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NBC’s “Today Show” Selects Newbery Honor Winner Savvy For Next Al Roker Book Club

NBC’s “Today Show” announced yesterday that Ingrid Law’s Newbery Honor winner and New York Times bestseller Savvy will be Al Roker’s next Book Club Pick. The TV host and young fans will have a chance to interview the author in the studio during a live show later this summer. Savvy was published under the joint venture between Dial Books for Young Readers and Walden Media and will soon be a major motion picture from Walden Media.

Al’s Book Club for Kids has become synonymous with outstanding children’s literature. The club began in 2007 as a way to get kids to keep reading and not experience the “summer slide." Roker chooses books for kids between the ages of 9-11 and then gives them the opportunity to discuss what they are reading. Past selections have included The Golden Compass, Diary of a Wimpy Kid, and The Tale of Despereaux, in addition to other acclaimed titles.

Savvy is the story of the Beaumonts, an eclectic family who can move mountains, stir up hurricanes and spark electricity and each of them possess a “savvy” or a special power that erupts when they turn thirteen.

Read an excerpt from Savvy.
 

Depeche Mode Uses Penguin Author Daniel Ladinsky’s Hafiz Translations in Live Shows 

1980’s hit band Depeche Mode has incorporated the work of Penguin author Daniel Ladinsky into their performances, in the form of live projection.

In I Heard God Laughing and The Gift (both published by Penguin), Daniel Ladinsky translates the verse of Persian poet Hafiz. Ladinsky’s poignant and controversial renderings were intended as a modern shot in the arm for Hafiz’s gems, and so Ladinsky took the liberty of playing Hafiz’s lines “through a late-night jazz sax instead of from a morning temple drum or lyre."

Perhaps it was with this lyricism in mind that the poem “I have learned so much” scrolled up the jumbotron behind Depeche Mode as they launched into their song “Precious” during the Copenhagen leg of their “Tour of the Universe.” The video of Depeche Mode performing “Precious” can be seen here.

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