A Keepsake For Rickshaw Girl

My Lupine Honor Book Award for Rickshaw Girl (Charlesbridge) arrived yesterday. It's a handmade stoneware platter crafted by Portland, Maine potter Toby Rosenberg. Thank you, Libraries of Maine!

I'm Feeling Cynsational!

Check out my interview with Cynthia Leitich Smith, Empress of Author Bloggers.

Costco Rocks My World

Just was cc'ed on this message to Ingram from the assistant buyer of Costco:

Can you work on getting a buy placed on (the First Daughter Books) for DC, Virginia and Maryland? Once we see sales in those areas, we can review to see if we should expand.

I'd go leaping through the aisles of my local Costco, but I know that so much depends on how they sell. I'd hate for Dutton to get boxes and boxes of returns. Aw, heck. This is amazing news. Let's throw caution to the wind -- anyone want to meet me for a celebratory boogie near the rotisserie chicken in the Waltham store?

First Daughter Interview and Review

Apparently teens are reading American YA lit in Quezon City, Philippines, and First Daughter: White House Rules was recently reviewed at a hospitable blog called "Into The Wardrobe," where I was also asked to give an interview. Maraming Salamat, Tarie!

Is Protagonist Pride Permissible?

When one of my novels receives praise of any kind, whether it be a sweet fan letter, a good review, or an award, I feel strangely and secretly proud of my main character. Why? Because they are the daughters I never had, the friends I wanted when I was their age, the girls who are partly the me I was and the me I hope to be. 

Today I'm happy for Naima, Jazz, and Sameera (aka Sparrow). Naima's Rickshaw Girl was nominated for the 2008-2009 Massachusetts Children's Book Awards, Jazz's Monsoon Summer for the State of Minnesota's Maud Hart Lovelace Award, and Sameera's First Daughter: White House Rules is getting lovely reviews here and there. 

Manhattan Dinner With Kid Lit Legends

After the awards ceremony at Lincoln Center last night, the gracious folks at Simon & Schuster, including Emma Dryden, veep-cum-publisher-cum-editor, invited several of us to Josephina's to celebrate Theresa Nelson's win. 

I had the privilege of sitting across from Richard Jackson, who has edited books for 46 years (including Susan Patron's The Higher Power of Lucky), and next to Phyllis Naylor (of Alice and Shiloh fame), who sponsored the PEN work-in-progress award and walked hand-in-hand to the restaurant with her husband of 48 years.

Before the evening ended, I asked the witty and easygoing Mr. Jackson about his dreams for the publishing industry. He thought for a minute. "I'd give five hardcover books to every registered voter in the country," he said. We'd spent a good  chunk of the conversation mourning the loss of relationships and manners in the industry, as well as the the waning place of books as artifacts in our society. 

Of course the star dinner companion from a teen guys' perspective was Kevin Cooney, Theresa's husband, whose impressive resume includes roles in two Austin Powers' flicks and appearances on Will Smith's Fresh Prince of Bel-Air -- I can hardly wait till they come home from school so I can say I had dinner with "Whitey." Wow.

PEN Literary Awards Ceremony

I'm doing a school visit in Eastchester, New York today (I'm on lunch break right now - two sessions to go), and then heading down to Lincoln Center tonight to present the PEN Phyllis Naylor Award to Theresa Nelson (JULIA DELANEY, Simon & Schuster) on behalf of our judging committee. I'm actually as nervous about my brief laudatory intro as I would be if I were an honoree and had to give a real speech. The point, though, is that while all the entries were amazingly good, the character of Julia and her funny, heartfelt story captured me from the start. Congratulations, Theresa, and thanks to Christopher Paul Curtis and Sid Fleischman, the other two judges.

Day Six of My School Visit Marathon

For some reason 8 straight days of school visits sounded like a good idea last year when I booked them. Last Monday through Thursday I started my townwide tour of Needham by visiting oodles of fifth graders, then stopped by Barbieri Elementary School's annual author day on Friday (along with Jackie Davies, Jarret Krosoczka and Barbara Macgrath, among others), and am beginning this week with two more days in Needham and Wednesday in Newton at Underwood Elementary School. As my Dad asked today in amazement: "You tell the same jokes in every show?" Yes, Dad, I do. And thankfully the kids are still laughing (at me? with me?), so I must be making some sense.

Happy Three Year Blogiversary To Me

It was April 23, 2005. I'd never heard of widgets, or YouTube, or blog rolls. Fighting writer's block, bored with my own brain, I stepped out to a place where a few children's book people had started to gather.

The old blogger platform.

Remember that? The whirling wheel that hypnotized you for at least a minute after you hit publish. Syndication and html coding were part of the vast unknown, and blogger error messages became as familiar as my own posts. Nonetheless, I kept blogging. And learning. And making mistakes.

