SLJ Talks to Meg Cabot, Horton Hears a Who! Movie review  

Brian Kenney, Editor-in-Chief
bkenney@reedbusiness.com

Author Meg Cabot not only keeps a journal herself; she features the practice in her teen fiction—a lot. Could there be any doubt considering the title of her popular series (and movie) "The Princess Diaries" (HarperCollins)? Now the author is taking her love of journal writing to the streets, so to speak, working with 140 libraries nationwide and the Young Adult Library Services Association lock on Journal Writing Workshops, being held through June. Cabot, at home in Key West, FL, spoke of how she threw her little brothers off the trail of her own journals—and more.

 

 

When I was about nine, my grandmother gave me my first diary—one of those little Holly Hobbie ones with the little lock. Yeah! I've been keeping a diary since then, and I've never stopped. I was terrified my mom would read it! I actually have a couple of milk crates with all my diaries. What's great about [journal writing] is that as I started writing books for kids and teenagers, going back and reading the stuff I wrote when I was that age has been invaluable to me, because the voice of kids that age is right there! I look back at what I was preoccupied with when I was that age, and it's exactly that voice. read more...

Dr. Seuss's Horton Hears a Who!
The new, computer-animated version of Dr. Seuss’s Horton Hears a Who! (Random, 1954) stretches the picture book's slender story line as tautly as a rubber band. For adults, its charms eventually wear thin, but there are enough loud special effects and scary sequences to hold the attention of its preteen audience. But diverting as it may be, my four-and-a-half-year-old taste-tester forgot about the film immediately afterwards. (But to the movie's credit, it was only the second time he's ever sat through an entire screening.)

 

Jim Carrey, refreshingly sedate, voices the role of the sensitive elephant Horton, who hears a diminutive cry from a speck of clover and, knowing it holds some form of life—no matter how small—protectively shields the clover with his trunk. He announces his discovery to his friends and catches the scornful attention of Kangaroo (Carol Burnett), the film's figure of authority. She accuses Horton of poisoning the young minds of the jungle of Nool; he'll have the younger animals using their imaginations in no time, leading to anarchy and disrespect. "Our way of life is under attack!" She plots with the black-bottomed eagle Vlad Vlad-i-koff (Will Arnett impersonating Bela Lugosi) to steal away and destroy the clover. read more...

In Wheatfield, IN, fourth, fifth, and sixth graders enjoy talking about books, with all of the students wanting their favorites to head the list of titles they are passionate about. A selection follows.

 

 

The nearest bookstore is a 40-minute drive, but our public and school libraries are strong. The kids were excited that someone from outside our rural area was interested in us. The titles here have been whittled down from a long list of their recommendations. Cynthia Kadohata's Cracker!: The Best Dog in Vietnam (S & S, 2007), Mike Lupica's Heat (Philomel, 2006), and Gennifer Choldenko's Al Capone Does My Shirts (Putnam, 2004) are favorites. Students are constantly asking when the next books by Andrew Clements, Peg Kehret, Gordon Korman, Jerry Spinelli, Louis Sachar, and Dav Pilkey are coming out. Popular series include Jim Benton's "Dear Dumb Diary" books (Scholastic). Lemony Snicket's "A Series of Unfortunate Events" (HarperCollins) is still popular, but not as much as in previous years.read more...

Do smaller classes affect student achievement? Not necessarily, says a new study from Northwestern University, which suggests that high achievers benefit more from small classes than low achievers do, especially at the kindergarten and first grade levels.

 

"While decreasing class size may increase achievement on average for all types of students, it does not appear to reduce the achievement gap within a class," says Spyros Konstantopoulos, an assistant professor at Northwestern's School of Education and Social Policy, who conducted the study. read more...

Here's a contest you wouldn't want to win. A group called the Center for Union Facts, which bills itself as the nemesis of teachers' unions, has launched a $1 million campaign to identify the nation's "worst unionized teachers" and offer 10 of them $10,000 apiece to resign or quit.

 

All educators covered by union contracts are eligible for nomination, including school librarians. read more...

Kids who have normal hearing take it for granted and think very little about what their world would be like if they couldn't hear at all (or could only hear partially). During Deaf History Month (mid-March through mid-April), you'll not only want to teach kids about how their ears work, but also help them understand what it's like to have a serious hearing impairment. This great essay, which is part of the TeensHealth Web site, was written by 17-year-old Kristin, who's had to deal with her severe hearing loss her whole life. She talks about what is was like at school as a young child and how self-conscious she was. She also discusses the many surgeries she has had and how she has compensated for her hearing loss by learning to lip-read. The article is also available in Spanish.

 

For general information on hearing impairments and deafness, click on the "More Articles Like This" tab, then click on "Hearing Impairment" to learn about how the ears work, the different types of hearing impairments, what causes impairments, how doctors diagnose and treat hearing problems, how kids can prevent hearing loss, and what life is like for kids who have a hard time hearing. You'll also want to click on the "Resources" tab, then the NIDCD link, and then the "Student & Teacher Activities" link, to find lots of hearing-related online activities, videos, and printable classroom guides for teachers and kids in grades three to six. — Gail Junion-Metz