Technology Marches On!


A few years ago, the amazing Lindey Lane wrote a sweet book called Snuggle Mountain. (I'd say it's a children's book, but when you create a thing to be read to a child, aren't you creating it just as much for the grown-ups involved?) The illustrations were done by Melissa Iwai, a wonderful artist. It's a great book, but like so many great books, it was published but didn't make a big enough splash in the marketplace. It came into being, eventually all of its copies were sold, and, like so many stories, it went out of print.
But now it's back, in a whole new way. Lindsey and Melissa have taken a step into the brave new world of interactive books and transformed Snuggle Mountain into an app  for your iPad. Now you can explore the world of Emma as she climbs up the mountain, searching for pancakes in the land of the two-headed giant! it's available on iTunes. Check it out!

While you're at it, check out this link, from Laura Miller at Salon. It's an essay about how much more there is to libraries than just stacks of old books and ladies who go "Shush!". I think we'll always need a place where we can explore books and ideas and writing in real time and three dimensions. The best experiences I've had in libraries have always come from finding those things I didn't know i was looking for. Happy accidents...


and from the happy accident department...
 
Key Pendants
click here!

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Staff Infection!

Image
A couple of weeks ago, my  friend Carol Davies called me up and asked me if I'd be willing to create a prop for the Edmonds School District musical. They're doing Disney's "Aladdin" (it seems like everyone is doing Disney's "Aladdin" this year... in fact, Edmonds is so fond of the idea, they're doing it in two different schools with two different casts! Meadowdale Middle School  This weekend! Edmonds Elementary Anyway, I needed to make the staff for Jafar, the bad guy... remember him? So I grabbed a broomstick, some wire, a gallon of Elmer's Glue, Reynolds Wrap, some paper towels and newsprint, and a little polymer clay and went to work!  But, of course it needed to be gold, so I had to make a trip to Lowe's for some spray paint...   Instant Evil! Good Luck, Everybody!
Read more

A week with the kids...

Image
This week, I had one of the best part time jobs in the world... teaching stage combat to a bunch of kids in a summer program. I had done it last summer and like last summer it was challenging and fun and over waaay too fast. Eleven kids, eight to twelve years old and five three hour sessions, to give them some knowledge of stage combat and physical comedy. They were total kids... silly, spastic, charming, needy, unbelievably creative, completely exhausting. Awkward, beautiful, fragile, clumsy, glorious kids. The first day of the session I asked them to write their names on pieces of paper, so that i could take mugshots of them and hopefully get some idea of their personalities and imaginations. Best idea I've had in a while... I had kids who knew each other, kids who hung out together, kids who'd never met before. It's amazing how fast they make friends with each other. I came in that first day and started tossing around some basketballs, hoping they might play. I shouldn...
Read more

Long Live the Queen!

Image
Have I told you I love mermaids? Maybe it's the idea of blending two different worlds, maybe it's fantasizing about being Aquaman when I was seven years old in the surf at Coney Island. But there's something wonderful about the idea of people living in a world beneath the sea. What do they used for furniture? Or telephones... well, there, at least, the answer's obvious... So the above piece came about when I found some atrocious wall deco at TJ MAXX (how often do I say that?). It was a pair of copper colored scallop shell wall hangings. I immediately saw Elizabeth the First-style frilly colors, but from another dimension.  I wanted to create that feel, but with a certain otherworldliness... if you look closely at the piece, you'll see pearls and green and brown glass gems in her hair... which isn't hair so much as flowing seaweed, with bits of gold and copper leaf pressed into the clay. I did her hair by taking leaf shapes I cut out with cookie cutters and str...
Read more