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Blogging for the Cure: The Week in Review

Monday, October 15



Tuesday, October 16



Wednesday, October 17



Thursday, October 18



Friday, October 19



Saturday, October 20



Sunday, October 21



Please take time out to visit all of these blogs, and read about these fabulous illustrators. And, if you're so inclined, think about bidding for a snowflake in the Robert's Snow auction. Each snowflake makes a unique gift (for yourself or for someone else), and supports an important cause.


Blogging for the Cure: Robert's Snow

Monday, October 15



Tuesday, October 16



Wednesday, October 17



Thursday, October 18



Friday, October 19



Blogging for the Cure: Robert's Snow

Monday, October 15



Tuesday, October 16



Wednesday, October 17



Thursday, October 18




 

Blogging for the Cure: Robert's Snow

Monday, October 15 

Tuesday, October 16

Wednesday, October 17


 

Blogging for the Cure: Brie Spangler

Today I’m highlighting illustrator Brie Spangler’s snowflake for Robert’s Snow: for Cancer’s Cure. Brie’s snowflake is called “Blue-Haired Lady.” I love how the image the title brings to my mind - an elderly woman with wild hair - is not at all what I see on the snowflake. This is a vivacious young thing! With gold stars spangling her hair, I’m inclined to think she may even be a fairy.


According to her bio, “Brie Spangler is an author-illustrator originally from the Boston, Mass. area. She loves clambakes, baseball, and her pekingese, Lola. When not drawing pictures, Brie can be found avoiding direct sunlight, drinking too much coffee, and snuggling with her husband, Matt."

At Brie’s website, you can see a wide variety of her work. She’s very diverse! Her illustrations include educational work for the American Medical Association, children’s series like The Stinky Boys Club and The Caped 6th Grader, magazine illustrations, and pictures for companies like Capezio and Keds.

In June 2008, Knopf will release Brie’s book Peg Leg Peke, the first book on which she is both writer and illustrator.

To buy Brie’s snowflake, go here. The auction begins November 19 and ends November 23. Be sure to check out all the other snowflakes at Robert’s Snow: for Cancer’s Cure!

Blogging for the Cure, Day Two

We're still blogging about snowflakes available in the Robert's Snow auction! Here are this week's posts:

Monday, October 15 
Randy Cecil at ChatRabbit
Michelle Chang at The Longstockings
Kevin Hawkes at Cynthia Lord's Journal
Barbara Lehman at The Excelsior File
Grace Lin at In the Pages

Tuesday, October 16 
Selina Alko at Brooklyn Arden
Scott Bakal at Wild Rose Reader
Alexandra Boiger at Paradise Found
Paige Keiser at Your Neighborhood Librarian
Janet Stevens at The Miss Rumphius Effect

PLEASE NOTE!  We can't possibly feature all of the illustrators participating in this event on our blogs.  That means to see all of them, you'll have to go to the Robert's Snow Site.
 

Blogging for the Cure: Robert's Snow

For the next few weeks I’ll be participating in Blogging for the Cure, which jules of 7-Imp sums up better than I ever will:

It’s time, everyone! It’s time for the Blogging for a Cure effort to begin! Seven cheers for all the bloggers who will be highlighting some of the 2007 snowflakes and the illustrators who created them in the name of helping to raise money to fight cancer for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. … And it’s all in the memory of Robert Mercer, Grace Lin’s husband, who recently passed away due to a rare form of cancer.

For those of you still new to the Robert’s Snow auctions, here’s a brief explanation: Robert’s Snow is Grace’s book, published in 2004, about a mouse not allowed in the snow. The story was inspired by Robert’s battle with Ewing’s sarcoma. After the book was published, Grace gathered artists from all over the children’s book illustrating community to create special snowflakes to be auctioned off, with the proceeds benefiting sarcoma research at Dana-Farber. These snowflake auctions became known as the event “Robert’s Snow.”
This year, more than 200 well-known children’s book illustrators from around the world have been given a five-inch wooden snowflake to decorate at will. Like actual snowflakes, each design is unique. The 2007 online auctions for bidding on these hand-painted snowflakes will take place in three separate auctions, open to everyone, from November 19 to 23, November 26-30, and December 3-7. You can read here for more information.

