The Children's Literature Podcast

“Love Story” from Taylor Swift’s 2008 album Fearless takes the tragedy of Romeo and Juliet and gives it a happy ending. All it took was for the characters in the play to confront their problems head on instead of sneaking around.

Key to the success of Swift’s love story is that there wasn’t a Friar Lawrence there to come up with a truly idiotic and overcomplicated plan. All it took was for Juliet to meet Romeo outside town and for Romeo to just go work things out with Capulet.

To mark the 30th birthday of Muppet Treasure Island and pay tribute to the late and eternally great Tim Curry, Tom the Tale Teller and I sat down to rewatch this classic work based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s novel. On this rewatch we noticed a bunch of jokes that went RIGHT over our heads as kids. Now we understand why our parents were laughing.

As with Muppet Christmas Carol, this film lovingly and faithfully adapts a beloved children’s story. But with Muppets.

Tim Curry was the perfect choice to play Long John Silver, bringing warmth, wit, a mercurial temperament, and the greatest laugh in history to one of the most complex and interesting villains in literature.

Come join us on the couch and share your memories of this fun film.

Dolly Parton was an angel on Earth, entertaining with kindness and warmth. And she spent an absolute fortune helping millions of children learn to love reading from an early age.

We didn’t deserve her. But I am so grateful we had her.

I liked Green Lantern comics as a kid. I hoped rather than believed that the new TV adaptation of this DC property would be any good.

It wasn’t any good.

I took my six year old to see the Paw Patrol Dino Movie and I was astonished to discover that writers Cal Brunker and Bob Barlen have brilliantly adapted the 1902 novella Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad, which meditates on the barbarous nature of humanity and its unquenchable lust for money, goods, and power.

250 Episodes!! My goodness!! Thank you to all of you, whether you have been with the show for a long time or have just recently joined in the fun. I did a livestream to celebrate! It was so nice to chat with lots of you, and I rambled about two of my favorite subjects: Star Trek and Shakespeare.

I’ve ranked my top 10 favorite moments from Star Trek that reference the works of William Shakespeare. And I can’t wait for all of you to tell me why I am WRONG and which episodes should have been ranked higher, lower, or not at all.

You can see the full livestream, which features my conversations with listeners and a Book Drama segment about yet more salty comments about Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey by Emily Wilson as well as the news that the much-loathed Harfoots will be absent from the upcoming season of Rings of Power, here:

I am very delighted to have Dr. Adam S. Smith and Jonathan Emmett return as guests on my show to talk about their splendid new book Great Dinosaur Mistakes, which features famous errors in the ways early paleontologists interpreted fossil finds and how the process of science improves those interpretations. The brilliant illustrations of Stieven Van Der Poorten bring this book to life.

These authors have previously collaborated on The Tyrannosaur’s Feathers, also illustrated by Van Der Poorten, as well as The Pleisiosaur’s Neck, which was illustrated by Adam Larkum.

I can’t recommend Great Dinosaur Mistakes enough! Whether you are a grownup who never outgrew your love of dinosaurs, a teacher looking for a great new selection for your classroom shelf, or a parent who wants fun and interesting summer reading for your kid, you can’t go wrong with this book.

N.B. I do not and will never accept payment to feature books on this show. All books that I talk about have been chosen because I think they are high quality.

Learn more about Adam, Jonathan, and Stieven here:

plesiosauria.com
dinotoyblog.com
wollatonhall.org.uk
jonathanemmett.com
stieven.com

It was too windy for me to sit by the fire, so come join me as I invoke the blessings of Apollo, patron of storytellers, by sitting in front of musical instruments wearing laurel leaves.

I really enjoyed the special effects and visual storytelling in Christopher Nolan’s Odyssey, particularly the scene with Polyphemus the cyclops, a character portrayed with the use of an enormous puppet. However, I was dissatisfied by the rewriting of the plot and characters in this scene, so I thought I would share the original version for you. I have tried to limit my commentary on this tale because it flows so beautifully and needs very little explanation.

Here I am reading from the lyrical, alliterative translation done by A.T. Murray. This translation is in the public domain. As this is an edited and polished video made from a live performance, there are several small errors in my reading.

If you would like to see the full livestream of this reading, including conversation with those who tuned in, here’s the link!

Emily Wilson, translator of the unneccesarily hated and gossiped-about translation of Homer’s Odyssey, has seen Christopher Nolan’s film adaptation of The Odyssey and . . . she HATES it. Hilariously, and with all of the scorn that only a very posh professor can heap upon a film review.

I love it.

Christopher Nolan’s movies are big, loud spectacles. The Odyssey is messy and sometimes puzzling, but it is worth talking about. I can only wonder what Homer would think!