We're so excited for this coloring book to hit the shelves. We've tested it on kids and adults, to rave reviews by both. Working with Tiffany (the artist) and Amy (director of SixTwelve with whom we teamed up to make this book possible), has been and continues to be a joy. The book is on its way as we speak and will be available to ship in early January. You can pre-order one (or five or ten) on our website now, or go to the party tomorrow night (in OKC) to grab one of our 100-or-so early copies, which Tiffany will sign! Check out this rad video for more:
Editors' updates
Guest blog: Reading Tour by Tracey Zeeck
Last weekend Tracey Zeeck, author of the about-to-be-officially released The Not In Here Story, traveled to Colorado to read from her book in bookstores and schools. The OFFICIAL release reading & signing is two days away! Sunday, Nov. 6, 2pm at Full Circle Books in Oklahoma City.
Tracey wrote about her recent whirlwind tour below. Enjoy!
Tracey reads at The Bookworm book store in Edwards, CO
What a weekend! My first promoting my book, The Not in Here Story!
Last week my husband, son, and I left Oklahoma City for Colorado on Thursday afternoon, landing in Denver around 7 p.m. After letting our son eat a healthy meal of airport fast food hamburgers, we jumped in our rental SUV and headed out on I-70. Charlie passed out immediately, still adorned with his paper crown from dinner, and slept the entire way up. We arrived in Edwards, just west of Vail, around 9:10 p.m., to discover that all the restaurants closed about 10 minutes before we got in. Luckily the grocery store was open late, and after scavenging a pretty decadent menu we sat in our room and feasted on ice cream and salami and popcorn and pecans before hitting the sack.
My first reading was at The Bookworm on Friday at 9:15. I had never heard of this place, but Penny Candy Books set it up and I am so glad they did! The Bookworm is a darling little bookstore on the town square with a sweet-as-can-be staff and a robust children's book section.
Now toddler story time is always...entertaining. And this was no exception. Wiggly little kids really crack me up, and even with all of their kinetic listening, they still remained engaged through the whole story. (Whew!) I read a handful of other, mostly Halloween-related, tales, too. And I even sold a book to one of the grandmothers in attendance. Hooray! We said goodbye, bought some books and gifts, and hit the road.
Two hours later, we arrived at Coal Creek Canyon elementary, in the hills somewhere between Golden and Boulder. Principal Livingston is a former Peace Corps volunteer, and runs a pretty peaceful student body. I was lucky to get to read to three different groups: K-2nd; 3rd & 4th graders, and the tony sophisticates of the 5th & 6th grade. What an amazing group! Every reading was meaningful and every group had its own set of questions. I hated leaving, but we had an event to attend that night. It was going to be a late night.
The next morning, I was up at dawn to sit down for an interview with CBS Denver. They have a program that helps match kids in foster care with adoptive families for forever homes. (So if you're looking for a reason to support network TV, there you go!) They were so engaged with the book that they didn't even notice how I got ready for the interview in a Starbucks bathroom! The rest of the day was spent hanging out with friends and stealing chocolate from their kids' Halloween stash.
The crowd in the courtyard of Second Star to the Right Books in Denver.
Saturday night, we checked ourselves into the hotel, ordered room service, and caught up on some sleep in preparation for the big event the next day. My Sunday reading and signing was at a store called Second Star to the Right Books.
Man. This place. I read my book to a full house, outdoors, beneath a tent with quilts and cushions on the ground. I had family and friends come to this precious place from as far as Trinidad and Boulder, and I will remember that forever. My 87-year-old aunt was among them. And, not too shabby, we sold out the store's entire stock of The Not In Here Story! Then I hugged, said goodbyes, hugged some more, and we made it to the airport in time to catch our flight.
My husband and son and were with me every step of the way. We were a team. We are a team.
That's family.
Quraysh Ali Lansana at Scuppernong Books in Greensboro. A Gift from Greensboro is peeking out from behind him.
What a week: road trip notes & glowing reviews!
