Sally sent the link to this new video to us all by email - it made me laugh so much, I just had to try and put it onto the blog. I say try because I’ve never uploaded a video before but here goes…
BOOK BY BOOK: the making of a monkey man from Jarrett Krosoczka on Vimeo.
How exciting - hooray, it’s worked!
I love the way video is becoming more and more a way to promote new books: all these wonderfully imaginative authors create some pretty wonderful footage - and this has to be one of the best yet! It’s actually a spoof documentary made by picture-book writer Jarrett Krosoczka. There are lots of other authors/ illustrators in it and they must have had a lot of fun making it - spot the Blue Rose Girls, and the reference to Fuse #8, high in the celebrity stakes!
Jarrett unveiled it last week at the US SCBWI conference in New York, where he gave the opening address. In his blog posting about it he makes this very thought-provoking observation:
I was excited to hear Mr. Gantos speak. I would say I’ve never seen him speak, but that wouldn’t be a complete truth. I saw him speak when I was in the 3rd grade. He visited my school and I remember this clearly - he walked by my desk, pointed to my drawing of Rotten Ralph and said, “nice cat”. That had a profound impact on me.
Cloudscome has already picked it up, and she got it from Miss Rumphius Effect, who challenges us to name everybody before the credits roll…
I’m not sure this is quite the thing for those kids of an age to be reading the book, though - the irony was a bit wasted on my two and they were more inclined to take the whole thing literally… But silly me, of course Jon Sczieska pretends to be an answer phone whenever he doesn’t want to speak to someone!