Video Sunday: ALA Youth Media Awards A-Plenty

No, I’m not dead. I’ve been out of town for the past month. Why? The husband has been interviewing for a medical residency. (You know, like on Scrubs.) But enough of the lame excuses. Tonight is the night!

THE night!

The kidlit versions of the Oscars, only nobody gets bags of swag (that I know of)!

Somewhere in Philly, a group of librarians and other kidlit enthusiasts are locked in (hopefully) heavy, thoughtful debate over who should receive the ALA Youth Media Awards — big time, shiny-sticker book awards that can seriously make a writer’s career. I imagine that everyone who published even a halfway decent book in ’07 should be biting their nails off in excitement right now.

(Unless, of course, the novel contains happily living parents, is on the wrong end of a fantasy trilogy, or has an author whose last name is Selznick. More’s the pity.)

So, let’s get off to a start with a couple of Newbery ‘n’ Caldecott videos!

I didn’t think that The Tale of Despereaux could get any cuter . . . until I saw this little girl talking about it. Really, this is what it’s all about:

On the flip side of that, here’s what happens when we have the inevitable school assignment, “Let’s Do Book Reports on Newbery Winners and Newbery Winners Only!” I’ve no idea what Nancy Farmer would think of this, but I find it strangely mesmerizing:

As for Caldecott books . . . I’d say that 99.9% of online videos concerning Caldecott winners are of adults reading the books to off-camera kids. But the following is a interesting lil’ TV documentary about Snowflake Bentley. Yeah, the book isn’t mentioned at all, but for those of you who appreciated Mary Azarian and Jacqueline Briggs Martin’s book, this is pretty fascinating:

Lastly, the required off-topic goody, which I’m not able to post directly to here. But — it’s rather awesome. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the MUPPET CLOSET!

(With thanks to Kristen.)

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Video Sunday: Pockets & Bags

My library began its own blog, Storypockets, a few months ago, and they’ve recently begun a wonderful little feature that I’m going to present to you for this week’s video-o-rama.

See, the Children’s Department co-hosts this fabulous children’s author series called Black White, & Read All Over. About once a month or so, we have the pleasure of hearing a kidlit author or illustrator in our lecture hall. It’s always been fine and dandy, but THEN somebody got the BRILLIANT idea of asking these kidlit people to do a brief video for Storypockets. And lo, it is awesome.

I can’t post the videos directly onto this blog. But . . .

• You can go here to see the always-ebullient Mo Willems give a rather straightforward pro-reading speech. Kinda like “Reading-Rainbow-Meets-Mr.-T.” It’s sideways because it was the first time we had ever used the camera. (Cough.)
• If you liked that, then you can go here and see Paul Zelinsky reading a poem by Jack Prelutsky.

Finally, the requisite off-topic video du jour. A few weeks ago I posted a video about world peace and office supplies; today I post a video about world peace and canvas bags. Let me just say that I’ve decided that what my life really needs is an anthem button.

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Video Sunday: Cows, Rings, and Stuff

Good Sunday morning to you!  It’s time to sit back, relax, and feast your ol’ eyes on a few tidbits I have for you:

First off, here’s a video showing the making of Sandra Boynton’s latest book & music extravaganza, Blue Moo.  You know what’s funny?  Sandra Boynton looks EXACTLY as I’ve always imagined she does.

Next up, I’ve got another number from the Flight of the Conchords, that folk/funk/a capella/comedy duo from New Zealand that everyone enjoyed so much last week.  This clip is a Lord of the Rings parody, which seems so worn out at this point, but hey — if anybody has the right to mock Lord of the Rings, it’s New Zealanders, right?

Lastly, I have to confess that I really love looking at children’s video book reports on YouTube.  It’s the low-budget homemadeness that makes them charming.  This one looks like it had a bit of parental involvement, owing to its higher quality — they used a BLUESCREEN — but if there’s any book that deserves a classy video book report, it’s Captain Underpants, right?

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Video Sunday

Yes, yes — I’m lifting this idea directly from Betsy Bird’s A Fuse #8 Production, but it’s such a good idea, and I’m always up for a blog posting that doesn’t require me to come up with original content in any way. Besides, imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, right? Right?

First up is a beautiful children’s puppet show from Lotte Reiniger. Never heard of her? She was a shadow puppet artist and pioneering animator back in the 20s and 30s. Even though Disney would have you believe otherwise, her lovely Adventures of Prince Achmed was truly the first full-length animated feature (and it’s recently been released on DVD, so go check it out). When I was in college, I found her books on shadow puppetry and read them cover to cover — they were fascinating. Almost all of her films were adaptations of folktales — this one’s from 18th-century England.

Here’s “Jack and the Beanstalk” — in TECHNICOLOR!

And go here if you’d like to learn more about this fascinating artist.

Next, up an animated version of Edward Gorey’s Gashlycrumb Tinies. The animation is crude, but silly enough that it works. Thanks to A Blog of Bosh for the link.

And this has nothing to do with children’s literature, but I think this happens to be the best song about office supplies and world peace ever written:

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