Satanism in Children's literature

Now wouldn't THIS have made a great paper topic: Satanism in children's literature

Case in point: Don't make me go back, Mommy: A child's book about Satanic ritual abuse

When I first heard about this book I was shocked at the fact that such subject matter would ever be depicted for a child audience. A young girl implores her parents not to send her back to her preschool where she and her classmates are subject to sexual abuse under the guise of satanic rituals. Through therapy and the love of her parents, the girl is able to face her fears and her attackers and deal with her abuse in a healthy manner.

Some of the criticisms of this book include its inappropriateness for the audience. In addition, the daycare workers are depicted with bias as evil, white figures dressed as witches (from what few illustrations I could see). I had no idea that the nature of this book was founded on actual events. In the months before I was born there was a panicked string of satanic rituals and sexual abuse allegations made against several preschools (including teachers and parents). Few of these cases ever resulted in convictions and many adults spent time in jail without ever being convicted of any crimes. This also brought to light new procedures in having children given testimony in court and theories about implanting false memories by asking them leading direct, questions repeatedly. Awful Library Books wonders how an acquisitions committee can sit together and come up with a reason to include this on the shelf. I’ll admit I’m sure there’s a pool of children who have been victim to satanic rituals and sexual abuse, possibly at the hands of their trusted teachers, but the way Awful Library Books describes the content makes me believe that while the intentions were good, the presentation is inappropriate for children of this age group. Take a look at the reviews amazon.com has and view Awful Library Books’ blasting review and form your own opinions. But the nature of the cases surrounding the book sounds an awful lot like Arthur Miller’s The Crucible.

2009’s Best in Children’s Book Illustrations

The Book Review has an annual roundup of the best in children’s books from an illustrative point. Books for kids are crucial for learning the language, and if you can lure them in with outstanding visuals, all the better. NYT has the ten best, including this one from Shaun Tan’s “Tales From Outer Suburbia.” Tan also won a slot in 2007 for the phenomenal, wordless “The Arrival."

1) ONLY A WITCH CAN FLY By Alison McGhee. Illustrated by Taeeun Yoo.
Feiwel & Friends. $16.99. (Ages 4 to 8) . An illustrated poem about a little girl who dreams of flying on her broomstick on Halloween night

2) MOONSHOT: The Flight of Apollo 11 Written and illustrated by Brian Floca.
In watercolors, ink and acrylics, the story of how the Apollo 11 mission unfolded.

3) THE ODD EGG Written and illustrated by Emily Gravett.
Simon & Schuster. $15.99. (Ages 4 to 8). A duck discovers a huge speckled egg — with a baby alligator inside.

4) A PENGUIN STORY Written and illustrated by Antoinette Portis.
HarperCollins. $17.99. (Ages 4 to 8). Edna the penguin goes on a quest to discover new colors.


5) THE LION AND THE MOUSE Illustrated by Jerry Pinkney.
Little, Brown. $16.99 (Ages 3 to 6)

This illustrated retelling of the classic fable has only seven words, all sound effects.

6) THE SNOW DAY Written and illustrated by Komako Sakai.
Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic. $16.99. (Ages 3 to 5). A bunny child stays home from school when the world is beset by a snowstorm.














7) TALES FROM OUTER SUBURBIA Written and illustrated by Shaun Tan.
Arthur A. Levine/Scholastic. $19.99. (Ages 12 and up). An illustrated collection of surreal tales from the author of “The Arrival.”

8) YUMMY: Eight Favorite Fairy Tales Written and illustrated by Lucy Cousins.
Candlewick. $18.99. (Ages 3 and up). Eight popular fairy tales retold in vivid colors.

9) WHITE NOISE By David A. Carter.
Little Simon/Simon & Schuster. $22.99. (Ages 3 and up). A pop-up romp through cubism and futurism, and a lesson in early-­20th-century modernist formalism.

10) ALL THE WORLD By Liz Garton Scanlon. Illustrated by Marla Frazee.
Beach Lane/Simon & Schuster. $17.99. (Ages 4 to 7). A journey in pictures and verse from an unexplored beach to a busy music-filled family room and into a tranquil, moonlit night.

