PLR/ELR: Australian books in libraries

The 2007-8 Public Lending Right/ Educational Lending Right Annual Report might not be on the top of your to-read pile, but it's an intriguing look at what's popular in school and public libraries in Australia. It relates to books written by Australian authors, fiction and nonfiction, and on the general lists included, children's literature rates highly. The Appendixes cover popular books over the last year and over a longer time span.

Here's the top twelve from the last year (ELR):

1 Fox, Mem: Possum Magic
2 Vaughan, Marcia K.: Wombat Stew
3 Rodda, Emily: Rowan of Rin
4 Klein, Robin: Hating Alison Ashley
5 Baker, Jeannie: Where the Forest Meets the Sea
6 Rodda, Emily: The Forests of Silence
7 Jennings, Paul: Unbearable: More Bizarre Stories
8 Gleitzman, Morris: Two Weeks With the Queen
9 Jennings, Paul: Unreal! Eight Surprising Stories
10 Marsden, John: Tomorrow, When the War Began
11 Park, Ruth: Playing Beatie Bow
12 Jennings, Paul: Round the Twist

I don't know offhand the publication date of any of these, but my guess is that they're all at least five years old, if not more, which is interesting to note too.

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.