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Here’s the thing about Minh Lê. He doesn’t blog terribly often, but when it does it just sort of explodes like an atom bomb on the scene.  His Hamilton starring Elephant and Piggie . . . sheer brilliance.  I’m just mad I didn’t think of it myself (not that I could ever have paired the text and art as well as he has).  The best thing you’ll read today.

Translation?  An art.  I once heard that the reason the French are as crazy as they are about Edgar Allan Poe is that his translator (Stéphane Mallarmé?) improved upon the original English.  Monica Edinger thinks about translation in the context of Struwwelpeter (love that stuff) and links to a Guardian article you’d do well to notice.

Yesterday my family and I returned from our annual trip to the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Stratford, ON.  While there, my five-year-old saw her very first play; a killer production of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe done with puppetry akin to War Horse.  I guess I’ve had C.S. Lewis on the brain anyway, though, since I saw these adorable dioramas of famous scenes in books.  Here’s the Wardrobe one:

When phys.org wrote a piece about book deserts (places where children lack access to books) there was a lot to pick apart.  Looking through it, I found fascinating the part that said, “While online book sales have grown in recent years, three out of four children’s books are still bought in brick and mortar stores,” as well as, “dollar stores were the most common place to buy children’s books.”  Dollar stores.  I know that bookstores, aside from being difficult to find in low-income areas, contain books too pricey for most people to afford (see a recent comparison between British and American chain bookstores here), but it never occurred to me that dollar stores would be the obvious next step.  If I were a forward thinking self-published author, that’s where I’d concentrate on getting my books.  If the money evened out, of course.  And speaking of books that are affordable for all people . . .

Good morning, class!  I trust you are well rested this morning. Now, when we last met we were reading Leonard Marcus’s Golden Legacy: The Story of Golden Books.  Your homework today is to consider the newest Little Golden Book on the market The Little Grumpy Cat That Wouldn’t.  Place within the context of the Golden Books’ past how converting a YouTube sensation into a Golden Book both supports and/or undermines their historical legacy.  Extra credit if you’ve worked into your report the work of illustrator Steph Laberis and the history of animators contributing to the Golden Books of previous decades.  Papers are due in one week.  No extensions.

We can’t seem to get her to interview the Newbery and Caldecott winners, but I think Ellen is getting some definite points for personally moving forward with a screen adaptation of Ursula Vernon’s truly delightful Castle Hangnail.  Those of you looking for charming younger middle grade fantasy, this book is a delight.  You have been warned.  Thanks to PW Children’s Bookshelf.

Best title and photo ever:

Riverdale Turns Archie Comics Into a Teenage Noir Soap Opera, and It’s Way Too Much Fun

I don’t care if it isn’t any good.  This alone gives balm to my soul.

Travis over at 100 Scope Notes has continued his thought process on the role of critical reviews on blogs.  He asks if it is the nature of reviewing to want to think a book is better or worse than it actually is because both of these reactions fall within the “zone of enthusiasm” (be it positive or critical enthusiasm).  I’m chewing on this one for a while.  You can too.

I lived in Morningside Heights in NYC for about five years and Harlem for six.  While there, I was always a bit shocked that there wasn’t a major museum there dedicated to the art and history of Harlem (the Schomburg Library and The Studio Museum in Harlem do what they can but we need something much bigger).  This isn’t that, but it’s on the right track.  Ms. Renée Watson (not to be confused with Rachel Renee Watson) has started an Indiegogo campaign to lease and renovate the brownstone where Langston Hughes lived and create an arts community there.  It’s not specifically about children’s literature, but this is a worthy cause.

Daily Image:

If I have learned anything in this life it is that every fake sounding profession out there is actually real.  Take opera singing.  When my friend since 7th grade, Meredith Arwady, decided to be an opera singer I had no idea that this was a legitimate profession.  Now she’s stabbing Placido Domingo in her spare time.  She’s also hugely generous.  Check out her most recent present to me, purchased in Stockholm.  It is a t-shirt, procured at a photography museum, of none other than Astrid Lindgren.

When I get my new author photo, I want it to look like THAT.  Thanks, Mimi!

So many good videos to choose from today!  First and foremost, I begin with a very special message from Jon Scieszka.  It seems you still have two days to vote in the Children’s Book Choice Awards and . . . well . . . Jon would really like your kids to do so.  Seriously.

I own that suit!

