My Baby Banana

In May singer and actress Debi Derryberry launched her new website My Baby Banana. She's best known as the voice of Jimmy Neutron, but this site is a platform for her music and music videos; it has information for grown-ups about her performances and releases, plus some videos, games, activities, and so forth for the kids. The launch, it appears, coincided with the release of a tropical themed CD, and the video on the site's main page will quickly bring out the little calypso dancer in your tyke. 

Here's a short review/endorsement by the IE Mommy. (It included a contest that is now closed, but it's a good note from someone who's heard more of the music than I have.)

My Latest Library Post: Dallas

This is the J. Erik Jonsson Central Library in downtown Dallas. I've never been to the city but I recently came across a few items that resonate with what I've written about libraries here in New York and in Philly and elsewhere. Like in other cities, the Dallas public library system is having its financial woes as the municipal budget is cut. But this central unit could be in an even worse predicament due to a recent emphasis on renewing other areas of downtown with a new arts center and other architecturally daring new buildings--not to mention a lot of attention diverted to the Trinity River project and other things going on in the greater Dallas-Ft. Worth area. The possible result: that the central library could fade in importance and fall into disuse, disrepair, and disregard as patrons use the branch libraries and head to the newer venues downtown.

That's why I was pleased to read this story by Willard Spiegelman in last month's D Magazine. (Yes, I do indeed read D Magazine.) In it he reports that, despite this potential neglect, the library remains as central as ever. It is well used and well kept, and I'm sharing this because I think it's true of most libraries across the country. Patronage is up and librarians are responding with remarkable vigor, keeping things running, advocating for increased (or maintained) budgets, improving collections, serving job seekers and other community members, and even developing an innovative program or two. 

The latter is true in Dallas, though it predates the recession by a few months (particularly since, as I understand it, the recession came to Dallas a bit later than other parts of the country). But I am referring to Bookmarks, the city's first library exclusively for children that opened just over a year ago. A branch library devoted exclusively to kids is pretty unique in and of itself. What makes this even more of an entity to watch is its location in the NorthPark Shopping Center, an indoor shopping mall in the northeast part of the city. The idea was evidently to situate the library in a trendy new venue that would Bookmarks that would attract children anyway. I don't have any report on how it's doing, but hope use is up--despite a decrease in consumer spending at the surrounding stores! Here is Bookmark's official site, complete with an extensive line-up of kid and toddler entertainment, and here is a short article about its opening last June 13th (2008). Here's the main page for the Dallas Public Library. Good luck to them and librarians in every city, big and small. 

Original Transformers DVDs

I confess to not having seen either of Michael Bay's films yet--I suppose one day I will, after I work through the entire Roberto Rossellini Eclipse series--but I am the world's greatest connoisseur of the original Transformers cartoons. Now, piggybacking on the success of the films and in celebration of the series' twenty-fifth anniversary, two DVD collector sets are in the works.

Ah, the good old days, when Optimus Prime actually still looked like a semi truck in his robot mode...

Here is an April 21 article by Emily Claire Afan of KidScreen. The first DVD set was released in mid-June, with the second, more robust, version still forthcoming or just hitting the shelves now:

"Transformers fans will be able to get their DVD fix soon, as Hasbro and Shout! Factory have entered production on The Transformers: The Complete First Season 25th Anniversary Edition DVD box set, slated for a June 16 release.

"The set (SRP US$29.99) features all eps from season one of the original 1980s series, with remastered audio, bonus content and is packaged with a collectible Autobots magnet.

"Also in development is the 16-DVD The Transformers: 25th Anniversary "Matrix of Leadership" Edition Collector's Set (SRP US$29.99), with more than 38 hours of content, including the entire original animated G1 series, extras and special collectible book, slated for a mid-July release."

There's more info at the Shout! Factory website, plus something about a G.I. Joe collectors' set as well...  Or you can buy the thing--for a mere $15!--at Amazon.

