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Caldecott Medal Contender: Viva Frida
by Sam Juliano The Mexican/American Yuyi Morales made a strong bid for last year’s Caldecott Medal with the wildly-popular Nino Wrestles the World, finally settling for the American Library...
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Caldecott Medal Contender: Blizzard
by Sam Juliano As I sit down to pen my review of John Rocco’s wildly popular picture book Blizzard, a swirling snowstorm is setting in on the northeastern New Jersey outside of Manhattan, where my...
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Caldecott Medal Contender: As An Oak Tree Grows
by Sam Juliano “I am as constant as the northern star” -William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar There is a deep elegiac undercurrent running through G. Brian Karas’ As An Oak Tree Grows, a quietly...
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Caldecott Medal Contender: The Baby Tree
by Sam Juliano The past year in picture books has yielded some of the most daring and mature themes yet explored in this generally restrictive terrain. The first openly transgender picture book I Am...
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Caldecott Medal Contender: The Hug Machine
by Sam Juliano There is a serious strain of juvenile obsessive-compulsive disorder being played out in Scott Campbell’s irresistibly effervescent The Hug Machine, but it is not one likely to fan the...
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Caldecott Medal Contender: Tiny Rabbit’s Big Wish
by Sam Juliano When you wish upon a star, makes no difference who you are… It is human nature for one to wish what they are not. Kids always think in terms of big. Many want to be taller, some want...
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Caldecott Medal Contender: Bad Apple’s Perfect Day
by Sam Juliano After some wicked witch-possessed trees regale Dorothy and her new friend in The Wizard of Oz for picking apples off them, the Scarecrow initiates a sobering conversation: Scarecrow:...
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Caldecott Medal Contender: Quest
by Sam Juliano Aaron Becker was a frontrunner for last year’s Caldecott Medal, and ended up with one of the three honors that were awarded. His wordless picture book Journey became an instant classic...
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Caldecott Medal Contender: Little Melba and Her Big Trombone
by Sam Juliano The fact that Melba Doretta Liston was the first woman trombonist to hone her craft with the big bands in the 1940’s and beyond would in itself make a picture book on the subject an...
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Caldecott Medal Contender: Queen Victoria’s Bathing Machine
by Sam Juliano Queen Victoria’s reign of 63 years and 7 months is the longest in British history. The era that bears her name is remembered for Pax Brittanica, a time of peace, prosperity and...
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Caldecott Medal Contender: Sam & Dave Dig A Hole
by Sam Juliano What often seems to get lost in the shuffle is that the two initially intrepid protagonists of Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen’s exceedingly popular Sam & Dave Dig A Hole are a model...
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Caldecott Medal Contender: Number One Sam
by Sam Juliano Number One Sam’s racing car exponent’s entire life centers around sporting triumphs. This theme of competition and winning at all costs is explored in this irresistible picture book by...
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Caldecott Medal Contender: Elizabeth, Queen of the Seas
by Sam Juliano The people of Christchurch, New Zealand considered their former commonwealth’s Queen Elizabeth as someone who was strong, powerful and of course regal. They thought the same things...
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Caldecott Medal Contender: Edgar and the Tattle-Tale Heart
by Sam Juliano TRUE! –nervous –very, very dreadfully nervous I had been and am; but why will you say that I am mad? The disease had sharpened my senses –not destroyed –not dulled them. Above all was...
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Timbuktu, Caldecott Medal Contender series and Super Bowl on Monday Morning...
Screen capture from TIMBUKTU, an Oscar nominee for Best Foreign language film by Sam Juliano First off I want to apologize for my tardiness in getting to all the previous week’s comments under the...
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PAUL THOMAS ANDERSON’S ‘INHERENT VICE’“What’s on your mind, Doc, beside the...
© 2015 by James Clark A likely response to Paul Thomas Anderson’s film, Inherent Vice (2014), a rendition of Thomas Pynchon’s novel, from 2009, under the same title, would be to maintain that...
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Virunga, Hard to be a God and Book Event on Monday Morning Diary (February 9)
by Sam Juliano The Caldecott Medal and Honor books were announced on Monday morning, February 2nd. Dan Santat’s The Adventures of Beekle took the gold, while a record-breaking six (6) honor books...
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John Boorman’s Deliverance, Excalibur, Zardoz, Point Blank and Matthew...
by Sam Juliano Frigid temperatures that have dropped to below zero with the wind chill factored in have given those of us in the northern New Jersey/metropolitan area the coldest numbers in over two...
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STANLEY KUBRICK’S BARRY LYNDON “Redmond, do you mind not smoking for a while?”
© 2015 by James Clark There is a scene, in Kubrick’s film, Barry Lyndon (1975), which offers, within the work’s encompassing an avalanche of distemper, a moment of palpable equilibrium. A British...
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It Always Rains on Sunday – 1947, Robert Hamer
by Allan Fish (UK 1947 92m) DVD2 A score of roller-skates p Henry Cornelius d Robert Hamer w Angus MacPhail, Henry Cornelius, Robert Hamer novel Arthur la Bern ph Douglas Slocombe ed...
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