I also enjoyed this video from Storycorps.  In it, a woman reflects on the bookmobile that changed her life:

In other news, it’s been a good book trailer season. When I went to Zootopia the other day (and how cool was its Emmett Otter reference?) I got a couple before the show. In this first video I spent the bulk of it trying to figure out if it was an adaptation of the Mac Barnett / Jory John Terrible Two series. It is based on a book, but we just aren’t that lucky:

On the plus side, the new BFG trailer looks pretty darn good:

And there’s a new trailer for A Monster Calls that I really enjoyed.

Finally, for the off-topic video, I actually think you could make a case for this being on-topic.  I mean, have you ever seen a truer to life version of Are You My Mother?

It comes with its own Snort!

It’s happened to us all.  You hear that one of your favorite books for kids or teens is being adapted to the silver screen and you are struck with a simultaneous feeling of hope and fear.  You go to see it and it’s even worse than you imagined.  Then you leave the theater and realize that this was based on the first book in a series. Are they honestly going to keep going, even if this is a flop?

Thankfully, the answer is usually no. But what happens is that you’re left with a lot of series just ah-blowing in the wind.  Here then is a tribute to those book series that are just not going to see any more sequels.  Unless, of course, they get a reboot.  Which, in at least one case, may happen.

The Seeker a.k.a. The Dark Is Rising

Remember this?  Or has your brain done you a favor and allowed you to forget?  One of the more egregious adaptations out there.  In the midst of the Harry Potter films, studios were looking to recreate that same magic for themselves.  And lo and behold, here is a fantasy series starring a special boy who learns he has the power to defeat a dark and ancient evil! Perfect! So what did the studios do?  First, they made it American (one can only imagine the conversations that took place to make this happen – “I bet Harry Potter would have been MUCH more successful if he’d been from Jersey!”). Then they mucked with the plot so much as to render the film unrecognizable from the book.  No Under Sea, Under Stone for you, kids! Which, technically, should have been first anyway . . .

The Black Cauldron

Not that when Disney animated it they were really prepared to make any sequels.  Many consider this film the moment Disney animation hit rock bottom.  They also combined two of Lloyd Alexander’s books together to make it in the first place.  I heard a rumor the other day that a new version of The Book of Three is in the works somewhere, but was unable to find any proof of it online.

The Seventh Son

Apparently this was years and years in the works, much good it did it in the end. A real pity since the book was so great.  What could have been a really good creepy film was instead yet another big budget war against an evil blahfest.  Ah well.

A Wrinkle in Time

Oh yeah.  It was straight to television, so hopes couldn’t have been all that high anyway.  In a 2004 interview with Newsweek Madeleine L’Engle was asked if the film met her expectations.  She said it had.  She was pretty cheery about it.  “I expected it to be bad, and it was.”  Rumor has it that another is currently in the works.  I dunno, folks.  Mixing religion and science and fantasy into a single book is hard enough.  Short of animating it, I don’t know how a film could even come close to doing it right.

Voyage of the Dawn Treader

This one is unlike the others mentioned here for a number of reasons.  First off, these movies aren’t all that bad.  They seem fairly aware of the books that they’re based upon, for one thing.  And admittedly they managed to get through three books in the Narnia series, and even then only by the skin of their teeth.  Amazing that they got that far!  It’s too late to keep ’em coming at this point, so the series is pretty officially dead (sorry, Silver Chair, fans).

The Last Airbender

I’m cheating by including this since it’s not based on a book originally but a television series (Avatar: The Last Airbender). That said, the graphic novel sequels (penned in part by our current National Ambassador of Young People’s Literature, Gene Luen Yang) are fantastic and deserve mention.  The movie adaptation of the first season was problematic not the least because all the villains were people of color and all the people of color who were heroes were played by white actors. [My husband points out that if you look at the voice actors for the original TV show it’s not much different, but that’s only if you think Iroh and Zuko are villains, and anyway the true baddies were Mark Hammil and Jason Isaacs who are the whitest white guys to ever white a white].

By the way, notice how all these series star white kids, usually of a male persuasion, and are fantasies or science fiction. So while I’d love to see the One Crazy Summer books adapted, my hopes are not currently very high.

