The 50 Best Children’s Book

As determined by a poll of 4,000 respondents was conducted by the charity Booktrust, which runs the Governmentbacked Bookstart initiative giving free packs of books to children.

And number 1 is…The Lion The Witch and the Wardrobe, which I guess is fine as a children’s book but once I got older and saw the overt Aslan=Jesus thing it kinda lost its appeal to me.
Number two was The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle a book that supposedly has sold a copy every minute since it was published in 1969 which is, according to my rudimentary math like a billion copies (or about 20,100,053 and that doesn’t sound as impressive but…)
Number Three was the Famous Five, which I’ve never heard of and I assume must be a British thing. The rest of the list I can’t really argue with, other than the placement of a few and the fact that I guess I don't consider some "children's book" but have a look and though maybe you can find something that displease you
(oh and I italicized my own personal favorites)

: Top 50 Best Children's Books

1. The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis
2. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
3. Famous Five, Enid Blyton
4. Winnie the Pooh, A.A. Milne
5. The BFG, Roald Dahl
6. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling
7. The Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
8. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
9. Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
10. The Gruffalo, Julia Donaldson
11. The Tales of Peter Rabbit, Beatrix Potter
12. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
13. Matilda, Roald Dahl
14. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
15. The Cat in the Hat, Dr Seuss
16. The Twits, Roald Dahl
17. Mr Men, Roger Hargreaves
18. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
19. The Malory Towers series, Enid Blyton
20. Peter Pan, J.M. Barrie
21. The Railway Children, E. Nesbit
22. Hans Christian Fairy Tales, H.C. Andersen
23, The Wizard of Oz, L. Frank Baum
24. The Witches, Roald Dahl
25. Stig of the Dump, Clive King
26. The Wishing Chair, Enid Blyton
27. Dear Zoo, Rod Campbell
28. The Tiger Who Came to Tea, Judith Kerr
29. Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Jan Brett
30. James and the Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
31. A Bear Called Paddington, Michael Bond
32. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
33. Where the Wild Things Are, Maurice Sendak
34. Aesop's Fables, Jerry Pinkney
35. The Borrowers, Mary Norton
36. Just So Stories, Rudyard Kipling
37. Meg and Mog, Jan Pienkowski
38. Mrs Pepperpot, Alf Proysen
39. We're Going on a Bear Hunt, Michael Rosen
40. The Gruffalo's Child, Julia Donaldson
41. Room on a Broom, Julia Donaldson
42. The Worst Witch, Jill Murphy
43. Miffy, Dick Bruna
44. The Little Prince, Antoine de Saint-Exupery
45. Flat Stanley, Jeff Brown
46. The Snail and the Whale, Julia Donaldson
47. Ten Little Ladybirds, Melanie Gerth
48. Six Dinners Sid, Inga Moore
49. The St. Clare's series, Enid Blyton
50. Captain Underpants, Dav Pilkey

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Where The Wild Things Were

You may never get to see “Where The Wild Things Are” the way Dave Eggers and Spike Jonze want you too because apparently the test screening has made the kiddies cry because it was “too adult and even too scary for children” and so studio insiders are saying

We're on the verge of losing a movie.

If the entire film gets reshot you will hear that the decision came because of technical issues, specifically the animation of the Wild Things' mouths and facial features. The film uses people in huge Jim Henson Creature Shop suits, and the plan was to shoot the suits and animate the Wild Things' faces later. That has been proving to be more technically difficult than anyone had foreseen [...]

This is a bad situation, obviously, but one where some footage could be salvaged, meaning that a complete and total reshoot of the film wouldn't be necessary.

Yet I'm hearing that just such a massive reshoot is what is on the table right now. And it's not because of technical issues, unless you want to consider the lead kid actor and the script technical issues..

