A Few Spooky Suggestions for Neil Gaiman’s All Hallow’s Read

Betsy Bird and I had so much fun making our Last Gasp Summer Reading Video we decided to do another one — this time to promote Neil Gaiman’s fantastic All Hallow’s Read initiative. So it is now done (with another contribution by our sometimes silent partner) and you can see it for yourself at All Hallows Read: A Few Spooky Suggestions.

 

 

 

Fun with Nursery Rhymes!

I’ve the following review over at my Huffington Post blog along with a slide show of some of the panels:

Nursery rhymes tend to be relegated to the realm of the very young, remembered by adults as cute little bedtime ditties. Well let me wake you all up – First Second Books’ Nursery Rhyme Comics is indeed cute, but it is also funny, clever, and highly entertaining, filled with traditional rhymes made fresh and new. Edited by Chris Duffy (who also contributes), with an informative introduction by children’s literature historian Leonard S. Marcus, this delightful volume consists of 50 topnotch cartoonists — among them Roz Chast, Jules Feiffer, Kate Beaton, Lucy Knisley, David Macaulay, Patrick McDonnell, Tony Millionaire, Craig Thompson, Gahan Wilson, and Gene Yang — each giving their own take on a rhyme. It is definitely one of those books for all ages — parents can enjoy reading these with toddlers on their laps while older kids are bound to enjoy poking through the book on their own. Check out the slide show to get a taste!

Some Great Adult Listening Books

I live in a city and haven’t driven in a million years so I only began listening to books when I figured out that I could do so while running. While slow of foot I’m a speedy reader and have discovered that certain books work better than others listening-wise. I think one reason is that I can’t skim, can’t dash through it as I usually do when reading, and so if the book doesn’t grab me at the sentence level I drift and stop paying attention. Another important element is the narrator and I now understand when people talk with avid enthusiasm about individuals they like.Finally, a well-realized setting and a tantalizing plot (mysteries seem especially appealing in this form) also work well for me.  That said, here are a few adult titles that I’ve found especially pleasurable. Hope you add your own recommendations in the comments.

• Charles Portis’s True Grit. Excellent. Donna Tartt’s narration and essay (written originally as an introduction to a 2005 edition) are also both terrific. Thanks to the Coen brothers and the various recent articles on Portis for drawing my attention to the book. I think because I was so NOT a John Wayne fan back when the earlier movie came out nor, especially, a Western fan, I somehow missed this book completely.
• John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces.  I read this many years ago and decided to revisit it after being in New Orleans in June, this time by listening to it. It was SUPERB. In fact, I think I appreciated the sentence level writing even more today than I did years ago. The way Toole uses language is outstanding. And for me, Ignatius J. Reilly, is one of the all-time great characters in literature. I can only imagine what he’d have to say about such IM speech as OMG.
• Charles Dickens’ A Tale of Two Cities.  I’m a huge Dickens fan, but had avoided this title because I didn’t think I wanted to read about the French Revolution.  Boy, was I wrong.  I was sobbing so much at “It is a far better thing I do…” part that I had to stop running and sit on a bench till it was over.  (I’ve listened to a bunch of Dickens’ titles and they are pretty much always excellent. The only one I’ve taken a break from and I do plan to finish it eventually is Dombey and Son.)
• Wilkie Collins’ The Moonstone.  Surprisingly wonderful. After listening to it I wrote:  ”I believe it is the ur-country-house-British-mystery. I loved the different narrators, I loved the plotting, the settings, the characters — tremendous all around.” I also recommend for listening The Woman in White.
• Graham Moore’s The Sherlockian.  Since I’m part of a literary sub-culture (Carrollians) that overlaps those who love Holmes, I totally got this book. Moore captures the intensity of literary society types very well and generally created an entertaining story.  Went on to listen to a bunch of the original stories, including A Study in Scarlet (which I inadvertently began with the second part and was mighty puzzled about all the Mormon stuff until I figured out my error).

Also at the Huffington Post

My Year at the Huffington Post

I started blogging at the Huffington Post last August and I’ve enjoyed writing for their broader audience; experimenting with interviews, slide shows, and videos; and figuring out what will be of particular interest. Looking back through my archive, a few posts stand out to me for one reason or another.

