Ugh! Celebrities and Their Books!!

Crazy celebrities writing books alert!! I was browsing and discovered an article written about two weeks ago stating that Geri Halliwell (ex-spice girl) has been named a best selling children's author!!

Here is the article I read that from >
http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/7012524759

I just found this totally disturbing and wrong!! Why is it that anyone who was/is famous can write a book and people like it just because it is written by someone famous!!

I guess I cant bash the book because I haven't read it myself, but come on.... its written by Ginger Spice......

In Response to the Hungry Man's Dinners Commercial

Taking a break from my SME homework that never ends, I decided to type in "Stereotypes of women" into google just to see what popped up. When we think stereotypes, it is more often than not ones on african americans, latinos, asians, etc.... race. But gender is also an important aspect of society and culture and they way each gender is perceived comes with stereotypes.

My finding in my google search were the following:

http://marketingtowomenonline.typepad.com/blog/stereotypes_of_women_in_the_media/
^ this was a woman who wrote of her many different experiences with stereotypes in the media that sway her or others away from certain products or toward products. Nothing too educational, just very interesting. The artcle I found most interesting was the idea of a girl being called "princess" and whether it is taken in a positive or negative tone. Positive meaning girl living a perfect life or negative meaning spoiled, or powerless. < Never had really thought of that before

Just thought I'd share :)

20 days later...

Hello everyone. Sorry for not posting for the past nearly 3 weeks. Unfortunately my computer was stolen so I really haven't had a chance to use the Internet much. Luckily I will have a new laptop next week and will be posting a lot more frequently.

Besides MSU beating U of M (finally) this past weekend and my laptop being stolen... not much has happened to me worth sharing.

That's why I was super excited last week when we were told in class about the used book sale going on at East Lansing Public Library Saturday and Sunday. I was so excited to go. I told my mom, my boyfriend, and friends all about it. I went on Sunday, which was fill a bag for $3.00 and when I saw the huge line of cars, I knew the sale must be pretty big. I was most excited to look in the children's section, see what books were available, why they were being sold, and what hadn't been picked up already.

I'm sad to report, there was the WORST selection of kids books you could ever imagine. I'm not sure if alll the books were taken the day before, but man...there was about 50 books (out of like the 1000 that were there) to chose from. About 30 of the were Sweet Valley High books (sorry Deb I know you loved those) but that is not what I had anticipated the "children's books" section would look like.

I bought three children's books..... two on slavery (which were really random compared to the "sweet valley high" and i cant even remember what else they offered)- One was about the escape of Harriet Tubman, and it was very interested to look at because it was written in 1965. The language was very different from what you would see in a book today, and the pictures were very interesting as well. (I'll bring the book on Wednesday). Another book was a "fun facts and games" book on the "40 presidents" haha (I'm laughing because we are about to vote on the 44th president). I am obsessed with presidential history and thought it would be very interesting to see what type of information they included on the presidents in a kids book written in 1981 (Reagan had just taken office). Tidbits such as which president was the most handsom, fattest, oldest, and shortest all were included.

Although the children's selection was horrible, if you are a murder mystery type person like myself, this was the place to be. I bought so many books by numerous fantastic authors including: Tess Gerritsen, James Patterson, Iris Johansen and James Grippando.

What I found most interested about the entire experience was the amount of foreign books they had available. There was an entire table of books (many of them children's books, but other books as well) that looked to be written in some type of Asian language. I almost bought one, but I had a few people looking at me really weird when I was looking at them so I just decided not to. But I did look through a few books and some of the characters (animated) were very frightening looking to be in children's books.

Overall a rewarding experience, I was just very disappointed with the children's selection

The Pura Belpré Award

When & Why it was Established:
It was established in 1996. It was established to give recognition to a Latino/Latina author/illustrator who excelled in the portrayed the Latin culture in a children’s book.

The Selection Criteria:
What books: books written about Latin culture
What authors: Latino/Latina authors
What illustrators are eligible? Latino/Latina authors

Who Sponsors this award:
This award is co-sponsored by the Association for Library Service to Children and the National Association to Promote Library and Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish-Speaking

Who is on the selection committee:
The selection committee is a group of six individuals throughout the country. Some of the selection committee was simply librarians from different states. One of the women was actually the Latino Children's Literature Consultant in California.

Examples of who has won:

• Esperanza Rising by Pam Munoz Ryan

Gave an accurate portrayal of the Latin culture without using any stereotypes or bias to her culture. It was enjoyable and gave an insight to the Latin world, without throwing too much culture in your face

• Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida by Victor Martinez

This book meets the criteria as it is written by a Latin author and gives an exciting and accurate portrayal of the culture. This book not only includes issues that only affect the Latin community, it covers problems that children/young adults of all cultures would face.

• First Day of Grapes by L. King Perez. Illustrated by Robert Casilla

This book’s portrays the lifestyle and home life of a typical Latin family and the struggles of a young boy in his new town. This book describes the life of a migrant family and gives an accurate portrayal of the culture and its people.

Trip to Barnes and Noble

For my SME class, I had to go to a bookstore and find books that were about light and sound... but after a long (boring) while of doing that.. I decided to venture over to the children's section and look at the books (my boyfriend was absolutely thrilled that I dragged him along). There were so many things that happened within the first few minutes in that section that my boyfriend did that we talked about in class it was almost scary. First of all, him and i are huge history fanatics, so we went over to the history section and looked at their selection. Without telling him anything about what we talked about in class, he picked up a book about the Iroquois Indians and said "Hey I totally remember reading this book in school." And when I flipped through the pages... it was sooo stereotypical, it was unreal. I literally LOL'd and said "Do you have any idea how incorrect and stereotypical this book probably is?" and he looked and it and was like "no, I don't see anything wrong with it." I was shocked... the cover first of all showed an Indian in the typical headdress and dress that we see in like the movie Pocahontas. What I found even more disturbing was there was a book on a different Indian tribe right next to this book, and on the cover the Indians portrayed looked IDENTICAL to the Iroquois Indians.. Now I don't know about you but I think its pretty common sense that not all Indians looked the same... but unfortunately we are never told or taught any differently. So I asked my boyfriend what he thought an Iroquois Indian looked like in comparison to any other kind of Indian... and he had no idea. And the more I thought about it, neither did I.

Totally random but I found that pretty crazy.

I also went over and saw a book called "Barack Obama. Son of Promise. Child of Hope." It surprises me to find a children's book written about the presidential candidate. I guess I don't really remember ever reading any books specifically for children about the child hood of a potential president.

and wow.... I'm super excited!! While writing this post, i looked up the book and realized that this Obama book was written by the same woman who wrote Bronx Masquerade!! Talk about a coincidence!!!