So here is some footage of the film the way actually creative people want you to see it

Kadnes
by goldenfiddle

though that footage isn’t really official according to spike jonze:
That was a very early test with the sole purpose of just getting some footage to Ben our vfx (visual effects) supervisor to see if our vfx plan for the faces would work. The clip doesn't look or feel anything like the movie, the Wild Thing suit is a very early cringy prototype, and the boy is a friend of ours Griffin who we had used in a Yeah Yeah Yeahs video we shot a few weeks before. We love him, but he is not in the actually film...Oh and that is not a wolf suit, its a lamb suit we bought on the internet)
Either way this is just another reason why corporations suck

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Disney Dream Portraits are a Dream

The utterly amazing Annie Leibovitz has come out with a few new portraits for Disney's Year of a Million Wishes campaign and they're just...magical. See for yourself
(from Just Jared)

Whoopi as The Genie


Jennifer Lopez and Marc Anthony as Jasmine and Aladdin


Jessica Biel as Pocahontas


Gisele as Wendy, Mikhail Baryshnikov as Peter Pan and

Tina Fey as Tinkerbell (!)


and here are the original three from about this time last year
Beyonce as Alice, Lyle Lovett as (himself?) as the March Hare and Oliver Platt as the Mad Hatter


Becks as Prince Phillip from Sleeping Beauty


and Scarlett Johannsen as Cinderella


I think my favorites are "Tina"kerbell (and the whole Peter Pan one), Prince Becks and of course Cinderella. I mean what girl doesn't want to be a princess?

Ah, I <3 whimsy...and pretty pictures.

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Liquid Fantasies: Things that are too cool/trendy for me

but I'd still like to taste or try

• Soapstone and/or Granite Ice Cubes certainly take a scotch on the rocks to a literal level."Put rocks in your freezer and then in your drink, and they do the job of ice without diluting your whiskey" and all this time when I'd try to be old and classy and have a scotch on the rocks whenever I prayed for the ice to dilute it I was being sacrilegious. Good to know.
• I think these are more up my alley. Just in time for the holidays come Candy Cane shot glasses."These glasses add a sweet minty flavour to your favorite shooters while keeping your breath minty fresh." and the best part, (besides the booze)? They're made out of 100% edible candy canes. I'm sure the kiddies will love those.
• On second thought maybe the kids should stick to Vessel custom soda.
• For less than a handle of liquor you too can own your very own "Lush Life Party Ice" Ice Luge. Ah that takes me back to that one time at the frat party where I got creeped out but the disgustingness of the ice luge.
• I want "the best beer in the world" made by monks who've taken vows of silence. "Westvleteren “Trappist” can only be purchased in limited quantities, by placing an order on the monks “Beer Phone”. It’s a great example of ultra-premium anti-branding: the monks do no advertising, nor do they label the bottles. The beer, which costs from 22 euro a bottle, is available only once a month, and you can only order 2 cases of 24 bottles at a time. Remi Johnson of Boston’s Publick House calls the brew “the holy grail of beers." That really sounds like the classiest thing ever. Ok I've revised my final meal- I'll have Trappist with my ortolan-mmmmm
  
• and finally I don't think this has anything to do with alcohol, and it is sad whenever someone dies, but this headline was too good to pass on "Roofing company billionaire dies after falling through roof."

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Story Pirates, Arrrggh!

After that last post I feel I need something pure and innocent and good to counteract the evil of the Republican Party and so I remembered a video from earlier this morning. After the Bud Light "Dude" commercial played a set of realted videos showed up and one seemed so random I clicked on it.
It's called "This Movie is About Cats Flying" and it is a little frightening

While I was watching I read the description and it piqued my interest more. You see "This story is about cats flying."
Based on this sentence by 8 year-old Jah-Kym McMillan, and adapted into a film short by The Story Pirates - a non-profit company that promotes a love of creative writing.
The Striking Viking Story Pirates (www.storypirates.com) adapt and perform stories written by kids as a way of celebrating the words and ideas of young people."

It seemed like such a great and fun idea, and I'm sure it must give the authors and their families such a thrill that I started watching most of the videos that they've posted out of happiness and so I thought you should enjoy them as well.
Here is "Abby is Sile" written by 6 year old Sofia Morales-Bello Barcelo

(And you may have noticied as I did that Abby looks familiar. So I checked out the Pirates' bios and found out it's Kristen Schaal the one fan of Flight of The Conchords.)
The Day I Got My Head Stuck in A Barstool written by 4th grader Russel Kay (from the stage show)

"Teddy Bear Cottage" by Eli Land, age 4.

Fourth Grader Michael Breen's "Giant Bugs 2"

And finally, from Madeline Desrochets "I Love You The Best" (because that's what I do!)


(I think at this age I wrote stories about murderous robots and monkeys moving to the city- this kids are far more well adjusted than I)
This totally had to have been my most kid friendly post ever,btw; I'll try to slut it up later...

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