Durn. This is what I get for not doing a Fusenews in a while. A whole plethora of good stuff! Let’s see what we can use up in a single day, eh?
For the record, if you haven’t read these Hunger Games comics (in the style of Kate Beaton, no?) then now’s the time. They’re surprisingly good.
Good old poetry month. From spine poems to 30 Poets / 30 Days the celebrations are magnificent. Go ye, seek out and find.
- I won’t normally link to podcasts but this recent Scriptnotes that covers how a screenwriter options a novel he wants to adapt includes a discussion of older children’s books that were considered for screen adaptation. FYI!
- On the one hand they’re 9 Barbies Based on Books. On the other hand, if that Edward doesn’t sparkle and glow in the dark then I hope the people who purchased him got their money back. Thanks to bookshelves of doom for the link.
- When I worked the reference desk I got a lot of Stumpers. Folks would ask me to come up with a beloved book from their childhood and I would try to figure it out. If I couldn’t find it I’d take down all their information and ask PUBYAC on their behalf. If that didn’t work I’d suggest Loganberry Books, even though they charge money. Would that I had known about Whatsthatbook.com. A free site where folks post their stumpers and other folks answer them, it’s pretty cool. Sometimes I just like hearing the wacky descriptions. Current favorite: “Young girl reading to an older lady, girl almost gets caught in quicksand”. I hate it when that happens.
- Hello, under-a-rock denizens. J.K. Rowling’s newest book is going to be released. Hope you like community politics!!!
- Do Childish People Write Better Children’s Books? Dude, if you want to walk up to Maurice Sendak and inform him that he is childish, be my guest. I’m just gonna go hide behind this sturdy concrete pillar over here until the spatter of your remains stops with the spattering.
Actually, that little icon here is a touch misleading, but I took it since it talks about our first news item of the day. This l’il here ole blog got itself nominated for an Edublog Award, which is mighty nice. SLJ wrote an article about me and my fellow nominees, Joyce Valenza’s NeverEndingSearch, Karyn Silverman and Sarah Couri’s Some Day My Printz Will Come, and Angela Carstensen’s Adult Books 4 Teens. I’m in the Best Individual Blog category along with Joyce. Let’s face it, though. Joyce actually does discuss education on a regular basis (far more than I do), which is the point of the award as I see it. Therefore, if you’d stop over and vote for her along with my other nominees (preferably before the 13th), I’d appreciate it.
- Speaking of accomplished folks getting noticed, our own Mary Ann Scheuer of Great Kid Books (I call her “our own” since she speaks at Kidlitosphere Conferences regularly) spoke on Boston’s NPR show Here & Now about book apps for kids. Woman knows her stuff.
- Marjorie Ingall manages to locate two wall decals of infinite peculiarity. One is just weird. The other will undoubtedly be the bane of many a child’s life, possibly haunting them well into their adulthood. Fun!
- So what, precisely, is up with that The Graveyard Book movie? Waking Brain Cells has the skinny.
Let’s chalk this next one up to Books for Adults That Look Like They’re For Kids. I am speaking, naturally, about Honey Badger Don’t Care by Randall. Oh, it may look like children’s fare, but if you’re familiar with the YouTube sensation (I only recently learned about it myself, so don’t feel bad if you haven’t seen it) then you’ve got the gist of the book. Long story short, it has nothing to do with James Odone’s far sweeter picture book Honey Badgers.
- It’s one thing to find out that your childhood idol and author is still alive. It’s another thing entirely to give that person the respect and honor they never found on his own. Marc Tyler Nobleman
Howdy, folks. I’m starting off today with a little podcast-related item. Back in the day I tried podcasting for sport. It was fun (I had my own intro music and everything) but after a while it became clear that podcasting is a labor of love best left to the professionals with their prodigious editing skills, like the old Just One More Book site. More recently I’ve contributed reviews to the remarkable Katie Davis Brain Burps About Books (more about that in a sec). Today, however, I am pleased as punch to reveal that I was recently the guest host on the Read It and Weep podcast. They made me an offer I couldn’t refuse: Name a bad children’s book and they would read it and discuss it with me. Well, I gave them the worst I could think of (you can guess what it was) and it was SO bad that they told me they couldn’t do it. Instead, we decided to turn our attention to the good old Triumvirate of Mediocrity (copyright Jane Yolen for the term): The Giving Tree, Rainbow Fish, and Love You Forever. Even if you like one of these, it is physically impossible to love all three. Take a listen to our discussion about the gleesome threesome. Odds are, you’ll never think of them quite the same way again.
- In other podcast news, the aforementioned Katie Davis has managed to compile a Library Love segment of her own podcast that is so o’erfilled with fantastic authors that you know and love that you’ll find yourself throwing fistfuls of money at your nearest library branch within minutes. The full list of participants and the podcast itself can be found here.
