Bod Triumphant!

It's been a few days since I last looked at my library news.  I usually keep up quite well, but for some reason, the announcements of the Caldecott and Newbery Medals from ALA quite escaped me this year.  I had voted on a librarian's poll for my fav for the Newbery and got quite distracted so didn't check the final outcome.  Wonder of wonders, my author won!!!!!  Congrats to Neil Gaiman for The Graveyard Book.  This is a well deserved honor.  Gaiman's (pronounced like Cayman) work is brilliantly funny, wonderfully creepy and charming.  I can't recommend it enough.  Every child over the age of say, 7 years old, would love to hear about Bod and his adventures in the graveyard.  This is a brilliant read-aloud book.  It is as much fun for the reader as their audience.

I will attach a great YouTube trailer for Gaiman's movie Coraline.  Another charming work, the movie will be out this Friday and ought to be very good.  My daughter (age 10) is not best pleased because Coraline seems too American in the trailers she has seen.  That's a critic for you.  She wanted it to be like the Coraline her father read her in his lovely British accent (not unlike NG's) and to have funny old ladies who sound like French and Saunders. 

For those adults who are still wondering who the heck this guy is, if you saw Stardust, then you know his work.  He has had a longstanding following among the illustrated novel and fantasy/sci-fi fans.  Do yourself a favor and BUY the new book.  Don't wait for it at the library - the waiting list will be out the door!!  This is a classic and should be as much a part of a child's library as Kipling's Jungle Book.