On my own I had seen or been told about Jerry Pinkney's book as well as Antoinette Portis'.

Book Ring uncovered worth $140K

This article just irritates me. Collectively these people stole books from the PG county libraries to remove sell wholesale elsewhere (they removed the bar codes). One woman used the money to buy drugs.

http://www.wbaltv.com/11investigates/21575930/detail.html

"HYATTSVILLE, Md. -- Twelve people have been charged with checking out more than $140,000 in books from Maryland colleges and community libraries and selling them for quick cash."

This is not the way to promote literacy. This is wrong. They face a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison.

Politics & Prose

I was unfortunately unable to make it to Sarah Dessen's talk at this bookstore but they host a new author every weekday and two authors on the weekends. I definitely recommend checking this bookstore out even if you're not there for an author event.

I will make my way down there, someday.

Politics & Prose <-- Follow the hyperlink

Things I learned from Fred Bowen

Fred Bowen, an author of sports books for young readers, came to visit my Children's Literature class at UMD a few weeks ago. Here is the update as promised:

Fred's books include simplistic but ethically diverse stories centered around boys and girls on various sports teams: baseball, basketball, and football to name a few. While the characters are fictitious, the stories' plots are centered around real, and sometimes famous, sports events that occurred in the past. For example, Fred's latest book, Touchdown Trouble, discusses a winning touchdown that was scored illegally, and the team's decision whether or not to confess their mistake and give the opposing team the win. This is the only recorded football game score to be changed after the game has concluded.

Other fun facts about Fred Bowen:

1) He is a recovering lawyer for the Department of Labor for the past 30 years
2) He used to write movie reviews for newspapers (2-3 years) and video reviews for magazines
3) In most children's books, the parents are often irrelevant to the story
4) Sports writer for the Kids Post
5) Hannibal Lecter's mask is an old version of a hockey mask.
6) People used to make fun of those who wore a mask or gloves in hockey, as it was a sign of cowardice
7) He wants to write a good story as well as teach a good lesson, but writing lessons is hard since he never wants the children to win.
8) The world is an enormously stubborn place
9) Fred Bowen is currently operating without an agent
10) The world is starved for ideas, sories, and writing
11) Reading is always a minority undertaking
12) Kids books last longer
13) Illustrations date books, so they should be updated

Prospective Jobs

To turn to a more pragmatic aspect of blogging, I wish to discuss job searching and see if there are any tips I can accumulate.

Some advice I've heard in the past is to come up with a 60 second blurb about yourself and what you hope to accomplish within your field so you can pitch this at job fairs.

"I, Rosanne North, desire to work in a public library serving adults, children, and the general public. I have an MLS degree, html, Microsoft Office, and database creation skills. My past experience has been general office work updating online catalogs. I also have instructional experience teaching library workshops to freshmen."

Sufficient for now, but I'm still working on it.

This coming week in class I'm arguing for upholding Bridge to Terabithia as the rightful winner of the 1978 Newbery medal against Ramona and her Father and Anpao: A Native American Oddysey. Honestly I have no idea why either of these books were nominated. Anpao's author has been denounced and dethroned as a self-proclaimed Native American and his book combines several stories from Native American folklore to chronicle Anpao's journey from childhood to manhood. At least with Ramona and her Father the book's timelessness has held up. Ramona and her family have to face hard time and difficulties within their family structure when they can no longer rely on their father's income after he loses his job. In the face of this recession (gone or not), this book can be applied even in today's society as children have to cope with their parents' worries instead of enjoying the blissful innocence that childhood allows.

I believe Bridge to Terabithia is most deserving of the medal because of its serious topics and handling of death for young people. Also because I'm drawn to the main character, Leslie, who is a girl imagining the world and trying to make friends while dealing with absent parents.

Harold and the Purple Crayon

My apologies for the long delay. Work and school have united against me to keep me away from any normal social activities for the time being. That being said I have an annotation of A Picture for Harold's Room by Crockett Johnson to tide you over until I post about meeting author Fred Bowen, responsible for several series of children's fictional sports books.

Johnson, Crokett. A Picture for Harold's Room. United States: Harper & Row, 1960. Print.

