I first became aware of the picture book THE STAMP COLLECTOR by Jennifer Lanthier, illustrations by Fracois Thisdale, at Fay B. Kaigler Children's Book Festival when it was named an Ezra Jack Keats Honor Book. I was moved by Jennifer's speech and knew I needed the book.
Well... the bookseller was SOLD OUT. And life went on, as it does, and I forgot about the book. Until I was roadtripping with two wonderful children's authors Jo Kittinger and Heather Montgomery. We were talking about how it was a title and speech that really stood out to us. When I got home I ordered it.
Before it arrived (it took a while -- not sure why), the book won another award: the Crystal Kite, an SCBWI member's choice award. Then, finally, it was here and I read it and I loved it and knew I wanted to blog about it.
See, my father is a stamp collector. When the story says,
"In his dreams, the stamp is a kite, a paper jewel from the crown of a wise old king.
It holds a secret message; it is a clue to buried treasure.
The stamp is the key to another world - one that is new and full of adventure.
And stories."
... that could be my father talking.
When I was a teenager, my father gave me writing assignments. One time, he handed me an envelope addressed to Charles Lindbergh. The envelope's stamp was from Ireland. Papa said, "write a story about the letter that was once inside this envelope." Off I went on a new adventure.
This book is about connection and yearning and freedom, how stories matter and make us better humans.
It's also, somehow, about my father.
Read it!
So there are two 2013 books I love with the title GOLDEN BOY. One is by Tara Sullivan -- and it releases today! (thanks to Excellent Editor Stacey Barney at Putnam, I read it as an ARC); the other is by Abigail Tarttelin. Both are FANTASTIC.
"There were many skies.
The sky was invaded by great white clouds, flat on the bottom but
round and billowy on top. The sky was completely cloudless, of a
blue quite shattering to the senses. The sky was a heavy,
suffocating blanket of grey cloud, but without promise of rain. The
sky was thinly overcast. The sky was dappled with small, white,
fleecy clouds. The sky was streaked with high, thin clouds that
looked like a cotton ball stretched a part. The sky was a
featureless milky haze. The sky was a density of dark and blustery
rain clouds that passed by without delivering rain. The sky was
painted with a small number of flat clouds that looked like sandbars.
The sky was a mere block to allow a visual effect on the horizon:
sunlight flooding the ocean, the vertical edges of between light and
shadow perfectly distinct. The sky was a distant black curtain of
falling rain. The sky was many clouds at many levels, some thick and
opaque, others looking like smoke. The sky was black and spitting on
my smiling face. The sky was nothing but falling water, a ceaseless
deluge that wrinkled and bloated my skin and froze me stiff." - Yann Martel, THE LIFE OF PI
