Only in America...

I swear, when i saw the headine on Yahoo!, I thought maybe my recent lack o' sleep was finally catching up with me. But, no, it's true:

An attempt to erect the world's largest popsicle in a city square ended with a scene straight out of a disaster film, but much stickier.

The 25-foot-tall, 17 1/2-ton popsicle treat of frozen Snapple unexpectedly quickly melted in the midday sun Tuesday, flooding Union Square in downtown Manhattan with pink fluid that sent pedestrians scurrying for higher ground.

Read the rest.

Note: I just watched the video of the story and -- alas! -- it's not nearly so spectacular as I had pictured in my head... (NOTE: If the video link doesn't work, go here and you can see it that way...)

Not just for Fanboys...

Although I actually happen to love many Fanboys (and have my own collection of boarded and bagged books), I also appreciate that comics and graphic novels are becoming more a part of mainstream publishing. Yahoo has an interesting article on the range of material available in graphic form, from Balzac to Batman.

Yikes!

From USA Today:

The title page of the new edition of Bears, an old book by Ruth Krauss with new drawings by Maurice Sendak, shows a teddy bear dangling by its neck from a rope.

A noose in a children's book?

Sendak shrugs. "He's not dead. He's a toy."

Read the rest.

Happy Birthday to the King of All Wild Things

Today, Maurice Sendak celebrates his 77th birthday. Not only has he written some of the greatest books and created some of the best art of the twentieth century, but he proferred one of the most valuable pieces of advice I have ever heard:

"If there's any advice I have to give, I would say it's that. If you're looking for a way to get closer to your kids, there ain't no better way than to grab 'em and read. And if you put them in front of a computer or a TV, you are abandoning them. You are abandoning them because they are sitting on a couch or a floor and they may be hugging a dog, but they ain't hugging you."

I wish Mr. Sendak much love and joy on his birthday and always.

To shush or not to shush?

Today's Dear Abby focuses on library manners, or lack thereof. While I am definitely anti-shushing, I do wish people behaved a little more courteously in public places...

Snapshot of Caldecott

There's an article about Randolph Caldecott at the Christian Science Monitor. It's a nice enough piece, but it seems strangely unfinished to me, as if the author just stopped writing...