Monica Edinger's Blog, page 55

More on Pullman and Tan’s Grimms Märchen

I just got my copy of the the German edition of Philip Pullman’s retelling of the Grimm fairy tales, Grimms Märchen, and it is a beautiful, beautiful book. The Shaun Tan illustrations are amazing. And the only way to see them all is to get this edition. It doesn’t matter if you don’t read English. Just get the book for the Tan art and shelf it next to the English edition. (FYI: I got it from Book Depository.) Awesome, awesome, awesome.

Death in The Book Thief Movie

A big fan of Markus Zusak’s The Book Thief, I have been very curious about the film opening next week. The moving trailers didn’t feature the most powerful element of the book — the narrator Death and I wondered if he had been eliminated. That troubled me as he really makes the book so transcendent.And so I was very happy to come across a very informative PW article about the movie with the following:

One of the most critical choices that Percival would make concerned the role that Death would...

NCTE: Teri Lesesne, Rita Williams-Garcia, M.T. Anderson, Gene Yang, and Me

Since NCTE is in nearby Boston this year and knowing my book would just be out, I put together what looks to be a stimulating panel on historical fiction, “Inventing the Past: Historical Fiction Comes Alive.” Here’s the annotation:

Complex, creative, and compelling, historical fiction challenges young readers with ideas from a wide range of times and places, offering rich instructional possibilities in this time of Common Core. Join M. T. Anderson, Monica Edinger, Rita Williams-Garcia, and Gen...

What do Strange and hammer throwing have in common?

BBC One/BBC Americaco-productionJonathan Strange And Mr Norrellstarts shooting next week withRay Donovan‘s Eddie Marsan and Olivier award-winning Bertie Carvel (Matilda) starring in the lead roles. Based on the bestselling novel by Susanna Clarke, the seven-partseries has been adaptedbyWallander‘s Peter Harness.

From this. Hurrah!

Congratulations to Rebecca Stead!

I am delighted that Rebecca Stead’s Liar & Spy won this year’s Guardian Children’s Book Prize. I was a big fan of the book and so am thrilled to bits to see it get this well-deserved award. Congratulations to all!

My Battle/Birthday Bunny

My birthday was a few weeks ago and for fun I decided to read aloudJon Scieszka, Mac Barnett, and Matthew Myers’ wonderful and subversive-to-the-depthsBattle Bunny. I thought I’d made clear just what it was, but my class was silent and I was puzzled. Later I discovered they thought someone named Alex had really destroyed the book and were very confused and even a bit dismayed. Once I made things clear they breathed sighs of relief! Ah well… I will just have to do better next time, because I a...

Africa is My Home: A Bookstore Event and a Few More Things

Thanks to everyone at theBankstreet Bookstore, especially manager Andy Laties, and to all who came to yesterday’s event. It was really, really lovely to see my family, colleagues, friends, and students with their families. It was surprisingly daunting to be on the author-side of things, but everyone was so positive and interested that I was able to relax, read, answer questions, and sign. (If you weren’t able to make it you can still order signed copies from the bookstore.)

Now that the book i...

Philip Pullman, Shaun Tan, and Grimm Fairy Tales

Last summer, at a wonderful international children’s literature conference, I met Klaus Humann of Aladin Verlag at which time, among other things, we chatted about his publishing a German edition of Philip Pullman’s Grimm fairy tales retellings. It was interesting to talk to him and later to Philip about the interesting situation of translating a British retelling of what was, after all, originally a collection of stories written and published in German.

I think I also did vaguely know, but fo...

NYC Parent Marjorie Ingall on Ethical Parenting

As someone who teaches in an elite NYC private school I am very aware of the moral quandaries our parents find themselves in, a situation that was highlighted in the recent New York Magazine article, “Ethical Parenting.” Not being a parent myself I am cautious about judging those who are, but have to admit to discomfort at the justifications made for actions that benefit some at the expense of others. And so I was very happy to read Marjorie Ingall‘s riposte, “Ethical Parenting is More Than P...

National Book Award Young People’s Literature Short List

It is great that the National Book Foundation has broaden aspects of their National Book Award. They are now including other knowledgeable book people besides writers on the juries and introduced a 10 book long list this year. Yesterday the short lists were announced — five books from those original long lists. (Reminder: this is a very different award from the Newbery as only books submitted for a significant fee by the publishers are considered. There were under 300 of these submitted for t...