Video Sunday: Blackout Edition
Heaven only knows when my blog will be viewable again by you, oh reading public. So I’ll just post these videos and links into the great dark void and hope that somebody, at some point, sees them.
Jennifer Schultz sent me a link that I have to warn you about. Beware of going to this site or you may spend your entire day just watching the videos there. Before Reading Rainbow thought up the idea of the child-centric booktalk, there were "Hooray for Reading" videos that reenacted scenes from various children’s books. Which is all well and good, but many of them are completely forgotten today and I’m fascinated by that. I’d heard of Then Again, Maybe I Won’t by Judy Blume and The TV Kid by Betsy Byars (thank YOU republished paperback editions!) but I’m a little foggier on titles like The Bad Times of Irma Baumlein, Life on a Plastic Planet, The Glad Man, and my personal favorite, The Accident. Funny stuff.
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Huh! Publisher Henry Holt & Co. has its own channel on YouTube, I see. Clever ducks. You can see a couple things they have up, but one of the sweetest is getting to hear Bill Martin Jr. sing along to his Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?
Funny how different people do different tunes to that book. I set mine to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. If I switched to Mr. Martin’s version I think the heads of my preschoolers’ parents and nannies would explode. Thanks to We Heart Books for the link.
God willing, if I ever get a chance to meet author Maureen Johnson again I promise, hand held on heart, that I will inform her fully of her fabulousness. Here in a two-parter she is interviewing fellow author Libba Bray. I tend to run into Ms. Bray’s husband hither and thither, but have never met her proper. On the old to-do list, it is.
Thanks to Cynsations for the link.
I save the best for last. Author Jane Yolen alerted me to this video, and if you want a high quality version I would follow her link. Otherwise, I found a much lower quality vid on YouTube. Enjoy!
Filed under: Videos
About Betsy Bird
Betsy Bird is currently the Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library system and a former Materials Specialist for New York Public Library. She has served on Newbery, written for Kirkus, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of EPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on BlueSky at: @fuse8.bsky.social
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I see you…
I can see your post, Betsy. Great videos! I’m loving them.
Hm. I just found a workaround as well. Unfortunately, I don’t see any videos here. Grrrr.
Hooray for Wikipedia! There’s a brief article on the “Hooray for Reading” videos.
Someone had the entire 10 part series on Youtube, but the videos are unavailable. According to the Youtube user, they had to drop the project because of publishers’ complaints.
Meaning the creators of “Hooray for Reading” had to drop the project. Don’t know the exact reason for the Youtube videos to be unavailable.