Mario Picayo Presents New Children’s Book May 22, St. Thomas VI

 

Join author Mario Picayo 
at the presentation of his children’s book
 A Caribbean Journey from A to Y 
(Read and Discover What Happened to the Z)
May 22, 2008, 6 PM
Virgin Islands Council on the Arts Gallery
5070 Norre Gade
St Thomas, United States Virgin Islands 
Reception to follow

For information: 340-774-0100 / 212-721-4062
or write to: info@editorialcampana.com

This event is part of the Active Voices of Authors Series, 
presented by the Office of Cultural Education with collaboration from the 
Virgin Islands Cultural Heritage Institute and the Virgin Islands Council on the Art

2008 Américas Award Commended Title

“From his personal experiences [Picayo] has compiled a fascinating collection of historical and natural facts. All young people in our islands and elsewhere would gain immense knowledge and enjoyment from the lively narrative and brilliant illustrations. A Caribbean Journey should be on everyone’s reading list.”

–Prof. Roy L. Schneider, M.D., Former Comm. of Health, Former Governor, United States Virgin Islands

 

 

“Mario Picayo’s A Caribbean Journey from A to Y is a book sure to motivate kids to read it over and over. The illustrations and the artistic appeal of the book make it really stand out among other children’s books.”
–Glenn “Kwabena” Davis, Director of Cultural Education, Department of Education of the Virgin Islands

 

 

 

 

“From a Caribbean perspective, this book is relevant to both children living in the Caribbean and also those children living outside the region. A Caribbean Journey is a must have in every library and great learning tool in which a person of any age could pick up and learn a thing or two.”
–Myron Jackson, Executive Director of the Virgin Islands Cultural Heritage Institute

 

 

 

 

“I can think of no better book for children to begin the life-long adventure of knowing the Caribbean.“
–Silvio Torres-Saillant, Author ofCaribbean Poetics and
An Intellectual History of the Caribbean

 

 

 

 

“The text, simple enough for very small children to understand and sophisticated enough to entertain and educate older ones, offers way more than any ABC book I’ve seen to date.”
-Tanya Torres, Artist, Cultural Activist and Writer, New York

 

 

 

 

Photographer and cultural activist turned author Mario Picayo will visit his old home turf, St. Thomas, this coming week to talk about his illustrated children’s book A Caribbean Journey from A to Y (Read and Discover What Happened to the Z). The talk and book presentation, followed by a reception, will beon Thursday, May 22nd at 6 PM at the VI Council on the Arts Gallery. The event is part of the Active Voices of Authors Series, featuring artists and writers whose work promotes cultural awareness. There will also be a book-signing event on Saturday May 24 between 12 and 2 PM at Dockside Bookshop in Havensight.

The Active Voices of Authors Series is presented by the Office of Cultural Education with collaboration from the Virgin Islands Cultural Heritage Institute and the Virgin Islands Council on the Arts

Born in Cuba, Picayo called St. Thomas home from the mid seventies until he moved to New York in the 1990’s. He is known in the Territory for his work as photographer and video artist with a strong socio-cultural component.

Picayo does not stray very far from his passions and obsessions with this intelligent, fun, and gorgeously illustrated children’s book. A Caribbean Journey from A to Y (Read and Discover what Happened to the Z), more than a typical ABC is a guide to the islands, one letter at a time. In its 64 pages the reader can explore the history, culture, fauna, flora and geography of the Caribbean. With colorful, richly detailed illustrations and the simplicity of language required to engage small children, the book succeeds at several levels, and introduces words and concepts ripe for discussion. The letter “S” alone includes animal extinction (Caribbean seals), sailing, sugarcane, and slavery (”one of the saddest of words”, as the text reads). Little known facts are inserted in almost every page, and simple questions (sometimes with no quick answers) make the reading interactive. Do you know the difference between a tortoise and a turtle (letter “T”), a house and a home (letter “H”), from which island is the Caribbean’s only astronaut? (letter “R”). There is also pleasure to be found in searching the illustrations for words that begin with the page’s letter: bananaquit and bougainvillea are two examples from the letter “B” and St. Thomas’ own unmistakable Fort Christian serves as background for the letter “F”.  There is so much information contained in the pages that even after several readings one can still find some hidden surprise, or “catch” the author’s intent behind his selection of words.

