The Greatest Love of All

Today was long and intense, and almost entirely devoid of adults, and after I put the kids to bed -- we read the last chapters of Baby-Sitters' Club #3, Mary Ann Saves the Day, the graphic-novel adaptation, which has an amazIng scene (which I can only guess was not in the original, as it was wordless, and well-paced and utterly beautiful) where Mary Ann goes to visit her mother's grave and lies down on it -- and I emailed Itta and asked if she could bring me something from the restaurant when she gets home. I was so in the mood for restaurant food. sometimes you need food that you didn't cook, that no human being has cooked, that's fresh and warm and comes to you via a server and some cutlery that someone who's not you will wash (or, alternately, that's plastic and that you can just throw out).





Then I zoned out, except apparently I think I might have zoned out more than I warranted, because instead of writing I watched Sherlock -- a gorgeous episode, and one that I didn't think would come together at all, and in the end it totally did.

And that last scene, where Sherlock really wants to dance with someone and then he almost does and then he thinks better of it, a quick cut, and he's alone outside, hit a little too much home for me.

I really do want to write a great Disney movie. But even though the latest (Frozen, it's so incredible, I nearly had an artistic breakdown watching it just wishing I could make something that good and at the same time that inoffensive), where they (very minor spoiler) replace the girl/prince love story with a sisters/best friends love story. But I think what I really need to write, or to experience, is a movie where you learn that yourself is good enough? And I'm not sure if Disney will ever be capable of making that. I'm not sure if I'll ever be capable of writing that.

Tomorrow is my wife's due date. Or, as I've started saying it, her officially-overdue date. Feels so weird, that the world could change so radically at any given moment. And then I remind myself about what the Alter Rebbe said, that the world is created anew from nothingness at every moment, and I realize that all of us only exist by some whim of some Supreme Being anyway, so enjoy the sameness while we can. I feel like I'm hovering at that moment of Tron right before he gets sucked into the computer and everything turns to neon. Like stuff is nowhere near as cool as it's about to be, but I should appreciate the natural colors and relative boringness while I still can.

Goldbergs, Meet the Goldbergs

My wonderful friend Sarah Lefton wrote me an email the other day:

I just want you to know that although I have no idea what your feelings are on the matter, and you've been either surprisingly (or studiously) publicly quiet about the matter, I am enraged on your behalf about The Goldbergs and have found myself talking about your book an awful lot lately.

So actually, yes, my first novel was called Never Mind the Goldbergs and was a book that was about a TV sitcom. I'm told that it's totally nothing like the new TV show, although, when I first found out about it, I started telling people that they utterly ripped off my book for their background color.

I didn't actually think for one second that ABC used or borrowed or even knew about my book. Really, both of us should be dipping our hats to the original Goldbergs, a radio-and-then-TV series in the 1950s written by and starring Gertrude Berg, who was probably one of the most versatile and amazing people who ever worked on TV. (Primary evidence: It takes major cojones to produce an episode about racism and anti-Jewish sentiment in America...during World War II.) Although, hey, I did give the old TV show a shoutout in my book.

Here's the real bummer of it: Never Mind the Goldbergs did really well last year. It sold out its complete first printing -- which, because it's Scholastic, they'll print tons of copies and just expect them to last forever. But this summer, some friends told me that Amazon had stopped listing the book. I called Scholastic to find out what was up. Apparently they had sold out completely, and they don't see a sufficient need to reprint.

BUT DUDES THERE'S A MAJOR TV SHOW WITH THE SAME FREAKING NAME AS MY BOOK THAT'S ABOUT TO BE ON AND--

I did not write that email to them. I also didn't yell at them when I found out they got rid of the last hundred hardcover copies by selling them for 50 cents each to some random store in the Midwest instead of asking me if I wanted them. I love Scholastic -- I mean, Goldbergs wouldn't be in print if it wasn't for them -- but, yeah. Sometimes you get the bear and sometimes you get the bear trap.

