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Bless you, TOON, for the lovely box of new graphic novels!  You publish some of the best highly illustrated kids' lit out there.

Written and Drawn by Henrietta, a TOON Book by LINIERS, is my favorite of this bunch.  "A box of colored pencils is as close as you can get to owning a piece of the rainbow", Henrietta tells her cat, Fellini.  Henrietta sits down to write and draw the amazing story of "The Monster with Three Heads and Two Hats."  We see Henrietta's drawings and we see her reactions to her own imagination and the whole thing is fun and funny and delightful. 

Flop to the Top!, a TOON book by Eleanor Davis & Drew Weing.  Wanda is a Superstar and she knows it.  When she goes online and posts a picture with her floppy dog, Wilbur, the Internet goes crazy.  Wilbur is a HUGE hit.  Wanda is not happy for his fame.  Young readers will get a kick out of attention hog Wanda's disappointment and of Wilbur's response to fame and fortune.  The ending is super cool, too.

Check back soon for reviews of my other TOON swag.

I forget how many years ago it was, but in the not so distant past (I’m going to go out on a limb and say it was 2009) I had the pleasure of hosting children’s author and storyteller Carman Agra Deedy in my Children’s Center.  Talk about a storyteller!  She will hold you riveted from syllable one onwards.  I had no idea that back in 2005 she did a TED talk.  Had I known, I would have posted it long before now.  Here goes:

Thanks to Aunt Judy for the link.

Clever move, author Sue Fleiss.  One thing I would like to point out about this video before you watch it is that it involved picture book related hand jive.  No easy task.

Catchy.

I’ve decided that the last great children’s literature world to delve into and learn more about has got to be the world of collecting.  I don’t know much of any children’s book collectors and I think they’d be fascinating folks to mingle with.  That in mind, when I heard that Travis Jonker had gotten this Antiques Roadshow clip from John Schumacher it all seemed to click.  I wish I knew what made a children’s book valuable.  I tremble when I think about the titles we handle on a regular basis in my office.

It’s probably no surprise to you to hear that a fair number of folks contact me about including videos of their authors or illustrators on this site.  I don’t always say yes, but I always watch to see if the videos are honestly interesting.  And brother, this brief interview with Fred Bowen is precisely that.  I’ve always been a bit sports allergic myself, so to hear him pinpoint the value of the “culture” as he (rightly) puts it is good for me.

Don’t think I’ll actually embed anything from this site, but it’s worth knowing about in any case.  Storyline Online is is odd little online streaming video program where you can watch various members of the Screen Actors Guild read old children’s books. As of right now the readers include Betty White, Melissa Gilbert, Sean Astin, Elijah Wood, Jason Alexander, Ernest Borgnine, James Earl Jones, Robert Guillaume, Tia & Tamara Mowry, etc.  I have to assume they haven’t done many recently, if only because the books themselves are pretty old.  At any rate, its an interesting smattering.  Thanks to Aunt Judy for the link.

Well.  This is . . . just the more frigging adorable thing.  Check it.

Sort of combines all my favorite things.  Cute kids speaking languages other than English and world-renowned cartoonists we’ve never heard of.  Liniers.  I’ll remember that name now.

In other book trailer news, it’s awful nice when your illustrator not only creates the art for your book but comes up with some catchy song tie-ins as well.  Case in point:

And now some thoughts.
1. There is a Roald Dahl bio by Michael Rosen and it’s not available in the U.S.? This thing cannot be right.
2. The following video is 45 minutes long and rather worth it. This is a vid that was streamed live on Tuesday.
3. Rosen. He doesn’t flub. Not a word, not a syllable. This man is a practiced pro. I would rather like to be him when I grow up.  I wonder if he’s ever done a TED talk . . .
4. If you would like to hear musical performances from shows like Matilda, you can see the Matilda song around 15:30. 19:44 is where you’ll find the backstage peek into the new Charlie and the Chocolate Factory musical.  No live performances there, sadly.

And for our off-topic video of the day, this would be the video that garnered the most alerts to my attention from family and friends this week.  There are people that say it’s the Gangnam Style of 2013.  Don’t know about that, but it is rather children’s literature friendly (so maybe it’s only 85% off-topic).  Thanks in particular to Kate and Marci for the link.