Monica Edinger's Blog, page 66

Marcus Sedgwick’s Midwinterblood

I’m a far-ranging reader, happily reading a picture book one minute and a book for adults the next. Professionally, being a 4th grade teacher and reviewer, not a librarian, I tend to read only YA that really intrigues me for one reason or another and I have to shamefully admit that until now what I’d heard about Marcus Sedgwick’s books — that they were dark and creepy — did not make me want to read them. But recently, I saw something interesting about his latest,Midwinterblood, just as a copy...

Ender’s Game, the Movie

Just came across this photo from the Ender’s Game movie withHailee Steinfeld as Petra (loved her in True Grit) and Asa Butterfield (loved him in Hugo) as Ender. So far so good, but you never know with movie adaptations, do you?

SLJ’s Battle of the Kids Books Update

So the judges have all been announced (and even if you don’t read all their bios, do go read our Big Kahuna’s — Frank Cottrell Boyce — as it is a hoot) and today we reveal the brackets. That is, their specific matches. And tomorrow we open the Undead Poll — our viewers chance to bring back their favorite book for the final Big Kahuna round.

Just to again say — the idea behind the BoB is to create a structure that allows us all to revisit books from last year and consider them alongside some mi...

More Mulling on the Nonfiction/Fiction Conundrum

In the past year there have been some interesting discussions about nonfiction books that seem like fiction (e.g. Steve Sheinken’s Bomb) and fiction books that seem like nonfiction (e.g. Vaunda Micheaux Nelson’s No Crystal Stair). The one this week on the child_lit list serve (about how to identify books like Nelson’s) prompted me to write the following response:

… I’ve been thinking about how children take in history for many, many years (written some books and articles about this) and the is...

Happy Centennial, Grand Central Station!

New York City’s celebrated Grand Central Station is 100 years old this year and still as gorgeous as ever — well worth a visit even if you aren’t actually going on a train somewhere. And to celebrate this milestone birthday there are all sorts of events, among them an exhibitof original art next month to which Peter Sis hascontributed the following, a tribute to his editor Jackie Kennedy Onassis who was among those who helped save the station from demolition.

It All Started With A Book…

I loved the London production of theMatilda musical and am so lucky to have been invited to one of the first performances of the Broadway version. Can’t wait!

Some Words from a Few Past Newbery Winners

“I got my name in a crossword puzzle.”

That’s Betsy Byars on winning the Newbery. More in this lovely video from Open Road Media on some of their award winning authors, among them Virginia Hamilton, Jean Craighead George, and Chris Raschka.

In the Classroom: A Few Classroom Teaching Suggestions from an Introverted Teacher

I’d been aware of Susan Cain, but hadn’t really looked into her until now, prompted by the recent todo regarding the teaching of introverts. In her Ted talk, she reinforces a number of my beliefs and practices as a veteran introverted teacher. Here are some of them:

Quiet time. Because there was a time when any sort of classroom talk was harshly subdued, many experts have since encouraged a lot of classroom talk. I’ve always found that hard, no doubt because of my introvert nature, one that ne...

In The Classroom: An introvert teaching every sort of kid.

Thanks to Liz Burns who led me to the article “Introverted Kids Need to Learn to Speak Up at School.”written by an extroverted middle school teacher. I’m an introverted middle school teacher, shy on top of it*, and so have a very different take on this. First of all, not every part of the world or culture necessarily views outspokenness as necessary as we often do in the United States. I’ve had teachers complain about children who do not look them in the eye when those children come from cult...

Thoughts on Newbery: Buzz, Buzz, Buzz

Thanks to Travis who drew my attention to the post “The Biebs and Ivan Connection” in which the author points out the new role social media is playing in our book world, noting the way John Schumacher and Colby Sharp fell in love with The One and Only Ivan and enthusiastically got the word out in truly awesome ways. As a result the book was well-known and there was a lot of hope that it would win the Newbery. That it did is indeed wonderful, but I feel strongly that it is important to recogni...