Author trades factory work for top honors
A piece on author Christopher Paul Curtis, whose new book, Bucking the Sarge is garnering a lot of praise and positive reviews.
Here is what Curtis has to say about the writing process:
“How does author Curtis come up with ideas? “The problem is not getting ideas. They’re everywhere. The problem is throwing out the ones you can’t use,” he says.
“A writer has to have an attuned ear. I listen to a conversation and keep snatches of it. I write them down. I use dialogue as a seed. A snippet of conversation will stick. That starts to grow.
“The voice will come. Use your imagination. It will happen.”
Writing is rewarding, but Curtis the factory worker also knows it’s work. “Write every day. The more you do it, the better you get at it.”
His second rule is to have fun with writing. An author, like a god, can control everything that happens in the story.
“The third rule is, ignore all rules,” he says. “By that, I mean once you learn how to write, develop your own style. The point is to tell a story. There are so many ways to do that.””

‘Life’ delivers nuanced view of high school, teenage libido
I have now read a couple of favorable reviews of Life As We Know It, the new TV show based on the teen novel, Doing It by Melvin Burgess. Something to set the TIVO for.

Center for South Asia Outreach: International Children’s Literature Celebration
This workshop for teachers, librarians, and students aims to work international literature into the reading curriculum. The program is Saturday, November 20th in Madison, WI.

ICv2 News – Scary Godmother on Cartoon Network
Scary Godmother Halloween Spooktakular will be shown twice on Cartoon Network, on Friday, October 1st and Saturday, October 30th. This special is based on the Scary Godmother graphic novels.

Compiled Lists of Eleven
Compiled lists of the top eleven graphic novels that libraries should have. They are divided into categories like mature readers, superheroes, art comics, and manga.

TIME.com: Saving the Smart Kids
A new report from Iowa shows that gifted kids are in trouble and makes the case for accelerating children to meet their intellectual needs rather than continuing to group them with their same-age peers. Some of the statistics in the report are startling. This is definitely required reading for educators and will be of interest to librarians as well, since we see many of these gifted kids spending lots of time in the library.

TheStar.com – A series of most fortunate events
A piece on Daniel Handler, aka Lemony Snicket, author of the immensely popular series of books. The latest of the series is being released today and the movie version of the first book is coming out soon.

TheStar.com – No kids’ book? And you call yourself a celeb?
Very funny piece lampooning the new wave of celebrities writing children’s books.

Boys, & Rainbow High Home Page
Official site for Alex Sanchez, author of books about gay teens. The site offers information on coming out, resources for gay teens, and a great list of gay teen books.