Reading Rumpus: Serendipity Saturday

So many good things popping up in reading and education, I thought it was time for a good old serendipity post.

It's been 50 years since Where The Wild Things was published, 50 years of children who have been influenced by Max and the Wild Things. Each new baby born to my family and friends gets a copy from me. If a child is going to have a library, and all of the children I have even the slightest influence over WILL have a library, it is going to include Where The Wild Things Are. So it was bittersweet to see the posthumous publication of Maurice Sendak's last finished work, My Brother's Book. It is sad to contemplate, once again a year later, what a great loss Maurice Sendak's death brings to children's literature. There is a good reflection on the brilliance of the man and a comparison of his work to Shakespeare from Harvard humanities professor and forward writer for My Brother's Book, Stephen Greenblatt, in the NY Times, HERE. But perhaps a closer insight on Sendak's final opus might come from his close friend, Tony Kushner, on NPR:

"There's a lot of consuming and devouring and eating in Maurice's books. And I think that when people play with kids, there's a lot of fake ferocity and threats of, you know, devouring, because love is so enormous, the only thing you can think of doing is swallowing the person that you love entirely."

You can read or listen to it on NPR's Morning Edition. And it seems fitting that NYC will name an elementary school after Sendak ( HERE).

It's been awhile, but I don't think I will ever find a Google Doodle I love more! Just in case you missed it: 200th anniversary of Grimm's Fairy Tales Google Doodle

Educator & read aloud proponent Jim Trelease tells us once again why we all need to be reading aloud to lots of kids at greatschools.org: (found via Jen Robinson's Book Page)

CYBILS winners were announced on Valentine's Day and the winner for Middle Grade SciFi & Fantasy is The False Prince. I enjoyed the book very much, was happy it went on our short list to the final judges and am happy that it won the whole shebang. Since I haven't reviewed it, I will send you over to fellow first round panelist Charlotte of Charlottes's Library for a great look at it: HERE.

Has it been 15 years??????? Time for a new cover for Harry & Hagrid. Squee!

Always interesting viewpoints on Educating Alice. This time it is a look at the introverted student's needs: HERE.

Even though I am late to the party, once again, I am so glad I found Shawn Cornally's blog: ThinkThankThunk. He sees education reform very close to my own thoughts. It's REALLY time for educators to become activists. Watch his TEDx talk. It gets really good around 11:10.

A book that I want to read SOON:

The Boy Who Cried Bigfoot
(from a great post on 7-Imp)