- There are many ways in which to take the news that you’ve been nominated for a big award. Barry Deutsch’s? The best. Bar none.
- True credit to Phil Nel. Hard to top a blog post that has the title Vandalizing James Marshall. Rather than discuss cases where folks have drawn bras on Martha (oh, you know it must happen) Phil is referring to the panned and scanned version of Marshall’s The Three Little Pigs in which the images have been truncated or removed altogether. It’s pretty horrific, Phil’s right. Particularly when you consider that this is James Marshall we’re talking about. Shame.
Sometimes I don’t pay proper attention. That&rsqu
Nice movie poster, right? Wouldn’t look too shabby in your local cineplex. Well, don’t get too excited quite yet. It seems that Sean Astin (a.k.a. Sam from the Lord of the Rings trilogy) is raising money to start production on this film, to be shot in Denmark. Lowry reports on the process, though she is understandably leery since she saw what happened with The Giver film. Which is to say, not much. Thanks to Marjorie Ingall for the link.
There’s nothing like going viral to sell a book or two. Though The Order of Odd-Fish by James Kennedy came out a good three years ago, thanks to the 90-Second Newbery film of A Wrinkle in Time it caught the attention of Cory Doctorow over at BoingBoing. And I like to write reviews, but I feel true green-eyed review envy when I read someone write a descriptive sentence like, “An epic novel of exotic pie, Götterdämmerung, mutants, evil, crime, and musical theater, Odd-Fish is a truly odd fish, as mannered and crazy as an eel in a tuxedo dropped down your trousers during a performance of The Ring Cycle.” Geez, Cory. Make it hard for the rest of us, why doncha? In any case, you Chicago folks might want to attend Mr. Kennedy’s Odd-Fish Art Show to be held in a creepy old mansion. He says of one room, “full of antique printing presses, priceless art, unclassifiable knickknacks, and so much garbage it’s like the trash compactor scene from Star Wars.” He ain’t wrong either.
- For some reason I feel inclined to keep a close eye on children’s book apps these days. I don’t know exactly why this is. I just have a feeling they’re going to be more important than we initially expect later on down the road. It’s hard to figure out what’s actually important and what’s just self-promoting dribble, though. I mean, I’m pretty sure the new Kirkus App Discovery Engine is important, but it’s hard to say. Monica Edinger, therefore, did me a bit of a favor when she presented her recent round-up of app news on her Huffington Post blog. Makes for good reading.
- Recently Mr. Mo Willems had his picture taken. It was not the first time. It was not even the first time he’d been to that particular photographer. But it was the first time I’d been made aware of the photographer Marty Umans. Mr. Umans happens to have photographed quite a few children’s literary folks, including Mr. Mo, Harry Bliss, Raul Colon, Randall de Seve, and more. You can see a whole host of them here. Thanks to Mr. Mo for the link.
Durn. This is what I get for not doing a Fusenews in a while. A whole plethora of good stuff! Let’s see what we can use up in a single day, eh?
It’s crazy the things we have to do to get our books noticed!
One more site for lost books is abebooks.com…..they have a “booksleuth” section that works pretty much like whatsthatbook…it’s free too!
A little story about that Santorum book…
The year: 2002. My good friend (and old college roommate) Sam was doing all the design, layout, and illustrations for Karen Santorum’s book “Everyday Graces.” The book is intended to be similar to The Book of Virtues, but organized around manners. So it’s a collection of stories… a chapter from The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe leads into a short commentary about table manners. A chapter from Winnie the Pooh leads into a little discussion about the art of invitation writing. It’s all selections from classic stories like Frog and Toad, Little Women, and The Secret Garden.
At the time, I am simply a graphic designer, but my friend Sam knows I’d love to write children’s books. So he tells me that since he’s putting the book together, he can slip in one of my stories. I send him a little nonsense story I’d written, and he even works up an illustration for it. So in the end, “Everyday Graces” contains 180 previously published works by folks like Robert Louis Stevenson, LM Montgomery, Lewis Carroll, Beatrix Potter… and a single, solitary original work by Aaron Zenz – snuck in at the last minute by his old college roommate.
My first published writing.
My mom has a Holly Golightly Barbie. Does it count if the Barbie is obviously based on movie-Holly rather than book-Holly?
http://i2.listal.com/image/2956694/400full.jpg
Get. Out. Of. Town.
@Aaron–dude, that’s hilarious.
I know I am a little behind in reading your posting but there was the long flight from London to SF and that awful thing called jet lag but I wanted to tell you I have a Curious George Barbie complete with George himself, though he is quite small. My first (and only) Barbie. And I met the real Barbie gal about 38 yrs ago when I worked for Mattel toy co. Didn’t get a Barbie then (or want one) until about 25 years later when I found C. G. Barbie. I might be a little old for dolls, but for George I made an exception.