A Post That Doesn't Mention the Word "Newbery" Anywhere

I swear.

Publisher's Weekly recently went to booksellers for their annual "Cuffies." Some categories are pretty standard.

Favorite Novel of the Year
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins (“absolutely riveting”)
Honorable mentions: Impossible by Nancy Werlin (“well-written, intriguing”); Paper Towns by John Green; Nation by Terry Pratchett (“funny but deep”)

And others are . . . less so.

Book You Wish Everyone Would Shut Up About
Twilight

Hee.

Check out the full list here.

This Merits a Squee

Breaking(ish) news! The official title for the Hunger Games sequel is . . . *drumroll* . . . Chasing Fire! More importantly, we've also got an official release date, which is September 8th. Drop into the Publisher's Weekly article for more.

Squee!

Thanks to Presenting Lenore for the heads-up.

Finally, a Use For All Those Donated Dictionaries

The bane of any public library's life is those well-meaning donations. "Here, I found these encyclopedias from 1965 in the attic. Just brush off those spiderwebs before you add them to the collection!"

We smile in a pained fashion and take them. Then when the self-satisfied patron leaves, secure in his position as a Supporter of the Ahts and owner of a tax credit, we discreetly cart them to the dumpster.*

Well, no more! Fuse #8 pointed me at this freakin' cool site with various sculptures and things made out of books. Including bookshelves. My favorite is to the right.

*This is not to say we do not leap on new, shiny, barely-read books like wild dogs after a shard of meat. We just get so many more physics textbooks from 1973.

PW Interviews First-Timers

First time authors, that is. Three of them, anyway, and two of them are among my favorite books of the year: Kristin Cashore on the wicked awesome Graceling and Donna Freitas on the sweet and hilarious The Possibilities of Sainthood. Go see!

More Newbery Stuff

And I swear to y'all that this is the last post that will mention "Newbery" until the announcement of the awards next Monday. School Library Journal has a nice little roundup of the diversity brouhaha, including quotable quotes from the study's author, from Anita "Has the Newbery Lost Its Way" Silvey, and others.

Okay, that's it, I mean it. After all this, I think 2009 is going to be the year that the Caldecott gets hammered on.

Susan Patron Defends the Newbery Medal

Susan Patron has taken up arms, or pen, to defend the Newbery against the recent fooforaw. To the charge that Newbery books have become inaccessible to the average reader, she argues:

Does it follow that books dealing with tough social issues turn kids off? Doesn't whether a book is complicated or inaccessible depend on the age and experience of the reader?

Now the cynical among you may say, "Well, duh she said that. She was the 2007 winner, and that book, The Higher Power of Lucky, is often pointed to as one of the inaccessible ones." (Boy, you're articulate.) But she's also speaking from broader experience than that. Patron was a children's librarian for L.A. Public Library (City, not County--very important distinction if you live in L.A.) for thirty-five years. She knows whereof she speaks.

What do you think of the points Patron raises?

What Do You Think?

When I heard the news about the proposed Winnie the Pooh sequel, Return to the Hundred Acre Wood, I shared it with my co-worker, who let out a heartfelt groan of disgust.

Of course it's about money, but does it follow that the sequel will be awful? Now I have to be honest. I've never read the two originals *ducking rotten tomatoes* but I have heard that it has a very definite and somewhat solemn ending. Does anybody out there (who has read it) think the same thing as my co-worker? Is this a stupid idea?

The nice thing is that no matter how many bad sequels are made (DISNEY I AM LOOKING AT YOU) nothing can ruin a truly high quality original.

Class of 2K9 is in Session!

For the past two years, new authors--that is, authors putting out their first YA or children's novel--have banded together online to get the word out via a common blog, and it's worked a treat, I must say.

This year's crop, the class of 2009, is up and running at Class of 2K9. Go have a look-see!

