bookshelves of doom

I called it!

Two years ago, when I read Adam Selzer's How to Get Suspended and Influence People, I said that I wouldn't be surprised to see it get challenged.

Thank you, lady in Idaho, for making me right.

The Exquisite Corpse Adventure.

Working for the Library of Congress/Center of the Book has got to be the most geektastically mindblowingly awesome job there is: 

They have just introduced the Exquisite Corpse Adventure*, in which Jon Scieszka will write an installment and then pass it on to Katherine Paterson, who will write another  installment, and then it will be passed on to (among many others and no, I don't know the actual order other than the first two) M.T. Anderson and Shannon Hale and Daniel Handler and SUSAN FREAKING COOPER (plus there'll be a new illustration each time) and on and on every two weeks, and will finally finish a year from now.

Also, being the brainiacs that they are, they've set it up with an RSS feed, so we don't even have to remember to check the LOC website every two weeks.

HOW RAD IS THAT?

(via Tor)

___________________________________________________________________

*An ECA is that game where one person begins a story and then gives it to the next person, who writes more and then folds the paper over so that the third person can only see what the second person wrote and so on...  You know what I mean.

Slush Reading, Seuss Style.

From Jim C. Hines' Slush I Read:

Do you like fanfic with vamps?

I do not like them Mary Sue.
Why do these vamps all worship you?

Go!  Go!  Go read the entire thing, it all its hilarious glory!

(via OUP)

LeVar finally tells us what he really thinks.

From his opinion piece:

When the news came that Reading Rainbow would be canceled due to a lack of funding, I felt—well, to use a cliché like you'd find in one of the hundreds of books I pimped endlessly—like a huge weight had been lifted from my shoulders. Every day I went to work hoping that maybe the studio had burned down, that maybe the program had been cut, that maybe PBS would finally stop squeezing the life from me drop by drop. Now that it's over, I feel the relief a bruised and broken soldier must feel when he is rescued after rotting away for decades in some dank, forgotten POW camp.

May that godforsaken show burn in hell.

It's from The Onion, obviously.  And it made me laugh like a loon.

(via @levarburton)

Not Tim Burton's Alice.

Hmmm.  I do like the shrinking room.  And the cast is way more interesting than Tim Burton's cast.

So, should I give Tin Man another chance or what?  I watched the first installment, but the pacing was so weird and it seemed like it was trying too hard and sometimes Zooey just... doesn't doing it for me.  And I found Claire from 90210 ridiculous rather than menacing.  Those lame tattoos?  Also... she's CLAIRE.

(via educating alice)

EW's suggestions for the Next Big Picture Book Movie.

I find it interesting and amusing that they reversed the gender roles in The Giving Tree, with Philip Seymour Hoffman in the title role and Abigail Breslin as The Taking Child.  Their re-imagining of Green Eggs and Ham is funny, too.

But it's the thought of Michael Bay directing Goodnight, Moon that slays me:

Goodnight, Moon: The source material consists nearly exclusively of scenes of a young boy saying goodnight to various things in and around his bedroom. Director Michael Bay hopes to maintain the original’s basic structure while replacing "saying goodnight to" with "exploding into an infernal fireball" and "a young boy" with "Will Smith." Also, the Moon killed Smith’s family and he’s out for revenge.
Sample Dialogue: "Say goodnight, Moon." *EXPLOSION*

Yes, I'm still laughing.

The Cybils 2009 Season is approaching fast!

So start thinking about possible nominations.

(And check out their new header.  Vair nice.)

The end of Reading Rainbow.

So.

I'm embarrassed to admit that I didn't know that Reading Rainbow was still on.  (In my defense, we haven't had television reception for, like, ever.  Or, obviously, cable.)

But that doesn't make me any less sad to hear that it is ending tomorrow.

From NPR:

Grant says that PBS, CPB and the Department of Education put significant funding toward programming that would teach kids how to read — but that's not what Reading Rainbow was trying to do.

"Reading Rainbow taught kids why to read," Grant says. "You know, the love of reading — [the show] encouraged kids to pick up a book and to read."

