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This is from five years ago, but as I'd never come across it, I'm figuring that it might be new to some of you as well!
Okay. In July 2009, The American Scene posted a conversation starter called WORST. CHILDREN'S BOOKS. EVER. in which the author named his two least favorite classic children's books (The Giving Tree and The Polar Express), and then asked his readers to weigh in.
And weigh in they did, with much passion (from some) and much vitriol (from others). Especially about The Giving Tree.
But! Much joy can be found in LeVar Burton's comments—it was verified (via Twitter, I think?) that it was really him—about The Rainbow Fish, which are even more awesome if you imagine him reading them aloud:
The rainbow f#@%ing fish! yes, you win! – that’s the worst of all time.
Very good call that everyone else probably wiped from their memory banks. It’s coming back to me now….
“Child, if you try to stand out others will rightfully swim away. You want friends, child, don’t you? No, not the kind who will respect you or admire your natural assets. You can’t count on ever finding friends who are like you if you are different. It’s much easier to just go along to get along with everyone. The only way is assimilation. No one likes show-offs, or elitist freaks. The solution is to distribute your assets to everyone else equally, so you blend in and everyone else is exactly the same. Then they will be your friends. Swim with the collective, my child – sacrifice to us so we can all be the equal, then we can accept you as friends. It is your duty to buy our camaraderie…or be spurned forever in the dark currents of loneliness, you mutant degenerate. You think you’re better than me? Go die you stuck-up glitter-geek cuz you are banished, pretty boy. I don’t need your stupid contributions anyway, kid. I hope the sharks and squids find those shiny scales easier to catch.”
Timeless message for every generation.
Basically, he equates the message of The Rainbow Fish to that of the Borg. Rock on, LeVar Burton.
Anyway, there's more at the link: if you don't want to lose an hour combing through the minefield that is the comments section, I suggest just doing a search for 'LeVar' on the page.
The little blue fish whizzed through the ocean with his scale flashing, so it didn’t take long before the Rainbow Fish was surrounded by the other fish. Everyone wanted a glittering scale.
He realized then there was no end to their greed, that they would not be satisfied until he had given away all his scales, that they would stop at nothing to make him like themselves, dull and stripped bare and part of the faceless, nameless “We.”
And he rejected the cowardice of the mob.
Um. Is it wrong that I TOTALLY PREFER this version to the original?
The little blue fish whizzed through the ocean with his scale flashing, so it didn’t take long before the Rainbow Fish was surrounded by the other fish. Everyone wanted a glittering scale.
He realized then there was no end to their greed, that they would not be satisfied until he had given away all his scales, that they would stop at nothing to make him like themselves, dull and stripped bare and part of the faceless, nameless “We.”
And he rejected the cowardice of the mob.
Um. Is it wrong that I TOTALLY PREFER this version to the original?
When Maira Kalman and Daniel Handler started digging through the Museum of Modern Art’s collection of vintage photographs—many are amateur shots donated by the artists and were never intended as works of art—they quickly found the theme they were looking for. “Girls standing on lawns!” Kalman says.
Kalman's paintings (and Handler's captions) are going into the first in an upcoming series of MoMA picture books.
This one, which looks like it should actually be titled VAMPIRES ON ICE #3: HI-CUT OR GO HOME:
And this one, which made me laugh so hard that I cried. (Literally. I couldn't even talk, I was laughing so hard. Rather than try to explain myself, I just threw it across the room to the woman who was sorting books with me. Happily, she's already WELL AWARE of my crazy, so it didn't even faze her.)
I don't even know why I find it so hilarious. I think it's the look on his face:
The book, titled “Perfectly Normal,” contains cartoon drawings of naked people and others involved in sexual acts. It’s available at middle school libraries. And although it indicates it’s meant for kids 10 years and up, it’s still making some parents uncomfortable.
“Most of the time, when I showed this to parents, their jaws just hit the floor,” parent Tim Schmidt said. “They were shocked and then their next reaction was outrage.”
