A new trailer has been released for Steven Spielberg’s The BFG.

Deadline Hollywood reports the complete film got a 4-1/2 minute standing ovation at the Cannes film festival when it premiered on Saturday. It will release in the US on July 1.

The tie-in edition comes out next week, The BFG Movie Tie-In, Roald Dahl (Penguin/Puffin Books; Paperback; $7.99; Audio tie-in, Listening Library; OverDrive Sample).

In related news, Entertainment Weekly reports that Puffin is publishing fresh hardcover editions of some of Dahl’s books to celebrate his 100th birthday, complete with new jacket art, expected for release on Sept. 6.

One of Dahl’s most beloved illustrators, Quentin Blake, will create the new covers for Matilda, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Charlie and the Great Glass Elevator, James and the Giant Peach, and Fantastic Mr. Fox.

The new releases will be available in time for the global celebration of Dahl’s birthday to be marked on Sept. 13th.

Taking up social media to promote the paperback edition of In The Unlikely Event (PRH/Vintage), Judy Blume has created a Tumblr page.

So far she has posted four “Tumbles,” offering a bit of background on the 1950s setting of the novel and sound clips, from Nat King Cole, the Four Aces, and Doris Day.

In The Unlikely Event is Blume’s first novel for adults in 17 years and got buzzy press coverage when it came out in hardcover last May.

Upon its publication, Blume told People magazine that it may be her last book. If that is the case, she is making the most of it.

As we wrote when it hit shelves, she launched it with a celebrity-studded tour starting with BookCon where Jennifer Weiner hosted an interview. After that, she sat down for conversations with Meg Wolitzer, Walter Mayes, Molly Ringwald, Ridley Pearson, Curtis Sittenfeld, and Nancy Pearl.

Now she is sharing songs and memories with fans on a platform that was unimaginable when she first wrote Are You There God? It’s Me, Margaret and Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing.

In wading into the Tumblr waters Blume joins authors such as Neil Gaiman, Roxane Gay, John Green, and Emma Straub.

For all those who may be a bit uncertain of exactly what Tumblr is, think of it as a photo and image-rich cross between Facebook, a blog, and a scrapbook.

Get ready for another Goosebumps movie. The Hollywood Reporter writes that Sony is closing deals with the director and writer of the first Goosebumps movie with hopes that Jack Black will return to star.

Based on the bestselling book series by R.L. Stine, the first film was not a “massive hit” says the site, but “was a solid performer for the studio.” That seems to be enough to keep going with a long hoped-for franchise, so long hoped-for that even before the first film hit theaters in October 2015, sites such as Screen Rant were reporting on the sequel.

The Hollywood Reporter says the series took 18 years to adapt to film, making the sequel blindingly quick. The books were adapted for TV in the mid to late 90s and occasionally still run on streaming services.

We posted two stories on the possible bump for the books, pointing out tie-in editions and the reissue of Classic Goosebumps (with the line “Now a Major Motion Picture” on the covers). Expect the same attention once this second film gets further along.

Also look out for Goosebumps: Most Wanted, another series reissuing the most “notorious, creepiest, ghouliest Goosebumps characters.” The most recent is Here Comes the Shaggedy (Goosebumps: Most Wanted #9), R.L. Stine (Scholastic, Feb. 2016).

Below is the preview from the first film:

Filming has ceased indefinitely on the third Maze Runner movie, Maze Runner: The Death Cure, based on James Dashner’s #1 NYT bestselling YA series of the same name.

The film had been scheduled for release on 2/17/17 but Deadline Hollywood is reporting that star Dylan O’Brien, who was injured on set in late March, is suffering injuries “far more serious than initially reported.” No word is forthcoming on when filming will resume and the cast and crew have been sent home.

Both the first and second films, The Maze Runner and Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, were commercial successes, taking the #1 spot at the box office during their opening weekends.

There are four books currently in the series with a fifth due on Sept. 27, 2016, The Fever Code (Maze Runner, Book Five; Prequel), James Dashner (PRH/Delacorte). As the subtitle says, this one is actually a prequel, which, according to the publisher, will reveal “the story of how Thomas and WICKED built the Maze.”