WordGirl's Summer Road Trip

There's good news for all WordGirl fans waiting for new episodes: WordGirl is going on summer vacation, and that means new episodes today and tomorrow and fan favorites the rest of the week. See how excited Bob is?

I'm obviously posting too late to be much help for today, but one of tomorrow's episodes seems to be about saving the city's candy supply, which involves an encore appearance by one of the least-seen villains, the Birthday Girl. The second episode is about Chuck the Evil Sandwich Making Guy and his much more successful brother. I'm anxious to see how he combs his hair, if his head is ever on screen, that is. Here is the full story from Animation Magazine, with a schedule for Wednesday and Thursday as well. I've seen all of those episodes and thought they were all pretty great.

If you missed my mentioning it a couple weeks ago, WordGirl has been renewed for a third season. 

Also, if you like Chuck the Evil Sandwich Making Guy as much as I do, you might want to swing by my own website to see the sample script I wrote entitled "Duck! Soup!" (that's a link to a pdf; here's the page of all nine of my sample television scripts). (Oh, and there's no Marx Brothers beyond the title.)

Little Airplane Cafe

Ever wander around lower Manhattan and get a hankering for a stick of celery? Well now all your problems are solved! Little Airplane Productions, creators of Wonder Pets, 3rd & Bird, and the new interstitial Tobi! opened their doors yesterday to create their newest venture, the Little Airplane Cafe. The cafe is located at the studio at South Street Seaport (207 Front Street, actually). I'm not sure exactly how the layout works, since the studio itself doesn't have any street-level space, but my hunch is that it's up one flight of stairs in or around the space that has housed Little Airplane's gift shop. 

I also don't know for sure if celery's on the menu, but I do know that a series of children's music stars will be performing on various dates. Yesterday's opening was hosted by kids' DJ Mindy Thomas of the Absolutely Mindy Show and featured Laurie Berkner. Never fear if you missed that: Milkshake is coming up, as well as a reading by Stinky Cheese Man author Jon Scieszka. 

Here's a press release on the new space, and here's the cafe's page on Little Airplane's website. I suspect that future events will be posted there. 

Two Annotated Wind in the Willows

We recently celebrated the centennial of one of the great children's books of all time, Kenneth Graham's The Wind in the Willows. Though that event was last year, the festivities are continuing. Most recently there has been the publication of two commemorative annotated editions. One is by Seth Lerer for Harvard UP (the Belknap imprint, actually), and the other by Annie Gauger for Norton. 

Both of these editions were reviewed in today's New York Times by Charles McGrath. I don't agree entirely--or much at all--with his evaluation that the Toad material is the thematic center of the work; I myself was much more drawn into the elegiac, nostalgic portions involving Rat and Mole. But that is of course an eternal point of controversy. The point is that both new editions reveal much fascinating material amidst other moments of tedium (too much annotation, evidently, doth not a classic make). You can read the review here. 

A Sneak Peak at WordWorld

Today WordWorld LLC sent me a link to two clips of WordWorld that are set to debut on July 13. I don't often get to post sneak peak clips up here, so I thought I would do so now. Here's the link. 

New News on Educational Video Games

I've lately come across a few items about how video/computer games can help youngsters learn. I remember explaining the benefits of hand-eye coordination to my mother when I was a kid, but research today has gone well beyond that. 

On June 23 the KidScreen newsletter reported on a new study by the Joan Ganz Cooney Center that basically uncovered new and unexpected ways in which games can be beneficial. Here's that summary, by Emily Claire Afan. The actual report, of course, is available for download at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center publications webpage. (Those who want to scroll down on that page will also find a lot of other great studies--I'll have to find time to read all of these soon.) 

There's a lot of other material out there about this. Just browsing around I came across this two-year-old article on the subject. It lists a lot of game names, which are now obviously two years old, but it's still a good guide for seeing the kinds of things that are out there, especially for a fellow like me who hasn't really played games since the original NES (i.e. there's more to educational gaming than squashing walking mushrooms).

