Lights! Camera! Alice!

The Thrilling True Adventures
of the First Woman Filmmaker 

Chronicle Books
(pub. 9.11.2018)
60 pages

A True Tale with
A Cherry On Top   

A uthor: Mara Rockliff
    and illustrator: Simona Ciraolo

C haracters: Alice Guy-Blache

O verview from the jacket flap: 
     "Mara Rockliff and Simona Ciraolo tell the story of one of film's pioneers - and the first woman in the world to make movies. Driven by her passion for storytelling, Alice saw a potential for film that others had not seen before, allowing her to develop new narratives, new camera angles, new techniques, and to surprise her audiences again and again. With daring and vision, Alice Guy-Blache introduced the world to a thrilling frontier of imagination and adventure, and became one of filmmaking's first and greatest innovators."

T antalizing taste: 
     

     "IMAGINATION  
      Alice found more and more ways to surprise her audience.
      Run the film backward, and voila! Falling down turned into flying up.
      Stop the camera to move a hat - up here, down there, now over there! - and onscreen, the hat would dance along the streets and rooftops as if it had been bewitched. 
      Alice's movies came alive with color ... and sound - the very first 'talking pictures'!"

      
and something more: The "Director's Cut" at the back of the book explains that between "1896 and 1920, Alice made over seven hundred movies, and her studio, Solax, produced hundreds more. She truly earned the title 'Mother of the Movies'... As a woman, Alice always had to fight for recognition of her talent and hard work... To set the record straight, Alice wrote her life story. Nobody would publish it... The Memoirs of Alice Guy Blache... finally were published in America in 1986. And since the 1990s, Alice has found a place in standard histories of film - though, compared to men who worked in film at the same time, she remains little known. Today, when female film directors are still rare, there is a growing interest in the active part women played in early film. Slowly, Alice's lost films are being rediscovered - and, along with them, Alice." 

    During Alice's lifetime, at the age of about 80, she was awarded the Legion of Honor, the highest award in France.

Libba

The Magnificent Musical
Life of Elizabeth Cotten

Chronicle Books

(pub. 1.16.2018)
40 pages

A True Tale with
A Cherry On Top   

A uthor:  Laura Veirs
    and illustrator: Tatyana Fazlalizadeh

C haracter: Elizabeth Cotten

O verview from the jacket flap: 

     "Elizabeth Cotten was only a little girl when she picked up a guitar for the first time. It wasn't hers- it was her big brother's- and it wasn't strung right - she was left-handed. But she flipped that guitar up and around and figured out how to play it anyway. By the time she was eleven, she'd written 'Freight Train', a song so famous you might even be able to hum it right now. And by the end of her life, everyone from the California beaches to the rolling hills of England knew her music. Libba's trip to success wasn't always straight, and it sure was bumpy, but she never stopped in her tracks. She always kept rolling.

       This lyrical, loving book from acclaimed singer-songwriter Laura Veirs and debut illustrator Tatyana Fazlalizadeh tells the story of the determined, gifted, daring Elizabeth Cotten - one of the America's greatest folk musicians.

T antalizing taste: 
      

"One day the kids on the porch

and the bluesmen in the living room

and the drummers down below

     heard a sound.

It was like a thousand songbirds singing.

Or a gentle spring rain.

Or a train rambling down the tracks.

It was Libba, singing and picking that guitar like she'd never set it down."

 
and something more: In the Author's Note, Laura Veirs explains that "Libba believed that people could accomplish anything at any age. Her story appeals to me as a musician, as a woman, and as a fan of folk history. Libba accomplished so much despite growing up poor in the segregated South where very few opportunities were available to her. I hope readers will explore the life and music of Libba Cotten, a beautiful tributary of the great river that is American folk music."

Balderdash!

John Newbery and
the Boisterous
Birth of Children's Books

Chronicle Books

(pub. 4.4.2017)
44 pages

A True Tale with
A Cherry On Top   

A uthor: Michelle Markel

      and illustrator: 
      Nancy Carpenter

C haracter:John Newbery

O verview from the jacket flap: 

     "Welcome! This book's for you. Every page, every picture, and every word was designed for your pleasure.
       Lucky, lucky reader.
       Be glad it's not 1726.
       Back then, children had to read preachy poems and fables, religious texts that made them fear that death was near, and manuals that told them where to stand, how to sit, not to laugh, and scores of other rules.
      Because the future champion of children's books was just a lad."

T antalizing taste: 
      

     "His name was John Newbery. The boy lived on a farm but fancied reading more that forking hay, so upon coming of age, he set off to work for a printer.
      John got a kick out of type sticks and type stands and chases and quoins.  He came to love galleys and presses and the smell of fresh ink.
     As soon as he was able, John became a publisher himself...
     John wanted his first book for children to be irresistible. There'd be letters from Jack the Giant Killer.
     There'd be pictures of pitch and hussel, hoop and hide, blindman's buff, and other children's games. Plus ABC's, proverbs, and other classic material, and for extra punch - a message too for mums and dads."

 

and something more: The back matter of BALDERDASH explains that "Newbery's books for children were approximately 4 inches by 3 inches ... which made them easily portable in pockets [and that size, of course, reminds me of Beatrix Potter's wonderful books]. He published more than one hundred books for children over his lifetime, and sold thousands of copies, establishing both the value and popularity of books written, illustrated, designed, and printed especially for the perspective and enthusiasms of children." Thank goodness for John Newbery's contribution to children's literature!

Little Red Writing

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at Teacher Mentor Texts

Chronicle  Books
(pub.9.24.2013) 36 pages 

A True Tale with 
A Cherry On Top

A uthor: Joan Holub
           and Illustrator: Melissa Sweet

    

C haracter:  Little Red Writing (a pencil)

O verview from the jacket flap: 

      "Once upon a time in pencil school, a teacher named Ms. 2 told her class, 'Today we're going to write a story.' 
     'Yippee!' said the birthday pencil.
     'Slammin'!' said the basketball pencil.
     'Sharp!' said Little Red.
     So begins a hilarious and exuberant retelling of 'Little Red Riding Hood,' in which a brave little red pencil finds her way through the many perils of storytelling, faces a ravenous pencil sharpener (the Wolf 3000) ... and saves the day."

T antalizing taste: 

"Once upon a time in pencil school, a teacher named Ms. 2 told her class, 'Today we're going to write a story!'

[On the blackboard]
STORY PATH

1. Idea, characters, setting
2. Trouble
3. Even bigger trouble
4. Fix the trouble 

and something more: Oh! I would have so loved to have used this book, Little Red Writing, when I taught 5th grade writing workshops! It's a story about how to write a story, and the first page sums it up: idea, character, setting, and TROUBLE. I often reminded my students that they needed to write about a conflict, a problem, and not just a list of occurences.  

This book is wonderfully illustrated by Melissa Sweet with her unique, whimsical style. The book has terrific teacher material, and I thought these were fun pencil facts:

"Hymen Lipman received the first patent for attaching an eraser to the end of a pencil in 1858.

The majority of pencils made in the United States are painted yellow.

Author Roald Dahl used only yellow pencils. He had 6 sharpened pencils ready at the beginning of each day and when all 6 pencils became unusable, he sharpened them again."

  
Thank you to Chronicle Books for providing me with a copy of this book!