on young adult books
Moanings and Mutterings and All Kinds of Sputterings
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Here’s some breaking news regarding Neil Gaiman’s Graveyard book. Will the Awards committee take away his award? Can the Newbery Award afford more criticism and bad press? (Thanks to SJ Kessel for the link to this news.)

I’m interested because I began the book a couple of days ago and, as has so far been the case with me and Mr. Gaiman, I find myself uninterested. I can’t understand what the attraction is. I admit, I’m down on dark to begin with. And I can see that he has a sort of interesting, storyteller voice about him. But I find his stories, the three I’ve read so far, to be boring. I care nothing for his characters.

Any of you Gaiman fans have characters you love? What is it about his books that draws you in?

And on a brighter note, here is a great thing from A Fuse #8 Production.  Her readers picked their top 100 picture books. And she’s blogging about them all. A lot of work and a great resource for those of you looking for picture books.

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Comments
  • Neil Gaiman April 2, 2009 at 2:09 pm

    Er… it was an April Fool’s post. Wasn’t that obvious?

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    • sally apokedak April 2, 2009 at 2:31 pm

      I know it’s April second but I didn’t want to spoil the joke for anyone who hadn’t seen the post before.

      Yes, I knew it was a joke. I’m the one who commented that the “even his tweets are repeats” line had me laughing a half an hour later. And it still does make me laugh. A very funny line, I thought. But the whole post was great.

      While you’re here, I might as well tell you that I get more hits on this little blog from people searching for “The problem with Susan Neil Gaiman” than from any other search. Hundreds of searches on some variation of that term over the last several years.

      So, even if I haven’t yet found any characters in your books to connect with, I like to use you name in my blog posts every so often. It’s good for traffic. :nod:

      Anyway, I plan to finish The Graveyard Book. It’s not my genre–I’m a Wee Sir Gibby fan, for goodness sakes–but I’m hoping that I’ll like The Graveyard Book, because I usually do like the Newbery picks.

      Thanks for stopping by my little blog, Mr. Gaiman, and thanks for not cursing at me. :up:

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  • Neil Gaiman April 2, 2009 at 4:31 pm

    Oh good. Today’s mail has brought things from people running into the story today, not making an April 1st link, who want me to fight to get my Newbery back…

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  • Rebecca LuElla Miller April 3, 2009 at 12:21 pm

    Well, I believed it until I started reading the comments. I’m not enough in the know about children’s books, so it all sounded believable.

    Here’s for your post, Sally. :fish: I’d give it to the originator of the story if I could.

    Becky

    Rebecca LuElla Millers last blog post..Branding

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  • sally apokedak April 3, 2009 at 12:28 pm

    I did my best to make it sound believable, Becky. I thought the post was so good I wanted others to get the full enjoyment.

    But I’m sorry for adding to the hysteria among Gaiman fans who thought he might be cheated out of his award. I had no idea anyone would really fall for it. I guess people other than evangelical Christians are gullible sometimes. :laugh:
    I take some small comfort in that.

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  • sally apokedak April 3, 2009 at 12:38 pm

    :oops: Sorry Neil. I didn’t mean to cause trauma in the hearts of your fans. Of course, I don’t think your fans read here often, so it’s possible that none of them saw my post. And my three loyal readers may have been traumatized by the joke, but they’ll get over it. They’ll just beat me over the head with dead fish and it’ll make ‘em feel better.
    :whew: Disaster averted.

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