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“Chim, chimney, chim, chimney, chim, chim, cher-ee!” A display of rare Mary Poppins-related items has opened at the New York Public Library.

This character stars in an eight-book series by writer and actress P.L. Travers (with artwork by artist Mary Shepard). Some of the pieces on display include Travers’ umbrella, a Dutch wooden doll that served as a model for the book illustrations, and an \"N is for Nursery\" pen and ink drawing.

Visitors will be able to find this program at the children’s room of the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building. This display will be on view until the Fall time.

Shout-out to my buddy Haddon Kime.  The man wrote the music and lyrics for a new musical version of The Snow Queen now playing at the San Jose Repertory Theatre with dreams of Broadway.  Years ago he created the opening music and words for my now long dead podcast.  It’s great seeing his star on the rise.  This past Christmas we discussed various children’s versions of the Hans Christian Andersen tale, including this year’s by Bagram Ibatoulline (which he hadn’t seen) and Breadcrumbs (which he thinks is brilliant).  This is a tiny look at the production but I do love that in this Steampunky SQ the little robber girl gets to sing a punk rock song.  Awesome.  She has always been my favorite character anyway.

Small children standing on chairs.  If book trailers need anything more than this, I don’t want to hear about it.  Here we have fantastic MG author N.D. Wilson’s daughter reading his self-published (and, if I hear correctly, soon to be professionally published) picture book Hello, Ninja.

Of course I can’t link to a video by N.D. Wilson without thinking of that AMAZING one he created years ago for the first Ashtown Burials book.  I was reminded of that video when I saw this recent one for Cragbridge Hall: The Inventor’s Secret by Chad Morris.  Many of us only DREAM of having a trailer of this caliber for our own titles:

With the advent of Saving Mr. Banks, some of you may be curious about the real P.L. Travers.  Fortunately it looks as if the documentary P.L. Travers: The Real Mary Poppins is available through YouTube.  Here’s the first part:

And for today’s off-topic video, special thanks to Gregory K for this one. It looks like the world’s most ambitious flashmob. It’s not. The amount of attention paid to facial hair should have given that much away.

Loved the live chicken.

• It’s been a good week and it’s only Thursday!  I’ve cooed and oohed and aahed over NYPL’s 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing 2013 list before.  Nothing new to say  . . . or is there?  I don’t suppose you happened to see NPR’s interactive booklist consisting of their Best Books of 2013 (in a rare moment of bliss, I like all their children’s book choices though some diversity wouldn’t have been out of place).  Well, NYPL took one look at that list and thought, “Heck. We can do that.”  And so they did!  Meet the Interactive Books List of NYPL.  It’s gorgeous.  It’s user friendly.  It’s the only place you can find animated Melissa Sweet.  Overall, I rather love it.  Hope you do too.

• In other best book news, Colby Sharp and Donalyn Miller teamed up at BuzzFeed and produced a list of 20 of the Best Children’s Books 2013.  And AGAIN I like all the choices.  Do you know how rare this is?  Extra points for including Donner Dinner Party.  Love that thing.  Love anyone who includes it on a list.

• Having trouble keeping track of all the Best Of lists out there?  Mr. Schu’s your man.  Thanks to him, we now have a nicely compiled 2013 Best Books Lists posting.  It’s very attractive.  Of course, if you want the most complete listing out there, there’s no better place to go than Chicken Spaghetti.  The information is AMAZING over there.

• A lot has been said lately about how big Best lists of children’s books this year have neglected to include any Latino characters (NPR and The New York Times most notably).  Perfect timing then for the 2014 Reading Challenge suggested by Latin@s in Kid Lit.  Take a look at the guidelines and join, but seriously?  One book a month?  I think you can handle that.  They even have some suggestions to start you off (yay, Nino!).

• And, of course, if you read only one Best list, read the 100 Scope Notes highly hilarious Year in Miscellanea.  Plus he mentions my superfluous little cupcake.  Quoth he it’s, “the Axl Rose Hair Metal hair of picture book cover cupcakes.”  You’re just going to have to read his piece to understand what that means.

• SLJ posted The Fault in Our Stars movie poster yesterday.  And you know what?  I love that tagline.

Here’s the trailer for Saving Mr. Banks, the fictionalized Disney-produced account of the relationship between Walt Disney and Mary Poppins creator P.L. Travers. The film, which stars Tom Hanks as Disney and Emma Thompson as Travers, is scheduled for release on December 13. It’s unclear what the studio is attempting to achieve by making this film, but if the cornball trailer is any indication, it’s unlikely to make a dent in addressing the studio’s Walt Disney image problem.

Lest we forget that book banning and free speech issues are conversational topics appropriate beyond the brackets of Banned Books Week, a recent news item has me lost for words.  A federal appeals court has ruled, and this is true, that an Ohio high school teacher “has no First Amendment right to make assignments about book-banning or to select particular books for her students.”  Come again?  Well apparently a teacher decided to do an assignment on banned books with her class (of high school students, recall).  So they each picked a book that had been banned. . . and then their parents found out.  So because she was distributing racy literature like, oh say, Heather Has Two Mommies, the teacher’s contract was not renewed and she lost her appeal.  You may read more about the case here.  Thanks to Leslea Newman for the links.

• Now that’s interesting.  I had not heard that Jacqueline Woodson’s novel Locomotion had been turned into a stage play.  Once in a while a book to theater adaptation just makes perfect sense.  This is one of those cases.  I suppose verse novels make excellent adaptations.  Huh!  Food for thought.

• Funniest dang thing I’ve seen all day.  Bar none.

• Feeling the absence of my Top 100 Novels poll results?  Well, much of my information came from Anita Silvey.  Now Anita turns it all around by starting a blog of her own.  Called Book-A-Day Almanac, the premise is that she will recommend a children’s book every day for a year.  At the end of the year, she’ll then turn those posts into a book.  Shoot.  That’s a good idea.  Clearly I’ve got to get around to turning my own polls into books.  Thanks to 100 Scope Notes for the link.

• I really like this habit I’ve gotten into, doing audible reviews of books for the Katie Davis podcast Brain Burps About Books.  In a given year I can properly review only so many books.  Katie’s site allows me to give some weight and consideration to I might otherwise have to ignore, like Kimberly Willis Holt’s gorgeous The Water Seeker.  That’s this week’s review on Katie’s newest podcast 6 Comments on Fusenews: I speak for the trees . . . and oatmeal, last added: 11/1/2010