BOOK NEWS FOR SEPT 17: DISNEY BUYS RIGHTS TO YA NOVEL AND DICK AND JANE AND VAMPIRE REVIEW

Source: Reelzchannel

Disney Buys Movie Rights to Dystopian YA Trilogy Matched

Disney and Offspring Entertainment have optioned the film rights to young adult book trilogy Matched, written by debut novelist Ally Condie. Matched  is the first book in the series, and is set in a dystopian future, where the mysterious society dictates every part of your life — who you marry, where you work and how long you live for. When main character Cassia turns 17, she takes part in a matching ceremony where she is paired with her perfect partner. The question is: what happens when your chosen match isn’t the boy you love? And just how far do you go to defy the society?

Disney won the bidding war over Paramount, with Offspring already on the hunt for a scriptwriter to adapt the book. Matched is unsurprisingly being compared to other YA franchises, like Stephenie Meyer’s Twilight Saga, thanks to its strong love triangle and target audience. Although Matched is aimed at young adults, there isn’t a vampire, angel or werewolf in sight. Instead it focuses on a future where choice has been eradicated, your life is mapped out from the moment you’re born and everything you do is preordained.

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Book review: ‘Dick and Jane and Vampires’

Source: Latimes

Fanged characters have sunk their teeth — sorry about that — into the adult and young adult book markets, so is it really a surprise to find a new children’s book called “Dick and Jane and Vampires” (Grosset & Dunlap: 144 pp., $9.99, ages 5 and up)?

The original “Dick and Jane” series dates to the 1930s, when educators Zerna Sharp and William S. Gray were looking for a way to help young children develop their reading skills. Now Laura Marchesani and illustrator Tommy Hunt have teamed to continue the pair’s adventures, featuring a smiling bloodsucker who just wants to make friends and encounters the children in all kinds of daffy situations.

It might be hard to believe, but this vampire is a little shy. Even though he looks like a cross between Ricky Ricardo and “Saturday Night Fever’s” Tony Manero, he doesn’t seem to handle rejection well. So he approaches Dick and Jane cautiously: In the book’s first stories, he appears only as a bat that wrecks a hanging mobile and drives Puff, their pet cat, bonkers. Soon, however, the vampire is following this cherubic pair and their parents around town in his stylish cape and before long becomes an accepted playmate, even squeezing into a stroller so that Jane can pretend he’s her baby!

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What do you think of today’s news?