Busy Busy

I've been spending most of my blogging time on my work blog, The Wild Rumpus. Plus, I'm picking up some more programs at work. But I am slowly making it through the pile of ARCs from ALA and I'll try to at least comment on them as I go.

I just finished Another Faust by Daniel and Dina Nayeri. One of our teen volunteers read it before me and she recommended it. I found it a bit hard to get into and slow in parts. Attractive cover, but not really as suspenseful or as funny as I was hoping. Oh well.

Now I am working on Capt. Hook by J.V.. Hart. It's not a new release but somehow I missed it when it came out. Well, I'm loving it so far. It's my lunch time reading so it's going a bit slowly but it feels more like I'm savoring it than plodding through.

Oh and in the car I'm listening to Dairy Queen. Another amazing book I seemed to have missed. I am almost done and I've already got The Off Season on CD checked out. And I have the ARC for the third book. So I'll be posting more about that when I'm done.

Wow, I better get reading now!

For a much better review than I could write...

of the Coraline musical check out Elizabeth Bird's review. Yeah, pretty much what she said. I'm in total agreement about the actress that played Coraline. However I did wish that the Other Mother was a little more menacing and a little less campy and while I agree that for the most part the staging was done well, there were a couple of instances (like the final attempt to get back the key and get through the door) where I thought that I would have done things differently. (Ha, that just shows that I think I'm an expert on EVERYTHING!)

Oh and I have a better celebrity sighting. Though we had none at the theater, the next day we did see Tim Robbins on the street!

Coraline Musical

I saw the Coraline musical in NYC this past weekend. I enjoyed it and thought it was a good mix of creepiness and humor. However, like the Coraline graphic novel and (though I haven't seen it, I imagine) the movie, it wasn't as amazing as I imagined it in my head. I've mentioned before that that's the problem with loving a book so much; no one else has the exact same vision as I do. Still I would highly recommend seeing it if you can. Just be aware, with some very interesting casting choices and music by Stephin Merritt of The Magnetic Fields, it is not your typical musical theater!

Coraline, the Musical

I really, really, really wish I could see this!

To fight the Monday blahs...

I learned how to score a final four bracket. Now I can actually keep score at work as we follow SLJ's Battle of the Books. So far I'm in the lead, though that is bound to change since Frankie is out of the running. I'm thinking I'll bake cupcakes for everyone at the end and the winner gets to take the extra cupcakes home. Unless it's me. I'm trying to do the whole healthy eating and exercising thing again after the long sluggish winter I've had. So no cupcakes for me!

Battle of the Books Update

Well, I'm out of the running now. We Are the Ship beat out The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau Banks and I had Frankie pegged as the winner of it all. I got too cocky. I was so sure Rachel Cohn would pick Frankie. Still I've picked all the other winners so far. I think I should get credit for that.

SLJ's Battle of the Kid's Books

The battle has finally begun. Check it out over at School Library Journal's Battle of the Books blog. At work we've all filled out our brackets and I'm happy to say that I've predicted the first four winners correctly! Go me!

Reactions to the Wild Things Trailer

Slate's XX Factor on the realease of the Where the Wild Things Are movie.

Part of me is in agreement with the XX Factor posting. But then, part of me is really excited to see how this experiment turns out. There are many children's book that I never want to see translated to film. That's one reason I still haven't seen Bridge to Terabithia. I'm not sure why I'm cautiously at peace with CGI Wild Things. But that's the best way to describe it for now.

First week impressions...

The new job is going really well so far. Cherry Hill has such a beautiful library. It's huge and nice and new. The whole top floor is reserved for youth services and there's a giant story and craft room. Plus, I love that I get to do collection development again. I've really missed that part of being a librarian since my last job centralized the whole process. There's just something really fun about buying books.

More Coraline Reviews

here and here.

The reviews are coming in for Coraline

There's a review up over on Slate. I am cautious. I'll have to see it before I make any judgments but this worries me:

It's impossible to get into just why and how Coraline's last third falls apart without giving away too much of the story. But it's not revealing to say that Coraline's enchantment with the alternate universe needed a more gradual rate of decay for the shift to be convincing.

I was discussing with Josh about this earlier. I said that the previews made me think that Coraline's initial foray into the Other Mother's world is too pleasant in the movie. Josh argued that that's true to the book; Coraline likes it there at first. I don't know. I felt like from the very beginning, the Other Mother's universe was slightly threatening and sinister. I guess that speaks to the genius that is Neil Gaiman. He manages to create a world that is both delightful and full of unease.