Book Review: House of Many Ways by Diana Wynne Jones

Book: House of Many Ways
Author: Diana Wynne Jones
Published: 2008

To her own amazement, Charmain Baker has been shuttled off to take care of Great-Uncle William’s house while he’s away. At last, a chance to do exactly as she pleases, which is mostly to read on her own without the intrusions of her parents. (Not that I blame her.) But when she arrives, she discovers all sorts of mischief afoot besides the disaster area inside the house--rebelling kobolds, a singularly helpless apprentice wizard, a house that regularly changes its insides, and a mystery at the palace. She may just have found something that’s more interesting than her books . . .

I love Diana Wynne Jones because she writes people with flaws. She has characters that are selfish, vain, downright silly, stupid, and any host of other undesirable traits that would prompt immediate intervention in many other books, but Diana Wynne Jones simply points everybody’s flaws at everybody else and says “Off you go then,” to hilarious results. It’s only the truly wicked who come to sticky ends, and everyone else feels quite real.

The best example is Charmain herself when she encounters a house that hasn’t been looked after in quite some time. Instead of an industrious little girl who rolls up her sleeves and tackles the mess, you get Charmain, who ignores it in favor of more interesting things. On the one hand, we’re used to tidying-up happening when a mess is encountered. On the other, how many of you know a twelve-year-old who would do that without an adult around to prod them along (quite forcefully?) The house is only put in order when the incovenience of the mess far outweighs the drudgery of cleaning (which sounds awfully familiar, now that I think about it).

Fans of Howl’s Moving Castle will relish the chance to meet up with Sophie and Howl again. One character’s supposedly adorable lisp did wear on my nerves a tad, but then I realized it was meant to be annoying, and also quite true to the character. Pick this book for a grand old time in Diana Wynne Jones' world.

Gives the Term Electronic Book a Whole New Meaning

100 Scope Notes posted a review of a book called Skeleton Creek a few days back. Now the book itself sounds pretty neat, but what really caught my attention was how the author used a mixture of old-fashioned text on paper and new-fangled Internet video to tell his story.

Interesting. I remember a book maybe last year or 2007 that worked together with a website, and the 39 Clues series is famously utilizing all sorts of things, online and offline, to hook kids in. What do you guys think? Will we be seeing this a lot more often, or will it remain a gadget and a hook?

And my question is, what happens if/when the website or the videos go down? How will that affect the reading of the book?

Vote, vote, vote!

Tasha over at Kids Lit pointed this one out:

In association with the Children’s Book Council (CBC), Teenreads.com is giving you a very special opportunity to let your voices be heard by telling us your five favorite books of 2008. The five titles that receive the most “votes” will serve as the finalists for the CBC’s 2009 Teen Choice Book Award. Later we will tell you where you can go vote for them once the five finalists have been announced. The winner will be announced in May 2009.

Coooooooooooooooooool. Follow the link for more info.

Just When You Thought It Was Safe to Talk About the Newberys

Oy vey. That poor Newbery medal is going to need to be hammered back into shape after this year of bashing.

Have a gander at this article about a recent study that claims the Newbery is all about white boys. (I found it in the Detroit Free Press, Liz B. in the Bloomberg News. It seems to be one of those articles that gets picked up and run verbatim by every newspaper with a slow news day.)

There are problems with the article and the study alike, which Liz B. at A Chair, a Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy examines in more detail.

The primary one, however, is that the Newbery is for literary quality, hands down. That's what it's about, folks. There are other awards to celebrate diversity or popularity or what-have-you, but every committee member, past or present, that I've ever heard from has come back to the same core: it's about the book.

Would it be nice to have a list of award-winners that perfectly reflects our society's gender/social/racial/ethnic makeup? Yes. Is it gonna happen? Probably not.

Reading Like a Girl

Some columnist in the New York Times wishes she could read like a girl.

I hope in this case, "girl" is referring to the condition of being young--girl vs. woman--rather than the condition of being female--girl vs. boy. Because I know boys who read like this.

Heck with that, I know grown folks who read like this. Like me! Okay, maybe I am pickier than some kids sometimes (*cough*Eragon*cough*) but I think the author is setting up a false dichotomy here, one that annoys me. She points to one daughter's reaction to an old favorite of hers as proof of the girl's growing "adult" skepticism.

“I couldn’t stop reading it,” she said, before adding, with regret, “but I knew from the beginning how it would turn out.”

