The Places You Will Go

An Oscar for Shaun Tan?

An Oscar for Shaun Tan?

By Chelsey Philpot --> February 24, 2011

Shaun Tan Photo by Inari Kiuru

Shaun Tan may have to make room on his shelves for an Oscar. The award-winning author and illustrator best known for his wordless graphic novel, The Arrival (Scholastic/Arthur A. Levine Bks., 2007), has been nominated in the Best Short Film (Animated) category for The Lost Thing, where he makes his directorial debut along with co-director, Andrew Ruhemann.

Based on Tan's 2005 picture book of the same name, The Lost Thing (Simply Read) tells the story of a curious boy who discovers an odd-looking creature on the beach—and learns about cruelty and indifference while trying to help it find its place.

We caught up with Tan at home in Australia before he headed to Los Angeles to attend the 83rd Academy Awards ceremony on February 27.

BBC News - 'Lost' Enid Blyton book unearthed

Entertainment & Arts

22 February 2011  

'Lost' Enid Blyton book unearthed

By Ian Youngs Arts reporter, BBC News

• The Mr Tumpy mystery - what is the book like, and why was it never published?

An unpublished and previously unknown Enid Blyton novel is believed to have turned up in an archive of the late children's author's work.

Mr Tumpy's Caravan is a 180-page fantasy story about a magical caravan.

It was in a collection of manuscripts that was auctioned by the family of Blyton's eldest daughter in September.

"I think it's unique," said Tony Summerfield, head of the Enid Blyton Society. "I don't know of any full-length unpublished Blyton work."

The collection was bought by the Seven Stories children's book centre in Newcastle.

Blyton, who died in 1968, remains a children's favourite and a publishing phenomenon thanks to such characters as the Famous Five, the Secret Seven and Noddy.

An estimated 500 million copies of her books have been sold around the world, with updated and reprinted versions of her most popular stories still selling eight million copies a year.

R.I.P: Margaret K. McElderry, Children’s Book Publisher, Dies at 98

Margaret K. McElderry, a book editor who employed shrewd intuition, critical acumen and a nurturing way with authors to help shepherd children’s literature from a prewar cottage industry to today’s billion-dollar business, died on Monday at her home in Manhattan. She was 98.

Her death was confirmed by Emma Dryden, who for many years worked at Ms. McElderry’s side as an editor at Margaret McElderry Books, the first children’s imprint named for an editor.

Ms. McElderry came to be called the grande dame of children’s publishing, having transcended the typical anonymity of book editors by riding the crest of the postwar baby boom, helping to provide it with a new breed of engaging, nonpatronizing literature.

She recruited authors with a newer sensibility, ventured into controversial subjects, like the ravages of war, and led the way in publishing foreign works.

Her faith in her taste was the cornerstone of her success. She trusted her first impressions of a work, saying the good ones almost compel readers to ask a single question: “What happens next?” In a 1996 profile, Library Trends, a professional journal, praised her “empathetic curiosity.”

R.I.P.: Brian Jacques 1931-2011

Brian Jacques was born on June 15 1939 in the Kirkdale area of Liverpool, and grew up in the city’s docklands. His father, a truck driver of French descent, was widely-read, instilling in his son a love of storytelling and in particular the works of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, Robert Louis Stevenson and Edgar Rice Burroughs.