Buzz Worthy News: October 3, 2016

Welcome to Buzz Worthy News where the stories are awesome. Need your book industry news? Never fear, Kate Copeseeley is here to give it to you straight.

In this week’s Buzz Worthy News: #Beauty&TheBeast Pics, Amandla Stenberg Cast In Darkest Minds, James Patterson Kills Off Stephen King, and Banned Book Week. All this and more!

Buzz Worthy News is Cuddlebuggery’s weekly news post bringing you all the best information about the book and blogging world, particularly for the venn diagram of people who overlap between the two.

New Beauty and the Beast Pics?

I know we are all sitting on the edge of our seats, waiting for the trailer for Beauty and the Beast. (or ANYTHING) Stitch Kingdom claims they have two new screenshots, but there is currently no source to back up these claims, so for now, I leave you to judge for yourself. From Stitch Kingdom:

While Disney has recently released an image of Lumiere and Cogsworth and offered glimpses of Gaston and LeFou, we have what we believe to be the first official stills from the film featuring not only Belle but the Beast as well, presumably dancing to the film’s title theme. In addition, we also have a still featuring Belle in her provincial outfit, which we assume is from the opening ‘Belle’ sequence, visiting the library.

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Amandla Stenberg Cast In Another Movie(Yay!)

This girl is on her way up, I gotta say. Not that it’s surprising. She stole the freaking show as Rue.

Amandla Stenberg has signed on to star as Ruby Daly in the Darkest Minds movie. According to Entertainment Weekly, Stenberg has become well-known for playing the role of Rue in the first Hunger Games movie.

Here’s more from The Hollywood Reporter: “Minds is set after a pandemic kills most of America’s children and teenagers. When some survivors develop various superpowers, they are deemed too dangerous for society, taken from their families and placed inside internment camps. The first book tells of Ruby Daly, a 16-year-old with telekinetic powers who escapes her camp and joins a group of teens on the run from the government.”

This film adaptation, to be helmed by Jennifer Yuh Nelson, will be based on an Alexandra Bracken young adult novel.

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The Littlest Bigfoot To Become Animated

This sounds so charming!

Twentieth Century Fox Animation is developing Jennifer Weiner’s children’s book “The Littlest Bigfoot” as a movie, with Chris Bender and Jake Weiner producing through Good Fear Film.

“The Littlest Bigfoot” center on a pair of 12-year-old girls — one human, one Bigfoot — both desperately out of place in their own worlds, but who find each other and fight to keep the hidden Bigfoot world safe. The book — the first in a trilogy — was published earlier this week by Aladdin Books (a division of Simon & Schuster).

Weiner is currently writing the next installment, “Little Bigfoot, Big City,” coming November of 2017.

“I loved writing this book, and spending time with these three misfit kids who discover their own worth,” Weiner said. “I couldn’t ask for a better partner than Fox in bringing their story to the big screen.”

“Jen has made a career writing novels about adults that feel like outsiders, but eventually grow and become comfortable in their own skin and find happiness on their own terms. She has now done the same for children of all ages, creating a world with two unlikely heroines that kids will relate to,” the producers said. “Jen wrote this book for her daughters, and as we both have daughters, too, we are thrilled to be on board.”

From Goodreads:

Alice Mayfair, twelve years old, slips through the world unseen and unnoticed. Ignored by her family and shipped off to her eighth boarding school, Alice would like a friend. And when she rescues Millie Maximus from drowning in a lake one day, she finds one.

But Millie is a Bigfoot, part of a clan who dwells deep in the woods. Most Bigfoots believe that people—NoFurs, as they call them—are dangerous, yet Millie is fascinated with the No-Fur world. She is convinced that humans will appreciate all the things about her that her Bigfoot tribe does not: her fearless nature, her lovely singing voice, and her desire to be a star.

Alice swears to protect Millie’s secret. But a league of Bigfoot hunters is on their trail, led by a lonely kid named Jeremy. And in order to survive, Alice and Millie have to put their trust in each other—and have faith in themselves—above all else.

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Anais Nin Short Stories Optioned

Not sure if anything will come of this, but Brandon(also known as Brandi-Ann) Mildbradt has optioned fifty of Nin’s short stories.

Tree L. Wright, the author’s rep at the Anaïs Nin Trust, stated “We were looking for a partner who could do justice to Anaïs’s legacy. We were impressed with Brandon’s body of work, passion for the material and believe that with her background, voice and vision for the adaptation, she’ll do a beautiful job portraying Anaïs’s importance as an artist and feminist figure.”

Milbradt said, “As a feminist precursor to women like Gloria Steinem and Lena Dunham, Anaïs was controversial in her time and she has tremendous relevance today. She took risks, exploring female sexuality, writing explicitly about sex from a female point of view, acknowledging the struggles women had with sexual identity and expression in a patriarchal world, and discussing the role of women in society before anyone else. Her work included frank portrayals of illegal abortions, extramarital affairs and incest, all of which she wrote about without judging her female characters. That’s brave in 2016; in 1940, it was unheard of.”

