"Write now is good."

Sendak's "Wild Things" classic: A successful book-turned-film?

UPDATE: If the above video clip doesn't work, you can check out a beautiful hi-res version of it at the Apple site.

This trailer piqued my curiosity. How does a film, which will run (most likely) approximately 90 minutes, stay true to the narrative of a 37-page children's book?

I've just looked through my copy of Where the Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak, and I've estimated that twenty-seven of the pages are illustrated. (Some are image only, and on others, the image takes up most of the page with a bit of accompanying text.)

The best films-based-on-books capture the essence of the book. While most novels' plots are too extensive to show completely within an acceptable movie time limit, a film's story—sincerely told and authentically rendered—can do the original work justice.

The trailer shows so much not even hinted at in the original. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that the film stands on its own—I'd really like to see this!

Creativity: Use it or lose it

Need a little inspiration boost? Take roughly nine minutes to watch this TED Talk excerpt by Sir Ken Robinson. A few highlights:

-- "All kids have tremendous talents, and we [educators] squander them pretty ruthlessly."

-- "Creativity is as important in education as literacy, and we should treat it with the same status."

-- "If you're not prepared to be wrong, you'll never come up with anything original."

To view Robinson's complete TED Talk "Do schools today kill creativity?", click here. It's about twenty minutes long, and even more thought-provoking than the abbreviated version. Enjoy.

Punctuation for kids: "The Marks" revised

Frederic Terral of Right Brain Terrain, creator of the Alternative Motivation Posters, has revamped his punctuation story for children, "Meet the Marks". Check out the entire book, now available online.

I think there is definitely a market for this type of book—something simple and fun about basic punctuation, with captivating illustrations and interesting characters. When young children are read to and they begin to pick out letters they recognize in books, questions about what periods, and especially exclamation points, are quickly follow. Both kids and their parents would enjoy something to read aloud, perhaps even a board book depending on how long the book is and for what age group it is intended.

I wonder what Mr. Terral's intentions are for "Meet the Marks". I'd like to see where he goes with it.

What's the whole story?

I found "Why Women Read More Than Men" on NPR's site. Researchers have found that, for a variety of societal and biological reasons, girls and women read more. (For the Harry Potter series, however, boys and men were the majority readers.)

Questions I now have:

1. How long will it take for the next study to appear which will completely contradict this study?
2. OK, so women are reading more — but who is WRITING more?

Thoughts, anyone?

via [BB-Blog]

Review: "The Gift of Nothing"

Before you read "The Gift of Nothing" by Patrick McDonnell, try to answer these questions:

1. What do you give the person who has everything?
2. In a completely empty space, what can people create?

With its title being "The Gift of Nothing," the book's punchline is clear. What makes this story most satisfying is how it is told. Author/illustrator McDonnell uses a few well-chosen words and minimal, expressive drawings to show how one friend gives another a most appropriate present. Quality rules quantity in this world, in a clear and inspiring way.

The book's age range is advertised as 3 to 6 years old. We know many in the 6-plus group, however, who love reading "The Gift of Nothing" over and over again. If you tend towards appreciating life's rich, simple pleasures, definitely consider knowing this tale.

Root for the little guy, for he is us.

The above video, "i lived on the moon", has inspired me to poetry. It is animated by Yannick Puig, who was inspired by the band Kwoon's music to make this for their song. The combination of image, story and soundtrack are absolutely stunning.

I've been living in an imaginary world lately. My young one has reached the age where an unfamiliar sound outside the window most definitely means a lion is approaching. We instantly morph from parent and child into two explorers saving baby animals as we run from the predator, our arms full of plush creatures. Tinker toys become a satellite space station, until it breaks and spills rocket fuel all over our carpet. Then a dinosaur with a mop appears but admits it cannot clean the entire mess by itself. So three firemen, one firelady, and another dinosaur with a special "cleaning mouth" show up to help. And these were just some of today's adventures.

At this age, children create imaginary monsters and conflicts in order to problem solve, to develop mastery over social skills, to learn to deal with emotions. Seeing this now with my own child, it's so clear how this rich pretend world helps to cement feelings of self-confidence and budding independence. We have to do this, and we've all gone through this. We humans are wired to do so. The mythical quest to overcome obstacles and grow beyond them will forever be a basis of our stories — our most personal and private ones, and those we share as a culture.

