Toon Books

Below is an email that I sent out to the Branch Librarians list last May. I’m pasting it here because we just received a new Toon Book title, Jack and the Box by Art Spiegelman, and there might be questions about why it is a Reader and not a JGN.

Just a heads-up that there is a unique series of books that will be coming your way. The first in the series is called “Benny and Penny in Just Pretend”. They are called TOON books and are being marketed as Graphic Novel Beginning Readers. After doing some research, consulting with Jacquelyn and other children’s selectors, I have decided that they are indeed Readers. The word count and simple, repetitive vocabulary is consistent with our Reader collection. That being said, these will be great books to refer beginning readers who are looking for a “comic book” but are not reading at the level of our JGN collection. I think these have the potential to be very popular. To read more about these titles, check out the links below. If you have questions or feedback about these, please let me know.
Interview with Toon books creator

Toon Books website

Movie News

I just added the trailer for Coraline to the Books to Movies page, just click on the word Coraline to view it.  It looks good, if not entirely faithful to the book.  And in 3D?

In other news…Walter the Farting Dog is going to be made into a movie and released in 2010.  I think it’s going to be animated.  The Jonas Brothers will be doing voices and it’s directed by the Farrelly Brothers, (There’s Something About Mary, Dumb and Dumber…)

Icarus at the Edge of Time

Brian Greene, (The Elegant Universe, The Fabric of the Cosmos,) has a new book out and it is a hard one to classify.  It is a retelling of the Icarus story with Icarus traveling towards a black hole, not the sun, in order to illustrate concepts in physics.  The story is accompanied by photos from the Hubble Telescope and it’s in BOARDBOOK format.  King County and Seattle Public both have this book classified as adult fiction while Multnomah County has it as juvenile ficiton.  After looking through the book and discussing it with Jan, we’ve decided that we will place it in juvenile fiction.  It might be difficult to shelve it at some locations, but we really think this is the most appropriate classification for our users.  It’s a very unique book and I encourage you to take a look at it.  For more information, read an interview with Brian Greene at Amazon.com or listen to an interview with him at NPR.

Teen Boys & Reading

Publishers Weekly has a great article written by a 13 year old boy explaining why it’s a myth that teen boys don’t read and what they really DO want to read (hint: vampire novels are cool, but not when they’re full of romance.)  Check it out here.

James Patterson’s Readers Advisory Site

People magazine alerted me to best-selling author James Patterson’s site, Read Kiddo Read.  It’s a readers advisory site for children’s books, and it looks pretty good.  I could definitely see myself using this site on the reference desk when working  on locating the perfect book for a young reader. Books are separated by age and then broken down by genre, including nonfiction books.  Each book has a review, quotes from journal reviews, and suggestions for similar titles.  If you have a moment, I would suggest checking it out!

Read it b4 you see it!

There’s a new feature up on the kid’s page, Read it b4 you see it.  It’s a list of current and forthcoming movies based on children’s books with links to the books and to other books in the series.

PW’s Best Books of 2008

I just added Publishers Weekly’s picks for best children’s books of 2008 to the booklists page.  They divided by picture book, children’s fiction and children’s nonfiction.  YA books are included in the children’s sections.  We own (or have on order) all of the children’s books listed.  Check out their site to see their picks for adult books.

Toot & Puddle on TV

Toot & Puddle, the animated show, premieres on Noggin November 16th.

The Graveyard Book by Gaiman

I just finished reading The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman, and it was a great read.  This is one of those books that is marketed and reviewed for 10-14 year olds and poses a particular problem when classifying it.  Is it a J or is it a YA?  I don’t have time to read every book that falls into this category before we add it to the system, especially one by a popular author.  (There are currently 28 holds on the 8 copies we own and it’s #1 on the children’s chapter books NYT bestseller list.)  I ended up making it YA after reading the beginning of the book, where a family is killed and the target of the murders, a toddler, escapes to a graveyard.  I also searched Worldcat to see where other libraries were putting it.  Multnomah County has it as a J, King County has it YA, and some systems have it both J and YA.  After reading it, I still think it could go in either section.  The murders aren’t graphic and after the beginning, it is nonviolent, but the writing may be too advanced for some younger kids and the plot might not move along fast enough to keep their attention.

So basically, after reading the whole book, I’m still undecided on the best section for the book.  We have it in YA, but I certainly wouldn’t discourage younger kids from reading it.  It’s a great story about an orphan being raised by ghosts in a graveyard.  He has some special powers, gets in some trouble, learns some lessons.

AND it’s set to be a film.  Read more from Gaiman about his plans to produce a live-action film here.  And how cool is this?  You can listen to Neil Gaiman read the entire book (for free) right here!  And, though it’s not listed yet, you will be able to go here and buy fragrances based on The Graveyard Book.  Hmmm…

Teen News

2 stories from Yahoo news:

Here’s an interesting article that links teen pregnancy rates to sexy TV shows. Note that it does NOT mention a connection between books and teen pregnancy. Also, they’re not singling out “teen programming” and say that comedies have the highest sexual content. Really? What comedy TV shows have a lot of sex?

Somebody’s excited about the new Twilight (Stephenie Meyers) movie…a lot of somebodies.  Twilight doesn’t open until November 21st, but Fandango reported on 10/31 that sales of Twilight tickets were accounting for 51% of their ticket sales!  Wow!  More here.