Renee Ting: November 2007 Archives

Walter and Wakame Tomorrow at The Storyteller Bookstore

By
Renee Ting
on November 7, 2007 10:08 PM | | Comments (0)
Every year, Walter Mayes, one of the authors of Valerie and Walter's Best Books for Children and best known in some circles as "Walter the Giant Storyteller," gives a talk about his children's book picks for the year. If you are involved at all with children's books in the Northern California Bay Area, you will recognize Walter's huge frame, bright red hair, and bushy beard. (And if you were at Hicklebee's bookstore on the night of the final Harry Potter release, you would have recognized him as Hagrid.)

Walter will be giving his "Best Books of 2007" talk tomorrow night at The Storyteller, an incredible children's bookstore in Lafayette, California. Right in my backyard, as a matter of fact. And I just found out today that one of his picks will be The Wakame Gatherers by Holly Thompson and Kazumi Wilds! Woohoo!

If you're in the area, you should definitely consider stopping by. Walter is a great speaker, and he will surely excite you about all the great books that came out this year.

Walter's Best Books of 2007!
The Storyteller Bookstore
30 Lafayette Circle, Lafayette CA 94549
Thursday, November 8, 7:00-9:00 pm
$10 fee. Reservations required. Call 925-284-3480

For parents and teachers, this evening full of giveaways and great advice is a yearly favorite. Walter will be covering ages 0-12. (Watch for another night of great book for ages 12-18 in the spring.) The Storyteller finds itself overwhelmed by posters and other giveaways, so we hope you'll come down for this event and take away great armfuls.

It Only Happens Twice a Year: "The Wakame Gatherers" Arrives

By
Renee Ting
on November 2, 2007 10:10 PM | | Comments (0)
It's here! It's here! My advance copies of The Wakame Gatherers arrived, and they are as brilliantly gorgeous as I expected.

I am thrilled and excited about this beautiful book. Here's the synopsis:

Nanami has two grandmothers: Baachan, who lives with her family in Japan, and Gram, who lives in Maine. When Gram visits Japan for the first time, Baachan takes her and Nanami on a trip to the seaside to gather Wakame, a long, curvy seaweed that floats near the shore.

While the three assemble their equipment and ride the streetcar to the beach, Baachan explains how Wakame and other seaweeds are used in Japan. Gram shares stories about how seaweeds are used in Maine, and Nanami translates for them both.

By the end of the day, Nanami's two grandmothers discover that they have much in common despite being from countries that fought in the war they both remember vividly. Now, looking out across the beach at the surfers, dog walkers, and seaweed gatherers, they share an appreciation of this precious peace.
It's lovely, lovely. Both the story and the illustrations. I'm so excited it's here. The real shipment will arrive in mid-November, around Thanksgiving. So if you pre-order yours now, it will ship then. Go! Order this book!

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"Holly Thompson’s The Wakame Gatherers is a marvel..."

-Allen Say

Holly Thompson has lived for many years in Kamakura, Japan, where she has often gathered wakame with her children and observed the harvesting of cultivated wakame. Raised in New England, she earned her M.A. in fiction writing from New York University and now teaches creative writing at Yokohama City University. She writes for both children and adults and is the Regional Advisor of the Tokyo chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators. Her novel Ash is also set in Japan.

Kazumi Wilds was born in Tokyo studied art at the Women’s College of Art in Tokyo and at the University of Minnesota. She has illustrated three other children’s books and teaches art when she is not painting. Kazumi now lives in the mountains of western Japan, near the Sea of Japan, with her children, dog, and cats. She remembers her many trips to Kamakura fondly.

Shen’s Books is a publisher of multicultural children’s literature that emphasizes cultural diversity and tolerance, with a focus on introducing children to the cultures of Asia.

Through books, we can share a world a stories, building greater understanding and tolerance within our increasingly diverse communities as well as throughout our continuously shrinking globe.