M.I.A.

In case you haven't noticed, I've been MIA on reviewing for a few days, okay about a week. I promise more reviews are forthcoming, I've been reading some great books. Many thanks to my wonderful guest bloggers for contributing to the Reviewing the Classics of Kidlit series.

Check out AWN.com. I left a year and a half ago because of my wonderfully bad move to San Diego and have been trying to get back ever since. Luckily, they like me about as much as I like them and they re-hired me. The past few weeks have been wonderful, but exhausting. I've been getting home so late that I don't even cook - just hit the bed, sometimes dressed and fall asleep.

AWN is an acronym for Animation World Network. What we are is a completely online publication that writes about animation and visual effects. We've been in business going on twelve years and have every bit of pretty darned fabulous content online and available to the animation loving public. We're a community resource, a wealth of information, we have a store, we have an incredible Animation Industry Database (aidb.com) which I'm currently updating and cleaning up. There are articles, images, showreels, an Oscar Showcase, an animators showcase and lots of goodies. We have our visual effects site VFXworld.com and those articles are just as wonderful as those on AWN. I could go on and on for hours but the bottom line is AWN is a great place to find online, it's a great place to work and I'm happy to be back. I should be back online with reviews in the next couple of days now that things are calming down a bit and I'm getting used to my crazyloca schedule.

So pull up a chair and come visit AWN. They have book reviews too! Animation ones. Check out the fabulous tribute they did to Joe Barbera.

See ya soon.

Gina

Reviewing the Classics of Kidlit - The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler - Reviewed by Elizabeth Lund

The Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler
Author: E.L. Konisburg
Publisher: Atheneum
ISBN-10: 068985322X
ISBN-13: 978-0689853227


When I reread The Mixed-Up Files, I can hardly believe it was written in 1968. Though the amount of Claudia's allowance and the price of The New York Times reveal its age, few books from that era retain such a contemporary feel.

For those who aren't familiar with the book, The Mixed-Up Files is about Claudia and Jamie Kinkaid, two suburban siblings who, fed up with the rest of their family, run away to The Metropolitan Museum of Art. The adventure becomes a mystery when they become determined to discover the true origin of a statue named angel, reputed to be the work of Michelangelo. Claudia's careful planning makes their escape and survival plausible. Jamie's practical nature and eye-rolling attitude keep Claudia from getting too romantic. The siblings complement each other and form a partnership that is at first grudging, later affectionate, making this a book with both boy and girl appeal.

I still think this is a nearly perfect premise for a middle-grade novel. It may not grab immediate attention, but in its simple plot, there are elements to appeal to many different segments of child readers: mystery lovers, kids intrigued by the romance of big cities, kids who like art and museums (such kids exist; I was one of them), and the nearly universal appeal of a story about running away.

And yet The Mixed-Up Files is so much more than its plot. Konigsburg works philosophy into these pages: ideas about secrets, learning, our need for comfort, and the isolation of modern life. Most importantly, she explore what make someone an individual rather than a member of a school class, a member of a family, or someone who defined simply by the motions of their daily lives.

Each detail in The Mixed Up Files is carved as carefully as Michelangelo's fictional angel. I remember precisely such images as the strip of white flesh between Jamie's jacket and sagging trousers when he fills his pockets with change, the deep black tub with golden faucets, the meals they eat from the Automat. The language is equally thoughtful. Decades after I first read this book, sentences such as, "Bedtime is the worst time for organized thinking," still ring in my mind.

Far from being outdated, The Mixed Up Files becomes increasingly relevant. Jamie and Claudia are described as siblings who were so busy with activities that they never really spent much time together, a situation that is certainly even more common today than in the sixties. They're suburban. They're consumers, with Claudia's spending of her paltry allowance described as "her biggest adventure each week." And they feel the emptiness of their busy lives. That is why they run away—as Claudia puts it, to "come back different."

By the end, she is different, and so are we.

Thank you Liz B and all you wonderful contributors!

About a month ago I posted a Call for Guest Bloggers on AmoxCalli to review and recommend those wonderful old books we grew up with, books I consider classics of kidlit. I got some responses and lists of books people wanted to review which were fantastic. I knew of most, some I had never heard of and I'm looking forward to finding out more. I'm pretty excited about this new series, The Classics of Kidlit.

A couple of days ago, Liz B posted a link on her blog, A Chair, A Fireplace and a Tea Cozy (one of my favorites) to my Call for Guest Bloggers post and already I've recieved some lovely comments and responses with even more lists of great books. Today, another lovely comment from Becky at Farm School Blog as well as a post on her site about the series.

To all of you who responded to my call, to Liz for nudging it along, to all you wonderful bloggers, librarians, homeschoolers and everyone that loves YA and Kidlit, thank you, thank you, thank you! It's been a dream of mine to do this and I so appreciate everyone's contribution to that dream. I'm so looking forward to your wisdom, your insight, your wonderful ways of seeing things in books and most of all, sharing those great books and your thoughts about them.

If I missed anything or anyone, let me know.

This is going to be so much fun!

Gina