Posts

As usual, Disney toned down a folktale whose traditional versions are even more harrowing. Earlier retellings have grim endings: the children are drowned or trapped in a cave or mountain. Disney changed this into a paradise or “Joyland.” Instead of drowning in the River Weser, Disney’s rats — who look eerily like Mickey Mouse — disappear into a giant cheese wheel. The Pied Piper story has been translated into over 30 languages....

I’m especially wary of celebrity memoir. I’ve read a handful, and I usually come away thinking, “That was cool, but I’m not exactly sure why I needed to know any of that about that particular famous person.” To me, a lot of celebrity memoirs read like the author is trying to fulfill a contractual obligation to their publicist. Usually, they’re timed to the release of a new TV show or movie or something like that....

These are the stories that could only happen in children’s literature, bringing with them a sense of wonder that permeates kid lit. But kid lit has lessons for adults, too. Thanks to reading children’s books as an adult, I felt a jolt that transported me out of my jaded attitude. I started to realize that my life, too, held the promise of wonder, that all things could be possible, whether in a fantasy story or in my contemporary day-to-day existence....

Although believed to be one of the most influential presidents, he’s yet to be honored with his own Presidential Library. There are 13 Presidential Libraries administered by the National Archives, which serve as the archives and museum for the legacy of each of the respective administrations. In addition, there are private Presidential Libraries and Museums throughout the U.S., including the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum and the Jefferson Library. The Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library will be completed before the highly anticipated Obama Presidential Library in Chicago....

Just keep in mind, there’s some classic toddler-rific books that I’m steering away from recommending. Those are fantastic, but have been suggested a million times before (The Hungry Caterpillar, for instance), and can be easily Googled. I chose these because they aren’t ones that I’ve seen recommended elsewhere. You can also read some other Book Riot posts for different suggestions: Bilingual (English-Spanish) and holiday books for toddlers. 1. Penguin in Love by Salina Yoon Penguin goes searching for love and instead finds a mitten....

I grew up in a family who loved books on tape; they were our constant companions on long car rides. I’m convinced listening to my favorite stories on audio helped me fall in love with reading. There’s something to be said for a narrator that gets the characters’ voices and accents just right. Toddler audiobooks also provide us as caregivers with the rare opportunity to sit and listen to a story with our toddlers rather than always being the one reading them....

Thus far, unicorn self-help books seem to be primarily coming from a white, heteronormative point of view. The closest book we could find from a non-white point of view is Tiffany Haddish’s hilarious book of essays, The Last Black Unicorn, which isn’t really about unicorns but is fun, so you may as well read it too. Plus, its cute unicorny cover would look great on your shelf next to any of the titles listed above....

Whether you’re looking for delicious book puns, clever bookish sayings, or a reminder about the power of books, reading, and libraries in the world, look no further than these fresh bookish T-shirts. I’ve stuck to general reader/book lover options, so you won’t find, say, Jane Austen themed shirts or shirts focused on a specific book title. I’m not much of a T-shirt person personally, but I won’t lie: I’m tempted to pick up many of these selections for myself....

What is a queer book club? Book clubs are a fab way to see those friends you’ve been meaning to get together with, meet new people, and start chipping away on your TBR pile. Some book clubs are fun and relaxed, and others are highly serious and academic. Choosing a theme for your book club is a necessary part of focusing it and deciding the purpose of the book club. Enter Queer Book Club....

We can’t look away from the fact that our planet, and by extension the animals on it, are under threat. So many of the nonfiction books about animals catalog the atrocities humans have been committing against them: stealing habitat, changing the climate, hunting them to extinction. These books are important, but so are the feel-good nonfiction books about animals. These are the kinds of stories that remind us of the astonishing bonds between humans and animals....

Neil Gaiman Day Table of Contents You’ll find art prints, t-shirts, handmade Coraline dolls and more in Book Fetish: Neil Gaiman Edition Hidden Histories, Urban Fantasies, and Gaiman’s Influence — a look at 3 books that owe a debt to Neverwhere Are You Neil Gaiman? : A Flowchart The year is his son was born, Peter Damien read American Gods on repeat. Nobody talks reading and writing like Neil Gaiman talks reading and writing....

Happy gifting!

Your novel’s copyright page. Let’s explore the anatomy of a typical copyright page so you know what all of that fine print is telling you about your book. Although copyright pages may be written differently or include/exclude certain bits of information, most of them will have the key sections outlined below. We’re going to do this with a fictitious novel, let’s name it Displaced Matter, written by up-and-coming author Maeve Bernard, and a publishing company I built from the ground up just now: Grimmauld Publishing....

Books About the Reading Brain Proust and the Squid by Maryanne Wolf takes a deep dive into the reading brain, how it evolved, and, more specifically, all the steps it has to take to do what is seemingly unnatural for it. The brain was not made to read; through the evolution of language and sign communication, we forced it to. Even so, we have not acquired it as an evolutionary trait, like speaking or learning our first language....

As an American with a lot of stamps on her passport and a few languages on her transcripts, I thought I was decently non-ugly. I don’t mean my looks, but Ugly American as a(n unfortunately rather accurate) stereotype — the kind of person who travels the world but arrogantly demands that everything be available in English and that breakfast include eggs, a person who insults foreign things abroad but culturally appropriates at home....

They did not answer. Most just looked down at their iPads. Even when I pointed out that there were places around the world where it is still pretty hard for people to get their hands on books on a regular basis, including in their own home countries (most of them are international students), they had trouble putting themselves in that position. To them, books are things that they can have any time they want....

But what is is about this particular series that allows it to thrive in the places where other such series burned off or disappeared all together? Is there something about The Baby-Sitters Club that is truly unique? How does this series endure beyond pure nostalgia and remain relevant to today’s young readers? These were the questions at heart in this episode of Annotated. There’s more to the story, of course, as well as so much more to dig into....

First, let’s discuss similarities between the two. Both autobiography and memoir are first-person accounts of the writer’s life. This means the writer is describing her or his life using “I” and “me” (“I did this, then this happened to me,” etc.) One exception to this is that sometimes autobiographies are written in the third person (where the author refers to him or herself as “he” or “she”), but this is not common and rarely seen in contemporary writing....

via GIPHY In considering this dichotomy between my relative cluelessness towards books then and my total cluelessness towards kids now, I wondered whether members of Gen Z are more proactive about what they read. In other words, I had the completely unoriginal thought of “what are the kids into these days?” My sister is a high school English teacher so not only is she privy to the specific language and codes that high schoolers use, she also has a pretty good idea of what they read....

This survey is short, but it will be extremely helpful for all of us. It asks for what and how we can provide the information, tools, and resources you need to get on the ground or keep your energy and activism alive. You can take the quick survey here. The form will close August 1, and all responses are anonymous. Ask away–there are no dumb or obvious questions or comments when it comes to this fight....