50 Book Pledge | Book #13: Let the Great World Spin by Colum McCann On Monday, February 13, 2012, Seth Godin published a piece entitled “The End of Paper Changes Everything“ for The Domino Project. The premise of the piece was that “[n]ot just a few things, but everything about the book and the book business is transformed [...]
Archive for the ‘Thoughts’ Category
“The Book Itself Is Changed.”
Posted in Thoughts, tagged It's a Book, Lane Smith, HarperCollins Canada, 50 Book Pledge, The Domino Project, Seth Godin, The End of Paper Changes Everything, Let the Great World Spin, Colum McCann on March 8, 2012 | Leave a Comment »
Can Children’s Joy of Reading be Restored?
Posted in In The News, Thoughts, tagged People for Education, Reading for Joy, Should province set targets to boost kids’ love of reading?, Toronto Star on December 15, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
On Monday, December 12, 2011, People for Education released a report entitled “Reading for Joy.” The premise of the report was that while “reading scores have increased in elementary school, children’s” love of reading has declined. In fact, “[t]he percentage of students in grade 3 who report they “like to read” has dropped from 75% in 1998/99 to [...]
Harry Potter — The Boy Who Lives On
Posted in Books, In The News, Multimedia, Thoughts, tagged Harry Potter, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, J.K. Rowling, Margaret Atwood, Pottermore, Pottermore Insider, Twitter, Wandering Wenda on December 1, 2011 | 2 Comments »
What am I reading now? Wandering Wenda by Margaret Atwood Harry Potter. What comes to mind when you hear that name? Hogwarts, Magic, Wizard. Let me throw another in to the mix that, perhaps, you didn’t think of: Longevity. Four years: That’s how long it’s been since Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows was [...]
The Stigma Surrounding Children’s Literature
Posted in Thoughts, tagged Children's Literature, CTV, Darkness Too Visible, Hiccups, Meghan Cox Gurdon, Novel Idea, The Wall Street Journal on August 4, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
On Sunday, July 10, 2011, CTV aired an episode of Hiccups entitled ”Novel Idea.” Here’s a brief summary: After the top mystery author at Haddison House casts aspersions on Millie’s Grumpaloo books, she decides to fully explore her authorship by writing a novel. Ah, sweet ignorance. Some people truly do believe that writing children’s literature is just a matter of stringing [...]
Missing Voices
Posted in Books, Thoughts, tagged Canadian Children's Book News, Changing the Face of Publishing, Jazz in Love, Neesha Meminger, Shine Coconut Moon on April 14, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
The publishing industry is changing. Among the several issues that the industry is currently addressing are green initiatives, social media and technological advancements. However, what the industry fails to address with the same urgency is the lack of voice. There is a need for diversification in the voices that tell our stories. I am by [...]
The Dark Side
Posted in In The News, Thoughts, tagged Dystopian, Grim Hill: Forest of Secrets, Katniss Everdeen, Linda DeMeulemeester, Maggie Stiefvater, Paolo Bacigalupi, Post-Apocalyptic Fiction, Ship Breaker, Shiver, The Dark Side of Young Adult Fiction, The Hunger Games, The New York Times on January 6, 2011 | Leave a Comment »
What am I reading now? Grim Hill: Forest of Secrets by Linda DeMeulemeester On Sunday, December 26, 2010, The New York Times launched a discussion on The Dark Side of Young Adult Fiction by positing that ”the popularity of post-apocalyptic fiction doesn’t seem to be abating.” They posed two questions to their readers: Why do bestselling young [...]
Between the Covers of a Picture Book
Posted in In The News, Thoughts, tagged Kathryn Otoshi, Linda Bailey, Marilyn Singer, Mirror Mirror: A Book of Reversible Verse, One, Picture Books, Robert Paul Weston, Stanley's Wild Ride, The New York Times, Zorgamazoo on November 2, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
What am I reading now? Zorgamazoo by Robert Paul Weston On Thursday, October 7th, 2010, Julie Bosman published an article for the The New York Times entitled ”Picture Books No Longer a Staple for Children.” Bosman illustrated that the decline in picture book sales is the result of numerous factors, most prevalent of which is the overwhelming [...]
The Ambiguous Ending
Posted in Thoughts, tagged Choose Your Own Adventure, Mockingjay, Suzanne Collins, The Ambiguous Ending on August 30, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
What am I reading now? Mockingjay by Suzanne Collins The act of reading is more passive than it is active. Yes, you are reading the words, turning the pages and experiencing real emotions but you don’t have any control over the story itself. Well, unless you’re reading a Choose Your Own Adventure book because here [...]
What do you, the reader, bring to a story?
Posted in Thoughts, tagged A Northern Light, Jennifer Donnelly on June 28, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
What am I reading now? A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly Have you ever been angry with a character’s decision? So angry that you simply can’t understand how he/she can justify it? I have. Actually, it happened to me while reading A Northern Light. After some introspection, I realized that I was placing my personal [...]
The Story Behind the Story
Posted in Thoughts, tagged Harry Potter and Me, J.K. Rowling, Love You Forever, Robert Munsch on January 17, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
If you haven’t already guessed it, I read a lot. Some books have been good, some have been great and a few have been extraordinary. While each book made its impact, however big or small, it’s the extraordinary books that left me pondering a single question: How did the author come up with this? Here’s [...]