• A Picture for Harold’s Room is fit for a level one, first-grade reading level audience, and chronicles Harold’s experimental drawings across his bedroom wall. This book fulfills Margaret Jenses’ criteria for an effective and well written easy reader utilizing rhythm, repetition, vocabulary, clear context, and picture clues. Crockett also utilizes good spacing between each word and a broad use of white space to maximize the reader's eye span. There is minimal rhythm and repetition in the text: "He could not wade home through the ocean / He could not climb those high mountains" (48-49). Most of the text falls under Margaret Jenses' recommendation of a five to seven word limit per line, but sometimes Crockett exceeds this. The text is displayed solely across the bottom of the page. Reflected above it is Harold illustrating the text with purple crayon sketches. By having a character illustrate the story this demonstrates how the concepts of a church, town, a sea, a ship, and a lighthouse are viewed from a young child's perspective.

• There is a clear and chronological context within the story as the plot progresses with Harold finding different ways to draw his way through a town, the mountains, the grass, and finally to his room. Crockett's most advanced innovation with this book is his variations in perspective. Throughout the story Harold changes sizes in comparison with his surroundings. At one point he is a giant, bigger than a town. In another scene he is smaller than a bird and realizes that he is not his usual size. The story concludes with Harold drawing himself back to his normal size and hints at more mature implications about how small or big a child may feel in comparison with the world. Overall, this book is appropriate for beginner readers and still remains popular today.

A few days ago I picked up a book called The Lit Report by Sarah N. Harvey and I'm only a few pages in. I am hooked. This book about a girl growing up in a Christian school whilst harboring a love for classical literature takes me back to my childhood days, except for the Christian school part. I'm not that far into it yet so I'll report more when I've finished it.

Also on the "To Do" list, compare and contrast two types of YA books on Polygamous communities: Sister Wife and The Chosen One.

Until next time!

Quite a Shock

I had only heard the odd comment here and there of attempts to challenge and ban Elizabeth Scott's Living Dead Girl. When I picked it up a few days ago from the library I had not expected the destitute and graphic narrative within the text that, once I devoured in one sitting last night at 2 am, I swore would give me nightmares.

Once you are pulled into "Alice's" world, a nightmare in which she has spent the last five years living with and being abused by the man who kidnapped her, you wish you'd never been taken there. The brief book is a front row seat into Alice's pain and lack of help from any neighbors or caring strangers to report her captor. You also see into her captor's, Ray's, head about how the cycle of abuse began with his mother and transferred into his serial kidnapping of little girls, threatening to murder their families should they run away, his attempts to preserve their "innocent little girl" image, and his irateness when they start to grow up.

Alice is a hollow shell whose only wish is to be unfeeling and freed from her "living death". I quoted the process of reading this book to someone to day as comparable to scraping open your skin, pouring rubbing alcohol onto it, and then setting it on fire.

My boyfriend calls me crazy for reading this stuff and is very surprised how I'm not depressed by it. I survived reading a collection of Holocaust literature for children and Young Adults last semester and thought I was prepared for anything. I had also read my fair share of sexual abuse and rape books (courtesy of Ellen Hopkins), but nothing prepared me for the waking nightmare that is Living Dead Girl.

I would not recommend it for everyone, especially the faint of heart.

I think by seeing the road where Alice has traveled and escaped from that help can be given to real girls in her situation.

Annotation Wednesday

A bit of author news. Sarah Dessen will be at the Politics and Prose Bookstore on Friday, October 9th to promote her new book, Along for the Ride. Hopefully I will be able to make it

It has hereby been declared annotation Wednesday so I give you my review of an ABC book.

MacDonald, Suse. Alphabatics. New York: Bradbury Press, 1986. Print.