The book’s title with its reference to a mystery, “Read and Discover What Happened to the Z” does not let children or adults down. Picayo turns the last letter into a closing and an opening, recognition to our heritage and a perfect farewell to this delightful journey.

Don’t miss the chance to meet and talk to the author. Books will be available for purchase at both events.

For more information call Alicia Castaneda at 845-247-0546, visit www.editorialcampana.com, or write to info@editorialcampana.com.

A Very good book is on its way…

Our newest book is almost here: A Very Smart Cat/Una gata muy inteligente. The very smart cat in this book has been very busy. In just a couple of weeks, Catskill, NY (right near where the very smart cat lives) will be hosting the second Cat-n-Around Catskill 2008 “A Summer Long Celebration”. Here is just a taste of what readers can expect:

“Meet the smartest cat in the world. She can draw, knows how to
 make phone calls, can take pictures, and plays musical instruments. Do you want her? She is yours. Free! 

Read the funny and surprising adventures of this extraordinary pussycat and you will understand why sometimes there is such a thing as too  smart. A very, very funny book about a very, very clever cat.”

 

This is the farm where the cat lives. It is a real farm, located in Athens, NY- right near Catskill, NY! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This will be Editorial Campana’s 3rd children’s book. This is Saldemar Kent’s first children’s book, but he promises that there will be more…. 

We are very excited about this book, and we have heard that there are many out there as well who have long waited for this book to come out. As soon as we can get final input from the very smart cat, we will have this book out. In the mean time, if you are in the Catskill area this summer, check out the wonderful cat exhibit going on!

Celebrate Children’s Book Week

Editorial Campana currently has 2 children’s book that are available through Amazon (and another one is in the works to be released later this Summer). These titles include,  A Caribbean Journey from A to Y (Read and Discover What Happened to the Z) & My Brain Won’t Float Away/ Mi cerebro no va a salir flotando. Want to learn who the finalists are for the 2008 Children’s Choice Book Awards?

Where have all the Latino bookstores gone?

Lets go back in time for to the year 2007. Why this date? Librería Lectorum shut down in September as well as Librería Macondo.  These were latino bookstores located in Chelsea. Librería Lectorum had been in business for about half a century, while Librería Macondo shut its doors after 35 years. What was to come from the closing of these bookstores? In an article written for the daily news, concerns were expressed regarding the closing of these spanish-language bookstores and how resources for spanish literature were shrinking. 

‘“I am in total shock,” said Raquel Chang-Rodríguez, a professor of Spanish-American literature at CUNY’s Graduate Center and City College. “We live in a city that is supposed to be the capital of the Hispanic world in the U.S. and we lack two of our main Spanish-language bookstores. What can we do?”’

For others (especially stores that fell into the same niche as the two stores mentioned above), the closing of these stores would help to increase their popularity and therefore their sales. In the same article, one owner stated the following:

‘“Now I can’t refer people to Lectorum anymore,” says César González, the owner of Librería Caliope, on Dyckman St. in the heart of Washington Heights. “It means more business, but so much work.”’

So even though west 14th St. in lower Manhattan lost a bit of its history, others gained some publicity and were able to benefit. However, with the rise of the internet, what would come of these other stores? Many stores have seen their sales plumit as the internet has taken more and more momentum. This may be the number one reason why bookstores geared toward specific people (such as spanish bookstores) have become highly endangered. An article from the New York Times noted the following in regards to the internet’s affect on bookstores, specifically spanish bookstores.

“In a city — and a country — that has seen dozens of bookstores close in the face of online competition and dwindling customer traffic, the demise of Lectorum comes as a particular blow to the Hispanic literary community in New York.” 

On the flip-side, the internet may help to bring back spanish bookstores. Once, when we were limited to buying spanish books from stores such as Librería Lectorum or from going to a Spanish country, we are now able to go online, search for any book that we want and buy it. No longer do we need to search bookstore after bookstore in search of our favorite author or to find rare books. Even book clubs and outreach clubs have benifitted from the internet. One might even say that the internet has helped organizations such as Editorial Campana to be where they are today. True that the internet has helped Editorial Campana’s publicity. Our books are  available at Amazon and Barnes and Noble since there is no physical store for Editorial Campana. With prices the way they are today, affording rent for a store that may or may not sell a lot of books is a gamble that nobody wants to fund. The internet has allowed stores, where by other means, there would be no access.

