Presentation Recap Part 1: "Oh, You Mean the Caterpillar Guy?"

So, I've been pondering how best to recap my talk...  What I've decided to do is I've embedded my Prezi here in this post and I'm also providing links to the videos which were made specifically for my presentation as well as a video featuring Jon Klassen from Candlewick's Year of the Picture Book video series, which we also watched during my session.  In the next week I will be posting hopefully a short video recapping my talk, if not a video than a written summary, to go along with the Prezi so that it will make more sense, for example explaining why on earth I started my presentation with "The Gross Clinic", which you may find to be an odd place to start if you're just looking at the image slideshow below!  But I wanted to go ahead and post this "Part 1" of my recap so you can see the videos and the Prezi slideshow.  Hope you enjoy and look forward to hearing from all of you (and I thank all who gave me great feedback that Saturday at KidLitCon!  And to all of you who did attend, feel free to leave me more comments below if you would like!)

Thank you to Aaron Becker, Travis Jonker and Lindsey Manwell for so graciously offering their time to make videos to go along with my presentation!!  Below I'm providing a link to the wonderful videos they made, it's so worthwhile to watch all of them and think about them in communication with each other because they offer great ideas from different angles on the same topic that they all love!

Here's a link to Aaron's video on the line between high art and illustration and the intent behind artists' work:

 https://vimeo.com/50186812 , password: kidlitcon 

Here's Travis' really fun video on a critical approach to picture books:

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/23330410/KidLitCon.m4v 

And here's Lindsey's video discussing the lines between illustration and high art, with discussion of artists who've transitioned between the two and some of her favorite illustrators ( I wasn't able to show this during my session for time consideration, so here's an extra surprise even for those of you who attended my session, and may have been wondering about Lindsey since her name was on my handout!):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e-Jw_wtYoEw&feature=youtu.be

Lastly, here's the video featuring Jon Klassen that I showed during my session as well, and it's from the collection of videos that Candlewick is putting out each day this year for their celebration of picture books! You should definitely check those out if you haven't already.  I specifically showed this because of Jon's great description of that magical middle space that children create when engaging with picture books:

http://vimeo.com/48605523

Also, in case you were at my session and were wondering about the picture books I had set up on "display", I pointed out a few things about them, but I forgot to say that the reason they were all there was that those 6 books (which I'll have pictures of after this sentence is done) are 6 picture books that have really stuck with me over the past few months, kept me thinking and wondering what makes them such wonderful creations!  They're all truly works of art!:

I couldn't find a better image :( I'll update when I do!

The last thing I should mention in this first part of my recap is that the second half of presentation focused on the way reviewers and adult readers of picture books can benefit from the Visual Literacy methods used by teachers, librarians, etc.  I specifically addressed the Whole Book Approach, developed at the Eric Carle Museum, and Visual Thinking Strategies.  I will go into these briefly in my overview, but in case you're interested to know more in greater detail you should check out this talk by Megan Lambert, available in audio here: http://www.fairfieldpubliclibrary.org/child-pod-meganlambert.htm   Also, here's a great PDF, which has been very helpful for me in implementing the Whole Book Approach in the program where I teach, which lays out the strategy and how to use it: http://montessori-images.com/downloads/The%20Whole%20Book%20Approach.pdf

KidLitCon through Images, Part 2: Conference Day and Wanderings

Here's part two of my visual recap of KidLitCon 2012!

Up early Saturday morning for KidLitCon, my aunt and cousin snapped a photo before I left :)

Inside the New York Public Library with Betsy and the other presenters getting the tour as we pass by this awesome wall that exposes the reservoir that NYPL was built on! (You can check out a list of all the presenters here).

Awaiting Betsy's opening welcome!

For Session 1, I attended "Community-Building On and Off the Blog: Secrets, Tips, and Cautionary Tales" run by three lovely ladies, Sheela, Sayantani and Michelle, who are a part of From the Mixed-Up Files…of Middle Grade Authors.

They had so many great ideas about community building and running things from giveaways to skype sessions with libraries!

I gave my talk during session 2, and I'll be posting a recap following this post very soon :)

I then headed off to lunch with some awesome ladies: (from left to right) Amanda, Leila from Bookshelves of Doom, Kelly from Stacked, Liz from A Chair, A Fireplace and a Tea Cozy, and Pam from MotherReader .

