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To celebrate National Poetry Month, we found a video featuring pop star Madonna and her reading of the poem “If You Forget Me.” Pablo Neruda originally wrote this poem in Spanish and called it “Si Tu Me Olvidas.”

Madonna’s reading is featured on The Postman (Il Postino) movie soundtrack. It also contains poetry recitations delivered by Oscar-winning actress Julia Roberts, UK musician Sting, and The Avengers actor Samuel L. Jackson.

Neruda, a celebrated Chilean writer, won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1971. You can read more pieces written by Neruda at The Poetry Foundation’s website. What’s your favorite Pablo Neruda poem?

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They asked me to do some promotional videos for my book.

I came up with these instead.  Life is too short not to have your legs eaten by legwarmers.  I’m inclined to name them The Electric Blue Boogaloo.

Part One:

Part Two:

Part Three:

Part Four:

I have fun.

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In honor of National Poetry Month, we’ve dug up a video of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reciting Howard Nemerov‘s poem, “The Makers.”

Clinton, who at the time was serving as First Lady, recorded this video for “The Favorite Poem Project” in 1999. Her husband, President Bill Clinton, also participated in this project. This project was founded by the 39th poet laureate of the United States, Robert Pinsky. Altogether, 50 short documentaries were recorded for this video series.

In past, Clinton wrote and published several books including the 1996 nonfiction title It Takes a Village: And Other Lessons Children Teach Us and the 2003 memoir Living History. At the moment, speculations and rumors are circulating about the new book Clinton plans to pen. What do you think?

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Following on the success of I Could Pee on This: And Other Poems By Cats, Chronicle Books will publish I Could Chew on This and Other Poems by Dogs in September.

In the video embedded below, a real life galley cat eats some potent catnip and reads the trippy “Kubla Kat” poem from I Could Pee on This.

Both poetry collections were written by Francesco Marciuliano, the storyteller behind the syndicated Sally Forth comic strip. Tom Racine animated and read the poem.

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Struggling to find the best self-publishing platform for your book?

To help aspiring self-published authors navigate the tricky world of publishing platforms, we have collected video tutorials to help you explore these booming marketplaces before loading your book. Follow the links below to watch the videos…

Amazon Kindle Publishing Video Tutorial

Barnes & Noble NOOK Press Video Tutorial

Smashwords Publishing Video Tutorial

Apple iBooks Author Video Tutorial

Kobo Writing Life Video Tutorial

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We love listening to Chris Crutcher. He always has the most interesting things to say. Luckily his new novel, PERIOD 8, is full of things to talk about!

Watch Chris Crutcher discuss the truth and when to tell it, what it means to live a good life, and PERIOD 8. Make sure you stick around until the end for a special message to teachers and librarians!

Download the PERIOD 8 discussion guide and get talking . . .

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Relationship expert and Ready for Love reality TV star Matthew Hussey staged the book trailer for his new dating book for adults in the most unlikely place: a playground full of kids.

Hussey will release Get the Guy: Learn Secrets of the Male Mind to Find the Man You Want and the Love You Deserve in April, but his book trailer is out already. In it, kids discuss relationship problems and dating worries that plague adults. Check it out:

Many of Matthew’s male clients pressed him for advice on how to apply his winning strategies not to just get the job, but how to get the girl. As his reputation grew, Hussey was approached by more and more women, eager to hear what he had learned about the male perspective on love and romance. From landing a first date to establishing emotional intimacy, playful flirtation to red-hot bedroom tips, Matthew’s insightfulness, irreverence, and warmth makes Get the Guy: Learn Secrets of the Male Mind to Find the Man You Want and the Love You Deserve a one-of-a-kind relationship guide and the handbook for every woman who wants to get the guy she’s been waiting for.

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BookExpo America (BEA) and Huffington Post Books have launched the “Have Your (Cup)Cake & Read it Too” video series.

Each month, a different book will be profiled and a cupcake recipe (developed specifically as a tribute to that book) will be shared. Huffington Post Books editor Zoë Triska and BookBliss.com blogger Cassandra Lobo star in these videos.

