Monica Edinger's Blog, page 142

Revisiting: The Tough Guide to Fantasyland

APOSTROPHES Few NAMES in Fantasyland are considered complete unless they are interrupted by an apostrophe somewhere in the middle (as in Gna'ash).  The only names usually exempt from apostrophes, apart from those of most WIZARDS, heroes, and COMPANIONS on the Tour, are those of some COUNTRIES.  No one knows the reasons for this.

So writes Diana Wynne Jones in The Tough Guide to FANTASYLAND which came to mind as I read Eva's "Language of Fantasy" post this morning (and seems an apt follow-up to 

Second Level Fantasy Reads?

I've read a few best-selling fantasy series—Harry Potter, The Lord of the Rings, His Dark Materials, Twilight, Narnia, A Wrinkle in Time, The Dark Is Rising—but I would never describe myself as an aficionado. First because all these books are on about a fourth-grade reading level, and second because I read them for their best-sellerness, not their fantasy-ness (to stay in the loop, I tell myself).

So writes New Yorker Book Bench blogger Macy Halford in  "Seven Essential Fantasy Reads: Going to Se

Rebecca Stead, Mary Ann Hoberman and Joanne Dahme reviewed in this Sunday's NY Times

For kids who are ahead of the game and have finished their Harry Potters, Hobbits and other classics of summer reading lists, here are three recent novels they could polish off for fun before school begins: suspense with a bit of the supernatural; a friendship story set during the Great Depression; and a historical novel involving mistaken identity and swordplay. Call it the pleasure reading list.

Check out these reviews of Rebecca Stead's When You Reach Me (by yours truly), Mary Ann Hoberman's S

Kindle vs Snicket

via a retweet from Elyse Marshall.

Twittering from Alaska

I've been twittering on my new iPhone from Alaska complete with photos. Check out my feed over on the right or just go to @medinger at Twitter. Right now I'm writing this on a touristy big old paddleboat in Fairbanks and yesterday I did a bunch from Denali. Amazing!

Space, I Mean, Alaska, the Final Frontier

And getting up here I say it is the best road trip in America soaring through nature's finest show. Denali, the great one, soaring under the midnight sun. And then the extremes. In the winter time it's the frozen road that is competing with the view of ice fogged frigid beauty, the cold though, doesn't it split the Cheechakos from the Sourdoughs? And then in the summertime such extreme summertime about a hundred and fifty degrees hotter than just some months ago, than just some months from now,

Adaptations and Such

I've seen several expressions of relief by children's book folk after they viewed the new Where the Wild Things Are movie featurette in which Maurice Sendak expresses confidence and appreciation for Spike Jonze's vision for his book.  While I too am happy that it has met with Sendak's approval, I also want to point out that Jonze is a very, very unconventional filmmaker and the film is likely to be his own and a very different aesthetic experience from the book.  The two movies of his I've seen

Darkness Visible

Fortunately Margo Lanagan's amazing Printz-honored Tender Morsels slipped under the mainstream media radar when it was published in the US, but some have kicked up a ruckus in the U.K. where it was recently published. Fortunately, there are sensible mainstream reviewers too, say Stephanie Merritt at The Observer who considers it, "… one of the strangest and most moving works of children's literature I have read in years."  Yes!

Naked Children and Mole Rats

A New York Times article "Children Without Clothes" provoked quite a few letters, including this one:

To the Editor:

Your article was balanced in presenting the varying perspectives that parents and guests have toward raising children.

The 40,000 members and their families who belong to the American Association for Nude Recreation have opted to raise children and grandchildren with an open, matter-of-fact approach to the human body. My wife and I have found this very beneficial as we have raised ou

Tim Burton's Alice, a Teaser Trailer

Hm….see what YOU think!