Not surprisingly, celebrities and controversies got the most attention:

• What to Do About Classical Books that Are Racist
• There’s Good News and Good News About Picture Books
• My Response to Neil Gaiman’s Modest Proposal
• Did Snookie Bump Children’s Book Award Winners from the Today Show?

I’ve appreciated having a chance to get the word out about authors and books, these among many others:

• What is David Macaulay Up To?
• A Book About Children’s Books for Book Loving Adults
• Anita Silvey’s Book-A-Day Almanac
• Along Came Spider: Michael Sims’ The Story of Charlotte’s Web
• Diana Wynne Jones: An Appreciation

Then it is fun to to do the occasional oddball post, say:

• Jane Austen Goes to the Super Bowl with Rosanne Cash
• Top Ten Reasons to See How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying

And, finally, I have taken the opportunity to occasionally hold forth as a teacher:

• School’s Back; So’s Homework
• Bye-Bye Summer Reading Blues
• A Young Teacher

As I move into my second year blogging at the Huffington Post, I’m intrigued by the directions new book editor, Andrew Losowsky, may take it. Here’s an interview with him:

Some Sure-Fire Last Minute Summer Reading Suggestions

Check out this video Betsy Bird and I did over at the Huffington Post featuring a passel of tried-and-true titles for kids still finishing out their summer reading (and also for those back in school).

In the Classroom: A Young Teacher

I’ve been a classroom teacher for a long time now and am grateful to be in a school that supports and values my way of teaching. It makes me very happy to spend my days with children who are talented, creative, and eager to learn. It also makes me very happy to work with a cohort of talented and committed colleagues, veterans like me as well as those relatively new to the profession. And it is the latter I worry about when I read yet another diatribe against our profession on how we educators are failing America one way or another. Will these newer to the profession, in this time of tests and standards and accountability, still be creative teachers?  Will they be able to ignore the calls for simplistic and limited teaching?

Yes.  Yes, they can.

I think today of a young woman who came to my school five years ago as an associate teacher, working in five fourth grade classrooms. She made her mark immediately, embracing every aspect of her position. Grammar?  Deadly, right?  Not with this teacher who thought hard about it and came up with creative and innovative lessons. During recess she was eagle-eyed, paying particularly close attention to the most vulnerable students.  And when a head teaching position opened up, there was absolutely no question that she would be the one to fill it.

Over the next four years this young teacher, while being a remarkable teacher for her own students, also brought so much to the fourth grade curriculum in general.  For our study of forced immigration she developed a unit on the Gullah who have been shown to be directly linked to the people of Sierra Leone.  At her suggestion and with the school’s financial support she and another teacher went to the Gullah’s annual Heritage Days celebrations.  And she didn’t stop with that, but kept thinking and considering the way we taught immigration through the year.  At our meetings and informally she spoke about her ideas, ways of adjusting and tightening our overall social studies curriculum.  Thanks to her it is now clearer and tighter.  Connecting to language arts to the immigration theme she developed an intriguing journey assignment which she presented at the 2009 NCTE convention. Additionally, she considered and added immeasurably to other aspects of our language arts curriculum and our math as well.

Moving beyond the fourth grade this extraordinary young teacher embraced other opportunities at the school — chaperoning high school students on trips for foreign language and service learning, taking on the high school cheerleaders and making them a force to be reckoned with, and heading up the 4-6 math department among much more. Recently she received a Spirit Award from our parent association for all that she did for the school community.

And now she is —  this bright light in education — moving on.  Happily getting married this summer she is relocating and will be joining the staff of another school –fortunately one that also encourages creative and innovative teaching, one that does not ascribe to the harsh rhetoric of the times. We at my school will miss her terribly and envy her new colleagues and students who will be the recipients of her thoughtfulness, creativity, and joyful approach to learning. Still I’m gratified to know that this superb young educator will continue to prove the pundits and naysayers wrong — with her America’s children will be in good hands for years to come.

