Simmons News

The latest Simmons magazine explains that Cathie is heading the 2009 Laura Ingalls Wilder Award Committee! Barbara Elleman is also on the crew.

If you don't remember, the honor is a sort of lifetime achievement award. Past winners:

2007: James Marshall
2005: Laurence Yep
2003: Eric Carle
2001: Milton Meltzer
1998: Russell Freedman
1995: Virginia Hamilton
1992: Marcia Brown
1989: Elizabeth George Speare
1986: Jean Fritz
1983: Maurice Sendak
1980: Theodor S. Geisel (Dr. Seuss)
1975: Beverly Cleary
1970: E. B. White
1965: Ruth Sawyer
1960: Clara Ingram Judson
1954: Laura Ingalls Wilder

Poll Over

July will be Absolutely Positively Not by David LaRochelle and August is The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.

electricity

Zap by Paul Fleischman--

It sounds tacky, but this book was fun fun and I can honestly describe it as a ROMP. Fleischman's foreward left me dubious--cribbing seven plays into one? Sounds confusing. But he successfully took a mess of typical genres apart and slapped them back together. The cross-play travel reminded me of Jasper Fforde's Thursday Next books, if anyone else has read them.

I think my favorite part was when the actors broke character and/or allowed a layer of their personal reality to influence the scene. The fishbowl scene was hysterical.

This was a short book, so I don't have a lot to say besides I really enjoyed reading it and Fleischman continues to amaze me with his myriad storytelling abilities. So many genres, so many methods.