This all would seem to point us in the direction that soon there will only be online stores and physical stores will be a thing of the past. The comes La Casa Azul, which just recently celebrated the launch of its website. So just like Barnes and Noble, La Casa Azul has a physical building and an online store. But better than many popular bookstores, La Casa Azul is geared toward books from and for the latino community. There are other stores out there such as, Librería Caliope, Librería Continental, Barco de Papel, Cemí Underground, Librería Cuarzo, and Librería Donatina.

Yet the fact remains that if you go to Barnes and Noble or Boarders, how much of a selection do they have on hispanic literature and how easlily can you find a rare book or an author that is not as popular a Gabriel Garcia Marquez (author of 100 years of solitude)? In fact if you go to any major bookstore, there is no “real” section for spanish books, the ones available have been incorparted into the shelves with similar books. A different article in the New York Times noted that,

“Chain bookstores carry few Hispanic titles. There are no important best-seller lists.”

What the internet is allowing chain bookstores to do is look as though they have a huge spanish library without having to give up their physical shelves. This makes it seem, to the consumer, that when you go to the online bookstore, you can find many titles that would be otherwise difficult to buy. At the same time, the internet is allowing stores such as La Casa Azul, to prove that even though the internet is enough, a physical store helps to reinforce what hispanics pride themselves on- community. These stores allow for book readings, places to meet, networking with real people, and an actual place people can relate to. These are the stores that we need and the internet should not replace them nor should larger and more popular bookstores take advantage of the internet to promote themselves as something they are not. 

 

2008 Nanny of the Year Reviews Children Books

My Brain Won’t Float Away

Before I was a nanny, I worked with children with special needs.   One of my classes was the first autistic class to be mainstreamed in our school district.  What I took away from that experience was that children are basically more kind than cruel if they have information about being different.   When I read My Brain Won’t Float Away, I had to smile with the gentle humor the mother used to help her child understand her disability.  Children relate to blunt questions and quiet humor.  I think it helps them process their world better.  The reason we read to our children is to open up dialog whether it be about the monsters under the bed fears or dealing with emotions, it is our doorway to helping them to think out loud.   The book doesn’t talk down to children but rather lifts them up to a world they may know nothing about in simple words and story line.   I read extensively to all the children I mention and when I was given this book for an INA raffle, I admit, I read it first!   I knew if i didn’t win it in the raffle I would be online ordering it the next day!  Lucky for me, it was given to me as a Nanny of the Year present.  I will still have to order it as I know two children already who will love it.

A Caribbean Journey from A to Y

My speciality is as a traveling nanny so naturally this book with its bright colors caught my eye immediately.   I often judge books first by the illustrations as they are so important to jump starting a child’s desire to read a book.  The first thing I do is tell them the author and who drew the pictures.   A Caribbean Journey from A to Z was a delight to read as I have had many trips with children to the various islands.   Sometimes when I go to a new child they ask me where I have been and we look on the maps.  The map in this book is gorgeous and a wonderful page to use just by itself!   I love using fun books to teach children and this will definitely go into my nanny bag.  Our world is getting smaller and books that help define or arouse curiosity about a different culture are important.   This book would be the perfect jumping off place a children’s monthly theme in the playroom.  I was very curious as how they would use the letter Z and I thought the ending was just perfect!   You will have to read it yourself to see if you agree! 

 Donna Robinson, The Traveling Nanny & 2008 INA Nanny of the Year Recipient.

 

Print Future: Will the Internet replace traditional reading materials?

Author’s and publisher’s are finding it easier to get noticed thanks to the Internet. In fact many online services allow free publishing (such as createspace.com) and many authors have their books available online for free (such as The Online Book Page). Many say they employ these tactics for greater publicity. Another reason that the internet has become such a useful tool for literature and print media is because money talks- online literature, magazines, newspapers, etc., are less expensive for both the consumer and the producer.

