Annie Cardi's Blog, page 65

Hedgehogs, Assemble!

Reason #92 why the Brookline Library and its teen librarians/patrons are awesome: Avenger Book Hedgehogs.

It’s like everything I love in one place! And Thor has a hammer! *dies of cuteness*

A little about the project:

“Specially appearing at tonight’s lock-in event for our teen manga/anime club, and then on to a display in the Brookline Library: Marvel’s Avengers!  These hedgehogs, made of repurposed books (drawn from our discarded but well-loved to the point of falling apart comics and paperbacks – no worries, replacements have already hit the shelves!), are decked out in full Avengers gear made by yours truly from duct tape.  Powered by craftiness and geek passion.”

Craftiness and geek passion can do anything. If you want to make your own book hedgehogs (superhero or otherwise), check out the tutorial here.

The library also hosted a hedgehog book-making event for Halloween. Can teen Annie time travel to the Brookline Library and get to do awesome stuff like this?

When Words Aren’t Enough, Use GIFs

GIFs may have been around for a while, but they’re certainly having a good time in 2012. I’m certainly happy that GIF was picked as the Oxford Dictionaries USA Word of the Year 2012. Of course, Dumbledore expresses it better than I can:

Where would we be without GIFs? In a land of sadness, that’s where. A few of my favorite GIF-related blogs:

#whatshouldwecallme: the best in general life responses.
Animals Being Dicks: they’re not always cute and fuzzy.
Librarian Problems: dewey have the GIFs for you!
Title to Come: the writing life in GIF form. I try not to reblog every single one but I could.
Life in Publishing: the writing life on the other side.

Feel free to share your own GIFs in the comments. Happy GIFing!

Waking Up, Mirror Monologues, and Other Opening Cliches

I’ve got blonde hair that I usually wear up, and I love my peach shirt…

Writer’s Digest has a round-up of ways not to start your children’s/YA story, including waking up (no dream fake-outs), lamenting a summer of torture, and a personal pet peeve: “Looking at oneself and describing one’s flaws, usually with a self-deprecating voice.”

Does that mean you can never start with the first day of school or dead parents? Not at all. But opening scenes like these have to be particular to your book. If your opening could easily be inserted in any other book, you need to reconsider those first few pages. Maybe what’s unique about compelling about your story starts a little later and you can cut the first chapter. Maybe you need to really insert the main character’s voice in that first paragraph. Maybe it’s the first day of school but your main character’s doing something totally unexpected.

Have you seen any cliche openers done really well? Any that particularly irk you?

(image: Christine)

Claudia Kishi: Artisti, Junk Food Addict, and 90s Role Model

At Sadie Magazine, Yumi Sakugawa shares a completely awesome (and surprisingly touching) comic dedicated to everyone’s favorite artistic babysitter with the worst grammar skills. A glimpse at the Claudia goodness:

Sakugawa looks at great moments in Claudia Kishi history, as well as guesses what Claudia might be up to these days. Make sure to check out the whole post.

(H/T bookshelves of doom)

Friday Fifteen

Happy Friday, everybody! Here are this week’s fifteen-word book reviews:

1. A Chocolate Moose for Dinner by Fred Gwynne

Loved this book about homonyms as a kid. Apparently it was by Herman Munster. Heart!

2. Persuasion by Jane Austen

Great look at mistakes, forgiveness, and the harsh reality for unmarried women in the 1800s.

3. Little House on the Prairie (Little House #2) by Laura Ingalls Wilder

I couldn’t believe they left their home to go somewhere without homes already built.

4. Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad

The colonialism/race issues are awk, but “The horror! The horror!” is a great line.

5. Mortal Engines by Philip Reeve

Steampunky book in which cities are mobile and consume each other. Great adventure, plus orphans.