A trade paperback edition of Maze Runner: The Death Cure, with a sticker announcing “Soon to Be A Major Motion Picture,” was released in 2013 (PRH/Delacorte).

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Announced on the Pottermore Web site on Tuesday,  Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them: The Original Screenplay, will be published in the U.S. by Scholastic on November 19, the day after the release of the movie. Presumably, it is being held off until after the movie debuts to avoid spoilers.

Meanwhile, the original Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Scholastic; 9780545850568), a faux Hogwarts textbook, is only available from used book retailers.

More may be coming. At the time of the announcement of the movie, it was also announced that Warner Bros has agreements in place with Scholastic to “publish children’s movie tie-in books for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and its sequels, as well as tie-in books based on the original eight Harry Potter films.” and for adult tie-ins with HarperCollins that “will delve into, and behind the scenes of, the richly textured film and its sequels to enhance fans’ enjoyment of the new stories. Books will include details about how the films were made, the process of art and design, interviews with the cast and crew, and interactive formats such as colouring and postcard books.”

Rowling caused excitement earlier this year when she gave fans the impression that Harry Potter 8 would be published this summer. In fact, the book is the script of the play, titled Harry Potter and the Cursed Child: Parts I & II (Scholastic) set to debut London’s Palace Theatre on July 30th. According to the announcement, it is  “based on an original new story by JK Rowling, Jack Thorne and John Tiffany. It is officially the eighth story in Harry Potter canon and a new play by Jack Thorne.”

A new trailer for Fantastic Beast was released earlier this month.

Cassandra Clare, author of Lady Midnight (S&S McElderry; S&S Audio; OverDrive sample) and the Shadowhunters novels, the YA series that begins with The Mortal Instruments: City Of Bones (S&S/M.K. McElderry Books, 2007), made the NYT Sunday “Fashion & Style” section in a front-page feature.

The story begins by citing Clare’s popularity, recounting how fans woke in the wee hours and drove half the night to grab one of the first 100 places in line in order to buy her latest, Lady Midnight and snag a ticket to a Q&A with Clare and the actors starring in the Shadowhunters TV show, based on her novels.

As we reported, Lady Midnight opened at #1 on both the USA Today list and the NYT Young Adult Hardcover list while Shadowhunters has been renewed for a second season.

The photo-filled feature focuses on Clare’s interest in architecture and fashion. She loves Steampunk. She designs her own clothes based on vintage patterns using Liberty prints. Her home, a renovated 19th century warehouse is described as “an Arts and Crafts showpiece. Stairs are painted to look like bookshelves; bathroom tiles are printed with quotes from their favorite authors, like J. M. Barrie and Oscar Wilde. [The] bed is hand-painted with quotes from Verlaine and Rimbaud, and there’s even a hidden passage. “

A new trailer for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them, based on the faux Hogwart’s textbook by J.K. Rowling (Scholastic, 2015), aired during the MTV Movie Awards last night, promoting the film scheduled to release on November 18, 2016.

The Today show re-aired it this morning.

It provides much more detail about the setting and mood of the film than did the first trailer as well as  a bit more information on the plot.

The screenplay was written by Rowling and the film stars Eddie Redmayne as magician Newt Scamander, as well as Ezra Miller, Colin Farrell, and Katherine Waterston. It is directed by David Yates, who was responsible for 4 of the 7 original Potter films.

This new movie takes place seventy years prior to Harry Potter’s arrival at Hogwarts. It will come in three parts, the others in the series are planned for release in two-year intervals: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 2 (2018) and Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them 3 (2020).

No tie-ins have been announced, but Warner Bros has agreements in place with Scholastic to “publish children’s movie tie-in books for Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them and its sequels, as well as tie-in books based on the original eight Harry Potter films.” and for adult tie-ins with HarperCollins that “will delve into, and behind the scenes of, the richly textured film and its sequels to enhance fans’ enjoyment of the new stories. Books will include details about how the films were made, the process of art and design, interviews with the cast and crew, and interactive formats such as colouring and postcard books.”