Can you tell I'm ecstatic he won the Newbery?

Sometimes I miss Miami

But today I'm left shaking my head over the ongoing battle between the school board and the courts over Vamos a Cuba.

This article is interesting because it points out several of the passages that opponents of the book object to. Some of the points seem validly inaccurate. For example:

A page that describes paintings on rocks in a Cuban valley, which the book says were ''made by people who lived in Cuba about 1,000 years ago.'' Opponents said the paintings were made in the 1960s.

Others seem, well, nit picky.

A section on food mentions white rice as the most common food and arroz con pollo as a favorite dish, but does not discuss Cuba's shortages and strict rationing.

I'm ambivalent about the book's value. No, what worries me is something else. Do you know how much has been spent on this legal battle? Over $250,000!

I'm on the YALSA Intellectual Freedom committee. Our committee is presenting a program at ALA's Annual Conference in Chicago titled "Walk the Line: The Fine Line Between Selection and Censorship." So, I've been thinking a lot about the difference between selection and self-censorship and I think the thing about self-censorship is that it comes from a place of fear. And it's really easy to say that everyone should just be fearless and not worry but $250,000 is a lot of money to spend over one book. This has become a battle between organizations with major cash flow. Librarians still lose their jobs defending intellectual freedom. It does happen. There are scary groups out there with lots of money behind them. They can afford prolonged legal battles. So for me being on the IF committee is about all fighting that fear while at the same time making sure people are aware that there is reason to be afraid!

Stephen King, you better watch your back

I am worried that you may be jumped in an alley by an angry gang of 15 year old girls and their mothers for this.

ALA Youth Media Awards

There were many great things about ALA midwinter but being in the room when they announced the Caldecott and Newbery was just the coolest experience. The link to all the award winners is here. I don't think there's much point in re-listing all the winners. I'll just stick to commenting about the ones I've read.

As far as the Newbery goes, I'm overjoyed that Neil Gaiman won The Graveyard Book. And it's not just because I love his work and treasure my signed copy of Coraline. I cried at the end of The Graveyard Book partially because it was a bitter sweet ending, but also because I didn't want it to end. I was a bit surprised that After Tupac & D Foster won a Newbery Honor. I thought that it had some major flaws. I did love the gay brother in that book though. He was such a compelling character that I was almost willing to overlook the fact that the book had no plot.

I actually have not read the Caldecott winner but I really enjoyed A Couple of Boys have the Best Week Ever and I'm glad Marla Frazee at least got an Honor award for it. It is a great example of a picture book where the illustrations are an integral part of the story.

The only award I tried to call ahead of time was the Prinz. I predicted Tender Morsels would take it. I personally would have picked the The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, by my new favorite author, E. Lockhart, but I didn't think the committee would find it "literary" enough. Tender Morsels is definitely more "literary" but a much more difficult and in some ways "unlovable" book. Well, it turned out I was was pretty close. Frankie and Tender Morsels both came away with Honors and Jellicoe Road, a book I've yet to read, won the prize.

Someday maybe (in my dreams) I'll have the privilege of sitting on an awards committee but until then being this close to the action was pretty cool. And even if Denver was a freezing puddle of snow and slush, I'm really glad I went. I met some awesome people, worked on my committee (YALSA Intellectual Freedom!), and had a really good time!

Movies based on children's books to look out for/make you cringe...

What's with the stop-motion animation? We should see a stop-motion movie version of Coraline in February of 2009 followed by Wes Anderson's take on Roald Dahl's The Fantastic Mr. Fox in November.

Inkheart will be in theaters in January of '09 (How long has it been since Brendan Fraser has been in a good movie?) and Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs is set for March. Spike Jonze's adaptation of Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are is slated to be out in October. I'm cautiously excited.

And Tim Burton's taking on Alice in Wonderland sometime in 2010. Even though I didn't care for his vision of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, I actually think this might work well. Burton does love those repressed characters and so, in some ways, may be perfect for Alice.

Oh and I almost forgot (how could I?!) about the big one. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince was delayed until July of 2009. Sigh.

Trickery!

