Monday, April 23, 2012

Save a Childhood Studies' Program!

Only a handful of Childhood Studies programs exist across the country, and one of the pioneering programs and the first to offer a PhD in this area--the Department of Childhood Studies at Rutgers-Camden--faces the threat of being dismantled completely with a possible merger between Rugters-Camden and neighboring Rowan University. Find out more about the proposed merger and its implications for the Rutgers’ Childhood Studies program, and sign a petition against this here

Tales of the Titanic for Children

April 15, 2012 marked the 100th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic, and various children’s book outlets compiled lists of picture or chapter books that tell the tale of the Titanic. In the March/April 2012 edition of The Horn Book Magazine, editors created an annotated bibliography of picture books about the Titanic, and a book blogger suggested a group of books that also work well supplemented with other reference books that aren’t specifically written with a child audience in mind. While you’re at, take a look at a book recently published by Marlene Tromp—a former professor of English and Women’s Studies at Denison—called Untold Titanic.

Sunday, April 22, 2012

Children's Lit-spiration: Earth Day Style

Another Dr. Seuss Children's Lit-spiration, but I couldn't resist quoting from The Lorax on Earth Day. Keep in mind the wise words of the one who "speaks for the trees":

Unless someone like you cares a whole awful lot, 
nothing is going to get better. It's not.
--Dr. Seuss, The Lorax

Green Book Awards

In honor of Earth Day, exercise your green “thumbs” by paging through the winners of the Green Book Award presented annually by the Newton Marasco organization. The Green Book Award recognizes picture books, children’s chapter books, and young adult books that encourage environmental stewardship and “raise awareness of the beauty of our natural world and the responsibility that we have to protect it.”

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Children's Lit-spiration: Oh, the Places You'll Go!

And will you succeed? 
Yes, you will indeed!
(98 and 3/4 percent guaranteed.)
KID, YOU'LL MOVE MOUNTAINS!
So...
be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray
or Modercai Ali Van Allen O'Shea,
You're off to Great Places! 

Today is your day! 
Your mountain is waiting, 
So... get on your way!

--Dr. Seuss, Oh, the Places You'll Go!

Sunday, April 1, 2012

I Mustache You A Question...

What do you think of the latest change to Disney's dress code? While male employees were allowed to sport well-groomed mustaches beginning in 2000 (followed by cornrows a few years later), the newest change allows men to have beards and goatees, provided they're clean and professional looking, of course.  The company's last alteration to the "Disney Look" came in the summer of 2010, when female theme park employees no longer had to wear pantyhose!  In honor of this revision to the Disney Look, The Daily Beast compiled a list of Disney's "craziest corporate rules" which you can also find more information about in Janet Wasko's Understanding Disney: The Manufacture of Fantasy in a chapter titled "Corporate Disney in Action" (though it's a bit outdated now, given the recent changes to the dress code).

Children's Lit-spiration: Listen to the MUSTN'Ts

Listen to the MUSTN'Ts, child, 
Listen to the DON'Ts
Listen to the SHOULDN'Ts
The IMPOSSIBLEs, the WON'Ts
Listen to the NEVER HAVEs
Then listen close to me--
Anything can happen, child, 
ANYTHING can be

--Shel Silverstein, Where the Sidewalk Ends