Video Sunday: Weirdly supple crystal balls
Oh good.
Now we have a rallying cry. Bonus. Thanks to Maureen Johnson for the link.
Travis at 100 Scope Notes recently discovered the author video cache to beat all author video caches. As he puts it “I challenge you to a good ol’ fashioned game of ‘I Bet I Can Find a Video Interview of An Author You Like’.” Apparently Reading Rockets has done everything in its power to videotape many of the major power players out there. Your Selznicks. Your McKissacks. Your Yolens. There’s a Website and a YouTube channel so take your pick! Talk about a useful resource.
Of course, if you want to save yourself some time and trouble in terms of finding the authors you love you can just watch this trailer for The Chronicles of Harris Burdick. But make sure you watch it until the end.
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I could live a long and happy life in the belief that Chris Van Allsburg was some kind of a criminal mastermind. Yup.
Do all the classic children’s authors also know how to draw? I only ask because it keeps coming up. Tolkien drew. J.K. Rowling can draw. Now apparently Philip Pullman does too. Extraordinary.
A couple thoughts on this next one.
A: Check out those guns on Katie Davis! Wowza!
B: Yes, folks, we all know that Tuck Everlasting didn’t win a Newbery. It’s okay. Let it go.
C: When I start a band I am totally calling it Weirdly Supple Crystal Ball.
Book trailer time! This one comes to us courtesy of Jonathan Auxier. He’s even gone so far as to write a post about the Five Things I Learned from Making My Own Book Trailer. The piece is fascinating in and of itself. The final product? I’d say it’s worth it.
Sort of reminds me of last year’s Adam Gidwitz trailer for A Tale Dark and Grimm. Were I to teach a course on book trailers, I’d definitely pair those two together.
And while we’re on the topic of book trailers . . .
Now. Give me that book now. Now now now. I want it. Now. Gimme.
And today’s off-topic video is a bit of indulgence on my own part. It’s a lesson in how cool Neil Gaiman is. How cool is he? He is sooo cool that when musicians like Sxip Shirey break his bowls, they immediately turn the musical shards into catchy apology video songs.
From here on in, anyone breaking anything in my house has to use the pieces in a musical way. Even if you break my air conditioner you make those remaining shards sing. Ragtime preferred.
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 Horn Book, 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 Twitter: @fuseeight.
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You can see all of Philip Pullman’s illustrations for HIs Dark Materials on his blog: http://www.philip-pullman.com/pages/js_gallery/index.asp (I have a boxed set that was published a while back that has all the illustrations.)
Lordy! That Sxip Shirey one was like staring down the abyss of madness!
The edition of “His Dark Materials” that Philip Pullman had illustrated is beautiful. I was moved to buy the whole series over again. By the way, I don’t know if he’s still like this now, but back in 2000 or so, every time I wrote Philip Pullman an email he would write back scarily quick — like, within the hour. And I was nobody! A complete stranger! Eventually I stopped writing to him, only because his rapid response time exhausted me. Classy fellow, that Pullman.
Happy to find myself cheek-by-jowl with Auxier. His trailer is marvelous, and so is his book!
Sxip Shirey is amazing! I love the off-beat music. He’s a regular in the Brooklyn/NYC music scene. I especially love when hooks up with my Superfine friends here and in Europe.
Obviously James and I *think* TUCK EVERLASTING won, because we refer to it in that category. But we’ll let it go now, James, yes? Unless I’m still dead to you?
ALA was one of the most fun weeks of my life — in part because I got to hang out with James and Katie! Thanks for linking to my book trailer, though I must say that to compare it to Adam’s trailer is crazy … his is way slicker AND has werewolves!
@Katie Still dead to me. But I hear tell zombies are a big deal these days.
@Jonathan ALA was a blast, I agree! Roger Sutton facedown in that punch bowl — I’ll never forget it. I wonder if he even remembers?