YALSA's THE HUB interviews Tim Tingle

Over at YALSA's The Hub you'll find an interview with Choctaw writer, Tim Tingle about being part of Matt Dembicki's Trickster (a collection of Trickster stories). In the interview, Tim says:

Every tribe approaches their stories differently. My mentor, the Choctaw tribal storyteller Charley Jones says, “tell the stories”, but make sure the origin is acknowledged. The Choctaw tribe is very open, you don’t have to be Choctaw to tell the story, but you must respect the tribal origins. Matt Dembicki understood this, as well as the importance of the trickster tale.

See that? Tim said he's taught to "Make sure the origin is acknowledged" and "respect the tribal origins." Read the interview with Tim, and, take a look at an interview with Dembicki, too.  One thing I wish Dembicki had done (or the book designer) was to note the tribal origin for each story right up front on the first panel for each story rather than in the back of the book...

Native authored-books on the 2011 Notable Children's Books list

Quoting from the website of the Association for Library Service to Children:

Each year a committee of the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) identifies the best of the best in children's books. According to the Notables Criteria, "notable" is defined as: Worthy of note or notice, important, distinguished, outstanding. As applied to children's books, notable should be thought to include books of especially commendable quality, books that exhibit venturesome creativity, and books of fiction, information, poetry and pictures for all age levels (birth through age 14) that reflect and encourage children's interests in exemplary ways.

On the list this year are...

Tim Tingle's extraordinary Saltypie: A Choctaw Journey from Darkness into Light. I wrote about it last year. Saltypie is one of my favorite books.

Congratulations, Tim!

Matt Dembicki's Trickster: Native American Tales, a collection of 21 trickster stories in graphic novel format is also on the list. (Note 1/15/2011: Dembicki is not, to my knowledge, Native. All the authors who have stories in the book are Native.) I like the book very much, with one quibble...  The designer didn't provide information about each story's origin with the story. It's in the book----in the back! It would have done a lot more teaching if that info was included with the opening panel of each story.

S. D. Nelson's Black Elk's Vision: A Lakota Story.  I've got it on order.