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23rd World Book Fair 2008~ May 30 - Jun 8, Singapore

4th Nami Island International Book Festival~ ongoing until Jun 30, Korea

Asian Children’s Writers and Illustrators Conference~ Jun 5-7, Singapore

Antioch University First Annual Children’s Literature Conference~ Jun 7, Los Angeles, CA, USA

6th Annual Feria del Libro: A Family Book Fair~ Jun 7, Los Angeles, CA, USA

Storylines Festival of New Zealand Children’s Writers and Illustrators~ Jun 8-15, New Zealand

Montana New Zealand Book Award Finalists Announced~ Jun 10, New Zealand

35th Annual Children’s Literature Association Conference~ Jun 12-15, Normal, IL, USA

Book Expo Canada~ Jun 13-16, Toronto, ON, Canada

“Princess Shawl” book launch and reading by Shirley Lim~ Jun 14, Kuala Lumpur

Cape Town Book Fair~ Jun 14-17, South Africa

CILIP Carnegie and Kate Greenaway Children’s Book Awards Winners Announced ~Jun 26, United Kingdom

Sunthorn Phu Day (celebrated poet)~ Jun 26, Thailand

American Library Association Annual Conference and Exhibition~ Jun 26 - Jul 2, Anaheim, CA, USA

Canadian Multiculturalism Day~ Jun 27, Canada

Jakarta Book Fair~ Jun 28 - Jul 6, Jakarta, Indonesia

American Indian Youth Literature Awards Presentations~ Jun 30, Anaheim, CA, USA

1. Pics of the cast from the Twilight movie are up on Stephanie Meyer's website. I'm sorry but looking at those pictures made me giggle. For some reason, reading about a family of sparkling vampires is much less silly than looking at pictures of them.

2. Thanks to Bookshelves of Doom I have found my dream house. Check out the staircase/bookcase. Yum.

3. In local news the penguins are starting trouble again. But at least they have people standing up for them though. School Board Vice Chairman John Stevens said in a written statement “Parents determine what is appropriate for their own children and how to guide their children as they learn and grow,” and that “The schools should not be an instrument of censorship."

Ah. So there are some sane people on school boards!

4. I just finished reading Memoirs of a Teenage Amnesiac by Gabrielle Zevin and Extras by Scott Westerfeld. Loved Memoirs. Didn't care for Extras. Zevin writes teenagers really well and Memoirs reminded a lot of the Jessica Darling series by Megan McCaffrey. Extras was a whole lot of superficial characters riding around on hover boards. It was like one very long Quiddich match. I know some kids like that sort of thing but I was never that kind of reader.

Starting on January 13, PBS's Masterpiece Theatre will broadcast all six of Jane Austen novels, including four new adaptations and a biopic!

I'm a bit facinated by the way Jane Austen flares in popularity every few years, usually because of some new movie based on her work. Back in the highschool days, I remember being inspired to to read Emma after watching Clueless.

Sneak Peek Here.

Not sure what I think of this yet. I have read Coraline so many times that I have a clear picture in my head of what the story should look like and I know I should probably stay away from the movie. BUT... I know I won't be able to stay away. I hope that at the very least I feel the way I felt about The Golden Compass movie, which was that it was a fun movie to watch.

Speaking of movies, I saw Sweeny Todd yesterday as part of our "Jewish Christmas" which also included latkas for breakfast and chinese food for dinner. It was great gorey fun and now I've been singing about the worst pies in london all day!

I saw the movie of Philip Pullman's The Golden Compass last night. It's been getting some pretty terrible reviews with most critics complaining that it waters down the complexity of Pullman's books. And yes, the movie falls short of the brilliance of the book but that is almost always the case. Which is why I feel the need to speak up in this movie's defense.

I remember reading the His Dark Materials trilogy, of which The Golden Compass is the first book, in college and marveling at how complicated the plot was. So, when I heard that they were making the Golden Compass into a movie I didn't really expect that they would be able to pack in everything from the book. Even ending the film about three chapters early (which was annoying to me as a reader but understandable as a movie viewer), there's just too much.

But really what I'm getting at is that if I wanted to have the perfect experience of The Golden Compass I would read the book again. Nothing is going to match that. But I think that the filmmakers tried hard to stay faithful to the story. And though it wasn't perfection, I enjoyed sitting through their effort.