Monica Edinger's Blog, page 135

In the Classroom: Independent Reading and Nonfiction

"I like adventures. Not atlases!" was my 11-year-old nephew's reaction to recent probing by this auntie of his reading habits.

I should have known better. Anthony Horowitz warned in a recent interview about the perils of "auntie's choice" when it comes to what kids read: "Children choose the books they want to read. Children's books belong to children; they're not something that your auntie picks out for you at Christmas any more."

And of course said nephew is a big Alex Rider fan. But perhaps...

For Those With Means

There's a pretty impressive auction on December 9th at Bloomsbury Auctions including original work by Sendak, Steig, the Dillons and, (most impressive of all to my mind) Tom Feelings.  In fact, if you've got $250000 – $350000 or so in change, you could be the proud owner of this:

The Middle Passage: White Ships, Black Cargo. The entire suite of original mixed-media artwork, executed from 1993-1995 and published in the 1995 book. Comprising 58 pieces in 48 frames, mixed-media with tempera, pen...

NCTE: Notable Children's Books in the Language Arts

For those attending NCTE's annual convention next week in Philadelphia, please consider attending CLA's Notable Children's Books in the Language Arts session on Friday afternoon, 2:30 -5:15 at the Marriott, Grand Ballroom, Salon C, 5th Floor.

We will begin with a presentation of the 2009 Notable Children's Books in the Language Arts. It is a superb list and it is always wonderful listening to the current committee members present them.

Then comes my part of the program — managing the...

NCTE Notable Children's Books in the Language Arts

For those attending NCTE's annual convention next week in Philadelphia, please consider attending CLA's Notable Children's Books in the Language Arts session on Friday afternoon, 2:30 -4: at the Marriott, Grand Ballroom, Salon C, 5th Floor.

We will begin with a presentation of the 2009 Notable Children's Books in the Language Arts. It is a superb list and it is always wonderful listening to the current committee members present them.

Then comes my part of the program — managing the roundtable...

The Montgomery Bus Boycott and My Father

Born in Frankfurt, Germany in 1922, my father Lewis J. Edinger fled with his mother to America at the age of fourteen; his father chose to stay, hoping to ride things out, but was deported and killed. Years later, as a newly minted PhD, my father took whatever jobs he could find; one of those was in Montgomery, Alabama at the time of the bus boycott.  I was reminded of this at yesterday's event with Claudette Colvin and so here are some excerpts from my father's memoir about that time in his...

Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice

This afternoon I sat in on a wonderful event at the NYPL's Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture.  It was a talk by Philip Hoose, author of the superb nonfiction book,  Claudette Colvin: Twice Toward Justice, and Claudette Colvin herself.  The event was for the Junior Scholars Program so the room was full of attentive teens as well as a few adults.  For me,  listening to Phillip and then Claudette speak to this particular audience made what they said all the more moving.

Philip began...

Byatt on Tatar's Enchanted Hunters

This is a grown-up book for grown-up people who haven't forgotten being childhood readers. It satisfies imagination and curiosity, revisiting things you suddenly remember clearly, telling you new things you didn't know.

A. S. Byatt reviews Maria Tatar's Enchanted Hunters in the Guardian.

Oh, that Corpse!

If you aren't following The Exquisite Corpse Adventure I recommend you do so pronto.  Just to recap, it is based on the game where one person writes a bit of a story and then passes it on to the next person to continue.  In this case the highfalutin people doing the writing and illustrating are having a complete blast with this wild and wooly game.  You may think of some of them only in terms of dark and serious writing, but you would be wrong, wrong, wrong.  Sure, we expect zany behavior...

Coming Soon: Rita Williams-Garcia's One Crazy Summer

My eyes stung. I was spilling-over mad. I couldn't stop what I had to say, even if she stood over me and became my crazy mother mountain and knocked me down. I was spilling over.

It is the summer of 1968 and eleven-year-old Delphine and her two younger sisters Vonetta and Fern have been sent from Brooklyn, New York to Oakland, California to spend the summer with a mother they don't know at all. A mother who abandoned them after Fern was born.

Cecile is still a mother who wants nothing to do...

Arggh: Two Great Events at the Same Time

I'm in need of a time-turner for this Saturday.  Anyone got a spare they can lend me?  You see, there are two events that I badly want to go to taking place at the very same time at opposite ends of town.

In midtown at Betsy Bird's library there is the monthly Literary Cafe featuring a wonderful panel built around the Cybils.  I'm honored to be a middle grade fiction judge this year and so would love to meet the creators of the award and hear all they have to say.

And then uptown at the NYPL's...