UNHAPPILY EVER AFTER The Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Medals are the oldest and most prestigious of UK children’s book awards. Both winners this year have less-than-happy endings. The Bunker Diary by Kevin Brooks picked up the Carnegie and will soon be available for US readers in spring 2015 – it was just acquired by Carolrhoda Lab. [...]
GIANT UNDERPANTS GET MORE GIANT Captain Underpants is headed to the silver screen, and all you have to do is wait until 2017 to see it. Ed Helms has signed on to voice the Captain. Click here to read more. (Thanks to EarlyWord for the link) SUMMER PREDICTIFYING As is her way, Fuse #8 Production recently put up [...]
THE HEIGHT OF POPULARITY I love seeing the most popular books at other school libraries. Mr. Schu has his final checkout stats for the 2013-14 campaign at Watch. Connect. Read. Click here for Part 1. Click here for Part 2. ERIC HILL 1927-2014 Sad news. The creator of Spot the Dog has passed away. A.V. [...]
WHAT’S NEXT THIS SUMMER? Waking Brain Cells has a roundup of the Top 10 books on the Kids’ Next Summer ’14 list (and a link to see all the recommended titles). Click here to see them. TTYL MOON In “Hey, look at this” news…The Huffington Post with Here’s What Would Happen If Your Favorite Children’s [...]
A brief Morning Notes today… READ A #BOOKADAY For the sixth year going, Donalyn Miller encourages you to read a book a day over the summer. To a somewhat lesser extent, she also encourages you to take a nap a day. I support both. Click here to read. EXERCISE VS. READING? Why not bring your [...]
STEVEN SPIELBERG MEETS ROALD DAHL If a children’s book is going to be turned into a movie, can you do any better than Steven Spielberg directing? Yes, in fact – you can have Melissa Mathison (the screenwriter responsible for E.T.) to handle the script. Click here for more details. DON’T HOP ON POP My friend [...]
CONTROVERSY An article titled It’s no wonder boys aren’t reading – the children’s book market is run by women is, as you might expect, causing quite a stir. Publishing Perspectives wrote a piece on the article. Bloggers have responded as well, including Waking Brain Cells with a post titled Boys, Reading, and Mysogynistic Crap. CHILDREN’S [...]
It was Bookshelves of Doom who alerted me to the just-released list of the most challenged books of 2013. Here are the top five: 1. Captain Underpants (series) by Dav Pilkey Reasons: Offensive language, unsuited for age group, violence 2. The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, [...]
LIKE NAILS ON A BOOK COVER At my wizened age, I’m coming to realize I’m a process nerd. I love it when something goes from “cool” to “AMAZING!” when you find out how it was made. And that, my friends, is exactly what happened when I saw these new Puffin Chalks over at Caustic Cover [...]
WHAT SOLD IN 2013? Publisher’s Weekly puts numbers to names, listing the best selling children’s books of last year. You can guess #1? Can you guess the first picture book on the list? Click here to read. CHILDREN’S LIT ON THE AIRWAVES On a recent episode of On Point, Tom Ashbrook talks to LeVar Burton, [...]
THE STATE OF THE PICTURE BOOK Children’s publishing legend Neal Porter (he of Neal Porter Books at Roaring Brook Press) took part in a fascinating interview with children’s lit historian Leonard S. Marcus for Horn Book. Their back and forth about the state of the picture book was the best thing I read all week. [...]
SO NEW I love checking out the annual Publishers Weekly Fall Sneak Peeks, a lengthy list of children’s books on the horizon. All kinds of exciting stuff coming. Click here to take a look. YOU CAN’T DO THAT IN AMERICA Sometimes, it takes a French children’s literature controversy to remind us just how different our [...]
NOTABLES NOTED The 2014 ALSC Notable Children’s books list came out a couple weeks back, and I always check to make sure I have all these books on our shelves. Waking Brain Cells has a nice visual roundup of the list. Click here for Middle Reader Notables Click here for Younger Reader Notables NOT BOARD [...]
KUMBAYA, MY NERDS, KUMBAYA I attended NerdCampMI last year and left singing. It was my first “unconference” experience and it was spectacular. So many great people attended, all in the name of literacy and sharing ideas. Colby Sharp just announced that registration is open for the 2014 edition of NerdCampMI, and I wholeheartedly recommend you [...]
Recent Comments