HarryPotterLand

I've been subbing this week so I am, no doubt, the last person to see this from Nikki Finke's Deadline Hollywood Daily. The Harry Potter movie franchise may be on the way to becoming a theme park.

Disney watcher Jim Hill said that the company had been in protracted negotiations with J.K Rowling and Warner's to secure theme park rights for the complex. But that project never materialized. Instead, I'm told Universal went into negotiations with Warner's and that a Harry Potter them park deal is now set in principle but terms are still being finalized. Bill Davis, president of Universal Orlando Resort, was asked in February by the Orlando Sentinel about the possibility of a Harry Potter attraction. Davis replied: "Boy, I think that would be great. I can't talk about what we're going to be bringing to either one of our parks in the future. That's a forward-looking thing we can't discuss. I will tell you we're working hard to bring innovative, new technologically-advanced attractions to both of our parks.”

Wise Librarian

Entling No. 2 works at her institution of higher learning in that building that employs librarians. She got a call this week from one of them and was invited over to look at a new book that had just come in.

EN2 was very pleased to be the first person on campus to read the book and her mother was touched that these college librarians are reaching out to students with books that they know are of interest to them.

EN2 sent us this photo. She accompanied it with a gloating "nee-ner, nee-ner" or as they say in Elvish,"En! Sii'! Yallume! Auta miqula orqu!"

I have worked on it a bit to protect the innocent. As I have oft repeated, I try to spare the entlings the ongoing embarrassment of hearing folks say, "I didn't know SHE was YOUR mother!"


Book Trailer for The Children of Hurin

Author: Jack Gantos

This post is offered as a public service. If you have never heard Jack Gantos speak in person and you live anywhere near here, I would urge you, encourage you, exhort you to hie yourself to Hammond High School on Tuesday and enjoy.

From the Baltimore Sun:
Gantos to speak
Children's author Jack Gantos, creator of the Rotten Ralph books, a collaboration with illustrator Nicole Rubel, will speak at 6:30 p.m. Tuesday at Hammond High School, 8800 Guilford Road. Gantos is known for the popular Joey Pigza books and his autobiography, Hole in My Life. Books will be available for purchase and signing. Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. Registration is not required. The program is presented in partnership with Great Books, a consortium of Baltimore, Carroll, Harford and Howard county libraries.

I was lucky enough to host Gantos at my school (before he won the Newbery Honor for Joey Pigza Loses Control) for an entire day. One of my teachers actually fell (half way) off her chair because she was laughing so hard at his presentation. My principal used to ask me if we could have him return and I explained the deserved post-Joey three fold increase in his fee. She used to respond, without hesitation, "He is worth it."

It is my hope that he will record his Jack Henry books in audio book form sometime in the near future. Only he could do those books justice and if his publisher is smart they will start negotiations to accomplish this, (I was just explaining this to the very patient representative at the Farrar, Straus and Giroux booth at TLA who did tell me that there will be another Joey book this year, I Am Not Joey Pigza as Gantos realized Joey's relationship with his father was still unresolved.)

Those books were a restorative for our whole family as we learned to live with Type 1 diabetes years ago. This was before Lantus insulin had been invented and before the insulin pump became part of our family.

These macabre and insanely funny stories of his boyhood fit our mood perfectly and absolutely begged to be read aloud. You know when you are reading to yourself and find yourself compelled to shout to all in the vacinity "Oh my gosh, you have GOT to hear this," and you end up reading the entire book aloud and everyone is gasping for breath because they are laughing so hard? As I said, we were in a sort of dark place then.

Heads or Tails: Stories from the Sixth Grade, Jack's New Power: Stories from a Caribbean Year, Jack's Black Book: What Happens When You Flunk an IQ Test?, Jack on the Tracks: Four Seasons of Fifth Grade, and later, Jack Adrift: Fourth Grade Without a Clue will always have a special place in my heart.

If you live in Maryland and are in the area, I would encourage you to go hear the stories for yourself.


Downhomebooks.com Interview with Jack Gantos

Singer/Songwriter: Tom Chapin

School Library Journal: Extra Helping has an interview with Singer/Songwriter Tom Chapin. His song "Not on the Test" is hitting the target with parents, teachers and students.

My own entling's excursion into the world of Geometry has been interupted for several weeks as their geometry teachers reviews them on the ALGEBRA that they will be tested over on the TAKS next week. sigh.

What kind of reaction did you get from the song?

The feedback was just astonishing. I keep getting more and more [e-mails]. I had two today, from teachers saying, "Thank you! How can we get this song?" So we realized, it's not on a record and probably won't be for a while, so we decided to put it up on the Web site. And it's been roaring around the Internet from teacher to teacher and administrators and parents, and it's been fun to watch it in cyberspace.

TomChapin.com

I got my new walkin' shoes

I have my new walkin' shoes (I like the pink swooshes) and I go to San Antonio for the Texas Library Assn. annual conference today.

My first TLA conference, many moons ago, was in San Antonio and I think I walked around with a happy grin the entire time. At that first conference I heard Brian Jacques and Gerald McDermott and Rosemary Wells.

This time I hope to see Chris Barton, Grace Lin, Stephenie Meyer, Cynthia Leitich-Smith, Teri Lesesne, Avi, Sharon Creech, Walter Dean Myers, Sarah Weeks, Darren Shan, Tim Wynne-Jones, Scott Westerfeld, Justine Larbalestier, Sharon Draper, JOHN GREEN, Helen Hemphill, Don Tate, Brian Anderson, and MO WILLEMS, and more that I haven't even identified yet.

I will need a time-turner though. Lots of the sessions run at the same time. I'll do my best!

