Monica Edinger's Blog, page 146

Is it ick-en-spick or leebossa?

Andrew O’Hehir at Salon reviews Arika Okrent’s In the Land of Invented Languages.  I haven’t seen the book itself yet, but the reviews keep making me wonder if Ursula Nordstrom’s language is acknowledged.  Anyone know?

2009 Boston Globe – Horn Book Awards

Fiction and Poetry: Nation by Terry Pratchett

Nonfiction: The Lincolns: A Scrapbook Look at Abraham and Mary by Candace Fleming

Picture Book: Bubble Trouble by Margaret Mahy, illustrated by Polly Dunbar

More here.

ARC Contest is Over

At this point we have over fifty entries and and seventeen ARCs.  So my committee (my class of fourth graders, remember?) and I have made our decisions.  We had a lot of fun reading all the entries and making our decisions. I’m sending the ARCs out today so you will know within the week whether you are a winner or not.    Thanks to everyone for playing!

When You Reach Me ARC Give-Away Contest

I’ll get to the contest in a second, but first a couple of related things.

I’ve not been shy about expressing my enthusiasm for Rebecca Stead’s forthcoming middle-grade novel, When You Reach Me, and so was delighted to see it garner two starred reviews (Kirkus and Horn Book) although it doesn’t publish till July.  Yesterday the book’s editor Wendy Lamb and Random House marketing queens Adrienne Waintraub and Lisa Nadel came to my school, first to meet some of our students (great fans of the book

Der Donald

“Donald is so popular because almost everyone can identify with him,” says Christian Pfeiler, president of D.O.N.A.L.D. “He has strengths and weaknesses, he lacks polish but is also very cultured and well-read.” But much of the appeal of the hapless, happy-go-lucky duck lies in the translations. Donald quotes from German literature, speaks in grammatically complex sentences and is prone to philosophical musings, while the stories often take a more political tone than their American counterparts.

My Guilty Pleasure

Thanks to Eva, I’ve just come across a new series on NPR with a great premise.  They are asking for confessions of “…your illicit literary (or not-so-literary) love” and they’ve started with Brad Melzer confessing that, ““Real Men Read (And Love) ‘Twilight’ — Really.”

One of my guilty reading pleasures is definitely New York Magazine.  It is full of trashy articles about the unhappy rich, teens doped up on Ritalin, adults too, private school mania, and so forth.  I tell myself I have to read it

Suzanne Collins’ Catching Fire

I know, I know.  Green.  Green. Green.  What can I say?  I’d be green with envy too.  But I’m writing this to let you know that you have a wonderful reading experience to look forward to.  Collins does not disappoint.  And rest assured that I will not divulge anything here that might compromise this upcoming pleasure for you.

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So I came home earlier this week to a package with a mockingjay on the cover. Heart pounding I opened it and found an ARC for Catching Fire, the highly anticipated sequel

What’s Mr. Pullman Doing These Days?

Pullman has thought of one more hobby he could take up. Should Hollywood decide against making movie versions of the second and third parts of His Dark Materials, he has a plan. “If the studios don’t make the next two films, I might do them myself with puppets in the garden shed, like Noggin the Nog.”

There is a beat, before Pullman breaks into a broad grin: “Wouldn’t cost very much.”

Philip Pullman interviewed in The Scotsman