Today I’m participating in a blog tour with author-illustrator (or is it illustrator-author?) Jon Klassen. I personally loved his picture book Where Is My Hat, and my 4-year-old twin daughters loved it as well. And they seem to peel off a new layer each time we read it.

First, some links, and then to the interview:

Click here to learn more about the book  

Watch the trailer

Get to know Jon Klassen

Chris: When you were working on I Want My Hat Back, was there anything you missed about illustrating other people’s stories as opposed to your own?

Jon: I’d never done my own story for a book before, so I think the novelty of it rode over anything I would’ve missed. Since then I’ve been putting together other ones of my own, and you really do start to miss the collaborative part, if only because the starting point comes from somewhere else and it’s more of a problem to solve. With your own stories you’re second guessing everything a bit.

Chris: Do you have a philosophical position on being subtle versus over-the-top when it comes to character expressions?

Jon: I don’t disagree with over-the-top, when someone feels like it fits. I do have a harder time drawing it, but with this book I also really enjoyed trying to load the context of the character just standing there. Books give you that extra tool to tell what that character is doing and feeling, so it’s fun to try and push that. I also think that people can relate to characters not being over the top. A lot of times you can be having huge emotions, but you’re standing still and looking blank.

Chris: Do you have a philosophical position on the ethics of rabbits?

Jon: This rabbit I think could’ve used a lesson in the concept. I guess he does get one. I didn’t want to make him evil or, again, over the top, but instead he comes off sort of indifferent when he’s found out, and I think that makes the bear even more upset than he was.

Mr. Pickwick In Chase of His Hat - illustrated by Robert Seymour

Chris: A wise man once said, there’s “nothing more foolish than a man chasin’ his hat.” What’s your response?

Jon: I might be wrong, but I think there’s a whole paragraph given to that in The Pickwick Papers, and I almost made a student film out of it. It really is such a weird thing to find yourself doing, but if you’re used to wearing a hat, there isn’t a lot that can make you panic in quite the same way that losing your hat does.

Chris: Is there a relationship between Party Bear of Red Cap Cards fame and the protagonist of I Want My Hat Back?

Jon: Yes! I’m flattered you know of him! I’m never very prone to drawing characters, but the cards were a nice place to try out an idea like that. I wanted to do animals that looked like someone had come and put party hats on them and they had no idea what they were doing there. I liked that way of presenting a character a lot – like they had been shipped there for your purposes but that doesn’t mean they’re really going to get into it. That tone carried into the book a lot, too. I like to think most of the animals in the book just punched the clock once they said their lines and went back
to doing whatever it is they do.

Chris: Has Cormac McCarthy commented on your illustration inspired by The Road?

Jon: He never has. I’m kind of offended. I’ve heard he’s such a chatty guy.

Chris: What are you working on now?

Jon: I’m working on other stories with animals in them. The animals are being tricky, though.

Chris: Last question: have you seen my hat?

Jon: I don’t know what you’re talking about.

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I’m the last stop on the blog tour, but be sure to check out all the previous stops:

Tuesday, Sept. 20 – UK: Playing by the Book

Wednesday, Sept. 21 – AUS: Kids’ Book Capers

Thursday, Sept. 22 - US: Not Just for Kids

Friday, Sept. 23 – UK: Bringing Up Charlie

Saturday, Sept. 24 - AUS: My Book Corner

Sunday, Sept. 25 – UK: Wham Bham

Monday, Sept. 26 - Canada: Pickle Me This

Tuesday, Sept. 27 – US: There’s a Book

Wednesday, Sept. 28 – AUS: My Little Bookcase

“An idea can turn from dust to magic, depending upon the talent that rubs against it.” Matsu Basho

Tomorrow I’ll be heading to New Jersey to attend the Tenth Annual Children’s New Media Design Institute, otherwise known as Dust or Magic. It’s a 3-day conference (of sorts) created by the folks behind Children’s Technology Review as part of their mission to empower children with technology.