The advantage of having a bookstore in the library is when it has a tendency towards brilliance.  Take this recent list the employees of the Schwarzman Building of NYPL came up with.  I can take no credit for this.  It’s just smart stuff (and very useful for my ordering as well).  With mild tweaks on my part:

KIDS

READ the book: Alexander and the No Good Horrible Very Bad Day by Judith Viorst

BEFORE YOU SEE the movie, opening in October

READ the book: Here Be Monsters! by Adam Snow

BEFORE YOU SEE the movie, called The Boxtrolls, opening in September

READ the book: A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond

BEFORE YOU SEE the movie, called Paddington, opening in December)

READ the book: The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex

BEFORE YOU SEE the movie, called Home, opening in November

Plus, read How to Train Your Dragon by Cressida Cowell before the DVD of How to Train Your Dragon 2 hits the shelves in November.

TEENS

READ the book: Dracula by Bram Stoker

BEFORE YOU SEE the movie, called Dracula Untold, opening in October

READ the book: The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkien

BEFORE YOU SEE the movie, called The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, opening in December

READ the book: The Maze Runner by James Dashner

BEFORE YOU SEE the movie, opening in September

READ the book: Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins

BEFORE YOU SEE the movie, opening in November

Plus, pick up John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars, then make plans to catch the DVD when it’s released in mid-September

[SPOILER ALERT: This whole review pretty gives away every plot point in both the book and film versions of The Giver.  Abandon ship all ye who wish to remain surprised.]

On Sunday night I had an extraordinary experience.  I was sitting in a theater, just about to watch Guardians of the Galaxy, and seeing what had to be the lamest run of movie trailers I have ever experienced.  I’m talking horrible stuff.  The Annie trailer (which ends with a prostitute joke), the Alexander and the Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day trailer (which may rival the Paddington film for Worst Trailer of the Year), and others that made my brain shut down.  However it was the last trailer that was particularly interesting to me.  It was for the film adaptation of Lois Lowry’s The Giver.  For the first time in my life, I was watching a trailer in a theater for a film I had already seen.  Since Guardians of the Galaxy is a mighty popular film these days, you may find yourself seeing the same trailer.  Don’t believe it, though.  The movie, believe it or not, is MUCH better than its preview.  Much.

Because I’m currently on maternity leave with a small baby boy I was fairly certain I wouldn’t be able to see an early screening of the film.  Fortunately Walden Media was accommodating and so, a week or two ago, I sat down with two buddies and a 10-week old child to see the onscreen adaptation of Lois Lowry’s Newbery Award winning book.  And let me tell you, if you had to pick a movie to watch while holding a baby, this probably wouldn’t be your first choice.

I had reason to be skeptical, by the way.  When children’s novels make the transition to the big screen they have a tendency to go a bit wonky.  Remember Madeleine L’Engle’s straight to DVD Wrinkle in Time (NOT to be confused with the recently announced version)?  Or what happened to Susan Cooper’s The Dark is Rising?  And yes, I knew that Ms. Lowry had not only put her stamp of approval on this film but had been actively promoting it, but what did that really mean?  So when I sat down and watched it I noted that one of my compatriots had read the original book as an adult when it published and the other had never read the book at all.  Their insights proved invaluable.

The thing to remember when you watch The Giver is how long this book has been in the making.  Jeff Bridges wanted to do it so long ago that he cast his father, Lloyd Bridges, in the title role with Bud Cort on narration.  With the book originally publishing in 1993, this was middle grade dystopian long before Hunger Games came around.  As such, a lot of the tropes you’ll find in the film won’t remind you of the current wave of YA dystopias as much as it will dystopias of the past.  I’m talkin’ Planet of the Apes / 1984 / Soylent Green / Zardoz stuff (well . . . maybe not Zardoz). The kind where people aren’t quite certain how to use conjunctions anymore.  I suspect we may see some reviews of this film that say it’s derivative of the current dystopias, but can you really be derivative if you came first?

The film begins with what looks like a slightly cleaner gated community than you’d usually find.  Perfect lawns.  Lots of circles.  The occasional drone.  And zero sexy clothes.  We meet Jonas, our hero, and his two bestest buddies Fiona (ten years ago she would have been played by Kristen Stewart) and Asher (one of my compatriots pointed out that he was essentially Rolfe from The Sound of Music).  They’re all white.  Heck, all the major characters in this film are white.  You might chalk that up to flaws in the dystopia, but I dunno.  Seems like they could have had Jonas’s mom or dad be of color (after all, they’re not his birth parents or anything).

