Absolutely Fabulous Video about the BoB!

Check out the lyrics and a bit about how they did it here.

Obama and Sendak

Check out  this article which includes video of Obama reading Where the Wild Things Are at today’s White House Easter Egg Roll Monday.  Lovely.

SLJ’s Battle of the (Kids’) Books Begins with a Bang

Call off all bets. Children’s book ambassador Jon Scieszka left little doubt that School Library Journal’s first annual Battle of the (Kids’) Books won’t be business as usual. Scieszka, part of a panel of 15 children’s book authors that will determine the contest’s winner, immediately knocked Neil Gaiman’s The Graveyard Book, this year’s Newbery Medal winner, right out of the running. To learn more about Scieszka’s decision, visit SLJ’s Battle of the (Kids’) Books blog.

SLJ’s Battle of the (Kids’) Books Begins with a Bang – 4/13/2009 – School Library Journal

Only a Few More Hours Until the BoB Begins!

SLJ’s Battle of the (Kids’) Books starts tomorrow and I can’ t wait! I’ve had so much fun getting it up and ready (neglecting this blog, I know) and I’m confident that it will be even more fun once the matches begin.  In the meantime, we’ve got a People’s Choice Poll up and running.  So go vote for your favorite among the 16 contenders here and check out the standings here.

50 Years of Stupid Grammar Advice

The Elements of Style does not deserve the enormous esteem in which it is held by American college graduates. Its advice ranges from limp platitudes to inconsistent nonsense. Its enormous influence has not improved American students’ grasp of English grammar; it has significantly degraded it.

Geoffrey Pullum has a problem (actually several) with Strunk and White.

In the Classroom: Great Read Alouds

I was delighted to see the short list for this year’s E. B. White Read Aloud Awards. I was particularly tickled to see Zorgamazoo recognized as it is so unique that I feared it would slip under the radar.  (You can go here to read more about what I thought about this clever novel in light verse.)

Here is the complete short list:

Picture Books

A Visitor for Bear by Bonny Becker, illustrated by Kady MacDonald Denton (Candlewick)

Louise, The Adventures of a Chicken by Kate DiCamillo, illustrated by Harry Bliss (HarperCollins)

One by Kathryn Otoshi (KO Kids Books)

Too Many Toys by David Shannon (Scholastic)

Books for Older Readers

The Magic Thief by Sarah Prineas (HarperCollins)

Masterpiece by Elise Broach, illustrated by Kelly Murphy (Henry Holt)

The Willoughbys by Lois Lowry (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt)

Zorgamazoo by Robert Paul Weston, illustrated by Victor Rivas (Penguin)

In the Classroom: Reading Aloud

I do all sorts of read alouds, but the most important are the ones where I do an ongoing novel with the kids just listening and enjoying themselves. That is, they don’t have to talk (in fact often I won’t let them), answer my questions (or, worse, someone else’s say in a worksheet),  or feel an sort of obligation to do anything other than listen.  That is what I did with The Graveyard Book, The Underneath (still have to do a post about that), and now the forthcoming middle grade book by Rebecca Stead, When You Reach Me.  A sixth grade teacher after my own heart about this is Sarah at the Reading Zone who has a terrific post up today about her reading aloud beliefs and practices.

The Undead Scores Again

So what beat out underpants, more underpants, dinosaurs, a robbery, a beedle, and a fowl? A vampire, of course.

Alexander McCall Smith on Reader Needs and Demands

It can be very inhibiting for an author if he or she knows that what happens in fiction is going to be taken so seriously. I write serial novels in newspapers and have learned the hard way that people will readily attribute the views expressed by characters to their authors. In one of my “Scotland Street” novels a character called Bruce, a rather narcissistic young man, made disparaging remarks about his hometown. Although these were not the views I hold about that particular town, I was roundly taken to task, with the local member of the Scottish Parliament suggesting that I should be forced to apologize to the offended citizens. I pointed out that these were the views of a fictional character, who was just the type to make such remarks. That did not help.

It was very timely for me to come across this Alexander McCall Smith’s WSJ essay, “Lost in Fiction“  because, after seeing the excellent first episode of HBO’s No.1 Ladies’ Detective Agency, I had a hankering for the books and picked up the latest.  High class comfort reading,  I think.

British Footballers’ Favorite Reads

Rooney’s is Harry Potter, but whose is The Iliad? – News, Books – The Independent

Wonder what our footballers (and other ball players) would name?