Monica Edinger's Blog, page 90

Learning About Africa: What You Wish For

A new book, What You Wish For, created as a fundraiser for Book Wish Foundation, a nonprofit organization working to build libraries for Darfur refugees living in Chad, is a unique collection of stories and poems all contributed by a celebrated authors from all over the world.  Meg Cabot, Jane Yolen, John Green R. L. Stine, and Alexander McCall Smith are among 18 writers who have taken on the idea of wishing in original and different ways.  Some of their offerings are folkloric in tone, some ...

Fun with Nursery Rhymes!

I've the following review over at my Huffington Post blog along with a slide show of some of the panels:

Nursery rhymes tend to be relegated to the realm of the very young, remembered by adults as cute little bedtime ditties. Well let me wake you all up – First Second Books' Nursery Rhyme Comics is indeed cute, but it is also funny, clever, and highly entertaining, filled with traditional rhymes made fresh and new. Edited by Chris Duffy (who also contributes), with an informative introduction...

Learning About Africa: Sierra Leone Joining the Conversation

Last summer while in Sierra Leone I discovered firsthand the difficulties of connecting to the Internet when the only option was via satellite. I often sat fruitlessly watching the slow crawl of a site attempting to link up and it made me become more realistic about setting up relationships with schools in Sierra Leone using the Internet, knowing how hard it would be from their end. It also made me admire all the more the Peace Corps Volunteers who were blogging, say Bryan Meeker (whose...

Maria Tatar on Fantasy Worlds Then and Now

I've long admire Harvard's Maria Tatar for her varied work on children's literature and folk lore. She's done a number of fine annotated editions of classical books and tales including her latest, The Annotated Peter Pan.  Yesterday she had a very thoughtful article in the New York Times, "No More Adventures in Wonderland" in which she contrasted the older children's books of J.M. Barrie and Lewis Carroll with more recent ones such as those of Neil Gaiman,  Susannah Collins, and Philip...

In the Classroom: 4th Grade Scholars

I've written before here about my classroom work with Charlotte's Web, in particular the glorious fun I have introducing my 4th graders to a scholarly approach to reading a book. I'd never considered that you could do such a thing with a children's book until U.C. Knoepflmacher showed me how at a life-changing NEH seminar at Princeton in 1990 and have now done it ever since with my 4th graders.

This year, for the first time, I decided to see if we could rearrange the desks into a true seminar ...

Cybils Folks, Please Help

I nominated Atinuke's No. 1 Car Spotter which recently was published in the U. S. by Kane/Miller.  Now I see the following on the Cybils site:

 

No. 1 Car Spotter

By Atinuke Atinuke

Status: Pending Approval

Reason ineligible: Publication date prior to Awards Cycle (September 2010)

Nominated by: Monica Edinger

I'm confused because the above is a link to the U.K. edition which did indeed publish in 2010.  But the U.S. edition published within the Awards Cycle and I can't see anything in the rules ...

Talking Animals: Realistic or Fantasy?

Charlotte of Charlotte's Library raised an interesting question after I nominated Carmen Agra Deedy and Randall Wright's The Cheshire Cheese Cat for the Cybil's middle grade fiction catagory. Asks Charlotte, "… when is a book with sentient animals acting as Persons and effecting the course of human events fantasy?"

I immediately apologized, writing, "My bad. I've been thinking about Cheshire Cheese Cat in terms of Newbery and was focusing on age and content not genre. You are absolutely...

Happy 50th Anniversary, Peace Corps

Last week-end, in D.C., there were all sorts of celebrations for Peace Corps' 50th anniversary.  Yes, it was 50 years ago that this organization began. As one of thousands who served, I can attest to its continuing importance.  Especially today when so many are able travel to remote parts of the world and engage virtually, I feel Peace Corps more than ever affirms the importance of long-term engagement and commitment to a people and a place.

Sierra Leone was one of the first countries Peace C...

Patrick Ness's A Monster Calls: It's What Makes Us Human

A Monster Calls is a magnificent work — folkloric, allegorical, atmospheric —- a book each reader enters privately and differently.  Invited to take-off on an idea by Siobhan Dowd who died before she could do anything with it herself, Patrick Ness has produced a work of magical realism that takes the reader deep into the world of a boy whose mother is dying.  Officially publishing in the U. S. tomorrow and beautifully produced with illustrations by Jim Kay, it is an extraordinarily moving...

The Sendak Fellowship

Somehow I either have forgotten or never knew about this lovely thing — the Sendak Fellowship, a gift from that grand man of American children's books, Maurice Sendak.  From the facebook page I learned:

The Sendak Fellowship is a residency program exclusively for artists who tell stories with illustration. Fellows will participate in weekly conversations and informal talks with Mr. Sendak, as well as a host of visiting artists, editors, publishers, directors, writers, and playwrights. Most of...