As for the kids, they are all older teens, a fact that was lamented wildly when it was first announced.  However, as much as I’m for films to stay strictly faithful to their books, this change makes a lot of sense.  I never quite understood those books where kids find out their lifelong jobs when they’re 12.  The age appears to be there solely to allow the book to be shelved in the children’s rather than the YA section.  In life, teenagers are more often told to pick their career paths.  Plus the themes of the film fit adolescence so well (example: the desire to be the same as everyone else, even if it removes you from your own identity).  Plus, kids watching the film at this point will certainly be thinking that this is a pretty great place to live.  Teens will be the ones who first see the cracks.

Of course there is no picking in this world.  Jonas is on the cusp of finding out what his job for life will be.  Played by Brenton Thwaites, it’s a thankless role.  A whole lotta yearning, which would try any actor’s patience.  Brenton does a good job of it, though, and there’s a faint creepiness to the sunny happy-go-lucky interactions between him and his friends.  Very Disney Channel-esque, if less risqué (if such a thing were possible).

When Jonas returns home we meet his mother and father, played by Katie Holmes and Alexander Skarsgård.  To have Katie playing a teenager’s mother is, sadly, par for the course with Hollywood.  She’s over 30?  Cast her as a mom.  But in this society you get the distinct feeling that it makes a lot of sense.  If she was handed a baby when she was 18 then sure, she could be Jonas’s mother.  It makes sense within the context of the film.  Holmes, however, is a bit overshadowed in her role by Skarsgård who ends up being one of the finest actors in the movie.  He plays the part of a very earnest, nice guy who would seriously kill you without a second thought if told to do so.  This disconnect could tap nicely into a teen’s hidden fears about their own parents.  You trust them implicitly when you are a child, but as you grow older you begin to see some character defects (some MAJOR character defects in this case).

We get to know the world a bit better when we hear about people being “released”.  That’s where the Soylent Green similarities start to crop up (and if you haven’t seen that film, I assure you that it is MUCH better than one would expect it to be).  Then we witness the ceremony where the kids get assigned their jobs and as each one is named a little montage of them over the years plays on a kind of live feed.  It becomes clear that these images are plucked from the constant surveillance technology that inundates the place, which gives a nice eerie vibe to what would otherwise feel a lot like those videos parents make for their kids’ graduation ceremonies.

When Meryl Streep arrives via hologram (there are a lot of Star Wars-esque holograms to be found here, partly because Streep’s schedule didn’t allow her to travel to Australia where much of the movie was filmed) she steps into the role of white-haired-woman-in-charge.  This is a popular role for great, older film actresses.  Heck, the aforementioned Guardians of the Galaxy even had one in the form of Glenn Close.  In Streep’s case, her role is as the Chief Elder, an embodiment of the problematic leaders of this society.  The nice thing about casting Streep is that she’s able to give a bit more nuance to what would otherwise be a two-dimensional part.  The Chief Elder is honestly conflicted by the choices she has to make, but there’s an understanding that society itself wouldn’t have her any other way.  Plus, only Streep could give the line “Thank you for your childhood” the right edge.  Mind you, I would bet you really good money that as I write this Anthony Lane is wracking his brain to come up with an appropriately cutting line to use to describe her bangs.  They didn’t bug me though.

Jonas is assigned to be The Receiver to Jeff Bridges, the titular Giver.  Like Streep, Bridges is fantastic to watch.  Of course, he has an advantage over her in that he’s the only real person in the whole film for quite some time.  A guy who doesn’t waste his time with b.s.  Half the time he’s talking you’re not certain if he believes what he says.  He’s also the kind of guy willing to play with the whole “chosen one” trope for fun (a fact that I appreciated).  He lives in a little house near “the edge” of society itself in a house that’s sort of Dr. Calgari meets M.C. Escher.  As The Giver, Mr. Bridges hands Jonas memories of the past via a kind of Vulcan mind meld.  The first memory is of a sled, effectively making this film Citizen Kane for kids.

At this point the Garden of Eden references start to crank up big time.  Jonas peers into the mist at the edge where nothing is supposed to exist and sees a tree.  The first thing he officially sees in color is an apple (Fiona’s pretty red hair notwithstanding – though I suppose you could argue that it had some Biblical significance as well).  As Jonas starts to learn more he decides not to take his inoculations, so he puts a bit of blood on a red apple and bypasses the system that way.  And, naturally, he uses this apple to try to convince his friend Fiona to do the same.  One naturally wonders if sex is going to come up since these are teenagers we’re talking about, but the most you get is some very chaste kissing after the two have plunged into a man made waterfall (now entering metaphor city).

