Bartography

Two announcements today on this, the official publication date for The Day-Glo Brothers: The True Story of Bob and Joe Switzer’s Bright Ideas and Brand-New Colors:

1) I’ve just sent out the first edition of my occasional Bartography Express newsletter. For the next few weeks, you can view it here, and you can always sign up on my home page to have Bartography Express emailed to you directly.

2) If you’ll be in Austin on Saturday, July 11, I hope you’ll join me at BookPeople at 1 p.m. for a celebration of The Day-Glo Brothers, which is my first book for young readers.

It’s an “enlightening story” (says WIRED)…

…”of quintessentially American ingenuity” (Publishers Weekly)…

…with illustrations that are “retro funk, dipped in Day-Glo… guaranteed to suck any kid straight in” (Blue Yonder Ranch).

In honor of The Day-Glo Brothers, we’ll have daylight-fluorescent crafts, prizes*, and activities, including a high-tech viewing station (a cardboard box rigged with black lights). With some assistance from the younger members of the audience, I’ll talk a little about the story and science behind the book.

If you’d like to RSVP on Facebook, go here. If you’d like to learn more about the book, go here.

And if you’ll be in Austin on the 11th, I hope you’ll dress in your Day-Glo best and come join me!

* “Reading, ‘Riting, Researching” kits including a black light, a copy of the book, and some other Day-Glo-hued goodies. Nifty, yes?

Bob and Joe Switzer weren’t just inventors — they were businessmen, too. As eagerly as they sought better and brighter colors, their interests were entrepreneurial as well as aesthetic. Making advances in the science of color was thrilling to them, but so was creating a successful company where they could have the freedom to pursue those discoveries in the ways they thought best.

The Day-Glo Brothers honors and explores that entrepreneurial streak. And while the shelves are not overflowing with other children’s and young adult titles that do the same, it’s not alone. So, as I’ve done with nonfiction about other notable siblings and picture books about the 1930s, I’ve compiled a list of other titles complementing this aspect of the Switzers’ story.

I have no doubt that I’ve missed some good ones, so if any come to mind, please tell me what they are — I’d be happy to add them to an updated version of this list.

The Great and Only Barnum: The Tremendous, Stupendous Life of Showman P. T. Barnum
by Candace Fleming
Schwartz & Wade
2009
Equal parts show and business, the Barnum portrayed in Fleming’s riveting, rollicking new biography possessed a quality essential to entrepreneurs — resiliency — in a quantity so freakish it belonged in a sideshow exhibit of its own. His eye-opening forays into politics and the ASPCA only add to the appeal of this title.

Vision of Beauty: The Story of Sarah Breedlove Walker
by Kathryn Lasky, illustrated by Nneka Bennett
Candlewick Press
2000
In too short a lifetime, Walker made the journey from the daughter of former slaves to the inspirational employer of hundreds. Lasky and Bennett vividly depict the determination, ingenuity, and activism that contributed to the rise of beauty products magnate known as Madam C.J. Walker.

Everyone Wears His Name: A Biography of Levi Strauss
by Sondra Henry and Emily Taitz
Dillon Press
1990
Offering much more than a retelling of how we all ended up with copper rivets on our jeans, Henry and Taitz weave a gold-dusted tale of immigration, industriousness, and enterprise. And they do it against a backdrop of 50 years of San Francisco history, which is fascinating in its own right.

Bill Gates (Up Close)
by Marc Aronson
Viking Juvenile
2008
Heavy on character analysis, short on computer jargon and corporate play-by-play, and structured as a series of “Principles of Getting Rich Fast,” Aronson’s account focuses on the factors that — like them or not — led to Gates’ rise as a programmer, businessman, billionaire and philanthropist.

Model T: How Henry Ford Built a Legend
by David Weitzman
Crown Books for Young Readers
2002
There’s plenty to dislike about Henry Ford, but the tinkerer and entrepreneur himself gets only a few pages in this picture book. Instead, Weitzman refreshingly focuses on the car Ford created, the workers who made it, and the resulting cultures of the assembly line and the open road.

Inventing the Future: A Photobiography of Thomas Alva Edison
by Marfé Ferguson Delano
National Geographic Children’s Books
2002
Edison made no bones about being both an inventor and a businessman: “Anything that won’t sell, I don’t want to invent.” With compelling text and gripping photos (my favorite is the two-page spread of Edison zonked out on a lab table), Delano gives both sides of the man’s legacy their due.

Chocolate by Hershey: A Story About Milton S. Hershey
by Betty Burford, illustrated by Loren Chantland
Carolrhoda Books
1994
If at first you don’t succeed, fail and fail again. Milton Hershey did. But as Burford’s crisp text and Chantland’s affecting woodcuts show, the disappointing end to those first few ventures couldn’t compete with ambition and vision far greater than the candy maker’s simple ingredients would suggest.