What a whirlwind week road tripping with our indefatigable author, Quraysh Ali Lansana and his book, A Gift from Greensboro. Long drives, teaching sessions, presentations, unscheduled appearances, small crowds, big crowds—the man doesn't stop! It was so fun to watch Quraysh in his element, talking to young people—from kindergartners to high school students—about the impacts of the Civil Rights Movement as well as the journey still ahead of us.
We did a lot of driving through the South: Richmond to Farmville, VA to Greensboro, NC to Raleigh. In each city, we learned another unique piece of Civil Rights history, from Farmville's 5-year shut down of public schools to avoid integration and the Black students who initiated boycotts of substandard replacement schools (we met one of them!) to a day-by-day timeline of the sit-ins in Greensboro led by 4 college students who'd had enough. The Greensboro sit-ins weren't the first of their kind, but they were the catalyst for the Movement that swept the South and resulted in lunch counter integration.
Speaking of lunch counters, we saw the original counter in the International Civil Rights Museum, which used to be the Woolworth store featured so amazingly by Skip Hill in A Gift from Greensboro. The energy of disruption and victory hovers in that room.
This trip, more than a publicity or book sale opportunity, was simply an honor to be a part of. We're not just making books. We might just be creating community too.
Quraysh at the Greensboro International Civil Rights Museum discussing the book with students and parents.
Quraysh at the Virginia Children's Book Festival with a group of high school creative writers (and Chad taking a photo from the other direction).
Finally, we woke up this morning after lots of driving and flying, and we discovered this unbelievable post about Penny Candy Books on Sarah James's Whoorl. If you get a chance, give it a read! So great to see that readers—kids and grown ups alike—are digging our mission and our books!!
Tour Dates & Thanks
Wednesday marks the first day of our first book tour at Penny Candy Books. We have an exciting week planned to promote A Gift from Greensboro with author Quraysh Ali Lansana.
Wednesday, Oct 12, 10:30 a.m. -- Reading at the Black Male Emergent Readers program at the Hull Street branch of the Richmond Public Library
Thursday, Oct 13, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. -- PCB has a booth at the Virginia Children's Book Festival at Longwood University in Farmville, VA
Friday, Oct 14, 9:00 a.m. to 1 p.m. -- Booth at the Virginia Children's Book Festival
Friday, Oct 14, 3:30 p.m. -- "Civil Rights in Children's Literature" panel (Mr. Lansana is a panelist), Moton Museum, Farmville, VA
Saturday, Oct 15, 11:00 a.m. -- Reading at the International Civil Rights Center & Museum, Greensboro, NC
Saturday, Oct 15, 5:00 p.m. -- Reading at So & So Books, downtown Raleigh, NC
It's going to be a whirlwind of a trip, with the emotional high point being the reading at the International Civil Rights Center & Museum in Greensboro. This is the actual Woolworth's Department store where the "Greensboro Four"--David Richmond, Franklin McCain, Ezell Blair, Jr., and Joseph McNeil--held their sit-ins in 1960. This is the setting for A Gift from Greensboro, and so it's a real thrill and honor to be able to stage a reading there, in the same room where the sit-ins took place.
It's been a long road to get Penny Candy Books to this point, and yet it feels like the real journey is just beginning. We'd like to thank, in no particular order: Shanna Compton of Bloof Books, our brilliant book designer; Britt and Jeff at Print Ninja, for all things printing; Doug Sorocco and Emily Campbell, our attorneys at Dunlap Codding; Emily Pomeroy, for her invaluable legal assistance in the early days of PCB; Mark Jung and Judy Ogren, our distributors at Itasca Books; Sache Primeaux-Shaw and Allison Adelle Hedge Coke, our first two members of our Advisory Council, for agreeing to give us their wisdom; Melodie Garneau, our landlord at Paramount OKC; Clay Collum, our accountant at Robison Gary Johnson; Amanda O'Connor, for the book industry tutorials; Zach Powers, for a fabulous video; Emily and Aaron for their patience and understanding; Gus and Emmett for their excellent focus group work; Pikey and Calvin for the snuggles; Lee and Jana Reynolds and Rita Orgera for their support and help; Timothy Bradford at Short Order Poems for the encouragement; Amy Young at SixTwelve for the encouragement; and We Need Diverse Books and Lee & Low for the inspiration to found a press focused on diversity.
