USBBY Conference Austin Texas, 2019 my reading list

I will be attending the USBBY Regional Conference this year so I wanted to explore the work of the presenters. There are some "big" names here but also many wonderful book creators that are new to me. I am sure it will be a very exiting weekend. I have not listed every book by every author or illustrator but in most cases I have put a web site link so you can explore this for yourself.

David Bowles
Lives in Texas Born in 1970 Web site: https://davidbowles.us/books/

Jen Byrant
Lives in Pennsylvania USA Born in 1960 Web site: https://www.jenbryant.com/books/books.html
Books: Six Dots: A story of young Louis Braille; A Splash of Red; The Right Word; A River of Words; Pieces of Georgia (I'm planning to read this one).

Adolfo Cordova
Lives in Mexico Born in 1983 Web site: https://linternasybosques.wordpress.com/#
Research Paper - State Terrorism and Children's books

Nicola Davies 
Lives in Wales, UK Born in 1958 Web site: https://www.nicola-davies.com/
Nicola is the author of over sixty books.
Some titles to explore include Every Child a Song (due August 2019); The Promise; King of the Sky; The Secret of the Egg; The Wonder of Trees; Animal Poems; The Promise: Tiny Creatures; One tiny Turtle, Bat Loves the Night; Ice Bear and Big Blue Whale.  I plan to read her novel Whale Boy.

Hafsah Faizal
Lives in Texas, USA Born in1993 Web site: https://www.hafsahfaizal.com/books
Young Adult titles - We hunt the Flame; We free the Stars
Read an interview in the School Library Journal

Elise Gravel
Lives in Montreal, Canada  Born in 1977 Web site: http://elisegravel.com/en/
Books include The Fly; The Toad; The Rat; The Slug; Head Lice; the Olga series (new title due September 2019) and The Worst Book Ever.

Gusti
Lives in Barcelona, Spain Born in 1963
I was excited to discover Gusti contributed an illustration to the book about the Rights of the Child - We are all born free. Gusti has illustrated over 30 books and most are in Spanish.

Ekua Holmes
Lives in Massachusetts, USA Born 1955 Web site: http://www.ekuaholmes.com/
Ekua is a mixed media illustrator. In 2015 she was the guest artist for the Google Doodle celebrating Martin Luther King Day. You can see one of her glorious illustrations below.

Qin Leng
Lives in Toronto, Canada (born in China) Web site: https://qinillustrations.com/
Qin is the illustrator of one of my most favourite books (of all time!) Shelter by Celine Claire. I have also talked about Norman Speak! by Caroline Adderson.

Irene Luxbacher
Lives in Toronto, Canada Born in 1970
Author/illustrator of six titles in the Starting Art series (Paint, Sculpt, Draw, Collage, Print); The Imaginary Garden by Andrew Larsen; Treasure by Mireille Messier (due September 2019); Aunt Pearl by Monica Kulling (due August 2019).

Grace Lin
Lives in Massachusetts USA Born in 1974 Web site: https://www.gracelin.com/
One of the exciting things about attending this conference will be meeting authors of books I have loved. I am a huge fan of the Ling and Ting series and the trilogy that begins with Where the Mountain meets the Moon. Newest book A big bed for Little Snow (due October 2019).

Roger Mello
Lives in Brazil Born in 1965
Roger was the 2014 winner of the IBBY Hans Christian Andersen medal. He has illustrated over one hundred titles including Feather by Cao Wenxuan, and Lemon Butterfly also by Cao Wenxuan which was launched at the last USBBY conference in Seattle. You can see his stunning work in this Pinterest collection. His newest book is Charcoal boys (due October 2019).

Amanda Mijangos
Lives in Mexico Born in 1986 Web Site: https://www.amandamijangos.com/bio

Naomi Shihab Nye
Lives in Texas Born in 1952
Read more here: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/naomi-shihab-nye
Here is a video of Naomi reciting her poem Kindness.  Her poetry can be found in many anthologies. I was delighted to discover several of her books and poems are available in my local community library.

Baptiste Paul
Lives in Wisconsin, USA born in the Caribbean Web site: http://baptistepaul.net/

Christian Robinson
Lives in San Francisco  Born in 1986 Web site: https://www.theartoffun.com/books-gallery
You may recognize some of these books illustrated by Christian - Last Stop on Market Street; Leo a ghost story; Gaston; Antoinette and Another.

Allen Say
Lives in Oregon, USA  Born 1937 (Japan)
Allen Say is the author and illustrator of over thirty books. Among my favourites are Tree of Cranes; Tea with Milk and El Chino.

