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Ape Entertainment has kind of been MIA for a while, but they are still around and just announced a partnership with Sesame Workshop, and three Sesame Street comics featuring Elmo, Big Bird, Cookie Monster and the rest of the crew. (No Maria?) Another Sunny Day (October 28), Blast from the Past (November 23), and Many Friendly Neighbors (January 1) are stand alone periodical comics aimed at the preschool crowd.

The We Need Diverse Books campaign has kicked it up a notch with an Indiegogo campaign. They’re raising money to support authors, diversify classrooms, develop educational kits, promote diverse programming, you name it.  As of my writing this they are $40,000 or so away from their goal.  Check it out:

Diverse Campaign w Thanks Card from Undercurrent on Vimeo.

And now for something completely different.  Cookie Monster has parodied Harry Potter and Hunger Games (not to mention Star Wars).  Dare we hope Twilight is on the horizon?  Because I would pay a lot of money to hear him say, “Climb onto me back, little spider monkey.”

It was Travis at 100 Scope Notes who alerted me to the Vine illustrator videos at The Guardian.  There are lots there to choose from so I had a hard time figuring out which one to show here.  In the end I went with James Mayhew.  Lovely stuff.

Thanks to Travis for the link!

Moomins! Rivera Moomins! In Finnish, yes? Beautifully done.

By the way, when I die I’m coming back as one of Aaron Zenz’s kids.  A strange ambition but after watching this video can you blame me?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WNNJGJqnCA

I don’t think I need to tell you children’s librarians out there what a perfect fall craft this would be.  And talk about cheap!  Here are some additional photos of their creations.  These kids once did some Giant Dance Party fan art that I treasure to this day.  And as a side note, how cool is it that they watched Exit Through the Gift Shop as a family?

All I can say about this next Alice in Wonderland inspired video is that I am SO grateful I didn’t watch this while on any kind of drugs.  Lordy.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TGfNSitVQFM&feature=embed

Thanks to Marci for the link.

I don’t think I need remind any of you that this past week BookOps (the combined technical services of New York Public Library and Brooklyn Public Library) engaged in a sort-off with the Kings County Library system. You were all watching the play by play on your phones, right? Right? No? Hm. Well, in any case, I am happy to report that this year we won our trophy back.  It was a close race but that’s how we get it DONE, SON!  Now you can see this drone video of our freakin’ awesome sorter here, but if you’d like to check out the competition the following video shows a sorter very much like our own (and a Collection Specialist doing my job to a tee).

Granted, we don’t have a machine named “Mustang” in our building, but we’re still pretty cool.

I agree with Jezebel that Samuel Jackson’s reading of Go the F*** to Sleep is as good as it gets, but LeVar Burton reading it fulfills some deep hitherto unknown need in my soul. Do I really have to warn you about the language in this?

As for our off-topic videos, this one got me to thinking about how these goofy little internet videos often strip down a famous song to its most essential elements, and make it clear how strong the original melody really was.  I think it was Weird Al who pointed out that he could only parody songs that had a distinctive melody. Case in point:

A veritable plethora of dancing librarians greet you this weekend.  Now I’ll be the first to say that if you’re going to have librarians or library patrons dancing in a video then the video has to be pretty darn impressive in some way.  Life’s too short otherwise.  But thing is, these folks are pretty extraordinary.  Take, for example, this one from the Texas A&M University libraries as a kind of orientation to their services.  Sure, the song’s been overdone but at least they gave it a bit of class:

Thanks to mom for the link.

Then there’s Nashville.  I just had the pleasure of speaking alongside my co-author Julie Danielson (of Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast fame) at the Southern Festival of the Book.  While there I had time enough to catch one quick sneaky peek at their library.  It’s a lucky thing I didn’t see any of their librarians or I was have fangirled out on them after watching this video.  I’m a sucker for a talented hand puppet artist:

Then, in other news, old timey footage.  The deeply amusing Lemony Snicket video.  The YOU CHOOSE THE MYSTERY campaign has begun.  Beguiled? Entranced? Confounded?  You will be:

Start following the mystery here.  It’s like that old Choose Your Own Adventure series except, y’know.  Less disembowling.

While I am indeed the mother of a 3-year-old I’ll confess that when it comes to contemporary children’s television programming I’m more liable to pull out the classic Electric Company / Sesame Street / School House Rock DVDs than turn on something from the 21st century.  Still, I’ve succumbed to the lures of Daniel Tiger (extemporized upon here) but I’ve only dipped a toe in current Sesame Street schtoof.  Maybe that’s why I was so shocked when I saw today’s video.  Cookie has always spoofed contemporary film (Chariots of Fur, anyone?) but rarely so in-depth.  Wowza.