A good example in the literary realm is the release of Amazon’s revolutionary reading device: Kindle.If you haven’t heard about this device, it’s simply an iPod for books. Owners can download full books onto this device (up to about 200 books) and take read them anywhere. And thanks to its internet capability, you don’t need a computer to buy the kindle editions of books. The device also has a nice easy reading display, unlike many laptops. iPods do have audio books and similar devices allow you to download books onto them, but limited space and poor displays makes the Kindle more favorable.

Many, including Editorial Campana’s Weblog have discussed if the Kindle is worth it or not. Many people still argue that traditional books is what they prefer. So it would seem that for now, books are safe from the digital revolution. Or to put it in better terms, they are endangered but not extinct.

So what about other print media, such as magazines and newspapers.We still love to go to the mail book and get our new editions, many still enjoy grabbing their cup of coffee and a newspaper, and when it comes to traveling, it’s always fun to travel with plenty of reading material. But is all this about to change. According to a recent article from (and yes its off the Internet) The New York times, physical magazines and newspapers may soon become a thing of the past.  In fact, some magazines that were available in both forms have opted out of traditional print and are now only published via digital format.

“Just last week, The Capital Times, a 90-year-old daily newspaper in Madison, Wis., ended its print version and began publishing only online.”

With the way the economy is a the moment, cheaper is better and it helps to reach a greater audience. The numbers seem to be doing the talking. Many companies have noted that they have seem more readers from their online publications. As well money talks- companies have seen higher (even just slightly) profits from online publications. Due to this, when it comes to the future, many companies are adopting what is known as an “online first” approach to business. While in the past, companies split their efforts between online and traditional publications, lately, the former is getting more attention and becoming more of the norm.

What does this all mean? Although we can still go to the store and buy our books, magazines, newspapers, etc., will we one day go to a computer and download digital versions that we will carry like we once did with our physical literature? How will this affect Kindle’s popularity and the overall world of literature?

Americas Award Recognizes A Caribbean Journey From A to Y

The 2008 Américas Award for Children’s and Young Adult Literature winners have just been chosen and we are excited to announce that A Caribbean Journey from A to Y (Read and Discover What Happened to the Z) was selected as a Commended Title!

The award winners and commended titles are selected for their 1) distinctive literary quality; 2) cultural contextualization; 3) exceptional integration of text, illustration and design; and 4) potential for classroom use.

The Américas Award is given in recognition of U.S. works of fiction, poetry, folklore, or selected non-fiction (from picture books to works for young adults) published in the previous year in English or Spanish that authentically and engagingly portray Latin America, the Caribbean, or Latinos in the United States. The award is sponsored by the national Consortium of Latin American Studies Programs (CLASP). 

Join us in this fun and educational journey through the Caribbean islands, one letter at a time.  From Aruba to Trinidad and from Alligator to Yam, you will learn the names of many of the islands, plus fascinating facts about them.  A Caribbean astronaut? From which island? Seals in these tropical waters? An island with over 300 rivers? And what is a cokí? Beautifully illustrated, this is a book that readers of all ages will enjoy opening again and again.  And wait until you see what happened to the Z…

 

If you’re not familiar with A Caribbean Journey from A to Y yet, we encourage you to check it out! The book is available at your favorite bookstore, or online at amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com and many other booksellers on the web.

Visit us at www.editorialcampana.com.

“A Caribbean Journey from A to Y, written by Mario Picayo and illustrated by Earleen Griswold, describes insular portions of the Caribbean region in a manner that truly teaches and delights the child reader for whom the book is intended.”                             -Silvio Torres-Saillant, Author of Caribbean Poetics and An Intellectual History of the Caribbean  “The text, simple enough for very small children to understand and sophisticated enough to entertain and educate older ones, offers way more than any ABC book I’ve seen to date.” -Tanya Torres, Artist, Cultural Acitivist, and Writer, New York

Taxation with-out representation, again?

