Morning links.

By Sacha Goldberg, from the Sad and Useless link below.

• Have you always dreamed of starring in a short film version of The Giving Tree? Well, then: HERE'S THE CASTING NOTICE.
• At Brain Pickings: The Best Children’s Books and Picture-Books of 2014.
• At io9: Why Tamora Pierce Should Be Hollywood's Favorite Author Right Now. "Third, did I mention how many books there are? There are a lot. No need to stretch a single book into three movies here. And, while the universes stay the same, the main characters split off from one another or age into cameo-roles. That should be like printing money in Hollywood."
• At BuzzFeed: These Amazon Reviews Of “Mr Men” Books Are A Triumph Of Literary Criticism. "Mr Uppity is no Marxian analysis, no Leninist prescription for class action. As always, Hargreaves’ inherent and essential conservatism comes to bear. His critique of the bourgeoisie comes not from the proletariat but from the feudal aristocracy. It is the authority of a king that places limits upon Mr Uppity’s excesses, as his usurpation and arbitrary exercise of power has violated ‘the natural order of things’. Hence the protection the masses are dealt in response to this transgression is paternal, and they receive it as subjects not radical agents of change." I AM DYING. (via Fuse)
• At the Guardian: Vape gathers linguistic steam to become Word of the Year 2014. I love linguistic evolution as much as the next gal, but to me, the word 'vape' continues to sound like pretend-slang from a SF series.
• At the Toast: The Case for Anne Shirley Blythe Birth Trutherism. "So far, so good. Walter is consistently described as being one year younger than Jem, giving him an 1894 birth year. There is then a two-year gap before the twins, Nan and Di, are born, who are consistently described as being three years younger than Jem. But then things get weird."
• At Vanity Fair: 12 Reasons the Wonder Woman Movie Just Got a Lot More Exciting.
• At KENS5: More schools forgoing Board of Ed-approved books. "Another ideological battle is brewing as the Texas Board of Education considers adopting social studies textbooks that some academics say exaggerate the influence of Moses on American democracy but which some conservatives argue gloss over radical Islam's role in modern terrorism."
• At Sad and Useless: Elizabethan Superheroes. (via Book Smugglers)