Kwame Alexander won the Newbery Award the same week that Harper Lee’s Go Set a Watchman was announced for publication. Of course, Lee’s news totally trumped Alexander’s achievement, so to show some solidarity, I requested his novel from the library. And I was blown away. The Crossover is a verse novel (that is, a novel told in poems) about Josh Bell, a tween boy who is a star basketball player on his middle-school team. His twin brother Jordan, or JB, is on the team with […]
Never trust button eyes.
There’s no one like Neil Gaiman. He walks the line between faerie and frightening with incredible deftness, and he mines the wondrous/horrifying imagination of children in a way that cuts your heart as an adult. It’s remarkable and scary all at once. In other news: I finally read Coraline. I devoured it in a big gulp, but I also shivered in some parts. And the illustrations definitely enhance the book. Coraline Jones is a young girl whose family has moved to a big house. But […]
Mary Poppins is *Not* Coming Back to Me
So…while I was not super intrigued by P.L. Travers’s rendering of Mary Poppins, I did feel that I needed to “collect” the series. After reading Mary Poppins Comes Back, I don’t really feel that need anymore. Mary Poppins has gone AWOL to where the wind changes, and naturally, the Banks family is in an uproar. Everybody is moody, and neither Mr. nor Mrs. Banks can seem to manage to parent their own children. Par for the course. So, when Michael and Jane take the twins […]
A Spoonful of Sugar or Lemon Juice?
When we all think of Mary Poppins, we think of that cheeky songstress, she of the wholesome face and flawless skin, Dame Julie Andrews. After all the press surrounding the film Saving Mr. Banks and learning that P.L. Travers was in fact very much against the making and production of her beloved book, I was curious to see how the movie depicted her heroine and the children. I’m very disappointed to report that the book Mary Poppins is nothing like the Julie Andrews I admired […]