Laura Shovan
Lives in Maryland USA  Web site: https://laurashovan.com/
Well this is a wonderful discovery for me. Laura is the author a book I talked about here this year - The Last Fifth Grade of Emerson Elementary.

Cynthia Leitich Smith
Lives in Austin, Texas Born 1967 Web site: https://cynthialeitichsmith.com/
Young Adult author with titles such as Hearts Unbroken, Feral Nights and Rain is not my Indian Name.

Traci Sorell
Lives in Oklahoma, USA Web site: https://www.tracisorell.com/
It's exciting to see Australian illustrator Frane Lessac's work in We are Grateful.

Don Tate
Lives in Austin, Texas Born in 1963 Web site: https://dontate.com/

Padma Venkatraman
Lives in Rhode Island, USA  Born in 1969 Web site: https://padmavenkatraman.com/
I am about to read The Bridge Home. My local library has a copy of A time to Dance. Both are Kirkus Star titles.

Carmen Tafolla
Lives in Texas Born in 1951 Web site: https://www.carmentafolla.net/
Carmen is the author of more than thirty books and she has won numerous awards including a Charlotte Zolotow Award in 2010 for What can you do with a Paleta?

David Wiesner
Lives in Philadelphia, USA  Born in 1956  Web site: http://www.davidwiesner.com/
How exciting to hear David Wiesner creator of such brilliant and surprising books such as Tuesday; Flotsam; June 29 1999; and The Three Pigs.

Jacqueline Woodson
Lives in Brooklyn, USA  Born in 1963 Web site: https://www.jacquelinewoodson.com/
I have talked about Locomotion; Feathers and Pecan Pie Baby. In my former school library we have Each Kindness and on my 'to read pile' I have Brown Girl Dreaming and Harbor Me. I am in awe of Jacqueline's writing talent and range of titles from Picture books to powerful verse novels and books for adults too.

Paper Puppy by Achim Broger and Michele Sambin

Tuesday Treasure

I first discovered Paper Puppy in 1984 (my copy was titled Francie's Paper Puppy).

Between 1984 and 2017 I moved to several different schools but I was lucky to find this book in each collection. Paper Puppy is one of my Tuesday Treasures - these are books which were recently culled from my former school. Luckily I have been able to source my own copy. This one is a former library book from Lancashire, UK. It appears to have only had two borrowers. How sad. I am glad I will be able to share this book with groups of children here in Australia.

Francie lives in the country, far away from her school friends who live in town. It is the holidays and her mother and father have driven away to do some shopping. Francie is left behind. She tries to invent games to keep herself amused but deep in her heart she longs for a friend.

"Finally Francie heard their van coming up the road. It was still far away but she knew the sound. First she heard the rumble and then she heard the clanks that the van always made when it turned into the driveway."

Mum and Dad have bought Francie a present. It is a tube of paper and a set of paints. Francie sets to work straight away and produces a set of colourful paintings which she pins to her wall.

Lying in her bed that night Francie notices one of the paintings is quite special. It looks a little like a puppy.

"She took the picture down and went to get her scissors. Gently, very gently, she cut out the puppy from the middle of the picture. 'I hope I don't hurt you,' she whispered. Francie tucked her new puppy under the warm covers and snuggled close to him."

All through the next day Francie plays with her puppy. It is a joyous day. Yes the puppy is made from paper but this means he can fly like a kite, he makes an interesting sound when she pats him although she does have accept he cannot drink his milk. A full day of play means the puppy gets a little wrinkled. Can you see what Francie is doing in this illustration?

Sharing this book with my youngest students I always demonstrated water colour painting and included a rough puppy picture which I cut out and then used for storytelling. The final scenes are so special. Francie cannot find her puppy in the morning.  "She looked everywhere a piece of paper could hide." Suddenly she hears a noise. It sounds like barking. She runs outside and sees a real puppy "looking just like the puppy she went to sleep with the night before."

"Now I can really hug you and you won't get wrinkled."

I am not going to provide curriculum links for this book.  I simply think this is a book that's a joy to share. Nothing more, nothing less. If you need deeper themes then I guess it is a book which celebrates creativity, imagination, positive thinking and family love. Finally something to think about.  I recently read a comment on a Teacher-Librarian forum that disturbed me. These are words that are still ringing in my ears and I have to say utterly disagree. The Teacher-Librarian was responding to a question about culling a library collection and she said "Just because it’s a lovely story or a favorite author /classic, doesn’t mean it should be in the collection. "  

If you follow this premise then your young reader/s will never have the chance to hear or read this truly special book and many others. Surely we can/should keep 'lovely stories' in our school libraries. I certainly hope so.  

Paper puppy is a German picture book with the title Wollen wir Freunde sein?