Safe & Sound blog

School Library Journal likes us! School Library Journal likes us! School Library Journal likes us! School Library Journal likes us!

What? You’ve never heard of the School Library Journal??? Well, you must not be a school librarian – or a children’s librarian – then. Forty thousand librarians, teachers and children’s book lovers subscribe to the School Library Journal every month. An estimated 100,000 librarians, teachers and children’s book lovers read it.

And when the March issue comes out this Saturday, all those people will be reading about Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound. Know why? Because the March issue of the School library Journal features a POSITIVE REVIEW of our book!

This is extremely exciting news. One reason I decided to write a childrens book about Seeing Eye dogs is so that…well..so that children would read and learn from it. A positive review in School Library Journal will expose Safe & Sound to tens of thousands of school librarians. And then, who knows? tens of thousands might order Safe & Sound for their school libraries. Just think of how many more kids will have access to our book –and learn about blindness, teamwork and just how special Seeing Eye dogs are.
I’m not sure yet if the review will be available online. Even if it is, it won’t be available until Saturday. But shhhh! For you, my loyal blog readers and Seeing Eye dog fans, I will paste a sneak preview of the review right here –my publisher got an advance copy and sent it to me the minute she got the good news. Enjoy – we sure did! Here goes:
BLUE MARLIN REVIEWS – SLJ MARCH, 2008

FINKE, Beth. Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound. illus. by Anthony Alex LeTourneau.
ISBN 978-0-9792918-0-7.
LC 2007003741.

K-Gr 3–“Look at me!” Hanni, a Seeing Eye dog, explains who she is and her responsibilities as she introduces readers to her partner, Beth, who is blind.
Vigilance is stressed throughout the book, and when Hanni talks about “keeping us safe,” readers know that she is speaking as part of a team. Although there is plenty of information about what a Seeing Eye dog does–and does not do–when at work, this is predominantly a story about relationships: Hanni’s relationship with Beth, with other dogs, and with the world at large as she navigates her partner through it. The pictures are painted in oil and have a soft focus. There are two sets of notes at the end–one from the point of view of Hanni, which describes her training as a puppy, and one from Beth, which explains how she became blind and her decision to get a Seeing Eye dog. These are accompanied by black-and-white line drawings that are much more playful in tone than the rest of the book. A list of online resources is appended. The book is also available in braille. An upbeat and inspiring selection to be used along with Glenna Lang’s Looking Out for Sarah (Charlesbridge, 2001).–Kara Schaff Dean, Walpole Public Library, MA

South Carolina was swell. Our presentation at my sister Bobbies’ Book Club was well-received, and it was downright refreshing to go outside without a parka and boots on.

It would’ve been hard to return to cold and windy Chicago if we didn’t know Mike was there waiting for us. And to add icing, pardon the weather pun, to the cake, there was also a VERY cool new blog comment waiting at home on my talking computer. It was a response to Hanni’s Happy Birthday blog:
“I am a 26 year old totally blind musician from New York. I’m thinking about getting
a guide dog as soon as I get a place of my own…”

This blogging thing is cool. The musician went on to ask where she could get copies of my book. It made me think, gee, now might be a good time to blog about how folks can get copies of both “Long Time, No See’ and “Safe & Sound” in special formats for the blind. The following is “borrowed” directly from my web site:
“Long Time, No See” is available free of charge on cassette or in Braille from the National Library Service for the Blind and Physically handicapped (NLS).
Through a national network of cooperating libraries, NLS circulates Braille and audio materials postage-free to those prevented from reading due to blindness or physical handicap.

Eligible borrowers can contact NLS and ask for call numbers RC56482 (cassette) or BR14821 (Braille).

Please note that NLS cassettes are recorded on a slower speed and are unusable on standard tape players. If you do not have a special NLS tape player and feel you qualify for the NLS program, special tape players can be obtained by phoning the national Library Service for the Blind and Physically handicapped at:
1-888-NLS-READ (1-888-657-7323). More information is also available at
www.loc.gov/nls

As for the children’s book, Blue Marlin Publications has teamed up with Seedlings Braille Books for Children to produce a number of copies of “Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound” in a special print-Braille (no pictures) format. Braille words appear directly under the printed words, providing visually-impaired children and their sighted parents a wonderful way to enjoy learning Braille. Print-Braille books are also very popular with blind adults (or older children) who enjoy reading to sighted preschoolers.

To order a copy of “Hanni And Beth: Safe & Sound” in print-Braille, link to
www.seedlings.org.
Back to me. I was extremely pleased when my friends at Blue Marlin Publications decided to donate a portion of the proceeds from sales of the standard print-only version of Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound to Seedlings Braille Books for Children. Blue Marlin’s generosity will help this non-profit, tax-exempt organization continue providing high quality, low cost Braille books for children.

