Tuesday, October 30, 2007

Toronto’s Book of the Week

Check it out! Runnerland is the teen book of the week for the Toronto Public Library system.

“This is a great story of a young person living on the edge of survival.”

And a pick of the North Vancouver library too:

“Three days after his father dies, Peter Weir learns that he’s not who he thought he was. He ends up living on the street, and in dangerous company”

Have I told you lately, librarians, how much I love you?

Posted by John Burns at 17:21:35 | Permalink | Comments (1) »

Monday, October 29, 2007

Sunday like / Sunday dislike

What I like:


The remake of I Am Legend, coming out in December. Creepy zombie/vampires take over LA. (Or have they already?) Super-cool animated tailers at Apple.com, or here’s the official trailer…

alt : http://www.youtube.com/v/hX773fMkS90&color1=0×5d1719&color2=0xcd311b&border=0

Plot? Sez Wikipedia:

Neville’s psychological disposition is a significant element in the novel, and his struggles with despair imbue the character with intensity and gravitas. The author emphasizes that he is an ordinary, flawed man trying to deal with an extraordinary catastrophe.

Much of the story is devoted to Neville’s struggles to understand the plague that has transformed everyone he meets except for himself, and the novel details the progress of his discoveries. In this regard, the novel is almost unique in vampire fiction in that instead of asking the reader to accept a supernatural explanation for vampire phenomena, the author strives to offer scientific basis for such symptoms as aversion to garlic, craving of fresh blood, and resistance to bullets but vulnerability to stakes and sunlight. The aversion to mirrors and crosses (or, in the case of one vampire of Jewish origin, the Torah) is classified as psychological.

What I didn’t like: 


Posted by John Burns at 04:28:25 | Permalink | No Comments »

Thursday, October 25, 2007

A Perfect Gentle Knight

Spent the day hand-coding HTML, so I’m just not in the mood for blogging. But on my way to Veronica Mars, I’ll mention this fantastic book you should read, by Kit Pearson.

She’s such an accomplished writer that even if A Perfect Gentle Knight didn’t brim with surprising detail and events, her perfect grasp of child psyches would make it a page-turner. It’s 1957 and the six Bell children are coping with their mother’s death by falling deeper and deeper into the family game of pretend Camelot. But playing and healing are two different things, particularly for 11-year-old protagonist Corrie. The inevitable bruises of growing up are especially painful to witness here, as are the deep losses of childhood.


Posted by John Burns at 05:17:05 | Permalink | No Comments »

Wednesday, October 24, 2007

Awards continue (not) to pour in…

Well, shunned by the Governor General’s Awards and the Canadian Children’s Book Centre book awards, I’m pleased to announce a hat trick.

The Ontario Library Association released the nominees for its various awards - the so-called “tree awards” - and I’m relieved to say I’m not a bridesmaid there either. I’ll look back on all this someday and laugh. Actually, I’ll look back on all this someday and it will all seem a long, long time ago…

Congratulations to Red Maple nominees (for ages 11 to 15):

  • Darkwing, by Kenneth Oppel
  • Endymion Spring, by Matthew Skelton
  • Gemini Summer, byIain Lawrence
  • Pirates Passage, by William Gilkerson
  • The Rise of the Golden Cobra, by Henry T. Aubin
  • Safe as Houses, by Eric Walters
  • Sarah’s Legacy, by Valerie Sherrard
  • Skinnybones and the Wrinkle Queen, by Glen Huser
  • Stolen Away, by Christopher Dinsdale
  • Where Soldiers Lie, by John Wilson

And to the White Pine nominees (ages 14+):

  • Another Kind of Cowboy, by Susan Juby
  • The Blue Helmet, by William Bell
  • The Droughtlanders: Book One in Triskelia Series, by Carrie Mac
  • The End of the World as We Know It, by Lesley Choyce
  • Grist, by Heather Waldorf
  • Keturah & Lord Death, by Martine Leavitt
  • The Song of Kahunsha, by Anosh Irani
  • The Space Between, by Don Aker
  • The Warrior’s Daughter, by Holly Bennett
  • Ysabel, by Guy Gavriel Kay
Posted by John Burns at 05:48:39 | Permalink | Comments (1) »

Tuesday, October 23, 2007

Dumbledore: Gay Power!