The organizers recently released their second installment with The Fault In Our Stars by John Green. To accompany the book, Lobo created a lemon cupcake topped with champagne frosting, chocolate hazelnut spread, and rainbow star sprinkles. Follow this link to access the recipe. We’ve embedded the full episode above–what do you think?

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As fans prepare for the March 31, 2013 premiere of Game of Throne‘s third season on HBO, one fan mashed up the violent show with a classic kid’s book.

In the video embedded above (CONTAINS SEASON ONE SPOILERS), you can watch George R.R. Martin‘s epic fantasy series crossed with The Princess Bride by William Goldman. What do you think? Funny or sacrilegious?

A group of YouTube creators made a YA adaptation of the popular series called “School of Thrones.”

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Reddit has launched a new series on YouTube called Explain Like I’m Five, exploring tough topics in simple language. One of the first episodes tackled Friederich Nietzsche and existentialism. We’ve embedded the video above–what do you think?

If you want to read some Nietzsche for yourself, check out these free eBook editions of Beyond Good and Evil or Thus Spake Zarathustra. Here’s more about the show:

The Explain Like I’m Five subreddit is an inclusive place to ask questions and get layman-friendly answers, without fear of judgement. Appropriate for questions about current events, history, politics, culture and more.DonorsChoose.org and Reddit are making sure the next generation has the resources they need to stay curious. Visit Elif and donate to support low-income elementary school students.

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Drafthorse literary journal is seeking submissions for its Summer 2013 issue.  Drafthorse is a biannual online publication of fiction, creative nonfiction, poetry, visual narrative, and other media art where work, occupation, labor—or lack of the same—is in some way intrinsic to a narrative’s potential for epiphany.  We are interested in how work, or the absence of it, effects people and communities on an intimate level.  While we’re open to various interpretations, we expect the subject to be fundamental to your submission in some way.  Complete submission guidelines are available online.

We are especially looking for fiction, creative nonfiction and visual art.  Submission deadline for the Summer 2013 issue is April 30, 2013.

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What happens in the cafeteria when kids are in class? Not only does the school lunch staff fight crime, but they get their groove on! Check out the brand new Lunch Lady video below!

A HUGE thank you to Recess Monkey for putting together such a killer song! You can download the song here!

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What if George R.R. Martin had written his epic fantasy series, A Song of Ice and Fire, for a young-adult audience? A group of YouTube filmmakers has launched a comedic web series called “School of Thrones.”

In this project, the Game of Thrones characters have been re-imagined as teenage students who attend Westeros Valley High School. We’ve embedded the first full episode above–what do you think?

The series premiere episode, “Prom Night Is Coming,” was released on March 10th and has already attracted more than 417,000 views. Episode two will be posted up on March 17th and episode three will follow on March 24th. (via Jezebel)

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In May, HarperCollins will publish Make Good Art, a Chip Kidd-designed book version of a Neil Gaiman commencement address. Gaiman’s speech at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia went viral last year, sharing “secret freelancer knowledge” that all kinds of writers, editors and freelance workers can use.

We’ve embedded a video of his speech above–it also contains the best advice he ever received, delivered by the great novelist Stephen King. Here is Gaiman’s secret freelancer knowledge:

You get work however you get work, but keep people keep working in a freelance world (and more and more of today’s world is freelance), because their work is good, because they are easy to get along with and because they deliver the work on time. And you don’t even need all three! Two out of three is fine. People will tolerate how unpleasant you are if your work is good and you deliver it on time. People will forgive the lateness of your work if it is good and they like you. And you don’t have to be as good as everyone else if you’re on time and it’s always a pleasure to hear from you.

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Our good buddy James Kennedy alerted me to the fact that after his magnificent 90-Second Newbery show left New York City for other library systems in other states he received additional, incredibly funny and insane submissions that are worth seeing.  What we have here is a Tacoma-based Frog and Toad Together take on the story “The List”.  As James describes it it’s “done in the style of a French ye-ye music video or Wes Anderson movie.”

If you’d like to see the story that was based on you can see five stories from this book animated in five different ways.  I’m particularly fond of the one with the seeds.  There’s also a wholly fascinating take on The Story of Mankind that sort of has to be seen to be believed.

