By: Jerry Beck,
on 6/9/2013
Eusong Lee is a graduate of CalArts. Last night, he picked up the silver medal at the Student Academy Awards for his short film Will:
Eusong’s cinematic compositions and bold design choices result in dynamic storyboard panels, concept art and illustrations.
Eusong blogs his work extensively here and more recently on Tumblr as well.
By: Pat Zietlow Miller,
on 5/3/2012
Wisconsin author Janet Halfmann has written a lot of picture books. More than 30, in fact.
That’s why we’re declaring this “Janet Halfmann Week” on Read, Write, Repeat.
Today, Will joins us to talk about Star of the Sea: A Day in the Life of a Starfish.
This nonfiction picture book follows a starfish through a normal day. It features the starfish’s almost continual search for food and its efforts not to be eaten itself. There is drama, fun information about marine life, and enough interesting details to make you say, “Ewwww.”
Janet’s clear, informative text and Joan Paley’s bright, eye-catching illustrations make this a very engaging read. (The illustrations are a collage, using hand-painted papers from which Joan cuts shapes to create bold and colorful illustrations.)
Before he begins the review, Will would like to go on record as saying that he would rather not eat any of the things the starfish considers eating in this book — like mussels. He much prefers pizza with sausage and pepperoni toppings.
With that duly noted, take it away, Will!
Our reviewer: Will
Age: 8
Things I like to do: Play sports like football, baseball and basketball, lift weights, watch the Green Bay Packers.
This book was about: A starfish and the sea and how it got away from a bird that wanted to eat it.
The best part was when: The starfish fell into the sea and away from the bird.
This book taught me: Starfish can grow back their rays, or legs, in a year if they lose one.
Three words that best describe this book are: “Star.” “Fish.” “Interesting.”
My favorite picture in this book is: The picture of all the stars in the night sky. And the picture of the seaweed. There’s lot of detail.
Other kids reading this book should watch for: Things about starfish that they didn’t know before. Like that a starfish eats by pushing its stomach outside its body.
You should read this book because: You will learn something.
Thank you, Will!
This book is doing well.
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By: Pat Zietlow Miller,
on 3/29/2012
Most of the kids who review books for this blog really like talking with me about the books they’ve just read.
But today’s guest reviewer, Will, might win the prize for being the most excited.
He started talking to me about Herve Tullet’s Press Here (Chronicle, 2011) before we’d even sat down.
“This is a neat book,” he told me as we walked down the hall. “It has, like, actions.”
It does, indeed.
At first, the book looks deceptively simple. It’s white with dots. But, as Will shows, that’s more than enough to engage a reader. Readers press, shake, clap and push their way through the book. After each action, they turn the page and see what the dots have done.
And it holds up to multiple readings. Will read the book to me, and even though he’d done it all before, he was happy to do it again.
So pause here.
And then, read what else Will had to say about this book.
Our reviewer: Will
Age: 7
Things I like to do: Art and video games. Sometimes, I play with my brother.
This book was about: It’s funny. It’s sort of an activity book. It isn’t boring. You can do it over and over again. I liked that the book seemed like it was talking to you. In that way, it reminded me of Diary of a Wimpy Kid.
The best part was: It reminds me of dancing. Especially when you had to push really hard and shake the book. My favorite part was the clapping.
I smiled when: It says to try it again at the end of the book. I said, “Maybe.”
I was surprised when: The pages went black and the dots got so big.
Three words that best describe this book are: “Funny.” “Active.” “Surprising.”
My favorite line or phrase in the book is: “That’s enough.”
Other kids reading this book should watch for: The funny sentences. The surprising things that happen. The dots can really do stuff.
You should read this book because: You don’t know what’s going to happen next. It’s a seriously good book.
Thanks, Will.
If you’d like to see the book in action, watch this book trailer.
You also can read this interview with Herve Tullet.
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By: John Mark Boling,
on 8/24/2009
New in paperback this month is Will, a delightful novel that catapults us into the vivid world of William Shakespeare. It is March 1616. The Bard is dying. His lawyer at his bedside, he will attempt to dictate his will. But how can a man put his affairs in on order before he's come to terms with past. Author Christopher Rush has taught Shakespeare for thirty years, and is the author of twelve critically acclaimed works of fiction, memoir, and poetry.
Bookpage offers a review: "What does it feel like to be seized body and soul by sudden fear or desire? To steal power, submit to power, relinquish power? To tumble for the first time with the love of your life? To mourn a father? Lose a child? Betray someone's trust, or have yours betrayed? Or, finally, to be able to acknowledge your own hunger, your own mortality, your insatiable lust for living?
William Shakespeare answers these questions again and again, in play after play, always with stupendous insight. The Bard shows us the human being exactly as it lives and suffers and rejoices, under ever-familiar circumstances, however dramatically enhanced. To be so well-versed in humanity, Shakespeare must have been one hell of a human being--or not, but such a contradiction would only intensify the mystery. That's why it's so tantalizing to have so few scraps of evidence about what sort of person dear old Will really was.
