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.

Jim Henson's Fantastic World plays in Peoria

"As children, we all live in a world of imagination, of fantasty, Jim Henson working Kermit the Frog puppet.and for some of us that world of make-believe continues into adulthood," explained Jim Henson.  A fantastic exhibit that touches upon Henson's creativity and the puppets, advertisements, films, and multimedia that he and his collaborators developed is at Peoria's Lakeview Museum.  Jim Henson's Fantastic World, an exhibit organized by the Smithsonian, is particularly good at showing Henson's creative process and how he developed an artist.  It's also an interesting walk down memory lane.  Depending on your age, you'll remember Sir Linit commercials, Sesame Street characters and short number films, The Muppets TV series, the Fraggles, or films, which were short and experimental and later feature films, such as Dark Crystal.  It's not an in-depth exhibit, but an overview.  The exhibit was at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry last year, but it's displayed differently at the Lakeview so that some objects and artwork that you may have missed before now seem more prominent.  That seemed particularly true of the early TV advertisements.

Since it's not just about the Sesame Street characters, young children and their families may be a little Mahna Mahna, Jim Henson sketch, 1971disappointed.  But for fourth graders and up, this is a great show for introducing the spectrum of Henson's work as well as contemplating how people create.  Is it all just fun?  Is it skill?  How much is innate talent and how much hard work?  Just think how amazing it is that Henson  created the original Kermit the Frog from his mother's old spring coat and a ping-pong ball.  It makes you want to see what you can create at home, too.  You'll probably end up singing the "Manha Mahna" song -- have it preprogrammed on our iPod so that you can sing it on the way home. 

You'll also want to buy a bunch of felt-tip markers in lots of colors and doodle for hours afterward.  Henson and his team were ace doodlers and marker masters.  Markers aren't necessarily used so much these days with computers, tablets, and Photoshop.  But they produced results that were lively and wild. (Doodling is still a great inspirational activity.)  It's also amazing that the puppeteers could be given by Henson a somewhat abstract marker rendition of a puppet idea and turn it into a full-fledged puppet with personality.

Jim Henson with some of his most popular Muppet creations.

As the National Geographic wrote in its review of the exhibit, there's something inspiring about a person who passed away more than 20 years ago who continues to influence the world in an amazingly creative way.  Henson said, "My hope still is to leave the world a bit better than when I got here."

Students in my children's literature course can go to the exhibit and write about it for extra credit.  Many did already over ISU's spring break.  If you're in central Illinois and now have kids on spring break, you might want to check out the Lakeview exhibit as a fun adventure.  There's a Culver's nearby and a few other restaurants in the Metro Centro, just north of Lakeview, if you need lunch.  Lakeview also is featuring an interesting photography exhibit from the Smithsonian of up-close images of airplanes and space shuttles, In Plane View: Abstractions of Flight.  If you've ever wanted to see a spy plane details, this is your chance.