Happy 10 Years Raising Readers!
Curious City is honored to have been the Book Consultant for Raising Readers for the last six years. What an organization. What an impact on the educational future of the state of Maine. 1.3 million books given to Maine children. Thank you Libra Foundation! Share...
read moreSteampunk Invasion
“Love the Machine. Hate the Factory” So goes one of the anthems of the Steampunk movement, a social, literary, historical, dystopic, alternative phenomenon that Cory Doctorow calls a “big vat of awesome.” Steampunk (in the words of the panel at School & Library Journal’s Day of Dialog) honors an alternative history where we did not lose our relationship with machines. Each machine in the Steampunk sensibility is still hand-rendered, hand-maintained, and lovely in the eye of the creator and beholder. Steampunk...
read moreBreast, Breast, Breast
There. I said it. Let’s all say it. Charlotte Agell just received a grand review from Kirkus for her upcoming chapter book, The Accidental Adventures of India McAllister. The book contains India’s quite declarative thoughts on the world and her sweet sketches. The Kirkus reviewer remarked in the end, “In some communities, the sketch of the plaster breast that hangs on the family’s living-room wall may provoke more than giggles.” As India says in the book, “Why do breasts make people act funny?” You can...
read moreMeasure Up?
A round Victorian cheer for the release of Kathleen T. Pelley’s new picture book illustrated by S.D. Schindler, Magnus Maximus, A Marvelous Measurer (FSG) and the release of her book trailer produced by those folks at Curious City! Share...
read moreComic Appearance
Why does the intelligent sentence abandon me when the cameras are turned on me? Curious City talking comics on WCSH6 in honor of our pals at Casablanca Comics and Free Comic Book Day. Thanks Brett Whitmarsh of WCSH6 for your love of comics and (as always) grand reporting. Share...
read moreMagnus in the Studio
The picture book, Magnus Maximus, A Marvelous Measurer by the grand Kathleen T. Pelley lands on bookstore shelves this month so I landed in Mind’s Eye Productions to record the audio for Kathleen’s upcoming book trailer. Under the direction of the voice actor and audiobook producer, Bill Dufris, actor and narrator, Christopher Price played the fine elderly Victorian gentleman, Magnus –a man quite taken with determining, “whose who, what’s what, and the long and the short of the thing.” Look for the trailer...
read moreTo Pose or Not to Pose?
To Enter or Not to Enter, that is the question. Clearly, you should enter, my dear Hamlet. Yes, indeed, it is time for the Hamlet Look-Alike Contest. Print, Pose, Photograph, and you could win a copy of the Total Tragedy of a Girl Named Hamlet by Erin Dionne and a Shakespeare action figure. Teachers posing could win an entire classroom set! Why the contest? What is more visually linked to the name Hamlet than the brooding gaze at the skull of dear Yorick? Photos will be posted on all social media and tagged with the title creating a...
read moreUnderstanding Courage
Had the honor of appearing at the National Art Education Assosciation’s Art Education & Social Justice Conference in Baltimore last week. I spoke about the Understanding Courage Project, a community project co-created by Curious City and based on the life of Claudette Colvin as outlined in the book Claudette Colvin: Twice Towards Justice by Phillip Hoose. Curious City was happy to join Simon Adams, David Shennett (above), and Kelly McConnell from Maine College of Art as they presented their design of the art project at the center of...
read moreTragically Embarassing!
Just launched the book trailer for Erin Dionne’s hilarious heroine, Hamlet whose Renaissance Fair-going, Shakespeare scholar parents are (you guessed it) tragically embarrassing! A HUGE thanks to the Martell family who run the fabulous children’s costuming company, Shire Attire for sharing their 20 years of Renaissance photos and stories and serving with humor and grace as Hamlet’s model family. Thanks too to artist Jamie Hogan for illustrating Yorick, Hamlet’s chorus in the book trailer and my, oh, my to the amazing...
read morePullman on Censorship
How I do adore and respect our man, Philip: Philip Pullman, addressing an audience at the Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford, was asked about whether his latest book, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ, was offensive. Here’s his reply: “It was a shocking thing to say and I knew it was a shocking thing to say. But no one has the right to live without being shocked. No one has the right to spend their life without being offended. Nobody has to read this book. Nobody has to pick it up. Nobody has to open it. And if you open it and...
read more