Monica Edinger's Blog, page 28

Britain’s Favourite Children’s Books….

…at least according to someone or someones, I’m not quite sure who.

I happened to notice some tweets about this yesterday so went looking. The 100 titles were announced by Nicolette Jones ona major television show featuring celebrities in and outside the British children’s literature world. Evidently there is more about it in Jones’ Sunday Times article today, but since it is behind a paywall, I haven’t accessso haven’t been able to find out who made the selections, criteria, etc. Was it Jone...

The 2016 Book I’m Most Excited to See is…

… Melissa Sweet‘s picture book biography Some Writer: The Story of E. B. White. (Look around here if you don’t know why. To say I’m a fan of Charlotte’s Web is to put it mildly.) And I have to wait until October? The little I’ve seen (Melissa shared a smidgen at an ALA presentationlast summer) is mouthwatering. Here’s the current blurb(no cover image yet) from the publisher:

In this stunning, first-ever fully-illustrated biography of legendary author E.B. White, Sibert medalist and Caldecott...

Diverse Cast for J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter and the Cursed Child

The play revolves around the middle-aged Ron, Hermione, and Harry. More about it and, especially, the response to thecasting of a black actress as Hermionehere, here, andhere.

Book Fan Art

Providing a visual interpretation of a story is a tried and true way of responding to a book. I did it as a kid and so do kids today. Now when I was a kid in the 1960s there was no Internet and so no easy way to publish my art. And so I did it pretty much for myself alone. But now there are so many places to publish your art — now better described, I suppose, as book fan art. I’ve just come across this one at the Guardian via Jonathan Stroud’s terrific article on why he likes the art so much....

In the Works: SLJ’s Battle of the Kids’ Books 2016 Edition

So we’ve got the contenders and we’ve got the judges — all are incredibly awesome. The contender announcement will be in a few weeksand I just can’t wait!

For anyone who is new to this, let me explain. Starting in 2009, over at School Library Journal, we’vebeen doing a tournament-style book game. We choose 16 fabulous books from the previous year, invite 16 wonderful writers to judge, and then watch it take off. Every year is new and different. Since we select the contenders before ALA’s Yout...

One More Alice Panel

Hope some of you around NYC this Saturday stop by NYPL’s main branch (the one with the lions) to listen to Dana Sheridan of Princeton’s Cotsen Library moderate a conversation all about Alice with me and illustrators Charles Santore and Robert Sabuda. Should be fun! All the details are here.

My Reviews of the Illustrated Harry Potter and More in This Weekend’s New York Times

I had a lot of fun reviewing five terrific oversized books for this weekend’s New York Times, all perfect holiday gift possibilities. A few excerpts below with the complete reviews available for readinghere.

Children are sure to return to the book [Oleg Konnecke’s The Big Book of Animals of the World] frequently to pore over and touch its chunky pages, then murmur the names of the different animals.

Starting with the movable gears on the cover, through pages featuring pop-ups and an ingenious...

Thoughts on Newbery: The Nature of Distinguished

What is meant by distinguished? How readers with a myriad of different life experiences and realities definethis was broken wide open this fall during a discussion that started on the Heavy Medal blogwith a consideration ofLaura Amy Schlitz’s The Hired Girl. Since then,the conversationhas broadenedbeyond the one book, on various social media platforms, exploringdifferent reading stances, the dominance of white privilege in the world of children’s books and among the adult gatekeepers, the not...

JK Rowling in Conversation with UK personality Lauren Laverne

LL I wondered how you measured success. I read your Wikipedia because we were doing this…

JR Oh God, have you read it? I’ve never read it. I’ve read yours.

LL You’ve done quite well, Jo.

JR Cheers, Lauren.

LL No spoilers, but as far as all the traditional metrics go, you’re fucking acing it.

From this very entertaining conversation.

Cornelia Funke’s Inkheart on Stage

There’s a stage production of Cornelia Funke’s fantasy, Inkheart, about to openin Manchester, England.

This Christmas, we present Inkheart, adapted from Cornelia Funke’s brilliant, worldwide best-selling fantasy adventure novel for children.

Books can take us to a different world – but what happens if that world is full of dark magic and ferocious and forbidding villains, where secrets are revealed and stories come alive?

Join our hero Meggie as she finds herself bang in the middle of the...