Thank you, Ms. Lesley Younge (on the left with the poet Elizabeth Alexander and myself).

Also at the Huffington Post.

Diana Wynne Jones: An Appreciation

One of the great, great, great writers of fantasy is no longer with us. For so many of us who love this genre, there was no one more esteemed than Diana Wynne Jones.  Not only did she explore a wide range of the genre, but she did so happily, wittily, intelligently, and most uniquely.  There was and will be no one like her. I haven’t read all that she wrote, but those stories of hers that I know and love tend to involve bumblings and mix-ups, domestic complications, cranky yet endearing magicians, and a completely original and wonderful view of the world.  In her stories,  the fate of the universe may be at stake, but humanity still blunders about. It is this endless imagination, creativity, wit, and warmth that make her one of the greats in my pantheon of writers of any genre.

I’m sure there will be many more articulate appreciations to come, but for those unfamiliar with the brilliant work of this woman, here are a few of my favorites.

For whatever reason one of my go-to comfort books is Howl’s Moving Castle. There is that marvelous floating castle filled with the sort of magical domesticity that Jones excels at.  There is a heroine I completely identified with — capable Sophie who spends most of the story transformed into an old woman. There is the wonderful Calcifer, a fire demon, and of course the remarkable wizard, Howl, one of the great romantic heroes of fantasy literature.  Smart, irritable, and ultimately capable too, Howl is a brilliant and utterly Jones’ hero. The plot is also typical Jones, complicated and intriguing and difficult to summarize so I won’t bother. Instead I urge you to read the book for yourself. The great Japanese filmmaker, Hayao Miyazaki, made a film version which is gorgeous, but very much its own thing, distinct from Jones’ book in numerous ways.  There are also two subsequent books with many of the same characters, Castle in the Air and House of Many Ways.

I’m just a tad too old to have encountered Jones as a child so it was as a young teacher that I first did by way of her divine Chrestomanci books.  While there is a chronology to the stories (the first being Charmed Life), I read them out of order and it mattered not a whit.  They are based around Chrestomanci, a powerful enchanter, and often set in his castle where a sort of school for enchanters exists (long, mind you, before Hogwarths existed).  Also set in a magical educational environment are The Dark Lord of Derkholm and The Year of the Griffin, both of which show Jones at her most playfulness when it comes to fantasy land tourists.  And since tourists need guidebooks Jones saw to it that there was one — the hilarious and spot-on The Tough Guide to Fantasyland.

I love reading aloud to my class “Chair Person” and “The Four Grannies” from Stopping for a Spell and loved, for their similar domesticity The Ogre Downstairs, Archer’s Goon, and Eight Days of Luke.  Hexwood, more science-fiction-y than many of her works, is terrific too.  And I love knowing that there are still many I have not read.  It is reassuring that this extraordinary writer will stay alive for readers through her most wonderful and wondrous works.

Also at Huffington Post

SLJ’s Battle of the Kids’ Books

The battle is nigh.

On Monday, March 13th, sixteen acclaimed 2010 books for young readers will go head to head in School Library Journal‘s third annual Battle of the Kids’ Books. Inspired by The Morning News Tournament of Books these literary contenders are paired off bracket-style and judged by a distinguished group of writers.  R. L. Stine, Richard Peck, Karen Hesse, and Laura Amy Schlitz are just some of the remarkable decision-makers in this year’s exciting event. Every weekday over the next few weeks you can read their smart and thoughtful match decisions.

While seeing which book a particular judge decides to advance is understandably exciting, it is what they have to say about the two they are considering and how they say it that is most enthralling.  Understanding the serious play that is involved, each one is considerate and clever and it is their elegantly penned decisions that are the heart and soul of the Battle.

