I really want one. I really, really want one.

And the new books are going to be really cool. Really, really cool.

Today I read a delightful picture book about William Bentley.

Snowflake Bentley, written by Jacqueline Briggs Martin, and illustrated by Mary Azarian, was published by Houghton Mifflin and it won Caldecott Medal in 1999.

And the pictures are very good. I’m not surprised it won the Caldecott. The pictures—the cover and the way the pictures inside were framed—are what drew me in and made me pick up the book.

But the writing is the thing I loved best once I actually dove into the book.

I liked the way it was written…

From the first page:

In the days when farmers worked with ox and sled and cut the dark with lantern light, there lived a boy who loved snow more than anything else in the world.

But I also liked what the book said about so many things…

About children pursuing their dreams when other think they’re a little…well, let’s just say, strange. About parents sacrificing to encourage their children and help them succeed. About a love for nature and art that overrides worries over what your neighbors think of you. And about a love of beauty and a longing to share it.

Considering we just had huge flakes falling a week ago—yes, all the way down here in Atlanta we had snow in March!—I thought this was a great book to look at. Give it a gander, it’s well worth the time.

For more great nonfiction books, head over to Lost Between the Pages.

This week I read A Beach Tale, written by Karen Lynn Williams and illustrated by Floyd Cooper and I thoroughly enjoyed it.

A Beach Tale is a sweet father/son story.

A loving father gives his son instruction, but then allows the boy the freedom to obey. The son obeys and that, in part, allows him to find his way back to his father when he thinks he is lost. The concept was fresh and the story was well executed with lyrical text and with repetition coming in after each new discovery, to keep us grounded and remembering the father’s instruction.

I am amazed that with so few words, this author could tell us so many things. She told us about movement—about zigging and zagging and winding around things. And she told us about remembering a father’s authority and about the rewards of wisely obeying. It’s not a preachy tale, but it has a deep current running underneath the narrative.

I loved the pictures in this book, also. Done in chalk, they have a grainy feel that matches the beach. I loved the boy’s face, the water crashing over the rocks, the clouds in the sky, the color of the ocean…oh, this is simply a wonderful, wonderful book.

I’m sorry to say anything unkind about Anne Shirley, but…

is it just me, or has Anne gotten ugly in her latest incarnation?

I’m wondering who will want to
read these books? What about
you? Do these covers reach out
and grab you? Does this look like
the loquacious and starry-eyed
Anne we’ve all come to know
and love? Or does this cover
model look more like Cruella
De Vil?

If you want to sell books today—if you want to sell more than one or two, especially—you need to understand high concept.

Jane Yolen, at the SCBWI Springmingle conference in Atlanta this past weekend talked about how after publishing 300 books she still gets rejections and the one reason for the rejections that she made mention of was that the books were too quiet. I wonder if we can have quiet books that are high concept. I think maybe what editors mean when they say “quiet” or “slight” is “this story has no high concept”

I suspect that high concept can work for any author—even the quiet ones or the lyrical ones. I think Sarah Plain and Tall is a high concept book, in other words. I don’t think high concept means car chases, dinosaurs, or pirates. I want to look at this more in coming weeks, but for right now you should read what others, who know so much more than I know, have to say about high concept.

If you haven’t yet been to Alexandra Sokoloff’s blog, you are missing out. Start with her “What is High Concept?” post and then be sure to link over to Terry Rossio’s “Mental Real Estate” article. These two articles are really, really worth your time.

Other articles on high concept that I’ve Googled but not yet read:

1. High Concept Defined Once and For All by Steve Kaire
2. Conquering The High Concept by James Bonnet
3. The Low-Down on High Concept by Alexis Niki
4. Recipe for success? High concept. at the Waxman Agency Blog