To British author Christopher Rush, these scraps--along with the plays and poems themselves, which he taught for 30 years--are all the stuff he needs to perform his own feat of Shakespearean magic. Just as Will summons into thrilling reality hunchbacked Richard, ill-used Othello and fat Falstaff, Rush brings to startling life Shakespeare himself--or rather, "brings to death," for the pages of Will are spoken by Will himself, on his deathbed, consigning his final will to his lawyer. Above all, it is the sheer chutzpah of Rush's enterprise--the detailing of Shakespeare's life and work from Shakespeare's own mouth, from before the cradle to beyond the grave--that elevates his story into its authentic globe, where the ultimate human heart is revealed.
Here's the rare rendering of an artist in which art is not reduced by biography, but enlarged by it; where sex and death are not the caricatured obsessions of the poet, but his boundless and worthy themes. But take warning, reader: the London of the Elizabethan Age is rough trade, the theatre lying hard by the whorehouse and execution ground. Christopher Rush gives it all to us with uncensored glee and unfeigned horror."
Image via Wikipedia
Guess who’s coming over for dinner? It’s your mother-in-law. Are you excited? Well here are ten fortune cookie sayings that you might hear from your dear mother-in-law.
1. You look like a bum. You smell like a bum. I guess you are a bum. I don’t mean to be rude.
2. Get a job! Get off your butt! What’s the matter with you? Have a nice day.
3. You call this cooking? What are you trying to do? Are you trying to poison me? I’ll just have some wine.
4. Lose some weight! You look like my next door neighbor. They call him the Elephant Man.
5. Why did you ever marry my daughter? Where did I go wrong? By the way, wash your face and comb your hair.
6. Did you know that divorce is a seven letter word? You can use it in Scrabble or on some other occasion.
7. I’m ill. Call my doctor! Call my lawyer! Call my psychiatrist! Just get off your ass and start calling.
8. You’re not getting anything from me when I’m dead. I’ve written you out of my will. Now start massaging my feet.
9. Did anyone ever tell you that you bear a striking resemblance to the picture of the serial killer that is terrorizing the city?
10. Good news! Someone is moving into your home to live with you. I’ll give you one guess.
Image via Wikipedia
Guess who’s coming over for dinner? It’s your mother-in-law. Are you excited? Well here are ten fortune cookie sayings that you might hear from your dear mother-in-law.
1. You look like a bum. You smell like a bum. I guess you are a bum. I don’t mean to be rude.
2. Get a job! Get off your butt! What’s the matter with you? Have a nice day.
3. You call this cooking? What are you trying to do? Are you trying to poison me? I’ll just have some wine.
4. Lose some weight! You look like my next door neighbor. They call him the Elephant Man.
5. Why did you ever marry my daughter? Where did I go wrong? By the way, wash your face and comb your hair.
6. Did you know that divorce is a seven letter word? You can use it in Scrabble or on some other occasion.
7. I’m ill. Call my doctor! Call my lawyer! Call my psychiatrist! Just get off your ass and start calling.
8. You’re not getting anything from me when I’m dead. I’ve written you out of my will. Now start massaging my feet.
9. Did anyone ever tell you that you bear a striking resemblance to the picture of the serial killer that is terrorizing the city?
10. Good news! Someone is moving into your home to live with you. I’ll give you one guess.
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By: Rebecca,
on 3/17/2008
Early today we posted an article about health care reform by Lawrence J. Schneiderman, M.D, a Professor Emeritus at UCSD Medical School and Visiting Scholar in the Program in Medicine and Human Values at the California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco. His new book, Embracing Our Mortality: Hard Choices in an Age of Medical Miracles, looks at end of life decisions from both the medical and philosophical perspectives and advises on how to best make tough decisions. In the excerpt below Schneiderman emphasizes the importance of communicating your end-of-life preferences.
One of my patients, Earl Adams (not his real name), an African-American in his late seventies, was afflicted with severe Parkinsonism. Not only could he no longer play the organ for Sunday church services, he could barely move and relied on his devoted wife for even the most basic needs. She got him out of bed in the morning, helped him to the toilet, bathed him, fed him, kept him upright during the day, and returned him to bed at night. So successful was she at these tasks that whenever she brought him to see me he was always clean-shaven and meticulously dressed, complete with jacket and tie. (more…)
By: Ben Zimmer,
on 8/30/2007
In “The Grammarian’s Five Daughters,” a fable by science fiction writer Eleanor Arnason, a mother bestows grammatical gifts to five daughters seeking their fortune in the world. The eldest daughter gets a bag full of nouns, the next gets verbs, the next adjectives, and the next adverbs. The youngest daughter is stuck with the leftovers, those “dull little words” overlooked by everyone else: the prepositions. But the prepositions ultimately bring order to a chaotic land, serving as the foundation for a strong and thriving nation organized under the motto “WITH.”
(more…)
By: Rebecca,
on 8/8/2007
The adverb is an endangered species in Modern English. One should neither wring one’s hands nor weep on hearing this news. In the course of the last thousand years, English has shed most of its ancient endings, so that one more loss does not matter. Some closely related Germanic languages have advanced even further. For example, in German, schnell is both “quick” and “quickly,” and gut means “good” and well,” even though wohl, a cognate of Engl. well, exists. Everybody, at least in American English, says: “Do it real quick.” Outside that phrase, which has become an idiom, adverbs are fine: he is really quick and does everything quickly. During his visit to Minneapolis after the collapse of the bridge, President Bush said: “We want to get this bridge rebuilt as quick as possible.” This is not a Bushism: few people would have used quickly here despite the fact that my computer highlighted the word and suggested the form with -ly. (more…)
