End-o'-the-Week Kid-Lit Roundup

By Paul

Quick links from around the kid-lit blogosphere:

"Augmented reality" comes to kid-lit. This hologram-like technology has been popping up in marketing campaigns and most recently baseball cards--so it was only a matter of time before we saw some holographic action in a kids' book. Publishers Weekly has the story, and here's a quick pic of a dragon seemingly roaring out of Drake's Comprehensive Compendium of Dragonology:

A book about bullying and "inclusion." Twenty by Jenny recommends the book One as a conversation starter about keeping kids from feeling left out. ("Yesterday I was talking with a school librarian friend in her office when a third grade teacher came in requesting a picture book about 'inclusion.' It's only the third week of school, and already a group of children were attempting to exclude other children.")

Levar Burton unloads on Reading Rainbow. E.g.: "These were not the classics. Anyone who could glue paper between two pieces of cardboard and hire a publicist could get a book on that show." (Okay, okay, it's just an Onion spoof--but don't miss "My Living Nightmare Of Encouraging Kids To Read Is Over". Ha!) (via Bookninja)

"Like a kiss from the beyond." That's what Arnold Lobel's daughter is calling The Frogs and Toads All Sang, a new book assembled from private sketches of her late father's famous amphibian duo. Check out an interview with Adrianne Lobel in School Library Journal.

"Guys Read" revamp. Guys Read is a terrific Web site if you're looking for books for boys, and it seems that it's just gotten even more useful with a big redesign. (via Achockablog)

The "Almagor/Flake debate." For serious kid-lit theoreticians and other meta-kid-lit enthusiasts, Read Roger sums up some of the issues behind a debate about race and "didacticism" while talking about the Newbery, Caldecott, and Coretta Scott King Awards along the way.

The E.B. White Read Aloud Awards. Jen Robinson over at PBS Booklights has a great write-up on this award for "terrific books to read aloud"--in the spirit of E.B. White's classics Charlotte's Web, Stuart Little, and The Trumpet of the Swan. It's fun to see that a bedtime favorite for our 2.5-year-old Silas--A Visitor for Bear--won in the picture book category this year.

A star-studded game of Exquisite Corpse. Educating Alice has all the details on a new online serial, The Exquisite Corpse Adventure. (Zounds, check out the contributors: M.T. Anderson, Natalie Babbitt, Calef Brown, Susan Cooper, Kate Di Camillo, Timothy Basil Ering, Nikki Grimes, Shannon Hale, Daniel Handler aka Lemony Snicket, Steven Kellogg, Gregory Maguire, Megan McDonald, Patricia and Fredrick McKissack, Linda Sue Park, Katherine Paterson, James Ransome, Jon Scieszka, and Chris Van Dusen.)

Fox in Socks beatboxing. Warning, after watching this video, you may never read Fox in Socks the same way again. (Via 100 Scope Notes, who sagely points out, "If you knew that Dr. Seuss invented the work 'crunk,' then this will seem like a natural combination.")



--Paul