What's In Your Aggregator?
By Lauren Barack -- School Library Journal, 11/1/2006
Where does a children’s book illustrator go online? We asked Chris Raschka, who won the 2006 Caldecott Medal for The Hello, Goodbye Window, to share his Web habits.
What draws you online?
I’m learning to play the concertina, so a favorite Web site is concertina.net. I always liked the sound, and I finally splurged and bought my first concertina in New Orleans about four years ago. Now I always travel with one. They have buttons on each end and you push air in and out of these reeds. It’s a basic squeezebox. Sounds like an idea for a new book.
Has it crossed your mind?
I guess it would have to be an accordion-style book. Actually my family all tells me to stop practicing on it because it sounds too sad. It was very popular in the 19th century. I always perk up at a reference to concertinas in works by P. G. Wodehouse. I bought an old one from a shop on 48th Street in New York. The owner pulled it from a deep cabinet, like he would only show it to people if they had been very, very good.
Why else do you surf the Web?
I actually learned to surf when I was 39 with a good friend who’s a transplanted Californian. I like to check surfreport.net for wave and wind reports. But Robert actually has more savvy with understanding these things. If it looks good, it’s just a quick morning drive to Long Island from the city. And he stores my long board in his living room. Robert’s a musician, but now he teaches, which has put a big crimp in our morning surfing. He really doesn’t consider my needs.
