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2014 marked a distinct increase in attention spent on children’s books with diverse characters. However, this is not to say that all books with diverse characters got the same amount of attention.  Take, for example, Saving Baby Doe by Danette Vigilante.  It was one of the only middle grade books in 2014 to sport a Latino boy protagonist (go on . . . name me two others in 2014).  It had great writing as well, so why has almost no one talked about it?  NYPL put it on their 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing list and recently our local station NY1 interviewed Staten Island resident Ms. Vigilante about the book in our Stapleton branch.  Watch carefully and you may see me in my cameo role as “New York Public Library” itself.

You better watch out, you better not cry. You better not pout, I’m telling you why. 90-SECOND NEWBERY FILM FESTIVAL IS COMING TO TOWN!!!  You can see the full listing of where the festival is headed here.  In the meantime, here’s one of the new videos.  Is it bad that it actually scared me?  It’s a bunch of kids doing The Graveyard Book (The Dance Macabray as kickline = inspired) but I had the same reaction to it that I had to Shaun of the Dead.  I honestly found parts of it (the sleer) scary.  I is wimp!!

Maybe I’ve been reading The Lorax to my kiddo too much but you know what this is, don’t you?

It’s a Thneed! Thanks to Aunt Judy for the video.

Have you seen the latest trailer for a new version of The Little Prince?  For the first 30 seconds or so of this you’re going to be confused, possibly angry.  Stick with it.  Please.

Beats Bob Fosse as The Snake, anyway.  Then again, points docked for not having any Gene Wilder. (Fun Fact: Most movies are docked points for this very reason)

No no no no no. Not allowed.  I call foul.  Illustrators have enough talent as it is.  They are NOT allowed to also be excellent authors and even if they happen to be precisely that they are NOT allowed to have pitch perfect voices that can read selections from their books with all the vocal skills of the highest paid celebrity.  Back you go, Chris Riddell.  Ply your magic dulcet tones elsewhere.

A Reading with Chris Riddell: The Wyrmeweald Trilogy – Returner’s Wealth from Beth Sabey on Vimeo.

At this point there are too many fantastic 2015 picture books out there to tell you about.  Thank goodness some of them make book trailers, then.  For example, have you heard about Kathi Appelt’s fabulous When Otis Courted Mama, illustrated by Jill McElmurry?  If not then remedy is at hand:

Now another trailer.  As blurbs go, “This book smells great” may be my pick of the week.

And for the off-topic video of the day, it’s a Swing vs. Hip Hop dance off from Montreal.  As my friend Marci put it, “the first swing round is sort of meh but it gets better.”

Thanks to Marci for the link.

Rgz SALON member Lyn Miller-Lachmann has been the Editor-in-Chief of MultiCultural Review; the author of the award-winning multicultural bibliography Our Family, Our Friends, Our World; the editor of Once Upon a Cuento, a collection of short stories by Latino authors; and most recently, the author of Gringolandia, a young adult novel about a refugee family living with the aftermath of the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile. The book is in its third print run and is available for order. (Don't forget to read the fascinating Cover Story for Gringolandia.)

We're honored to have Lyn here as part of the rgz SALON, a feature where top kidlit experts clue us in to the best YA novels they've read recently. Today, she reviews Camo Girl by Kekla Magoon (Simon & Schuster, 2011) and The Trouble With Half a Moon by Danette Vigilante (Putnam, 2011):

"In the first year of my MFA program, I wrote a YA novel about a 14-year-old girl who takes a number of risks in order to help a boy she wants as a friend. As a result of my own project, I’ve been drawn recently to novels about other tween and teen girls who also get involved in the troubled and perhaps dangerous lives of younger boys. Two of those books, Kekla Magoon’s Camo Girl and Danette Vigilante’s The Trouble with Half a Moon portray young protagonists who are, like mine, biracial or bicultural.

Magoon’s second novel, following the acclaimed The Rock and the River, explores a 12-year-old girl’s conflict between her loyalty to her oldest friend and her one chance to become popular. Shunned by most of her classmates and teased for her vitiligo, more visible because it’s on her face and she’s biracial—African American and white—sixth grader Ella Cartwright finds companionship in Z, a white boy who lives in a fantasy world. Z used to be Ella’s neighbor and consoled her when her f

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