• MacDonald’s unique way of retelling and relating the alphabet to young readers involves depicting each letter of the alphabet graphically transform into an object, or animal beginning with that letter. Repetition of this pattern guides readers through each letter of the alphabet from Ark to Zebra. MacDonald’s minimal layout makes good use of the page’s white space, placing an uppercase and lowercase letter, depicted in straight lines and bold colors, near the top of the page. The letter’s primary color is mirrored on the following page, identifying the name of the animal or object the letter has become. Secondly, MacDonald depicts the letter in a secondary, contrasting color which is also mirrored on the next page to illustrate the new animal or object, which is depicted with curved lines. This provides a connection between the letter and the objects and helps readers better comprehend MacDonald’s illustrations. Each small box that contains a letter represents a single frame of the transformation, indicating motion and action, as well as moving the directing the reader’s attention to follow the animated letter as it flies and bends. MacDonald’s co-dependent text and illustrations drive the reader to recognize and apply the connection between the illustrations and the text.
  

• MacDonald’s transition from straight lined letters to curved lined animals relates to the mood of the book, transitioning from formal and stiff to fun and playful. Her illustration style uses realism and graphics to realistically depict animals and objects. The mood is likewise upbeat and fun, giving readers a new way to learn the alphabet. MacDonald’s book is very educational for young readers learning the alphabet as she encourages them to use their critical thinking skills as opposed to manipulating simple object identification to teach the alphabet.

Perceptions

In class yesterday we were speaking about fantasy and I heard a lot of people say they weren't interested in it because they thought it was all the same, it revolved around the same basic plot, or that they thought fantasy and science fiction were synonymous.

Our mutual concurrence as a class was that those readers hadn't read very good fantasy

I couldn't wrap my head around this. Star Wars + LOTR is the same? Surely not!

As a librarian, I hope to dispel this misconception.

Shan and Sendak

While waiting for Zombieland to begin the theatre showed an extended trailer for Where the Wild Things Are along with an collaborative interview with Maurice Sendak and Spike Jones. I'm so curious but skeptical about seeing this movie. Sendak appears to have given his blessing for it so I'll wait and see what the reviews say.

Also on my list to catch in the next few months is Darren Shan's Cirque Du Freak: The Vampire's Assistant. I am very excited about this movie mostly because of the list of actors slated to appear in it: Selma Hayek, Willem Defoe nearly impersonating Vincent Price, and John C. Reilly. I haven't read the first installment of the series in ages. I was an avid follower of this series as a college student but Shan keeps cranking them out so quickly I've fallen behind. The rumor is that this movie will be based upon the first three books with four sequels comprising the rest of the 12 books.

Annotation Thursday --or-- It's October!

In retrospect of a recent assignment in my Children's Literature class where we're supposed to annotate a collection of fairy tales, I've decided to dress up as a Hans Christian Andersen character for Halloween. Plotting and previewing will come soon enough. Here's hoping I can do it justice.

But it's time for another Annotation where I review Anotinette Portis' follow-up to Not a Box, Not a Stick.

Portis, Anotinette. Not a Stick. Illus by author. United States: HarpersCollins, 2008. Print.

• Portis’ follow-up to her 2006 publication, Not a Box, uses similar illustrative and story-telling techniques. The cover art displays a faux wooden background, indicating the stick’s origin and possibly hinting at a tree’s role in the bookmaking process. The story’s protagonist, an imaginative pig, has a repetitive dialogue with an invisible speaker who continually asks him to be careful playing with his stick. When the invisible speaker interjects the italicized text is positioned at the top of the page, while the pig’s straight-lined words are positioned on the lower half of the page. This shows the reader that two different people are speaking. The pages switch from white text on a dull, brown background to a soothing blue and bright yellow background every time the speaker and the pig speak, respectively. The brown background reveals the speaker’s serious tone and his unimaginative perspective. However, when the pig is speaking the background is a bright yellow with light colored lines to denote his optimistic and dream-like imaginings as he plays with his stick. The pig is drawn with heavy, bold lines while each object the stick becomes is outlined in heavy, blue lines; but the reader can always see the stick housed within the new object.

• Portis portrays the pig and his stick (morphing into a whip, marching baton, fishing pole, paintbrush, barbell, spear, sword, and leash) with realism and an imaginative, surrealistic twist. For example, the stick is both used as a fishing pole and as a leash to lead a conquered dragon by the neck. The pig’s character is meant to relate to the reader and represent a child’s ability to imagine and have several different perspectives on an object. Portis transforms a simple stick into a multifunctional tool and inspires the reader to create their own “not a stick”.

