of being manipulated into harming themselves. One of the first things they learned was how clever and resourceful the companies are. They identified the many different reasons kids have for smoking, and then they developed a product and a campaign to cater to each taste.
The obvious thing we can learn from the companies is to recognize how many different kinds of teenagers there are. And that is exactly what the Sibert folks did in honoring Judd. For some young readers, fiction is the uncontested favorite. For others it will be traditional nonfiction, and for still others it will be the graphic novel (though there is also probably plenty of overlap). I think we are at the beginning of a very exciting moment in nonfiction for older readers where we begin to use visuals as part of our storytelling with the same degree of invention and insight as we have grown accustomed to seeing in picture books. DK was the pioneer in this, and for a decade all of us have looked for ways to combine their visual dazzle with richer text. Winslow's experiments with book/web links are one important step in that direction.
I hope that the Sibert award helps everyone in children's books to recognize what a potentially lively, creative, and innovative field nonfiction is, and to stop seeing it as a merely useful adjunct to classroom lessons. Honoring Pedro and Me was a wonderful step in that direction.
Marc Aronson, Carus Publishing
Ginny Moore Kruse gmkruse at education.wisc.edu Director, Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) www.education.wisc.edu/ccbc/ A Library of the School of Education, University of Wisconsin Madison 4290 Helen C. White Hall, 600 N. Park Street Madison, WI 53706, U.S.A.
Phone: 608&3721 or 720 Fax: 608&2I33
The Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) is a noncirculating library for adults with an academic, professional or career interest in contemporary or historical literature for children and young adults.
Received on Tue 06 Mar 2001 02:21:46 PM CST
