Video Sunday: “Books are not billboards”

A: It’s interesting that Sterling is the publisher that gets great book trailer experts like Dan Santat and (now I see) Adam McCauley to work for them.

B: How did I miss this before? I should probably save it for Halloween or something, but that’s next week anyway and this? This is awesome. Jules over at 7-Imp pointed it out to me in her extensive Adam McCauley interview and I’ve suddenly a notion to become the man’s biggest fan.  His band The Bermuda Triangles did the music for this trailer and another one that Jules also found.

You know it’s an effective trailer since I now desperately want to get my hands on that book (and somehow I’ve completely missed it).  Finally, Jules also found this trailer for David Ezra Stein’s Pouch.  She’s on fire this week!

Amusingly, Denning really has written a book called The Beach Beneath the Pavement.  Thanks to Inky Girl for the link.

Which makes the song that goes along over at Penguin’s Screening Room with Tomie dePaola all the more jarring, I think.  Not that it isn’t cheery, of course.  There are lots of great videos and interviews and storytimes with Tomie that you should check out here.  If you find the one from Tomie’s 75th birthday you’ll notice at 27 seconds in that the waiter with martinis (or, as they were called at the time, Stregatinis) makes a beeline to somebody familiar.  And then I make Lisa Von Drasek laugh.  Awesome.

This event has passed already, but since Dan Santat visited my library the other day, I’m including it.  If only because it’s so much fun to watch him eat a cream-filled donut.

Which connects beautifully to this next video, in that it begins with a mention of eating cream tarts (hey man, you go with what you’ve got).  Booklist has gotten around to finally posting E. Lockhart’s acceptance speech for the 2009 Printz Award.  She won for The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks, which was one of the very few YA novels I read last year.  That said, I still believe it had to have been one of the best.  In fact, I’ll be writing a blog post to declare my love for this book in a more personal form.  Until then, you should watch this.  Lockhart/Jenkins is a wonderful speaker.

Thanks to AL Direct for the link.

Finally, the off-topic video.

Recently Matt and I went through a Splatter Platter phase, where we tried to find every possible teen death song from the 50s and 60s out there.  For the record, don’t listen to Johnny Remember Me unless you want to have it caught in your head forever and always.  Of course the best known of these songs is probably Leader of the Pack.  The Heck of a Guy site had the best possible line on this next vid.  "Steve ‘I disdain rock and roll’ Allen introduces the Shangri-Las with Robert Goulet spoofing Jimmy’s role."

Goulet who, for the record, could not be taking this less seriously.  Goofball.

Filed under: Videos