Laurie Halse Anderson BB Week

It is hump day during Banned Book Week and I thought I'd spotlight Laurie Halse Anderson's (Author of Speak, Catalyst, Prom, and Twisted) blog. This week she's been documenting cases of her book being banned in schools from CA to PA, each case becoming progressively worse. Thankfully though, the cases haven't won, and the books remain in the library.

http://halseanderson.livejournal.com/

The National Book Festival

The morning broke and slipped into a cold, wet, dripping haze that fell over the National Mall. However, this did not deter bibliophiles, their pets, and children from coming out in droves to meet their favorite authors.

• 11:15 am
  
• Nelson, Alicia, and I tumble out of the crowded Metro onto the National Mall, elbowing our way past the crowd to the Target tent where we spotted the Target Dog, a French bulldog with a bullseye painted over its eye. A very well trained puppy, he/she didn't have having his/her picture taken.
• 11:20 am
  
• Find the PBS Kids tent to hear that last bit of Mo Willems' reading of Dr. Seuss' Sneeches on the Beaches
• 11:30 am - 12:30 pm
• Wait in the ever growing line with Alicia for Mo Willems' autograph while Nelson waits for Lee Child's autograph. I had fun speaking with the women in front of me in line who had split up all of their books among four people who were deftly making their way through as many lines as possible. We even helped the lady in front of us by taking a few of her books and getting them autographed by Mo since they'd reduced the number of books he could autograph to 1. I was able to get a few things autographed as well as snag a few pictures of Mo. Sadly I was too shy to say much of anything.
  
• Afternoon
  
• We visit the Digital Bookmobile where the pitch is that you can download digital copies of books to your MP3 player directly from your library. I have to say that I've used this before to read Laurell K. Hamilton's A Kiss of Shadows and I loved the medium as well as the method. You don't have to keep track of CDs, or become frustrated when they skip.
• Stand in line with the PBS mascots in full furry costume. We got to visit Curious George and Clifford. Nelson was fascinated by the T-Rex from "Dinosaur Train" but he went on break before we could get in his line.
  
• I left the line while Nelson and Alicia went to get in line for Arthur. I wandered over to the Teens/Children tent to hear the middle half of Jacqueline Woodson's lecture. She is a wonderful and poignant speaker who kept the audiencenraptured as she spoke about her older books (If You Come Softly) and her more recent books of poetry.
  
• Here I find my old professor, Joan, and we go back to the Children's tent to hear Megan McDonald speak about the Judy Moddy series. She read an excerpt from her latest book and explained how much Judy and Stink mirror stories from her own childhood growing up with her sisters. She confirmed that there will be a Judy Moody movie where J.M will be portrayed a little older than in the books. Her defence was that Ramona stayed in the third grade for at least 15 years so she had time to make Judy grow up.
• Afternoon con.
• Following Megan McDonald were Holly Black and Tony DiTerlizzi promoting their collaboration, The Spiderwick Chronicles. Holly Black told a fable of how a man had accidentaly built his house on a fairy path. At the request of a "fairy expert" he shaved off the side of his house. More was to be said about the inspirations and influences for the characters in The Spiderwick Chornicles as well as Tony randomly sketching a Rat King, a Wyrm King, a Gremlin, and Holly's Cats. Tony gave away his sketches to whichever child in the audience
  
• Mo Willems
• Mo was very animated and loud as he greeted the audience. He read aloud from his new book, Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed, and had his daughter, wife, and another girl read from Elephant and Piggie's I Can Fly! He also announced that there would be a third and final installment to the Knufflebunny series as well as a Knufflebunny: A Cautionary Musical to premiere at the Kennedy Center in May. "One entire song," he said, "is to be sung in gibberish." To close he himself read from the latest Elephant and Piggie book, Pigs Make Me Sneeze. Mo, I learned, is a very vocal reader and the fact that he did stand up comedy really shines through during his reading.
• Conclusion
• There were so many authors I wish I could have seen that day: Jon Schieska, Nicholas Spark, Jodi Picoult, John Grisham, Judy Blume, Lois Lowry. Sadly you have to be about four people at once to be able to take in the wonder and talent that the National Book Festival has to offer.

