Heather Has Two Mommies (A New Look and a New Cover)

A twenty-five year milestone has been reached in the telling of a sweet children's book called "Heather Has Two Mommies. Those many years ago, no one wanted to publish the book, but that did not stop its author, Leslea Newman. The book's topic was a cultural and legal flash point 25 years ago, angering conservatives over the morality of same-sex parenting and landing libraries at the center of community battles over placement in the children's stacks.

 Today, Heather — of "Heather Has Two Mommies" — has a lot more company in books for young kids about different kinds of families, but hers was out of print and seemed visually dated. That's why creator Leslea Newman decided on a new version, updating the look of her watershed story with fresh illustrations from a new artist and tweaking the text to streamline.

There's one big change, but you have to squint to notice: Heather's Mama Kate and Mama Jane wear little matching rings on their marriage fingers

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I don't specifically say that they're married but they are.  I don't know where I could have smoothly inserted that into the text. That's not what the story is about. The story is really about Heather.

Heather was Newman's first picture book and is certainly her most well-known. The latest edition, out this month, is from Candlewick Press, with illustrations by Laura Cornell replacing those of Diana Souza.

Newman wrote the story in 1988 after a chance encounter in Northampton with Amy Jacobson, a lesbian mom who was looking for reading material that better reflected her life with her partner — now wife — and their young daughter — now grown.

"Every step I was educating people about our family because there was nothing else," recalled Jacobson. "If I hadn't done it somebody else would have found an author. The book needed to happen."

Newman, a full-time writer and poet at the time, chronicles Heather's love of all things "two," including her moms, one a doctor and the other a carpenter. When Heather joins a home-based play group — changed to "school" in the new version — she is saddened when teacher Molly reads the children a story at nap time focused on a daddy.

Original Cover

As the children chime in with their fathers' occupations, Heather bemoans, "I don't have a daddy," when asked what hers does for a living. The original story has her tearing up as she wonders if any other family looks like hers. The update has the children chiming in with the work of their mommies AND daddies, and it eliminates Heather's tears.

The process of getting Heather published in 1989 was a slow one:

After I wrote the book I sent it to many, many publishers. Small presses, large presses. Children's book presses told me to try lesbian presses. Lesbian presses told me to try children's book presses. Nobody was really interested.

There were about 50 turndowns. That's why she co-published the book with a friend who had a desktop printing business. The two found an illustrator and financed the endeavour mostly from $10 donations, promising each contributor a copy from the 4,000 they printed up.

Dots Around the World-Inspired by Peter H. Reynold's The Dot

According to Publishers Weekly, the fifth annual International Dot Day, inspired by Peter H. Reynolds’s The Dot (Candlewick), drew nearly 620,000 participants at more than 15,000 events worldwide on Saturday, September 15.
 

Reynolds led the festivities in his hometown of Boston, along with mayor Thomas Menino. But some celebrations were held in schools on the Friday before, while others will take place next month. Taken together, Dot Day will be feted across seven continents – yes, including Antarctica. As a result of the interest, The Dot Club Web site, which had served as the headquarters for Dot Day events, was relaunched earlier this week as a year-long resource for educators and families to support “creativity with a purpose.”

In The Dot, a caring teacher encourages a reluctant student to trust in her own abilities and be brave enough to “make a mark and see where it takes you.” Reynolds says, “It’s amazing to see that so many people around the world are finding inspiration to transform teaching and learning through creativity. I hope Dot Day will help to remind people that creativity and arts aren’t educational ‘extras’ – they are essential to the inventive problem-solving the world needs today.”

The Dot is the first book in Reynolds’s Crea-Trilogy, which also includes Ish, about a creative spirit who learns that thinking “ish-ly” is more important than getting things just right. The third volume, Sky Color, was just published by Candlewick and is being produced as ananimated film by FableVision and Scholastic’s Weston Woods. 

SCBWI Florida's Mid-Year Conference Was Wonderful!

Wow.  What an amazing conference. The SCBWI Florida Mid-Year Conference at the Walt Disney World Yacht Club, Orlando, was an amalgam of fabulous new material, collegiality and interesting people. 

