• “Spanish Dancer” and more songs characters love in Either the Beginning or the End

    I made a playlist, coming soon, of the songs in the novel. You’ll find Laura Mam, a Cambodian-American singer.  I listened to her songs over and over while I wrote. And here’s the gorgeous “Spanish Dancer” by Patti Scialfa and “Rabbit in the Moon” by Aztec Two Step. Hearing Aztec Two Step’s “Rabbit in the Moon” was the first lauramamtime I imagined the image of a rabbit on the moon.  Later I found it’s an idea that crosses many cultures.  Researching the novel, I read a Cambodian folktale that tells the Buddhist story of the rabbit representing immortality.

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  • Bhutanese Folktale Project, A Folktale Journeys with its Tellers

    Bhutanese girls dance a story about friendship “From a Bhutanese Farm to Small-Town America:  A Folktale Journeys with its Tellers”  is just published in Bookbird, A Journal of 

    Bookbird

    International Chidlren’s Literature. Creating the Nepali-English folktale, The Story of a Pumpkin, was a many-layered process,  challenging, and joyous, too.  The link above is to an excerpt of the article.  I tried to bring readers through our steps and introduce you to all who made the book happen from the refugee community we worked with to ESOL teachers to  the brilliant, creative women of the New Hampshire Humanities Council. Deb Cram took the photos of the dancing girls in Manchester at the Humanities Council folktale festival where we launched The Story of a Pumpkin. The  book is distributed by the University Press of New England. I just saw a notice of the book in a Miami newspaper.  May this story keep on rolling and coming into its own, which is just what happens to its magical hero. READ MORE

  • IBBY Congress in Mexico City Honors Stories Around the World

    How proud the people of IBBY Mexico  were to bring  creators of children’s literature and educators from all over the world to Mexico City.   They showed us palaces beyond beauty,  feted us with tequila and tiny hordeuves with hibiscus at galas,  seduced us with the art of Mexican illustrators.  The word seduction was the word of the conference to me.  A long discussion by – is this term a little too close to the language of marketing? – the creatives  – brought a very pointed rebuke to some.  Reading, the creatives on the dais said,  must not be a slogan for literacy,  must not be a lesson  twenty minutes a day, you idiots.  No, the creatives said,  reading is a journey into seduction. My paraphrase. But this is my story, too. Every book is a falling in love. This past summer I read one book, over and over.  When I was driving, I listened to the audio of this book. I loved this book.  This is not the first time I’ve done this with a story. Yes, reading must be a seduction.
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