Turn your iPhone into a wand! There's a new Harry Potter app out now called "Spells," which lets you join a Hogwarts school, learn spells (from Stupefy to Expelliarmus), and duel with other "students" (via wifi or Bluetooth).
"Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Musical." School Library Journal talks to Mo Willems about his Knuffle Bunny series, and especially the upcoming musical appearing in the Kennedy Center's 2010 season. ("The Kennedy Center was foolish enough to let me write the script and song lyrics, although they did give me a fantastic dramaturg named Megan Alrutz to help me focus on the emotional through line of the story instead of spending all my time figuring out the giant puppet man-eating brassiere.")
2009 Winter Blog Blast Tour. Chasing Ray sponsored and scheduled last week's 2009 Winter Blog Blast Tour, a ton of author interviews across a smattering of great blogs. If you missed it, go back and check it out.
PBS Booklights' Thursday Three: Thanksgiving. Hopefully Pam gets to take *next* Thursday off, but last week she was kind enough to serve up some seasonal selections, with three picks for Turkey Day: Thanksgiving in the White House by Gary Hines, This Is the Turkey by Abby Levine, and 'Twas the Night Before Thanksgiving by good ol' Dav Pilkey ("The book is blunt at times about the fate of these birds, but always funny, especially when the kids leave the farm considerably fatter and with feathers sticking out from their coats.").
A middle-grade H1N1 novel. Wha? It's true: Publishers Weekly has the story on Finn Reeder, Flu Fighter, a new novel about a 13-year-old coping with the pandemic. ("Somehow, he survives infection. As their class size dwindles, Finn and his friend Amy face down the school bully, draw comics, catch the principal ordering pizza, and even manage to study once in a while. And when finally, Finn is the lone student remaining in school, he manages to win"”and lose"”the most intense game of solo dodge ball ever.") You can download it for free before the January 1 release date.
"Hollywood Takes a Closer Look at Picture Books." In which we learn, among other things, that there's going to be a Where's Waldo? movie(!).
Jason Schwartzman interview. Speaking of Hollywood, Jason Schwartzman (currently Ash in the Fantastic Mr. Fox, based on the book by Roald Dahl) was just interviewed by ReadKiddoRead, about his favorite books as a kid:
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Posted by: ed hardy | November 23, 2009 at 02:25 AM