Now did I fail to mention that until this point the film has been in black and white?  It has indeed, and that’s fine.  It certainly gives the film a kind of Wizard of Oz feel when Jonas at long last begins to see colors.

I watched with great interest how the film handled the darker elements of this society.  First off, it’s been a while since I read the book so I couldn’t remember what the first memory of cruelty The Giver would give.  In this case it’s a mighty realistic elephant safari.  Can you train an elephant to fall down like that?  You must.  And that was one well trained animal.  As for the shockingly horrible memory Jonas accidentally taps into, they went with Vietnam.  A clever choice since Vietnam is sort of the perfect American nightmare in and of itself.  But as well all know, there is one particular element to the book that causes it to be banned with shocking regularity in schools nationwide.  I wondered if the film would show it or skip it entirely, but it’s so essential to the plot that you really can’t take it out. I am referring of course to the murder of a baby.

These days you can’t really kill a dog onscreen anymore.  They will never remake Old Yeller for this very reason.  But a baby?  James Kennedy, the man behind the 90-Second Newbery Film Festival, once told me that when he gets a submission for The Giver there is usually one thing he can count on.  The film may skip one part of the book or another but kids ALWAYS include the dead baby scene.  They will reenact it with teddy bears or baby dolls or what have you, but it’ll be there.  And fair play to the filmmakers.  There’s Alexander Skarsgård, all soft sweet talk and pretty eyes, and he friggin’ kills a baby onscreen.  If you are in the audience holding a baby at this time it is all the more harrowing.  People are going to freak out about this when they see it, but it is probably the #1 most effective method of showing that this world is awful.  Even kids and teens will understand that much.

I should note that there are the occasional lighter moments, though it would be a stretch to call this film comedic.  You’re so desperate for some lightness, in fact, that the moment when Jonas’s father is telling his daughter that a stuffed elephant is a “mythical hippo”, it works.  Plus Jeff Bridges is himself a great source of humor.

As we near the end we gear up for the big escape of Jonas and baby Gabriel.  Now for the screenwriter there was a very big dramatic problem at the core of the original book.  You want to have an exciting climax to the film where your hero is attempting to do something big.  In this case, it isn’t enough for Jonas to be running to safety with Gabe.  You can only take that so far.  So they’ve added that he must also free everybody’s memories as well, something that can apparently be done by crossing some kind of border.  It’s not really explained but since the whole transference of The Giver’s memories isn’t explained in the book either, you can’t really sweat it.  Mind you, by crossing this border everyone in society will have as many memories of the past as The Giver himself.  And on top of that they alternate Jonas’s flight with the upcoming execution of a friend, which also allows for a dramatic conversation between The Giver and The Elder about knowledge and choices.

Those of us familiar with the original book know that one of the great debates surrounding it for years was the ending.  In fact, you could credit much of The Giver‘s success to the fact that the finish was open ended (sequels that settle the matter and Ms. Lowry’s own protests aside).  Some people would interpret the end to mean that Jonas and Gabe died while others were convinced that they lived.  The question in my mind, upon entering the theater, was whether or not the film would also be open to interpretation in this way.  Final conclusion: Probably not.  For one thing, Jonas is narrating the whole time and he’s speaking in the past tense.  And sure, this might be Ghost Jonas talking, but from what he says you get the feeling that he’s defending himself from people who don’t like how he changed their society.  The ending of the film isn’t really cut and dried, though.  Jonas and Gabe hear the Christmas carols.  They see the sled.  They see the house where the songs are coming from. (Gabe also sports what may well be the most authentically runny nose in cinematic history.)  They approach and the film ends.  But what was the carol they were hearing? “Silent Night”.  And what line in the song was clearer to the audience’s ear than any other?  “Sleep in heavenly peace.”  Hmmmm.  I say, the jury is still out.