Links Galore

A few more cool links for this week:

Contemporary YA Week at Stacked rounds up great reads featuring main characters of color.
Running and writing: both require dedication and steady effort, both make you get out of bed early and reevaluate about your life choices.
Major high fives to post post about book conversations we’re all sick of.
Fellow 2014-er R.C. Lewis on how critique partners are like dating.
Direwolf, direwolf, what do you see? And other Eric Carle-inspired stories for Game of Thrones fans.
If you’re in Cambridge this weekend, check out Candlewick’s “From Screen to Book” picture book symposium. (via NCBLA)
Two posts about Jane Austen adaptations, both of which include the Lizzie Bennet Diaries. I approve.

In Support of Rereading

A great post about rereading books over at Book Riot. I’m a big rereading and was honestly surprised the first time I heard someone say that they never reread books. One part I especially liked:

“It’s fascinating to read authors like Lois Lowry or Ray Bradbury as a youth, and then revisit them as an adult. Literature is not like your hometown, which you revisit to find smaller and less impressive now you’re an adult. Returning to books later on has given you tools to dive deeper and stay down there longer. (Not all books, of course. Some disappoint. The ones that don’t, though, are gold.)”

I reread Tuck Everlasting over the summer and was struck by how lovely the writing was. I loved this book and read it multiple times as a kid, but rereading it as an adult was a new and wonderful experience.

I also love rereading books for the cozy factor. Why wouldn’t you want to revisit old friends and memories again? Do you really want to say goodbye to Atticus Finch or Harry Potter or Elizabeth Bennet forever?

I know there are a lot of great books out there–so many that you could start reading them all now and never finish. But sometimes it’s really worth it to return to books you loved.

Law School, Cannibalism, and Heath Ledger: What You May Not Know About the Brothers Grimm

You may know the stories, but do you know the Brothers Grimm? Check out the fun trivia in this video from AbeBooks:

I was curious to hear about the editing to stories like Rapunzel. We tend to think Disney tones down classic fairy tales for family audiences, but apparently the Grimms felt that some versions were a bit too scandalous as well.

The Boston Book Festival from the Comfort of Your Computer

I talked a little about my experiences at the Boston Book Festival here, but obviously I couldn’t capture all that the presenters had to say. Fortunately, the BBF has posted audio of most panels online. How cool is that? I attended:

YA: Overcoming Adversity: Kathryn Burak, Jo Knowles, Barry Lyga, Host: Amy Pattee

YA: The Future Is Now: Rachel Cohn, Cory Doctorow, Gabrielle Zevin, Host: M.T. Anderson

You can also check out the festival slideshow to get a sense of the atmosphere of the day:

Thanks for continuing to rock, Boston Book Festival team!

One Step Closer to a Giver Movie

So is The Giver movie really happening? Looks like it:

Hollywood has been trying to bring Lois Lowry’s celebrated 1993 children’s book “The Giver” to the bigscreen for the better part of two decades — now the movie is one step closer to fruition, as Phillip Noyce (“Salt”) is in early talks to direct for The Weinstein Co., Walden Media and star Jeff Bridges, who is producing with Nikki Silver…

As recently as last month, Lowry expressed her doubts that “The Giver” would ever be made, having read four screenplays over the years. But with studios high on branded properties, the time may be right for “The Giver,” which also offers franchise potential. Lowry wrote two loosely-related companion novels, “Gathering Blue” and “Messenger,” while a fourth novel, “Son,” was released earlier this year and ties all three storylines together in an epic conclusion.

I’m sure part of the current push also has to do with the recent trend toward dystopian YA, and the success of the first Hunger Games movie.

Not sure how I feel about a movie adaptation, actually. Walt and I were talking about it recently, and we both said the film would have to find a way around the color issue. It’s such an unexpected moment in the book, but on screen it would be obvious pretty fast. Still, I know there have been stage adaptations of The Giver, so I’m sure they’ve had to deal with that issue as well. And I can see Jeff Bridges as the Giver, even though he’s not the guy I’ve been picturing. At any rate, I’m hopeful about this one.

(image: epSOS.de)