Book News Round-Up

Hope you're all staying cool this summer. In the meantime, enjoy another round-up.

• Goodbye, beaver and dandelion. Hello, blog and Blackberry. The latest edition of the Oxford Junior Dictionary has sacrificed nature-related words in favor of tech and web-based words that today's children are more familiar with. Environmentalists and conservationists are bemoaning the change.
  
• Anne Frank is making yet another comeback. Pulitzer-Prize winning playwright David Mamet is planning on making a new film adaptation of the best-selling diary. Mamet will make the new film for Disney, which begs the question - Anne Frank, David Mamet and Disney in the same sentence? Stranger things have happened.
  
• Children's author Lesley Blume has selected her "must-read" classic children's lit list. It includes such favorites as The Phantom Tollbooth and From the Mixed Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler. The complete list can be found on NPR's website.
  
• Penguin Canada has an unusual plan for promoting the new sequel to Bram Stoker's Dracula, Dracula: The Un-Dead: they will be hosting Dracula-themed blood drives. The irony is wonderful and it's a great way to promote the book while helping a good cause. Anyone for a Twilight blood drive?
• The Hugo Awards were recently announced and Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book continues to take top honors. Gaiman's book won the Hugo for Best Novel. The Hugo Awards are given out annually for the best science-fiction and fantasy works.