Here're some italics of my own:  While of course I understand that it's important to teach kids how to read (DUH), I think it's just as important to teach kids why to read, to get them excited about reading, to teach them the magic and power of books, and to inspire them to want to learn to read.

There's a conversation going on about it at Twitter:  #SaveReadingRainbow.

More on bleakness in children's literature.

Anne Fine wrote a brief letter to the editor at the Times -- what she says there makes SO much more sense than the earlier article suggested.  I really was having a difficult time reconciling the realism of her books with the idea of going back to Blyton.

Phew.  My world is now back in its regular orbit.

(via Lisa)

Children's books too bleak, blah blah blah.

It seems that every couple of years, someone starts a round of realism-in-literature-is-too-much-for-children-to-handle.

This time, it's Anne Fine*.  Which I think is interesting, because, like the author of the essay I just linked to, I think of Fine as an author who does deal with some pretty tough stuff, and does it realistically.

Anyway.  The Guardian also has some thoughts on rewrites for a bunch of children's books to make them cheerier.  I'm sure that someone could "improve" The Chocolate Warby adding in some Rocky-esque training scenes which would lead to an ending that doesn't make the reader want to stab herself.

_________________________________________________________________________

*Actually, hasn't she gone off about this before?  Oh, wait.  I'm thinking of her blistering review of Melvin Burgess' Doing It.  Which I really liked.  The book, I mean.  It was amazingly raunchy, yes, especially towards the beginning, but I remember the character development being very strong and I also remember feeling that a whole lot of the book was in line with what I remembered from high school.  But that brings us back to the children's-literature-shouldn't-be-TOO-realistic argument.  Which, in case you're wondering, I don't buy.  I'm not saying that all books should be gritty and rough -- but I don't see why, with the bazillions of books out there, noneof them should be.  Yeesh.

Lemony Snicket announces new series... sort of.

From the statement, as reported by the CBC:

"I can neither confirm nor deny that I have begun research into a new case, and I can neither confirm nor deny that the results are as dreadful and unnerving as A Series Of Unfortunate Events. However, I can confirm that Egmont will be publishing these findings."

While I'm one of the few people on the planet who never finished the series*, I do like to keep an eye on Daniel Handler's activities.  The books didn't do it for me, but I'm a fan of him.  He just seems like a good egg.

_____________________________________________________________________

(*I got stuck halfway through the second book.)

Lookalikes.

Washington Irving:

 

And the Wizard of Oz:

Don't you think?  Maybe it's just the hair.

Brett McCarthy: Work in Progress -- Maria Padian

Brett McCarthy: Work in Progress begins:

I've been obsessed lately with trying to pinpoint the exact moment when I got redefined.

That's one of my grandmother's favorite words.  It basically means defined again.  Define means to make clear; mark the limits of; identify the essential qualities or meaning of.  Before my life changed from fairly decent to really bad, my self-definition was pretty straightforward.

Brett McCarthy: Only Child; Only Granddaughter; Best Eighth-Grade Corner Kicker in Maine; Diane's Best Friend.

Then came the redefinition.

Brett McCarthy:  Deadest Meat in Maine and Possibly the Planet; Practically Friendless; Violent; Suspended.

Can you blame me for wanting to sort this out?

First off, while the cover of the paperback is somewhat generic, it's a huge improvement on the cover of the hardback:

Yecch.  I do appreciate the designer's inclusion of the dictionary -- Brett's family is big on poetry and she loves expanding her vocabulary, titling each chapter with a word that she defines in that chapter -- but that is in no way a cover that screams, "PICK ME UP!"

Anyway.  It's a readable, funny and poignant coming-of-age story about a bright girl with a big mouth who is going through a serious rough patch:  having one of her best friends grow out of their friendship, having another of her best friends start to look at their relationship differently, and suddenly realizing that her beloved grandmother is... not going to be around forever.  There were a few moments when I felt that Brett's cluelessness was a little bit unbelievable -- I bought it that she didn't care about clothes, but for her to not recognize the name Abercrombie & Fitch didn't ring true to me -- but overall, as a narrator, I really enjoyed her, even when she made me slap my forehead, and say, "Oh, Brett, PLEASE DON'T SAY/DO WHAT I THINK YOU'RE ABOUT TO SAY/DO."

