Archive for the ‘Childrens and YA’ Category

NYT BOOK REVIEW’s
Best Illus. Books 2014

Thursday, October 30th, 2014

 

 

The New York Times Book Review‘s annual selection of the ten best illustrated books of the year, chosen this year by judges Jennifer M. Brown, director of the Center for Children’s Literature at the Bank Street College of Education, and author/illustrators Brian Floca and Jerry Pinkney, has just been released online, in the form of a slideshow, with interior illustrations (our slideshow of the covers, above). The printed list will appear in the 11/9 issue.

Our downloadable spreadsheet rounds up the childrens and YA best books picks to date, 2014-Best-Books-Childrens-and-YA-V.2

PADDINGTON Finds
A New Trailer Home

Tuesday, October 28th, 2014

The U.S. release of the film adaptation of Michael Bond’s Paddington Bear has been moved from Christmas to  Jan. 16, but it is still set to open in the U.K. on Nov. 28 and a new trailer has been released

Official Movie Site: Paddington.com (which includes a look at Paddington as envisioned by various illustrators)

For tie-ins, check our Edelweiss collection.

Mark Rylance is THE BFG

Tuesday, October 28th, 2014

The BFGMark Rylance, who stars as Thomas Cromwell in the upcoming BBC production of Wolf Hall (recently wrapped, no U.S. release date yet), is set to play the lead in the live-action adaptation of Roald Dahl’s 1982 picture book, The BFG, (Macmillan/FSG YR). To be directed by Steven Spielberg, it will be the director’s next film, according to The HEsio Trotollywood Reporter, after he finishes his current project, St. James Place, an original Cold War thriller starring Tom Hanks (with Rylance in a supporting role).

This raises a question about what has happened to another Dahl adaptation, BBC One’s TV movie based on Esio Trot, starring Judi Dench and Dustin Hoffman. The Weinstein Co. acquired the U.S. rights for its fledgling TV business back in August, and no further announcements have been made. It is set for release in the U.K. in December.

GROUP HOPPER vs TFIOS 2

Thursday, October 16th, 2014

Saturday Night Live has been sending up YA film adaptations.

Last week, dystopian movies got the treatment:

The week before, it was a “grounded” YA film:

PADDINGTON Switches Holidays

Wednesday, October 15th, 2014

Originally scheduled for release on Christmas Day, the Weinstein Co.’s adaptation of Michael Bond’s Paddington Bear has been moved to a different holiday, the Martin Luther King Jr. weekend, Jan. 16.

Official Movie Site: Paddington.com (which includes a look at Paddington as envisioned by various illustrators)

For tie-ins, check our Edelweiss collection.

MORTAL INSTRUMENTS, The TV Series

Monday, October 13th, 2014

City of Bones Tie-in

What do you do when the first movie in a planned YA series bombs at the box office?

You may want to consider another medium, television.

The producers of The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones, based on the first in the Y.A. fantasy series by Cassandra Clare, are doing just that, with wrier-producer Ed Decter (HelixUnforgettableIn Plain Sight and The Client List) as showrunner.

There’s no information on whether the cast of the movie will be returning. On her blog, author Clare addresses that question, declaring, “I have absolutely no idea! I am sure they are not casting at the moment and probably nobody knows. There is absolutely nothing whatsoever I could possibly ever do to influence whether they kept the same cast (assuming they were available) at all, so I will be waiting, like you, to see if they cast new people, and hoping that if they do, those people will be good.”

Cassandra Clare’s series consists of six books, as well as a 3-part prequel series, Infernal Devices, which concluded with Clockwork Princess, (S&S/ Margaret K. McElderry, 3/19/13). The author has also announced a new series of sequels, called The Dark Artifices, to begin in 2015.

Lena Dunham Eyes Y.A. Film Adaptation

Monday, October 13th, 2014

9780395681862Before you roll your eyes and exclaim, “Not another person jumping on the Y.A. movie bandwagon,” consider the book that Lena Dunham wants to adapt. It’s not dystopian, or an angst-filled teen romance, but Karen Cushman’s Catherine, Called Birdy, (HMH/Clarion) the 1994 Newbery Honor book about a girl growing up in the 13th century.

Interviewed at the New Yorker Festival on Friday night, Dunham said, “I’m going to adapt it and hopefully direct it, I just need to find someone who wants to fund a PG-13 medieval movie.”