The article incorrectly lists the title as Perfectly Normal, and doesn't mention Robie Harris by name, but the somewhat A Current Affair--ish (i.e. fear-mongering, HIGH DRAMA, SCARY PIXELATED IMAGES) segment at KSDK shows the cover of the book.
This is a great example of how much tone and inflection can affect the way that we ingest information: the written article is basically just a transcription of the television spot, but it comes off as pretty dry and straightforward, whereas the televised version of the story comes off as totally leaning in the ZOMG THERE ARE NEKKID CARTOONS IN OUR SCHOOLS WON'T SOMEONE THINK OF THE CHILDREN direction.
I am not an Asian author. I am an author who is Asian. There is a difference.
I believe that it is every artist's right to determine what they create and not have that dictated to them. I've heard that I've let readers down because my books were not "Asian enough." WTF? One critic wrote that I had missed the mark because my middle school characters did not discuss race. Um. No.
She looks at the ongoing discussion about diversity and books from a whole lot of different angles, and as you'd expect from her books, she writes with energy and insight and will inspire much thought.
From Anne Ursu's keynote speech at The Loft's 2014 Children’s and Young Adult Literature Conference:
This is the age where the world gets a little bigger every day, when your mind is still taking in everything it can, when adults stop shielding the hard things from you. Books are a small place to explore a big world. They are personal—for the first time, they are yours—and they are profound. They reflect and assure, they project and excite. And kids love them for it. They love them with their whole being.
Although I’ve described myself as “half-Peruvian” or “half-Jewish” as a shortcut in the past, I fully reject those terms now. I am not half of anything. I am whole in myself, as are my daughters. I am the Latina daughter of a Latina woman. I am bilingual. Melodia is the African-American daughter of African-American parents. She is also Guatemalan and Scottish. We are the face of a complex, multiracial, multilingual, and diverse past, present, and future.
“Kids in general are often so grateful to have someone show an interest in their lives and accept them for who they are,” she says. “I had one kid in my first year who spent a fair amount of time talking with me, often about having crushes on boys. He sent me a private message last year saying, ‘I never thanked you for encouraging me to be myself.’ That means something to me, even three years later.”
Eleven-year-old Dini loves Bollywood movies, and she ESPECIALLY loves Bollywood star Dolly Singh. But she just realized that there's something unusual about Dolly's most recent movie: there are no happy songs. Not a single one. And now, according to her Filmi Kumpnee magazine, something IS up with Dolly, and scuttlebutt says that that something is HEARTBREAK.
So when her mother is awarded a grant that will allow the family to move to a small town in southern India for two years, Dini is devastated about leaving Maryland and her best friend Maddie behind... but she's excited about the possibility of finding and meeting Dolly Singh, too!
Pros:
It's about the difficulty of long distance friendships, and about the importance of staying true to your friends, but it also shows that there's room in our hearts for more than one good friend. It's about love of home, about the pleasure that comes from exploring a new place, and about how new places can eventually feel like home. Coincidences abound—Dirk Gently would approve of The Grand Plan to Fix Everything, because it very much supports his theory about the interconnectedness of all things—and there is charm and warmth and humor on every page.
Krishnaswami's rhythm is really distinct, and while it took me a little while to get used to it, I ended up loving it. And I loved how she put words together. I loved that instead of saying that Dini moodily flips a page, she said Dini flips a moody page. And I loved Maddie's first line upon learning about Dini's big move: Maddie is flipping through the pages of the Filmi Kumpnee magazine without seeming to look at anything. "Maybe you'll get to meet Dolly," she says in a small, brave voice. OH, SHE JUST BREAKS MY HEART. (In a good way.)
As in Penny Dreadful, Abigail Halpin's illustrations are spot on: they echo the lighthearted tone of Dini's adventures, and include lots of details from the text. Love.
In addition to the illustrations, there are magazine articles and texts and letters and so while it's primarily a straight-up novel, fans of the scrapbook and journal-type books are likely to enjoy.
