Fusenews: Les Papillons

• They made an Island of the Blue Dolphins movie?  Peter says so.  He also found several reviews of it, including one that said of the film, "“Everyone involved has a good chance of being the anti-Christ.”  Wow.  Way to punch up the review there!  I could take some tips from that reviewer.  Oh, you just have to read this post for more information.

• I would be a terrible person if I didn’t immediately direct you to ShelfTalker where Alison Morris discusses doppelgangers, Lemony Snicket, and being mistaken on a regular basis for Kate DiCamillo.  Read the whole piece and then make sure that you read Daniel Handler’s comment at the end. 

• Roger Sutton uses the phrase, "jeez, Philip, get over your bad self," in a sentence that refers (justly) to Philip Pullman.  I warn you that if my laptop has to be replaced because Roger made me snort chai out of my nose, I’m gonna have to try and make Horn Book foot the bill.

• The other day I linked to a Shel Silverstein song and mentioned offhand that I couldn’t find him reading any of his poems online.  Fortunately, Dina Sherman noted this and let me know about the following: "I saw your note about Shel Silverstein on the blog.  You can actually hear some of his poems on shelsilverstein.com.  They’re a bit buried, but if you go to the “Let’s Have Some Fun” section and choose the downloads, there are some animations you can play.  Not all are read by Shel, but the older ones are."  Thanks, Dina!  Good to know.

There’s a great post up on the Meeting McCay blog discussing various children’s books and their visual references and credits to the old Little Nemo comic strips of yore.  It provides the best reason I’ve seen so far to locate and read Brian Lies’s new picture book Bats in the Library as well as credit to William Joyce and Maurice Sendak regarding their Nemo love.  Going through some of the older posts there’s also a magnificent link to a book proposal for a story where Little Nemo grows up and has to return to Slumberland.  You can see three of the lush panels here.  It appears to have won the 2008 Comics Book Challenge (where you can read the full plot description of the story).  Publishers, I implore you, somebody give this man huge hunks of cash to create this puppy in full.  The art is stunning and the tone spot-on.  I want to see this book on our nation’s shelves, and pronto.  Thanks to Aaron Zenz for the link.

• This came in from PW’s Children’s Bookshelf:

Spanking Shakespeare (Random House, 2007), a first novel by eighth-grade teacher Jake Wizner, has been bought for the movies, according to Variety. Paramount Pictures is reteaming with Spiderwick Chronicles producers Mark Canton and Ellen Goldsmith-Vein; David Hopwood of Canton Productions and Eddie Gamarra of The Gotham Group will executive-produce.

I did not review this book since it fell squarely into the YA pile of books on my shelf, but I did read large swaths of it.  At the time of its publication it didn’t really receive the love and attention it so greatly deserved.  I’m pleased as punch to hear that Paramount has had the wherewithal to pick it up.  Kudos!

• The Eric Carle museum is having an auction at this time of twenty-three magnificent butterflies, all created by great artists.  Here’s a cool video that shows them each off:

I have great affection for the Kevin Henkes (Kitten with wings is cute all over) but Paul O. Zelinsky wins for the best visual joke.  You can find the auctioned items online here.  That is, if you’ve a spare $1,000 in your pocketses.

• Daily Image:

A design technique ideal for the non-reader.

Yup.  The longer you look at it the less it makes sense.  They are aware that book spines are actually rather lovely things, aren’t they?  Thanks to Crooked House (and her great Magritte correlation) for the link.

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