Oct 7

Oct 7 Episode #127: Chop Suey! A Bunch of Publishing News, and Book Recs

Welcome back to another Chop Suey! episode. Grace and Alvina have an odds and ends episode where they discuss various pieces of publishing news, including the book ban controversy in York, PA, and how HMH is being incorporated into HarperCollins.

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Another reminder…2022 Where the Mountain Meets the Moon Trilogy Calendar NOW available! Purchase from the Eric Carle Museum: https://shop.carlemuseum.org/.../autographed-books/grace-lin Get ahead start on your holiday shopping!

“How have you been?”

Alvina has been dealing with some construction and work on their back patio and basement to take care of the water and flooding issue. It has been a long time and very disruptive so she’s hoping they’re near the end! She’s been back to running and feeling great about it.

Grace is getting back into swing of fall. She went apple picking again with her family and her husband Alex is draining their wading pool that he loved so much!

A bunch of publishing news:

The biggest news is that Grace’s picture book, A Big Mooncake for Little Star was BANNED!

Grace has been publishing for over 21 years now, and would not be surprised if she had one of her books banned by now, however, she is super surprised that the banned book is A Big Mooncake for Little Star. It is non- political and non-controversial. In Central York, PA, a diversity committee put together a list of books that would be good to have, list of resources to help teachers and school librarians bring diverse books into classrooms. Some parents heard about this equity resource list and believed it was teaching critical race theory. They were convinced that the books were all critical race and so the school board froze the list. The books on there are definitely not teaching critical race theory. The only thing that it has is a non-white character. Thankfully, the banned was recently overturned! Thank you to all who petitioned and wrote letters.

In other publishing news:

Harper Collins is purchasing Houghton Mifflin Harcourt Books and how that’s going to work was revealed. It will comprise the Clarion and Versify imprints ( the new HMH imprint from Kwame Alexander) and be led by Mary Wilcox, v-p and publishing director she will oversee both. Harper Alley,,,,,graphic novels. Merger layoffs.

The National Book Award Longlist was announced this week:

Harold Underdown, Grace’s first editor of the Ugly Vegetables, got a new job and accepted a position of Executive Editor at Kane Press.
Jason Reynolds will serve a third year as National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature.

“What should we be reading?” with Alison Morris

Alison Morris is a nationally recognized children's book buyer with an infectious enthusiasm for reading and 20 years' experience matching books to readers. As the Senior Director of Title Selection for nonprofit First Book, she oversees the curation of children’s and young adult books on the First Book Marketplace, hand-selecting a diverse range of titles that speak to and address the needs of kids in underserved communities, with a keen eye to inclusion, authenticity, and kid-appeal. She previously served as Senior Editor at Scholastic Book Clubs, Children's Book Buyer for Wellesley Booksmith and The Dartmouth Bookstore, and was the founding blogger of the ShelfTalker children’s book blog for Publishers Weekly. She'll be joining us from her home near Washington, DC where she spends LOTS of time discussing books with her husband, illustrator and graphic novelist Gareth Hinds.

In honor of Hispanic Heritage month, Alison highly recommends these books!:

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Gratefuls:

Alvina grateful for her father planting fruit trees including her favorite fruit from Taiwan called “wax apples”. She’s never home when they have the fruit ripe and ready. Her family sent about 27 individually wrapped wax apples via Fed Ex! Stephen described them as,
“Kind of like if an apple and celery got together”.

Grace is so grateful that she finished the first draft of her Maya Lin biography. She is celebrating the Moon Festival and grateful that she bought some expensive mooncakes called lava mooncakes.

*If you’re a patron, don’t forget to check out this week’s Random Questions feed! Authors Elana K Arnold and Grace Lin answer the question, “What inanimate object do you wish you could eliminate from existence?” Click here to listen! If you’re not a patron already, join today!

Thank you for tuning in! Thank you to Hachette Audio, Little Brown Books for Young Readers, and Alex at Pacyworks Studio for producing and editing this podcast. Be sure to rate and review us on Apple Podcasts and tell a friend about us. (Use the hashtag #bookfriendsforever.)