On the plus side, I do own the rights to my book again. And my agent is really excited about finding a new publisher. And in the meantime, I have this new book that, if you haven't heard, is doing pretty insanely wonderfully. So I'm in a mostly-good mood. And if you do want to read Goldbergs in the meantime, just email me and I'll send you an ebook of it.

And, if any of you know those people from that other Goldbergs? Feel free to tell them I said hey. And if they ever want to make another series, we can totally reprint it as Never Mind the Goldsteins.

Losers Is, Weirdly, Popular!

UPDATE: I just found out what exactly "Popular Paperbacks" means. It actually doesn't mean the book is a popular paperback (or a bestseller or anything); it means that the American Library Association thinks that my book should be popular. That's colossal. And kind of better-sounding.

Whoa! Just got an awesome email from the good folks at Scholastic. Thank you, people! It's really amazing that five years after this little neon novel got birthed (oboyo am I old), people are still thinking and talking about Losers.

(And: the other people on the list! Raina Telgemeier, who did the amazing Baby-Sitters' Club adaptations [that are actually brilliant, srsly]! Michael freakin' Northrop!)

Great news! – the following Scholastic titles are included in lists just announced by the ALA, selected at the recent ALA Midwinter Convention in Seattle.

2013 ALA Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults

·         Prom and Prejudice, by Elizabeth Eulberg (A Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults Top Ten Title)

·         Drums, Girls, and Dangerous Pie, by Jordan Sonnenblick

·         Drama, by Raina Telgemeier (A Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults Top Ten Title)

·         Does My Head Look Big in This?, by Randa Abdel-Fattah

·         All the Broken Pieces, by Ann Burg

·         Born Confused, by Tanuja Desai Hidier

·         Losers, by Matthue Roth

·         Green Heart, by Alice Hoffman

·         Bluford High: Search for Safety, by John Langan

·         Trapped, by Michael Northrup

·         Smile, by Raina Telgemeier

Young Adult Author Plot

The Teen Author Festival was last week, and Scholastic held a big reception for all its local and visiting authors. Which basically meant getting a bunch of us in a room and standing back while we plot together and come up with ways to take over the world.

You think I'm joking?

That was part of a little project that the Scholastic online folks had us do, during a break in signing and scarfing down pizza and orange soda (no pizza for me, since it wasn't kosher, which meant twice as much orange soda). They started a sentence and asked us to finish writing it. Here's what we all said:

While I waited my turn, I searched frantically to make whatever I wrote especially relevant to Losers. As a way of promoting my book? Well, yeah, sorta, because I'm so bad at that. Not sure it actually came across. I'm also not sure, in retrospect, that was the best thing for the stereotypical-looking Jew to write. But, hey, I drew a dinosaur too.

Banksy's Simpsons Intro

If you don't know about Banksy, go here, or read the brilliant book The Calder Game, which is the only children's book I know of about graffiti and art terrorism.
Anyway, Banksy just posted this intro to the Simpsons, featuring an Asian sweat shop and a unicorn. It's sad and brilliant.

Scholastic Authors' Favorite Books

Scholastic has a wildly cool video of me, Micheal Northrop, Siobhan Vivian and a bunch of other folks talking about our favorite books and how we ended up being writers. And, bonus!, me imitating Hermione Granger right at the beginning.

Coe Booth was going to do it, too, but she got stage fright and chickened out, and I am only telling you this so that you realize the huge glowing ball of inspiration that is Coe and Facebook her right now and tell her she needs to let people film her more. Especially good-hearted folks from the Scholastic blog who are scarcely rude enough to qualify as paparazzi. (Even if they whittled down my 5-minute-long answer to "what's your favorite book?" so that now I just say "Where the Wild Things Are." Although, actually, I probably just took 5 minutes to say that exact thing.)

When Books Go Bad

First the ladybugs come alive. Then the trees grow through the roof, and then the Goodnight Moon bunnies start eating you. Don't say I didn't warn you.



Thanks to Scholastic for the book.