Good old brackets. They’re the greatest gift basketball ever gave to children’s literature. I’m certain you’ve all been following the Battle of the Kids’ Books over at our sister blog here at SLJ. That upcoming schedule sure looks like a doozy. 3/12 Doll Bones vs Eleanor & Park judged by Lauren Oliver? Lauren, baby, my condolences. 3/13 Far Far Away vs Flora & Ulysses judged by Sara Mlynowski? You can bet I’ll be there that day to watch THAT bit of logic. But if it’s even more brackets you seek, NYPL is doing some Literary March Madness doozies of their own on Instagram. Around March 9-12 they’ll be posting the childrens/YA brackets. Hat tip to Morgan Holzer for coming up with the idea for #LiteraryMarchMadness in the first place. So what’s it going to be? Shel Silverstein vs. Dr. Seuss? Beverly Cleary vs. Judy Blume? The choices are entirely yours. Good luck with all that.
- This is not the first time I’ve come across a particularly interesting blog post from the site Teach From the Heart. I don’t know that many straight up teacher blogs, but what I’ve seen coming out of this site is consistently thought provoking. Particularly the recent piece Dear Google, You Should Have Talked to Me First which tackles the sticky, thorny subject of Accelerated Reading. As of this writing, 253 comments and climbing, folks.
Many of you know my true and abiding love of that old Hardy Boys knock-off series The Three Investigators. Far superior to their contemporaries in every way, The Three Investigators combined good old-fashioned boys detective action adventure heroics with the sensibility of Scooby Doo and the bizarre presence in many of their titles of Alfred Hitchcock (Jim Averbeck take note!). Sondra Eklund pierces the veil surrounding the trio’s first adventure The Secret of Terror Castle (how can you resist a title like that?) and the results are fabulous. I mean, the bad guy in the series was named Skinny Norris. Tell me that’s not the best character name you’ve heard in a while. Sounds like an escapee from Goodfellas.
- Ever wondered how to pronounce my name? Um . . . no. No you haven’t. As names go mine is probably one of the easiest to figure out. Still, that didn’t stop me from putting in an explanation about said name when TeachingBooks.net offered me the chance to appear on their site. Hear my pronunciation n’ such here, if you’ve a desire to do so.
- Petition time! Folks, there’s a children’s literary collection out there that needs you help. Apparently UC Berkeley has slated their Tolman Children’s Library for closure. Fortunately some concerned souls found out about this and decided to prevent the event If you’ve a minute to spare, they would like to get 300 signatures at this time, but they’ve only hit the 200 mark. So head on over to the petition for Save the Children’s and Young Adult Literature Library in Tolman Hall and see what you can’t do to give them a bit of a boost. Children’s collections everywhere are facing similar cuts. It’s nice to feel like you might be able to prevent at least one of these somewhere, somehow.
- I’ve been quoting the “He seemed to be a permanent bridesmaid” line Vicky Smith came up with in regards to Brian Floca’s win of a Caldecott quite a lot lately. This was one of the many bon mots on display at the relatively recent Children’s Book Boston gathering, as reported by PW. Great little piece for those of you wondering how the big ALA Awards get chosen.
- Me and Business Insider. We’re like peas in a pod. I don’t know how financial mags keep hooking me into their productions considering the sheer lack of funds in my own personal life. First the Forbes article and now this. Recently BI (I assume someone somewhere presumably calls it BI, right?) asked NYPL if someone like my pretty self could recommend some books that adults should revisit in their waning days. Or, as they put it, Kids Books Adults Should Read Again As an Adult. They took the bulk of my suggestions and even integrated some of my comments and news items along the way. They didn’t mention everything I liked, but I was very impressed that they kept my mentions of Suzuki Beane and Who Needs Donuts. Well played, guys!
Daily Image:
Know a children’s literary enthusiast in need of some hipster insider children’s lit clothing? Look no further than this little offering from BustedTees:
Granted it’s clearly making a more specific reference to the movie adaptation of Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH (a movie that I need to rewatch one of these days, if only to confirm that it was as creepy as I recall) but we won’t hold that against it.
Thanks to Alison Morris for the link!
#33 Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH by Robert C. O’Brien (1971)
56 points
My Dad was my 5th-grade teacher, and he read this book to our class. When I re-read it in library school I was still affected by the story. I have such fond memories of this book. – Hilary Writt
First book I ever stayed up reading, under the covers, with flashlight… just couldn’t put it down. – Charlotte Burrows
Considering O’Brien only wrote 4 children’s books (all of them wonderful), it’s pretty impressive that I seriously considering two of them for my top ten (the other being The Silver Crown). But Mrs. Frisby was such an integral part of my childhood. The mystery of what happened to Jonathan. The slowly unfolding backstory of the Rats. The lee of the stone. The Disney movie has its charms (even the strange change of name to Brisbee), but one of the things that makes this book so amazing (and different from the film) is that, once you get past the idea of talking animals, it is amazingly grounded in real life: animal testing, childhood sickness, death, etc. - Mark Flowers
All right! One of my favorite science fiction books out there (or is it fantasy since Mrs. Frisby can talk too?). You’ve got your rats. Your lee. Your stone. What else do you need?
The plot, according to the publisher, reads, “Mrs. Frisby, a widowed mouse with four small children, must move her family to their summer quarters immediately, or face almost certain death. But her youngest son, Timothy, lies ill with pneumonia and must not be moved. Fortunately, she encounters the rats of NIMH, an extraordinary breed of highly intelligent creatures, who come up with a brilliant solution to her dilemma.”