All right.  We’re gonna present this day by cheering you up, breaking your heart, and then piecing it back together a bit at a time.  That’s the kind of Sunday I’m dealing with here.  Now I don’t know if you read the recent SLJ article Kid Lit Authors, Illustrators Visit Sandy Hook Elementary School but you should.  And as it happens our roving reporter in the field Rocco Staino took some videos of the aforementioned authors and illustrators.  This one is of Bob Shea.  The very normality of it destroys me.  Utterly.

Now let’s do something nice.  In lieu of Kid President (which, correct me if I’m wrong, a whole great big swath of us have already seen) here’s “Obvious to you. Amazing to others,” coming at you via The Styling Librarian.

I’m not going to read too much into the fact that I live in Harlem and yet, until I heard from a Ms. Nicole Roohi this week, I had totally missed this whole “Harlem Shake” craze, as it were.  Fun Fact: Not from Harlem.  In any case, turns out there are a BUNCH of videos of this thing filmed in libraries across our fair nation.  You can find some here and here and here and here and here.  The one I will feature today, however, is from Goldenview Middle School in Anchorage, Alaska.

As Ms. Roohi told me, “The video production class filmed it, and the security guards starred in it (well, along with my assistant and myself).  The principal, teachers, students and even a bus driver joined in.”  Thanks for the link, Nicole!

In keeping with the peppy music today, if I lived in a world where every person had their own theme song that followed them around throughout the day, the tune that is featured in this trailer for Jesse Klausmeier & Suzy Lee’s Open This Little Book would be mine.  Granted, it would bug people, but I’d only turn it on when I was marching down the street.  Marching, I say.

Thanks to Mr. Schu for the link!

And finally, since we seem to be all trendy trendy today, let’s just end with something Downton Abbey-ish.  The fact no one else has done this yet is amazing to me.

Though I would take issue with that Lady Crawley line near the end.  Doesn’t he mean she loves ‘em?

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I have just had the pleasure of visiting with schools in upstate New York. Smith School and Canisteo-Greenwood School both hosted family literacy nights while I was in town, and what a great way for the schools to bring their community together in celebration of the book! I spoke at both events and the students loved having that extra time with the author. They introduced me to their parents as if we were old friends!

And BOTH schools put on Punk Farm skits! The kids were psyched, as was I! I love watching creative (and brave) teachers put on performances of my books. A true honor.

Here is a photo of the players at Canisteo-Greenwood:



And a video of the performance at Smith:

http://www.youtube.com/embed/a5z_m3b1bDA?list=PLg9gpgNtuVmG5PY8Aw6l4Ttmy_Afkd8NU</a>" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen>



Also throughout the night, kids made bookmarks and other bookish crafts. There were also prizes to be won! Raffle tickets were given just for showing up and the prize baskets were all book theemed. For example, a copy of Bubble Bath Pirates! was given away with bath toys and a copy of Punk Farm was given away with a basket of instruments. And the homerooms with the most students in attendance won a set of books for their classrooms! Brilliant, right?!

Thank you to all of the superb educators and parent volunteers who pulled these nights together!

photo by www.strinnistudio.com

photo by www.strinnistudio.com

Note all the kids dressed as cowboys/girls and pirates! photo by www.strinnistudio.com

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The Avengers director Joss Whedon adapted William Shakespeare‘s comedy, Much Ado About Nothing, as a modern-day retelling. The trailer is embedded above–what do you think?

A limited release date has been set for June 07, 2013. The film has already screened at the Toronto International Film Festival and the Glasgow Film Festival. As we previously reported, Whedon shot the entire movie at his own home in 12 days. Here’s more about the film from NPR:

As I watched Much Ado About Nothing, I had the distinct thought, “I wonder whether this is the future.” Not the future, of course — I don’t believe we’re anywhere close to the end of the blockbuster, nor do I believe we’re necessarily entering a new age of Shakespeare — but a big piece of the future. Big films have gotten so big, expensive films so expensive, that all of the risk has to be drained out of them, which often leaves behind a dried-out version of whatever was originally intended.

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