Of course we'd like to thank our incredible authors and illustrators--Quraysh Ali Lansana, Skip Hill, Tracey Zeeck, David Bizzaro, Tiffany McKnight, and Margaux Othats--for entrusting us with their work and for the inspiration. We'd like to thank the authors and illustrators we'll be working with in 2017--we have lots of big announcements coming soon! And we'd like to thank people like you who want to buy our books!
Natural Grain: Penny Candy's New HQ & Better Parenting
Penny Candy HQ
Penny Candy HQ furniture rehab
Chad here. It seems that every week we reach a new milestone at PCB, and this week marks the first that our new physical office (our "headquarters") seems put together enough to actually work in. Located in the historic Paramount Building in Oklahoma City's Film Row District just west of downtown, the office is 175 square feet of bliss with high ceilings, a whole wall of built-in cabinets, and a great view of downtown. But when I first saw it, the walls had a hideous green paint on them, and there was a drop ceiling with two rows of old fluorescent lights. It was clear that hiding behind those regrettable modifications was a gem of an office space, its original beauty obscured by whim and fashion.
I've been working on rehabilitating some old furniture to use in the space. One is this credenza with a chrome lip and marble top. Notice the wood grain. When my wife purchased this a couple years ago, it had been smothered in a maroon polyurethane finish that obscured the natural beauty of the wood. I've been slowly sanding it down, and this past weekend I applied a nice ebony stain.
I think there's a metaphor here for parents. Too often, without thinking, we try to form our kids into what we want them to be. We try to “finish” them, to paint over their natural beauty. We expect them to perform the roles we prescribe them. We do it without thinking because, after all, our kids seem to be miniature reflections of ourselves in many ways. Painting over walls or furniture isn’t the end of the world, but maybe not such a great idea with humans. How many of us would have benefitted from a parent telling us that our natural instincts were good enough?
How much better if, instead of shellacking them in what we envision they should be, we would instead help them to discover their own natural grains? Not turn them loose exactly; rather help them help themselves? Maybe they’d get a stain (that could be called culture), but only if it lets their own inner beauty shine.
This got me thinking about a book my wife and I loved reading to our kids when they were smaller: Gregory, the Terrible Eater by Mitchell Sharmatt, illustrated by Jose Aruego and Ariane Dewey. It’s the story of a kid (as in a young goat) who, to his parents’ horror, would rather eat fruits and vegetables than cardboard boxes, old tires, pieces of rugs, and the other things that good goats eat.
Flummoxed that Gregory refuses to eat what they offer him (shoes, magazines, coats), his parents take their fussy eater to the doctor, the wise old Dr. Ram, who says that “it makes sense” that Gregory would want to eat what he likes. He advises that Gregory be allowed to eat what he wants but that the parents introduce one new item into his diet a day. This approach helps the parents to accept Gregory for who he is and helps Gregory come to see that what his parents want isn’t all bad. By the end of the story, a normal meal for Gregory might consist of juice, scrambled eggs, and wax paper. Compromise!
Like so many great kids’ books, it seems Gregory, the Terrible Eater is not only intended to help kids grow and learn but also to help parents be better parents. Adults have a lot to teach kids, but kids can teach us adults a lot, too, if we’re willing to listen to them.
The Catalog of Catalogs
If you were to take a catalog of our catalogs, the first entry you'd see is this catalog, our first one ever. We hope when the catalogers of catalogs come cataloging, they will find many PCB catalogs in our catalog. But until then, let the record show that this was the catalogus primus and therefore the catalogus supremus. Enjoy!
Click image for pdf.
Where We Are, Where We're Going
It's been almost a month since we announced that Penny Candy Books is up and running. We have two books in the hands of our talented designer Shanna Compton, who also owns and runs the independent poetry press Bloof Books. We've been posting sneak peeks of The Not in Here Story by Tracey Zeeck, illus. by David Bizzaro, and A Gift from Greensboro by Quraysh Ali Lansana, illus. by Skip Hill, but we can't resist two more, so here they are:
The Not In Here Story by Tracey Zeeck. Illustrations by David Bizzaro.
