A little Wodehouse magic…

I’ve been enjoying this choice bit of Wodehouse ever since I heard it yesterday on the aforementioned BBC radio production:

Bertie: “You were absolutely right about the weather. It is a juicy morning.”

Jeeves: “Decidedly, sir.”

Bertie: “Spring and all that.”

Jeeves: “Yes, sir.”

Bertie: “In the spring, Jeeves, a livelier iris gleams upon the burnished dove.”

Jeeves: “So I have been informed, sir.”

No time to blog, it’s my turn to feed the class turtle…

How long does it take to feed the class turtle anyway?

Outrageously busy, but I’ve got a few things on my mind:

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The library gods smiled on me today. I’d been needing a Wodehouse fix. And I needed a new book on CD. And there in a beam of light was a BBC radio production entitled Right Ho, Jeeves. And we started right off with Rosie M. Banks!

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That audiobook is only 3 1/2 hours long.  So I needed something else. The library gods smiled on me again! Philip Pullman’s The Tiger in the Well.

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Saw a copy of M.P. Haddix’s Running Out of Time yesterday, read the jacket flap and allowed my jaw to fall open in astonishment.

It turns out I’m not the first person to notice that the plot is extremely similar to the movie “The Village.” The book came about 10 years earlier. I checked IMDB and no credit is given to the book.

Then I found Orson Scott Card’s angry blog post about it. http://www.hatrack.com/osc/reviews/everything/2004-08-08.shtml

(Card claims that “The Sixth Sense” was a take-off on his “The Lost Boys.”)

Apparently Haddix and publisher were thinking of suing. I wonder if anything ever came of it?

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Sam and Michael played Battle for Westnoth last night. Michael creamed Sam. Sam is grumpy about it.

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Recently read my first Hardy boys book in 30 years or so. In the words of Lionel Ritchie: “Outrageous!”

The quality of the book fits with the story I once read about how much the author hated writing them.

The Left-Hand of Snailness and other news

My good friend and one-time employer Takahiro Asami got quite a write-up in the New York Times. Hiro studies snails and specializes in snail-handedness. That is: does the shell turn to the right or the left?

It’s all more important than you might guess — especially to hungry snail-eating snakes. The NYT article does a great job of explaining how all this would have also been very interesting to Darwin.

You can read it here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/24/science/24creature.html?pagewanted=1&_r=2&emc=eta1

By the way, Hiro is also an incredibly precise paper folder and he’ll appear in the acknowledgements of Origami Yoda. (I guess that’s somewhat less of an honor than having the NYT go nuts for your research.)

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In other news:

Progress on folding 1,000 Origami Yoda: 400 and counting.

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Time in car over T-giving “vacation”: circa 27 (Yes, some of that time was spent folding Yodas.)

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Saw the new Golden Book of Disney’s Princess and the Frog in a store today: Totally MaryBlairTastic!

Via cartoonbrew, here’s pics at the site of illustrator Lorelay Bove: http://lorelaybove.blogspot.com/2009/09/princess-and-frog-little-golden-book.html

Not the Origami Yoda jacket flap!

I’ve already had the honor of having the synopsis of “The Strange Case of Origami Yoda” given one of those weird automatic text-warpings which some websites do for some reason or another. Possibly they have run it through a translation program and back again.

Here are some highlights:

In this funny, uncannily correct mural of a dynamics of a sixth-grade category and of a mass which infrequently comes in doubtful packages, Dwight, a loser, talks to his classmates around an origami finger puppet of Yoda. If which weren’t bizarre enough, a puppet is uncannily correct and prescient.

Cornucopia of news tidbits…

I got an email from my editor asking if I might be able to make as many as 1,000 origami Yodas for promotional purposes…

You better believe it!

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The best book title since “Steal this Book:”

Available Online for Free, by Evan Roth

http://evan-roth.com/available-online-for-free-book.php

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Congratulations to Tyler Spencer of Staunton, Va., for being named a Rhodes Scholar! I haven’t been able to find out if he’s really from Staunton or if, like me, he tells people that because it’s the big nearby town.

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On Wednesday, my Guys Lit Wire post on the memoir “Dropping in With Andy Mac” will go up. http://www.guyslitwire.com

Book lovers will remember Andy Mac as the world-class pro skateboarder who gives his board away at the end of a competition to the first kid who can show him a library card.

News from Lake Edna … and your neck of the woods!

The flurry of emails twixt here and New York has died down, so it appears that The Strange Case of Origami Yoda is complete at last.

It’s interesting how there’s no final gong, buzzer or even any way of knowing when it’s all done. One day they need you to draw a picture of Thomas Jefferson and the next day they don’t.

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We can’t find any peppermint bark this year! Why is it that the bst things in the world are never properly appreciated. By all that’s right, peppermint bark should be available on every street corner.

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I’ve got a new diabolo video online. It’s called Southern Fried Diaboo 2: Deep Fried Oreos.

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By the way, I switched to a new browser and everything about is wonderful — except it doesn’t let WordPress make proper links. Thus the pasted in URLs.

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I just learned that Kidz Bop covered Werewolves of London. You can hear it here, but don’t: http://www.kidzbop.com/music/kidz-bop-holidays/kidz-bop-halloween

That’s just a sample and I haven’t heard the whole thing. I’m sure Warren would have approved IF the little tykes had sung the full lyrics including: He’ll rip your lungs out, Jim.

 

 

Big news from Cece-land! Itty Bitty makes the ALA’s 2009 list!

Tiny dogs all across America are celebrating tonight! Itty Bitty is on the ALA Booklist Editor’s Choice list for 2009!

Kidlit Trivia – Epistolary Edition

Who’s writing to these folks?

1) Dear Mr. Henshaw

2) Dear Shrink (Hint: It’s Sigmund Freud, but he’s dead.)

3) Dear Merle

4) Hi Daddy (Hint: Thanks for the credit card, Daddy!)

5) Dear Wolfman

Kidlit Trivia – Sci-Fi edition

Our last edition of Kidlit Trivia was a shocker! I thought the questions were too hard, but Wickle zoomed in and nailed all of them (minus the bonus questions) off the top of his head.

Let’s see how he — and the rest of you — fare with these Science Fiction Kidlit questions…

1) E.T.’s spaceship was inspired by the style of what kidlit illustrator?

2) Great Jumping Kadiddle Fish! The Mushroom Planet wasn’t really a planet! What was it?

3) In the graphic novels “Sardine in Outer Space,” what kind of creature is Sardine the Space Pirate?

4) Who is “Jasper Dash?”

5) And for you fantasy fans… Shoebag is a boy with a big secret. What is it?

And for 50 bonus points, why did I name the school in Origami Yoda “McQuarrie Middle School?”

Kidlit Trivia – Last name first, please.

Can you give the last names for these Kidlit families for 25 points each?

ex: Joe and Frank? Hardy.

1. Fudge & Peter

2. Willa Jean & Howie

3. Jack, William, Rosie, Tess (Hint: Don’t forget Cousin Daisy.)

4. Ben, Polly, Joel, Davie, Phronsie (Hint: note the number.)

5. Cyril, Anthea, Robert, Jane, Hilary better known as The Lamb. (Note: they may not have a last name, so name the book, please.)

Bonus: I don’t think Victor in Lizard Music has a last name, either. But 50 bonus points if you can name his sister…

And 1,000 bonus points if you can name Marilla’s Lion-King-watching sister from Qwikpick!