Writer’s Contest for Children Beginning January 27, 2009
January 25th, 2009PBS KIDS GO! and WNED-TV Buffalo/Toronto are partnering to launch the PBS KIDS GO! Writers Contest, a national-local contest designed to promote the advancement of children’s reading skills through hands-on, active learning. The Contest encourages children in grades K-3 in communities across the country, to celebrate the power of creating stories and illustrations by submitting their own original pieces.
Beginning on January 27, 2010, PBS stations throughout the country will be active partners in the PBS KIDS GO! Writers Contest, and will work with schools, public libraries and other literacy organizations to implement the Contest in their communities. Children will be encouraged to write and illustrate stories and submit them to their local stations, which will select winners and award prizes. Local winners will be entered into the national level of the Contest where a renowned panel of judges will identify the national winners. Winners will be announced and national prizes, including laptops, digital cameras and MP3 players will be awarded in summer 2010.
In addition, a new PBS KIDS GO! Writers Contest Web site at pbskids.org/read will launch in early 2010. As the information hub of the Contest, it will include the winning stories in each of the Contest categories as well as a searchable archive of winning stories.
“We know from research that there is an important connection between writing and the development of early literacy skills, critical cornerstones for school readiness and achievement,” said Lesli Rotenberg, Senior Vice President, Children’s Media, PBS. “PBS KIDS uses the power of media to open up the worlds of letters and words for all young children, encouraging them to explore ways to communicate more effectively and increasing their odds of success.”
The PBS KIDS GO! Writers Contest extends the powerful tradition and annual success of the 15 year national “Reading Rainbow Young Writers and Illustrators Contest,” originally created by WNED-TV Buffalo/Toronto and NET Nebraska.
“WNED is proud to continue its leadership role in literacy for public television through the PBS KIDS GO! Writers Contest,” said WNED President and CEO Donald K. Boswell. “Building on the important legacy of “Reading Rainbow,” this new contest ushers the powerful mission of our programs directly into the homes and classrooms of the community, motivating young students to create and imagine.”
The PBS KIDS GO! Writers Contest is a part of PBS KIDS Raising Readers, a national initiative which uses the power of public media to build the reading skills of children ages 2-to-8, with an emphasis on children from low-income families. The effort is funded by a Ready To Learn grant from the U.S. Department of Education, part of a cooperative agreement with the Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB), PBS and The Ready To Learn Partnership.
As we enter a new year, we at KIDS FIRST! are excited to announce a new board member who is joining our team. Actress Kay Panabaker (“Fame,” “Nancy Drew,” “
If you are looking for a gift for a young one in your life that is sweet and teaches positive lessons on caring for others, than look no further than Nick Katspri’s book, “Loukoumi’s Good Deeds.” It comes with an audio CD narrated byJennifer Aniston and John Aniston and — even better — book proceeds go to benefit St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital®.Loukoumi, the fluffy, cuddly lamb, returns this spring with Loukoumi’s Good Deeds (Dream Day Press/NK Publications; April 1, 2009; $15.95), the third title in the award winning series of illustrated books by Nick Katsoris for children 4-8. Featuring a bonus CD narrated by Jennifer Aniston and her father Days of Our Lives star John Aniston, the new book follows Loukoumi through her day as she discovers how easy it is to make other people happy by doing something nice.”Loukoumi’s Good Deeds,” by Nick Katsoris, continues the adventures of Loukoumi and her friends Gus the Bear, Fistiki the Cat, Dean the Dog and Marika the Monkey. Whether it’s cleaning the house, lending a helping hand or showing your grandparents how much you love them, kids will find that each good deed is unique in its own special way and can make a huge difference in the lives of those around them.In addition to the Anistons, the CD also features the character voices of Oscar winner Olympia Dukakis, Gloria Gaynor (GRAMMY winner for “I Will Survive,”), American Idol’s Constantine Maroulis, Guiding Light star Frank Dicopoulos and CBS News anchor Alexis Christoforous as the voice of Loukoumi.The CD features a bonus story, Loukoumi’s Gift, narrated by John Aniston, in which Jennifer voices the part of Daisy the Giraffe, who teaches Loukoumi that a gift needs not cost a lot of money, but instead can come straight from the heart. Track 3 on the CD is a new version of the previous Loukoumi title, “Growing up with Loukoumi,” also narrated by Jennifer Aniston. The track includes the voices of the three winners of the national Growing up with Loukoumi Dream Day contest. Each winning kid received the chance to spend a day in their dream career, which included witnessing a Mars landing from NASA, playing soccer with the New York Red Bulls, cooking on CBS News with chef Tony Tantillo and meeting with TV chef Rachael Ray.Every time a child reads Loukoumi’s Good Deeds they too will be performing a good deed. $2.00 from the sale of each book will be donated to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital®St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital® is internationally recognized for its pioneering work in finding cures and saving children with cancer and other catastrophic diseases. St. Jude is the first and only pediatric cancer center to be designated as a Comprehensive Cancer Center by the National Cancer Institute. Founded by late entertainer Danny Thomas and based in Memphis, Tenn., St. Jude freely shares its discoveries with scientific and medical communities around the world. St. Jude is the only pediatric cancer research center where families never pay for treatment not covered by insurance. No child is ever denied treatment because of the family’s inability to pay. St. Jude is financially supported by ALSAC, its fundraising organization. For more information, please visit 
