stocking stuffers
picture book links for you
Emmet Otter’s Jug Band Christmas, the Jim Henson adaptation of Russell and Lillian Hoban’s (second-best) Christmas picture book, is up on YouTube — in 4:3, with Kermit the Frog’s intro and outro, important stuff to a certain kind of Muppet nut.
Speaking of intros, here is David Bowie claiming he actually was the little boy in Raymond Briggs’s The Snowman. Explains a lot, actually!
Need a delightful gift for a picture book lover or a devious prank gift for someone who hates picture books? Why not a gift subscription to Looking at Picture Books!
In the latest issue of Mother Tongue Magazine, the illustrator Joana Avillez has a conversation with her mother, the artist Gwenn Thomas, about her great-grandmother Michael Strange’s long and complicated love affair with Margaret Wise Brown. There’s an excerpt on Instagram.
Christian Robinson describes his process of starting a picture book, including storyboarding on post-it notes.
In National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, when Rusty watches It’s a Wonderful Life on the couch, we can see a Where the Wild Things Are poster on the wall of the Griswold home.
Aww, miss David Bowie. One of my favorite concert-going moments was seeing him in the early 2000s at a weird casino venue in CT. It was my first time seeing him in person, and he lumbered to the mic and said (in his amazing voice), "Good Eveeeening...<long pause>...Uncasville?" I *still* say that to my partner when I walk into a room and have forgotten what I came into it for.
Another movie note, Paula Yee and Grace Lin's 'The Jade Necklace' appears as (sh)Elf decor in that movie: https://www.instagram.com/p/DSZ5pfsDZJK/
Also, for link list consideration (as he's a PB author now), I also enjoy when Jovie asks Buddy in Elf, "Why're you messing with me? Did Crumpet put you up to this?" which seems a pointed David Sedaris nod.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M9hRSDDYroE
Maybe you would like to see this interview with Raymond Briggs about that Snowman introduction wich was made for USA. He was quite a character this wonderful creator :)