Okay, I'll admit it. I'm proud of my forty-something brain for grasping an entirely new language and way of communicating. It's crazy fun, I've made wonderful friends, and I've blathered on about lots of subjects, blissfully uninterrupted and uncensored.

HOORAY FOR FREEDOM OF SPEECH!

As always, thanks for stopping by, and please do keep coming out to the Fire Escape. You're always welcome!

Mitali on View From The Bay

Whew! I survived my appearance on ABC-KGO's View From The Bay -- in fact, it was a blast. Call me, Oprah, I'm ready for you now.

Jenna Bush And Mitali Speak Simultaneously

That's right. Here I am in Dallas for the GIGANTIC Texas Library Association Conference, and the real First Daughter is speaking about Ana's Story exactly during the hour of my Books Between Cultures session (she's appearing at noon in a huge banquet hall; I'm tucked in a conference room somewhere). Interesting timing, considering that one of the reasons I'm here is to sign and promote my First Daughter novels. There's irony in there somewhere for those of you tracking my pajama publicity efforts. Oh, well. I'm off to the exhibit hall, consoling myself with the super-sized everything here in Dallas -- airport, convention center, food portions on every plate, smiles, and the unsurpassed hospitality of Texas librarians.

Traveling, Talking, and Television Shows

I'm going on the road next week, so I'm not sure if I'll be able to sneak out to the Fire Escape too often, but I'll try, because I love it out here. Here's where I'll be:

Friday, April 11th - Saturday, April 12th: On Friday, I'm at the New England Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators Annual Conference, enjoying dinner and a cabaret presentation by author/illustrator Anne Sibley O'Brien, author/illustrator David Hyde Costello, and Charlesbridge editor Yolanda Leroy called CONFESSIONS OF THE PROFESSION: A STARRED REVUE. I can't wait to see it! I'll also be presenting a workshop on Saturday April 12th from 10:05 -11:00 a.m. called "Pajama Promotion: Five Web-Savvy Ways to Generate Buzz About Your Books."

Wednesday, April 16th: Come join us for my session called "Books Between Cultures," offered from 12-12:50 at the Texas Library Association Convention, (Program CPE#356 in room D 171/173 sponsored by the Texas Association of School Librarians) followed by book signings on the exhibit floor, first at the Penguin booth #1701 from 2 – 3, and then at the Author Autographing Area with Charlesbridge from 3-4. Stop by and say hi.

Thursday, April 17th: I'll be celebrating Operation Teen Book Drop at the Winchester Author Festival in Winchester, Massachusetts.

Friday, April 18th: If you're in the San Francisco Bay Area, you can catch me on ABC/KGO's View From The Bay from 3-4 p.m. PST (streaming online live here), where I'll be chatting about growing up between cultures and how stories kept me balanced.

What's that? You want to be on television, too? Well, then, your mother should cold-call the station without telling you about it beforehand and leave a message bragging about her kid. Yep, that's how I got the gig. Thanks, Ma.

"If you don't promote this book,

my mother will cold-call you, too."

First Daughter Reviews and Interviews

Check out these new reviews of First Daughter: White House Rules at Kahani magazine and Paper Tigers, and a couple of interviews at Harmony's Book Reviews and Robin Friedman's JerseyFresh Tude.

Today in Methuen, Friday in Portland

I'll be speaking today (3/31) at 4 o'clock at the Nevins Memorial Library in Methuen and at noon on April 4th in Portland, Maine with illustrator Jamie Hogan for that library's First Friday Author Talk. Stop by and say hi if you're in the vicinity!

Woburn Library Knows How To Do It

An author visit, that is. 

It was a miserable, sleety school night in March when I approached the gorgeous building built in 1877 by Henry Hobson Richardson, the architect who designed Trinity Church in Boston.


I was hearing that familiar internal pep talk that comes before potentially sparsely-attended appearances: "Listen, chickadee. If even two teens show up, you give your presentation with as much grace and effort as you would to a crowd of a thousand bookstore buyers."

But I didn't need the talk, because teen librarian Christi Showman Farrar had done her work. She'd publicized the event widely, including good signage as a final touch:


Christi also invited people personally, read First Daughter with a group of her teens, and coordinated with the schools to offer extra credit for attending author visits.

Every seat (pictured above before the talk) was full by the time I finished, book sales were brisk, and Christi (pictured below to the left with permission) had even baked oatmeal scotchies, just like the main character in my novel.


Thanks to the Friends of the Woburn Library for sponsoring the visit, to Book Ends in Winchester for providing the books, and to Christi and her tireless teen workers for hosting me so warmly.

