Scarry, Spinelli, Stroud, and Lola Basyang / A Meeting of Two Worlds

Photos by Beaulah Taguiwalo. License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.5/

Scarry, Spinelli, Stroud, and Lola Basyang

The SCBWI Booktalk last March 13 was our first outside Makati. This time we had it in an airy place - at Starbucks, all the way up in the 5th level overlooking the 5-storey atrium of Shangrila Mall in Pasig. Nikki booktalked What Do People Do All Day! by Richard Scarry. I booktalked Milkweed by Jerry Spinelli. And Zarah booktalked another of her favorite books, a thick YA fantasy novel - The Bartimaeus Trilogy by Jonathan Stroud.

Zarah's booktalk sparked an interesting discussion about books that feature magic, wizards, and witches - and how these books fare in the hands of gatekeepers like librarians. It was actually quite amazing as we had three librarians right there with us, that evening - Zarah from the grade school library of Xavier School, and Ethel and Rizchelle of Robinson's Children's Library. As Nikki said, bitin. That topic deserves a whole meeting by itself, for another day.

Having dispensed with the booktalk part, we settled down to listen to Christine Bellen's presentation about her writing, her research, and her field of expertise - Severino Reyes a.k.a. Lola Basyang. Ah, the wonders of modern technology. There we were, cozily esconed in armchairs 5 floors up in a mall, viewing on Christine's laptop some beautiful Lola Basyang visuals and reading on the screen Lola Basyang's original words as Christine recited them aloud in her lilting, effortlessly gliding Filipino, sprinkled here and there with peppery Spanish.

A surprise guest was Panch Alcaraz, one of the illustrators of Christine's ten Lola Basyang picture books. She was there especially because Christine brought along one piece of Panch's original art. It is something else to see the beautifully produced picture books, and to then to see and touch the original, exquisitely detailed art.

Before we adjourned, Christine showed us an advance copy of another of her Lola Basyang books. This one is Tahanan's compilation of Christine's selection of classic Lola Basyang stories, designed and illustrated by the now Leyte-based painter and children's book illustrator Felix Mago Miguel.

All in all, a very satisfying evening - a Booktalk and a Talk.

Beaulah's 2 Cents

A Meeting of Two Worlds

The Booktalk last Monday was very cozy. With just eight people present, we gathered round a small coffee table in Starbucks and were able to really interact with each other as we shared books and listened to our speaker, Christine Belen.

While it was unfortunate that only three of us brought books, this did not stop us from having a very lively discussion. Since there were three librarians in the group, much of the talk centered on books available for children in libraries. From here we branched out to the power of the librarian. Perhaps I should say, the importance of a librarian. These wonderful creatures could, through careful choice of books truly enrich a child's world. They can choose to strategically display a book or, sadly, they can choose to hide or censor the use of the book. This bit of the conversation could have gone on and on but being the sensible people that we were, we decided to reserve that topic for another day, when it would be tackled exclusively.

Christine spoke of Lola Basyang - their creator and the stories he created. This was of particular interest to me, Nikki of the CCP, because immediately I saw the marriage of my two worlds - literature and theater.

The writer of the Lola Basyang stories, Severino Reyes, was one of our greatest playwrights. A sarswelista, he wrote the libretto for "Walang Sugat", a wonderful musical about the revolution against Spain. Certainly one of my favorite plays. To discover that he wrote the stories which children have read and listened to for years was, well, it was to re-discover the marriage of my two worlds, theater and literature. As I said to Christine, no wonder his imagery was so vivid and his dialogue so good - theater siya!

Christine shared some of the discoveries with us, showed copies of the books published and told us how and why she revised some of the text. She spoke about how the stories had jumped from the page into television, movies and recently, theater. This launched a discussions on copyright and on the legitimacy of re-told works as a separate genre. Christine (whom we begin to believe is the re-incarnation of Lola Basyang) answered each question calmly and with great assurance.This was, after all, her masteral thesis! She had done her research and done it well.

From here, we went to suggest future Lola Basyang projects for Christine! A new movie, glossaries, etc. It was amazing to realize how much there was to do about what seemed such a simple topic!

I firmly believe we could have talked about Lola Basyang all night, but discipline, other appointments and the arrival of Christine's escort, the very talented Panch precluded that.

All in all, a very satisfying evening!

Nikki's Thoughts