She also said she has been obsessed with the book since she was a kid. If her tattoos from children’s books didn’t already tip you off, she is a big reader. In a 2012 NYT Book Review interview, she mentioned dozens of books, and said Birdy one of the two best books she’s ever read about girls. The other one? Nabokov’s Lolita.

UPDATE:
EarlyWord Kids Correspondent Lisa Von Drasek is such a fan of this book that, when told her the news, she instantly recalled the opening lines, nearly verbatim (we know; checked the OverDrive Sample):

I am commanded to write an account of my days; I am bit by fleas and plagued by family. That is all there is to say.

The 20th anniversary edition, published as part of a re-release of 4 of Cushman’s books in trade paperback, includes an intro by Linda Sue Park (also on the OverDrive Sample), who says, “Cushman shows us a very different image of medieval England from the one we are used to seeing. Dirtier and smellier, yes, but also fuller, richer and more complete.”

We have to wonder how Dunham, who says in her memoir, Not That Kind of Girl, that she was a germaphobe as a kid, was able to deal with those details.

MADELINE Turns 75!

Monday, October 13th, 2014

The favorite children’s book, Madeline (Penguin/Viking Juvenile) turns 75 this year and is celebrated with an exhibition at the New York Historical Society and a feature yesterday on CBS Sunday Morning.

A 75th Anniversary Edition of the book, that includes a pop-up spread of Paris, was published in May.

9780670785407_IL_1_27fc5

9780670012282John Bemelmans Marciano, the originator’s grandson, is interviewed on the show.

He has published several books that continue Madeline’s adventures, including  Madeline at the White House, (Penguin/Viking Juvenile, 2011) a story that his grandfather and fan Jackie Kennedy once talked about doing.

WONDER Has Director

Wednesday, October 8th, 2014

Wonder Lionsgate has announced that John Krokidas (Kill Your Darlings, 2013) will direct the film adaptation of the word-of-mouth debut hit Wonder, R.J. Palacio, (RH/ Knopf Young Readers)

The book is still #1 on the NYT Middle Grade Best Sellers list after 96 weeks. Entertainment Weekly predicts the movie will also be successful, saying it’s “bound to be the latest in a string of enormously successful YA adaptations,” (presumably, referring to what Hollywood now calls “grounded” Y.A. adaptations, like The Fault in Our Stars and If I Stay, rather than the dystopian hits).

The big question: how will the movie deal with the main character’s facial deformity?

The trailer for the book avoided the issue:

TODAY Book Club Returns

Thursday, October 2nd, 2014

A memoir, aimed at young adults, by a young woman who was diagnosed at 13 with HIV and then became the victim of bullying so ferocious that she considered suicide, is the next title in the Today Show Book Club.

9780062342515_2c039

Positive : A Memoir
Paige Rawl, Ali Benjamin, Jay Asher (Intro. by)
HarperCollins: August 26, 2014
9780062342515, 0062342517
Hardcover
$18.99 USD, $23.99 CAD

OverDrive Sample

 

Former First Daughter Jenna Bush Hager introduced the author and the book on Monday’s show.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

 

The Today Show‘s book club began last fall with the debut Bone Season by Samantha Shannon, sending it on to best seller lists for a brief time. Since then, there have been just four more picks, the most recent in May, The Fault in Our Stars, which capitalized on the attention surrounding the movie.

For the new pick, the Today Show invites people to:

“Read along with TODAY viewers, sharing your reaction to the book on Twitter via @TODAYsBooks and the TODAY Book Club Google+ community. Be sure to follow the TODAY Book Club newsletter for the latest information.”

Hager will host an online conversation with Rawl on Nov. 14.

Undead: TWILIGHT

Wednesday, October 1st, 2014

twilightmovieJust when you thought it was finally over, the Twilight series may be revived.

The New York Times reports that Lions Gate, the studio that bought the studio behind the films, and Stephenie Meyer, author of the books and producer on the final two feature-length Twilight movies, have announced plans for five short films based on the Twilight characters, to be shown exclusively on Facebook next year.

Partially funded by the organization Women in Film, the program, called The Storyteller: New Voices of the Twilight Saga, will invite women filmmakers to submit short films based on the Twilight characters. Five will be selected by a panel of women in the entertainment industry, including Meyer and Kristen Stewart, star of the feature films.

When the Twilight series was coming to a conclusion, there were rumors that Meyer was planning more books in the series. There’s been no news on that since.

