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This year I will be teaching a workshop on Making a Book Trailer.  I wanted to share with you two excellent examples of book trailers that work.  They both use the beautiful artwork from their book and the sounds (music and voice) add the icing on the cake.  Both trailers make you want to run out and buy the books, which is the mark of an excellent video.  I don’t think either Dan or Audrey made their own trailer, but you can learn to create something just as nice to promote yourself and book.

Audrey Vernick will be at this year’s NJSCBWI conference and Dan Yaccarino is scheduled for 2012.

Dan’s book is available on March 8th.  You can always buy it now and have him sign it next year at the conference.

I will spare you the trailers I have seen that don’t come close to selling a book.  Better to not use a book trailer, if it will make potential buyers run for the hills.

Talk tomorrow,

Kathy

I don’t know how you like to wake up on your Sunday mornings, but I for one enjoy a rousing rendition of Bjork set to eerie stop animation.  Particularly if that animation involves Moomins.  This is quite possibly one of the odder openings I’ve ever placed on this blog.  To be fair, “comet” and “dammit” really are ideal rhymes.  Just not the kind of thing you’d expect to find in a music video for a children’s film.

As for the actual film itself, you can see a trailer for it here:

I bet you save a lot of money if you don’t have to worry about flapping jaws.  Dubbing’s easier too.  Here’s the actual website for the film.  Thanks to bookshelves of doom for the links.

If you’d like to get that song out of your ears (and, admittedly, I wouldn’t blame you), trade it in for this one.  It’s the booktrailer for Gordon Titcomb’s The Last Train and a catchier little melody you will not find today.

Let us now consider the state of the modern book trailer.  If you absolutely must have voiceover work done, consider doing so with professionals.  The difference is distinct.  Imagine how differently this video for Lesley M.M. Blume’s newest work Modern Fairies, Dwarves, Goblins, and Other Nasties would have felt if not for the singular vocal dynamics at work.

Now some actual movie movie trailers.  Were you guys aware that they turned Ned Vizzini’s It’s Kind of a Funny Story into a film?  This is a charming little trailer and not just because of the huge swath of cameos you can spot.  To my mind, the greatest challenge of any film set in a hospital is the poor lighting.  A good film makes you forget it.  A bad film fails.  This looks, and granted I’m just working on the trailer here, like a pretty good film.

Thanks to Abby (the) Librarian

Cooking with Henry and Elliebelly
By Carolyn Parkhurst
Illustrated by Dan Yaccarino
Feiwel and Friends  (an imprint of Macmillan)
$16.99
Ages 4-8
On shelves October 26, 2010

Since I work in the main branch of New York Public Library, sometimes I get to see the occasional celebrity. Not long ago, Mario Batali was in my children’s room with a carefully assembled group of adorable munchkins for a storytime photo op (he read Green Eggs and Ham and Bee-Bim Bop, in case you’re interested). For the most part I think the kids gathered were the children of parental cooking show fans. There was one kid who caught my eye, though. Decked out in a full chef outfit, from his white hat to his smock, one five-year-old was clearly a lifelong Mario Batali disciple. When Mario asked what a particular ingredient in Bee-Bim Bop might be, the child answered with zero hesitation, “BASIL!” I think often of that young man, particularly when I read books that have to deal with cooking. If only Cooking With Henry and Elliebelly had been out when Mr. Batali came to visit. Not only could I have suggested that he read it to the kids (which would have been a blast) but I bet that boy in the audience would have been delighted beyond measure to lay his hands on this story. Author Carolyn Parkhurst takes the idea of two kids playing TV, and turns it into a universal tale of big brotherhood vs. squirmy attention-sucking little sisterhood. Complemented by Dan Yaccarino’s pitch perfect pictures, your kid won’t have to own his own garlic press to get a kick out of this delightful new offering.

You’re just in time! Before us are our hosts, Henry and Elliebelly. Henry, age five, stands behind a table announcing the name of their show as his little sister Elliebelly (age two) proclaims loudly, “Cooking! I help!” A sweet red-haired, butterfly winged spawn of little sisterdom purgatory, Elliebelly’s cute as a bug’s ear but she is two, after all. So when Henry pulls out the chef hats, Elliebelly’s the one who gets him to change to pirate hats. Some mild food related mishaps render Elliebelly’s doll Baby Anne a bit worse for the wear, but in the end the pretend food is finally done. Fortunately there are some real world waffles to finish out the show, and our two hosts sign off with us until next time.

Carolyn Parkhurst is, at this precise moment in time, better known for her adult novel The Dogs of Babel. Cooking With Henry and Elliebelly, then, marks her departure into the world of children’s literature. For a lot of adult authors making the switch, the transition can be painful. Most of the time they’ll write some madcap fantasy novel that reads like a rip-off of Roald Dahl, Lewis Carroll, or some sad combination of both. To write a picture book takes a bit more finesse. I believe it was Mem Fox who once said that “Writing a picture book is like writing ‘War and Peace’ in Haiku.” Credit where credit’s due, Parkhurst makes an admirable stab at the genre. Her bio says that she has two children of her own, and the sheer authenticity of the dialogue

*Picture book, contemporary fiction for preschoolers to kindergartners
*Two circle dogs as main characters
*Rating: Circle Dogs by Kevin Henkes is a cute book for young children–it can teach them shapes and sounds and that reading is fun!

Short, short summary:

1. This is the perfect book for a preschool or kindergarten classroom during a unit on shapes. Not only does the text point out some shapes, but children can look for other shapes in Dan Yaccarino’s illustrations.

2. Who has a pet at their house? Ask children this question, and you are sure to get a lot of hands raised. Provide opportunities for children to make personal connections with the text to further comprehension by asking them if their pets act similar or different to the circle dogs.

3. The “sounds” that Kevin Henkes provides in the text of Circle Dogs makes this book a fun read aloud, and one that kids will want to read again and again.

What you are witnessing here is the first trailer for Library of the Early Mind — a feature-length documentary film by Edward J. Delaney and Steven Withrow exploring children’s literature.  According to its website, “The film will have its first public screening at Harvard University in October and is now being submitted to film festivals worldwide. Music is by Jason K. Nitsch.”  The sheer number of talented speakers they found is impressive alone.  If you can’t view it on their site, it’s also available through YouTube.  Thanks to Steven Withrow for the info.

Book trailer time!  Here we see what a little talent with stop animation, a fellow with a voice straight out of movie trailers, and a well chosen oboe can do for your average book.  It’s Sophie Simon Solves Them All by Lisa Graff:

This one’s a little different.  I guess it’s a book trailer at its heart (for Olugbemisola Rhuday-Perkovich’s 8th Grade Superzero) but it’s also just a take on what it is to be an author.  It also works as a lovely tribute to New York City (and my library makes one brief appearance, which is nice).

Selling your book is one thing.  Selling yourself, another.  I suppose that author/illustrators need to make a living, and school visits can be a lucrative part of that.  So Dan Yaccarino had the idea to create a kind of commercial for himself.  It works.  It might work for other author/illustrators too.  Mind you, few of us have three different television shows under our belts (three, Dan?  Really?) but with a bit of creativity it isn’t hard to make something like this:

I didn’t get around to interviewing or talking to anyone at BookExpo this year.  Interviews are hard.  You have to come up with some kind of burning question for folks to answer.  Katie Davis is better prepared than I.  She went about the conference asking folks, “If you could go to the yard sale of any fictional character, whose would it be and what would you buy?” It’s worth it just to hear Scieszka say, “Katherine Schmatterson.”