I just love the Evanston Public Library crew. Our librarians are uniquely talented souls. For example, each year they produce a new stop animation summer reading video. This year they got a bit ambitious and upped their game to a stop animation Rube Goldberg summer reading video.

In other news, I thought this next video tied in well with the first.  Again, it’s stop animation, only this time it’s for a Kickstarter that sounds really neat.

Someday I shall sit down and write a long paper on the history of the children’s book trailer. Unlike children’s book apps, publishers are still willing to produce them though, like apps, they have no way of knowing whether or not they make any kind of a dent in sales. In my own experience, I’ve often found that kids most appreciate book trailers when they’ve already read the books.  I once sat with a bookgroup of 9-12 year-olds and we watched and rewatched the book trailer for Cinder by Marissa Meyer approximate 375 times.

Today, I’m very much enjoying this trailer for the newest Comics Squad compendium: Detention!  To be frank, I’m a little amazed that “Detention” wasn’t the first book in the series.  I’m also baffled as to where the series will go after this.  Summer School?  Pep Rally?  Fire Drill?  Fire Drill could be really cool, actually.

I like this next book trailer too, though I’m a bit late to the party in showing it here. What I like about it most of all is how it knows perfectly well who its audience is: Adult that wouldn’t mind debating whether or not Mac Barnett is truly as Falstaffian as he claims.*

With the imminent move of the world’s only Curious George store in Boston for an indoor mall (because lord knows we need more of those) I was very struck by this video included in the Boston Globe article about the store’s departure. Do not adjust your sound. It’s silent, which lends it a rather heartrending feel. I do like the illustration on the boy’s leg at the end that Rey makes, though.

In other news, apparently Bruce Springsteen wrote a previously unreleased Harry Potter song. Say whut?

And finally, for our off-topic video, the only you always needed but didn’t know you wanted: The song “Wacko’s World” from Animaniacs created with the help of two hundred some movies along the way.

Off-Topic Video:

*I mean, Jon Scieszka is the most Falstaffian of the children’t book creators these days, but that’s only because Brian Jaques passed away, bless his soul.