So I had mostly positive feelings about the book, even though when it comes to my home state, I get quite a bit pickier than usual.  On occasion, the references to Maine Stuff (like Gifford's Ice Cream) felt a little bit forced and awkward, but over all, I thought it really worked.  I liked that there were a lot of French last names (like LaVoie and Pelletier); I liked that her while her town, Mescataqua, isn't an actual town in Maine, I had to look it up to be sure because the name sounds like a town in Maine; I liked that she used capital letters when referring to The County, as is proper; and I liked that she used the correct term for people from away -- although I don't think that any self-respecting Mainer would have put it in quotation marks. 

___________________________________________________________________

Book source:  My local library. 

That furry book.

Now.  While I'm very curious about the Wild Things movie, I'm not really interested in the novelization of the original book.  I just don't see the point, when the original was perfectly perfect as it was.  It doesn't have me gnashing my teeth or anything, just disinterested.  But, whatever.  The decision to offer a furry version of the book just struck me as rather gimmicky, and reminded me that pain-in-the-ass monster book (I don't remember what it was called, but it was covered in extremely fake shaggy black fur) we had to deal with at the bookstore.

However.  All that didn't prevent me from finding this tidbit from a brief interview with Dave Eggers in the New Yorker very interesting:

“The Wild Things” will come in a fur edition, I hear?

It was just an idea I had, that it could be cool to have a book covered in fake fur. I told Maurice about it, and he told me a story of someone trying the same thing, with real fur, back in the sixties. I guess they made thousands of them, wrapped in some kind of real fur, and sent them to a warehouse for a while before shipping them to stores. By the time they came to ship the books, the warehouse was full of moths, and most of the fur had been eaten. Anyway, we went to a printer in Singapore about this, and they sent us a bunch of faux-fur samples. We chose one that’s usually used to repair small holes in mink coats. I think we ordered more of this fur than had ever been ordered at one time. The result looks pretty good, though. Very creepy.

(via Powell's)

I am so happy that other people think about stuff like this.

I am even happier that other people think about stuff like this and ACTUALLY TAKE ACTION:

Choose Your Own Adventure #2: Journey Under the Sea
Analysis of paths and outcomes

"What exactly, Thomson asked, are your politics? "Fishing," Ransome replied."

Sir Arthur Ransome:

Author of Swallows and Amazons.  (Knew that.)
Won a libel trial against Lord Alfred "that jerk" Douglas.  (Didn't know.)
Proposed to "virtually every eligible woman of his acquaintance".  (Didn't know.)
Ran away from his wife and daughter... (Didn't know.)
...and ended up shacking up with Trotsky's personal secretary.  (Didn't know.)
British spy.  (Knew that.)
Possible double agent for the Russians.  (Didn't know.)

Note to self:  Ask the director to order this book.

PS to self:  Will you be able to convince her to import it?

PPS to self:  BE VERY CONVINCING.

Some reading lists.

Lesley Blume picks Must-Read Classic Children's Books at NPR.

Will Davis picks his Top Ten Literary Teens at the Guardian.

More Alice.

Okay, so if you were going to cast Tim Curry in a re-imagining of Alice in Wonderland, you'd cast him as the Mad Hatter, right?

You wouldn't waste all that crazy on a teeny little part like the Dodo*, right?

Not this guy.

Although I'm going to have to watch it -- even though it's a (I shudder as I type this) SyFy** original -- if only for Harry Dean Stanton as the Caterpillar***.

(via Fuse#8)

_______________________________________________________________

*Not that I'm anti-Dodo.  I love dodos.  We should clone them like in the Jasper Fforde books.

**Really.  WHAT were they thinking?  SyFy ≠ cool/hip/futuristic or whatever the crap they were going for.

***Have I posted about this before?  It all seems so familiar...

You will never, ever guess...