Along those lines and perhaps most exciting of all is the creation by the National Geographic Society of a video game unit, National Geographic Games. Here's the press release from last November. What's particularly cool about this, for me, is the apparent range of what they're going to undertake, particularly that they're going to make games for preschoolers and for older kids and even grown-ups too. In the former category we have National Geographic: Panda, seen below, in which kids can care for a panda like a pet, learning about its habitat, etc., and hopefully really coming to care about the real animals. Here's a review from Tech Talk for Families.

In the grown-up category the press release describes NGG's first release, Herod's Lost Tomb, which is history, archaeology, and heaven knows what else all wrapped up in one. 

Little Golden Book Art on Tour

The Little Golden Books were launched in October 1942, soon after America's entry into World War II when publishers like Simon and Schuster needed cheap and quick books that could inspire a devoted following ("develop a brand," we might say today). The series launched with twelve original titles and, as I recall the history, took off immediately. Librarians and arbiters of high culture for children's literature bemoaned the things, but parents and kids ate them up. At 25¢ a title, one could hardly resist them. For anyone really interested in the history of the books, their initial controversy, and subsequent imitators in the publishing industry, I recommend Leonard Marcus's Minders of Make Believe, published last year, which goes into great detail about their creator Georges Duplaix and all of those things (here's a New York Times review). Eventually those cultural gatekeepers had to acquiesce to public opinion and allow the books on their shelves, although often begrudgingly--particularly after Simon and Schuster struck a deal with the Walt Disney Company. (Marketing movies in children's literature? The Philistines had entered the temple!)

But what these folks began to realize and what the children had known all along was that, despite their bargain price, low-quality binding, and rapid publication, the Little Golden Books were really pretty amazing. The stories and the artwork were occasionally ephemeral but quite often top-notch. And soon people realized that some of the age's best authors and illustrators were putting out some of their best work under the label, people like Garth Williams, Elizabeth Orton Jones, Gustaf Tenggren, J. P. Miller, Mel Crawford, Feodor Rojankovsky, Tibor Gergely, Martin Provensen, Eloise Wilkin, Mary Blair, Hilary Knight, and Richard Scarry. These illustrators were putting out stuff that looked like this:

I have no recollection of ever reading this last title, with illustrations by Tibor Gergely. But I firmly recall strong feelings of attachment to this little tugboat; whenever I thought of him I felt incredibly important and belonging, to the point that for years I thought the Mormon children's song "Give, Said the Little Stream" was about him.

Well, the books turned 65 a few years ago, and the good folks at the National Center for Children's Illustrated Literature in Abeline, Texas put together a traveling exhibition of much of the original artwork. It's been touring around the country since then--it's already had its stay at the CMOM here in New York--and may soon be coming near you because it's not just hitting the major cities. In my traditional form, then, here are some links that can give further information:

First of all, the actual web page for the exhibition on the NCCIL website. The site is great for electronic samples of the artwork (not what I have above, but from inside the books) and a brief description of what the exhibit entails, plus a full schedule through January 2012. 

Right now it's housed at the Joslyn Art Museum in Omaha, through September 7. Here's the news release (pdf) from that institution. 

Here, for some more background info, is the Little Golden Books site, in honor of their 2007 anniversary. (They're currently owned by Random House.) There's lots of information as well as a newsletter and games and printables for the youngsters.

There are also many titles for sale there, which reminds me that other websites are resources for serious collectors, like this one and this one. 

Try to get to the exhibit if it comes near you, and at any rate try revisiting these titles with your kids. We just read The Monster at the End of This Book with Loretta and she loved it. We have about five books on our shelves, but just glancing at the list of titles I realize how many there are that I loved as a child that I'd like to introduce her to. Much of the books' marketing today relies on this nostalgia factor, but I'm aware of it and still think they're worth showing my daughter. A good book, after all, is always golden.