Is it next year yet?

Updates forthcoming, for now I give you Shrek!

During our presentations for class today I learned that Shrek is actually a children's book that was published in 1993 by William Steig, author of Sylvester and the Magic Pebble. I had no idea! That leaves about 8 years between the creation of the book and the film "Shrek" with the death of Steig two years later. There are some discrepancies between the two but I have to say overall that I'm pleased with how the movie turned out, even if the writer and editors took liberties with expanding the story.

I will update on the National Book Festival soon. I was able to acquire insight and laughs from seeing Jacqueline Woodson, Holly Black, Tony DiTerlizzi, Megan McDonald, & Mo Willems, and even came away with a signed book and a great conversation with my former professor and dear friend, Joan Kindig.

Celebrate Banned Books week by supporting authors such as Laurie Halse Anderson (Speak) and all the other authors affected by this phenomenon.

And it begins

In honor of the upcoming Banned Books Week beginning on September 26th, I bring to you an author who is already feeling the heat. I've read most of Ellen Hopkins poetry lexicon and they are phenomenal. I would highly encourage middle school readers to read her works and enjoy the way she uses poetry to tell a compelling "close-to-true" story about a girl with a serious drug addiction, one that interferes with her well being as well as her baby's.

From the ALA newsletter:

Author talk canceled until school reviews her book
A visit by a best-selling author to Whittier Middle School in Norman, Oklahoma, was canceled after a parent questioned the content of one of the author’s books. Author Ellen Hopkins was scheduled to speak to 8th-graders September 22 about her career, writing process, and books. But she was notified that her visit was canceled because a parent at the school requested a review of her book Glass, the second in a series about a teen dealing with drug addiction. Hopkins said it's ironic her visit was canceled this week because the ALA's Banned Books Week begins September 26....
Oklahoma City Oklahoman, Sept. 22

Annotated Tuesday

Today I bring you an annotation of a popular children's book (something I'll try to do every week). Today's book was read to me by a former professor, Joan Kindig, in another children's literature class.

Sherry, Kevin. I’m the Biggest Thing in the Ocean. Illus. by Author. United States: Dial, 2007. Print.

Sherry’s tri-layered illustrations are uniquely varied and separated by a pane of glass according to the book’s end page explanation. The bottom layer is watercolor using various shades of blue and green to make up the ocean floor as well as the red innards of a whale. The second layer is cut paper, creating the realistic shapes of the ocean dwelling characters which represent an accurate portrait of ocean life: turtles, puffer fish, octopus, sharks, shrimp, clams, crabs, jellyfish, and whales. The third layer is heavily inked, bringing to life the voice of the narrator squid: from the small, faint words as he whispers when a shark is nearby to large curved words demonstrating the squid’s boisterous personality as well as the illustrator’s playfulness. The mood of the book is very calm and tranquil but offset by the garish, invasive voice and personality of the squid.

Sherry experiments very heavily with proportion throughout the book, portraying the squid in several sizes and spacing him erratically on the page which also adds variety; sometimes taking up a small portion on one page, to focusing solely on his eyes and mouth which take up an entire page and spill over the center onto the following page. This placement not only indicates the squid’s exaggerated, physical size on the page in proportion to the other sea creatures, but also shows the squid’s perception of his superiority over the other creatures based solely on his size. This can reflect a child’s developmental stage where their world is as self-centered as the squid’s as well as how they view themselves among others in the world. The squid’s loud opinion of his worth among his friends makes the book’s mood very funny and the tone very loud. His personality leaps off of the page and is sure to relate to young readers.

2010 Caldecott Nominations

For fun I kept track of the suggested nominations for the 2010 Caldecott Award discussed in class today. In a few months I'll check back and see if any of us were on the money.