After lunch, we all attended an extremely exciting and informative session titled: “How Nice is Too Nice?: Critical Book Reviewing in the Age of Twitter”  The panel had an awesome variety of individuals from bloggers to teachers, librarians and authors, journalist and publisher. The panel was moderated by Jennifer Hubert-Swan , YA author Maureen Johnson, librarian and blogger, Betsy Bird, librarian and blogger Liz Burns, teacher and blogger, Monica Edinger, Co-publisher at Groundwood Books Sheila Barry, and writer/journalist Marjorie Ingall .

The last session of the day was "The Changing Relationship Between Reader and Writer" which was moderated by  Karen Halpenny, from Children's Media Association.  The panel included authors, Gayle Forman, Michael Northrop, Alyssa Sheinmel, and Adele Griffin.  The talked about the new relation that is being forged between reader and writer due to the new forces working online specifically through twitter, it was really interesting.

The last thing of the day was the keynote speech, given by Maureen Johnson, with the help of her friend and fellow author, Robin Wasserman .  Their conversation was really great, tying in many things from the day in a funny and wonderful way.  I just loved it!

Some random pictures of NYPL, which I really want to go back because I didn't really get to see if very well, and I want to walk around and see the library!  It was just so beautiful :)

I spent one extra day in NYC, mostly around the St. Patrick's Cathedral and then down at the Strand.  While I was waiting to go to mass, I stopped into the Met Store to pick up some "souvenirs" for my little brother, which was his condition if I was going to be allowed to go to New York without him! :)  These three books looked so good, I want to look them up and find them soon, I just couldn't get any more books, because my bags were already filled full with ARCs from the publisher preview!  But I'm kind of obsessed with picture books about art, and am compiling a list, so if any of you have suggestions leave them below too!

Construction going on at St. Patrick's, it's such an amazing building!

And inside, I felt like I was back in the late Middle Ages in Europe, it was just incredible and beautiful and breathtaking!

I really like taking photos of candles and fire, and I liked how this looked with St. Brigid in the background!

A really awesome pair of bronze doors outside St. Patrick's!

My return to THE STRAND!  I literally love this place, if you saw my post earlier this summer I have more pictures there if you would like to see them: http://alice-peregrinations.blogspot.com/2012/06/looking-back-at-day-1-in-new-york.html

Banned Books Week T-Shirt :)

Flying home after a wonderful weekend!

Looking over my final KidLitCon loot piles (the last one is technically from The Strand and Bank Street Bookstore...):

Thanks again to everyone who helped make this a wonderful weekend!

Here's a few more of the wonderful recaps that have been popping up over the last week or so, I've linked them specifically to the post on KidLitCon! I'm sure there are more, and you can link up in the comments if you would like!:

Fuse #8 Production
A Chair, A Fireplace and a Tea Cozy
Bookshelves of Doom
Stacked
MotherReader
Larkin's Book Bloggers
Charlotte's Library
Susanna Pitzer
Educating Alice
The Children's War
GottaBook

KidLitCon 2012 through Images Part 1: Friday PreCon

So as my presentation at KidLitCon this past weekend was titled: Oh, You Mean the Caterpillar Guy?: Viewing Illustration as High Art and Using Visual Literacy Methods to Enhance Our Evaluation of It, I figured what better way to look back on this weekend then by creating a recap through images (well mostly images)! (I should say that unfortunately I didn't think of this idea until I got home, so if I would have had this in mind there are a few other things I would have photographed, but hopefully you'll get a good sense from what I have...)

Hope you enjoy this first part about Friday's PreCon, soon to be followed by part 2 about Saturday and later this week I'll be posting a recap of sorts of my presentation, including images, the Prezi slideshow, and videos!

Friday's PreCon

So, Friday's precon started with heading out to my first publisher preview which was at Simon and Schuster! I was a bit early and when I arrived I finally found the room for all of us KidLitCon-ers on the 17th floor filled with goodies:

Awesome raffle prizes:

After settling down we got to hear from author/illustrator, Meghan McCarthy about her new picture book biography of Betty Skelton along with a bunch of awesome details about her work process, pictures of her work area and the many distractions that plague her! :) Here's an image from her website for her new book:

After Megan, we got to hear from Simon and Schuster's Library Marketing/Editorial team about a bunch of interesting upcoming titles for the Winter and Summer seasons.  I was really excited to hear from Caitlyn Dloughy, the Editorial Director for the Atheneum imprint and editor for William Joyce!  She spoke about Joyce's new books that are coming out about the mythology behind characters from the childhood imagination like Jack Frost, Santa Claus, the Sandman, the Easter Bunny, and the Tooth Fairy.  It was so cool because we had just been talking about these books and specifically the movie in my Fairy Tale class!  They sound and look awesome, as does the film's trailer which we got a sneak peek of and I just LOVE Joyce's illustrations!