...what book won this year's Hugo for best novel.

Not in a million, zillion years.

The nominees for the 2009 World Fantasy Awards...

...have been announced.

Better on a bigger screen. With a connection that doesn't crap out.

I first saw this trailer on jonbean's iPhone, and as wonderful an experience that was, I must admit that I enjoyed it much more this time around:

"...he's turned it into his without giving up mine."

I really do want to see this one.  But I'm worried about seeing it in the theater, as I can't even make it through the trailer (or this featurette) without bursting into tears.

I DON'T KNOW WHY.

(via educating alice)

The difficulties of being Harry Potter.

From UPI.com:

"Oh my lordy Hannah," Potter said. "You have no idea what it is like to have this name. Just 15 minutes ago, I got a phone call from some girls who were about 13 or 14, and who giggled a lot. And you cannot be rude to them, you know that? You cannot be rude.

"That J.K. Rowling owes me something. I'm not sure what, but she owes me."

I never even considered the poor real-life Harry Potters out there.

Oh, NO.  What must happen to the poor real-life Edward Cullens and Jacob Blacks?

 

Will Arnett reads from Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.

I do love him.  And, of course, Judy Blume:

(via 100 Scope Notes)

Michael Rosen @ the Guardian.

From the interview:

What's the greatest threat to poetry today?

Comprehension questions in schools. Kids don't get the chance to get up and perform poetry, and enjoy it, because they're too busy counting adjectives and spotting metaphors.

Has poetry not always been taught like that?  (I'm asking seriously, not sarcastically.  I really would like to know.  I don't know anything about the history of poetry education.)

More sewing.

I've been sewing like a champ -- and I'm all about Nancy Drew bags at the moment. 

Just added two to my Etsy shop that feature illustrations I rescued from a falling-apart copy of The Mystery at Lilac Inn:

Killer Pizza -- Greg Taylor

14-year-old Toby McGill secretly wants to be a world-famous chef, and scoring a job at Killer Pizza is just the first step in what he hopes will be a long and illustrious career.

He may be right.  Except that the career might not be exactly what he expects:  Killer Pizza isn't just a pizza shop.  It's also the front for a secret organization of monster hunters.  And Toby has been hand-picked as a new recruit.

R. L. Stine was the perfect person to blurb this book.  It reads quite a bit like an extended (340 page) Goosebumps novel.  It's plot-driven, with stock characters (Strobe is the Cranky But Goodhearted Tough Guy with a Checkered Past, Annabel is the Rich and Popular Hottie Who Wants More Out Of Life Than Gossiping By The Pool, Toby is the Everyman), and the prose very often reads like a novelization of a movie script*:

And just like that, all was quiet once again in the alley.  Like an afterthought to the horrific attack, a side section of the box that was barely attached to the ravaged structure separated and fell to the ground.  Light from the streetlamp at the end of the alley revealed there was nothing left inside.  Not even a shoe.  Or a shred of clothing.  The guttata had been very thorough.  Or hungry.  (79)

The upside-down Hummer's high beams--still on and pointed at the beast--lent a dramatic, backlit glow to the scene in the middle of the road.  Still dazed from its up-close-and-personal meeting with the Hummer, the creature was nonetheless shaking off the dust and getting ready to resume its battle with the trio.  (300)

I found the dialogue mostly stilted and unbelievable (and Toby's odd tendency to drop his 'g's when he was "relaxin'" was distracting and just... weird), and I felt that there was a lot of telling vs. showing:

Yes, Toby was putting on his apron and taking out the pots and pans.  There was a very particular reason for his kitchen session, beyond just wanting to experiment with a new recipe.  Toby had been surprised and pleased to discover that cooking actually calmed him. (143)

As usual, Feiwel & Friends has produced a very attractive package -- the endpapers look like the inside of a greasy pizza box and the designer made good use of that ridiculously fun classic horror font -- but in this case, for me, that was pretty much all the book had going for it.  While it certainly might appeal to MG fans of R. L. Stine and Darren Shan, the lack of interesting characters and suspense made it a book I had to force myself to finish, rather than one that left me hungry for more**.  The next time I need a Spooky Midwest Fix, I'll re-watch Eerie, Indiana.