Donnell Library Part 3

Although I'm not the foremost expert and I live as far away in Manhattan as you can, I have been able to write twice in the past year about the saga of the closing of the Donnell Library in midtown. In July I mentioned that the library, which is located right across the street from the Museum of Modern Art (which was recently extensively remodeled), was slated for closure to make way for a new hotel; the majority of its holdings, including the New York Public Library's main film/video and children's collections (with the original Winnie-the-Pooh dolls), would be moving to other branches, while the NYPL would be maintaining a small general collection on the ground floor of the hotel. Specifically for our purposes, the children's material has returned back to its original location in the main library on 42nd Street and 5th Avenue, where it was housed for decades before the Donnell's construction. 

Then this April I gave a quick update: the library closed on schedule, but with the recession gutting the real estate and tourism industries in New York City the NYPL's deal with the hotel fell through and the building is now standing essentially vacant. Many residents were upset when the library was slated for replacement, but now that it's simply been eliminated with no financial restitution for the NYPL or potential for even a small branch on 53rd Street, there are quite a few New Yorkers who are up in arms. 

So here for example we see a protester at the opening of the new Grand Central branch on April 29, even though it was supposed to alleviate some of the displeasure over the Donnell's closing. Now people have begun to coalesce together to advocate city and state officials to refurbish and reopen the Donnell. 

Now I am not an expert by any means--I've been focusing all my "political" spare time advocating for better school zoning and gifted and talented options for District 6 with the NYC Department of Education--but I do have some links and cursory info that can point people in the right direction if they want to get involved, or delve into the library's perspective in all this. This comes from Helen Chirivas, one of the chief organizers--so I'd like to thank her for contacting me and for her work despite my inability to be more involved myself. So here it is:

It's no secret that libraries across the country are in crisis as municipal governments run out of funds. I've written very briefly about what's going on in Philadelphia, for instance, but New York is no different. So the blog/site Save NYPL is written by an anonymous librarian with a brief insider perspective about what's going on inside the library, especially the extreme measures that are taking place to keep the entire system above water. This is the reality with which activists and administrators will have to work. And it puts the Donnell in the larger context of keeping the extant branches open six days a week, etc. (It appears this blog may have had more entries in the past that the poster has since deleted, though I'm not sure about that.)

To complement that, however, here is a pdf of a presentation given about the city's One Library Plan last March (2008). It also shows the overall strategy of the library, at least at the beginning of the recession. (I'm most concerned--and intrigued--by the proposed hub library in northern Manhattan; that sounds like a great idea for us northerners as long as it doesn't come at the expense of any existing branches. The Inwood branch, where I spent about forty minutes today with my daughter, is fantastic and essential for this neighborhood.)

Also from last year is this article from the New York Times blog about the library's closing; given that it's now old news it's mostly interesting for the comments included afterwards showing the range of emotions New Yorkers are having over the closing. 

Bringing us much more up to date is a recent article in Library Journal by Norman Oder. It has good information on the collapsed deal and is also well linked to other sources.

The deal with Orient Express Hotels is not going to go through--they're closing hotels throughout the world just to stay in the black. It makes more sense for the city to request the NYPL to spend a few million dollars to refurbish the Donnell (technically it's a private nonprofit but I'm told it's 92% funded by the city). To do that people need to contact their city council representatives, state representatives (if they ever get back to work), Manhattan borough officials, Mayor's office, and even national congressmen and senators; doing so en masse will carry more weight, and by that I mean individual emails sent by dozens to hundreds of people rather than all of them just attaching their names to a petition. Helen Chirivas' group can help coordinate that, however.  You can look for a website soon, but in the meantime the group can be contacted at SavetheDonnell@gmail.com. 

Librarians and patrons--and lawmakers--should be on the same side on this issue. No one wants to see libraries disappear or diminish services; it's just a matter of figuring out how to best serve the city while functioning with reduced resources. 