I mentioned before the whitey whiteness of the film, which really wasn’t necessary.  The society itself isn’t all-white, just the major characters in this film.  Then there are the women.  Were in not for Fiona and Jonas’s rather charming little sister we’d be drowning in a sea of disapproving shrews (Katie Holmes, Meryl Streep, etc.).  As it stands, it could be better (Fiona’s more a symbol than a person) but it’s not terrible by any means.  As I said before, Streep’s a pro and gives her character a great deal of nuance.  She’s not cackling with malicious glee or anything (ala Jodie Foster in Elysium).   There are also the flashbacks into the past that Jonas witnesses through his sessions with The Giver.  These are sometimes so well done that the last one in particular made me tear up a little.  Sadly, while it shows families and protests and other meaningful elements (Nelson Mandela gets some serious screen time) there were no gay families or alternative families in the mix.  A bit of a missed opportunity there, folks.

When we consider the pantheon of book to film adaptations, few are word-for-word carbon copies of the books.  Even the faithful Harry Potter films had to make the occasional change.  Much of what has been done to The Giver is entirely logical.  In the end, the best way to judge a book-to-screen situation is to look at the book’s theme.  Is this a case like The Lorax where the film upsets the very moral of the original source material?  Or will it be more like The Fantastic Mr. Fox and preserve the beauty of the book’s thematic core while clearly establishing itself as its own beast?  The Giver happily falls into the latter category.  It is most faithful to the book in terms of the themes, the morals, and way in which it confronts the problems with conformity.  Over the next few decades millions of children will be shown this Newbery Award adaptation in school.  And I, for one, am grateful.

I considered closing this post by embedding a trailer for the film, then thought better of it.  For the record, the trailers of The Giver are all universally awful.  The initial one made it appear as if the film was in color.  After public outcry the studio rushed to assure people that it had simply been cut to look that way.  Then came the second trailer which acknowledged that parts were in black and white, but at the same time it contained about five different misleading moments.  Rather than watching these trailers I suggest you see the film itself.  Or, in lieu of that, this delightful 90-second version created for James Kennedy’s 90-Second Newbery Film Festival.  Bonus: No dead babies.

Many thanks to Walden Media for allowing me my own little preview!

No time to dilly-dally, people! We’ve most of our peers and betters living it up in Las Vegas. Let’s soothe our sorrows of not attending ourselves in some lovely videos then, eh whot?

First off, you may have known that there was a recent Boston Children’s Book Trivia Night. But did you know there was video from the event as well? Indeedy.  Just LOOK at that turnout!  That’s Jack Gantos moderating.  The only trouble with this vid is that it doesn’t contain the answer to his trivia question.  Um . . . anyone want to tell it to me?

In other news, Eoin Colfer.  Not that his existence is news exactly.  It’s just worth making your day brighter to watch him talk a little about . . . well, pretty much anything.  In this case, on getting a literary agent.  Granted, he looks a bit like a great big blue floating head, but I care not.

In movie news, The True Meaning of Smekday by Adam Rex is finally finding itself in film form.  Retitled Home, it has made some interesting changes. The title, for one.   J-Lo is now just O. And  Tip is a teenager (one suspects the film executives thought kids would start picking up their own parents’ car keys if they saw a kid in a movie driving).  We shall see.

Awwww.  A Harry Potter rap!  It’s never too late folks (and note the complete and utter lack of snark in the lyrics).

Thanks to bookshelves of doom for the link.

And for our off-topic video, this one actually mentions Hagrid at one point (continuing our Harry Potter theme).  So we’re awfully close to being on-topic.  It’s one woman, seventeen different British accents, and one rocking pair of fantastically 1985 glasses.

I have a sister.  Did you know that?  Tis true.  She’s not a librarian and her interest in children’s literature pretty much begins and ends with me, which is probably why she hasn’t come up before.  One thing she is?  Crafty.  Crafty as all get out.  And the kicker is that she’s just started this new blog called The How To, How Hard, and How Much to Your Creative Products.  Here’s how she describes it:

What if there was a blog out there that took Pinterest ideas and showed people how to do it, how much time it took, how much money was spent, and had a level of expertise (1-5). Maybe even sell the final product. Is this something people would read? Has it already been done? How could I rope guys into doing it (other than if it involved mustaches and bacon)? I’ve never blogged before but I feel like it might be helpful, especially since the holiday season is quickly approaching. People could even send me recommendations and I could do those as well.

And make it she has.  Amongst other things she has a wide range of Halloween ideas including spider cookies, 5 minute ideas, and my personal favorite, the cleaver cupcakes.  In fact, if you could just repin those cupcakes onto your Pinterest boards she’d be mighty grateful (there’s a contest she’s entering them into).  But of special interest to the blog (aside from outright nepotism) was her recent posting on literary jewelry where she turned a book of mine into a bracelet.  Nicely done, l’il sis.