While not strictly children’s book related, regarding the book as object is certainly of any interest to those parents, teachers, and librarians dealing with kids who put their books through the paces physically.  Plus Chronicle does the best videos so I’d be amiss in not posting this:

Neil Numberman (with whom I am in competition for Best Alliterative Picture Book Author Name… and he’s winning) takes on the arduous process of creating a picture book cover and turns it into time lapse art. Behold:

How to Make a Children’s Book Cover (in 1:16) from Neil Numberman on Vimeo.

Hat tip to Greenwillow Books for the link.

And while Banned Books Week may have gone, as long as banning continues so too will the need for remarkably sane (and fun) little videos like this one from Dav Pilkey calling for just a little common sense:

And finally, for today’s off-topic video, Michael Arndt turned my attention to this little beauty.  It’s The Missing Scarf, a multiple award winning short film that feels, at first anyway, like a picture book.  Stick with it.  As it continues you start to really get into the feel (and George Takei should, insofar as I can tell, narrate everything in this world from here on in).  I should warn some of you that in spite of its fluffy feel, the ending would prove a bit bleak for the younger kids so be wary and warned and enjoy!

The Missing Scarf from Eoin Duffy on Vimeo.

Jessica Barbour

Marilyn Horne, world-renowned opera singer and recitalist, celebrated her 84th birthday on Wednesday. To acknowledge her work, not only as one of the finest singers in the world but as a mentor for young artists, I give you one of my favorite performances of hers:

Click here to view the embedded video.

Sesame Street has always been a powerful advocate for utilizing music in teaching. “C is for Cookie,” a number that really drives its message home, maintains its cultural relevance today despite being first performed by Cookie Monster more than 40 years ago. Ms. Horne’s version appeared about 20 years after the original, and is an excellent re-imagining of a classic (with great attention to detail—note the cookies sewn into her Aida regalia and covering the pyramids).

Horne’s performance shows kids that even a musician of the highest caliber can 1) be silly and 2) also like cookies—that is, it portrays her as a person with something in common with a young, broad audience. This is something that members of the classical music community often have a difficult time accomplishing; Horne achieves it here in less than three minutes.

Fortunately, many professional classical musicians have embraced this strategy. Representatives of the opera world (which is not known for being particularly self-aware) have had a particularly strong presence on Sesame Street, with past episodes featuring Plácido Domingo (singing with his counterpart, Placido Flamingo), Samuel Ramey (extolling the virtues of the letter “L”), Denyce Graves (explaining operatic excess to Elmo), and Renée Fleming (counting to five, “Caro nome” style).

Sesame Street produced these segments not only to expose children to distinguished music-making, but to teach them about matters like counting, spelling, working together, and respecting one another. This final clip features Itzhak Perlman, one of the world’s great violin soloists, who was left permanently disabled after having polio as a child. To demonstrate ability and disability more gracefully than this would be, I think, impossible:

Click here to view the embedded video.

American children’s music, as described in the new article on Grove Music Online [subscription required], has typically been produced through a tug of war between entertainment and educational objectives. The songs on Sesame Street succeed in both, while also showing kids something about classical music itself: it’s not just for grownups. It’s a part of life that belongs to everyone. After all, who doesn’t appreciate that the moon sometimes looks like a “C”? (Though, of course, you can’t eat that, so…)

Jessica Barbour is the Associate Editor for Grove Music/Oxford Music Online. You can read her previous blog posts, “Foil thy Foes with Joy,” “Glissandos and Glissandon’ts,” and “Wedding Music” and learn more about children’s music, Marilyn Horne, Itzhak Perlman, and other performers mentioned above with a subscription to Grove Music Online.

Oxford Music Online is the gateway offering users the ability to access and cross-search multiple music reference resources in one location. With Grove Music Online as its cornerstone, Oxford Music Online also contains The Oxford Companion to Music, The Oxford Dictionary of Music, and The Encyclopedia of Popular Music.

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The post C is for Coloratura appeared first on OUPblog.

When my son was very young, nothing could make him come running faster than the cry of-- "COOKIES!!!" We still laugh about that. And not surprisingly, he loves to bake. (Which is wonderful, except for when he goes off to school and I'm here at home with the... cookies...)

At long last, I am very happy to welcome the WorldCat blog into the family. Many of you met Jasmine at the last Blog Salon, and if you haven't yet--you might have seen her on the road talking about social networking and WorldCat.

She just made her inaugural post to the WorldCat blog (full disclosure--I am on the WorldCat blog team, too.) with a classic Sesame Street YouTube video of Cookie Monster in the library. I love it!
(And after you watch it, you'll no longer marvel at why the library brand=books!)