But starting today — and lasting for over one month until the day before the auctions — over 65 bloggers will be highlighting some of the snowflakes and the illustrators who created them.

For jules’s full post, go here.

In the meantime, here’s today’s post schedule!



Monday, October 15


An Explanation of Sorts

Upon seeing that two books I was sent review copies of months ago and haven't touched except to put on my TBR shelf are being released today, I began to feel guilty.  My number of posts has significantly dropped off, and for that I am very sorry.  I wanted to offer up a quick explanation of why this is, because no matter how much I try and make myself post, it doesn't look to be changing any time soon.

Posting a good entry requires brainpower.

I am working harder at my job than I ever have before.  I am investing more energy in it.  My hours are not the longest they've ever been, but during my contact time with students I am using the most energy I ever have.  This is having very positive results in the classroom and with my colleagues.

Unfortunately, it is completely exhausting.  It is exhausting to the point that my recent hobbies have become reading (but not writing), playing video games (mindless but because they give you tasks to do still gives a sense of accomplishment), and complaining (a rather unattractive trait, being a complainer).  I very rarely cook real food anymore.  A year ago, I was cooking myself a nutritious dinner every night.

So I've been doing the bare minimum here - participating in group events, and then making other posts as I have energy.

So when will you see posts from me?

A week from tomorrow on October 17 I'll be writing a feature about illustrator Brie Spangler and her work for Robert's Snow

In November, during the Winter Blog Blast Tour, I'll feature interviews with Kerry Madden and Dia Calhoun.

I have a whole schedule of things through May but I don't want to reveal them as they're all group events that we haven't begun to publicize yet.  In any case, you are guaranteed a post a month from me.  I know that's not a lot, but that will be there for sure.  Beyond that, you will get reviews when the mood strikes me to write one, commentary on days when I have the good fortune to read the other blogs, and participation in memes/regular weekly events when I get a chance to sit down at the computer.

I just wanted to let you know what was going on so you didn't think I'd disappeared entirely.

See you next week if not before!

Bradbury Season: Cinderella Skeleton

I'm not in the habit of writing about picture books, but there are some that still strike my fancy, in addition to the old favorites that hold a place in my heart.  Now it's October, my second favorite month of the year (July is the first because that's when my birthday is), and we kidlit bloggers are celebrating Bradbury Season.  For me this time of year is more marvelous than scary, but I like a tinge of the morbid even in my sparkles, and so I present you my choice for Bradbury Season: Robert D. San Souci's Cinderella Skeleton. 

"Cinderella Skeleton" is a fairytale retold for goths.  Our familiar friend Cindy isn't sweeping up the house anymore.  Now her chores include hanging cobwebs, arranging dead flowers, littering the floor with dust and leaves, and feeding bats.  Her stepmother and stepsisters are still evil, though, and when the marvelously dead Prince Charnel hosts a ball, they do everything they can to keep her away.  

You know this story, though, so you know that it all ends well.  When Prince Charnel finds Cinderella Skeleton he proclaims:

Cinderella Skeleton!
The rarest gem the world has seen!
Your gleaming skull and burnished bones,
Your teeth like polished kidney stones,
Your dampish silks and dankish hair,
There's nothing like you anywhere!
You make each day a Halloween!

That part always makes me cry a little, tears of joy.  I received this book as a gift from my boyfriend (he's so goth he's dead, except he's not really goth at all - just vaguely morbid, like me) and he inscribed it with "You make each day a Halloween!" at the front of the book.  

Where this version of the tale shines is not in the plot itself, which we all know.  It is in the details.  It's in the fact that Cinderella's coach driver is a black cat.  It's in the way San Souci deals with the glass slipper part of the tale.  It's in the fact that this Prince is Prince Charnel ("a building or chamber in which bodies or bones are deposited" - thank you, M-W.com!) instead of Prince Charming.  And it is in the phenomal illustrations provided by David Catrow.

"Cinderella Skeleton" is perfect for fans of The Nightmare Before Christmas and The Corpse Bride (which it pre-dates by five years).  It is the whimsical kind of spooky that perky goths enjoy and morbid but not too serious children adore.  It is wonderful and beautiful, and it is my favorite Halloween book.

For more on Bradbury Season, see Colleen's post at Chasing Ray.

 

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