• I attended the Society of Illustrators event the other day (did you know the place is free on Tuesdays?!) and the New York Times Best Illustrated results are on the cusp of an announcement soon.  Both lists are chosen by artists as well as librarian types, and so one could consider them the form with which artists are allowed to voice their opinions about the best of the year (just as the National Book Awards are how authors talk about writing).  Still, there are those that have disliked the Caldecott from the outset because it is decided not by artists but librarians.  Robin Smith recently dug up a 1999 interview with Barry Moser voicing just such a concern.  A hot little discussion then emerged in the Horn Book comments.  Go!  See!

• Brian Biggs + Jon Scieszka + 6 way auction = interesting.

• I think a fair number of us have seen Business Insider’s Most Famous Book Set in Every State map by this point, but I’d just like to mention that what pleases me the most about it is the fact that they included children’s books as well as adult.  Six children’s and one YA novel by my count.

• Let’s Talk About Dav Pilkey, Captain Underpants, and Misogyny.  So says author Lynn Messina.  Interesting title, no?

• And since we’re on an interesting title kick, let’s throw out another one.  True or False? Multicultural Books Don’t Sell.  We’ve all heard that argument before.  Now an actual honest-to-god bookseller tackles the question.  You may normally know Elizabeth Bluemle from the ShelfTalker blog at PW, but here she’s guest talking at Lee & Low.  Cleverly, she specifies whether or not we are talking about how they don’t sell to kids or how they don’t sell to adults.  Without giving anything away, let me just say that her experiences mirror my own in the library.

In other press release news, I am shocked and appalled that I wasn’t aware of this until now.  I mean, I knew that Kate Beaton, the genius behind Hark, A Vagrant, was working on children’s books.  What I did not know was how close to fruition my dream of shelving her in my children’s sections truly was.  The Wired blog Underwire, of all places, was the one with the scoop when they interviewed Ms. Beaton.  She discusses the book, which contains her most famous creation (the fat pony) and a princess.  Says she about princesses in general, “. . . for little girls historically [princesses] are the only people like them who had any power at all. It’s not just oh, princes and dresses. It’s also, here’s a person with agency. Is she just someone who wants a pretty dress and prince? Or is she a warrior living in a battle kingdom? I think it just depends on how you depict what a princess is.”  I think we know the direction Ms. Beaton will go in.  And I waaaant it.  Thanks to Seth Fishman for the link.

• As slogans go, this might be one of my favorites: “Kill time. Make history”.  How do you mean?  Well, NYPL is looking for a few good bored folks. Say they, “The New York Public Library is training computers how to recognize building shapes and other information from old city maps. Help us clean up the data so that it can be used in research, teaching and civic hacking.”  Sometimes I just love my workplace.

• Me stuff time.  Or rather, stuff I’m doing around and about the world that you might like to attend.  You see, on November 6th I’ll be interviewing legendary graphic novelist Paul Pope at 4pm at the Mulberry Street library branch here in NYC.  If you are unfamiliar with Mr. Pope’s name, all you really need to know is that he’s a three time Eisner Award winning artist who wrote the recent GN Battling Boy and whose work is currently on display at the Society of Illustrators on their second floor (which just means I get to tell you again that you can get in for free on Tuesdays).  This event will also be free.  If you’ve ever wondered what the “Mick Jagger of graphic novels” would look like, you’ll find out soon enough.

• Also going on in NYC, they have transferred Allegra Kent’s Ballerina Swan to the stage for kids.  Makes perfect sense when you put it that way.

• This is utterly delightful.  Recently Picture Book Month’s Education Consultant Marcie Colleen contacted me with this awesome PDF entitled Picture Book Month Teacher’s Guide: Why Picture Books Belong in Our Classrooms.  It was so useful, in fact, that I tapped her for an upcoming Children’s Literary Salon about the Core Curriculum.  More about that later, though . . .

• My reaction to finding out that Henry Selick was going to direct Adam Gidwitz’s A Tale Dark and Grimm was simple.  The best possible person is doing the best possible thing and is making everyone happy in the process.  My sole concern?  Selick’s going live action on this.  What was the last live action film he directed?  Monkeybone, you say?  Ruh-roh.  Thanks to PW Children’s Bookshelf for the link.