Back online

Sometimes being forced offline by a dodgy modem is a good thing. It gives you time to make hot cross buns with your youngest and read some of that book you have to be ready to discuss on Wednesday and check in with the other entlings...

Now we are reconnected to the grid, and I am stuffed with hot cross buns and See's dark chocolate Easter eggs. All I can manage is a quick click around my blog roll.

• I knew Indefatigable Kelly would find the Amanda Craig interview with RRR.
  
  

• Elaine at Wild Rose Reader (corrected: warning: do not imbibe dark chocolate and blog) is featuring
• Elaine says she Gregory K. at Gotta Book

I think poets are magicians. With exquisitely chosen words and phrases they impart more feelings and emotions than most folks can communicate in pages and pages of text and prose.

• Fuse#8 has found the most disturbing video. I just purchased some Dick and Jane quilting fabric. I may never be able to look at it the same way again ... aaaack ...
  
  
• Jen Robinson is also making Sunday visits and pointed me to Lectitans and the question of the week.
  
  
• Kelly Fineman is writing in depth reviews of poetry books for National Poetry Month. Check them out for some excellent additions to your poetry collections.
  

• Michele is still writing her "Who" novellas and finding time to post Friday poetry.

Compared to the productivity of my blogging friends I am feeling like a chocolate stuffed slug even though it was dark chocolate which is the healthy chocolate, full of healthy anti-oxidants.

• Finally, if you have not heard "Not on the Test" by John Forster & Tom Chapin give this link a click. The TAKS test is two weeks away for high schoolers here in the Great State.

Be an M-M

Thank you Mental Multivitamin. You can get yours here.

Dragon had to be in the picture too. He always does.

On the Wings of Heroes

Phew.

I FINALLY finished listening to The Thirteenth Tale by Diane Setterfield. In the book's defense, I did not have a regular listening routine due to an irregular life schedule right now. (Come to think of it, when is life ever orderly?) I almost gave up several times because I found the main character's continual bemoaning (tiring in an audiobook, maybe it would have played better in print) of her lost sister just too much. Glad I finished it because I would have wondered about the ending if I had given up but I am glad it is over.



On the Wings of Heroes by Richard Peck. Dial Books for Young Readers, 2007

I cannot think of any author who does more to refresh the palate and revive the spirit than Richard Peck. He has such fun telling a story. His uplifting and moving novel, On the Wings of Heroes was exactly what I was in the mood for.

This book is an extension, of sorts, of a short story he contributed to Guys Write for Guys Read by Jon Scieszka about his wonderful father and his love of Halloween.

This story begins on the eve of WWII. Peck perfectly evokes a time when neighbors knew each other and families banded together to support their community and the war effort with scrap metal drives, jalopy parades, black outs and tire rationing.

Davy Bowman's beloved older brother enlists and becomes a bombardier on a B-17, flying missions over Germany. Davy worships his brother and his dad. His father loves his boys and fears for the oldest one because, as a WWI veteran, he knows war. The relationship between the boys and their dad is wonderfully written. Peck commented at a book signing, "I'm trying to share my father with boys who don't have them."

Sugar rationing, milkweed collecting and Boy Scout paper drives are part of the lives of Davy and his best friend Scooter. School teachers are called away to work in the war plants leaving bullies free reign in the classroom. News on the radio is all important and loving grandparents arrive to help out when times are tough.

The town is full of Peck's typically quirky characters and life lessons. Is the shotgun wielding Miss Titus crazy or the canniest substitute teacher in the world? What is in the trunk in Mr. Stonecypher's scary attic?

Certainly, Davy's heroes are his father and his brother but after reading this book you understand the heroism of those on the home front too: the long retired teacher who steps into the classroom again; the father whose son did not come home from WWI but will give to the war effort; the victory gardens; blue, silver, and gold stars in the windows representing families in waiting or grieving.

The beauty, tenderness and humor in this very American story put it at the top of my favorite books list.

Just for fun

I don't know how I got there originally but I've been enjoying Random Jottings of a Book and Opera Lover ever since I found it a while ago. She wrote a very interesting post on Eva Ibbotsen and her "grown-up" books.

Elaine also pointed me toward this lovely radio drama from BBC Radio 4 of Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Making of a Marchioness. It will be available for seven days after the original broadcast which was Sunday, April 1, 2007.

Michelene Wandor's dramatisation of Frances Hodgson Burnett's romance.

Emily Fox-Seton is 34, comes from good stock, and has no money. She supports herself helping the well-to-do ladies of Mayfair with their shopping and other chores. Then Lady Maria invites her to a country house party to help with the guests, and Emily's life changes forever.

Lucy Briers (Mary Bennet in the best Pride and Prejudice) is Emily and Charles Dance (if you don't know who Charles Dance is, well, ... what can I say) is Lord Walderhurst and Miriam Margolyes (Professor Sprout and tons of other roles, including several turns in Blackadder) is Lady Walderhurst.

Part 2 is next week.

Also see Open Book where the creators discuss the program. This Open Book also includes an interview with China Mievill discussing his new YA book Un Lun Dun. (Entling no. 3 read it over spring break and liked it very very much.)

Also interviewed: Caroline Lawrence, creator of the Roman Mystery series and Mary Hoffman discussing historical fiction and the mystery and Derek Landy discussing his book Skulduggery Pleasant.

The list of books I'm seeking at TLA grows longer and longer.

Austenland by Shannon Hale

Bookshelves of Doom reviews Austenland. I did not know Shannon Hale was writing this book. Based on BoD review, I have just added this title to my "must absolutely find this book" list. Be sure to read the link to Shannon Hale's letter to Colin Firth.

I must add Squeetus to my blogroll. How have I missed it until now?