Holly Thompson wins APALA Award for Her YA Novel!!!

The Asian/Pacific American Librarians Association (APALA) awarded their Young Adult Literature Award to Holly Thompson's novel Orchards. Holly is our SCBWI Tokyo chapter advisor and editor of our newsletter Carp Tales. Congratulations!

Click here to see other APALA award winning books.

J-Boys: Kazuo's World, Tokyo 1965

J-Boys: Kazuo's World, Tokyo, 1965, a middle grade novel written by Shogo Oketani, has been translated into English by SCBWI member Avery Fischer Udagawa. It will be available this July. It sounds really interesting and I can't wait to read it!

Click here to find out more about it and how to pre-order it. Click here for a website devoted to the book.

Naomi Kojima SCBWI Workshop

Writer and illustrator Naomi Kojima held a workshop for the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators, SCBWI Tokyo. Here are the books she has published.

At the workshop, she had us make a picture book dummy, a practice book. An illustrator divides a story into 32 pages for a picture book and decides what to draw. It was hard work dividing a story into 32 pages! But it was fun!

Here are posts about two of Naomi Kojima's books:

Singing Shijimi Clams

Christmas Song Book

SCBWI Tokyo Presentations

Suzanne Kamata (left), author of Playing for Papa was presented with a plaque from SCBWI Tokyo regional advisor Holly Thompson (right). Suzanne Kamata's novella, "Pilgrimmage" published in Cicada Magazine, won the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators' Magazine Merit Award. Congratulations, Suzanne!

Laura Rennert (center) a senior agent from the Andrea Brown Literary Agency came to our SCBWI Tokyo chapter to do a presentation about writing fiction. It was great! I learned a lot. Her picture book, Buying, Training and Caring for Your Dinosaur, will come out October 2009. It looks fun.

Teri Suzanne an author/illustrator in our chapter received a Letter of Merit for illustration in the selection of the 2005 Magazine Merit Award. Click here to see samples of her paper cuts. She is not in this picture.

Thanks, again, Holly Thompson (right) for organizing a great event! Holly is a great SCBWI advisor and author. Check out her picture book, Wakame Gatherers, a Sakura Medal nominee.

Steve King from Pearson Longman

Steve King did a presentation for the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators Tokyo chapter. He talked about how to make a book proposal. His presentation was interesting and useful.

This book, Side by Side, was published by Pearson Longman. I used to use it when I taught English to international students in the United States. Pearson Longman has other great materials for teaching ESL and EFL, English as a Foreign Language, as well as other subjects.