Hanni’s breed may have been important to the Amtrak reservation agent last week (see my previous post) but my fellow passengers Thursday night couldn’t have cared less. The City of New Orleans train was sold out. Everyone was more interested in finding a place to sit than checking out the dog at my feet.
The ride went quickly. We got to Champaign on time. It was a good omen.
Every single thing Hanni and I did after our arrival in Champaign-Urbana went beautifully. We breezed down the sidewalks, crunching on fallen leaves, Hanni remembering all our routes. We ran into old friends everywhere we went – at WILL Radio, at Edison Middle School, at Urbana Free Library, and especially at Jane Addams Bookstore.
Hanni and I signed and Brailled my name – and rubber stamped Hanni’s paw – onto 40 books. We sold out. People were still waiting in line. What to do? Sign and stamp book plates instead!
Customers brought the autographed plates to the cash register and paid in advance for their copies of Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound. They’ll affix their bookplates into the front page once the books arrive.
I signed and stamped 39 book plates. My friend Judy, who assisted Hanni and me, joked that now people are paying just to have me sign slips of paper.
Forty books sold, 39 books promised. Plus I even signed six copies of my first book, Long Time, No See. That makes a total of 85 books! It was all extremely flattering. And great fun.
To top it all off, the weather in Champaign-Urbana was absolutely sensational. Mike drove down from Chicago to join Hanni and me Friday night. He still stores his motorcycle in Urbana, and he was able to take Buster the BMW out for a spin to the forest preserve Saturday while Hanni and I were buzzing around town on foot. Just like old times!
An excerpt from that first book, Long Time, No See helps explain:
“I’d fallen in love with the twin cities of Champaign-Urbana back in my freshman year at the University of Illinois. It didn’t matter that there was nowhere to hike or canoe, or that the campus was surrounded by, even included, corn and soybean fields. It seemed a vibrant place. I was caught up in the rush of thirty-five thousand students hustling from class to class. Now, working full-time there, I was every bit as fond of it….Champaign-Urbana may lack a striking natural beauty—it defines the word “flat,” and the creek that trickles through it, more of a drainage ditch, is known as The Boneyard. But what the two towns have, especially Urbana, is trees. Huge, magnificent old maples and oaks with an unearthly gift for turning brilliant scarlet and sunset yellow. A few white clouds set against a deep sky on a fall afternoon—we could watch them indefinitely from our vantage point on the porch swing.”
Hanni and I didn’t find much time to rest on a porch swing this visit, but boy, we sure enjoyed Champaign-Urbana. Thanks to all of you who greeted us on the street, listened to us on the radio, joined us for a lunch (or a beer or wine!), chauffeured us around, or stood in line for books. We are two very lucky gals.

  The Braille version of “Hanni and Beth: Safe ^& Sound” is here! I received my advance copy in the mail today! That means the “real deal” should be available to blind readers on October 15th, the same day the print edition will officially be released. This is very, very unusual.

Braille is so expensive to publish that “braile presses” usually wait until a book becomes a best-seller before putting it out in Braille. But here it is, already in my dirty little hands.

Okay, that’s a joke. I washed my hands before touching the new book.

The book is in a Print-and-Braille format. The contracted braille and print match line for line, with the print just above the Braille (no pictures).
I can tell you first hand, so to speak, that it’s “good Braille” = the dots are stiff, they stand up straight, They’re easy to read.

A little known fact about Braille: less than 20% of the 50,000 blind children in the United States are proficient in Braille. All too often, the “written word” has been inaccessible to kids who are blind, far easier for them to listen to books on audio or hear words on a computer screen equipped with a screen reader. Technology is cool, but how will these children ever learn to spell correctly? How will they know where to put commas, quotation marks, paragraph breaks and so on?

My children’s book publisher, Blue Marlin Publications, teamed up with Seedlings Braille Books for Children, a non-profit organization in Michigan that creates Braille books for kids who can’t see. Blue Marlin didn’t charge Seedlings a penny for the rights to publish the book in Braille.

Not only that, but Blue Marlin Publications is donating a portion of the sales of Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound to Seedlings so they can continue creating books in Braille for kids who need them. By producing Braille books for children, Seedlings helps promote “literacy for the blind,” providing visually impaired children equal opportunity to develop a love of reading.

With Safe & Sound available in Braille, I’ll be able to read it aloud at my presentations, too.

To find out how to order a copy of Hanni and Beth: Safe & Sound in Braille, or to donate to Seedlings to help them create more books in Braille for kids, link to www.seedlings.org.