Nicola on Fulbright in Arizona

I am writing this at a local café, near the university, as I hover over the Radio New Zealand website to hear news of the mission to retrieve the deceased from Whakaari White Island. News of this tragedy has really been affecting me, somehow the more so because I am so far away. I cannot imagine the pain of those in hospital and their families. Here at Worlds of Words, today we are preparing for an annual book sale where extra books are sold to staff. I have just been helping wheel out hundreds of books in preparation for tomorrow morning when the sale starts. This week is the last week of lectures for students who are all busy handing in assignments. My colleagues who are teaching are all busy marking portfolios and tests. It’s a busy and intense time. My main work at the moment is writing and preparing for data collection in the New Year. My colleague Kathy and I will be running two picturebook clubs, one with school children and one with pre-service teachers, using bilingual ...

I am now back in Tucson after the Guadalajara Book Fair. The rest of the fair was incredibly stimulating. I found a few more bilingual books to add to my collection, and was privileged to be able to meet some people using books to work with migrants moving through Mexico. One of my colleagues and I managed to take an Uber into central Guadalajara to have a quick look through a market, and to see the Basilica at the end of a day. Friday was a normal day back at my desk in Tucson, focusing now on writing a book chapter and planning for our research data collection which will begin after the university winter break. Yesterday was a special day for the Teenage Reading Ambassador Programme (TRAP) which is organised by Worlds of Words. I have mentioned it before, I think, but briefly, this is a programme for a group of teenagers who are keen readers from a range of Tucson schools. If they are accepted into the programme they are given a YA book. They read it and discuss it, and t...

Tuesday 3 December 2019 The Feria International del Libro de Guadalajara (Guadalajara Book Fair)   is the second largest bookfair in the world and has been running for 33 years.   It is being held in the World Expo Centre in Guadalajara from the 1-9 December and I am lucky enough to be attending this year with my host colleague Kathy and several of her colleagues who are here to meet Mexican publishers and work with their colleagues based in Mexico on a project. Our travel to Guadalajara took most of Sunday, one of the busiest days at US airports due to it being the Sunday of Thanksgiving when many people are travelling home.   Some poor people were stuck in the Phoenix airport due to snow storms in the East. We were not affected by that, but we did have to change planes before we finally set off from Phoenix. When we arrived in Guadalajara we walked down to the venue and got our bearings with one of Kathy’s former doctoral students showing us the way. And ...

The last day of the NCTE conference in Baltimore began with the Children’s Literature Assembly breakfast at which   Yuyi Morales gave a talk, sharing with us many of the techniques she uses for illustrating her books.  The Children's Literature Assembly is a group within the larger National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) organisation. As I lined up to get a copy of her book signed, I met up again with a colleague who had also been to the International Youth Library in Munich- not at the same time as me, but I remember her trip inspiring me to apply. As we waited in the line two more ‘Stippi’ came into view. Stippi is the name given to people who go to Munich to do research at the Youth library and are given a stipend- hence the name ‘Stippi’. Anyway, once we got to Yuyi and had our books signed we had a photo together.   Later that day I got to join in a dinner with the board of Worlds of Words, the library where I am based. This group of women are former...

Today at the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) conference I went to some really interesting sessions, including a panel of female authors in the evening, including Newbery medal winner Megan Medina who chaired a session of three young female authors, including Brittany Luby, a Canadian writer of Anishinaabe-kwe heritage whose recent picturebook, Encounter , is about a first contact between an indigenous boy and a French boy on a sailing ship. I met Brittany after the session and was interested to hear more about her next book which will be bilingual. This linked to another session I had attended earlier in the day with four Native American authors entitled ‘Bringing indigenous voices into your classroom’. The chair of the panel was not American Indian, but a teacher who works in a school with Native American children. She began by quoting the data on books by and about people of colour and from First/Native Nations published for children and teens compiled ...

21 October This week I have decided to join Kathy and three of her colleagues in coming to a huge conference in Baltimore for the National Council of Teachers of English, known as NCTE. We set off at 6am and arrived in Baltimore around 3pm, to a somewhat cooler temperature than in Arizona. The plenary speaker I made it to today was George Takei who played Hikaru Sulu on the Starship Enterprise in the television series, Star Trek. George spoke about his family who were in an American Japanese Internment Camp during World War II. He also spoke very engagingly about his life, his belief in democracy, and about writing a graphic novel about his life. There are over 5,000 registrants, and at any one time there are many events on, including publisher events and meals. I was very lucky to be invited to the Chronicle Book Middle Grade Author Dinner featuring Jon Scieszka and Steven Weinberg (author and illustrator of  AstroNuts) , Kate Messner (author of  Insect Superpowe...

16 November Quite regularly, the Worlds of Words Library hosts authors and illustrators, and on Thursday this week I heard Isabel Quintero speak. She has recently had published a picturebook, simultaneously in Spanish and English called ‘My Papi has a Motorcycle/Mi Papi tiene una Moto’ which is based on her memory of her Dad taking her out for rides on his motorcycle after work. Quintero is a Mexican American author who has written a YA novel, a graphic novel, as well as poetry. She is very versatile, and was a delightful speaker to listen to.  The text for her latest picturebook is beautifully written, with one of my favourite phrases about the smell of sawdust on her father, a cabinet maker, when he came home from work. Isabel explained the ways in which she and the illustrator worked together to make the illustrations of Corona in Southern Arizona where she grew up, authentic to an era before present day gentrified Corona. The colours of the illustrations are sensatio...