A few folks who are going to be there:

Kathleen Alfano, Director of Child Research, Fisher-Price; Daren Carstens, President, Carstens’ Studios; Barbara Chamberlin, Director, Learning Games Lab, New Mexico State University; Mandeep Singh Dhillon, Co-Founder and CEO, Togetherville; Caroline Hu Flexer, Co-Founder, Duck Duck Moose Design; Claire Green, President, Parents’ Choice Foundation; David Kleeman, President, American Center for Children and Media; Jim Marggraff, President and CEO, Livescribe; Ann McCormick, Founder, The Learning Company; Lane Merrifield, Executive VP, Disney Interactive Media Group and Co-Founder and GM, Club Penguin; Krista Marks, General Manager, Disney Online Kerpoof Studios; Carolyn Handler Miller, Author, Digital Storytelling: A Creator’s Guide to Interactive Entertainment; Robin Raskin, Founder, Living in Digital Times; Jesse Schell, Professor, Carnegie Mellon University and CEO, Schell Games; Bill Shribman, Executive Producer, WGBH; Mark Schlichting, Creator, The Living Books, Author & Designer, Noodleworks; Scott Traylor, President and Founder, 360KID.

When I come out on the other end of this event I expect to be much smarter. So stay tuned for that.

The truth is that I’m living in Honesdale, Pennsylvania, a town of less than 5000 people and home to the editorial offices of Highlights for Children. I recently took at job at Highlights as Director of Children’s Digital Content.

I’ve been interested for a while now in the intersection of children’s publishing and technology. There’s a Pandora’s Box sitting at the center of that intersection. Apart from food, shelter, and love, there’s not much that’s more important in the lives of kids than reading.  The role technology plays in that is completely dependent on the thoughtfulness of the individuals wielding it.

Opening  the box…stay tuned.

The main goal, says Howe, is to break new ground. “Co-creating and retrofitting IP” across media, as he describes it, is something that hasn’t happened in a large or visible way yet. As Howe says, normally when a game ties into a comic, movie or TV series, it’s directly derived from it, not created simultaneously. “If you conceive something from the get-go to be transmedia, to be platform-neutral, you know your chance of success is going to be greater that way,” he asserts.

“What’s fantastic about this strategy is, if we get it right, we’ll figure out ways for people to consume those characters and stories across multiple platforms whenever and however they choose to,” says Howe. “It’s an always-on world we’re living in, and that’s exciting to us. Dynamic, immersive experience is critical to future storytelling.”

It’s a good interview and worth a read, especially for fans of Syfy, even though phrases like “consume those characters” brings to mind various acts of consuming characters scifi-style, such as the T-Rex in Jurassic Park consuming the lawyer in the bathroom or Jabba the Hutt threatening to consume his court jester Salacious B. Crumb. But that might not be what Howe meant.

Book Review: The Missing Shangqing Temple

The Missing Shangqing Temple, acclaimed as the best adventure novel about a city in China, has shot to fame. “At first I just posted a thread with a lot more words than usual,” said Luo Yu, the author.

Where is Shangqing Temple was the title of the ititial thread that caused a cyber-frenzy in 2007. At first, Luo just wanted to tell, via the Web, a fictional treasure-hunting story based in Chongqing. Six months later, this adventure story was published under the title The Missing Shangqing Temple. In the same year, the rights for a TV adaptation of the novel were sold at the highest price of the year. It was reported that the film adaptation was sold to a Hong Kong-based film producer.

It also inspired some avid readers, like those of Umberto Eco, to follow a set of clues provided by the novel and seek out those mysterious places and secrets for themselves. And it struck a chord with those who live in Chongqing. Even for those who claim to know each inch of the old Chongqing, the novel actually contains too many secrets about this city. That’s how Chongqing has always been!

Shangqing Temple is the name of one of the central areas of Chongqing, located around the south end of Yu Ao bridge or the Jia Ling River bridge. No one knows whether there ever existed a temple there and why that place was called Shangqing Temple. That’s where the novel begins. A girl from Shanghai came to Chongqing, asked by her late father to look for Shangqing Temple. The plot thickens with the girl’s journey to seek the treasure, which ingeniously incorporates the well-known historical sites and stories of Chongqing, such as Hong Ya Cave, Lao Jun Cave, Jie Fangbei, Jin Gangtang, Hu Guang Hui Guan, and Yang Liu Street. Chongqing is a city of immigrants, and there are tons of stories behind all the immigrations that affected the history of the city. It is said that a huge mound of treasure is buried underground in Chongqing, but no one knows how much or where it is. The story is about finding the whereabouts of the treasures left by the Kuomintang before they retreated to Taiwan. The grandfather of the novel’s heroine was an intelligence officer of the Kuomintang and was involved in making arrangements for the treasures.

Actually, the real hero of the novel is Chongqing itself. The search for history is a process that leads back to the city’s spiritual home: those missing works of architecture, alleys, relics, events and secrets, some of them destined to remain unknown forever. According to Luo Yu, he wants to promote Chongqing through an intriguing story. But the novel is more than a treasure-hunting story. It is a story about a city.