Kids and Junk Food - Part 3

In October I wrote about the symbiosis, if that's the right word, between mascots and children's licensed characters and junk food. The quick version is that although many licensors are insisting their characters be used for healthy food there are quite a few, to say the least, that have their characters promote candy, presweetened items, Happy Meals, and so on and so forth.

So a couple weeks ago I followed that up linking to a story about how more characters are indeed being used for healthy food marketing; I put up a picture of Popeye, he being the pinnacle of cartoon characters and vegetables getting along (in the marketplace as well as on the screen).

So now it's come to this: Burger King is selling apples (Granny Smiths) cut in the shape of French fries. Is it a refreshing example showing how fast food chains are coming of age and offering healthier fare for kids? Or, given the packaging, is it a clever ploy to get kids with health-conscious parents in there so that it's just a quick switch to substitute fried potato for apple? (And just how fresh are they? Remember they're harvested in the fall...)

I don't eat at hamburger chains very often--once or twice a year (more when I live near a Carl's Jr.)--so I was unaware of these, but I became aware of them in a New York Times article yesterday by Tara Parker-Pope in which she tracks some of the recent trends toward healthy food. It's definitely worth a look. I was wondering just how fulfilling those apple fries could be (no skins?), so I found some consumer reviews. But do we have to call them apple fries? They're not fried, they're sliced. Do the marketing folks have too much of an aversion to "apple slices"?

Anyhoo, the entire trend comes in the wake of the largest study ever conducted on the health consequences of red meat. The National Cancer Institute recently studied data from a 1995 AARP survey of meat-eating habits and followed up on the participants' health today, primarily looking at incidents of cancer, of course, and heart disease. The results are pretty impressively stacked against beef: in short, the high meat eaters are at much greater risk for a whole slew of diseases than moderate consumers. This month's Nutrition Action Healthletter has it as the cover story, but it's not online (you can see the table of contents); the accompanying editorial by Michael Jacobson, the man who literally invented the term "junk food," deals with the health and environmental consequences of beef and is online there as a pdf. Back on March 24, however, the Times ran a story you can read about the study's findings, i.e. "Eating Meat May Increase Risk of Early Death." 

To piggyback off of Jacobson, here's a Mother Jones article about cows and global warming. It's "Diet for a Warm Planet" from the Nov./Dec. issue; there are lots of such reports, articles, and books out there.

As a children's advocate of sorts (I suppose) I applaud Congress passing stricter regulations against tobacco this week. Now let's reorganize all the myriad organizations overseeing livestock and agriculture and give the FDA some real teeth to enforce recalls, inspect processing plants, etc., and then do what needs to be done to get beef consumption down in this country. 

KidsFilmFest in New York

We are currently halfway through this year’s KidsFilmFest, so if you like me missed last week’s screening at the Brooklyn Heights Cinema you can still attend this Sunday, with screenings at 2 and 4, at the (new) New Museum in downtown Manhattan at 235 Bowery. It’s $10 at the door for adults and free for kids under 18.

I do wish that festival organizers would stop programming on Sundays, but that’s the way of the world most of the time. For those families for whom Sunday is the Sabbath, check out the First Saturdays program at the New Museum. The first Saturday of every month there are artistic workshops and screenings of past years’ films, which look really fun.

The line-up for this year’s festival looks great. It’s mostly animation, though not all; take a look at the complete program, with some teaser clips included. I haven’t seen any of these films, but my top recommendation has to be the new film by my friend Annie Poon, entitled Puppy’s Super Delicious Valentines Day Biscuits.

Here are some images from some of the other films. I’m thrilled by the apparent variety in medium and content. It looks like a wide-ranging bunch, fit for older kids and most of the younger ones as well.

So if the recession will let you spare ten bucks, come to the New Museum this Sunday or at least one of the upcoming Saturdays. Thanks to the Brooklyn International Film Festival for keeping this tradition alive.