educating alice

Germans and their Fairy Tales

medinger — Wed, 22 Feb 2012 11:08:14 +0000

Thanks to Heidi Heiner for alerting me to this video that Jack Zipes showed at the recent Grimm Legacies conference (that I so wish I could have attended).

What About Fact Checking?

medinger — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 11:24:38 +0000

I just received a copyedited version of my forthcoming book, Africa Is My Home, and one of the things the copyeditor did is a whole lot of fact checking. I had no idea that was part of her job, but boy am I glad it was. Having seen serious errors in other books I’ve been fretting a great deal about the possibility of some in my own. Thus my fascination with Dan Kois’s “Facts are Stupid” in which an “essayist and his fact-checker go to battle over the line between true and false.” I recommend it highly for anyone grappling with the issues of truth in nonfiction, creative nonfiction, essays, historical fiction, and more.

More Awards

medinger — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 11:51:21 +0000

The Cybils were announced on February 14th, Valentine’s Day and a grand bunch they are. Given by the children’s literature blogging community in a wide range of categories, this award is intended to provide another selection of great books for parents and children and all who love children’s books. This year I was tickled that two of the books I nominated ended up winners: Carmen Agra Deedy and Randall Wright’s The Cheshire Cheese Cat and Candace Fleming’s Amelia Lost.

This year’s British Red House Children’s Book Award has just gone to Patrick Ness’s A Monster Calls, another personal favorite from last year. This award is given by children — that is they nominate titles from which a shortlist is created and then vote for the winner.

Still to come are:

The Irma Black Award, another award given by children, is underway right now — check out this blog for more information on how to involve your class.
The Children’s Choice Awards, jointly overseen by the Children’s Book Council and the International Reading Association, are also determined by child votes.
The Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards on the other hand are selected by a committee of knowledgable adults.

Theater for One: The Incredible Book Eating Boy

medinger — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 10:08:03 +0000

The Guardian alerted me to the British company Bootworks delightful-sounding theatrical version of Oliver Jeffers’ The Incredible Book Eating Boy where:

..each five-minute show has an audience of just one person, who watches it from inside a small black box, with the puppeteers dancing round the outside.

Doesn’t that sound wonderful? Here’s a video that gives a teeny taste, but I’m sure hardly even begins to do justice to this remarkable sounding production.

A Wrinkle in Time Celebration

medinger — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 13:24:03 +0000

Yesterday’s Wrinkle in Time’s 50th Anniversary Event was excellent. Symphony Space, Macmillan, Betsy Bird, Bank Street Bookstore, and everyone involved did a fantastic job. The place was packed with a lovely range of kids, parents, and adult admirers of the book (now out in a gorgeous 50th anniversary commemorative edition) and its author, Madeleine L’Engle. The event was part of Symphony Space’s author series, the Thalia Kids’ Book Club. Next up — Carl Hiassen.

The program was a lovely mix that, I think, appealed to this wide audience range. It began with James Kennedy‘s video “A Wrinkle in Time in 90 Seconds.” After an introduction by one of Madeleine L’Engle’s grandchildren Betsy Bird moderated a wonderful conversation with Lois Lowry (wow), Katherine Paterson (wow,wow), Rebecca Stead (wow, wow, wow), and R.L. Stine (wow, wow, wow, wow). I hope someone else blogs about this as I didn’t take notes. (There are some tweets though.) I do remember Betsy saying she didn’t think a Newbery Committee today would select the book because of its religious content. Having been on a recent Committee I beg to differ.

Next was one of the absolute highlights of the afternoon — Jane Curtin reading from the book. She was amazing, amazing, amazing. After her was another excellent performance by a group of high school students. Children’s literature expert Leonard S. Marcus (who has an adult biography of L’Engle coming out this fall) provided closing remarks, featuring a wonderful story about one of L’Engle’s performances. Between the different presentations were lovely videos and images including the new book trailer and others of L’Engle and her book.

Personal tidbit: for many years I lived a block away from L’Engle and often went with my elderly father to Henry’s, a restaurant in the ground floor of her building. Because my mother had been in a wheel chair for several years before her death I was always aware of elderly women in wheelchairs and often noticed one when we dined there. Years later someone told me it was Madeleine L’Engle. Last night, hearing this story, one of her granddaughters told me she loved the place and would go often.

It is hard to do an event about a beloved iconic author and book that speaks to a range of ages, but yesterday it happened. Bravo, Symphony Space, Macmillan, Betsy Bird, and everyone else involved.

(N.B. Among my handful of tweets yesterday during the event I mentioned that I’d loved the book so much as a kid that I’d done some illustrations for it. @bankstreet replied, “@medinger Oh, please show them to us!” So I am — the above being my teen take on Meg Murry.)

A truncated version of this post is also up at Huffington Post.

This Isn’t My First Battle

medinger — Fri, 10 Feb 2012 14:31:16 +0000

SLJ’s Battle of the Kids’ Books OFFICIAL (well, as official as anything we do at the BoB) Trailer!

Created by the amazing Everdeen Sisters (AKA Summer Ogata and Lauren Downey). More about them and their making of the trailer here.

The Mysterious Mr.Snicket is Returning this Fall

medinger — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:27:38 +0000

As he did so brilliantly with A Serious of Unfortunate Events*, Mr. Lemony Snicket is teasing us by giving us small bits of information about his new series, coming out this fall from Little Brown. For those who weren’t following the previous series in real-time, Mr. Snicket not only wrote wonderfully clever and witty books about the very sad Baudelaire children, but also did some absolutely brilliant promotion between books. There were websites with daily clues, wonderful author events (where Mr. Snicket would suddenly be indisposed requiring one Mr. Daniel Handler to fill in and often including an accordion), and various other delightful diversions.

The new series, All the Wrong Questions, purports to be autobiographical and about the elusive writer’s childhood. The first volume Who Could That Be at This Hour? will be out October 23rd. Can’t wait!

* My appreciation of this series can be read here.

The Judges Are Coming!

medinger — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 10:27:14 +0000

To launch this year’s Battle of the Kids’s Books SLJ did a smashing article in which four of our distinguished judges were revealed. Starting today we will be celebrating each of our judges with individual posts. The first four will be of those already announced, but then we will go with those who were not. So if you want to know ALL of this year’s judges keep a close eye over the next few weeks over at the BoB site!

As for what they will be judging — we will be announcing that closer to the time of the actual Battle.

SLJ’s Battle of the Kids’ Books 2012

medinger — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 12:45:19 +0000

And so it begins — the contenders for this year’s Battle of the Kids’ Books have been revealed! If you aren’t familiar with this contest (which yours truly, I’m happy to admit, initiated four years ago), do check it out.

SleepVolking a la Jack Gantos

medinger — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 11:47:17 +0000

Yesterday one of my 4th grade students was reading the ARC of Dead End in Norvelt (choosing it over the also-on-display hardcover) and came over to ask me what sleepVolking is. I suggested it was Mrs. Volker’s wit on display and then wondered if it was in the final book. (Unfortunately all my copies are at school and I’m at home so I can’t give a direct quote or page number — maybe someone else can though.) He went off to check and then returned showing me that it wasn’t. Now I suppose this story supports the decision to change it to plain-old sleepwalking, but once we discussed the idea that it was Mrs. Volker’s dry humor he enjoyed as much as I did. So I get why it was changed, but just wanted to say we LOVE sleepVolking!