2007 48-hour book challenge: starting

It's 8:38 AM on Friday and I'm officially starting my 48-hour book challenge. The first book I'm going to read is Faeries of Dreamdark: Blackbringer by Laini Taylor. I'm currently in the middle of a couple of books, but I'm going to put those aside for now so that I can count whole books for the challenge.

48 hour book challenge 2007

We're only hours away from the official start of the 2007 48-hour book challenge! Created by MotherReader, the challenge invites you to read as many books as you can within a 48 hour period. The 48 hours can take place any time between tomorrow (Friday) morning at 7 AM and 7 AM Monday morning. There are prizes for the most books read, most pages, and most time spent, as well as some random prizes. Click here for the official rules and click here to sign up in the comments.

I'm not a very fast reader, so I don't expect to win. For me it's a personal challenge, but mostly it's a good reason to spend the weekend reading. I have three books lined up, which is probably all I can handle. If I finish those by some miracle, I have plenty more. I love fairies, so I decided to go with a faerie theme and read some books that I've been wanting to read:

• Faeries of Dreamdark: Blackbringer by Laini Taylor
  
• Ironside by Holly Black
  
• Wicked Lovely by Melissa Marr

I'll be starting my 48 hours on Friday morning, since Sunday will be a busy day for me. I'll check in with a post in the morning when I start.

The Dark is Rising - say what?

Others have posted the latest news about the upcoming The Dark is Rising movie, but I feel compelled to comment on it. In case you missed it, Devin Faraci wrote at Chud.com that Walden Media has pretty much changed everything about the book: "The answer seems to be to keep the concepts and ideas from Cooper’s novel and throw much else out..." They've even "...dropped all the Arthurian stuff from the film." Faraci makes no secret of the fact that he didn't like the book and approves of the changes.

Um, excuse me? Didn't they realize when they took on this project that that annoying "Arthurian" stuff is kind of key to the story? It's true that the "Arthurian stuff" isn't as important in this particular book as it is in some of the others in the sequence, but when you take the series as a whole, the Arthurian link is kind of a central concept.

It sounds like Walden has stripped this story of its heart and soul. They've taken a story rich in folklore and turned it into an action movie. Now, I like a good action movie as much as the next person, but that's not what this book is about! It's an exciting book, not a "slog" as Faraci claims, but the excitement doesn't come from Indiana Jones style action sequences.

The Dark is Rising Sequence is one of my favorite series of all time. I'm sad that they've gutted it of any beauty or meaning. I'm often cautious about seeing movies of favorite books, because it makes me upset when the director's vision is different than mine. But it's safe to say that this is one movie I won't be seeing. Susan Cooper, my heart goes out to you. Your masterpiece deserves better.

Devin Faraci's report on Chud.com

Leila's comments on Bookshelves of Doom

Fuse #8's comments

Help one of our own

Here in the Kidlitosphere, we're not just bloggers, we're a community. And when one of our own gets dissed, we won't stand for it. Michele at Scholar's Blog lost her day job - the one that pays the bills - because it was outsourced. She has the opportunity to do some work from home, but unfortunately, she doesn't have a broadband connection and so the telephone charges would eat up most of the income she would earn from working at home. Kelly at Big A little a is outraged - and she's doing something about it. Kelly is taking donations to help Michele pay for a broadband connection so that she can continue to work. Help one of our own! Click here for information on how you can donate.

Upcoming fun

• A Year of Reading is hosting the June Carnival of Children's Literature. The theme is "Good news from the Kidlitosphere"; submissions are due by June 19, and the carnival will run on June 23. If you're wondering what the carnival thing is all about, here's an explanation.
  
• The second annual 48-hour book challenge starts this Friday at MotherReader. Read the details here.
  

Book Discussion Group: The Ruby in the Smoke

The Scholar's Blog Book Discussion group has started a new discussion. This month the book is The Ruby in the Smoke, by Philip Pullman. If you've read the book, go on over and join the discussion!

I'm in awe

I'm not a writer, but I'm in awe of the Disco Mermaids for their kind gesture. In honor of Jay’s first book, Thirteen Reasons Why, they are going to pay the tuition for someone to attend the SCBWI summer conference. All you have to do is give thirteen reasons why the Disco Mermaids should pay your tuition, and you could be the lucky winner. It's their way of giving back for all that SCBWI has given to them, and I found it to be a touching gesture.

Way cool, Mermaids.

Click here for the details.

8 Things Meme

I'm not too big on talking about myself - it sounds so egocentric and frankly, I'm just not all that interesting. But I've been tagged not once, but 3 times: by Michele, Gail, and MotherReader. So I'll play along.

Here are the rules:

Each participant lists eight facts/habits about themselves. The rules of the game are posted at the beginning of the post, before those facts/habits are listed. At the end of the post, the player then tags eight people and posts their names, then goes to their blogs and leaves them a comment, letting them know that they have been tagged and asking them to read your blog.

So here's my eight things:

1. I dreamed of being an astronaut when I was in 9th grade. I had articles about NASA's planned space shuttle and space exploration taped to my mirror. But since I don't even like roller coasters, this probably wouldn't have been a good career choice.

2. In 11th grade I got involved in theatre and dreamed of being a Broadway star. But since I can't carry a tune, that wouldn't have been a good career choice, either.

