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Got a treat for you kiddos today.  You may have seen that charming It’s Kind of a Funny Story movie trailer they’ve been showing in front of films these day.  You know.  This one:

Cute.

Anyway, this film is based on a teen novel by Ned Vizzini.  And Mr. Vizzini, believe it or not, once spoke on a Children’s Literary Salon panel in my library a year or so ago.  Recently I spoke with him about how his book become a movie, and since there’s a chapter in my upcoming Candlewick book about author cameos in screen adaptations I asked if Mr. Vizzini had one of his own.  He shared with me this story, and it’s just so darn good that I had to present it to you here today with his permission.  This is pretty cool, folks.  From Ned:

“When word got out that my book It’s Kind of a Funny Story was being turned into a film, people asked me, “Will you have a cameo?” This struck everybody as a good idea, but it worried me — ideally, I don’t want anyone to come to my books with a preconceived notion of what I look like. Picture this: a reader familiar with my work drags her/his friends to the opening night of It’s Kind of a Funny Story, the film based on my novel. In the middle of the film, my dumbass face appears. The reader recognizes me and grabs her/his friends: “That’s the author!” The friends (who couldn’t care less about me) think: “So this is the doofy white guy responsible for this stuff…” Now, what if these friends are Czech? Chilean? Kiwi? What if they’re 62? 17? 45? I’m a 29-year-old Italian-WASP from Brooklyn; it’s very specific. By staying hidden, I increase my chances of a reader empathizing with my characters without prejudging me. For this reason, I took a pass on the whole film cameo thing. However, when I saw a screening of It’s Kind of a Funny Story, I was pleasantly surprised to see that in place of me, one of my books has a cameo. My second book and first novel Be More Chill (2004) is featured in a scene being read by Craig Gilner, the main character, played by Keir Gilchrist. The directors, Ryan Fleck and Anna Boden, put this “Easter egg” in the movie without telling me — I love it. Now, in my scenario, the fictional reader grabs her/his friends: “That’s the author’s other book!” And the friends know what to buy.

I did get to participate in It’s Kind of a Funny Story in two ways besides the Be More Chill Easter egg: One of the producers of the film, Ben Browning of Wayfare Entertainment, asked me in the middle of shooting, winter 2009, if I had a T-shirt with a band name on it that I could “clear” for him. He wanted a character in one scene to be wearing a band T-shirt but he didn’t want to bother the Pixies. I was happy to oblige. I had a shirt from a band I love, Drunk Horse, a San Fra

I am indebted to Jenny Schwartzberg for bringing to my attention the fact that the BBC’s extensive archives are offering up recordings of some of the great British Novelists of the past.  These are both television and radio programs and they are intoxicating.  You can hear the very voice of Virginia Woolf herself.  And on the children’s side of things, there are folks like T.H. White, J.R.R. Tolkien, and Penelope Lively.  You could get lost in there.  Thank you for bringing it to my attention, Jenny.

• New Blog Alert: And it’s a doozy too.  If you missed the fact that the magnificent Philip Nel started a blog called Nine Kinds of Pie recently, then now is the time to know.  Mr. Nel is that nice young man who teaches as a Professor of English at Kansas State University and also writes books like The Annotated Cat in the Hat and, my personal favorite, Tales for Little Rebels: A Collection of Radical Children’s Literature (that one was done with co-writer Julia L. Mickenberg, of course).  He updates his blog with frightening regularity as well.  Of course, it’s the summer.  The school year is only just now picking up.  Still, anything he cares to write is well worth your time to read.  Plus he wins an award for Best New Blog Title in our field.

• All right.  Let me see what I can do with this.  Ahem.  So Beatrix Potter was friends with Anne Carroll Moore.  Anne Carroll Moore was a famous children’s librarian who worked at the main branch of NYPL.  I am a children’s librarian who works in the main branch of NYPL.  I have seen the picture Potter gave to Ms. Moore as a gift.  Ipso facto, I’m going to weigh in on the whole Emma Thompson writing a new Peter Rabbit story news item.  I feel entirely ripped in half too.  On the one hand, I love Emma.  I honestly adore her.  I think she’s a modern marvel.  I want to be her best friend and to just listen to her talk for hours on end.  On the other hand, this marks a very bad precedent: The celebrity picture book sequel to a classic work.  No.  No no, this will not do.  We can’t have Justin Bieber writing conclusive storylines to Stuart Little or Courtney Love putting the last touch on an official return to Wonderland.  Nope.  I love you Emma, but this cannot stand.  I’m sure you’re a perfectly fine writer, but you’re making it look too enticing to the others. Thanks to @PWKidsBookshelf for the link.

• I envy not the good people charged by ALSC to regularly determine the official Great Websites for Kids as promoted by the librarians.  I’m just grateful they exist and that they’re willing to add some new additions.  Had I the power, I’d place these on my library’s children’s website pronto, if not sooner.  A magnificent resource.

