Video Sunday: Beatles, Castles, and Stitches (not necessarily in that order)

After I finished reading a book in my last preschool storytime a child raised his hand. I still haven’t gotten comfortable with ignoring raised appendages, so I called on it. He held up the shiny red Viewmaster he was holding (antique or new, it was hard to say) and said (and I am not making this up), "This is my Viewmaster! I get to look at pictures of Detroit!" He was just so happy that the first thing to come out of my mouth was, "I love Detroit!" And truly, my family roots are based there on both my mother and father’s sides of the family. Now I learn that there are five new videos released in conjunction with David Small’s very adult graphic novel Stitches. This is just number one. Go here for more in the sidebar.  Thanks to Gary Stock (who may think that I am John Peters, though I am not) for the link.

When Cathleen Brady tells me that picture book author Amy Krouse Rosenthal has a new web video, you know what I say?  I say, "How fast can I post it?" Because Rosenthal is a master of the form.  And this video, you’ll have to admit, is pretty darn cute.  Darn cute.

All right.  Movie trailer time.  Have you seen the new trailer for A Christmas Carol?  It’s directed by Robert Zemeckis, who did The Polar Express.  Lest you forget that fact, they announce it right at the beginning of the preview.  And unfortunately, like Polar Express, they’ve chosen to make the film entirely CGI.  The technology has advanced a little, since it took me 45 seconds to even realize that it was CGI, but I can’t help but think that it would be better live action.  Live action, I would see this film.  CGI?  I’m just not that interested.  Thanks to Kate for the link.

Short and sweet.  That’s how I like my book trailers.  On a lark I picked up the middle grade novel Bedeviled the other week, partly because I didn’t have another book in my bag, partly because I had met the author in a writing class here in NYC, and partly because the author knows my friend Geoff who organizes her television station as a union organizer.  The surprise?  The book is actually pretty good.  You don’t tend to expect that, as my-dad-is-the-devil books go.  Here’s the trailer too:

Thanks to Educating Alice for the link.

All right.  Let’s switch gears for a moment.  You’ve gotten your cheap thrills for the day.  Now sit down with Caldecott Honor winning duo Ted and Betsy Lewin as they discuss their art and their lives together.  The company Lee and Low has taken to interviewing its author/illustrators and the results are interesting.

Thanks to Miriam Newman for the link.

When I am deprived my right to be cynical I am apt to be cranky.  But darned if this Harry Potter theme park doesn’t look (from its promo anyway) like something that I’d really want to visit.

Thanks to 100 Scope Notes for the link.

And finally, for today’s off-topic vid, we turn to The Beatles.  Or rather, the animated Beatles.  Just a little something to blow your mind on this fair and fancy September morn.