I’m delighted that a character from Harry Potter is gay. Now, a younger, sexier, more (like) alive character would have been nice. Even better: one who was out in the books. But still, Dumbledore gay is better than no gay.


And look how freakin’ righteous gay can be (from OOTP):

alt : http://www.youtube.com/v/a6UABZA9ZpA&rel=1

Posted by John Burns at 05:31:54 | Permalink | No Comments »

Sunday, October 21, 2007

Things to feel grateful for

1. A week of public events is over. Event one is over. Event two is over. Event three is over. Event four is over.


2. The library strike is finally over!

3. My friend John Lekich’s YA novel The King of the Lost and Found received a rave review in the paper today. Troy Wilson called it (thesauretically) “funny and poignant, breezy and solid, optimistic and realistic…a multilayered story that rewards reading and rereading”.
Posted by John Burns at 04:29:48 | Permalink | No Comments »

Friday, October 19, 2007

A teacher who made a difference

Way back in the Dark Ages - when I was in high school - I had a few great teachers, plus some real terrors. (Ah, the stories I could tell…)


But sticking to the positive, one English teacher I had was so cool. Byronic sometimes. Tragic. But endlessly interesting and unpredictable. (Is there anything else we really crave as high-schoolers?) He’d throw books and tell us he was wearing a dead man’s clothes. He read us poetry, sometimes his own. He marked like a bastard. He showed me that writing mattered. And writers.

So thank you, Grenfell Featherstone. I’m so glad you had your moment in the sun yesterday. 
Posted by John Burns at 05:43:26 | Permalink | Comments (1) »

Friday, October 12, 2007

For the little darlings, pages to gobble in glee

Ah, the days when I had time to blog…

Swamped these days with work. Partly b/c of the Kids Books Roundup, an October tradition at the Georgia Straight.

They are…

Grumpy Bird (By Jeremy Tankard. Scholastic, 28 pp, $15.99)

Mechanimals (By Chris Tougas. Orca Books, 27 pp, $19.95)

Princess Pigsty (By Cornelia Funke, with illustrations by Kerstin Meyer. Translated by Chantal Wright. Scholastic, 24 pp, $20.99)

A Dog Needs a Bone! (By Audrey Wood. Blue Sky Press, 27 pp, $20.99)

The Magic Beads (By Susin Nielsen-Fernlund, with illustrations by Geneviève Côté, Simply Read Books, 29 pp, $19.95)

Ryan Heshka’s ABC Spook Show (By Ryan Heshka. Simply Read Books, 52 pp, $14.95)

Looking for Loons (By Jennifer Lloyd, with illustrations by Kirsti Anne Wakelin. Simply Read Books, 29 pp, $19.95)

The Witch’s Child (By Arthur Yorinks, with illustrations by Jos A. Smith. Abrams, 30 pp, $20.95)

The Discovery of Dragons: New Research Revealed (By Graeme Base. Abrams, 41 pp, $23.95)

Very Serious Children (By Caroline Adderson, with illustrations by Joe Weissmann. Scholastic Canada, 146 pp, $9.99)

The Wall: Growing Up Behind the Iron Curtain (By Peter Sís. Farrar Straus Giroux, 48 pp, $22.95)

Honey Cake (By Joan Betty Stuchner, with illustrations by Cynthia Nugent. Tradewind Publishers, 95 pp, $16.95)

King of the Lost and Found (By John Lekich. Raincoast Books, 308 pp, $11.95)

The Feathered Cloak (By Sean Dixon. Key Porter Books, 196 pp, $16.95)

A Perfect Gentle Knight (By Kit Pearson. Puffin Canada, 205 pp, $20)

Darkwing (By Kenneth Oppel. HarperCollins, 330 pp, $21.99)

Photo courtesy Kirsti at CWILL.

Posted by John Burns at 05:33:44 | Permalink | Comments (2)