Shutta Crum

 
It’s time to remind folks where they can get the famous cat shoes (or dog shoes).  Every year when I start visiting schools I get asked about them. Here’s the link:  Cat Shoes.  Enjoy!
 
Shutta

About losing Mom and Dad and becoming an orphan–and how this relates to characters in children’s literature. Hope is the essence.

REposting of “Come on In, the Water’s Fine” about the differences between writing novels and picture books.

Writers are human, after all.  We can’t always come up with the perfect title, nor remember to use the delete key when we should. Along these lines, I offer here some info about, and a couple of links to, great lists. One is the annual “Oddest Title of the Year” list and the other is [...]

A belated Yay!  Slumdog Millionaire did well at the Oscars.  Based on a novel, it truly is a writer’s kind of movie. [See my earlier post for a review ... Jan. 29th. ]
8 awards, all the major ones: best picture, directing, adapted screenplay, original score, film editing, original song, sound mixing and cinematography.
It just goes [...]

I read Neil Gaiman’s THE GRAVEYARD BOOK on a flight to Florida recently, and enjoyed it very much. I’ve not been a big Gaiman fan in the past—though I did find CORALINE interesting reading. The man is a wiz at creating suspense.
 
Being a librarian, I’m also especially curious about the buzz a book gets. [...]

I know I should be thinking more about the recent children’s book award winners. Instead, I’ve been thinking a lot about Slumdog Millionaire.  (I was glad to see it nominated for an Oscar!) One thing I especially like about the movie is its literary structure. I love that it starts in medias res (the protagonist is getting slapped by [...]

Having just spent the first Christmas without my parents, I remembered this blog post I originally wrote a while ago for another site. It’s a favorite Dad story. 
Enjoy.

My Dad’s War
I’ve known that life is a story since I was a child standing big-eyed and listening to my Appalachian relatives tell hair-raising tales about mountain folk. However, [...]

I just had to post this picture. He’s probably dancing with Mom, now.
  Dance on,
Shutta

I need to get back to work.  I REALLY NEED to get back to work . . . there is a January deadline looming.
There are so many lures out there, so many siren songs to do other things—not the least of which is that I must help my family with the transition and all the [...]