Friday Fifteen

You’ve been waiting all week for the Friday Fifteen (haha) and now it’s here! The latest in fifteen word-or-less reviews:

1. Bunnicula by Deborah Howe and James Howe
What evil lurks within the hearts of bunnies? Harold knows!

2. Self-Help by Lorrie Moore
Every undergrad in a fiction workshop should read this.

3. Disgrace by J.M. Cotzee
It felt like there was an interesting story that kept getting blocked by the protagonist.

4. Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson
Eerie account of a teen struggling with anorexia, avoids being an “issue novel.”

5. Knuffle Bunny: a Cautionary Tale by Mo Willems
A beloved stuffed animal is left behind, with a sweet and surprising ending.

6. Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Julia Child
I’ve only attempted once recipe so far, but I love flipping through this one.

7. Karen’s Cartwheel (Baby-Sitters Little Sister #29) by Ann M. Martin
Karen was annoying. but this was about gymnastics and dolls. Of course I read it.

8. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy
Everyone has nine names. Levin and Kitty were may more interesting than Anna.

9. Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard P. Feynman
Probably would like this more now, but as a 9th grader I was suspicious of Feynman.

10. Poetry 180: A Turning Back to Poetry ed. Billy Collins
A lovely collection of poetry, especially good for reluctant readers.

11. The Best American Nonrequired Reading 2003, ed. Dave Eggers and Zadie Smith
“A Primer for the Punctuation of Heart Disease” by Foer is great. Can’t remember others.

12. Peanut Butter and Jelly: A Play Rhyme by Nadine Bernard Westcott
My sandwiches are peanut butter-only but I loved this lyrical book as a kid.

13. The Young Unicorns by Madeleine L’Engle
Read this before I knew about the Austins. The non-Austin characters were my favorites.

14. Night by Elie Wiesel
First book that made me cry. Arresting account of the Holocaust, a must-read for humanity.

15. Titus Andronicus by William Shakespeare
Shakespeare or grindhouse? Your call!

Have a great weekend, everybody!

Links Galore

Get through Friday with more fun links:

• A book by any other name would sell as well? Not so, apparently.
• App spin-offs from children’s book favorites.
• But don’t worry, apps aren’t killing actual books.
• I definitely need to focus more on what I’m actually reading.
• The Hunger Games cast and producers are working with United Nations World Food Programme and Feeding America to raise awareness about very real problems of starvation around the world.
• How does a genre “die” and is chick lit on the way out?
• Susan Dennard is giving away a signed ARC of Something Strange & Deadly for her birthday. Happy Birthday, Susan!

And You Don’t Need Any Quarters

I can’t remember the last time I used a pay phone. It might have been in high school. Since they’re not getting a lot of public use anymore, it’s cool to see some New York pay phones getting a literary update.

John Locke (I’m going to imagine him like this) is the man behind the project. He hopes that people will pick up a book while they’re about down, or maybe drop a another off when they’re done with it. One part of the project I find especially cool:

Is there any screening process for the books? For instance, do you try to include great works of literature, or perhaps focus on more accessible and popular novels?

I want everything and anything. I don’t have much of a budget, so all the books are donated from people that live nearby and off my own shelves, so everything from Oprah-approved to Jane Jacobs. And obviously as people leave their own books, I’d want the collection to become a record of the interests of that particular site. A next site I have in mind is near a public school, and I’m trying to get a good collection of children’s books.

I’d be interested to see what books kids share without any guidance from adults. School libraries are obviously fantastic, but something about children being able to run their own library really intrigues me.

Make sure to check out the full interview with Locke. Have any of you seen any pop-up libraries around town?

Magical History Tour

At educating alice, Monica Edinger has shared a wicked cool video about the German history of fairy tales:

Kind of want to take a trip down Fairy Tale Road now.

Monica also mentioned the Grimm Legacies conference, which I didn’t know about before. It sounds so awesome! Sad I missed it.

Bookish Birthday Bash

I have a theory that being in your 30s is awesome. 3 is my favorite number, so I can only assume that a whole decade of 3 is just about the coolest decade ever. And this Wordy Thirty birthday party is just adding more proof.

The hosts used literary references for the food and drink served–from Turkish Delight (The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe) to fried green tomatoes (Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe) to the Vesper martini (Casino Royale). Pages from books and Scrabble pieces went toward decorations. What a fun idea!

I’m a sucker for costumes, so I’m probably be tempted to ask guests to dress up as their favorite authors or literary characters. If it’s your birthday, they have to agree, right?

Let’s Learn and Explore

We’re coming up on the end of February vacation for a lot of schools. In case you or your kids are on break and you haven’t seen anything cool yet, check out the National Children’s Book and Literary Alliance’s list of awesome museums across the country. Not a bad way to spend a Friday!

Some of the great museums included are the Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in MA(somehow I still haven’t been there yet!) and the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.

Another on my to-visit list is the MIT Museum, which explores invention and technology. They have robots!

Have you visited any cool museums lately?

Stepping Away from Hogwarts

Guys.

JK Rowling is coming out with a new book.

!!!

So far no details announced except that it will be for adults and it will be published by Little, Brown, and Company. Really curious to see what Rowling has in store.

Are You There, Oscar?

Don’t know who to root for on Oscar night? Judy Blume is here to help. Along with being one of the most famous MG/YA authors ever, she’s also a huge movie fan. The New York Times talks with Blume about her picks. For major awards, she’s pulling for The Artist, which I haven’t seen yet but sounds fantastic. The only point on which I have to disagree with Blume is The Tree of Life, which she thought was pretentious and I really enjoyed. It’s not necessarily a movie I’d watch over and over, but I thought it was a compelling look at how we form memories as children and how insignificant personal struggles are amid the universe.

Blume also talks a little about what she’s working on now:

Q. Is it a young adult novel or is it for adults?

A. I don’t know, it’s one or the other. It’s probably both. It’s too soon to know. Did you see that thing with Maurice Sendak and Stephen Colbert, it’s on YouTube. [Bagger’s note: It is really worth watching. Especially when they get to the marker-sniffing.] Colbert says something about, ‘So did you always know you were going to write for children?,’ and Sendak says: “Write for children? I just write, and they decide where it should go.” I will have to decide, but I’m on a first draft of an intricate novel, it’s a complicated story for me to tell.

Glad to see another writer who sees their work for children as just a natural part of the creative process, not a major deliberate choice.

Who are you cheering for at this year’s Oscars?

Chic & Lovely

Ampersand earrings? Be still my heart! (via wandering airstream)

The Music of District 12

If you’re like me, you’re unreasonably excited about the upcoming Hunger Games movie. The soundtrack was recently revealed, and I’m happy to see some favorite artists on the list, including:

• Neko Case “Nothing To Remember”
• The Decemberists “One Engine”
• Glen Hansard “Take The Heartland”

It looks like the overall vibe is folk with an edge, which I think is perfect. (Frankly, I wish Neko Case could write the whole album; her sound matches the books perfectly.) Even though I don’t listen to much Taylor Swift, I actually like her song for the movie. You can see the video here:

Not as bouncy as a lot of her hits, and it has a nice mountain feel. So I’m very hopeful going into the movie. Any artists you like/dislike on the soundtrack, or anyone you wish were on the list?