With best wishes for a
Happy Holiday
from Caroline Arnold Art and Books
With many thanks to my brother Tom Scheaffer, who for many years was a bilingual Spanish teacher in an elementary school in California, and to my daughter Jennifer Arnold and her husband Humberto Gutierrez Rivas, a native speaker from Chile.
Here is the description of the book in Spanish:
"Sherry es mi vecina. Ella dice que viene del espacio. No le creo."
Sherry y su amiga van al espacio en un cohete de cartón. ¿Realmente van al espacio? ¿O simplemente están fingiendo?
Este libro ilustrado es para niños de cinco a doce años.
Publicado originalmente en inglés con el título My Friend from Outer Space (Amazon, 2023).
Traducción por Thomas Scheaffer y Humberto Gutiérrez-Rivas.
You can find the link if you search for Caroline Scheaffer Arnold. (The addition of my maiden/middle name is to distinguish me from the other Caroline Arnolds who are authors.)
Thank you, Jennifer!
Caroline Scheaffer Arnold ’66, DHL ’01, Amazon, July 2023
A graphic picture book for young readers illustrated with colorful, anime-style art, My Friend From Outer Space follows Sherry as she tries to convince her best friend that she comes from outer space. Arnold, who majored in art and literature at Grinnell, is the author of more than 170 books for children. Her work has received awards from the American Library Association, and the National Science Teachers Association, among others, and she was awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters by the College in 2001.
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| Author Ernesto Cisneros being interviewed by Dewi Ochoa at LAPL |
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| Jesse Kingsley and Puppet of Efren |
I have been a member of FOCAL for many years. After three years of the FOCAL Award presentations online because of the pandemic, it was good to be back again in person.
In order to be awarded the FOCAL book award, the book must be of the highest literary and artistic quality, and must have California content. I know how hard it is to choose a winner–I served on the committee for four years. This year’s choice is excellent and a fitting book to celebrate.
Flying to Sydney was out of the question for many contributors, including me. Instead, we were given the opportunity to attend online for a celebration of the wonderful contributions of writers and artists to The School Magazine, far and wide. Participants included authors from the United States, New Zealand, and as far away as Austria. (Because of the time change, the event was actually Sunday evening in California where I live.) While it took some time to get all the technology in order, the program began and we were introduced to the staff and treated to a summary of the history of The School Magazine, from its beginnings in 1916 to the present day. Here are a few examples of the changes that have taken place over the years.
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| Richard Hewett, 1987, photographing penguins at the San Francisco Zoo |
“Room 8” ( 1947–1968
)
Room 8 was a
neighborhood cat who wandered into a classroom in 1952 at Elysian Heights
Elementary School in Echo Park, California. He lived in the school during the
school year and then disappeared for the summer, returning when classes started
again. This pattern continued without interruption until the mid-1960s.
News cameras would
arrive at the school at the beginning of the year waiting for the cat's return;
he became famous and would receive up to 100 letters a day addressed to him at
the school. Eventually, he was featured in a documentary called Big Cat, Little
Cat and a children's book, A Cat Called Room 8. Look magazine ran a three-page Room
8 feature by photographer Richard Hewett in November 1962, titled "Room 8:
The School Cat". Leo Kottke wrote an instrumental called "Room
8" that was included in his 1971 album, Mudlark.
As he got older, Room
8 was injured in a cat fight and suffered from feline pneumonia, so a family
near the school volunteered to take him in. The school's janitor would find him
at the end of the school day and carry him across the street.
His obituary in the
Los Angeles Times rivaled that of major political figures, running three
columns with a photograph. The cat was so famous that his obituary ran in
papers as far away as Hartford, Connecticut. The students raised the funds for
his gravestone. He is buried at the Los Angeles Pet Memorial Park in Calabasas,
California. (Facebook)
Dick Hewett and me with cheetah "Damara" at Wildlife Safari Park in Oregon, 1988
Take a look, then read the book and find out what Sherry really looks like on the Planet Tinbambam.
You can purchase MY FRIEND FROM OUTER SPACE ON on Amazon.
Paperback $9.99
Kindle $6.99
Order your copy now!
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| Illustration from My Friend from Outer Space |
The Halloween promotion of free copies of MY FRIEND FROM OUTER SPACE is now over, but you can still purchase copies on Amazon. Both paperback and Kindle books are available.
"Sherry lives next door. She says she comes from outer space. I don't believe her."
HALLOWEEN SPECIAL!
MY FRIEND FROM OUTER SPACE
FREE
BOOK! 5 DAYS ONLY (Oct 27—31)
Order
your Kindlecopy now!
Does
Sherry really come from outer space, or is she just wearing her Halloween
costume? Read the book. Then you decide.
Happy Halloween!
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| Book signing at the CLCSC Award Ceremony |
After eating a delicious brunch, each of the honorees gave a five-minute talk telling about themselves and their books. Then, all of the authors and illustrators signed books (available for purchase at the event from Once Upon a Time Books.)
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| With past awardees and our plaques. |
It was a pleasure to be back in person at this annual event and to reconnect with the librarians and teachers who are members of CLCSC. I was also glad to have the chance to chat with the other authors who were there. With many thanks to everyone on the CLCSC board and award committee for a very enjoyable morning and for continuing to be champions of books and reading for today’s children.
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| Mountain Avenue School, Glendale, California |
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| School garden, with planting boxes covered with screens to keep out pests. |
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| Image of Eclipse through a pinhole. Illustration by Caroline Arnold in Sun Fun. |
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| Shadows of leaves on a sidewalk create images of partially obscured sun. |
It is never safe to look at the sun directly. Here's how you can experience an eclipse safely. This project is in my book Sun Fun, originally published in 1981 by Franklin Watts, and now available as an e-book on Amazon.
