Elizabeth Bird

Video Sunday - Death Comes to the Wild Things
February 24, 2008

I've always said that there has never been and will never be a successful adaptation of a picture book into a full-screen motion picture. And then, for just about half a second, I was about to be proved wrong. This week a scene from the new Spike Jonze/David Eggers version of Where the Wild Things Are premiered on the web. You can see the clip right here, and for half a second hopes were high. Imagine it. A children's movie with quiet moments. QUIET moments! It fair boggles the mind. Jonze went online explaining that actually this scene was just a rough cut. Heck, the boy's not even wearing a wolf suit. That's a lamb suit, that is. The face of the Wild Thing will also be CGIed in later, so that's fine. Only now it looks as if that's about as much of this particular version we'll ever see. Warner Brothers has gotten cold feet over doing anything this original and may scrap the whole project and begin again with people other than Jonze and Eggers. I mean, who exactly did they think they were hiring anyway? Ah well. We came close to getting a magnificent picture book adaptation on the big screen. Guess we dodged that bullet, eh?

Yesterday I posted information on Monica Edinger and her discussion during our last Children's/YA Literary Cafe. Yet I failed to mention that during her talk, Monica showed us this link from her blog. Behold! It is part of the cut ending from the Golden Compass movie. Apparently the video game makers weren't able to excise it from their games when they heard that it wasn't making it into the final film. Their loss. Our gain.

And here's a little girl that belies the whole kids-can't-memorize-anymore theory. A bit cute, but it amused me.

Thanks to Sara O'Leary for the link.

And, just to be fair, here is the version of Jabberwocky that I have memorized. Galumphs and all. I actually have a hard time reciting or hearing the poem without the galumphs.

First time picture book illustrator Dan Hanna sent me a couple links to the book trailers for his new book The Pout Pout Fish. I'll put up my favorite two here for kicks.

And finally, this has nothing to do with children's literature, but one of my best friends since 7th grade is Meredith Ann Arwady. She is perhaps the greatest young contralto living today and recently our hometown newspaper made a little video of her. I'll put it up here, but it's a pity that you only hear her warming up and not singing. If she was singing you'd get a sense for how awesome she is. Yay, Meredith!

Posted by Elizabeth Bird on February 24, 2008 | Comments (8)