Dialogue with the Author

“There are Still Many of Secrets in Chongqing”

Chongqing Currents: When did you start to think about writing this novel?

Luo Yu: The summer in 2007

Chongqing Currents: What inspired you to write it?

Luo Yu: I have been running a website for 8 years, failing to find a good business model. Chinese netizens have lost interest in reading online ads. I had to find a more appropriate and effective way to ensure our ad customers’ interests. I became familiar with how ads are inserted into movies, and I inserted ads into the online novel. I decided to choose Chongqing as the target to carry out my test, to promote its charm and culture through an online novel.

Chongqing Currents: There are many historical stories about Chongqing that are well presented in the novel. What role do they play in the novel?

Luo Yu: Historical stories are the core of the novel.

Chongqing Currents: The subject of the novel is undoubtedly the search. What do you think is the most important thing a city should seek in its history?

Luo Yu: I’m trying to inspire people to become more interested in their own history. If we have no city history class in school, we have to discover it by ourselves. There are still many of secrets in Chongqing.

Chongqing Currents: It looks like you are very familiar with and have a strong attachment to this city. Please tell us the relationship between you and Chongqing?

Luo Yu: I became familiar with this city while writing this novel. Chongqing is an immigrant city where culture has been heavily damaged. We have a responsibility to preserve our city’s culture in a better way.

Chongqing Currents: Is it your first novel? Are you writing some new novels?

Luo Yu: Yes, it is my first. I’m thinking of the next one when I’m finished with adaptations for TV, movie, animation and online game.

Chongqing Currents: What are the differences between online writing and traditional writing?

Luo Yu: Online writing is a happy thing. You could choose to continue or to restart it depending on readers’ reactions. There is no requirement that online works be full-fledged products. It is tolerable to have some unprepared things such as lack of information, poorly written sentences and illogical narrative structure. Moreover, traditional writing is solitary, and online writing is interactive. If you dislike loneliness, online writing is a good choice.

Cambridge, Mass. (Vocus/PRWEB ) May 7, 2010 — Assembling the foremost thought leaders in the areas of children’s play and learning, media, and toy and game development, the 2010 Sandbox Summit®, promises to reveal future trends and expert predictions about how – and with what – future generations will play.

“Sandbox Summit is about understanding the context and the content of children’s play today and in the future,” says Wendy Smolen, Sandbox Summit cofounder. “Technology is moving us forward at such a rapid pace and on so many different platforms, that we need to look at this topic from multiple angles. This is the one conference where researchers and game and toy developers come together to discuss where we have been and where we are going.”

Taking place May 18 and 19 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, MA, attendees will be the first to hear, see and discuss the future of children’s play with those on the frontlines of development. As if looking into a crystal ball, attendees will be absorbed by topics such as:

1. Where will kids be playing tomorrow? Now they’ve got the iPad and the Wii, but what’s next?

Kids today move seamlessly through multiple dimensions in their pursuit of fun. Today’s tech play will all-too-soon become tomorrow’s traditional play. Sandbox Summit presenters will explore all facets of this evolution while also looking to the next frontier of play.

2. Why “transmedia” is today’s buzzword and how it is transforming Hollywood and the home.

Returning to his roots at MIT, Henry Jenkins, now Provost’s Professor of Communication, Journalism, and Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California, will deliver the opening keynote address, “Toying with Transmedia, The Future of Entertainment is Child’s Play,” which will take a close look at Hollywood’s recognition of the larger implications of a world where every story, image, and sound plays out across multiple media channels.

“Transmedia is transforming children’s play landscape,” comments Jenkins. “The Sandbox Summit is an opportunity to share our current thinking and bring the conversation from the labs to the family room.”

3. Can video games make science hip?

With the Obama administration’s focus on STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) curriculum, the Sandbox Summit will explore how new play platforms can make these subjects enticing and accessible young learners, anytime and anywhere.

Sponsors:
The 2010 Sandbox Summit is presented by the MIT Education Arcade and sponsored by VTech, Toy Industry Association, Inc., (TIA), frog design, Inc., The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art, Techno Source, Women in Children’s Media (WiCM), and YPulse.

A limited number of seats are still available at SandboxSummit.org.