Milbradt won director and best screenplay awards at HBO’s U.S. Comedy Arts Festival for her 2002 film Hatley High.  She followed this up as EP of the IFC-scripted series The Festival and its spinoff series The Business.

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Feminist Bookstore Says “F**k Portlandia”

If you’ve ever watched the eye-rolling series, you’ve seen the bookstore (In Other Words) in question and yeah, it does really exist. But it looks like the relationship is over. O-V-E-R.

The bookstore said filming the show left its business a mess, staff mistreated and neighboring businesses sometimes forced to close for a day “without warning.”

The Portland store, In Other Words, initially enjoyed the publicity, reports the Associated Press. The 23-year-old nonprofit has faced financial struggles and is currently running a fundraising campaign to help stay afloat.

Although In Other Words was given a “small” flat fee per episode, the bookstore said it didn’t cover profits lost by the store having to remain closed for filming. The bookstore claimed that exposure from the show doesn’t provide financial or political support of any kind.

“Tourists and fans of the show come to our door to stand outside, take selfies and then leave. The vast majority of them don’t come inside,” the bookstore said.

In Other Words described the segments filmed in their bookstore as “trans-antagonistic” and “trans-misogynist.” It said the show’s segments have only gotten more offensive as time goes on.

“The current board, staff and volunteers were not involved in the decision, made six years ago, to allow Portlandia to film at In Other Words. We stand behind our collective decision to discontinue our relationship with the show,” the bookstore said.

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James Patterson Decides Not to Murder Stephen King

In one of the oddest bookish news stories to come across the internets, James Patterson has canceled publication of a book he wrote (?) called The Murder of Stephen King.

Yes, I’m serious.

He co-wrote this novel with Derek Nikitas; Stephen Kingdid not take part in its creation.

According to The Associated Press, the story follows “an obsessed fan out to get King and of the detective (who happens to be named Jamie Peterson) trying to save him. The novel is part of his BookShots series of ‘pulse-pounding thrillers under $5 and 150 pages or less.’”

BBC News reports that Patterson found out about real-life fans who had actually caused disturbances at King’s home in the past. He decided it would be best to not publish the book to avoid causing King or his family any unpleasantness.

There is a whole side story to this flying about on the internet that says that Stephen King called JP a hack once upon a time and that the story grew out of JP’s need for revenge.  Not sure if that’s true, but it would certainly explain the book’s plot.  Yeesh.

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It’s Banned Books Week!

If you’ve been in the bookish community for a while, you’ve heard of banned books week. It’s the time of year where the ALA sponsors a celebration of the First Amendment(free speech) and we take a look at the books that were banned the most in the previous year.

The ALA’s list of challenged books varies somewhat from year to year, often including classics like Salinger and Toni Morrison. But as LGBT and racial awareness increases in the media, there’s a clear backlash. Two of the ten books on the most-challenged list are trans-related, including TV personality Jazz Jennings’ I Am Jazz. Who is doing most of the challenging? Unfortunately, it’s parents.

“Because the definition of diversity stems from what is considered to be outside the norm it has frightened parents who want to protect their children from overexposure,” writes Olusina Adebayo of the American Publishers Association. “Ideally, parents would want their children to be inquisitive and become independent thinkers. The banning and censorship of books stifles constructive dialogue and promotes division over understanding.”

Here are the top ten challenged books from 2015

1. Looking for Alaska, by John Green
   Reasons: Offensive language, sexually explicit, and unsuited for age group.
2. Fifty Shades of Grey, by E. L. James
   Reasons: Sexually explicit, unsuited to age group, and other (“poorly written,” “concerns that a group of teenagers will want to try it”).
3. I Am Jazz, by Jessica Herthel and Jazz Jennings
   Reasons: Inaccurate, homosexuality, sex education, religious viewpoint, and unsuited for age group.
4. Beyond Magenta: Transgender Teens Speak Out, by Susan Kuklin
   Reasons: Anti-family, offensive language, homosexuality, sex education, political viewpoint, religious viewpoint, unsuited for age group, and other (“wants to remove from collection to ward off complaints”).
5. The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, by Mark Haddon
   Reasons: Offensive language, religious viewpoint, unsuited for age group, and other (“profanity and atheism”).
6. The Holy Bible
   Reasons: Religious viewpoint.
7. Fun Home, by Alison Bechdel
   Reasons: Violence and other (“graphic images”).
8. Habibi, by Craig Thompson
   Reasons: Nudity, sexually explicit, and unsuited for age group.
9. Nasreen’s Secret School: A True Story from Afghanistan, by Jeanette Winter
   Reasons: Religious viewpoint, unsuited to age group, and violence.
10. Two Boys Kissing, by David Levithan
    Reasons: Homosexuality and other (“condones public displays of affection”).

Okay, most of these I shook my head over, but 50 Shades of Gray should definitely be banned. And exactly for the reasons listed above. 😀

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Interesting Links:

Easy Bookish Costumes

Bashing Romance Novels is Slut Shaming

Stephen King Made Pop Culture What it is Today