Daily Round-Up

I've too much delicious stuff on my platter today to put into individual postings. As such, let's cram them all into a single piece and let them beat one another over the heads for dominance.

First up, movie stuff. YA movie stuff. Normally I wouldn't deign to touch it with a ten-foot pole but this has indirect ties to this site. When I met John Green at one of the kidlit drink nights, he mentioned his love of the musician Frank Portman and the man's subsequent book King Dork. If I'm not too mistaken, that book has been one of the best beloved YA titles of the year. You know who really liked it? Will Ferrell. So much so that somebody wants to turn it into a film. The coolest part about all this? I TOTALLY beat Bookslut's blog on printing this news. HAHAHAHAHAHAHA! First time ever! I owe you one, Kelly.

In the world of what the CBC hath wrought, we see that Cheerios is getting on board with National Children's Book Week.

General Mills is giving away children's books in its annual "Cheerios Spoonfuls of Stories" campaign. The boxes of Cheerios containing books are scheduled to be on shelves from November to sometime this spring.

I'm upset. Not because this is a bad idea, but because I was primed and pumped to make fun of the books Cheerios would think were worthy to include. I expected them to just load up the boxes with those gawdawful Cheerios counting books (yeah... you know the ones I mean). Instead, here's the list of what they're including:

Wiggle by Doreen Cronin, illustrated by Scott Menchin
Olivia...and the Missing Toy written and illustrated by Ian Falconer
The Tiny Seed written and illustrated by Eric Carle
Horace and Morris joined the Chorus (but what about Delores?) by James Howe, illustrated by Amy Walrod
Little Quack's Bedtime by Lauren Thompson, illustrated by Derek Anderson

Crap. Those are great books. I wonder who did the selecting. Thanks to the Powells blog for the link.

From Critical Mass I heard about a contest that isn't a spelling bee, but seems to command the same kind of terror in competing students. For all you folks who studied up on your vocab SATs, observe the awesome power of the National Vocabulary Competition.

I once felt old because I learned that Marc Brown's Arthur books were at least 20 years old. Know who else is 20? Franklin. I certainly didn't see THAT one coming. From Bookninja.

I've saved the best for last, though.
I assume that all of you have read Diary of a Wombat as written by Jackie French and illustrated by Bruce Whatley. If you have not, you're living your life as a lie.
As I was saying, Best Book Ever that one. Yesterday I remembered why it is that I like to look at Australian book bloggers, even though the titles they talk about have little to no connection to their American counterparts. Well, apparently the creator of the Misrule blog was at the launch party for French and Whatley's latest.

A.
Door.
A.
Bull.

Adorable, people! Look at that sweet little cover. How can you resist?
Now, Harper Collins Australia is putting out the book overseas. Might we expect it to cross over to our happy shores as well? Hmmmm? I'm watching you, Harper Collins. You have this book in your possession and I want a piece of it. Gimme!