I am crushed. I was sure that A Monster Calls would take this match. It is a masterful portrayal of the pain of watching a loved one suffer - the guilt, the fear, the resentment, the sorrow, the.... Of course, my personal situation may have made me overly appreciative of this book. My Dad hasn't died but cancer changed him. Sigh.
As for
Life : an Unexploded Diagram I can't say much. I could not get into the book. Was it written well? Yes. Was I a teeny bit intrigued by the characters? Um, no. So now that it has earned a Match 2 slot, I will have to trudge through it. Friends who read it tell me they are very glad they did. Hopefully, the second half is better than the first. This is the allure of BoB. I am encouraged to read books that I normally would eschew in favor of OTHER books because there are always OTHER books, aren't there?
It's Whatever Wednesday - a Wet Whatever Wednesday. I have a slate full of stuff to do today so...
I will just remind you to reserve your tickets for
StoryFUSION now.
OK, here's my prediction for tomorrow's round. I liked both of these books but I wasn't enamored with either of them. I am going to choose
Okay for Now over
Wonderstruck. I felt that
Wonderstruck felt wooden compared to Selznick's triumph of
The Adventures of Hugo Cabret. That's probably a little unfair but life is not always fair and neither am I, I guess.
That said, Scholastic has put together a lovely webpage fore this book.
Click here to learn to fingerspell and to learn about constellations, too.
Too many neat coincidences in
Okay for Now, I thought. Funny how coincidences are fine and wanted in one book (
The Grand Plan) but can feel hasty in another book. HOWEVER, the librarian in
Okay is totally cool. Totally. And the artwork connection was intriguing.
So, which? Get on with it. Hmmmmm. Coin toss? Nah. I predict that
Okay for Now will move on to the next round. But now that I have been proved fallible I would not put any money down on this. Hey, is there a board in Vegas for this Battle? Does anyone know?
Scholastic has launched a special educational website called “Teaching with Brian Selznick.” The free site offers virtual field trips of New York City’s American Museum of Natural History, the inspiration for Brian Selznick‘s latest illustrated novel, Wonderstruck.
The website also contains classroom resources for both Wonderstruck and The Invention of Hugo Cabret. In the video embedded above, Selznick takes viewers a behind-the-scenes tour of the museum.
Here’s more from the release: “The virtual field trip, which is also available in closed caption, is hosted by Selznick and museum president Ellen V. Futter, and takes students on a tour through three exhibits in the museum: the Wolf Diorama, the Ahnighito Meteorite, and the Giant Anopheles Mosquito, all prominently featured in Wonderstruck. Students will also learn about the museum’s history, exhibits, and collections from a museum curator, an exhibitions manager, and a senior scientist.”
continued…
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
I will confess to this:
Late in the darkened day, dozens of gifts finally wrapped, most of the cards out into the world, the house clean, the boy's room ready for the boy, and the clients happy, I stopped.
For my dear niece Claire, I'd bought a copy of
Wonderstruck by the masterful Brian Selznick. I hadn't wrapped this gift yet. I'd wanted to take time with it, so that Claire and I could talk about it later. Those soft yet crystalline pencil drawings. Those two stories that become one. That old-time New York City. That cabinet of wonders. Meteorites and movie stars.
Six-hundred thirty-five pages of art. A book dedicated to Maurice Sendak. A book that, in this late hour, in a time where I've been feeling that brand of holiday rush and sad, felt just right, felt perfect.
Yes. This was the one. This was the book for my big-hearted, big-eyed beautiful Claire. This was the moment that finally ushered in my Christmas.
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Scholastic Press has unveiled the cover for author/illustrator Brian Selznick‘s forthcoming title, Wonderstruck. The novel will be released simultaneously in the U.S., the U.K., New Zealand, Australia, and Canada on September 13th.
As reported earlier, Selznick credited his love of museums as one of the inspirations for Wonderstruck. The book will contain over 460 pages of original drawings. We’ve embedded one of those drawings below…
Here’s more about the book’s story from the release: “Ben and Rose secretly wish their lives were different. Ben longs for the father he has never known. Rose dreams of a mysterious actress whose life she chronicles in a scrapbook. When Ben discovers a puzzling clue in his mother’s room and Rose reads an enticing headline in the newspaper, both children set out alone on desperate quests to find what they are missing. Set fifty years apart, these two independent stories–Ben’s told in words, Rose’s in pictures–weave back and forth with mesmerizing symmetry.”
continued…
New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.
Surprised me, too! Although I didn't love Okay for Now as much as I loved his previous book, I never thought Wonderstruck would triumph. I also never thought I'd care so much about the BoB thing. But I do!