COUNTING BY 7s Movie Has Star

Tuesday, September 30th, 2014

9780803738553_a35db-2Quvenzhané Wallis, who. at 9-years-old, was the youngest actor to be nominated for an Oscar for Beasts of the Southern Wild, (she was only 5 when she auditioned for the role. She is now 11), has been named as the lead for the film adaptation of Holly Goldberg Sloan’s  Counting by 7s (Penguin/Dial, 2013; Dreamscape audio)

Reviewed widely, the  book received 15 state awards. Released in 2013, it spent 5 weeks on the New York Times Children’s Middle Grade Best Sellers list. Recently released in paperback, it went back on the list at #6 this week.

Wallis has yet another starring role coming up, as Annie, based on the Broadway musical and on the cartoon series. That movie will be released Dec. 19.

Girls and Bullying

Friday, September 26th, 2014

lisabadge

Great news! Rachel Vail has published a new book and her Friendship Ring series is coming back into print.

I first discovered Vail back in 1991, when the novel Wonder (Scholastic/Orchard) was published. She wrote about hidden aggression in girls before teachers, librarians, and guidance councilors recognized that girls, too, are involved in bullying.

Rachel Vail tells stories of girls longing for friendship, of the dance that is friendship, how it blossoms and grows, then withers and dies and sometimes blooms again.

In the just-released Unfriendeda story told in many voices, we see the seduction of the “popular” girl from several 8th grader’s points of view. There’s Truly, who is at first dazzled by the cool kid’s attention. Then there’s Truly’s former best friend Hazel, whose jealously spirals out of control into bitter vengeance. Vail manages to capture family dynamics as well as the nuances of middle school society in this age of social media.

Penguin/Puffin is also bringing back into print The Friendship Ring. A six-book series that tells the same story from several different 7th grade character’s point of view, it was a tour de force when first published in 1998. Unfortunately, the books were originally released in a small format that seemed targeted to an audience too young to appreciate them. Now reissued in paperback, these are perfect for ages 10 and older and there are no worries that a 4th grader might pick them up.

The first four volumes are now available:

9780147511188_df256  9780147511195_431bb

Published 6/12/14″

If You Only Knew (Friendship Ring, #1)

Please, Please, Please (Friendship Ring, #2)

9780147511201_4fd44  9780147511218_3be6c

Published, 9/25/14:

Not That I Care (Friendship Ring, #3)

What Are Friends For? (Friendship Ring, #4)

To come:

Popularity Contest (Friendship Ring, #5)

Fill In The Blank (Friendship Ring, #6)

MAZE RUNNER Gets Sequel

Wednesday, September 24th, 2014

The Maze Runner   9780385738750_5f9b4   9780385738774_74e1e

Dystopia is not over.

Even before  the film adaptation of James Dashner’s The Maze Runner  became #1 at the box office this weekend, Fox anointed it an official success by announcing that the sequel is in pre-production in New Mexico, with the director, Wes Ball returning, as well as the lead, Dylan O’Brien.

The Maze Runner: Scorch Trials, also the title of the second book in the series (RH/Delaccorte). is scheduled to debut in theaters in one year, on Sept. 18, 2015.

No announcement has been made about whether the third title in the trilogy, The Death Cure, will also be adapted, but that seems highly likely.

After the box office disappointment of The Giver, with no sequel in sight. this may hearten those behind other potential series, like The Seventh Son, based on The Last Apprentice: Revenge of the Witch, the first in a series by Joseph Delaney, scheduled for release on Feb. 6 next year and The 5th Wave, based on the first in a series by Rick Yancey, scheduled for release on Jan. 29, 2016.

First Full Mockingjay Trailer Released

Wednesday, September 17th, 2014

After several teasers, the first full trailer has arrived (Forbes analyzes Lionsgate’s spoiler-free advertising campaign). Released Monday, it’s already been viewed over 7 million times.

Entertainment Weekly analyzes what the 1:48 minutes reveal.

The Hunger Games: Mockingjay, Part 1, releases on Nov. 21. Part 2 arrives a year later.

Tie-in (for other upcoming movie tie-ins, check our catalog on Edelweiss)

9780545796682_b3b9bMockingjay: Movie Tie-In Edition
Suzanne Collins
Scholastic: September 30, 2014
9780545796682, 0545796687
$12.99 USD
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