Elizabeth Bird

Fusenews: Villeins and Secrets, Ninjas and Harry
May 7, 2008

• Okay. So maybe it wasn't the best movie adaptation in the whole wide wonderful world, but the worst?  Entertainment Weekly goes through the top twenty three worst movie adapations and decides that The Golden Compass is numero uno.  I once summarized what I thought were the worst 13 children's book adaptations, but I suppose it might be time to update the list.  I agree with Monica, though.  Cat and the Hat should certainly have ranked higher, if not highest, on the list.  Thanks to Educating Alice for the link.

• Collecting Children's Books dishes dirt on our newest Newbery winner that I myself did not know.  Were you aware that potential other titles for the book included VILLEINS AND VERMIN, SIMPLETONS AND SAINTS and A CLAMOR OF CHILDREN.  Of the "Clamor" title Peter says that it "sounds like a book Eleanor Farjeon might have written in the 1950s." I'm rather fond of it myself.  He also gives info regarding the notorious Trina Schart Hyman Will You Sign Here, John Hancock? illustration that once contained a tombstone dissing Virginia Kirkus.  Ah, to be a big enough reviewer that insults are lobbed at me in hidden illustrations.  *sigh*

• I like how my worlds intertwine.  My college friend Marci now works for the costume department within the Metropolitan Museum of Art.  Pretty sweet, eh?  She once gave me a defunct body model that kept freaking my husband out at night when I put my dress on it.  Long story.  Anyway, it appears that the Met is getting in on the superhero game with its current exhibit Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy.  Marci's been breaking her back over this exhibit, but I think it's all worth it to see a guy walking down a runway looking like this: 

Thanks to Children's Illustration for the link.

• I can't actually physically make you read the most recent Fine Lines piece on The Secret Garden, but what I can do is repeat one of the lines and hope your good sense causes you to feel inclined to read it: "Schooled by the simple people of the moor, by their own servants, Mary and the other inhabitants of locked-up Misselthwaite are revived. Of course, the servants and Dickon are a little too joyously occupied with the happiness of their employers to make this a handy pamphlet for Mao, but in the case of wealthy versus healthy, colonizer versus fertilizer, they win absolutely." 200 points for using the phrase "colonizer versus fertilizer" correctly in a sentence.

• Whoda thunk it?  Apparently the Harry Potter books were on the New York Times bestseller lists all this time and we never even noticed.  Papercuts noticed when they finally fell off the list, though.  And like that, "Foof!"  They're gone.  Thanks to Educating Alice for the link.

• The 2008 Americas Book Awards for Children's and Young Adult Literature have been announced:

Americas Award Winners

RED GLASS by Laura Resau. New York: Delacorte, 2007. 275 pgs. ISBN 978-0-385-90464-3

YUM! ?MMMM! ?QUE RICO!: AMERICA'S SPROUTINGS by Pat Mora. Pictures by Rafael Lopez. New York: Lee & Low, 2007. 32 pgs. ISBN 978-1-58430-271-1

Americas Award Honorable Mentions

NOCHECITA/LITTLE NIGHT by Yuyi Morales. New York: Roaring Brook Press/A Neal Porter Book, 2007. 32 pgs. ISBN 978-1-59643-232-1 Spanish / ISBN 978-1-59643-088-4 English (simultaneous editions)

RAINING SARDINES by Enrique Flores-Galbis. New York: Roaring Brook Press, 2007. 160 pgs. ISBN 978-1-59643-166-9

Go here to open a PDF file of the full list of commended titles.

• Daily Image:

Thanks to BB-Blog (and, of course, Savage Chickens) for the link.

Posted by Elizabeth Bird on May 7, 2008 | Comments (2)