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  7 Comments on Fusenews: I mean, a fear of tent worms isn’t all THAT ridiculous, right?, last added: 8/21/2010
  Display Comments
  Philip Nel said, on 8/21/2010 5:49:00 AM
  

  Thanks for the plug on the blog! Speaking of: am planning a brief post on Seuss’s advertising work later today.

  Jennifer in GA said, on 8/21/2010 7:04:00 AM
  

  I think Emma Thompson is one of the few celebrity-type people who could actually pull off writing a sequel to a classic book. She’s more of a writer-turned-actor than actor-who-wants-to-dabble-in-writing. She got her start as a comedy writer. I know it’s not the be-all and end-all, but she did win an Oscar for writing the screenplay adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, and she’s also adapted the Nanny McPhee screenplays. Even though she hasn’t published and works of fiction, I think her writing background is strong enough to do the job and do it well. Personally, I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt until she proves otherwise.

  Elizabeth Bird said, on 8/21/2010 7:10:00 AM
  

  Oh, I don’t deny that she may end up doing a stand-up job of it. I just worry that it sets a bad example for other celebrities. They’ll eye Emma’s work, forget the whole she’s-also-a-real-writer element, and try doing the same thing themselves. *shudder*

  rams said, on 8/21/2010 8:24:00 AM
  

  That Viewmaster Alice looks like The Lonely Doll Goes Anti-Grav.

  mhg said, on 8/21/2010 8:29:00 AM
  

  Emma Thompson already has work that sets her salary in the millions. She was “asked” to do this. Meanwhile, the usual meme for authors is that we do not make money at our profession (heard it again right there in your seminar this month BB). Publishers are telling authors to have low expectations while the jobs go to people who are not in the business and already have jobs. WTH?????? Let’s stop the poverty meme to authors and get some reality, folks.

  Tricia said, on 8/21/2010 11:25:00 AM
  

  The voice of Virginia Woolf! I don’t get the feeling she’d have enjoyed making podcasts.

  lisainberlin said, on 8/21/2010 4:37:00 PM
  

  http://www.heimel-dias.de/marchen/

  The viewmaster picture reminded me tiny boxes I found at the fleamarket here with slide rolls. Held up to the light, I realized they were fairy tales! They were popular in East Germany. The artwork on the ones featured on the website above is worth a check-out. Just click on the name of the fairy tale (sorry, the site is just in German). Weiter means continue. Have fun!

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So I finally sat myself down and watched the Diary of a Wimpy Kid movie the other day.  I felt properly prepared to do so.  I had read the review by Claire E. Gross over at Horn Book.  I had read The Wimpy Kid Movie Diary.  I was pumped.  I was ready.  So my husband and I sat down with the original book in front of us and popped in the DVD.

No one had prepared us for the invisible friend.  But I get ahead of myself.

Yes, the movie of Diary of a Wimpy Kid is a strange little mixture.  On the one hand, there is much that is admirable about it.  They actually hired kids to play kids and not 25-year-olds.  They kept referring back to the book, in an almost fearful way.  You got the sense that they understood perfectly how holy a text this was and that the only way they were going to get kids on their side would be by going back to it over and over again.  And they did something that I rather hoped for.  When I originally heard that the film was going to be live action I prayed that it would skew closer to those bizarre films of the 1980s like Better Off Dead than current and contemporary children’s films (like, say, Cats & Dogs).  To my delight, I sort of got my wish.  Like weirdo 80s films there were some animated sequences worked in there.  There were also moments of pure ridiculousness, like the just-be-yourself informational video the kids are forced to watch that makes beautiful fun of 1980s tropes and fashions.

Unfortunately, that wonderful sequence led to one of the problems with the movie.  Hollywood just wasn’t prepared for Greg Heffley.  When Greg watches the ridiculous film he sees with a mild sneer that Rowley and Fregley have both been deeply touched.  This leads him to think to himself that he’s going to follow the film’s advice, which is an incredibly not-Greg thing to do.  The reason kids like the book is that Greg is unapologetic in his awfulness.  He’s often punished for it, but not always.  So that sequence where Greg lets Rowley take the hit for something he himself did is in the film.  And when his mother says he should “do the right thing” and he does . . . by not fessing up, that too is in the film.  But then the message is reversed entirely.  Greg confesses to the crime.  He continues to feel bad.  Hollywood cannot cope with a child that doesn’t have a sterling conscience hidden away somewhere.  In her review, Ms. Gross put it best when she said, “The screenwriters seem torn between making Greg more sympathetic, and making the world less cruel.”

But this is not a huge problem and one might still enjoy the movie in spite of this new version of Greg.  No, my problem with the film was the invisible friend.

I explain.

Though I have no proof of any of this, here is how I believe the production of Diary of a Wimpy Kid went down.  The film was finished to some extent and previewed to The Powers That Be.  TPTB took one look at it and said, “It’s great, but boy there just aren’t any girls in there right?”  Someone might have pointed out the presence of the mom and Patty, but for the most part that’s correct.  “Yeah.  So, here’s what I’m thinking.  Why don’t we just reshoot a whole bunch of these scenes and add in this new girl character.  We’ll make it that Chloe Moretz girl.  S