Cons:
I've got nothing.
Nutshell:
It's a hug in book form. Also, MONKEYS. PEACOCKS! INTERESTING CAPITALIZATION! AND CAKE.
Children's: Middle grade Author of BEA 2013 Middle Grade Buzz Panel title Magic Marks the Spot Caroline Carlson's THE WORLD'S GREATEST DETECTIVE, about a city with more sleuths than crimes to be solved, and a boy who enters his hapless uncle for the World's Greatest Detective competition in hope of avoiding being sent to an orphanage, only to discover his own knack for investigation when the contest host turns up dead, to Toni Markiet at Harper Children's, for publication in Winter 2017 and a second book in Winter 2018.
Children's: Young Adult NYU Musical Theater Writing MFA Heidi Heilig's debut THE GIRL FROM EVERYWHERE, in which a 16-year-old, whose father uses vintage maps to time-travel the world, must determine whether to journey with him to 1868 Honolulu to save her mother's life, knowing that changing history risks her very existence, to Martha Mihalick at Greenwillow, in a pre-empt, in a three-book deal, for publication in Winter 2016.
To be honest, I'm FAR more intrigued by the middle grade title. MORE SLEUTHS THAN CRIMES! A MURDER AT THE WORLD'S GREATEST DETECTIVE COMPETITION! Lots of potential hilarity there.
Hop on Pop by Dr. Seuss “encourages children to use violence against their fathers” and should be removed from the Toronto Public Library.
That, according to a complaint to the city’s library that wanted to see the book by the beloved children’s author removed from the shelves. The complainant also demanded the Toronto Public Library “issue an apology to fathers in the GTA and pay for damages resulting from the book.”
The library refused, noting the book is “humorous” and “well-loved by children,” it regularly appears on “best of” lists, Dr. Seuss was a Pulitzer Prize winning author and well, the children “are actually told not to hop on pop.”
...I talk about Paul Acampora's I Kill the Mockingbird, which I found hugely enjoyable:
Say that you’re browsing Twitter one day, and Wil Wheaton retweets something from a group called I Kill the Mockingbird. Being a book-loving person, you’d totally get curious and click through, right? I know I would.
...and I just now realized that I forgot to mention YET ANOTHER thing I like about the book: the cast of characters is notably diverse, and said diversity is never an ISSUE. It's just an everyday part of life. Which is always nice to see.
Bedlam Hospital has a disturbing problem: every night, at precisely Twelve Minutes to Midnight, the inmates begin feverishly writing gibberish—on paper, on the walls, on themselves; in pencil, in ink, in blood. In the morning, none of the inmates have any memory of their actions, and every night, the madness spreads further. Having exhausted every medical avenue*, the authorities turn to Montgomery Flinch, an author who has recently taken England by storm with his macabre tales of terror published in the Penny Dreadful.
Little do they know, Montgomery Flinch doesn't exist. The stories are actually written by thirteen-year-old Penelope Treadwell, the orphaned heiress who owns the Penny Dreadful.
But Penelope isn't going to let a trifling detail like THAT prevent her from investigating...
Pros:
Loads of atmosphere, action, and tense moments.
Details like the secret door leading to the SPOILER, and the mysterious, beautiful widow are nice nods to the genre and suggest a real affection for it.
Edge doesn't condescend to his audience: he doesn't over-explain plot points, and he never actually spills the beans about the specific events the prisoners are writing about. Deciphering those texts isn't necessary to enjoy the story, but they'll make a nice Easter Egg for any readers with a basic knowledge of twentieth-century history.
Cons:
I got the impression that Edge was shooting for Late Nineteenth-Century Verbose and Flowery, but there's a distinct lack of rhythm in the prose. For example: "Behind him, Alfie failed to hide the smirk on his face as he took a sip from one of Monty's discarded glasses before grimacing in sudden disgust." In other words, much of the book feels like one big run-on sentence.