Nancy and Andrea Davis Pinkney

I attended the Picture Book Intensive lead by Andrea Davis Pinkney, a New York Times best-selling and award-winning author and editor at Scholastic, Inc. and by Sylvie Frank, associate editor at Holiday House.  Both women did a marvelous job discussing the intricacies of picture book writing and marketing. 

It was my pleasure to conduct the all-day workshop on non-fiction with Deb Noyes Wayshak, editor-at-large at Candlewick Press. 

Part of our Tampa critique group

I want to thank those who attended our workshop.  It was so lovely to work with you.

 Deb and I wish you well in your pursuit of fair use and thorough research in the writing fun, exciting and worthy non-fiction.

All of my expectations were fulfilled.  New friends were met.  New information and ideas were learned.  What an august group.  Being an author rocks!

Sammy in the Sky by Barbara Walsh, Illustrated by Jamie Wyeth!

 Barbara Walsh figured the worst that could happen was he would say no.  In truth, she hardly expected any response at all. She assumed Jamie Wyeth probably would just blow her off. No way the famous painter would take the time to illustrate her children's book about the death of the family dog, she said to herself.
"But a friend persisted. She insisted, 'Call Jamie.' I thought, 'Oh, sure -- and I'll go to the moon, too,'" Walsh said.  Walsh, a veteran newspaper reporter who has made many awkward phone calls in her life, dialed Wyeth directly.

 He encouraged Walsh to share with him what she had written.  "Send me the book," he assured her. "I'll take a look."

Months passed. Walsh rewrote and tweaked her story endlessly, all the while without a peep from Wyeth. Then one day, a letter arrived at her Winthrop home, her address printed with a flourish of bright blue ink.  She opened the envelope expectantly, and was thrilled and surprised to read that Wyeth wanted to explore collaborating further.

The result of their effort is "Sammy in the Sky," a new children's book that Massachusetts-based Candlewick Press published this week. It's a gripping and honest story about how one family coped with the death of a beloved family pet.

The title refers to Sammy's place in the clouds, where good dogs go to chase bubbles after they die. The book stars Sammy, Walsh's loyal hound, who died in 2003. The co-stars are Walsh's daughters, Emma and Nora, now 13 and 10, respectively.

Jamie Wyeth

In an interview at his home in Tenants Harbor, Wyeth said Walsh's manuscript made an immediate and lasting impact on him. He's illustrated a couple of children's books before, and he receives frequent requests to do more. But he's busy enough with his painting career that he simply can't take the time required to do justice to a book.  This one was different.

His illustrations convey the range of emotions in Walsh's story -- the joy of companionship, with Sammy gleefully licking the little girl's face, and the thrill of the chase as he bounds after gulls on the beach.

The difficult emotions are there, too -- the uncertainty in Sammy's eyes when the family learns he is sick and dying; the trepidation of the girl as she hugs her dog just before he dies; the undulating waves of grief upon his death and the pensive confusion that follows the morning after.

Jamie Wyeth Painting

"The next morning, Daddy and I went for a long walk on the beach," Walsh writes. "I searched for Sammy in the sky. I searched and searched for a cloud that looked like Sammy. I looked for his face, his paws and his big brown eyes.  "'Can't Sammy come back?' I asked Daddy. 'Just for a little while?'  Daddy shook his head. 'You'll have to remember him in your heart,' he said.

Wyeth labored over the illustrations, and treated each as a separate painting. The book includes nearly two dozen paintings, which Wyeth completed in gauche and watercolor over the course of many months.

An avowed dog lover, Wyeth saw no point in toning down the pain of loss.
"The dog dies. People get sad," he said. "Animals mean a lot to me. I spend more time with animals than I do with people. Animals are almost always loving and kind."

In his dedication, he said he illustrated the book, "For all the dogs I have loved and lost."
"Sammy in the Sky" is Wyeth's third picture book. His others, "The Stray" and "Cabbages and Kings," came many years ago. He did his work for "Sammy in the Sky" in honor of his late grandfather, the legendary illustrator N.C. Wyeth, whose work Jamie adores.

This is Walsh's first book. A second, "August Gale," is due this fall. It is a memoir geared toward adults.