Yes? And? Like we didn't know at five years old how Sleeping Beauty would turn out? Or Harry Potter at twelve? Just because a kid recognizes the essential drive of a narrative--good guys/gals win, get the gal/guy, live happily ever after--doesn't mean they've somehow lost the ability to suspend disbelief. Geez Louise.

Hey, I'm a Knight's Fangirl!

Anybody got a hanky? I have to wave it out a castle window.

Silliness aside (is it ever on this blog?), Terry Pratchett got made a knight on New Year's Day. Check out the article, which includes an interview in which Sir Terry is asked the question whether the knighthood is due to his work in raising money for Alzheimer's (which he is in the early stages of). He basically answers, "Well, I have written a couple of good books that people kinda liked, so . . . y'know . . . maybe it's for that? Rather than having a disease?"

Such restraint, good sir. Thanks to Cheryl Rainfield's blog for the link.

Oo, and here's another vid from Fuse #8--clearly the same interview but different clips.

Ursula K. LeGuin Interview

Have I mentioned how much I love retellings?

Well, I do.

Have I mentioned that I took Latin in college, on purpose, and had to translate the entire second book of The Aeneid from Latin into English, plus read the whole thing (in English)?

Well, I did.

Have I mentioned that Ursula K. LeGuin is retelling the second half of The Aeneid from the point-of-view of Lavinia, otherwise known as That One Girl Aeneas Had to Marry to Get the Throne of Rome But We All Know He Still Loved Dido and Who Cares About That Girl Anyway? (Although most people just refer to her as Lavinia, if they remember her at all.)

Well, no, cuz I just found out. Here, have an interview. Quoteage:

So in writing this I was not trying to set a wrong right or give voice to a woman who was unjustly deprived of her voice, it's just that she was my way into Virgil's world, in a way. As a woman I could think, well, what did Lavinia feel about all this? How did she see it? What was her life like? She was sort of my key to open the door.

Intriguing. I may want to re-read The Aeneid after Lavinia. But if I reach for the Latin-English dictionary, shoot me.

Well, That One Got By Me

Did you guys know?

Ramona the Movie!

The page says March 19, 2010 is the release date. This could be a lot of fun, if they stick to the source and resist putting superspies in or something.

On second thought, scratch that. I'd kinda love to see Ramona foil superspies.

File This Under A for Awesome

túrána hott kurdís by hasta la otra méxico! from Till Credner on Vimeo.

Yoinked from Astronomy Picture of the Day.

Nice One

How Disney Killed Off Its Billion Dollar Narnia Franchise

Apparently, Disney is calling it quits on the Narnia movies after "Prince Caspian" didn't perform to expectations. (I'll say; I barely even knew it was in theatres.) But seriously . . . no "Magician's Nephew"? I actually might have gone to see that one.

Thanks to Bookshelves of Doom for the heads-up.

They're Here! They're Here!

The Cybils shortlists came out today and may I say, Damn. Yes, I think I will. Damn, you guys! What good books! How are the judges going to winnow each of those lists down to one?

Congrats to all the shortlisted authors and illustrators, and big kudos to the nominating panels!

Reading Roundup 2008

I decided to go back through and pick my faves from this year. Not all of these books were published in 2008, but that's when I read 'em.

By the Numbers
Teen: 210
Tween: 136
Children: 205

Standouts
Teen: Boy Toy by Barry Lyga
Tween: Leap of Faith by Kimberly Brubaker Bradley
Children: Moxy Maxwell Does Not Love Stuart Little by Peggy Gifford

Because I Want To Awards
Best Nonfiction: Albino Animals by Kelly Milner Halls
Best Graphic Novel: Rapunzel's Revenge by Shannon Hale and Nathan Hale
Best Series Kickstart: The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins
Favorite New Author: Kristin Cashore
Favorite Rediscovered Author: Ellen Emerson White
Holy Schnikes, I Read Those Fast!: Tithe, Valiant, and Ironside by Holly Black
Grossest: Dead High Yearbook by Ivan Velez

A good year for reading. Here's to 2009!