Phyllis Naylor Talks About Alice

Posted on June 11, 2011 at 8:00 am

There’s a great interview in the Washington Post with local author Phyllis Reynolds Naylor about the forthcoming final installment to her popular Alice series of novels, Incredibly Alice. “Alice is fictional, though she is like the daughter that I never had. I had no idea that she would become a series, but she was wildly popular. I wanted her to be a girl without a mother raised by her father and older brother who knew nothing about raising a girl. That is what makes the series funny,” says Naylor. And she has some advice for kids who want to try to write:

I tell them to think about the time when they were most happy, sad or embarrassed and then write a few sentences about those feelings. Then start changing things like the main character, the location or even the ending to make the story fun and exciting. Then you have started with something personal, and it really grew with the help of your imagination!

I’m a big fan of the movie based on her book, “Alice Upside Down,” with Luke Perry, Lucas Grabeel, Alyson Stoner, and Penny Marshall.

Naylor wrote her own piece in the Post a few years ago about Alice and the letters from fans. I liked what she had to say about how important it was to her that her parents read aloud.

My parents, they read aloud to us until we were 14 and 15. It was the late Depression, and we really didn’t have much of anything. But we did have books. They read with great drama. I think Dad read almost all of Mark Twain’s books aloud to us. He imitated all the voices, and I just loved it. And I must have thought, “If it’s so much fun listening to books, it must be even more fun writing books.” And it is.

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Common Sense Media’s Best Book Apps for Kids

Posted on June 8, 2011 at 8:00 am

Common Sense Media has a great list of the best apps to encourage young readers. This is a wonderful way to introduce children to the pleasures of books. I was especially taken with Icarus Swinebuckle. Parents can read aloud, with the text highlighted as they go to help children begin to recognize the words. Then, when they begin to read on their own, they can tap on any word they do not know and hear it said aloud. And I love the way it is inspired by the classic story from Greek mythology.

Smartphones and tablets may have transformed the lives of adults, but the impact they will have on learning for children and older kids will be even greater.

Scholastic is Selling Coal Power — to Children

Posted on May 11, 2011 at 2:34 pm

The Campaign for a Commercial-Free Childhood reports that esteemed publisher Scholastic is sending out “teaching materials” to schools that amounts to a commercial for coal power. The coal industry, through the American Coal Foundation, has hired Scholastic to produce The United States of Energy, sent to tens of thousands of 4th grade classrooms around the country. CCFC says:

Teachers are told that the curriculum aligns with national standards because it teaches children the advantages and disadvantages of different types of energy. But while the lessons do extol the advantages of coal, they fail to mention a single disadvantage. Nothing about the Appalachian mountains chopped down to get at coal seams. Nothing about the poisons released when coal is burned. Nothing about the fact that burning coal is the single biggest contributor to human-created greenhouse gases.

Schools should teach fully and honestly about coal and other forms of energy. However, the materials produced by Scholastic are not genuinely educational; they are industry PR.

With budget cuts and inadequate resources, it is tempting to take advantage of these kinds of “free” materials created with industry support. But schools should not present commercial material as a part of the curriculum — unless it is to teach children how to separate advocacy from objective, balanced information. To protest this slanted information masquerading as a book and degradation of the Scholastic imprint, write to Scholastic CEO Richard Robinson.

Five Inspiring Lines from Tina Fey’s Bossypants

Posted on May 2, 2011 at 3:44 pm

I so enjoyed Tina Fey’s book, Bossypants. It is rushed and uneven in places, understandable given her many full-time roles as producer, star, writer, mother, wife, and America’s sweetheart. Still, the book is very funny and very, very smart. Here are five of my favorite lines:

1. Start with a YES and see where that takes you….The second rule of improvisation is not only to say yes, but YES, AND. You are supposed to agree and add something of your own….It’s your responsibility to contribute.

2. There are no mistakes, only opportunities.

3. A wise friend once told me, “Don’t wear what fashion designers tell you to wear. Wear what they wear.”

4. : “The show doesn’t go on because it’s ready; it goes on because it’s 11:30.” Fey adds, “You have to try your hardest to be at the top of your game and improve every joke until the last possible second, and then you have to let it go.”

5. I suggest you model your strategy after the old Sesame Street film piece “Over! Under! Around! Through!”

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Ralph Lauren Pretends His Catalog is a Book For Kids

Posted on May 1, 2011 at 9:07 pm

Renée Loth writes in the Boston Globe this weekend about Ralph Lauren’s new “book” for children — really a thinly disguised catalog. They’re calling it “The first ever shoppable children’s storybook.’’

“The RL Gang: A Magically Magnificent School Adventure’’ is a 32-page volume, aimed at preschool-age children. Its slim plot involves a group of eight impossibly cute classmates, all dressed in Polo Ralph Lauren finery, with names like Willow, Oliver, Hudson, and River. The junior fashion icons use magical paintbrushes to draw themselves a garden party that comes alive, complete with ice cream and kittens.

Woozy yet? Reading along in the online video version — narrated by Uma Thurman — parents and kids can take a break to “look inside Oliver’s closet,’’ for example, and buy the twee outfits. “The RL Gang’’ is touted unblushingly as “an innovative way for parents and children to explore style, literature, and digital technology together.’”

It’s bad enough when product placement makes movies and television shows into infomercials and cross-promotions turn all kinds of products and almost-always unhealthy food into promotions for movies and television shows. But this is essentially a catalog designed to sell very expensive clothes to children, who are not old enough to understand the fast-disappearing line between writing and pictures that are intended to tell a story based on imagination, experience, and heart and writing and pictures designed to make you think you want things you would otherwise never have thought about.

To complain: CustomerAssistance@RalphLauren.com