(Really enjoyed meeting Jen from Larkin's Book Bloggers and Liz from the new blog Pen & Oink)

During our about two hour lunch break I scrambled around trying to find a few things I needed to get, and ended up sort of skipping lunch, snacking on some Justin's chocolate hazelnut butter as I walked past MoMA, and made my way a bit tiredly to Harper Collins, once again early. 

But when we got to our floor, we were greeted by the friendly Molly Thomas, and my rainy, gloomy tired feeling slowly lifted as we all entered a wonderful conference room with more waiting for us and the chance to hear from all the wonderful children's/YA imprint editors at Harper!:

There were so, so, so many great books to hear about coming from the various imprints at Harper Collins!  I'm hoping to in the near future put up a list of the books that I'm most excited about from Harper Collins, once cover images are more readily available on the internet!  The one that sticks out that I'm definitely excited for is Maryrose Wood's fourth installment for the Incorrigible Children of Ashton Place series!!

(Enjoyed meeting Charlotte from Charlotte's Library, Sheila from Wands and Worlds and you can find her here on RebelMouse, Sondra from Sonder Books, Liz from A Chair, a Fireplace & A Tea Cozy, Kelly from Stacked, and I can't remember your name :/ but I loved talking to you, you're right next to Kelly in this picture so if you're reading this please comment below because I wanted to check out your blog :) And I know you were helping with non-fiction picture books for Cybils I believe but I can't remember your name! :/ )

A few hours after the publisher previews were through, which as you can probably sense went WONDERFULLY thanks to Monica Edinger's careful planning, almost 60 of us met up at IchiUmi, a Japanese buffet, to have dinner and hear from Newberry winner and just one of the nicest people I've ever met, Grace Lin.  Here she is with her beyond cute baby girl:

Grace Lin gave a wonderful talk during dinner tying in her life story with the work she's doing now as an author/illustrator.  I had never heard about her background but it was so interesting to hear about how she grew up and her development into the artist she is today.  I related so, so, so much to her, especially when she spoke about how at one point in art school she came to realize that up until that point she had been so busy trying to be this "technically" good artist, copying the great masters, worrying and trying to prove what a great artist she was, and she realized that she hadn't developed a style that was her own, something that only she could create.  She spoke about how she moved beyond this and came to the work she does today along with the influence that fairy tales, both Western ones like those illustrated by Trina Schart Hyman and retold by the Brothers Grimm and Chinese fairy tales had on her.

 In case you can't see the image she has on the screen in this photo, here it is below, this is literally one of my favorite pages from any picture book, and it just added to my sense of completely relating to Grace Lin's talk!:

I can't wait to read her books now, especially after hearing the huge influence fairy tales had on them (because if you can believe this I haven't read any of her books!!)

I know there won't be any way for me to remember everyone, but I so enjoyed spending time with all of you at dinner that night!  Loved getting to talk with Monica and Betsy, illustrator Melanie Hope Greenberg, and the blogger from Storied Cities and What Do We Do All Day? and I feel really silly because I can't remember your name!! Sorry!  And I also really enjoyed meeting and talking with author Geoff Rodkey, whose new series, starting with the book titled Deadweather and Sunrise , I'm really looking forward to finding and reading!  Rick Riordan describes it in the following way, and it just sounds awesome: "A great book...Lemony Snicket meets Pirates of the Caribbean with a sprinkling of Tom Sawyer..."

Really, really delicious sushi from IchUmi, I definitely recommend it if you're ever looking for a variety of sushi and Japanese food in NYC:

So, that's it for Part 1, Friday PreCon at KidLitCon 2012!  Thank you so much to Betsy Bird and Monica Edinger for all the work and planning that went into this weekend.  Please stay tuned for KidLitCon through Images Part 2: Saturday Con!!

Oh, and here's the first images of my KidLitCon loot :)  I ended up trading and not taking all of these home with me, since they sort of didn't fit in my luggage, but here's the original piles, not including picture books! :