___________________________________________________________________

*Which makes sense, as the author is a screenwriter.

**I do want to try the pizza recipe, though.

___________________________________________________________________

Book Source:  Finished copy from the publisher.

The Last Olympian: Percy Jackson & the Olympians, Book Five -- Rick Riordan

THERE ARE NO-NAMES NAMED VAGUE-ISH SPOILERS IN THE FOOTNOTES.

Ever since someone pointed out to me that the similarities between the Percy Jackson books and the Harry Potter books go beyond* the simple boy-turns-eleven-and-discovers-a-secret-family-history-that-results-in-him-going-off-to-a-special-place-every-year-and-also-he's-possibly-the-child-of-prophecy-that-may-or-may-not-save-the-world storyline, I've had a hard time not comparing the two.

So I found it interesting that, like the last Harry Potter book, The Last Olympian began with a divergence.  We didn't get the usual Percy-has-some-sort-of-battle-on-the-last-day-of-school-and-then-makes-his-way-to-camp opening -- Percy gets word that the battle has begun, and that's that.  And, like JKR did with the deaths that occurred at the beginning of HPVII, Rick Riordan showed that he meant business*** with the death of a half-blood** before page thirty. 

This is, after all, the last Percy Jackson book -- the book in which Percy finally hears the whole prophecy, and the book in which the prophecy will finally come to pass.  Or will it?

Overall, I had mixed feelings.  I was happy to get more of Luke's history, to find that Rachel was more important than expected, and to see Percy's mother and stepfather in action.  I was happy to see Grover come into his own, and I always have had a soft spot for Clarisse. 

As the challenges Percy & Co. face are much more serious, I wasn't surprised that the tone was much darker than in the earlier installments, but I was glad to see that there was still a good amount of humor -- Apollo's curse on the Ares cabin was especially good -- and I still enjoy Percy's voice (though I don't really feel that he's matured much in five years):

I remembered the story.  Orpheus wasn't supposed to look behind him when he was leading his wife back to the world, but of course he did.  It was one of those typical "and-so-the-died/the-end" stories that always made us demigods feel warm and fuzzy. 

So that all worked.  But it wasn't until page 295 that the book really grabbed me. 

Until that point, I felt like I was treading water, waiting the story out.  After that point, I was fully invested, interested and eager to see where the story would go.  Because something surprised me there.  Up until then, nothing else in the book had.  And so I finished the book, felt satisfied with the end of the series (HOWEVER.****), and I'm looking forward to the next Camp Half-Blood series. 

________________________________________________________________________

Previously:

1.  The Lightning Thief
2.  The Sea of Monsters
3.  The Titan's Curse
4.  The Battle of the Labyrinth

_________________________________________________________________________

*It's mostly just that the Harry, Ron, Hermione personalities are very similar to the Percy, Grover, Annabeth personalities.  Though Grover's role in everything has changed significantly, and the Percy/Annabeth relationship is different.  In the first couple of books, though, the parallels were quite strong.

**See this post for an interesting take on that death -- but do beware of spoilers.  And this post for a related complaint about the audio version.

***At the same time, I felt that his choice of character was similar to Rowling's choice of Cedric Diggory -- a nice-guy secondary character whose death wouldn't wreck a fan's day, but whose death would hit the other characters -- especially our hero -- hard.  It felt... calculated.  Which detracted, for me -- it made me stop thinking about the characters as people and start paying attention to the man behind the curtain.

****Now, though, looking back, I find that surprise on page 296 less satisfying.  Like the death early on, the identity of the spy felt so calculated -- like the character was chosen specifically so that everything could be wrapped up with a nice big ribbon (and a double funeral) at the end.  It didn't sit right with me.  And the more I think about it, the more dissatisfied I am.