According to Everything I Need to Know I Learned from a Children’s Book, Anita Silvey says of the author that, “He wrote Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH while on staff at National Geographic. Since the magazine frowned on their writers developing projects for others, Robert Leslie Conly adopted a pseudonym based on his mother’s name and published this novel covertly.” As a kid, I always wondered why the sequels (Racso and the Rats of NIMH, R-T, Margaret, and the Rats of NIMH, etc.) were written by a Jane Leslie Conly and not Mr. O’Brien. It makes a lot more sense once you know it was a pseudonym. Jane was actually his daughter. Nice when they keep it in the family like that, eh?
In the end, the man didn’t do that many books. Just The Silver Crown, Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH, A Report From Group 17 and Z is for Zachariah. I’ve read two of those four. Now I’m mighty curious about The Silver Crown (which gets republished every once in a while) and A Report From Group 17 (which I have NEVER heard of!).
On September 29, 1995, the New York Times reported that Dr. John B. Calhoun, “an ecologist who saw in the bleak effects of overpopulation on rats and mice a model for the future of the human race,” was the inspiration for this book.
British journalist Lucy Mangan is a fan, as it turns out. In Silvey’s book Everything I Need to Know I Learned from a Children’s Book she says that after reading a section where Nicodemus speculates about a potential rat society, “I read that when I was nine, and it rocked my world. Everything I took for granted only existed because
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of Nimh
by Robert C. O'Brien
I picked this book up at a yard sale a while back, and it was promptly shelved. Hesitant to read it to my kids, there it sat. The hesitance stemmed from my memories of
the rather creepy movie version I used to watch as a kid.
I was wrong to wait. Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH is a delightful story, full of mystery, adventure, science, and compassion. In short, we loved this Newbery Award winning classic.
Mrs. Frisby may be just a little mouse, but she is full of heart and courage. Her family needs to move before the farm plow comes through, but her son, Timothy, is too ill. She gathers her courage and goes to seek the counsel of a wise owl. While there, the owl advises her to ask for help from the rats, but everyone knows the rats keep to themselves.
Will they help her in time to save her little family?
Such a sweet, fun story, it almost made me like mice. Almost. But no.
Highly recommended for any young readers or listeners.
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Review by Becky Laney, frequent contributor
Mrs. Frisby, the head of a family of field mice, lived in an underground house in the vegetable garden of a farmer named Mr. Fitzgibbon.
Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH won the Newbery in 1972. This was my first time to read it. My first impression? Slightly odd, but odd in a good way. A really good way. It took me a few chapters to suspend my disbelief. Talking animal books while aren't completely foreign to me, aren't my norm usually. But once I allowed myself the opportunity to really embrace the story for what it was--fantasy not realistic fiction--then I was more than hooked.
The story is about the Frisby family. Mrs. Frisby is the head of the family. It is winter, and one of her children, Timothy, is sick. She's told by the "doctor" mouse that to move her son would result in his death. Yet move they must if they're to survive. For spring has come. The thaw has begun. The frost is long over. And she overhears the farmer making plans to get out the tractor. Her home--their home--is in the field. Their home is a "slightly damaged cinder block" that is almost completely underground. The story is her search for help. It is this search for help which will lead her directly to the rats.
Mrs. Frisby is afraid of the rats. Almost everyone is afraid of the rats. But when her son's life hangs in the balance...it's a time for a mother to overcome her fears--all her fears--even if those fears are rats and owls and crows.
I definitely recommend this book. It was fun and enjoyable.
Michael Dirda considers the "four-work masterwork" of John Crowley in a lengthy feature article in The American Scholar. Dirda, a Pulitzer Prize-winning columnist, notes: "With Little, Big, Crowley established himself as America’s greatest living writer of fantasy. Aegypt confirms that he is one of our finest living writers, period." The first volume in the Aegypt cycle, The Solitudes has just been published in a stand-alone trade paperback edition; Love and Sleep will follow in February. The third volume in the Ægypt cycle, Dæmonomania will be released in the summer, followed by the Fall 2008 release of book four, Endless Things.
Study fiction with the legendary author of The Aegypt Cycle at the Richard Hugo House as part of their NW Media Arts Writing Fantastic Fiction Workshop Series. The Solitudes is due to hit stores this October, followed by Love And Sleep in January. The Overlook Press is honored to be restoring The Aegypt Cycle to print and reissuing it in the volumes that the master intended. Sign up for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to learn about narrative & time from John Crowley!
Even Jorn Tromolto could not mispronounce your name.
The Three Investigators!! Somewhere in my mom’s basement is a complete set of the old library-bound hardcovers I inherited when I was a kid from somebody who outgrew them. I so badly wanted my dad to turn our backyard into a junkyard so I could have some kind of headquarters in an old RV. My dad probably would’ve been up for it, too. My mom, though…
DO revisit The Secret of NIMH! Do it today. Preferably immediately. It is as creepy as you remember. And far more beautifully animated than you remember. It’s on my couple-times-a-year movie rotation. And now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to get myself a NIMH shirt.
One of these days I’m going to collect all the authors that loved them some Jupiter Jones and we are going to set out to revitalize and re-establish the 3 Investigators in the public mind, where they belong to this day. Doggone it.
I remember the beautiful animation. But it was the tone that stuck fast in my head. No one could ever match it in tone.
I’m in. I’ll clear my schedule.
Betsy! I’m so honored! You quoted my review in the Fuse Eight title! (Quoting Pete Crenshaw, of course.) I’m so excited!
My co-worker and I are taking turns ordering the books via Interlibrary loan. I just put the 6th one on hold. More commentary on their adventures to follow!
And, yeah, how cool would it BE when you’re a kid to have a headquarters that you enter via a secret tunnel?