I finished reading Brisinger, the next (and I thought last) book in the Eragon series. I'm not really an Eragon fan but I do like to finish off a series if I've started it. Too bad for me that it took me about 800 pages to realized that this was not the last book. At least I started skipping pages about halfway through. Still it was about 799 pages of nothing interesting happening and one page of something very obvious and fairly unimportant happening. Feh!

Christopher Paolini may have a great writing career ahead of him but he needs to move on from this world he's created. I imagine that might be hard for a writer, especially such a young one, and it can't help that the Eragon books are making money. (I haven't heard anything about the sales for this last one though. Maybe buried by the Twilight movie release?) But this last book was so bogged down by unimportant details. It struck me as particularly dry and emotionless. Paolini might be on his way as an author (I'll leave that debate to others) but I think he needs to wrap things up if he ever wants to get there.

And now on to my next book, The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart...

Wild Thing Walls

Forget a kid's room, I want this mural in my bedroom!

I can't remember the last time I went out to a movie but...

I caught a bit of The Seeker: The Dark is Rising on TV last night after Valeska and I watched Atonement. I only saw a few minutes and most of the time it was on I was explaining to Valeska why the movie is nothing at all like the books. It seemed like such a bland, generic movie, I couldn't get into it at all.

Oh and yes Atonement was good but Keira Knightley drives me nuts. I feel like her acting consists of straining her neck and gulping down air. Too bad too, because she always has these great roles. Though maybe she could have made a good Bella since she's so good at looking distressed. Oh well.

Spoiling Breaking Dawn

I just finished Breaking Dawn and I couldn't have predicted how much I hated it. I mean, I'm pretty sure that the whole time I was reading part of my mind was just repeating, gross gross gross gross gross....

I've copped to it before: I liked Twilight. I even kind of liked New Moon. Though the characters annoyed me and the writing grated on my nerves, I felt it was no more disturbing than your typical romance novel. And I can see why teenage girls are loving the escapist fantasy of it all. But for me Breaking Dawn took disturbing to a whole new level.

Ok. There's spoilers ahead. Stop reading if you don't want to know.




So the book begins with Bella and Edward's wedding. It's boring and perfect. Oh except for the part where Bella briefly gets manhandled by the two men who are supposedly in love with her. Way to show off your affection guys. Anyway, then they have a boringly perfect honeymoon. Oh except for the crazy Vampire /Human sex that leaves Bella battered. But then she doesn't care. Why should she care that she's being hurt? All that matters is that she's got her man. And so we learn the first lesson of Breaking Dawn, as long as your guy loves you, who cares if he beats the crap out of you! I mean, he didn't mean to and he's really really sorry. He swears it will never happen again.

At this point I had to put the book down for a bit. It was that or hurl it out the window. I should have hurled because it gets so much worse. You see, nobody thought about birth control on this perfect honeymoon and guess what...Bella's knocked up. Yup, Bella's got a blood sucking bun in the oven. If you want to walk away from this review now, do it. I think this was the point where I really should have just stopped reading. Because even though the little hybrid vampire fetus is killing her, Bella loves it and refuses to give it up. Let that be lesson number two, abortion is immoral. The better alternative is to let the fetus kill you. I mean how selfish is it for Edward to want to protect Bella's life over that of an unborn child. Oh but don't worry he comes around once he hears the kid's thoughts. You see people, this fetus has a soul! How could you even think about doing away with her? You are so going to hell!

And it gets so much worse. Bella gives the baby the most hideous name ever. Even the characters in the book refuse to call her by her given name. It's THAT bad. Oh and remember that Werewolves like to in fall in love with babies. So I'd watch the kid around Jacob. And then some political Vampire stuff happens, which is boring. And then they all live happily ever after. Now, I have no problem with happily ever after. I do have a problem with almost everything else in the book though. Wait, to be fair there was some interesting stuff going on with Jacob and his pack. True, Jacob is a whiny baby when it comes to Bella but for the most part the wolves were way more fun to read about. I guess I liked how they, you know, cared about people other than themselves.

I know that there are die hard fan of the series out there and that there are also the flip side of the coin, people who detest the whole series. I considered myself pretty neutral before. Though I guess this puts me firmly in one camp.

Now that I'm unemployed the crafty me emerges...

So I've already refinished a table. Now I need a new project. I've been thinking about getting a sewing machine but I wasn't sure I'd really use it. Then I came across this Eric Carle fabric over at Apartment Therapy and I'm inspired. I am so getting this!