{"id":10363,"date":"2015-03-04T00:01:19","date_gmt":"2015-03-04T05:01:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/?p=10363"},"modified":"2015-02-27T09:58:45","modified_gmt":"2015-02-27T14:58:45","slug":"childrens-literature-connections-in-san-francisco","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/2015\/03\/childrens-literature-connections-in-san-francisco\/","title":{"rendered":"Children\u2019s Literature Connections in San Francisco"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>San Francisco is thrilled to host the <a href=\"http:\/\/alaac15.ala.org\/\">ALA Annual Conference<\/a> again this June. The Bay Area has a rich literary tradition and children\u2019s books definitely are a part of it. Years ago, I wrote an article for School Library Journal (<em>De<\/em><em>\u0301<\/em><em>ja<\/em><em>\u0300<\/em><em> Views: A Tour of San Francisco Settings You\u2019ll Recall from Children\u2019s Books<\/em>, SLJ, June 1997) that highlighted the city\u2019s ties to Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, Kate Douglas Wiggin, Laura Ingalls Wilder and her daughter Rose Wilder Lane, Kathryn Forbes, Berta Hader, Jade Snow Wong, Virginia Lee Burton, Eleanor Cameron and Laurence Yep. Several of the books mentioned in it are now in limited supply, if not out of print. This is not surprising: Wilder&#8217;s letters to her husband Almanzo, chronicling her journey to the city to visit their daughter, popular journalist Lane, and the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, were written 100 years ago (<em>West from Home)<\/em>. Wiggin\u2019s work to establish the first free kindergarten in San Francisco (funding it with proceeds from the sale of <em>The Bird\u2019s Christmas Carol)<\/em> took place almost 30 years before that. Maybelle\u2019s uphill battle to save her species\u2014can anyone conceive of a San Francisco without its cable cars?\u2014was based on the successful Citizens\u2019 Committee to Save the Cable Cars, almost 70 years ago (<em>Maybelle the Cable Car<\/em>, by Virginia Lee Burton).<\/p>\n<p>But the literary spirit lives on, and thrives. A list of current local children\u2019s and teen authors and illustrators, or books set here, would be a long one.<\/p>\n<p>Indulge me, then, as I mention just a few, and the ALSC Preconference: <strong>Distinguished and Diverse: Celebrate the 2015 ALSC Honor Books<\/strong>, on Friday, June 26, 2015, 11:30 AM \u2013 4:00 PM, as there are several Honor Books (and their authors and illustrators) with Bay Area connections:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Yuyi Morales (Caldecott Honor <em>Viva Frida<\/em>) lives part time in San Francisco, and learned to make puppets from books borrowed from the Western Addition Branch Library.<\/li>\n<li>Jon Klassen\u2019s partner-in-imagination, Mac Barnett (Caldecott Honor <em>Sam &amp; Dave Dig a Hole<\/em>) is from Oakland, and as teen, he was Peter Pan at Oakland\u2019s Children\u2019s Fairyland.<\/li>\n<li>Belpre\u0301 Illustrator Honor <em>Little Roja Riding Hood<\/em>, Susan Guevara, received her BFA from the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. Author Susan Middleton Elya lives in the Bay Area.<\/li>\n<li>All California children benefitted from <em>Separate is Never Equal: Sylvia Mendez &amp; Her Family\u2019s Fight for Desegregation <\/em>(Belpre\u0301 Illustrator Honor, Sibert Honor), written and illustrated by Duncan Tonatiuh.<\/li>\n<li>Several of the illustrious people profiled in <em>Portraits of Hispanic America Heroes <\/em>(Belpre\u0301 Author Honor, by Juan Felipe Herrera) are well-known to the Bay Area, including Joan Baez and Rita Moreno.<\/li>\n<li>We are so proud of talented local illustrator Christian Robinson, who created the Sibert Honor book <em>Josephine: The Dazzling Life of Josephine Baker <\/em>with author Patricia Hruby Powell.<\/li>\n<li>And of course, those top-of-the-food chain <em>Neighborhood Sharks: Hunting with the Great Whites of California\u2019s Farallon Islands <\/em>(Sibert Honor by Katherine Roy) are from our neighborhood (on a clear day, I can see the Farallon Islands from the park at the end of my street).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>The Gold Rush may have ended almost two centuries ago, but San Francisco continues to offer literary gold\u2014and several have shiny silver medals this year. Please join us in honoring them, and all other ALSC book honor winners, at the ALSC Preconference. Welcome back to the Bay Area, ALA!<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">**************************************************************<\/p>\n<p>Today&#8217;s blog post was written Carla Kozak, the Children\u2019s and Teen Collection Development Specialist at the San Francisco Public Library, for the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ala.org\/alsc\/aboutalsc\/coms\/pg4orgsupport\/als-localarrg\">Local Arrangements Committee<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>San Francisco is thrilled to host the ALA Annual Conference again this June. The Bay Area has a rich literary tradition and children\u2019s books definitely are a part of it. Years ago, I wrote an article for School Library Journal (De\u0301ja\u0300 Views: A Tour of San Francisco Settings You\u2019ll Recall from Children\u2019s Books, SLJ, June 1997) that highlighted the city\u2019s ties to Mark Twain, Robert Louis Stevenson, Kate Douglas Wiggin, Laura Ingalls Wilder and her daughter Rose Wilder Lane, Kathryn Forbes, Berta Hader, Jade Snow Wong, Virginia Lee Burton, Eleanor Cameron and Laurence Yep. Several of the books mentioned in it are now in limited supply, if not out of print. This is not surprising: Wilder&#8217;s letters to her husband Almanzo, chronicling her journey to the city to visit their daughter, popular journalist Lane, and the Panama-Pacific International Exposition, were written 100 years ago (West from Home). Wiggin\u2019s work to&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":38,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[510,22,134],"tags":[704],"class_list":["post-10363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ala-annual-2015","category-childrens-literature","category-guest-blogger","tag-san-francisco"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/38"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10363"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10363\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}