Monica Edinger's Blog, page 116

Orlando has just soared in my estimation

NCTE disappointed me recently by turning down a convention session proposal of mine that included the participation of this year's Newbery winner and I briefly contemplated not attending. However, now that Orlando has the WWHP my whole view of the place has been transformed and I'm so there come November.  Anyone want to join me for a butter beer the weekend before Thanksgiving?

Poetry — Hmm

At the Guardian Stephen Hill considers the question, "What is the Future of Poetry?".

The Integrity of Words

I was raised on words. They tumbled off the kitchen table onto the floor where I sat: grandfather, uncles, and refugees flung Russian, Polish, Yiddish, French, and what passed for English at one another in a competitive cascade of assertion and interrogation.

A remarkable reverie on the management of words by Tony Judt

(Cats) Whip It

For those who love DEVO and felines check out the former's newest SOMETHING FOR EVERYBODY being enjoyed by the later here.  (via Vulture)

John Grisham's Theodore Boone: Kid Lawyer

Grisham's first book for kids is the story of amiable thirteen-year old Teddy who loves the law, haunts the courthouse, and helps his classmates and friends with their own legal troubles, say a looming foreclosure, a nasty divorce, or a runaway dog. He lives in a generic-sounding city with pleasant lawyer parents and goes to the gentlest middle school ever.  And someone in this very nice situation is about to get away with murder.

Sounds promising, doesn't it?  And for kids who are as...

Lots of Oz Coming Soon to a Screen Near You, Maybe

Vulture has learned that Sam Raimi has been offered the director's chair for Disney's Oz, the Great and Powerful, a prequel to the 1939 MGM classic The Wizard of Oz.

This from NYMag's Vulture Blog.  Did I know this was in the works?  Not only did I not, but I also did not know that Warner Brothers' has two Oz movies in the works as well. What I did know is that this is not Disney's first Oz movie.  They also did Return to Oz which I like to show to my class after we've read the Baum's book, ...

A Few More Summer Reading Suggestions

I really like Linda Shiue's  series of summer reading posts over at Salon in response to her "Open Call for great summer reading lists for kids."

Laura Miller on the Nature of Writing and Linking

All of us may now swim in a vast ocean of interlocking data nuggets, but people can still only read one word at a time, and putting the best words (and the best ideas) in the best order remains the essence of the writer's craft.

Laura Miller's got some very convincing ideas about reading, writing, and linking. Instead of the standard practice of embedding citation links throughout her essays, she's putting them at the end.  I like all of what she says, most of all how the practice helps h...

Jasper Fforde's Got a Children's Book in the Works — Hurray!

Hodder & Stoughton is delighted to announce the acquisition of Jasper Fforde's first work for a younger generation of readers. Hilarious, offbeat and bewitching, The Last Dragonslayer is the first in the Dragonslayer trilogy, and the beginning of a truly exciting new work.

In the good old days, magic was powerful, unregulated by government, and even the largest spell could be woven without filling in the magic release form B1-7g. But somewhere, somehow, the magic started draining...

Summer Road Trip

Check-out my New York Times review of Lynn Rae Perkins' As Easy as Falling Off the Face of the Earth.  Hint: I liked it.