One book, three covers

It is fascinating to see how one book can have a multitude of covers (as I've blogged about previous-like ) - and the assorted, varying, interpretations associated with them.  The Allen and Unwin blog, Alien Onion, has the US, UK and Australian covers for Teen Inc - and a description of the book - in this blog entry .  Worth reading (and seeing).  Which one would trawl in the most kids in your library?

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Interactive best seller list

The Wall Street Journal, source of yesterday's article on vampires, has an extensive book section, including an interactive bestseller list where you can see how fiction and nonfiction rate against each other over time, as well as viewing past bestseller lists. Look at it here.

While it is American-focused, I find lots of useful ideas in the online versions of international newspapers. Had you expected the WSJ to range so far from economic and financial matters?

Real Men Have Fangs: vampires have never been more popular

Pulp genres interbreed as wantonly as alley cats. The vampire novel, once strictly relegated to the horror section, has in recent years infiltrated the romance, science-fiction, fantasy and young-adult shelves of bookstores. Individual authors may specialize in anything from gothic swooning to crime-fighting, globe-spanning action, high-school intrigues, chicklit-style shenanigans and Southern-fried humor.

Whatever the chosen literary mode, however, vampires are pretty much a constant. And while America's men may still regard the vampire as a nasty, blood-guzzling villain who prowls cheap horror films, to female readers he now appears as the latest incarnation of Prince Charming.

Vampires have never been more popular.

From Real Men Have Fangs, by Laura Miller, a thoughtful critical piece in the Wall St Journal that explores, among other things, issues of Edward's (controlling) relationship with Bella in Twilight.

Strange maps

Had you thought of comparing the size of China's provinces (population-wise) with other countries of the world? Nope? Don't need to. This entry from the Strange Maps blog has done it.

There are more things in heaven and earth (and in the blogosphere), Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.*

One to share with the Geography teachers at your school, or just keep an eye on for your own fascination. Maybe a library display possibility, strange map of the week?

*With apologies to Shakespeare, and Hamlet.

Image source

Presidents and Picture Books (first Tuesday in November)

Read the Allen and Unwin blog, Alien Onion , for their take on presidential aspirant picture books (Obama and McCain and Hillary Clinton).

And then read the source article from the New York Times, here.

As Alien Onion says, it's a field unploughed by the Australian picture book industry.  Rudd? Howard? Turnbull? Gillard?  Hmmmmm.

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Inkheart film trailer

There's a film of Cornelia Funke's book, Inkheart, that's close to release - imdb shows no date yet for Australia, but the UK is down for this December, the US January 2009, so it's not far off.  Inkdeath, the third book, will be published very soon, and I have some happy kidlets hyperventilating at that prospect.

Here's the Inkheart trailer from trailerspy (DET users can usually see trailerspy video).  The page's link is below if the video doesn't show for you.  There's also an earlier teaser (usually shorter) trailer there too.

Inkheart Trailer

Trailerspy link to Inkheart trailer page.

Fiction Friday: ALA 2008 Teens' Top 10 & Australia's Inkys.

Found this here.  The longlist is here.  We have all of them but the last in the library, and they've been borrowed regularly.

The 2008 (USA) Teens' Top Ten

The vote is in! More than 8,000 teens voted on this year's winners. The 2008 USA Teens' Top Ten is: 

1. Eclipse by Stephenie Meyer
   
2. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by J. K. Rowling
   
3. Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney
   
4. Vampire Academy by Richelle Mead
   
5. Maximum Ride: Saving the World and Other Extreme Sports by James Patterson
   
6. City of Bones by Cassandra Clare
   
7. The Sweet Far Thing  by Libba Bray
   
8. Extras by Scott Westerfeld
   
9. Before I Die  by Jenny Downham
   
10. Twisted by Laurie Halse Anderson
    

Australia's version of this is the Inkys , results not yet in for 2008.  Inkys longlist is here ; Inkys shortlist (3 Australian, 3 international) is here and shown below.

• Town, James Roy: My brother Kimlan works all night fixing the road. He wears a shirt that reflects the light from the cars. The boss man says that if he does not wear that shirt, no one will be able to see him unless he smiles.
  
• Tales from Outer Suburbia, Shaun Tan: It's funny how these days, when every household has its own intercontinental ballistic missile, you hardly even think about them.
  
• A Brief History of Montmaray, Michelle Cooper: Officially, the head of our household is Uncle John, who is Aunt Charlotte's brother and Veronica's father (and the King of Montmaray), but he's rather distracted on his good days, and downright alarming on his bad ones.
  
• Genesis, Bernard Beckett: …the only thing the population had to fear, was fear itself. The true danger humanity faced during this period was the shrinking of its own spirit.
  
• Boy Toy, Barry Lyga: It was like watching the mating rituals of retarded birds, clumsily stepping the wrong patterns around each other over and over again.
  
• Before I Die, Jenny Downham: I sit up and switch on the bedside light. There's a pen, but no paper, so on the wall behind me I write, I want to feel the weight of a boy on top of me.
  

Off the top of my head, and without checking, I'd say Tales, Montmaray and Before I Die would be the ones of those which have been borrowed regularly from our library.