This year’s contenders are:

Sugar Changed the World by Marc Aronson and Marina Budhos
Keeper by Kathi Appelt
They Called Themselves the K.K.K. by Susan Campbell Bartoletti
Hereville: How Mirka Got Her Sword by Barry Deutsch
A Tale Dark and Grimm by Adam Gidwitz
Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan
The Odyssey by Gareth Hinds
Trash by Andy Mulligan
As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth by Lynne Rae Perkins
The Dreamer by Pam Munoz Ryan
The Cardturner by Louis Sachar
The Good, the Bad, and the Barbie by Tanya Lee Stone
The Ring of Solomon by Jonathan Stroud
A Conspiracy of Kings by Megan Whalen Turner
Countdown by Deborah Wiles
One Crazy Summer by Rita Williams-Garcia

One of the creators of the event, here’s what I had to say in a recent press release:

Each year I’m completely energized by the Battle of the Kids’ Books. The judges always outdo themselves in smart, witty, and insightful decisions getting me to look at each contender in new ways. It is just fun to work together to keep the Battle of the Kids’ Books entertaining, stimulating, and most of all—fun.

Sponsored by HarperCollins Children’s Books and Little, Brown Books for Young Readers, this year’s Battle of the Kids’ Book is shaping up to be the best one yet.

Also at the Huffington Post

Top Ten Reasons to See How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying

10.  If you like old-fashioned musicals, this Broadway revival by the creators of Guys and Dolls, Frank Loesser and Abe Burrows, in previews with a March 27th opening, is well worth your time.

9.  It is presented straight; that is, nothing has been cut (as was the case in the 1995 revival) or adjusted for 2011 sensibilities. Yes, you are forewarned, the secretaries — all women, natch — in the corporate world of this historical artifact of 1961 want nothing more than to marry and spend their lives in one of the snazzier suburbs. (The heroine yearns for New Rochelle.) The men, on the other hand, are all clawing their way to the top. Not to mention the acceptance of their bits on the side. Bits like Hedy La Rue who causes all the men to ogle and all the women sigh. An ironic view of a particular stereotyped time and place. Don’t go if this sort of stuff bothers you. Watch the movie The Apartment instead.

8.  The staging is terrific — the set, the costumes, lightning, and all. Very Mad Men, but in the frothy vein.

7. There are a bunch of winning production numbers. Director/Choreographer Rob Ashford knows what he is doing.

6. The ensemble is excellent.

7.  So are the various secondary players.

6.  Tammy Blanchard’s portrayal of the vavoom girl, Hedy La Rue, a close cousin of  Miss Adelaide in Guys and Dolls.   She’s remarkably nuanced in this production — at one moment a bit of a flit and at another smart and savvy, but not mean or nasty. It is a tightrope to walk/dance/strut in 2011 and Blanchard pulls it off.

5. Rose Hemingway, in her Broadway debut as the ingenue Rosemary, is totally charming.

4.  It is a kick to see hangdog John Larroquette, also in his Broadway debut, singing and dancing. Not to mention, knitting.

3.  The show is a lighthearted treat. Go to be entertained and nothing more.

2.  The audience is a hoot. Lots of very, very, VERY excited young women because…

1. Daniel Radcliffe is pretty darn good. Yep, he sings and dances very nicely indeed. And he plays the tricky role of someone slipping his way up the corporate ladder in a remarkably endearing way. No easy thing to do that.

Also at the Huffington Post

Ipad Kid Book Apps

While I’m still not ready to plunk down $500 for an Ipad of my own (and will make do for the time being with my beloved Iphone and the Ipads my school has), as a long-time techie, I am very, very interested in book apps. While many are rather limited and seem to be one-shot experiences for kids, others are innovative and exciting. Yet it can be hard to find them as the various app stores have yet to provide what the older sites provide — a relatively easy way to know what is what. And so I’m very appreciative that the established review publications are coming on board to help.

• Kirkus, for example, is reviewing Ipad apps, discussing them, and highlighting the best that they find.  Great food for thought (and may cause me to change my mind about getting an Ipad now rather than later).
• Publishers Weekly continually has interesting pieces on this burgeoning area as well as a weekly apps round-up.
• Librarian Betsy Bird’s recent SLJ cover story, Planet App, provides a great overview that is well worth a gander.
• And the venerable Horn Book Magazine is also taking a careful and smart look at them.

As this new world of apps and ebooks keeps building and building I for one am glad the old world is keeping apace.

Also at Huffington Post.