“America’s ready for a black Santa!” says Snavely Claws, villain in “
1.Martino’s journey from art school in Ohio to Monty Python to “Ice Age” to “Horton Hears a Who.”Martino was bitten by the animation bug in animation class in college while studying to be a designer. He realized that he could move an audience with moving graphics and he enjoyed making people laugh. In the early 1980’s, he worked for television stations doing animations for the Super Bowl, NFL and ESPN. He found himself moving along with technology and its leaps and bounds. Back in the 80’s he would never have dreamed of feature films with characters like today. One of Martino’s favorite parts of his job is that he is lucky to work with talented people A highlight of his career was sitting with Terry Giliam at studio and story-boarding. Martino thinks Giliam is “one of most creative guys out there.” He had a huge influence of Martino. For instance, Martino was inspired by stories on how Martino made “Brazil” and how they used clacking in “Holy Grail” as a necessity since the film budget didn’t include horses. Working on a variety of film from “Holy Grail” to”Ice Age” and “Robots,” where he was art director, Martino gained the experience necessary for co-directing “Horton Hears a Who” along with Jimmy Hayward.2. Goals for the filmMartino had three major goals for this film. First, they wanted to adapt the book by a beloved, respected author, and remain true to the work in storytelling while expanding what was between the pages.The second film goal was the animation. They wanted to create flexibility and movement. The character development team challenge. As a team they worked together to create the perfect tools for animators to move characters around mixing creativity with technology, making the animation fluid.Thirdly, they wanted to keep true to the style. Dr. Seuss was production designer in Steve’s opinion. They promised Audrey Geisel, the widow of Ted Geisel (a.k.a. Dr. Seuss) that they would stay true to the style. According to Martino, one of best moments in the project was when he had lunch with Geisel after the project was complete and they and saw it in a special showing in a theatre. Martino laughs about how his hands were clenched on seat throughout the film, as if her were in a dentist chair, wondering how she would react. Before the credits even rolled, she stood up and applauded and commented that they took the story and lifted it to a new place. Martino expresses that it was the pinnacle of the filmmaking experience to sit with Audrey and have her applaud what they had done.3. Animating “Horton Hears a Who”Hayward and Martino both sat down to talk about the book and discovered that they agreed on how it should be portrayed. They discussed what they imagined as they read the book when they were kids. Martino also factored in ideas he developed as he read to his own kids, who are now 14- and 11-years-old. Hayward and Martino wanted to depict a sense of imagination — not like this world. They felt the story needed to be more exaggerated and imaginative than our world and came to the conclusion that to depict this, they would create a unique two-dimensional animation style.Computers like to keep things on model and perfect form, and for this project the creators wanted to push character distortion –heads squashed or arms 3 times a natural length. The art team jumped on this challenge and embraced it although it was difficult.The animation project was huge. They had a special fur team whose entire job was to groom the fur digitally. This task encompassed the Who’s and the plants. There were very complex scenes, which pushed technical boundaries such as the field of flowers near the end of the film which had ½ billion clovers. The animators managed to fill space and even have clovers blowing in wind. In order to do this they had to intelligently render clovers based on the camera angle through some technologicalingenuity. Each individual frame for this scene took two to three days. Due to the complexity of the scene, it took months to render.4.ResultsMartino firmly believes the film became what it is because of the talent of the people working on it. The cast, in his opinion, was phenomenal and the recording sessions took the movie to a place he never would have conceived of as the actors improvised and all the talented people contributed with their expertise.Three years on a film is a long time to be working on one project. Especially when you are a parent with two children. In fact, his two daughters are in the movie as Who voices, and they were also part of the focus group. Martino loved the great story and great theme by Dr Seuss — no prejudice. He found that this was a great investment of time and life, stating that it was “so nice to work on a project where you can bring your family to the film without hiding your head in shame.”
