Children's Lit does well with Academy Awards ... or were kids and films misunderstood?

Martin's Scorsese's film interpretation of Brian Selznick's award-winning graphic novel The Invention of Hugo Martin Scorsese shows Brian Selznick's book to young cast members while filming Hugo.Cabret received five Academy Awards last night.  Pretty impressive.  Not the big picture of the year award -- that went to The Artist. But both films received the same number of awards.  Actually, Hugo was nominated for 11 awards, the most of any film this year. Curiously, too, both The Artist and Hugo are somewhat wistful film meditations on early cinema.

We were glad to read on School Library Journal that Brian Selznick was in the audience at the (former) Kodak Theater.

"Being on the red carpet, being in the room live as the telecast was underway, hearing the name Hugo called five times..., all of it was an experience I will never forget," Selznick told SLJ. "[I]t was really fun to introduce myself to famous people by saying I wrote the book that inspired Hugo and having them throw their arms around me, thank me for the story, and tell me they've seen the movie more than once... and some of them had even read the book and loved it too!"

In addition, the award for best animated short film  went to William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg's The A still from The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr Morris LessmoreFantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore. Here's a link to the 15 minute YouTube video. It's also cool that the film was created by a Moonbot, a Shreveport, Louisiana, studio.  Good to see animation developed in the U.S. and from a studio in the south. It is also available as an Apple app.

The animated film is "a poignant, potent ode to books," according to the Kirkus Review, which seems ironic to incapsulize in an iPhone app.

William Joyce is another imaginative children's picture book author as well as an Emmy-winning television creator of Rolie-Polie Olie and George Shrinks. Disney's 2007 animated film Meet the Robinsons is based on Joyce's book A Day with Wilbur Robinson.

On the other hand...

As YPulse points out today, last night's Academy Award program was not particularly welcoming to tweens or teens.  It began with Billy Crystal putting on Justin Bieber for the "18 - 24 crowd" when, in reality, his core fan base is more 12 - 16 year olds, and primarily girls, too.

Oddly, only two songs were nominated for best song in an era when songs within films, and television shows, are important landmarks to creating a film's environment and atmosphere.  But neither song was performed live.  Why not?  "Man or a Muppet" is such a catchy tune, in an odd way, that even Terri Gross, interviewer of NPR program "Fresh Air," admits she likes it. 

Perhaps Justin Beiber could have performed "Man or a Muppet."  That might have excited Martin Scorsese's daughter, who was sitting next to him during the awards ceremony and looking a bit bored for most of the night.  Or, Why not have Oscar the Grouch present an Oscar?

The final Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - Part 2 was nominated for three Academy Awards, but did not receive a statue in any of them.  Huffington Post's high school blogger Marissa Piazolla understands Harry Potter fan's sadness when the final film failed to recieve an Oscar this time.  In the categories that Harry Potter was running against Hugo, I actually thought Harry Potter had the better achievement.

On a final note, did you watch closely the preview for The Hunger Games?  Didn't it look like the older sister Catnis is giving the Mockingjay pin to her younger sister Prim before the reaping?  But in the book, Catnis receives the pin from the mayor's daughter when Catnis is about to go off to the reaping.  Catnis isn't familiar with the importance of the Mockingjay pin at that point.  Clearly there are changes afoot.

But we're still going to see the film when it opens.

Fairy Tales re-imagined on TV and in books

Mix up traditional fairy tale characters such as Snow White, Prince Charming and Rumplestilskin with literary fairy tale characters such as Pinnochio, the Blue Fairy and perhaps someone from Alice's Adventures in Wonderland with a dose of contemporary fantasy and modern sensibility.  One result is a new television series on Sunday nights on ABC, Once Upon a Time.  This show is for families and fantasy fans while on the darker, flip side fairy tales get the law-and-order, violent treatment with Grimm beginning this Friday night on NBC.

