Kids' Book News

In kids' book news, it seems that a ton of kids books are being made into films. I haven't yet seen Because of Wynne Dixie or Narnia, but I will do one of these days. Personally, I loved A Series of Unfortunate Events in film almost as much as I loved the book version. Some adults worry that kids won't want to read the books once they've seen the film, but I think it's sort of like eating apples versus apple pie. Just because I like apple pie doesn't mean I'm never going to eat apples again. for example, I loved the movie version of The English Patient because it was visually stunning, but the book was as much or more of a masterpiece of lyrical language. Watch for the film version of Where The Wild Things Are among others.

It isn't exactly a surprise, but I'm not the only Katherine Paterson fan out there. I was scanning through the archives of the kids section of Publishers Weekly online journal and came across this:

"Katherine Patterson has been awarded the 2006 Astrid Lindgren Award for Literature, given by the Swedish government. It is the largest paying international award dedicated to writers of children's books; the author will receive five million kronor, or $640,000. Paterson has won two Newbery Medals (in 1978 for Bridge to Terabithia and in 1981 for Jacob Have I Loved) and a Newbery Honor (in 1979 for The Great Gilly Hopkins). The award will be presented on May 31 in Stockholm."

All for now.