Take Us Away, Driscoll Students

At Brookline's Driscoll School last week, I offered my Creating A Sense of Place in Fiction workshop, and once again the 8th graders took us to a myriad of places through the power of imaginative writing. Some samples excerpted below for your reading pleasure.

I sit in the car with the heated seats warming my insides. I look up through the roof at sky scrapers slowly passing by. A slight snow drifts down from the gray clouds. The car zig zags through traffic. The snow crunches under the tires and then we stop. The door opens and I step out, the umbrella shielding me from the snow.

The sun glinted off the freshly painted walls. The wind blew the curtains gently into the room. The mirror reflected the rays of sun so they fell across my bed lighting up the colorful stripes. The door hung open. Honey and fresh cut flowers spiraled up the the stairs and hung lingering in the air.

The tennis stadium filled with 70,000 people cheering, singing. My heart beating at an extreme level, my palms sweating. The whole world watching. The aroma of water, sweat and smoke in the air. The feel of the grass just cut. The taste of Gatorade bubbling in my stomach.

I strolled into the club and heard the loud music blaring. I could see the speakers bouncing. This was it alright. The largest Neptunian rager of all time. The club was huge, and I couldn't see the end of it. I could see people dancing for miles. I got a whiff of the scent of baby corn.

The night air was warm, the stars and moon smiling down on me ... Red and orange flames stained the darkness with color, and the black smoke shone in the dim patio lights. My shirt was flapping in the wind, the cool breeze wrapping around my arms ... I heard the laughing of my friends, my own laughter, and the faint popping of the wood as the flames squeezed the air out of it. I laughed again and threw another card into the bronze dish, only to have it become engulfed in flames. I smiled and backed up so my friend could throw his card.

The golden framed windows glared at me. The door was huge and made of glass and for one second I didn't want to go inside because the building seemed like an animal about to swallow me up. My knees were trembling as I walked towards the shiny golden elevator. My entire career would depend on the next half hour. My whole life, even. I had always wanted to be an actress. I loved the creak of the stage floor under my feet and the rustling of the curtains, but the best part was the applause ...

The officer pushes open the door; the cheap wood feels grainy and decrepit. As he steps onto the threshold, the reek of sewage and spoiled food makes him go to tears. The officer takes out his gun; he doesn't dare to go into the kitchen. He steps into the bedroom. To his dismay, he finds a man lying down with a knife in his back.

The soft, damp grass tickled the bottoms of my feet. A warm wind blew wrinkles in my hair ... The sun warmed the back of my legs as I let my ankles swish though the grass ... The smell of dandelions was sweet and pungent ...

My Woo-Bin Author Visit

That's how you pronounce Woburn, Massachusetts if you're a member of Red Sox Nation. I'll be appearing at the Woburn Public Library this Wednesday evening, 3/19, at 7 p.m. You're welcome to come and have a peek if you're in the area or interested in sampling my author visits to schools and libraries. Here's what the local paper is saying about the event: 

Award-winning children’s and young adult author Mitali Perkins will be visiting the Woburn Public Library on Wednesday, March 19, at 7 p.m. for an evening presentation and discussion on what it means to “live between cultures.”

Presented by the Friends of the Woburn Public Library, Perkins’ appearance is free and open to the public. A book sale and book signing will take place after the presentation, with books provided by Book Ends of Winchester at a discount to attendees.

Wow, no pressure. I'd better be good.

The poster above is provided by the Pike School librarians, who have a wall of fake READ posters featuring visiting children's book authors reading favorite books -- which I thought was such a great idea I asked for permission to share it on my blog. I picked Edwidge Danticat's Behind the Mountains, by the way, a YA novel I loved.

My SORMAG Interview

I'm today's featured author interview over at SORMAG, an online magazine for readers and writers of multicultural literature.

My Books Float Across The Atlantic

Yes, that's my little Rickshaw Girl, the French edition, aka De père en fille, releasing this month from Flammarion.

Meanwhile, at the Irish Society For The Study of Children's Literature Conference last month, here was a session presented by Shehrazade Emmambokus:

How children’s literature of the South Asian diaspora responds to the media’s vilification of South Asian minority groups following the 11 September attacks.

Immediately following the World Trade Center and the Pentagon attacks on 11 September 2001, the international news media was gripped by the events that took place. However, not only did the news media respond to these events, but other forms of cultural media did too: the music industry, the film industry, the books and literature industry which also includes children’s literature.

Examples of children’s books which engage with these events include, amongst others, Jeanette Winter’s September Roses (2004), Randa Abdel-Fattah’s Does My Head Look Big In This? (2007), and Brian Mandabach’s Or Not (2007). But more specifically from the South Asian literary sub-genre of children’s literature: Anjali Banerjee’s Looking for Bapu (2006), Marina Budhos’s Ask Me No Questions (2006) and Mitali Perkins’ First Daughter: Extreme American Makeover (2007).

