Parenthetical.net

A comment on my last post, from ruthling:
“young adult” and “SF/fantasy” books get the double whammy, since no author wants to be painted by the genre brush if they can get away with it at all (see Margaret Atwood, for example).
It’s true, which I find perplexing. The stereotype is that the kids who [...]

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I’ve been meaning to post for awhile about a Dave Itzkoff review in the New York Times that was apparently written to make me cranky. He reviews two works of YA fantasy/sf: China Mieville’s Un Lun Dun (which I enjoyed, if not adored) and Neil Gaiman’s INTERWORLD (which I haven’t read). [...]

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Dude! When I was in elementary school, we watched an educational series called Tomes and Talismans. It never occurred to me to look it up on YouTube until today, but here it is! I had forgotten what it was about, exactly, but according to the blurb by the person who posted it [...]

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Thanks to a full-page ad in the book review journal Book Links, I now have a new favorite publishing company: Magination Press, “Self-Help Books for Kids…and the Adults in Their Lives.” Winning titles include (see if you can guess the theme):
Clouds and Clocks: A Story for Children Who Soil.
Sammy the Elephant and Mr. Camel: [...]

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Be your favorite word! This classroom based their costumes on an alphabet of words. I gather the project was inspired by a book called Ms. Alaineus: A Vocabulary Disaster, which includes a vocabulary parade. Anyway, scroll down and click through the slides. The costumes are homemade and amazing! My favorite [...]

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I went to New York City this weekend to see Paula. After yummy dim sum with Jesse on Sunday, we slogged through the torrential downpours to the American Museum of Natural History to see their new Hall of Human Origins. Now, I am a huge origins of man nerd. I never get [...]

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…You must know how to write a book.
Best Craigslist post I’ve seen lately, in Gigs -> Writing.

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Ok, are these people crazy, or is there actual science backing this up? A librarian recently quit her job at Southwestern College in Santa Fe, “cit[ing] concerns about irradiation” and stating that she “believed that a Wi-Fi hub contributed to feelings of ill health she experienced.” She cited the Council on Wireless Technology [...]

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You’ve probably all seen this already, but we’re in The Onion! It’s not an especially genius article, but still.
And E sent me this: Why Mommy Is a Democrat, “a different kind of children’s book.” I’m sure it’s terrible from a quality-literature perspective, and I’m not generally a fan of such obvious indoctrination. [...]

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Most of the activism I try to get people involved in seems like pushing against an unmoveable tide - the sort of thing where even if we, say, actually build Cape Wind, it’s only a drop in the bucket of the problem of renewable energy. An important drop, but still.
This, though, is just stupid, [...]

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