The Thief: The Queen's Thief, #1 -- Megan Whalen Turner

While the rain kept me from writing about The Thief as promised last Thursday, it certainly didn't keep me from re-reading it.  There are few things, I think, that could've made me that miserable.

So.  A bit later than promised, but... here we are.

For the uninitiated, The Thief begins:

I didn't know how long I had been in the king's prison.

After drunkenly bragging in wine shops about being the greatest thief alive, Gen was forced to put his money where his mouth was and prove it.  So prove it he did -- by stealing the king's seal out from under the king's chief advisor's nose.  Of course, Gen's bragging hadn't gone unnoticed by the government, so it wasn't long before he was captured and deposited in prison. 

That same chief advisor -- the magus -- decides that there is a better way for Gen to serve the country than rotting in jail.  And so, the two of them, along with a soldier and two young students, set out on a journey to steal an object.  Gen isn't informed what their destination is, or for that matter, what he is to steal, but, when it comes to the king's prison, out is better than in.

If you haven't read the book, skip the rest, because while I'm not going to get specifically spoiler-y, your first journey with Gen should be one that you only share with him.  So go away and read it.  Seriously.  If you've been meaning to get to it for ages and just haven't found the time -- FIND IT.  You're missing out.  Not just on this book, but on the next two.  And don't worry -- what follows isn't a review or a critique -- it's a love letter.

While I wish I could read this again for the very first time, I do love revisiting it.  I feel like I catch something new every time.  I love Gen's asides, his clues to the reader about his real identity:

He wanted to know my name.

I said, "Gen."  He wasn't interested in the rest.

I love that while he lies constantly to everyone he interacts with in every way possible -- words, posture, habit, personality, history, education, intellect -- he doesn't actually lie to the reader except by way of omission.  I love that basically, he's running a long con.  I love the moments when his temper threatens to get the better of him.  I love him.  I love Sophos, Pol, even the magus.  I can't love Ambiades, but I do love Gen's interactions with him.  I love the underlying conversation about myth: how we use it and change it, how even well-known and often-told stories are shaped by the teller, how that can tell us about the teller.  I love the first meeting of Gen and Attolia.  I love Gen's reaction to being watched over by the gods.  I love watching the characters begin to suspect things about each other even as they begin to care about and respect each other.

I love Megan Whalen Turner for creating these characters and this world.

If it had been anyone else, mockery would have ensued...

...but it's Dolly. 

While titling a children's book I am a Rainbow is a bit much even for her, she still gets a pass.

Ugh.

Tasha Tudor's children are fighting about her estate and her burial arrangements.

First images from Wonderland.

WAY CREEPY.

Which could work very well.

I'm feeling a bit more optimistic.

[Later:  Hmmm.  While I love the scenery, the make-up might be a bit too much for me.]

Despite Jess' misgivings*...

I'm going to re-read The Thief.

And I'll be posting about it next Thursday -- so if you feel like re-reading (or reading for the first time!) and chattering about it, feel free to jump in, whether it's in the comments or your own post.

I'm SO looking forward to taking Eugenides home with me.

_____________________________________________________

*See comment #6.

Because if it works once*, it'll work thirteen more times.

From PW:

HarperCollins Children’s Books has acquired world rights to 13 children’s books featuring the Labrador John Grogan wrote about in his bestselling memoir, Marley & Me.

I'm sorry, but gag me.

And also, BO-RING.

_______________________________________________________________

*My mistake.  Apparently, there are already two Marley picture books in addition to the middle grade adaptation of the adult memoir.

The Wild Girls -- Pat Murphy Read for the 4th Annual 48-Hour Book Challenge.

I've been meaning to read Wild Girls since it came out -- I remember that People I Trust loved it, and that there was a minor kerfuffle about a mediocre review somewhere and I remember putting it on my list.  Then my library never bought it and I promptly forgot about it.  (The dangers of a much-too-long TBR list.)

Yesterday, as I was checking an ILL in, I realized that I held it in my hands.  It was already overdue, but the ILL delivery had already gone out, so the earliest it could go back would be on Tuesday, so OBVIOUSLY it was meant to be. 