A Gift from Greensboro by Quraysh Ali Lansana. Illustrations by Skip Hill.
The Hunt is ready to go to the printer! Unbelievable. So what are we doing with our days? Well, for starters, we are reading amazing submissions and proposals for our next round of books, slated for spring 2017. Send us something via our Submittable page! We're getting Advance Readers ready to send out to reviewers. We're writing press releases and sell sheets and devising PR campaigns. And, we're doing our taxes...apparently, that's part of being in business too.
Second, we are, as always, thinking a great deal about our mission, and the assumptions of privilege that might hinder our mission if we're not careful. I'd like to share a personal story with you. Several months ago, a student in the after school writing program in which I teach wrote this:
"I refuse to be a caged bird tricked into thinking I'm flying free because you took me out of a cage and put me into a habitat of your creation."
My creation. Chad and I have talked a great deal about these words from this young, black man and how, as two white people creating a publishing house whose mission it is to celebrate diversity and disrupt dominant narratives, we need help. Sometimes we simply won't see past our perspectives without consulting people who have different perspectives. We need to make certain that our choices are not being guided solely by the narrow assumptions of privilege, that we never try to create habitats for anyone, rather that we give space and voice to already existing worlds. To that end, Penny Candy Books is developing an advisory council--a diverse group of people to whom we can turn for wise council, who have agreed to help us check our assumptions. We'll be announcing the members of our council in the coming months.
We hope that our Advisory Council will help us shape our growing catalog into something wide-ranging and lasting--a catalog that sees the world from many different perspectives. That student and I made an agreement too. He explains to me where he wants to take a piece of a writing, and rather than imagining for him where it might go, I help him get to his chosen destination.
Finally, please remember that you can pre-order The Hunt now, and if you do, you get free shipping! This is such a powerful book about how art and creation can overcome the impulse to destruction so prevalent in our culture. It's also a badass feminist manifesto, as The Hunt's heroine, a young girl, beats some serious odds. We like people who beat long odds.
Here we go!
Alexis and Chad at Full Circle Bookstore, Oklahoma City, photo courtesy of Penny Candy author, Tracey Zeeck.
Well, it's official. Penny Candy Books is real. What a journey the last few months have been. Chad and I have made good work of being business partners in two different states. Thank heavens we live in places with nearby airports. We truly believe in our mission: to bring books into the world by diverse authors and illustrators for diverse audiences. We know that diversity has become a buzzword these days, and yet we still find ourselves using it because, well, it's still necessary. And when we say diversity we mean it in its most inclusive sense. In fact, maybe we should think about using the word inclusivity instead! In our planning sessions, we talk a lot about disrupting the narrative; we believe that our dominant culture has defined a narrative that doesn't resonate with a huge portion of our actual human population. Our books seek to add to a new narrative. We are not afraid to ruffle feathers--and no doubt we will on occasion, as with The Hunt, now available for preorder, a brilliant wordless picture book from France's Margaux Othats that takes a stand against violence, particularly gun violence, though it's a metaphor for all sorts of destruction that attempts to crush our spirits. Our books are for kids, yes, but they are also for the adults who want to see their values reflected in works appropriate for their children. They're also, simply put, beautiful objects, if we do say so ourselves.
Here's the lowdown: we have three books under contract and almost ready for the world! The Hunt, we mentioned above. Check out Margaux Othats' page to find out more about her. Our next book is called A Gift from Greensboro, and follows a friendship against the backdrop of post-Civil Rights lunch counter sit-ins. A Gift from Greensboro is a poem written by Quraysh Ali Lansana and illustrated by Skip Hill. Both men are brilliant artists who are collaborating on a powerful story. Finally, Tracey Zeeck and David Bizarro have teamed up to bring us The Not In Here Story, an adventure that explores adoption through the lens of a couple seeking a child to love.
Join us in celebrating the birth of Penny Candy Books. Pre-order The Hunt now! Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook. Follow the blog. Subscribe to our newsletter. Join us in our mission to disrupt the narrative and promote diversity and inclusivity in kid lit.