The BBC project to adapt Philip Pullman’s His Dark Materials trilogy as a TV series is getting closer to reality, starting with The Golden Compass.

Salon reports that Jane Tranter and Julie Gardner, the producers behind Dr. Who, and the BAFTA-Award winning screenwriter Jack Thorne, who wrote Skins, The Fades, How I Live Now, and who has been tapped for the film version of The Sandman, are on board.

Saying that the trilogy “sits somewhere between The Lord of the Rings, the Harry Potter books, Ursula K. Le Guin’s Earthsea series, and Paradise Lost,” Salon expects this team of creatives to produce something in line with Dr. Who, a “mix of cheeky, geeky, intense, and obsessive.”

The 2007 film, starring Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman, was widely considered to have cut the meat from the rich story Pullman wrote, and plans for film sequels fizzled. With both producers and writer announced, the full TV series is one more step closer to an actual air date and critics seem more hopeful it will fulfill Pullman’s epic vision.

The first full trailer has just been released for Steven Spielberg’s adaptation of Roald Dahl’s 1982 children’s book, The BFG, (Macmillan/FSG YR).

Building off the teaser that came out in December, the trailer shows more of giant country, more giants, and some wonderfully enchanting special effects.

The film stars Mark Rylance, who just won an Oscar for his work in Spielberg’s Bridge of Spies, as the BFG, and newcomer Ruby Barnhill as Sophie, the girl he whisks away. Penelope Wilton, Rebecca Hall, Bill Hader, Rafe Spall and Jemaine Clement also star.

The trailer has brought media coverage including Wired‘s take timed to key moments and this summary from USA TODAY: “it’s just as magical, just as emotional, and just as terrifying as the book we read when we were little.”

A tie-in comes out in May: The BFG Movie Tie-In, Roald Dahl (Penguin/Pufin Books; May 24, 2016
Paperback; $7.99; Audio tie-in, Listening Library).

The film opens July 1.

As part of his PR efforts, Spielberg is also promoting reading in a post to Facebook.

https://www.facebook.com/BFGMovie/videos/vb.309072625927102/565924033575292/?type=2&theater

The popular movie Home from DreamWorks Animation is set for a TV spinoff,  Home: Adventures With Tip & Oh, to debut July 29 on Netflix reports Deadline. The movie was based on Adam Rex’s chapter book, The True Meaning of Smekday, (Disney/Hyperion; Listening Library).

The series will have a new voice cast, with Rachel Crow as Tip, replacing Rihanna and Mark Whitten as Oh, replacing Jim Parsons.

Below, the movie Oh tests out various Earth objects — you WILL love the last one, trust us.

Several tie-ins to the movie were published:

Tip’s Tips on Friendship
Thies Schwarz
S&S/Simon Spotlight: February 10, 2015
Trade Paperback: $3.99 USD, $4.99 CAD
Ages 5 to 7, Grades K to 2

Home : The Chapter Book
Tracey West
S&S/Simon Spotlight: February 10, 2015
Trade Paperback: $5.99 USD, $6.99 CAD
Ages 7 to 10, Grades 2 to 5

The Story of One Super Boov
Ellie O’Ryan, Pierre Collet-Derby
S&S/Simon Spotlight: February 10, 2015
Trade Paperback; $3.99 USD, $4.99 CAD
Ages 3 to 7, Grades P to 2
NOTE: This is a 24-page 8 by 8, but it’s sticker-free

Artist Jim Kay, winner of the UK’s Kate Greenaway Medal, is working his way through the Harry Potter canon, illustrating each novel in turn.

Up next is Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets Illustrated Edition (Scholastic/Arthur A. Levine Books; October 4, 2016; ISBN 9780545791328; $39.99)

J.K. Rowling’s website Pottermore released a set of sample drawings which include the cover image (of Harry and Ron in Mr. Weasley’s flying car), a portrait of Hagrid, an exterior view of Hogwarts, and a “da Vinci-esque study of Mandrakes.” There will be 115 images in all.

Entertainment Weekly and many other sites are reporting the story, and sharing the illustrations.

Kay’s version of Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone came out last October. This new edition is due on October 4th and is available to pre-order through wholesalers and retailers.

