CMIS Evaluation Fiction Focus

Here’s another terrific free resource from the UK. Everyone’s Reading Plus is a 108-page PDF document listing titles suitable for readers of both genders aged between 11 and 18.  A few Australian authors are included.

This School Library Association publication complements previous free lists Boys into Books 5-11 and Boys into Books 11-14. All are part of the SLA Riveting Reads series.

The titles on the Everyone’s Reading list can also be browsed online in a searchable database on the dedicated website. UK schools can select 15 titles from the list as part of a gifting program.

Everyone’s Reading has recently started on twitter.

The Vulture column at online arts ezine New York Entertainment has collated a slideshow of clips from twelve children’s films that have caused, or could now cause, controversy. They include:

• The new kid on the block – Where the Wild Things Are (2009)
• The Black Cauldron (1985) adapted from Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain
• Little Buddha (1993)
• A Disney trio: Dumbo (1941), Lady and the Tramp (1955), Peter Pan (1953)
• North (1994)
• Song of the South (1946) adapted from Joel Chandler Harris’s Uncle Remus stories
• The 5000 Fingers of Dr T (1953)  – a Theodore Geisel affair, later disowned by him
• The Thief and the Cobbler (1964) – based on stories from the Arabian Nights
• Babe : Pig in the City (1998)
• The Brave Little Toaster (1987) adapted from a novel by Thomas M. Disch

More here about the brouhaha that Wild Things is generating, but for the rest, see the annotations on the slideshow.

The link to this fascinating piece of film history was first spotted on the educating alice blog.

We’ve tweeted about the new reading site launched by the Library of Congress at the recent National Book Festival held in Washington. But we haven’t specifically mentioned the joint twelve-month project of the Center for the Book and the National Children’s Book and Literacy Alliance.

The Exquisite Corpse is named after that old game where someone starts a story on a sheet of paper, folds it over and hands it to the next person to write the next bit. You never quite know what the result will be.

This online story started with the contribution by Jon Scieszka, National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature (and is illustrated by Chris van Dusen) and now the next part is online – Katherine Paterson’s chapter, illustrated by James Ransome. KateDiCamillo and Calef Brown come next, with a new chapter every two weeks.

You can subscribe to the updates by RSS or email.

Just in case you haven’t had enough of the limp heroine of the Stephenie Meyer saga, ABC Radio National’s Book Show is exploring just why the novels have been so popular. After all, vampires in fiction are hardly new.

Author James Bradley briefly discusses the vampire phenomenon here and writes about the historical context here.

South African-born writer Beverley Naidoo talks about growing up under apartheid and how reading opened her eyes to injustice:

Believe it or not, the library at my school was kept locked! I have no memory of going inside and choosing a book for myself. What’s more, when I asked our vice-principal to sign a form so that I could join the Johannesburg city library, she refused. I can still hear her voice with her Irish lilt… “And what would you be wanting to read more books for, Beverley? Have you not got enough with your textbooks already?”

Again from The Guardian.

Indeed, according to Nobel Laureate JMG le Clézio:

…the book, despite its old-fashioned appearance, remains the best tool for disseminating information to the furthest corners of the planet.

“It is practical, easy to handle, economical,” he said. “It does not require any particular technological prowess, and keeps well in any climate.”

The winner of the 2008 Nobel Prize for Literature was giving his acceptance speech at the Swedish Academy.

[Note: Technical difficulties have prevented the usual number of postings to the FF blog in recent days - resolved now, we hope.]

Well, we don’t know yet, but the process has begun. Not the Australian Children’s Laureate, sadly, as there is no such beast, but the UK institution that has seen the role shaped by Quentin Blake (1999-2001), Anne Fine (2001-2003), Michael Morpurgo (2003-2005), Jacqueline Wilson (2005-2007) and the current Laureate, Michael Rosen, whose term expires in 2009.

The sixth Laureate’s term will run from 2009-2011, and children (and adults) around Britain are now being asked to submit their nominations. Young people can make a strong case for their choice in 100 words in order to win a place at the announcement ceremony on 9 June. Who might it be? Will the BGBGB pattern of previous Laureates continue?

And, just dreaming, if we were to have an Australian Laureate, what names might emerge?

This story is too inspiring not to share. it comes to our attention through international school library colleagues at IASL.

Acclaimed Colombian Institution has 4800 Books and 10 Legs, from the New York Times.

There’s even a slideshow.

Oh dear. As if the global monetary crisis wasn’t enough, here’s some doom and gloom on the literacy front from the UK’s Independent on Sunday newspaper:

Publishers must adapt titles to the demands of modern young readers who spend more time on the internet if they are to succeed in persuading the next generation to read, says Jonathan Douglas, the director of the National Literacy Trust.

He made his remarks as researchers prepared to tell a conference starting today that children’s reading habits slump dramatically after they start at secondary school. The typical eight-year-old reads nearly 16 books a year but, by the time they reach 15 or 16, this has dwindled to just over three books per year. The big drop-off starts after the first year of secondary school, when the number of books read falls from nearly 12 a year to just six.

The study, based on interviews with nearly 30,000 pupils aged seven to 16, also shows a growing trend towards reading comics, magazines, newspapers and online articles, and playing computer games, after the first year at secondary school.