LBSC 645 Children's Literature and Materials - Fall 2009, Dr. Maria Salvadore

1. Tsunami - by Kimiko Kajikawa, illustrated by Ed Young
2. No! - by David McPhail
3. Hansel and Gretel - written and illustrated by Rachel Isadora
4. All of Me - written and illustrated by Molly Bang
5. One Red Apple - by Harriet Siefer, illustrated by Karla Gudeon
6. All in One Day - written by Cynthia Rylant, illustrated by Nikki McClure
7. Big George - by Anne F. Rockwell, illustrated by Matt Phelan
8. Fletcher and the Sprintime Blossoms - by Julia Rawlinson, illustrated by Tiphanie Beeke
9. Jeremy Draws a Monster - by Peter McCarty
10. Chicken Little - by Rebecca Emberly, illustrated by Ed Emberly
11. Little Chick - by Amy Hest, illustrated by Anita Jeram
12. Naked Mole Rat Gets Dressed - written and illustrated by Mo Willems
13. The Negro Speaks of Rivers - by Langston Hughes, illustrated by E. B. Lewis
14. The Longest Night - by Marion Dane Bauer, illustrated by Ted LWein
15. The Lion & the Mouse - written and illustrated by Jerry Pinkney
    

MANGA Recommendation

Those of us who find ourselves humming the music to "Underground" or pointing fingers at our friends and shouting, "You remind me of the babe!" will enjoy this new literary addition to the Labyrinth universe. Jim Henson's Return to Labyrinth is told across four volumes, the fourth one still slated to be released. The 1st Volume chronicles Toby's return to the Labyrinth (hence the title), ten years after the events of the 1986 film, to become Jareth's successor as Goblin King. However, there are others also eying the throne, a queen and the mayor of Goblin City, who don't take kindly to the news of Toby's nomination for ruler. The 2nd volume chronicles Toby's misadventures in Goblin City as the newly appointed ruler, as well as Jareth reappearance into the normal world to pay a visit to an old "friend", Sarah (Toby's sister). I have yet to read the third volume but I highly recommend this original English manga to any librarian, young adult, or avid Bowie fanatic. The new storyline is fresh while still paying homage to the film (including reintroducing old characters) and the artwork is stunning and richly detailed.

Get well soon!

Rosalyn Schanzer was scheduled to appear at the Hyattsville Library (down the street from me) to discuss her new book, What Darwin Saw, this book also comes out around the time of the 200th anniversary of the voyage of the Beagle. Rosalyn was a guest lecturer for my Advanced Children's Seminar class last semester. Not only was she a pleasure to talk to but she also informed us about the long, arduous process of getting a book like this published (apparently books about Darwinism and evolution are hot topics) and the research and design that goes into creating a children's book. Alas, because of an injury to her back she wasn't able to make it to this lecture. They're setting to reschedule her sometime for October or November.

On another related note, The National Book Festival is coming up this weekend on the National Mall. Practically every important children's author will be present (except R. L. Stine and Neil Gaiman who were present last year). I highly encourage everyone to go and witness the awesome gathering of good literature! Among the guest list are:

• Kate DiCamillo, Shannon Hale, Craig Hatkoff, Nikki Grimes, Steven Kellogg, Lois Lowry, Megan McDonald, Charles Santore (illustrator of the festival poster), Jon Scieszka and David Shannon, and Mo Willems;
• Teens & Children authors Judy Blume, Pat Carman, Sharon Creech, Paula Deen, Carmen Agra Deedy and Wilson Kimeli Naiyomah, Shannon Hale, Liz Kessler, Jeff Kinney, James Patterson, Jerry Pinkney, Rick Riordan, Sharon Robinson and Kadir Nelson, James L. Swanson and Jacqueline Woodson

It will be especially neat to meet Mo Willems, whom I am doing an author study on. Hopefully I can afford one of his books and get it signed for a friend for Christmas, and possibly snag a picture.

Debut

This is the debut of my brand-spanking new professional blog about my adventures in the library world. Though I am a student now I hope to work in a Public Library either in Children or Young Adult Services. I'm considering jobs in Washington, D.C., Maryland, and Virginia.

As of now I'm working as a Graduate Student Assistant at the University of Maryland's McKeldin Library. I love the variety that my job offers so whenever I come in I never know if I'm going to be in the basement unpacking boxes, grabbing books off the shelf, or ordering new books for the Humanities Department. It's pretty exhilarating and my classes at the iSchool keep me on my toes learning new skills. I'll blog more about each of those classes soon.

Here you'll find my thoughts on the latest literature I've read and other biblio and library related news.