3. After a short stint at college, I went to a trade school to study graphic arts. I actually worked as a graphic artist for a short time. But since I have no sense of design, that wasn't a good career choice, either. I know good design when I see it, I just can't do it.

4. Working in the graphic arts (and some college classes) led me to a job as a programmer working on publishing systems (back in the days before desktop publishing.) I did excel at that and continued in that field until my son was born in 1995.

5. After over a decade of part-time college classes, I finally earned my bachelor's degree in 1995, while I was pregnant with my son.

6. Since I have so many interests that I couldn't settle on any one thing, my degree is in "Liberal Arts and Technology."

7. I consider my greatest talent to be persistence and a stubborn refusal to give up no matter what happens or what anyone says. Most of my successes in life can be attributed to my tenaciousness. I can attest to the fact that if you bang your head against a wall enough times, you do make a dent in it.

8. I'm actually a very shy person but the internet has saved me. I have no problem putting myself out there in the virtual world, but it's very hard for me to approach someone and talk to them in social situations. I'm getting better at it, though, through sheer persistence and tenaciousness.

I don't think there are 8 bloggers that I know that haven't done the meme, so I'll just tag a couple that I think are untagged or haven't done it yet. I tag Greg Fishbone (let's see you make a word of the day about that!), Kim, Sarah, and Alyssa. Y'all don't have to participate, but if you feel like it, consider yourselves tagged.

BEA Kidlit drink night

I don't like noise or crowds, and I'm basically a shy person. So when I arrived at the Landmark Tavern for my first Kidlit Drink Night, I was dismayed to see crowds of people jammed into a tiny strip in front of the bar. But, knowing that most of those people were kidlit people, and thus good folks, I took a deep breath and plunged in. I'm glad that I stayed, because I had a great time and met so many interesting people that I can't possibly remember them all.

I was thrilled to finally meet fellow Cybils organizers Liz B. and Fuse #8, as well as Cybils Fantasy and Science Fiction judge Greg Fishbone, author of the forthcoming The Penguins of Doom. (You can win a manuscript page from Penguins of Doom by commenting on certain posts on Greg's blog.)

Sisters Grimm author Michael Buckley was there, and I told him how much we enjoyed the new book and how thrilled my son and I were that the Empire State Building had been lit up in purple the previous day. (If you've read the latest Sisters Grimm book, you'll understand the significance of that). Harry Potter editor Cheryl Klein introduced herself to me, "Hi, I'm Cheryl Klein, an editor at Arthur A. Levine Books..." which seemed very modest considering that I knew who she was as soon as she said her name.

Other fabulous people I talked to, in no particular order, included:

• Flux editor Andrew Karre,
  
• Dian Curtis Regan, author of Princess Nevermore and Cam's Quest.
  
• Michelle Knudsen, author of Library Lion
  
• Erec Rex author Kaza Kingsley and publisher Neil Jobalia
  
• Jenny Han, of the Longstockings, and author of Shug.
  
• Carrie Jones, author of Tips on Having a Gay (ex) Boyfriend, who was the sweetest and nicest person. I'm sad that I'll probably never read her book, because high school books just aren't my thing. (I had enough of high school the first time around and have no desire to relive it). But I hope her book makes the challenge list so it'll get lots of attention and teens will read it to find out what they're being prevented from reading. I'm just kidding, of course, but I do hope her book gets lots of attention, because she deserves it.

I know there are many people that I'm forgetting, so if you talked to me and I left you out, please leave a comment!

More BEA and Kidlit drink night wrapups from:
Fuse #8
Jenny Han
Edited to add:
Liz B.

Another reason why small press is better

Today is the official opening of Book Expo America. We arrived at the exhibit halls shortly after they opened this morning and plunged into the crowds searching for the new and interesting. The number of people here is staggering. Trying to get through the HarperCollins area reminded me of Mardi Gras: you didn't walk through so much as you pressed through, surrounded by so many people on all sides that you could barely move. HarperCollins only had three YA ARCs available that we could see, and none of them appealed to us enough to take them, although Nightmare Academy did intrigue me a bit and I was tempted to take it. But we're trying not to overdo it and only take the books that we really want to read and review, after previous years when we've taken so many books that a back ache was the biggest thing we got from BEA. We also visited the Penguin booth where they had Seeing Redd, the sequel to The Looking Glass Wars. Although I did read The Looking Glass Wars, I thought it was excessively violent, and the sequel didn't appeal to me enough to want to carry it around.

After this largely unfruitful search through big-publisher land, we ended up after lunch in the small publisher area, where we had a great time. The aisles were uncrowded and we saw a lot of interesting things, which I'll be posting more about later. It's a shame that many people never make it to the small press area, because there was a lot to see and do there, but I'm selfishly glad, because it made the afternoon much more enjoyable for us.

We ended up our afternoon at the Candlewick Press booth, where as usual they bent over backwards to help us out. Candlewick is a great company and I like a lot of what they do. At my son's request, they promised to send us a review copy of Mythology, the upcoming new entry in the ologies series.

Also today we interviewed Shelly Mazzanoble, author of Confessions of a Part-time Sorceress: A Girl's Guide to the D&D Game from Wizards of the Coast. Shelly was delightful and I'll be posting that interview soon.

Now I'm off to the autographing area for a couple of books, and then I'll be headed to the Kid Lit Drink Night. I hope to see some of you there!