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| Eve Bunting, 2017. Santa Cruz, CA |
I first met Eve Bunting in 1977 when I heard her speak
at the summer conference of the Society of Children’s Book Writers—SCBW—at the Miramar
Hotel in Santa Monica. (The “I” for illustrators was added some years later.) Eve was already a prolific author and as she spoke in her lilting Irish accent, I
said to myself, if she ever teaches a class in the Writer’s Program at UCLA
Extension, I will take it. The following spring, her class in writing middle
grade fiction was offered, and I signed up, along with twenty other fledgling
writers. Week after week we each brought chapters of our novels to class. Eve
read them aloud and we learned about voice, point of view, setting, character
and all the elements necessary to write a compelling story. But probably the
most important advice she passed along was the role of a writing group. She
often mentioned her own writing group, Lunch Bunch, which had grown out of the
writing class she took as a beginning writer. So, like Eve and her classmates
had done, at the end of our ten-week class, we formed our own group. We met
once a month thereafter, critiquing one another’s writing, sharing news, and
soon celebrating our own publishing successes.
It was in Eve’s class that I met Herma
Silverstein. (Herma and I subsequently collaborated on two books and she also published a
number of her own.) For many years, Herma, Eve and I celebrated our birthdays
together, exchanging small gifts, eating lunch at a nice restaurant and then
going shopping. I don’t remember how this tradition started, but Eve always liked
to go out to eat and loved to shop,
especially if we could find bargains! Eve’s birthday is December 19th,
and I have many fond memories of arriving at her house in Pasadena all decorated for
Christmas, before we went out for our birthday lunch. Eve’s husband
Ed, after he retired, was always there with a smiling face to greet us at the door.
At our lunches Eve would always share her newest books and publishing news and
be eager to hear ours. After Herma moved to Palm Desert, we met less often, but Eve and I did go on an
expedition together to see her new house and go out to lunch there. (Herma passed
away several years ago.)
The last time I saw Eve in person was in 2017 after she moved to Santa Cruz to be closer to her daughter. It was on a day trip to Santa Cruz from Oakland with my friend and fellow writer Joanne Rocklin. (Joanne had also been a student in one of Eve’s UCLA classes.) Not surprisingly, Eve had some new books to show us. Again, we went out to lunch, but instead of going shopping afterward, we took a walk along the ocean cliffs on the path that began just outside the door of Eve’s house.
During the Pandemic it was
not possible to visit in person, but Eve and I kept in touch by email. In my
last email from her, when she was 93, and recently moved to a retirement community, she wrote:
I am well. I enjoy where I am and know
how lucky I am to find such a place. I’m not writing. ... My
last little PB has done well. “Hello, Baby, I’m your Mom.” So who
knows…maybe I’ll do another!
Love, Eve
I
don’t believe that Eve wrote another picture book since that email. But I
wouldn’t be surprised to hear she that she is coming up with new story ideas up in
Heaven!
Eve
was my friend, my hero, my role model. I will miss her.
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| Caroline, Herma, Eve, 1995. |
Note: Eve's many accomplishments are highlighted in this article from Kirkus Reviews.
A longer obituary appeared in Publisher's Weekly.
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| Caroline (age 4) and her brother Steve (10 mos.) |
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| Caroline with Summer Outing, 2023 |
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| Inside pages of Summer Outing, published by Homewood Publishing Company, Chicago, 1902 |
Books have always been an important part of my life.
My parents read to me when I was small,
took me to the library, and when I got older I learned to read by myself. Summer Outing looks old-fashioned today
and the text is antiquated, but I am glad that I have rediscovered it.
Polliwogs
The cat-tails all along the brook are growing tall
and green;
And in the meadow-pool, once more, the polliwogs are
seen;
Among the duck-weed, in and out,
As quick as thought they dart about.
“Be patient, little polliwogs,
And by and by you’ll turn to frogs.”
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| At Bedtime Story Jam, Westwood School, Los Angeles, CA |
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| My Friend From Outer Space: Detail of Quilt made by students and parents at Taft Primary School, Taft, California |
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| Taft Primary School |
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| Scenes from the Winter Olympics |
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| Scene depicting a page in The Biggest Living Thing |
Paper Plate Dinosaurs
In the good old days of my author visits to schools
(the 1990s), everyone had read at least one of my books before my visit, and
every classroom had done some kind of project inspired by a book. By the day of
my visit the excitement was palpable and the hallways, auditorium, and library
were filled with student projects—ranging from poems, songs and stories, to
paintings, drawings and scale models. I always brought my camera. Recently,
while cleaning out I found some of those photos.
Dinosaurs All Around (Clarion, paperback 1997; hardback 1993.) Out of
Print. Available digitally at Amazon.
Stephen Czerkas's dinosaur
models, ranging from the largest carnivores to hatching babies, are widely
exhibited in museums. This book is based on a traveling exhibit, "Dinosaurs:
A Global View," organized by the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles
County and a visit to the artist's studio.
Deborah Kalb is a freelance writer and editor. She spent about two decades working as a journalist in Washington, D.C., for news organizations including Gannett News Service, Congressional Quarterly, U.S. News & World Report, and The Hill, mostly covering Congress and politics. Her book blog, Book Q&As with Deborah Kalb, which she started in 2012, features hundreds of interviews she has conducted with a wide variety of authors.
Deborah's newest book is Off to Join the Circus.