None of that has anything to do with the book.  But Wild Girls kind of messed me up, so I'm postponing what I suspect will be a big ramble by, um, rambling.

It's about two girls.  It begins:

I met the Queen of the Foxes in 1972, when my family moved from Connecticut to California.

The narrator is Joan.  The Queen of the Foxes is Sarah, or as she calls herself, Fox.  It's set in 1972, as you may have deduced, and while there aren't a bunch of unnecessary details To Let The Reader Know It's The 70s, it feels very seventies.  Which is cool.

For some reason, I can't really do the synopsis thing here.  I think it's because, as I said, it messed me up.  In terms of actual plot, actual happenings, it's a very simple story, and Pat Murphy uses very clear and simple language to tell it. 

Beyond and beneath that simple plot, it's also a story about families falling apart, about families tearing themselves apart, about people losing themselves and finding themselves again, about finding ways of figuring life out and creating family.  It's about, as Joan would say, the subtext.  And it's about writing.  And the whole book rings clear and true.  Regardless of whether it's fiction or not, it's one that rings so true that I'm getting all choked up again.  I believed in the girls, and I believed in the parents, and while Joan and Fox were the focus, the adult characters were so real that this book could have been about them instead. 

It's one I wish I'd had in fifth grade.

Heck, I wish I'd had it in college.

________________________________________________________________

Previous Challenge Books:

The Name of the Game Was Murder
Bloody Jack

Horn Book/Boston Globe awards announced.

And the fiction winner/runners-up were...

Zzzzzz.

(I'm sorry.  I love book awards, I do, and I should Represent the New England and all, but it's the same three books that won (or were up for) every other award, so I'm unable to work up much excitement.  But, you know.  Maybe I just need more tea.)

Emily the Strange lawsuit: in backwardsland.

I am so very off my game -- this story broke a couple of weeks ago:

So, in an example of how twisted our legal system can be, Cosmic Debris (owners of the Emily the Strange property) has sued Marjorie Sharmat and Marc Simont.

There's a bit more in this SLJ article.

(via Tea Cozy and You Thought We Wouldn't Notice)

I must return to River Heights.

Nancy Drew and the Secret of the 3 Black Robes

New blog alert.

And it's one that's perfect for me:  Kelly Herold will be exploring books that Crossover.

Pish Posh -- Ellen Potter

Pish Posh begins:

If you walked into the Pish Posh restaurant on any given night, you would be sure to find a smallish eleven-year-old girl wearing large black sunglasses sitting by herself at a little round table in the back.  She had excellent posture and kept quite still--no fidgeting, no hair twisting, no smiling--while she watched the glittery and fabulous customers come and go.  Because her glasses were so large and so black, you could not tell whom she was looking at, which made the glittery, fabulous customers at the Pish Posh restaurant very, very nervous.

Eleven-year-old Clara Frankofile makes the glittery, fabulous customers nervous because she is able to spot, unerringly, people who have gone from being Somebodies to being Nobodies.  And Nobodies are not welcome at Pish Posh.

When she identifies Dr. Piff as a Nobody, his reaction leaves her feeling... unsettled.  Rather than slinking away, never to be seen (at least by Anybody Who Is Somebody) again, Dr. Piff sits down at Clara's private table.  And, before he leaves the restaurant forever, he mentions that there is something "peculiar and mysterious" going on at Pish Posh.  Something that Clara doesn't know about.  Which should be impossible.

But, as she soon discovers, it isn't.  There is something distinctly odd about Pish Posh's soup cook, but the investigation hits a dead end.  That forces her to do something she's never done before:  work with someone else.  And that someone else just so happens to be her own age -- and a jewel thief, to boot. 

I know I've said this before, but I really don't understand how or why Ellen Potter isn't more well-known.  Her books -- and I've now read all of them (so far) -- have a timeless quality that I'd think would appeal to Dahl and Snicket fans, as well as readers of older classics like Ruth Sawyer's Roller Skates.  Her books are set in the real world, but they have a fairy tale feel.

