Tuesday, June 28, 2011

Tim Tingle, ALA 2011

On Sunday at ALA 2011, I went by the Cinco Puntos booth, hoping Tim Tingle might be there. He was scheduled for a session at 4:00 to talk about the graphic novel, Trickster, edited by Matt Dembecki. He was there and we visited for awhile. It was terrific to hear him extoll American Indians in Children's Literature (AICL) and the work I do. When he works with teachers, he tells them to spend a few days at AICL. I'm glad he recommends it.  Well---glad is not the right word... The right word is thrilled.

I'm working on a post about the session itself. The panel included Matt Dembicki, Tim, and another author with a story in Trickster, Michael Thompson. All three delivered remarks I want to share with readers of AICL.

As I write, I'm in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, watching the sun rise. I'm here for a couple of days to do some research in the de Grummond Collection. I read the galleys for a couple of books by Berta and Elmer Hader. There wasn't any correspondence in the Hader files or any notes at all that might give me insight to their thinking as they prepared these two books:








Prior to this trip, I had not read either book. Published in 1962 and 1943, both are told from the perspective of a boy who lives in a city and imagines the life of an Indian boy is better than his own.  In both, the white boy gets to be Indian for a day...

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

What a lovely post on Tim! We're so glad you were able to see the Trickster panel, and so honored that you blogged on it.

Cheers!

Debbie Reese said...

Hello Fulcrum...

I have a suggestion... Can you, in subsequent reprintings of the book, put the author tribal affiliation in the table of contents?

Were you at the last session? I asked Dembicki about why the tribal info was only in the back.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the feedback - I wasn't at ALA and had to live vicariously through my colleagues who did attend. I'll be sure to bring up your suggestion with our editors, to keep in mind for our next reprint.