About Sandbox Summit®
Sandbox Summit® is a highly respected series of conferences that explores how technology affects the way kids play, learn and connect. As technology is woven into every part of our children’s lives, Sandbox Summit raises the bar on questions surrounding the use and development of new playthings and play spaces. Through high-energy panels, innovative demonstrations, original research, and thought-provoking discussions with industry leaders, analysts, journalists, educators and parents, each Summit strategically intermingles disciplines and viewpoints to bring fresh ideas to every event and never talks to a room full of nodding heads.

Media Contact:
360 Public Relations
Skye McIntyre
617.585.5773

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From the entry:

A Transmedia Narrative project or franchise must consist of three (or more) narrative storylines existing within the same fictional universe on any of the following platforms:  Film, Television, Short Film, Broadband, Publishing, Comics, Animation, Mobile, Special Venues, DVD/Blu-ray/CD-ROM, Narrative Commercial and Marketing rollouts, and other technologies that may or may not currently exist. These narrative extensions are NOT the same as repurposing material from one platform to be cut or repurposed to different platforms.

A Transmedia Producer credit is given to the person(s) responsible for a significant portion of a project’s long-term planning, development, production, and/or maintenance of narrative continuity across multiple platforms, and creation of original storylines for new platforms. Transmedia producers also create and implement interactive endeavors to unite the audience of the property with the canonical narrative and this element should be considered as valid qualification for credit as long as they are related directly to the narrative presentation of a project.

This is a modest but important step toward officially recognizing where the entertainment business has been heading for some time. The major blockbusters across all media — film, television, gaming, music, and the rest — have been transmedia affairs, though the term transmedia has not necessarily been used.

In addition to the Transmedia Producer credit, I expect to see an increase in job opportunities relating to transmedia storytelling.

What’s new is that publishers are increasingly adjusting their marketing strategies to work with this reality instead of against it.

More and more titles are being published as YA in the US and as adult in other countries, and sometimes vice versa. Margo Lanagan’s Tender Morsels, originally published as an adult title by A&I in Australia, was published as YA by Knopf in the US. The Book Thief was published as an adult title in Australia.

And publishers in the UK regularly publish YA and adult editions  simultaneously. This is certainly the case for His Dark Materials.

From my own experience writing middle grade and YA fiction (and working very closely with other writers) is that one of the most difficult questions you can ask an author is the age target of the book. That question confounds me like no other.

When I was writing Kaimira, I did have a certain audience in mind. They were people like me, people who love losing themselves in massive fictional worlds. They are readers above all else, but they enjoy immersive storyverses in any format, from fan fiction to gaming.

But this audience I had in mind did not have a specific age. They could just as easily be 30 as 13.

We all judge books by their covers, whether consciously or not. And I mean that literally and metaphorically. Our clothing and accessories usually reflect, with some degree of deliberate spin, what’s on the inside. And for anyone who reads in coffee shops or on the train, book covers become part of that display.

Have you ever hidden a book inside the jacket of another book when you read it in public? Or the opposite… have you ever felt a twinge of pride when reading a serious classic on the train?

E-readers are changing this. With a Kindle, the only thing you are displaying is that you are a reader (and a bit of a gadgeteer). The amount of information being shared in physical spaces continues to decrease, replaced with sharing in virtual spaces. Here’s a quote from a recent NYTimes article:

For now, many publishers are counting on the Facebook effect. “Before, you might see three people reading ‘Eat, Pray, Love’ on the subway,” said Clare Ferraro, president of Viking and Plume, imprints of Penguin Group USA. “Now you’re going to log onto Facebook and see that three of your friends are reading ‘Eat, Pray, Love.’ ”

Book covers are not losing their importance. They are a key marketing tool in online bookstores, and they are equally important on social networks, where a friend’s book review appears next to a thumbnail of the book cover. This introduces new design challenges, but that’s nothing new for an industry that figured out how to use the spine of a book to get bookstore browsers to look at the cover.

We will be embedding audio, video, and gaming into everything we do. The .epub format, which is the standard for ebooks at the present, is designed to support traditional narrative text, but not this cool stuff that we’re now talking about. So for the time being, at least, we’ll be creating a lot of our digital content as applications, to be sold on app stores, in HTML.

Penguin will be selling these “books” not in the Apple bookstore but in the app store. They are more app than book, which brings up an interesting question that people will likely debate for some time: where does one draw the line between an ebook and an app? For book publishers, who are moving by choice or cowpoke across the digital frontier, it’s an important distinction. For young readers, who already consume their stories with a side dish of community and gaming for dessert, this distinction doesn’t matter much.