Great upcoming local literature & film events

It's really spring!  The birds are chirping, tulips are blooming, and cool local children's literature and film events are coming up for central Illinois.

Whenever Candace Fleming comes to town it's a treat and she'll be here this Saturday, April 16, from 2 to 3 pm at the Normal Public Library.  Perhaps my favorite book of hers is The Lincolns: A scrapbook look at Abraham and Mary. Others in our house have enjoyed her chapter book The Fabled Fourth Graders of Aesop Elementary School and there's a new book about Fifth Graders. One of her most recent is the picture book Muncha! Muncha! Muncha!. We are reading her new book Amelia Lost about Amelia Earhart. After her talk, there will be refreshments and books available for purchase and autographing.

We'll be running over to the TheatresCool in downtown Bloomington shortly after that on Saturday to see the Broadway Workshop Performance: Comedy Tonight! directed by Cristen Susong.

Celebrate El Dia de los Ninos/El Dia de los Libros (Day of the Child/Day of the Book) on Saturday, April 30, at the Bloomington Public Library.  The fourth annual event, from 11 am to 1 pm, will feature a local soccer star, Dora the Explorer, an authentic Mexican band, Mexican crafts, and Mexican food.  Reading is important in all languages.

Finally, one of the highlights of the year is always going to EbertFest, the film festival at the University of Illinois-Champaign-Urbana, that celebrates Roger Ebert, films he enjoys, and the people who create them.  Even though Ebert's health is not as good as when the festival started, he continues to be an enthusiastic champion for great filmmaking.  This year the festival is April 27 - May 1.  It'sAt EbertFest a few years ago. held, once again, at the beautiful Virginia Theater, 203 W. Park Ave., in downtown Champaign. 

The experience of watching a film in the Virginia Theater with about 700 film enthusiasts on a beautiful spring afternoon when we all could be outside is always such a treat.  The people who go to EbertFest just love films.  They applaud, they clap, they laugh, they weep -- their participation as an audience makes the interesting films Ebert chooses even more wonderful to watch.  Then afterward, a key person from the film (usually the director or an actor) talks about the film.  Yep, right in central Illinois it's Hollywood for a few days.

Also, although festival passes sell out months in advance, we have always had success getting a ticket for specific films.  You just wait in line for about 20 to 30 minutes beforehand and you'll get a seat.  Maybe not the best seat on the main floor.  But we've always had a good seat.  Don't miss the opportunity.

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.

ENG 470 Course Description for Fall 2011

Now available for those scheduling their classes for next fall: the course description for English 470: Studies in Children’s Literature.  The topic will be Tween Literature & Culture.  For a complete course description with tentative book list, click here for a .pdf file.

This course will examine the often times confusing and contradictory world of middle school literature.   We from The Diary of the Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney, a book we'll be reading next fallwill attempt to explore the growth of tween literature that has been produced in part with the development of middle schools in the United States since the 1960s, while looking at several influential examples from earlier time periods.  Many of these texts attempt to provide younger readers with a transition from childhood to adolescence as they progress from the sixth to eighth grade.  We will attempt to slip inside those overstuffed backpacks and lockers and try to understand some of the physical, social, and emotional concerns and issues that tweens face in contemporary culture by reading some of the books they are either assigned in school or that they are reading on their own outside of class.  Since this age group gains much of its information and entertainment from other sources, in addition to books we will also be examining other texts that tweens consume including magazines, television, films, music, and new media.

Middle School is Worse than Meatloaf, by Jennifer Holm, another book we'll be reading next fall in ENG 470Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, also on the ENG 470 reading list

World Read Aloud Day March 9

An interest and the ability to read starts with hearing others read.  According to the organizers of World Read Aloud Day, "Nearly 1 billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their name."  Last year, the organizers of World Read Aloud Day had people reading aloud in 35 countries.  Events are scheduled throughout the world.

Many books created for children are great for reading aloud so if you need a particular day to encourage yourself to reading to a child, to a teen or an adult, consider World Read Aloud Day a good reason.  This might be a time to find again a favorite poem, a passage from a chapter book or a picture book.  Or, it might be an impetus to volunteer in classrooms and after school programs that could benefit from an adult reading to children.

March certainly has many days emphasizing reading as well as Women's History Month, Youth Art Month, Mardi Gras, Lent, St. Patrick's Day, ComicCon in Chicago, the Ides of March, and, of course, the hopefulness of the beginning of spring.

Course descriptions for my summer & fall classes

Potential students at ISU for this summer's ENG 375: Young Adult Literature and next fall's ENG 272: Literature for Middle Grades can now read course descriptions and book lists for the sections that I will be teaching.

Course description for ENG 375: Young Adult Literature (in .pdf format). This is a four-week, intensive summer-session class that will meet Monday-Thursday 1--3:50 p.m from May 26 to June 9. Be prepared for a considerable amount of reading and writing during an interesting and challenging four-week course.  Attendance is crucial. Since you'll have the book lists, you might want to get a head start on reading now, if you're enrolled in this course.

Course description for ENG 272: Literature for Middle Grades (in .pdf format).  This course will be taught during the Fall 2011 semester and focuses on texts for children 9 - 13.  We will read fiction, including multicultural novels, non-fiction, including information books, and examine children's media and culture.  Be prepared for writing a research paper, a short paper, and several short writing assignments as well as pop quizzes and two exams.

As usual, I expect students to attend class regularly and to actively participate in class discussions. These courses have exams that you will be required to take.

For those of you interested in ENG 470: Topics in Children's Literature, the topic is going to be Tween Literature and Culture.  I am working on that course description.  Any graduate student who's interested might look at ENG 272 for some of the primary texts.  However, it will be different in scope and will have assignments and discussions geared toward the graduate-student level.  I think that there is a need to critically examine this popular and fast-growing segment of children's literature and culture, particularly for graduate students in children's literature.