A recent article in the New York Times is raising the question as to whether or not online stores such as Amazon must make sure that their vendors collect taxes on behalf of the state to which they are affiliated with. Whether we know it or not, we do pay taxes when we buy products from online sources, they are just hidden or nicely worded (such as use taxes). Aren’t taxes good for the state though? For example this new law that was signed by Gov. David Patterson, is expected to raise about $50 million. Yet on the flip side ( and there is more than one), online stores may start to increase their prices if they have to start dealing with more taxes. Vendors as well may hurt from this new law if they need to shell out extra money. 

So the reason we’re so concerned about this? Editorial Campana sells its books in different ways, both physically and digitally. Many of the books though can be bought through the website or through Amazon and Barnes & Noble. This new law put into affect, as suggested by Amazon:

“violate[s] the equal-protection clause of the Constitution because they specifically took aim at Amazon. “It was carefully crafted to increase state tax revenues by forcing Amazon to collect sales and use taxes,” the complaint says, noting that “state officials have described the statute as the ‘Amazon Tax.’”

From this it would seem as though the law targets Amazon. As online stores become more and more popular and as more small businesses start to move away from traditional physical shops and venture into the “digital store” realm, what will they have to face? It would seem more like this law is taxation due to representation. What impact will this new law have and what will be done with the money that law collects?

Even behind bars, there are stories.

 

Margarita Drago’s book, Memory Tracks: Fragments from Prison (1975-1980), which is available in English and Spanish is an inspirational book. Why? despite being held behind bars, imprisoned, and having to deal with many horrible events, the book is as alive as the author. The horrific and dramatic events that Margarita witnessed and encountered did not deter Margarita from bringing her to the public and especially from being held captive behind bars. . The only unfortunate thing is that Margarita had to secretly hide her stories and her writing in order to make sure that her story became available to anybody who would want to read them. Unlike Margarita, many prisoners today have the ability to write while they are locked away, without having to write in secret. The PEN Prison Writing program is one that 

“believes in the restorative and rehabilitative power of writing, by providing hundreds of inmates across the country with skilled writing teachers and audiences for their work.”

Since this and similar programs have been developed and put into practice, many individuals have had the opportunity to write. Writing and the ability to do so should be available to anybody who shows interest in doing so.

Although there were many contributing factors as to why Margarita had to hide her writing (being a political female prisoner being a major one), there is no reason anybody should be deprived the ability to write. We owe much thanks to the publication of Memory Tracks: Fragments from Prison (1975-1980). This book is one of the many examples of what Editorial Campana is all about.

Read an EXCERPT OF MEMORY TRACKS: FRAGMENTS FROM PRISON (1975-1980) and an interview.

 

Award-Winning Cuban Author Finally in English

 presents Sonia Rivera Valdés’ latest book

available in English and Spanish

 Editorial Campana presenta el más reciente libro de Sonia Rivera Valdés

disponible en versiones en español e inglés

The books can be bought through Editorial Campana , Amazon, and Barnes & Noble.

Following the success of her bestselling first book (Casa de las Américas award, 1997), Sonia Rivera Valdés continues the saga in Stories of Little Women and Grown-Up Girls, where characters and narrations intertwine and whirl. The tragic death of Ana, a writer’s sexual adventures in Cuba, and the erotic incidents involving a music professor and her student’s fiancee. Love, death, betrayal and sex…these stories rise and fall on waves of humor and surprise, and drop us deep into lives that maintain their centers and strength, regardless of crumbling worlds around them.

 Historias de mujeres grandes y chiquitas de Sonia Rivera Valdés (Premio Casa de las Américas, 1997) es un libro donde los personajes y las narraciones se suceden incesantemente: la trágica muerte de Ana, los enlaces eróticos de una profesora de música con el novio de una estudiante y las aventuras sexuales de una escritora en Cuba. Con un excelente sentido del humor, con el elemento sorpresa atravesando cada relato y con la oralidad marcando cada texto, las escenas contadas harán que el lector se involucre mientras las escucha.

 

 Praise For Sonia Rivera Valdés’ Work

 

 Sonia Rivera Valdés is a transgressor in different spheres and has found a strange internal peace in her writing exercise which incessantly, and sheltered by the parasol of tolerance, is at the service of an infinite number of noble causes. Her minimalist style speaks about extremely crude realities in a clear and inimitable language. This is a captivating, unforgettable book.

