Shout-out to my buddy Haddon Kime. The man wrote the music and lyrics for a new musical version of The Snow Queen now playing at the San Jose Repertory Theatre with dreams of Broadway. Years ago he created the opening music and words for my now long dead podcast. It’s great seeing his star on the rise. This past Christmas we discussed various children’s versions of the Hans Christian Andersen tale, including this year’s by Bagram Ibatoulline (which he hadn’t seen) and Breadcrumbs (which he thinks is brilliant). This is a tiny look at the production but I do love that in this Steampunky SQ the little robber girl gets to sing a punk rock song. Awesome. She has always been my favorite character anyway.
Small children standing on chairs. If book trailers need anything more than this, I don’t want to hear about it. Here we have fantastic MG author N.D. Wilson’s daughter reading his self-published (and, if I hear correctly, soon to be professionally published) picture book Hello, Ninja.
Of course I can’t link to a video by N.D. Wilson without thinking of that AMAZING one he created years ago for the first Ashtown Burials book. I was reminded of that video when I saw this recent one for Cragbridge Hall: The Inventor’s Secret by Chad Morris. Many of us only DREAM of having a trailer of this caliber for our own titles:
With the advent of Saving Mr. Banks, some of you may be curious about the real P.L. Travers. Fortunately it looks as if the documentary P.L. Travers: The Real Mary Poppins is available through YouTube. Here’s the first part:
And for today’s off-topic video, special thanks to Gregory K for this one. It looks like the world’s most ambitious flashmob. It’s not. The amount of attention paid to facial hair should have given that much away.
Loved the live chicken.
A kids’ book about Ninjas and one written by one of my favorite adventure authors at that! Color me geeked!
Thanks for the link to P.L. Travers: The Real Mary Poppins. Love the interviews in this documentary. What a fascinating and complicated human being she was.
Happy new year, Betsy!
Wishing a happy 2014 to all of the ninjas, readers, and steampunk rock stars out there.
As a musical theatre actress who enjoys The Snow Queen story, I hope they had a fantastic run and a successful future!