Seeing my little one face and overcome these pretend, yet also very real, frights leaves me speechless most days. I've seen already that I can't provide all the answers to these big questions, but I also know that being there, like the steadiest rock, in the process, is so vitally important. This video somehow helped me find words around it:

We hold hands
To explore and imagine together,
To create and tell our stories,
To face monsters.
Our hands still touch
Even when
You are on the moon
And I am at my tree.
I will see you
Because I can fly now!
Through it,
Above it,
I can do it.
I'll be there soon.

Visit Poetry Thursday for a vast collection of poetry from our community.

Enjoyable wordy links

You love words, yes? Of course — that's probably how you wound up here.

I've been trying to think of an extremely creative way to share some interesting wordy/creativity links I've come across lately at some really well-done blogs.

After much thought, what method did I come up with? Feature a list. Ha! Simple works just fine, and I'm glad I remembered that.

Here's the list, without descriptions and in no particular order. Click if you're feeling adventurous — everything is workplace safe, though the first link does include music:

1. "Dylan Hears A Who!" (see image above) found via NOTCOT.org

2. "Writing by hand vs. typing" at Moleskinerie

3. "Never Mind Cursive — Will Children Still Write?" at Notebookism

4. "The Astoria Notes" at Ironic Sans

Puzzled

This week's prompt for Sunday Scribblings is "puzzled":

The arctic winds kept us trapped again. As the clarifying winter sunlight streamed in from outside, I mused what next activity could take us further through the endless-inside afternoon.

Vibrant purple, blue, red, green, orange and yellow plastic shapes shimmered on the floor. I gathered them in my arms, placed them in a candy-striped hinged box and said, "Let's go spell 'cat' on the refrigerator."

"Cat!" he shouted. "I love cat!"

We trotted into the kitchen and plopped down onto the tiles in front of our huge palette.

"C-A-T," I said, pulling out three magnetized letters and placing each carefully on the ivory door. "That spells cat. Caaaaaaatttt," I said slowly, tracing my finger across the letters.

He grabbed a bunch of the letters and smushed them quickly onto the fridge. Too many consonants, letters upside down and sideways. "What does that spell?" he asked, proudly pointing at his "word."

"Hmmm," I said thoughtfully. I narrowed my eyes and drew in my lips, trying to devise a way to actually speak what he'd created: an upside down U next to a sideways G, placed above an upside-down R and M, layered on top of an upright E, a sideways D, and an A.

"Uggerm-eeduh," I said, smiling as I slowly pronounced it.

Peels of laughter answered me. "Say it again," he implored between the snorts.

"Uggerm-eeduh."

"Ha ha ha ha ha! Again!"

"Uggerm-eeduh." Now I was laughing.

Winding down into a sparkling grin, he grabbed another random letter out of the box and placed it next to the A. It was an I.

"What does THAT say?" He tapped the fridge hard, eyes wide and smiling already in expectation of more spoken nonsense.

"Uggerm-eeduh-EYE," I said, placing extra emphasis on the I-sound as I pointed to it. He giggled so much he was almost silent. Then he took a deep breath and reached for another letter.

I puzzled out these evolving words for another fifteen minutes. At laughter intervals, I'd return to ones like "hat" and "hug" to show how letters could form names that were part of his daily life. Because every-day concepts and objects, grounded in reality, should be interesting.

The child mind does not work this way. What's more interesting: hearing your mother say "rug" or "oomeg-erex-quig-idy-thut-ed"?

I let myself fall into the silly magic of sounding out his creations. He made them and laughed and slapped the floor with glee every time I pronounced them. My sounding them out also confirmed that they were real.

Nonsense is relative. Play is crucial. Recognition in parents' eyes means the world. Shared problem-solving creates more understanding not only of the task at hand, but also about each other.

For more takes on "puzzled," go to Sunday Scribblings.

A punctuation story for kids

Image above from MEET THE MARKS — A Children's Book by Frederick Terral.

It's a work in progress and hasn't been published yet (it can be read online at the link above). Looking at this as a writer, editor, former teacher and mama, I think Terral is on to something. I'm interested to see where he goes with it.

Found at Right Brain Terrain via NOTCOT.

Some Friday video fun

Q: What would the world be like without giggling babies and panda kindergartens?

A: Take a look at these videos and decide for yourself.

"Hahaha" — from BlackOleg via YouTube

"China opens Panda 'kindergarten'" — from Reuters via Cute Overload

Thanks for [BB-Blog] for the cute links.