Category: Television

But Don’t Take My (iPad’s) Word for It!

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Reading Rainbow is back and now it’s digital, via a new iPad app. From this interview with LeVar Burton, Mark Wolfe, and Sangita Patel about the project:

PATEL: Oh, mobile? Okay. Well I think the reason that publishers were excited about Reading Rainbow is one, trusted brand, more importantly discovery. I think for publishers, even though you can go in the bookstore, when a child goes in a bookstore they are able to have an experience that they can’t really have anywhere on the Internet, or on devices now, because discovery of a book in the App Store is virtually impossible. There are so many out there —

WOLFE: Unless you know the title, right?

PATEL: Unless you know the title of the book. So what publishers found very interesting is, they said, “We do not have a discovery platform there, with curation”, and so LeVar, LeVar’s brand, the Reading Rainbow brand, was a perfect fit for them.

It’s funny–I never thought of Reading Rainbow as a curation project, but that makes a lot of sense. When my mom was a new mother, she didn’t know a lot about children’s books. So along with recommendations from our local librarians, things like Reading Rainhow were a great way for her to find us new books. And having an app means that children and parents can be introduced to new books at any given time of day.

Also:

WOLFE: …we were talking yesterday, the day before that stories, you know, start on cave paintings, then they wind up as heiroglyphics, and then they are written on papyrus, and eventually on sheep vellum, then trees, now here you go [points to iPad]. The device — the delivery of the device doesn’t make stories. It can help augment them in a certain way, but a good story’s a good story no matter whether it’s on papyrus, or electronic.

Amen to good stories. And just so you have it in your head for the rest of the day:

(image: Wikipedia)

Much Ado About Joss Whedon

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Buffy the Vampire Slayer aired its first episode when I was in 7th grade. I was shy and insecure and didn’t quite know how to grow up. Buffy, with its quips and demonic high school drama, helped me maneuver into young adulthood. As a result, Joss Whedon has a very special place in my heart. Then I find out he did a version of Much Ado About Nothing and I want to scream “Stop making me love you, Joss!” From the press release:

“Filmed in just 12 days entirely on location in exotic Santa Monica, the film features a stellar cast of beloved (or soon to be beloved) actors — some of them veterans of Shakespearean theater, some completely new to the form. But all dedicated to the idea that this story bears retelling, that this dialogue is as fresh and intoxicating as any being written, and that the joy of working on a passion project surrounded by dear friends, admired colleagues and an atmosphere of unabashed rapture far outweighs their hilariously miniature paychecks.”

Whedon meets the Bard? So awesome! And he cast includes Whedon-verse veterans like Alexis Denisof and Nathan Fillion. It looks like the film is set to release this year, but not a lot of details about where/when exactly. But with Whedon’s recent Avengers success, I’m hoping this might get a wider release and appeal to teen viewers. Shakespeare is way cool, guys.

If you want even more on Whedon, check out this interview.

(The picture: me getting to meet Joss Whedon a few years ago. I think I said “Thanks so much for making awesome stuff and doing this presentation,” and managed to stay fairly calm. But inside it was like “YOU GOT ME THROUGH MIDDLE SCHOOL, I LOVE YOU.”)

 

Wibbly Wobbly Timey Wimey Stuff

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With the clocks shifting ahead an hour on Sunday, you might feel like your sense of time is off. Fortunately, there are two lists of time travel-related reading. We’ll get that hour back somehow!

At The Hub, Sarah Debraski has a great list of mostly YA time travel stories, including Before I Fall by Lauren Oliver (which involves a time loop) and The Midnighters Trilogy by Scott Westerfeld (in which time stands still). At Secrets & Sharing Soda, Katie expands a little to MG, bringing in titles like The Time Trilogy by Madeleine L’Engle (love!).

When I was in middle school, one of my favorite time travel books was Both Sides of Time by Caroline B. Cooney. It had everything I liked–romance, the Victorian era, feminism, vague fantasy/sci-fi elements, and mysteries. When I found out there were sequels, I freaked. (The last one didn’t thrill me, sadly.)

For very mature YA readers (probably junior/senior high schoolers) I’d also recommend The Time Traveler’s Wife by Audrey Niffenegger. I assumed it would be kind of schlocky, but a friend gave it to me with enormous enthusiasm, and I found myself really enjoying it as well.

And of course, if you’d rather watch something about time travel, you need to check out Doctor Who. Immediately.

(image: Emo DJ Steph)

Mixing Colors with OK Go

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OK Go already does musical videos better than anyone else. So of course their work with Sesame Street is stellar:

Another good example of you can take a basic idea (primary colors can mix together to make other colors) and still make it fun and exciting for kids. There’s a lesson in there, but it’s presented in such an engaging way that it doesn’t feel forced at all.

Where the Colberty Things Are

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Maurice Sendak and Stephen Colbert in the same room? It’s a grudge match of hilarity. I’m having issues with the embed codes, so check out part 1 and part 2 of the interview here.

Sneak preview: you get to hear Sendak sing. And swear (or at least the censor bleeps). It makes me love him that much more.

Promises and Why We Needed Jack

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Over at Kidlit.com, Mary Kole has an excellent post about what a writer should promise in the beginning of a novel, and how he/she can deliver on that promise. So often writers start off with some background information and don’t get to the real story until several pages (or chapters) in. But the beginning should be just as much a part of the real story as the rest of the book, instead of just a dumping ground for information about a character’s “normal life.” Kole says:

“If you have to start in a normal setting, at least drop hints. If yours is a ghost story, make your character see eerie shadows that disappear when she looks them head-on. If there are going to be dragons, you better let us know that this is a world that has dragons in it (a news report about dragon shortages playing in the background would be a cliche, but I hope you understand what I mean). If your character will be going on a long journey, drop subtle hints and foreshadowing, like briefly describing walking shoes piled by the door. Whatever. Just think about your story — the core of it, the plot, the arc — and then make sure that the beginning either starts with it or strongly suggests it.”

A lot of times, I think this is a mistake we make in a first draft. You’re just getting to know the characters, so you want to ease into the major conflict. That’s fine, but you’ll need to go through major edits when you start revising. And if you include information early on, make sure they function as part of the larger story. It’s frustrating to spend fifty pages with your main character’s neighbor only to have him disappear and never return. Early on in a book (or movie or play), we want to latch onto characters or places. We need to be invested. If that character or place suddenly vanishes, it’s hard to trust the author.

My husband and I were talking about this the other day in relation to the TV show Lost. The first season in particular is excellent, but originally the writers had planned to introduce one of the main characters, only to kill him off at the end of that episode. It would have been a shock to the audience, but it might have also caused viewers to distrust the writers. At that point, I’m not sure I would have wanted to invest so much time and effort into characters we could lose so quickly. Obviously people died in Lost, but we had enough grounding to understand why those deaths mattered.

I would promise that I don’t watch so much TV, but I really do.

Beginnings require a lot of precision. You need to build a whole world and cast of characters, while still providing a reason for your readers to continue while not bogging them down with information. Again, I think a lot of this can get cleared up in revisions, if you’re willing to make major cuts.

What do you focus on when you start a new story? (image: Lostpedia)