CMIS Evaluation Fiction Focus

Although not an occasion widely celebrated in Australia, Hallowe’en later this week does give the opportunity for the telling of spooky tales. And what spookier, yet what more literary than The Graveyard Book? Since its publication just over a year ago, it has garnered many awards, and Neil Gaiman has become the must-have author at any literary event. Fortunately for us, Australian readers caught him before Gaiman-fever really took off, with Neil being a guest at the 2008 Children’s Book Council of Australia National Conference in Melbourne, All the Wild Wonders. Once seen, once heard, never forgotten. He will be appearing at the Singapore Writers Festival on November 1, talking about graphic novels and fantasy.

Dig deeper

The author

• Neil Gaiman’s website
• Neil Gaiman’s UK website
• Neil Gaiman’s journal
• Neil Gaiman on Twitter
• Biography (from Biography Base)

The text

• Extract
• The book’s website
• MouseCircus : Neil Gaiman’s 2008 Video Tour (a chapter a city, with the entire book read by Neil in eight videos with five Q & A sessons)
• Wikipedia entry (does it need input?)
• Why the two illustrators? (Dave McKean and Chris Riddell)
• Reading Guide
• Teaching Guide

Reviews

• CMIS review
• The Guardian
• The Independent
• School Library Journal
• New York Times

Articles and interviews

• Scottish Book Trust (audio file)
• Neil Gaiman on The Colbert Report (very droll video)
• One Foot in the Graveyard (The Scotsman)
• It’s Good to be Gaiman (School Library Journal)
• ArtsBeat, PBS (audio file)
• 10 Questions with Neil Gaiman (GoodReads)
• Neil Gaiman: The most famous writer you’ve never heard of (sic) (Times Online)
• Neil Gaiman on Fame and The Graveyard Book (Toronto Star)
• Pre-Graveyard Book interview in January Magazine, in which J K Rowling and questions of borrowed ideas are discussed
• Interview with Dave McKean (illustrator)
• Graveyard Book a Vote for Populism (Guardian, 27 January 2009)

Awards

• Newbery Medal 2009
• Hugo Award 2009, Best Novel
• ALA Notable Children’s Book (Middle Readers) 2009
• ALA Booklist Editors’ Choice 2009
• Listed ALA Best Books for Young Adults 2009
• Horn Book Fanfare: Best Books of 2008 List
• Kirkus Reviews Best Children’s Books of 2008
• Cooperative Children’s Book Center Choice 2009
• New York Public Library Stuff for the Teen Age 2009
• Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children’s Book Award 2009 list
• New York Public Library’s ‘One Hundred Titles for Reading and Sharing‘ 2008 – Older Readers
• Shortlist Booktrust Teenage Prize 2009
• Shortlist British Fantasy Awards Best Novel 2009
• Finalist Cybils Awards – Science Fiction and Fantasy – 2008
• Finalist World Fantasy Awards Best Novel 2009
• Finalist Los Angeles Times Book Prize 2009 – Young Adult Literature
• Finalist Amelia Elizabeth Waldren Award 2009

The film

• Gaiman calls Neil Jordan Perfect Director (Wired)
• From Page to Screen (SciFiMoviePage)
• IMDB in development entry (watch this space)

Other books by Neil Gaiman

• Reviews of some of his titles  in the CMIS database

Come, dance The Macabray.

He’s having a great week. A few links:

• Articles from The Guardian, New York Times and the Washington Post
  
• Short video interview on MNSBC (with Caldecott winner Beth Krommes). Note: advertisements
• His blog and Twitter
  
• His reading (on video) of The Graveyard Book. Yes, the whole book (and hasn’t he the most delicious voice!)
• The news about the film
• Where he gets his ideas

It couldn’t happen to a nicer bloke.

From The Guardian:

Yesterday’s news that Neil Gaiman won the Newbery Medal, America’s most prestigious award for children’s literature, was a welcome surprise for a number of reasons. There was Gaiman’s high-spirited, profanity-laced reaction to the news on his Twitter feed – two qualities not commonly associated with children’s book authors of yore. There was the more measured and amusing take on his blog (Merrilee-my-agent: “You didn’t start swearing, did you?” Me: “No.” Her: “Oh good.”). But Gaiman’s win for The Graveyard Book, about a boy raised by ghosts who faces the wonders and terrors of the worlds of both the living and the dead, also appears to put to bed the notion that the Newbery Medal is out of touch with what people are reading.

Imagine Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman in the one room! This is as close as we are likely to get as Neil talks to Terry in this penetrating interview that honours the 25 years of Discworld and the 24-year friendship of the two. It does not shy away from talking about Terry’s recent diagnosis with Alzheimer’s disease, nor would Terry Pratchett want it to – his advocacy has created enormous media interest in the condition, and therefore public awareness. The good news is that he still has books to write.

Neil Gaiman was the guest on the Radio National’s Book Show yesterday. In conversation with Michael Sherrifs, he talks about graphic novels, his two-decade-long collaboration with Dave McKean and classic YA literature.

It is for online listening only, but the transcript is also available.

Speaking of books of a bygone era, the Fine Lines blog revisits some loved titles of the ’70s and ’80s with a more critical eye. The latest post is about Paul Zindel’s The Pigman, now an astonishing 39 years old! This weekly blog is worth a nostalgic visit.

All at the CBCA Conference last Sunday morning were transfixed by Neil Gaiman’s readings of his own poetry scattered throughout his keynote speech. Wonderful, dark and moody, the poems revisited fairytales and cast new light on familiar landscapes. Nothing can match Neil’s own telling, but Fiction Focus has received permission to link to the text of three of these poems that appear in the online Journal of the Mythic Arts, published by Endicott Studio.

So if you were there, reimagine the morning and Neil’s beautifully paced readings. If you weren’t there, you are bound to enjoy the poems in their own right.

• Locks
• Instructions
• Boys and Girls Together

Margaret Atwood and Jane Yolen are among the authors with poetry on the fairytale section of the site. Add some background reading of Jack Zipes’s Don’t Bet on the Prince or The Trials and Tribulations of Little Red Riding Hood and a challenging unit of work for senior students is begging to be written.