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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!

Poet Janet Wong’s energy and dynamism really struck me when I interviewed her for our current issue on the main PaperTigers site and these qualities really come through in her recent interview with Elaine at Wild Rose Reader. It focuses on “her experience as a student in a master class on poetry taught by the late Myra Cohn Livingston, one of America’s foremost children’s poets and anthologists” – as well as being a great read itself, the comments that follow on from the interview have kept the discussion going…

Not only that, but Janet and Elaine have also invited readers of the interview to write their own poems including the words ring, drum and blanket, as this used to be one of Myra’s homework assignments. You can still join in – and if you need inspiration, you can read Janet and Elaine’s own offerings; there’s a great poem called Dragon Boat Festival by Diane Davis; and Cloudscome, Miss Rumphius Effect and Writing and Ruminating have all taken the challenge in wonderful and very different directions too.

According to the Movie Insider and Wikipedia, the rights to
Skulduggery Pleasant have been acquired by Warner Bros and a film is slated for 2010.

Are you serious? A movie?

Yep.

With the--?

Yes.

And--?

Yes.

Cooooool.

I know.

Will it really happen? Many a slip 'twixt the cup and lip, as my old granny never said in her freakin' life. But if this does happen, I think it would be a real blast.

Apparently they're making a movie out of Darren Shan's Cirque du Freak. Egad. I don't do horror movies, so I'll say this: if they do this one right, it's the kind of movie that I'd watch with both eyes shut. If, y'know, I went to it. Which I won't.

Thanks to Bookshelves of Doom for the link.

So the movie version of Neil Gaiman's Coraline could be really good, or really, really bad. Either way, here's a preview, courtesy of his website.



I kinda want to pull Coraline's face into alignment, but other than that, it looks appropriately creepy and atmospheric, with a great little eeky shiver at the end. What do you think? Weigh in in the comments!

Check here for a higher-res Quicktime version, if you're lucky enough to have a computer that plays nice with Quicktime.

Thanks to Child_Lit for passing it on.

Because you knew they'd get into it eventually.

Protests Over the Golden Compass

I especially like the second-to-last reason.

So according to the Hollywood Reporter, the same actor who played Cedric Diggory in the Harry Potter films (wait, wasn't he just in number four? Number five just used flashback footage), is going to play Edward in the film version of Stephanie Meyer's Twilight.

There's some debate about this, but I think it's a good choice--they're both the kind of too-decent-to-even-exist romantic hero. Heck, he can even recycle his noble expression with very little effort.

Anyone going to see this?

Thanks to the Child_Lit listserv for the heads-up.

. . . at least for today. Check out the video below, one of John's bidaily messages to his brother Hank and all the other Nerdfighters out there in Internetlandia.



Logically, I know I may be old and grey and mean before this happens. Even besides the strike, Hollywood in general moves at about the speed of a frozen slug.

Still, I'm excited, if only because I'm a nerdfighter, and I also want to see how they're going to make such a mathy book sexy and hip without involving David Krumholtz somewhere.

Note to studios: See if you can involve David Krumholtz somewhere. We need the pretty in our lives. I would settle for multiple Krumholtz clones in a crowd scene.

Anyone in New York City? Anyone? Bueller?

So they're having an open casting call for extras to work on "Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist." In spite of my aforementioned doubts about Michael Cera in the male title role, I would love to go to this. If, y'know, I weren't all the way across the country.

Key Quote:

Mohawks, piercings, liberty spikes, tattoos are all plus!