Pish Posh was no exception -- Clara, especially at first, is a bit of a horror:  pompous and snobby, an aged socialite in a young body.  But the more I learned about her, the more her behavior made sense, and, it wasn't long before her existence -- opulent private apartment, indoor roller coaster and all -- just seemed sad.

The mystery component of the story, while interesting and complicated (especially given the just-over-150-pages-length of the book), was very definitely secondary to Clara's personal journey.  This is a book about a girl figuring out what Life Is About.  And what she wants her life to be about.  Some readers have expressed distaste about the dark, violent part of the Pish Posh mystery, but that storyline, I felt, worked in favor of the classic feel -- think back to Roller Skates, for example (if you haven't read it, read it) -- and some have complained that there's too much going on in such a short book to allow for much depth, but the whole thing really worked for me.  I felt for Clara.  And I couldn't help liking her and rooting for her, even when she was being awful.

_________________________________________________________________

Previously:

Slob
Under the Radar Recommendation:  The Olivia Kidney books
2. Olivia Kidney and the Exit Academy
3. Olivia Kidney and the Secret Beneath the City

And you thought it was over...

...Fuse covers the books that didn't quite make the Top 100 Picture Book Poll list.

Huh.

It's odd that this PW article on the upcoming Emily the Strange book didn't mention the similarities to Rosamund from the Nate the Great series that were commented on last year.

I mean, it's related, right?  And I would think, of interest.

Ah.  It was mentioned in the comments section.

[A bit later:  I just checked the Discussion page on the Emily the Strange Wikipedia article, and it looks like the Emily/Rosamund debate continues -- so I'm assuming that there's been no new news.  Or news at all, really.]

So, I'm way behind on my blog reading (as usual)...

...but how awesome was Lois Lowry's BOB Finale post?

She rules.

Links.

• A note to authors:  Don't let your curly-haired characters brush their hair.  Thank you, Elizabeth.  It needed to be said.
• The Carnegie Medal shortlist.  Boys, boys, boys.  Man.  I am really behind in my reading.
• The Bridget Zinn Auction is running through this month.  Be sure to stop over and check out the items up for bid.
• The Edgar Award winners were announced last week.  John Green is going to have to buy a bigger mantelpiece.
• The brand-happy Mackenzie Blue makes her debut tomorrow.
• Cecil Castellucci covers the Jane Smiley/S.E. Hinton interview.  (via Liz B., who, as always, has many thoughts on the subject.)

Revisiting two classics.

Harriet the Spy at Unshelved.

Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret at Fine Lines.

Some booklists.

The five children's laureates choose their favorite children's books... and a couple of writers at the Guardian have responded with their own.  (Yay for the second list -- Diana Wynne Jones and Joan Aiken!)

I'm sure this will prompt many more lists.  I say:  Bring 'em.

Link-o-rama.

This is so great I'm not even going to make you click through for the picture:

 

But you really should for the commentary.  (via OWC)

• This article is from earlier in the month, and I can't say I find it all that surprising, but here it is anyway:  French teenagers bitten by the Emily Brontë bug.  You know why, right?  Yep.  The Twilight books.
• The real Killer Unicorn book cover has been released.  OR SO THE AUTHOR SAYS.

• I heart you, John Scalzi.  I am wishing Zoe's Tale the best of luck in the Locus Awards.

• The Littlest Edward has a new home.  And many friends.

This could come in handy.

The Great Scavenger Hunt Contest.  Looks like a wicked cool & creative promotional idea.

(via Tanita)

National Poetry Month.

Head over to Wild Rose Reader -- she's got some excellent roundups:

Week Two
Week Three

A rediscovery.

I know I knew that our beloved Rose Casson is a blogger, but somehow I forgot all about it.

So, if you're missing the Casson family, keep up with them that way.  (Apparently Indigo was in Iceland over Easter!)

(Thanks to AABBA for the reminder.)

_____________________________________________

Previously:

Indigo's Star
Permanent Rose
Caddy Ever After

SDQI with Hilary McKay