Hey Comeau, Do You Know a Girl with Hair Like This?

That's me, on the left. This is actually a picture from an afterparty from New York Comic Con, but I'm wearing the same thing tomorrow for Halloween. I'm Ramona Flowers, from this week's review book, Scott Pilgrim! (There's a jacket that goes with it... it was just really warm there.)

If you don't get the reference in the title, watch this scene where Scott is looking for information on this girl (Ramona) and asks his socially connected friend Comeau. I think it's hilarious.

And our friend Beth is in the middle, she's Roxie Richter (one of Ramona's evil exes). The girl on the right is Beth's sister... she is not in costume, but she is adorable.

Favorite Book Costume

Remember how I said that we loved Halloween around here?  Well, we do, so we're serving up some of our favorite costumes based on book characters.

I was actually going to BE Harriet the Spy this year, but inevitably decided I was too poor to buy stuff and decided to be Lucille Ball (I already had the dress.)  However, I think I'm going to be Harriet next year because, well, who doesn't love her and she's an easy enough costume.

I don't know who the girl in the picture is, but she does a good job.  She's modeled more after movie Harriet (who is more recognizable and probably the one I would choose to imitate), but book Harriet actually just runs around in a red hoodie and jeans.  And, of course, there is always the tell-tale notebook that says "private."

I know, I've seen it all over the place too, but I love the idea of this pointillist comic book makeup. So it's not a specific character, but a specific costume technique. And sure, I've seen badly done examples, but this one is a good one, and I've seen others that were just as amazing, if not better.

It's a bit Scary

We love Halloween... and costumes.. and really everything that allows us to dress up and be ridiculous around here.

One of the awesome parts of working at my job is that I get to do things like dress up and be fun and silly.  We do special story times for kids (plus story time every Wednesday at 11:00 am in the kids department.  Stop in and come see us!)  This past Saturday, I dressed up and got to read the book for story time!

That is me, in my costume, at my job!  

In case you ever wondered what the second floor of my Barnes & Noble looked like.

We had a pretty good turn out of kids (ten or so, which is about nine or so more than we usually get for story time.)  They color pictures and all that jazz and, if nothing else, seemed to enjoy my costume.  Not to mention I got to baffle them a little when I told them that I was dressing up as Lucille Ball (and got a chuckle from the parents when I said that none of them would know who she was.)  Here are some more pictures of me reading to kids!

I'm watching all of the books.

This week, we're reviewing Catching Fire because the new movie is coming out (and it will be awesome and I'm going to see it Saturday.  So be jealous.)  I know that we usually talk about author bios on Mondays (or something equally educational) but today, we're not doing that.

In fact, this post has pretty close to zero literary value.  It's November.  Cut us some slack.

Instead, we're going to post all the trailers for the books-to-movies coming out.  And we're going to start with Catching Fire.




This isn't the only movie that was first a book coming out.  The Book Thief is already in theaters.  If you're going to go see it, I advise a box of tissues.

The last one we're going to tell you about is actually a book that we haven't talked about much, but we both love.  How I Live Now is only being released in select theaters.  Which is sad, because I really want to see it.

Those are all the movies that we know about coming out based on books.  Did we miss some?  Which are you most looking forward to seeing?

Which witch is Which?

So, mainly because I don't really have a lot to talk about today, and also because I have a weird predilection for witches, I'm just going to give you some famous literature witches today in honor of all the crazy Halloween stuff that's going to be happening in the next few weeks.

Probably the most famous witch is the Wicked Witch of the West.  She first appeared in The Wizard of Oz in 1900.  She was mean and scary and ugly and probably embodied every single idea we ever had when we thought of witches. 

Alternatively, Glinda opposed every stereotype we ever had of witches.  She was good and sweet & beautiful and had good magic.  Not to mention she wore that baller pink dress.

If we really want to go back to and early idea of witches, let's talk William Shakespeare.  The Weird Sisters showed up in MacBeth, predicting MacBeth's downfall.  They are creepy and have had multiple incarnations, not to mention influenced numerous modern literary works, like Harry Potter.

And speaking of Harry Potter, let's talk about Hermione Granger.  One of the great things Rowling did (other than make totally awesome, believable and fun children's books), was give us this idea that witches are actually AWESOMELY badass.  Hermione is actually the smartest & most conniving one of the three of them.  Let's face it, Harry might be the main character, but he would have died in book one had it not been for Hermione.

So who is your favorite witch?