There's nothing in the way of character arc or growth: at the end of the story, the main characters are exactly who they were at the beginning. (I suppose that could be chalked up as a nod to the conventions of the genre, but as always, I don't like that as an argument, as it suggests that genre fiction is somehow 'lesser' than 'literary' fiction. Anyway.)
For a smart girl, Penelope is amazingly slow to put two and two together. Also, three-quarters of the way in, a plot point requires her to suddenly possess Crazy Science Skills which she explains away by saying that she's 'always' had a strong interest in science. It was so out of left field that I wrote NANCY DREW MOMENT in my notes.
Nutshell: Plenty of atmosphere and action, but no character development or emotional depth.
_____________________________
*I think? Hopefully this wasn't their first choice of solution?
Moonbot Studios announced today that it will acquire film rights to the Olivia Kidney trilogyof young adult books by award-winning author Ellen Potter. The series is published by Philomel (a division of Penguin/Putnam).Moonbot plans to develop Olivia’s Alice in Wonderland-like adventures as a live action film with significant animation sequences. The film rights deal was handled by David Lipman and Michael Siegel for Moonbot and for Ellen Potter by Alice Tasman and Jennifer Weltz of Jean V. Naggar Literary Agency.
If the movie happens, hopefully the books will finally get the attention that they deserve. EEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
And, despite my difficulty with the ultra-quirk end of the spectrum—inhabited primarily by Stargirl and her ukelele—I adored this book. It's basically Hart of Dixie, if Zoe Hart happened to be a formerly affluent ten-year-old. It's got that same city-to-small-Southern-town move, that same solitude-to-community arc, the same cultural fish-out-of-water story, as well as a lot of learning about friendship and not making assumptions and working together and just plain old summertime kid fun.
THE BOOKS! Penny is a huge reader, most of her understanding of the world comes from living vicariously through books, and thus, that affects her thought process and perspective:
Duncan didn't look especially fragile or sensitive to Penny, no more so than anyone else she'd ever met. But looks could be deceiving. Maybe Duncan was like an upsetting book with an ordinary, happy cover. Maybe he was Bridge to Terabithia.
AHAHAHAHAHA, LOVE.
PENNY AND HER PARENTS! There is a whole lot of strife in the household, most of it due to financial woes—and that, in itself, is another plus: speaking as someone who grew up in a "scrimp and pinch" family, as much as adults try to protect them from it, economic hardship is a very real fear for kids, and it's always nice to see it addressed—but there's also plenty of love and affection. And it isn't just Penny's family. All of the various parents at the Whippoorwillows compound are loving and emotionally generous, with their own children and with the children of others, and the children have those same qualities. While that might seem unrealistic to some readers, it's important to remember that the tenants aren't random: every family living there is there by specific invitation.
FRIENDSHIP! As I mentioned above, there are lessons about friendship, about making assumptions, about working together, and about when to ask for help... but all of them are integrated organically into the story, and it's very much a story about Penny figuring things out, rather than a story created to teach the reader. Upon her family's arrival at the Whippoorwillows, Penny almost immediately finds a bosom friend in Luella. They clearly adore each other, but that doesn't prevent them from having disagreements or from—especially in Penny's case, as she's never really had a real friend before—making mistakes.
THE ART! I love it so much when it's clear that the artist did a close-read of the text. Abigail Halpin includes so many dead-on-the-money details that I'm going to hunt around for other chapter books she's illustrated. [ETA: Well, then. That was the easiest research I've done, like, ever.]
It's warm and cozy, it's about family and friends and community, and about how you don't have to go out looking for dragons to be a hero: oftentimes, it's everyday life that brings the real adventure.
That is when Warner announced that Ms. Rowling had agreed to adapt for the big screen her “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them,” a 2001 book billed as one of Harry Potter’s Hogwarts textbooks. Three megamovies are planned. The main character will be a “magizoologist” named Newt Scamander. The stories, neither prequels or sequels, will start in New York about seven decades before the arrival of Mr. Potter and his pals.