–Nancy Morejón, winner of Cuba’s National Prize for Literature, 2001

 Sonia Rivera Valdés has an uncannily intense way of inhabiting the souls of her characters. Their predicaments are usually irresolvable, but then so is life, and it is her allegiance to the texture of life that makes her work so remarkably vivid. These bitterly exuberant, sweetly regretful, very sad and fierce and beautiful stories will haunt you for a long time.

–Paul Russell, author of War Against the Animals

 The mad, the curious, the inexplicable in human behavior-that which is not sanctioned by society-are the pivotal points in Sonia Rivera-Valdés’s narratives. Her characters live fully, without missteps, precisely because the author has turned the tables on propriety.

–Zaida Capote Cruz, Institute of Literature and Linguistics, Havana, Cuba

 Sonia Rivera Valdés presents a prose that is unconstrained, daring, reminiscent of Anaïs Nin.

    –Oh! Magazine

 Vastly entertaining, slyly heretical, and probably the most important book of stories since Joyce’s Dubliners.

–William Monahan, author of Light House

 This work promises to be revelatory.

–Library Journal

The book alternates between tears and an ironic smile…We cry with the prisoner in “Like in Jail” and we laugh satisfied (especially women) with the lesson the cello professor gives her accommodating lover in “The Eighth Fold”.             

–Hoy, newspaper (New York)

 The stories of women that Sonia Rivera Valdés presents keep this writer among the Hispanic talents who place the literary work of Latino writers of this city in the top echelon of originality, talent, and sincerity.

–Siempre (New York)

 With the particular charm of characters that could be any neighbor in El Barrio, and the attractive turbulence of some stories that capture the attention and teach in endearing ways, Sonia Rivera Valdés performs a service to literature, to the elastic gay-lesbian-queer community of the Hispanic world, to groups discriminated against or marginalized by local supremacies, and to all of us who believe in the dignity of the human being and in the value of differences.

–Susana Reisz, Lehman College, Contemporary Latin American Literature

 Rivera Valdés has set out to search for a language, for a kind of writing, that would subvert the model, and along the way has created believable and functional characters, narrators, and narrations. She resorts to irony and parody when needed to enhance meaning, but above she all has avoided the deceptive reflection of the stereotypical and untruthfully Caribbean. She has neither trivialized the narrative voice, that of her characters, nor that of the author herself, and has succeeded in not letting the model die behind the mask of a fictitious construct labelled “caribbeanism”.

 –Alicia Perdomo, literary critic

 Sonia is at war with the traditional and still dominant forms with which feminine subjectivity is represented in a patriarchal culture. Her alliance with emerging forms of the feminine (the nomad, the mestiza…) converts her into the traveling companion of many other creators and thinkers that, through history, literature, the visual arts, philosophy or political activism, are tracing a radically new map of the world of women.

–Marta Sofía López, Universidad de León, Spain

 The stories are constructed by an image that destabilizes all attempts at clear and precise definition; their aesthetic conspires against all processes of institutionalization or naturalization of accepted limits…What characterizes these stories are not their stereotypical nature, but rather their constant crossing of the lines of accepted codes, their insistent questioning of the limits imposed by stereotypes.

–Emilio Bejel, Professor & Chair, Department of Spanish & Classics

University of California

 I sat on the bed to listen to myself with a book as interlocutor. At around page fifty, tears surprised me, and I gave myself over to the accumulated pain…Thank you for Stories of Little Women and Grown-Up Girls.

–Anna Chover, Professor, Valencia University, Spain

 When I finished reading Stories of Little Women and Grown-Up Girls I remembered what Luce Irigaray said about eastern philosophy because these stories are exactly the opposite. Instead of formulating the real, removing it from concrete experience, her writing makes us stronger and wiser, more able to face life itself.

–Margarita Drago, author of Memory Tracks: Fragments From Prison (1975-1980)

 The book is a kind of emotional x-ray of a series of women who, in trying to accommodate as much as possible both their lives and their desires, reflect on the stories that have touched them, the ones they have chosen, lived, and faced without fear and that until now have  been their destiny.

 –Paquita Suárez Coalla, author of So I Won’t Forget