And for more lists of suggested US history reading, you’ve come to the right place.

Last week’s radio episode of This American Life (”Origin Story”) began by poking holes in what it called “corporate creation myths.” The prototypical one is the story of how Hewlett-Packard was founded — by two guys with a dream and a garage.

Host Ira Glass interviewed Dan Heath, who wrote about this topic in Fast Company a couple of years ago:

[C]ompanies aren’t born in garages. Companies are born in companies.

This reality shouldn’t diminish these monumental achievements. Yet it feels like it does, because all of us crave the excitement of these creation myths. Your startup “emerged from a systematic discussion of market opportunities, conducted at a networking function at the Marriott”? Yawn. Give us the garage. In fact, the story would be even more satisfying if [Apple Computer's founders] had built the garage first. Out of toothpicks, scavenged from local restaurants.

He makes a good point about how the achievements of the HPs and Apples and YouTubes of the world should be enough for us, regardless of whether there’s a great story behind how they came about. That said, I’d just like to point out that the story — which I tell in The Day-Glo Brothers — of how Bob and Joe Switzer got started down the road to inventing daylight-fluorescent colors is no myth at all.

Instead of a garage, it was their family’s basement. And the only company remotely involved was the one Bob had been working for (not named, but identifiable by the shape of the ketchup bottles in a hallucinatory spread wonderfully rendered by Tony Persiani) when he busted his head and got sent to the dark basement to recover.

Another segment of last week’s This American Life episode discussed how difficult it can be to correct an origin story once an inaccurate version of it gets publicized. A few details of Day-Glo’s origins published elsewhere have missed the mark, but I’ll try to keep in check my aspirations for setting the record straight once and for all. Besides, some of those errors were contained in the first article I ever read about Bob and Joe Switzer, which means those mistakes are now part of my book’s own origin story.

Over the years, WIRED magazine has run its share of daylight fluorescent ink, so I guess it’s as fitting as it is thrilling that the July issue includes a little bit of ink about The Day-Glo Brothers.

Coming in at #4 on the monthly Playlist feature, just after Manhattan’s West Side High Line, right before isthisyourluggage.com, and several notches above the new Spinal Tap album, the writeup on page 57 notes how Bob and Joe Switzer’s “enlightening story … shows how basement tinkering can lead to scientific discovery.”

That’s some glowing praise coming from some folks who know what they’re talking about. Thanks, WIRED!

Don’t you love it when people you already know get acquainted and fall in love with each other? Just look at what Austin’s BookPeople has had to say about A Taste For Red, the debut novel by Lewis Harris:

“This fun, exciting middle grade novel is perfect for girls and guys who want to jump on the teen vampire bandwagon, but aren’t quite ready for some of the racier teen books. A Taste for Red is not one you want to miss this summer.”

Lewis was kind enough to interview me a couple of weeks back about The Day-Glo Brothers, so today I’m returning the favor with a few questions of my own about him and his heroine, Svetlana Grimm.

Has there been a particular moment this spring when you’ve officially felt like a Published Author?

It was definitely when I opened the box from my publisher and pulled out the ACTUAL BOOK. Until that moment, I was prepared for a myriad of worst case scenarios, including an asteroid strike at the printer, a petition banning the further publication of vampire literature (although I hope my book is the anti-vampire-vampire book), and the classic “stop the presses!”

Your bio tells how you’ve hiked the Appalachian Trail, worked on a paddleboat on the Mississippi, and hitchhiked to the Arctic Ocean. How do you reconcile all that with being able to sit still long enough to write a novel?

At the moment I’m trapped in an idyllic rural setting populated with fuzzy rabbits, mischievous raccoons, and glowing fireflies. Honestly, there was a bluebird singing outside the window this morning. It’s nice, but the job opportunities are slim. The commute to town is short, but I DO NOT COMMUTE! So what could I do? I had to become a writer! The alternative was to eat Cheetos and watch TV all day, which would have eventually gotten me in Dutch with Lisa. And the Maury Povich show just doesn’t command my attention the way it once did.

In chronological order, what were some of the things you wrote before A Taste for Red?

I have a satchel full of chicken-scratch journals from my travels. I have a collection of questionable poetry from my French Quarter days. I’ve written a crime thriller with an Elmore Leonard/Jim Thompson bent. I tried my hand at a romance novel, but my limited experience put a hole in that boat before it left the dock. The last four works I’ve completed have all been middle grade novels. I had a fantastic childhood, especially during that period from 5th to 7th grade. That was when I first began breaking the gravitational pull of home life and bicycling out into the GREAT BIG WORLD. Coupled with a steady diet of Robert E. Howard, C.S. Lewis, and Edgar Rice Burroughs, I was pretty sure that the world was a magical place. It turned out I was right.