Engaging with media theory and the representations of South Asian minorities since the events of 11 September, this paper will focus predominantly on Perkins’ First Daughter and Budhos’ Ask Me No Questions. Through the characters, this paper will look at whether or not they internalise the stereotypical images and messages purported in the news media, and will ask, firstly, if there is an internalisation of the media stereotypes, why is this possible? And secondly, if there is a resistance towards these media stereotypes, what do these literatures say about young developing ethnic identities and subsequently the individual’s right to negotiate their own ethnic identities?

By focussing on these questions, this paper will argue that although these texts present their readers with characters who are confronted by the media and its use of stereotype during its coverage of the 11 September attacks, these characters’ ethnic identities are not compromised, in fact, they are able to remain culturally neutral. Subsequently, through the characters’ experiences, these books are able to offer South Asian diasporic children and teenagers a form of bibliotherapy as these books demonstrate how the characters deal with the negative media pressures.

Now that's nice, especially with Boston already greening up for St. Patty's Day.

In Which We Create A Sense of Place

I spent two days last week doing assemblies and workshops on writing place at Pike School in Andover, Massachusetts.

When I arrived, I was totally intimidated to learn I was the second author they'd invited to come, with the first being the hilarious Jack Gantos. The librarians were extremely hospitable, though, and the kids so kind that I managed to get over myself quickly.

Here are a few excerpts from the students' (fifth and seventh graders) excellent writing during the creating a sense of place workshops, with the first-person voice being my requirement:

...The door swings open and my brother is on the floor licking a bottle of coke, my twin sisters fighting over a doll, my scared brother hugging a bear in the corner, the bathroom door ajar with the dog drinking from the toilet, and the cat skipping across the piano playing her own tune. I drop my bag and grab a mop to clean up the puke on the rug ... The twins are scribbling on each other now, I take the markers and throw them away .. From the other room, I hear the t.v. moaning as it turns on, the computer loading up to check e-mails, and the phone ringing off the hook. "Lucy, what is 2 + 4?" "6," I scream ...

...As I look out across the dark blue river, I hear the whine of the oncoming water plane. I try to peek over the snow-covered bristly trees. As the plane comes into sight a flock of bright brown Canadian geese fly from where they are roosting. The calm water instantly erupts as the water plane lands ...

The murky damp air smelled of car exhaust. The street lights were dim, barely breaking through the pitch black sky. In the distance I could hear the siren of a police car. I checked each alleyway to make sure that nothing was there ...

The DJ was playing a pathetic mix of incomprehensible raps and scratching electronic beeps ... that shook the crowded room. Strangers around me were failing in their attempts to sway their bodies in matching rhythm. The glitter of sequin tank tops blurred my eyes. I could feel sweaty arms rubbing against the small of my back, and I recognized the too-strong scent of Macy's perfume swirling in the air ...

... Lawn mowers thwacked and roller skates glided and spun. Car engines roared and gasoline hung in the air. ... I plucked a juicy red cherry tomato form the garden, popped it into my mouth, and let the taste of summer wash over my tongue ...

...The court was quiet and still. I could hear my own thoughts. The leather ball felt like an extension of my hand. I shot it. "Swish." The sound was as smooth as silk ...

The cold gray wind sliced through my thin jacket as I stumbled back home. My hands were raw and red from washing dishes all night. As I flipped my collar up and rubbed my chapped hands, hoping to get a little warmth, the wind roared and whistled instead my ears leaving a hollow echo. An empty coffee cup bounced and clattered across the dirty road ... I kicked it, watching it bounce against the grimy walls of an abandoned factory. Shoving my hands in my pickets I trudged back to the place I was forced to call home...

I rushed through the heavy iron doors and right at that second I knew crispy golden brown chicken burgers were on the grill. Sweat dripped off my face as I struggled to pull the Fudds Signature hat and apron over my curly hair. "Ahem! I would like the fajita roll with a jumbo oreo milkshake." I had forgotten to ask the grey-haired, hefty man what he would like and his clenched fists told me he wasn't about to wait ...

...Cars were jammed in a row, all I could hear was honking, and none of the noisy cars were moving. People were chasing, bouncing, laughing on the bumpy sidewalk while I tried to find a way to get through ...

I've been receiving some lovely thank you notes, like this one:

Thank you for coming to our school. I have improved my writing already. All thanks to you. I know you are a busy person, so you don't have to e-mail me back. Thanks again.

Now that's courtesy, and don't worry, I wrote him back.