Once Upon a Time intends to draw in readers of Harry Potter as well as the many YA, middle-school and adult books, such as Brandon Mull's Fablehaven series, E. J. Patten's new Return to Exile series, Gail Carson Levine's Ella Enchanted and her subsequent princess books, Shannon Hale's The Princess Academy series, Cressida Cowell's How to Train a Dragon series, the Eoin Colfer's Artemis Fowl series in chapter book and graphic novels, etc.  Combining fairy tales with fantasy and contemporary realism has become a popular story well to mine, accompanied by the elves and dwarves who know the way through the tunnels.Ginnifer Goodwin as Snow White/Sister Mary Margaret

Once Upon a Time stars Ginnifer Goodwin as Snow White and Josh Dallas as Prince Charming who are cursed by a wicked witch played by Lana Parrilla.  The witch's curse seems to be that the characters are transformed into the creepy world of 21st century Storybrook, Maine.

Not that long ago some book publishers, librarians, and adults directing children to books decided that kids did not want to read fairy tales or fantasy.  J.K. Rowlings opened up the floodgates by proving them wrong.  Kids enjoy the excitement, dark turns with usually happy endings, romance, and swashbuckling adventures in these kids of books.  So, it seems that it's about time that television has figured out that a series that interweaves these kinds of tales while still having a PG sensibility might work. 

Obviously, I've just seen one episode and the series is laying the groundwork for the complicated material that is bound to come later.  I do want to point out that there is a significant difference between  traditional fairy tales that the Grimms and others collected and literary fairy tales created by one author, such as Lewis Carroll or L. Frank Baum.  It's just a little unsettling to see the two mixed up so freely here.Josh Dallas as Prince Charming in Once Upon a Time

It's not surprising that Once Upon a Time has roots in the mysterious series Lost; two of that series writers – Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis -- are the creators of this show.  They also worked on the tightly crafted Felicity.

"We love the mish-mash,” Kitsis told the Hollywood Reporter last summer about scenes in which Geppetto interacts with Grumpy, etc. Maybe so, but the mish-mash may become a little confusing as viewers make the connection between fairy tale time and contemporary times.  For instance, Snow White becomes the beloved teacher Sister Mary Margaret in Storybrook.  Or remembering Rumplestilskin from the Shrek films and then from fairy tales and then trying to remember exactly why he was bad.

Maybe there's a need for a fairy tale quick guide. 

Quidditch at ISU

ISU's new Quidditch team plays an amazing season of rough-and-tumble Quidditch.  My family and I enjoyed watching the lively games rendered for Muggle-style as the teams played hard last fall on the ISU Quad. The season seems to have two parts, fall and spring. Here's a link to the team's Facebook page.

Since this week we're studying Harry Potter in one of my classes, I thought I'd post a few photos from a match we saw last fall. The team is definitely worth checking out.  It's an amazing mash-up of book fans with a curiously interesting real game that's a cross between rugby, lacrosse, soccer and broom ball.

Instead of having the golden snitch a flying ball, in the Muggle version it's a person dressed as gold who runs around and hides.The players ride broomsticks while trying to get balls through the hoops.The play can get intense.

The fans are enthusiastic and creative as well.

Twilight vs. Harry Potter

Here's a different take on the Twilight phenomenon "Do Twilight Fans Get Flak Because They're (mostly) Girls?"  The question is that if it was less of a romantic book, and more of an adventure book, similar to the Harry Potter series, then maybe the book wouldn't be so bedeviled by critics.

However, Harry Potter hasn't been as loved by critics as this blog seems to suggest.

Here's an article on all the book banning of Harry Potter. More details about the Potter censorship battles. Here's The New York Times' children's book editor, Laura Miller's take on how long a book takes to become a classic, and why Harry Potter is yet to be one. She also writes about the children's literature publishing world in that article for Salon. Christian bookstores and some Christians haven't been very enamored with the Potter series, either.

The list is endless, but Harry Potter is not particularly beloved among everyone and has taken his hits and arrows. Twilight is paying the price for popularity as well.