Where did the character of Svetlana Grimm come from, and what were you in the middle of doing when she arrived?

I was writing a horror novel about underwater vampires in the Bermuda Triangle when I started daydreaming about an eleven year old girl who thinks she’s a vampire. I knew that she was smart, a lone wolf, and a bit of a smart aleck—but was she a vampire? I had to find out.

Svetlana’s teacher, Ms. Larch, may or may not be her immortal enemy. How do you keep your own enemies list down to a manageable length?

I don’t want to come off as some mastermind-manipulator-Svengali type with a frightening knack for usurping the will of others, but I’ve discovered that most people can be controlled with donuts.

Have you seen the terrific animation that Charlesbridge Publishing put together showing how regular color, fluorescence, and daylight fluorescence work? For all the words in The Day-Glo Brothers, and all the clever art, Charlesbridge rightly figured that a little something extra was the best way to get those concepts across.

Well, now Charlesbridge and I have come up with another little something extra: The Day-Glo Brothers Activity and Discussion Guide. In its four downloadable pages, you’ll find discussion questions for before and after reading, a bevy of activity ideas, a glossary, and links to other online resources. It’s absolutely free and available now, and I’d love to know what you think of it.

If you’ll be in Austin in mid-July, or think you might like to be (and, really, who wouldn’t?), I hope you’ll mark your calendar for 1 p.m. on Saturday, July 11. That’s when I’ll be celebrating the publication of The Day-Glo Brothers with a party at BookPeople.

You can RSVP at Facebook, or return here for details as they’re available…

UPDATE: As promised, more details are available here.

At Blue Yonder Ranch, my friend Stefani has written about her seven-year-old’s response to reading The Day-Glo Brothers. For my money, it’s hard to beat his initial reaction (“Wouldn’t it be so cool if something like that really happened?”), but there’s a lot to be said for how inspired he was after realizing that it did really happen.

Stefani is giving away a signed copy of my book, and that’s hardly the only exciting thing you’ll find at Blue Yonder Ranch. I’m talking about about Stefani’s monthly download, Book of Days, but don’t take my word for it — here’s what a writer at Pioneer Woman had to say about Book of Days:

My kids are pretty creative at kicking off their own daily adventures, but sometimes they require just a bit of prompting, which is why I have really enjoyed the June Edition … Designed to help families find simple ways to slow down, BE together, have fun and learn something new along the way…

Sounds like a book I’d like to read — and I’m just over the moon to be able to say that it’s a book I’ve written.

Here’s some of what Elizabeth Bird had to say about The Day-Glo Brothers over at Goodreads:

Barton brings us what is pretty much the world’s first biography of the inventors of Day-Glo colors. And what better format to use than the picture book? … When you actually see your first appearance of Day-Glo it’s shocking. And the second time when Bob and Joe rediscover it? Persiani has the wherewithal to turn that moment into its own undulating, high-octane, visually blinding two-page spread. … This is Barton’s first work of non-fiction. With his extensive research skills and way with words, I hope that it is safe to say that it won’t be his last.

And here are some equally encouraging words from Dr. Quinn’s Book Blog:

Barton does a fantastic job taking the reader through the life and times of the Switzer brothers. … Persiani’s retro illustrations are “highlighted” with various day-glo colors. Even the end pages use these electric colors to support this fun and informative book. I definitely recommend this book.

Dr. Quinn and Betsy, I’m so glad you both liked the book. Thank you for taking the time to say so.

If you’re looking for your literary kicks in Austin this Saturday, you might want to get yourself down to BookPeople at 1 p.m. for “Delacorte Dames & Dude: Everything you wanted to know about young adult fiction but were too afraid to ask.”

Here’s the skinny:

The panel discussion features the Delacorte Dames and Dudes, five authors of young adult (YA) novels. They are all published by Delacorte Press, Random House and they all live right here in Austin! Delacorte Dames are April Lurie, author of The Latent Powers of Dylan Fontaine (2008), Jennifer Ziegler, How Not to Be Popular (2008), Margo Rabb, Cures for Heartbreak (2007), and Shana Burg, A Thousand Never Evers (2008). The lone Delacorte Dude is Varian Johnson, whose novel Saving Maddie is forthcoming in 2010. The panel will be moderated by Austin’s own, Sarah Bird. Join us for what is sure to be an enlightening and lively discussion.