Monica Edinger's Blog, page 126
February 22, 2010
The Books! The Judges! The 2010 Battle of the Kids' Books is Nigh.
Fuse#8 has the scoop — the contenders and judges for this year's SLJ Battle of the Kids' Books! We've been scheming, I mean, planning this for months now and I am very excited. Hope you all are too! As soon as our new site is ready we will announce that as well. Any day now. In the meantime, here are the contenders and judges again.
The Contenders
CHARLES AND EMMA
CLAUDETTE COLVIN
THE EVOLUTION OF CALPURNIA TATE
FIRE
THE FROG SCIENTIST
THE LAST OLYMPIAN
LIPS TOUCH
THE LOST CONSPIRACY
MARCELO IN THE...
February 21, 2010
The Metropolitan Museum, Percy Jackson, and Rick Riordan
Rick Riordan was a middle school teacher for years and used his own lessons to create an excellent Percy Jackson teacher guide. And now he is going to be part of a Metropolitan Museum teacher workshop on March 14th. Bet it is going to be excellent!
In the opening pages of Rick Riordan's book The Lightning Thief, young Percy Jackson visits the Greek and Roman galleries at the...
February 20, 2010
Wise Writers
10 Try to leave out the part that readers tend to skip. Think of what you skip reading a novel: thick paragraphs of prose you can see have too many words in them. (Elmore Leonard)
4 Do give the work a name as quickly as possible. Own it, and see it. Dickens knew Bleak House was going to be called Bleak House before he started writing it. The rest must have been easy. (Roddy Doyle)
9 Interesting verbs are seldom very interesting. (Jonathan Franzen)
2 Read widely and with...
February 19, 2010
NEH 2010 Summer Programs in the Humanities for Teachers
Years ago I participated in several extraordinary NEH Summer learning experiences. The first was a 6 week seminar at Princeton University on children's literature with the brilliant U.C. Knoepflmacher; it did much to change the direction of my life. A couple years later I did a folklore instititute at Bank Street College (where I first met Jack Zipes) and then further on I did one more seminar on Cinderella and Beauty and the Beast at Rochester University. All three were wonderful...
February 17, 2010
Burton in Wonderland
Once you accept that the film looks more like Tim Burton's variation on the theme rather than a faithful adaptation, then it promises to be a dark treat indeed, says Anna Pickard (in the Telegraph)
Based on the novelization and the trailers I've seen for the forthcoming Alice in Wonderland film, I'm with her.
The Exquisite Corpse Adventure: Episode Eleven
Want to be disarmed, I mean, charmed? Then go check out Steven Kellogg's contribution to this bookish game. Pronto.
February 16, 2010
Learning About Africa: The Quiet Hero
An American came to Sierra Leone to work for the Special Court responsible for trying war criminals, one of hundreds of lawyers and support staff employed by the American-backed court. She wanted to fly three street dogs to the United States and asked Jalloh to prepare the dogs for travel. He suggested she give the money to his programme instead. For the same money he could help a thousand dogs. She refused, spent 3,000 US dollars to transport the dogs He remembers her name and...
February 15, 2010
Presidents for Kids
In biographies for children, presidents are great even before they become president.
That is from Cate Plys and Robert Leighton's Slate piece in which they point out the tendency for young reader presidential biographers to go the hagiographic route. Be sure to check out their slide show with quotes from kid versus adult bios. (Thanks to Debbie Reese for the link.)
February 14, 2010
The Percy Jackson Movie — Should I Go?
Percy Jackson, you are no Harry Potter. You are not fit to walk in a hobbit's wake.
I really enjoyed the Percy Jackson series and thought I'd be rushing off to see the movie. But Tom Long, who starts his review with the above bit of snark, along with too many others, has me dragging my feet.
After having gone to a couple of other movies with our school Book Bloggers Club, we had them all read The Lightning Thief (some had already, but not all) and figured we would all go to see the movie this ...
The Percy Jackson Movie
Percy Jackson, you are no Harry Potter. You are not fit to walk in a hobbit's wake.
I really enjoyed the Percy Jackson series and thought I'd be rushing off to see the movie. But Tom Long, who starts his review with the above bit of snark, along with too many others has me dragging my feet.
After having gone to a couple of other movies with our school Book Bloggers Club, we had them all read The Lightning Thief (some had already, but not all) and figured we would all go to see the movie this w...
