Around the Blogosphere: Rock Star Edition

One of these men is a rock star, one thinks he's a rock star, and one is a rock star illustrator of children's picturebooks. If you picked Lane Smith in the picture to the far right as the rock star illustrator, you're right! (You decide between the other two which is the rock star and which thinks he's a rock star). The blog Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast has a wonderful interview with Lane Smith and his wife Molly Leach along with illustrations from many of his books including his two newest books, Big Plans and Madam President.

Listen to an interview with the fabulous Lauren Child on NPR as she talks about her latest book in the Clarice Bean series, Clarice Bean, Don't Look Now, and about her successful "Charlie and Lola" books and their television spin off.

Cynsations has a wonderful interview with author Joseph Bruchac in which he talks about four of his books that he considers his favorites and about his newest book Buffalo Song.

Neil Gaiman's Coraline has been adapted to an stop-motion, 3-D animated film directed by Henry Selick and will be in a theater near you on February 6, 2009. See the trailer here. For me, Coraline is one of the few really scary books for younger children, so I'm hoping the film will do it justice.

I've always thought Oprah should have a book club for children. Now, Oprah has a kid's reading list as recommended by the American Library Association. The 100-book list is mostly composed of titles published in the last two years, with about 25 percent classics, categorized by age group: birth to two, three to five, six to nine, 10 to 12, and 12 and up.

That's all for the rock star round up this week. Happy reading!

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The Joy of Children's Literature

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