Beloved children’s author Beverly Cleary celebrates a milestone on April 12th, her 100th birthday.

Interviewed on the Today Show, Cleary says about that achievement that she “didn’t do it on purpose!” and that she remembers “a very earnest conversation my best friend and I had when we were, I guess, freshmen in high school, about how long we wanted to live … and we decided that 80 was the cut-off date.”

Cleary became a school librarian and found that, as was the case when she herself was a reluctant reader, none of her students enjoyed the current crop of books for kids, finding them too foreign to their own lives. She recalls that “books in those days, back in the 1920s, had been published in England, and the children had nannies and pony carts.”

Her career as an author began when one of her students asked where the books were with “kids like us” and she sat down and started writing them.

Julie Blume and Kate DiCamillo both appear in the Today Show story to praise Cleary, remarking on how important and influential her books have been.

Cleary stopped writing years ago but that has not dented her popularity or diminished interest. Last month librarian Julie Roach wrote an essay for The Horn Book reporting on Cleary’s circulation stats:

“Twenty-first-century characters who are often compared to Ramona — such as Sara Pennypacker’s Clementine, Lenore Look’s Alvin Ho, and Megan McDonald’s Judy Moody and Stink — are in high demand at our library, but over the past year the print versions of Ramona held ten to twenty percent higher circulation figures than those other series.”

An adaptation of Neil Gaiman’s American Gods (HarperCollins/Morrow; a tenth anniversary edition is coming in August) has been inching towards the screen for five years and is now set to begin shooting next month, with expectations that the series will debut next year on the Starz network.

In the lead-up to production, a string of casting announcements have been released, including the leads, Emily Browning as Laura Moon and Ian McShane as Mr. Wednesday.

Meanwhile, some other Gaiman adaptations are in limbo. A film version of the Sandman graphic novel series (Vertigo) was set to be directed by Joseph Gordon-Levitt who would also star, but he recently left the project, over “creative differences.”

In 2013, it was announced that Ron Howard was in talks to direct The Graveyard Book and that Joe Wright was set to direct an adaptation of Gaiman’s adult novel The Ocean at the End of the Lane, but there has been no news on either since.

Gaiman is publishing a collection of nonfiction in May, The View from the Cheap Seats (HarperCollins/Morrow). According to the publisher, “the title piece, at turns touching and self-deprecating … recounts the author’s experiences at the 2010 Academy Awards in Hollywood,” when the adaptation of his childrens novel Coraline was nominated for Best Animated Feature.

Coming in June is a graphic novel version of Gaiman’s short story, How to Talk to Girls at Parties (Dark Horse).

A film version began shooting in December starring Elle Fanning, Nicole Kidman, and Alex Sharp. Expected for release in the UK this year, no US release date has yet been announced.

In addition to her bestselling Neapolitan novels, the mysterious Elena Ferrante has written a book for children aged 6-10.

The Beach at Night (Europa Editions; ISBN 9781609453701; Dec. 6, 2016; it may not yet be on wholesaler sites), reports The Wall Street Journal, will hit shelves later this year,

“Star translator,” Ann Goldstein, who translated Ferrante’s blockbuster adult titles into English will translate this tale as well.

Previously published in Italy in 2007, sales were tepid, reports WSJ, but Ferrante’s U.S. publisher, Europa, says that was before she became a household name and booksellers were “perplexed” by how to position it.

All that has changed, prompting the re-release in America.

The Beach at Night is a spinoff of an earlier Ferrante novel, The Lost Daughter, which includes a scene of  an adult stealing a doll from a child during a seaside vacation. Abandoned rather than stolen in the new book, the doll is left alone to face the terrors of the night in Ferrante’s newest.

Is that a story that will work for young readers? According to the WSJ, Ferrante, known for her often dark adult novels, “doesn’t sugarcoat things for young readers.”

The British trade publication, The Bookseller offers this summary:

“Celina [the lost doll] is having a terrible night, one full of jealousy for the new kitten, Minù, feelings of abandonment and sadness, misadventures at the hands of the beach attendant, and dark dreams. But she will be happily found by Mati, her child, once the sun rises.”