I Missed The "Every Day" Movie

I was just browsing Netflix when I discovered a movie that sounded familiar. Sure enough, Every Day the movie is an adaptation of David Leviathan's Every Day the book.

How did this happen? It appears to have come out the beginning of this year. Didn't hear a sound about it. 

When Can Changing Points Of View Work Really Well?

When you're not changing points of view, you're just changing bodies. That's what's happening in David Levithan's pretty fine book Every Day. A, the mysterious protagonist who doesn't know who or even what he is, wakes up every morning in a new body and has to live that person's life for him or her for the next twenty-four hours. So though every chapter is the story of A being a new person and dealing with that new life, he is always A. We're not really getting a point of view switch at all.

I'm still reading Wired for Story by Lisa Cron. One of the points that author makes is that humans are drawn to story because we evolved using it to help us survive, to help us determine and plan what we should do in various situations. Nowadays when reading fiction, the protagonists are stand ins for us, trying out different scenarios so we don't have to. If that is the case, Every Day is a treat for the brain, giving readers an opportunity to try out a large number of situations--being  diabetic, beautiful, gay, depressed, obese, nasty, and kind, just for starters.

The New York Time's review of the book made a big point about Every Day being a love story. Now that that's been pointed out to me, I guess it is. But A's basic situation and humanity are so engrossing that I didn't give that aspect of the book much thought.

A appears to be aging along with the bodies he inhabits, meaning that at some point he always woke up in a five-year-old's body and then a six-year-old's and now he's in his teens. I believe he's supposed to be in tenth or eleventh grade. I do feel he is a little too mature sometimes, a little too much like the only adult in the room.

But over all, the basic story is marvelous and the book is beautifully written. I had heard some talk of it last year, but I'm surprised I didn't hear more. I know it's been nominated for the Andre Norton Award for Young Adult Science Fiction and Fantasy.

Finishing Work Means I Can Check Out Forest

My talk for the New England Roundtable of Teen and Children's Librarians is in good shape (I think), I made two inquiries in the last few days and one fiction submission. Okay, it's not the kind of accomplishment Jane Yolen would even bother mentioning, but for me it was a big week!

So after doing so very, very much, I took a little time off this afternoon to finally take a look at the most recent The Edge of the Forest. My favorite articles? You care? You really want to know?

Well, I particularly liked Little Willow's (Allie's?) piece on Rachel Cohn because it led me to this interview with Cohn and David Levithan. (They wrote Nick and Norah's Infinite Playlist, of course.) Get this: Levithan edited sixty of the Baby-sitters Club books. Perhaps I should read one. If memory serves me, I recall a young male relative reading one or two in his younger days.

Another article I found particularly interesting was Michele Fry's Introduction to Penelope Lively's Works for Children. My knowledge of Penelope Lively is limited to her book for adults Moon Tiger. I have to admit that I don't remember a great deal about it. Except that at the time I thought it was fantastic.

So that's another author I need to read more of, should I live long enough to do so.