He sings, too?

As you may recall, I've got a bit of a crush on author Neil Gaiman. Today I’ve been obsessively listening to “Nighty Night” by 8in8, the self-described “world’s least super supergroup" (comprised of lyricist Gaiman with musicians Amanda Palmer, Ben Folds, and Damian Kulash). The album was written, recorded, released for download, and performed live—all in about 24 breakneck hours for Berklee College of Music’s Rethink Music conference. It is actually pretty super, with six fabulously quirky songs on such varied topics as origami, Nikola Tesla, and squirrel suicide. Neil Himself sings the final track, “The Problem with Saints,” in which a resurrected Joan of Arc causes a ruckus in the park. Proceeds benefit Berklee City Music Network; set your own price/donation to download here.

In other Neil news: the deadline for submissions to win a part in HarperCollins's full-cast audio recording of American Gods is Monday, May 2. Learn more, enter, and vote for your favorite contestant here.

—Katie Bircher

Books for Darfur

What You Wish For, a collection of short stories exploring the topic of wishes, will be published this September by Putnam and The Book Wish Foundation. Book Wish will be contributing their share of the proceeds and all donations to UN Refugee Agency, UNHCR to help fund libraries in Darfur.

The deadline to donate and have your name (or child's name) included in What You Wish For—alongside the book's impressive line-up of contributors, left—is Friday, April 30.

How pleasant, indeed.

Chronicle has just published His Shoes Were Far Too Tight, a collection of Edward Lear’s poems, selected and introduced by author/NPR commentator Daniel Pinkwater. The collection is illustrated by Calef Brown, a fabulous children’s poet himself.

With the book we received a CD of the euphonious Pinkwater narrating five of the poems. My favorite is the collection’s opener, Lear’s self-effacing self-portrait “How Pleasant to Know Mr. Lear!”:

How pleasant to know Mr. Lear!

Who has written such volumes of stuff!

Some think him ill-tempered and queer,

But a few find him pleasant enough.

His mind is concrete and fastidious;

His nose is remarkably big;

His visage is more or less hideous;

His beard it resembles a wig.

…

He sits in a beautiful parlor,

With hundreds of books on the wall;

He drinks a great deal of Marsala,

But never gets tipsy at all.

…

He has many friends, lay men and clerical;

Old Foss is the name of his cat;

His body is perfectly spherical;

He weareth a runcible hat…

I think Mr. Lear and I would get along quite well, actually, amid our cats and hundreds of books.

Chronicle has also made the audio tracks available online. Add a little nonsense to your day by listening to “How Pleasant to Know Mr. Lear!” along with “The Pobble Who Has No Toes,” “The Owl and the Pussycat,” “The Jumblies,” and “Some Incidents in the Life of My Uncle Arly” here.

—Katie Bircher

Three threes and an overworked hen

We (and Fuse #8) have been complaining about the current dearth of new picture book editions of folktales. I mean, wouldn't you love to see Mo Willems take on "The Three Billy Goats Gruff"? Bryan Collier do a "Hansel and Gretel"? An Erin Stead "Cinderella"? Hey, being a picture book casting agent is fun!

But in the meantime, have a look at Houghton Mifflin Harcourt's reissues of Paul Galdone's Three Little Kittens, The Three Bears, The Three Little Pigs, and The Little Red Hen. Originally published by Clarion in the 1970s and 80s, the four books (more will follow later in the year) are now available in a uniform paper-over-board edition at the nice price of $8.99 each. Galdone was a refreshingly modest illustrator: his retellings are straightforward and his unassumingly loose-lined, color-separated pictures (Lolly says) provide just enough embellishment, as when the lazy cat in Little Red Hen lolls on the couch, dreaming of a tin of sardines. And oh, the white space! Plenty of it on the page gives the stories all the room they need to do their stuff.

—Roger Sutton

Why is it always the redhead? —or— How to use stock photos sparingly

While perusing Cliques by Toney Allman, part of Lucent Books’ long-running Hot Topics series for middle-schoolers, I noticed this poor girl, presumably being teased about her hair.

“Why is it always the redhead?” thought I. From Anne Shirley (and doesn’t it look like this little lady’s ready to break her slate over somebody’s head?), to that other beloved little orphan with a similar-sounding name, to Ron Weasley, and Julianne Moore’s Freckleface Strawberry alter ego, we gingers must develop a thick, if easily sunburned, skin. But wait; don’t feel too sorry for stock photo girl. Here’s a different picture from the same book:

Little Red looks like the aggressor; just another fiery, hot-tempered one of us.*

Which brings me to my point: if you’re going to use staged photos in your books (I’m talking to you, endless nonfiction series), first try to mix it up a little; don’t assume your readers won’t recognize the same kid in two different pictures. Next, please, oh, please put a little more thought into your audience. We say this over and over again in reviews, but what teens are going to take seriously a book—purportedly aimed right at them—that uses such totally square (and in the case of the aforementioned Angry Carrot, too young) supporting images? Another example, this time from Jenny MacKay's Hot Topics title Gangs:

 

A group of Abercrombie-wearing kids sitting around an outdoor mall does not a street gang make, and no teens—be they “queen bees,” “goth kids,” “nerds,” or “floaters”—will be fooled into thinking otherwise.

—Elissa Gershowitz aka Pippi

*(see Facebook page: “Why Are Bullies in Movies Always Fat Red-Headed Kids with Freckles?”)

Making Over Uglies

Digging through a box of books the other day, I came across what I thought was a new Scott Westerfeld book. “Yay!” said my brain—until I realized the title read Uglies. “Wait, what?” I thought. “This isn’t Uglies!”

The "trilogy plus one" is receiving a full redesign (in hardcover, no less) by publisher Simon Pulse, from the covers to trim size and page design. While the new jacket for Extras does pay homage to the original, the new Uglies cover with its haunting covered face bears a closer resemblance to the opening credits of the (adult) TV show Dexter than it does to the original cover. The new Pretties cover reminds me of another grown-up show, Nip/Tuck, making me wonder if the makeovers are an attempt to market the books to an older audience. Though the new covers don’t appeal to me personally, I’ve seen plenty of positive buzz about them online from adult bloggers.

 

I feel these remakes lack the pizzazz of the original books: their smaller size, mysterious teenaged faces, and eye-catching spines. And while the images on the new covers are startling (as is the use of sterile white), they just don't do justice to the uniqueness of Westerfeld’s dystopian world. Ironically, the new versions look like New Pretty Town–style extreme makeovers of the originals—sexed-up and stripped down. I’m the first to admit I can be averse to change, but in this case, change seems unnecessary and a little compromising. What do you think?

—Cindy Ritter

Tag!

As Roger reports, PoetryTagTime is a new ebook-only anthology of 30 original, interrelated poems. Each distinguished children's poet "tags" the next poet in line, connecting each poem topically (moon to sun, sun to sunflower, etc.) to the ones before and after it. The PoetryTagTime Tips blog offers ideas for sharing the poems with kids one-on-one or in a classroom setting.

The 30-poem collection is just the right length for sharing a poem a day during National Poetry Month, but with contributors including Douglas Florian, Calef Brown, Lee Bennett Hopkins, and Nikki Grimes, it's sure to be a hit with budding poets and poetry lovers any time.

And April's not over yet! For more poetry, check out Roger's post about Poem in Your Pocket for Young Poets: 100 Poems to Rip Out and Read and the recommended poetry booklist on our website.

—Katie Bircher