A few more fun links for the day:
When I was in college I studied abroad in England, so I have a special place in my heart for anything related to the UK. Obviously Nina Cosford’s upcoming book, Royal Palaces of London: A Three-Dimensional Expanding Pocket Guide, got my attention. What lovely illustrations!
Nina also has upcoming books about Edinburgh and Dublin. Perfect for young travelers! (Or those of us who wish we were going on holiday.)
(HT: Gems)
I have a hard time coming up with last names for my characters, especially minor ones that might need last names but don’t get much page time. This National Geographic map detailing the most common surnames across the US might be a big help when I need to pick a fairly random one. Lots of Smith and Jones, but it’s fun to see the more regionally common last names like Pelletier in Maine and Trujillo in the southwest.
Last night my friend Rachel sent me a link to a news article about the revived search for Amelia Earhart. The privately funded search will be begin in the Pacific in July, marking the 75th anniversary of Earhart’s disappearance. A picture from 1937 of Gardner Island suggests that may have been where Earhart and her navigator, Fred Noonan, crashed and possibly lived for a short period. Still, finding wreckage or other evidence isn’t an easy task. From an NPR article about the expedition:
“Renowned oceanographer Robert Ballard, who discovered the wreckage of the Titanic and the Bismarck and is advising the Earhart expedition, said the new analysis of the photograph could be the equivalent of a “smoking gun” as it narrows the search area from tens of thousands of square miles to a manageable size.
Ballard confessed to having been previously intimidated by the challenge of finding clues to Earhart’s whereabouts.
“If you ever want a case of finding a needle in a haystack, this is at the top of the list,” he said.”
Even though my novel’s not historical fiction, Amelia plays a significant part in Queen of the Air and I’m glad to see that she’s still such a iconic figure in American history.
Roger Ebert seems to be a fan as well. Over the summer he shared this post on the anniversary of Earhart’s disappearance, complete with cool videos. (He retweeted it again today.)
Seeing this gets me pumped to revise, revise, revise!
(image: Chicago Sun-Times)
When people see I’m a redhead, they usually assume I’m Irish. (I’m not.) But this year is the first I can claim being Irish by marriage so I’m excited to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day.
Ireland has no shortage of stories and storytellers, so it’s pretty easy to feel literary on this holiday. For the YA side, the Hub has compiled a list of books inspired by Irish mythology. I’m reading The Scorpio Races right now and loving it.
My own Irish literature suggestions tends to run to the more contemporary. I’ve mentioned before that I’m a huge Roddy Doyle fan, and I recently read his MG novel, A Greyhound of a Girl, which was just as funny and heartbreaking as I hoped. It’s not available in print in the US yet, but you can download it via Kindle. I’d also recommend Bog Child by Siobhan Dowd, which gives readers a fantastic glimpse into life during the Troubles.
Writers Digest also shares inspiration from Irish authors. My favorite quote:
“The good end happily, and the bad unhappily. That is what fiction means.” –Oscar Wilde,The Importance of Being Earnest
Any other suggestions for Irish reading?
How cute are these pop-up city books? What a cool gift idea!
Cities currently available: Paris, New York, London. Upcoming: Washington, DC and Dublin. I’d like to see Amsterdam! (image and via Design Mom)
Sad news in the bookstore world:
“Nothing seemed especially different about Bookman’s Alley. It still can be found in a low-slung brick building behind Sherman Avenue that, with “Harry Potter”-like surrealism, looks smaller than it is, stretching room to room to room long after that seemed possible. Carlson’s Nordic blues still twinkled, a white curtain of hair still hung from his head and a Southwestern-style blanket draped on the back of his chair. Indeed, Carlson appeared so cheerfully ensconced in his legendary bookstore, so hopelessly surrounded by its near geological layers of books and tote bags of books and boxes of books and odd miscellanea (top hats, scrimshaw, Abraham Lincoln bookends) that even an April closing seemed like wishful thinking.
Nevertheless, the store is closing.”
It’s understandable that the owner, Roger Carlson, would want to retire. But it’s a loss for the Evanston literary community. When Walt was living in Chicago, we’d go to Bookman’s Alley when I’d visit for the weekend and could get lost in there for a few hours. It’s a special place and I wish Carlson the best.
Hat tip to Walt for this one!
(image: Bookman’s Alley by Jesse Garrison)
I love the UK. When I was in college I had the opportunity to study abroad in Oxford and London. The classes were fantastic, and I felt immediately at home in both cities. So this list of children’s literature landmarks in the UK has me ready to pack my bags.
There are fantastic suggestions for fans of Harry Potter (I’ve had my picture taken at Platform 9 3/4, of course), Peter Pan, The Secret Garden, and more. I’d also add checking out castles in Scotland for a dose of Susan Cooper’s The Boggart, or dash around Oxford like Lyra in The Golden Compass–but watch out for Gobblers.
Where would you want to go on a children’s literature tour? (image: Oxford City, UK by mridula)
Finding hundreds of new fairy tales is an awesome way to start the week:
“A whole new world of magic animals, brave young princes and evil witches has come to light with the discovery of 500 new fairytales, which were locked away in an archive in Regensburg, Germany for over 150 years. The tales are part of a collection of myths, legends and fairytales, gathered by the local historian Franz Xaver von Schönwerth (1810–1886) in the Bavarian region of Oberpfalz at about the same time as the Grimm brothers were collecting the fairytales that have since charmed adults and children around the world.”
I am so into this kind of thing. When I was in high school I wrote a paper on the Grimm brothers and their connection to German nationalism. (And kind of had fun writing it.) Now we have more folk tales and verbal history/culture to talk about*? So cool!
*ie, to inspire more YA novels. (via bookshelves of doom) (image: Gustave Dore, via SurLaLune)
At educating alice, Monica Edinger has shared a wicked cool video about the German history of fairy tales:
Kind of want to take a trip down Fairy Tale Road now.
Monica also mentioned the Grimm Legacies conference, which I didn’t know about before. It sounds so awesome! Sad I missed it.