Kids love scary stories. Scary and gory – the original Little Red Riding Hood was indeed gobbled up by the wolf. In Cinderella, the mean step-sisters actually cut off their toes in order to try to fit into the glass slipper. Hansel and Gretel threw an old lady into an oven – an old lady that was about to eat them! And this isn't confined to stories by the Brothers Grimm. We have the Dementors in Harry Potter which are some of the vilest creatures ever conceived in children's literature. We have the poor orphans in Lemony Snicket's Series of Unfortunate Events began their story with their parents being murdered. In ¡ÈThe Witches¡É by Roald Dahl, yet another set of parents is killed in a car accident. I could go on and on, but one thing tht's clear is that while these story lines are scary – they're not THAT scary.

Read full article here:
http://www.jewlicious.com/2013/07/my-first-kafka-by-matthue-roth/

In the Book Notes series, authors create and discuss a music playlist that relates in some way to their recently published book.

Previous contributors include Bret Easton Ellis, Kate Christensen, Kevin Brockmeier, George Pelecanos, Dana Spiotta, Amy Bloom, Aimee Bender, Myla Goldberg, Heidi Julavits, Hari Kunzru, and many others.

Mattue Roth's My First Kafka is truly a children's book for all ages. Roth's faithfully dark and clever reworkings of three Franz Kafka stories combined with Rohan Daniel Eason's black and white illustrations make this a book the whole family will enjoy.

Wired wrote of the book:

“The haunting black-and-white sketches paired with Roth's elegant verses do justice to the sense of foreboding Kafka was so good at crafting.”

Stream a Spotify playlist of these tunes. If you don't have Spotify yet, sign up for the free service.

In his own words, here is Matthue Roth's Book Notes music playlist for his children's book, My First Kafka:

“Innocent When You Dream,” Tom Waits

To be incredibly immodest: This is probably the perfect worst lullaby to play your kids, and My First Kafka might be the perfect worst bedtime story. Which is to say, kids will probably love both, and understand both — probably better than adults do. “Running through the graveyard, we laughed, my friends and I,” he sings, melancholy and playful at once. “We swore we'd be together until the day we died.” Kids get sadness. But to them, sadness isn't completely separate from humor. In fact, reportedly, Kafka thought his own stories were hilarious; he'd read them aloud to his friends and collapse in laughter. So let's open with a lullaby. And then let's crank the music up.

Read the full article:
http://www.largeheartedboy.com/blog/archive/2013/10/book_notes_matt_23.html

…Matthue Roth, one of Amplify's head writers and game developers. I already knew a bit about Roth. His children's book, My First Kafka, is one of my boys' favorites. I've also read Roth's novel, Never Mind The Goldbergs–a story about a teenaged girl who finds her foundation for countercultural rebellion in observant Judaism. The novel is a thought-provoking exploration of the relationship between orthodoxy, individuality, and conformity. Roth's Amazon author page describes him as ¡Èa Hasidic author¡É and ¡Èslam poet,¡É hardly in resonance with the stereotypical view we may have of the News Corp lemming. (Come to think of it, Roth is hardly in resonance with the stereotypical view we have of anything).

read the full article here:
http://www.forbes.com/sites/jordanshapiro/2013/09/30/what-we-can-learn-from-rupert-murdoch-news-corp-and-amplify/

Let me admit: I didn't know much about Zelda Fitzgerald before reading Superzelda. I somehow avoided reading The Great Gatsby in high school, and only knew her as a character of some note from the flapper era, married to F. Scott Fitzgerald. So, Superzelda (from the husband-and-wife team of Tiziana Lo Porto and Daniele Marotta) both delighted and saddened me as I learned more about the subject.

Read the full article here:
http://www.austinchronicle.com/gyrobase/m/Blogs?oid=1473172

A children's Kafka seems somewhat…well… errr…Kafkaesque. But, truth be told, children do live in a world where the unexpected is pretty much expected; it's all quite new and not-yet-experienced and it must seem somewhat random and strange. Kafka himself was writing for the preverbal, not-yet-logical, completely experiential child in all of us. So maybe this book makes more sense than one might think at first glance. It's a retelling of some of Kafka's tales, most notably The Metamorphosis, in simple but poetic form accompanied by stark black and white, expressive, and very humorous illustrations. Kafka's eerie, creepy, wondrous but matter-of-fact mood is well conveyed and the language is simultaneously simple and sophisticated. This would make an unusual but highly effective read-aloud and would provoke all kinds of discussion with a child about reality, imagination, nightmares, and perception. It's offbeat, way off the beaten track and startlingly, refreshingly, original. Recommended for ages five and up and for parents who love sharing the darker side of reality.

Read here:
http://www.jewishbookcouncil.org/book/my-first-kafka?A=SearchResult&SearchID=5037916&ObjectID=6193006&ObjectType=35

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All gloom and despair: that's what Franz Kafka is known for with his novels and short stories, and the 20th century literary icon can hardly be said to have written any children's tales in his life. Brooklyn-based writer and video game designer Matthue Roth therefore took it upon himself to adapt Kakfa for children with My First Kafka: Runaways, Rodents, and Giant Bugs, a book made more marvelous by London-based Rohan Daniel Eason's fine macabre black-and-white illustrations. Somehow, Roth and Eason found a way to make Kafka appropriate for kiddo audiences.

Full article here:
http://www.lostateminor.com/2013/07/27/my-first-kafka/

As a member of the Teddy Ruxpin generation, I'm no stranger to strange things to read to your kids¡½or should that be ¡Èstrange things reading to your kids¡É? With that in mind I'm all for Brooklyn-based writer Matthue Roth's new book My First Kafka, which is Kafka¡Äbut, you know, for kids.

Roth adapted three Kafka stories (¡ÈExcursion into the Mountains,¡É ¡ÈThe Metamorphosis,¡É and ¡ÈJosefine the Singer, or The Mouse Folk¡É) for a younger audience. Because, well, maybe it's best that he explain. Here's a brief interview with the author:

Read here:
http://electricliterature.com/blog/2013/07/03/kafka-for-kids/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=kafka-for-kids

One morning Matthue Roth was about to dive into a collection of Franz Kafka's writings when his two young daughters asked him to read them a story. They had a pile of children's books to choose from, but upon seeing the cartoonish Kafka cover (illustrated by comic artist Sammy Harkham), his kids had little interest in their age-appropriate choices. ¡ÈMy older daughter said, no, read us this,¡É Roth recalls. ¡ÈI said, fine, if you insist, and then I dove in without warning them.¡É What could have have been a source of nightmares for weeks turned out to be a total hit. Roth's daughters were mesmerized by Kafka's strange, macabre tales. So much so that it inspired Roth to write My First Kafka: Runaways, Rodents, and Giant Bugs, an illustrated, kid-friendly adaptation of three classic Kafka stories.

Read the full article:
http://www.wired.com/design/2013/08/my-first-kafka/

Matthue Roth has been living in Ditmas Park with his family for three and a half years. The author of Never Mind the Goldbergs, Candy in Action, Losers, and Yom Kippur A Go-Go was inspired to write his latest work, My First Kafka: Runaways, Rodents, and Giant Bugs, after witnessing his daughters' reactions to hearing Franz Kafka's story Jackals and Arabs.

We talked to the slam poet, Cortelyou Library fan, and husband/table busser to The Hester's Itta Werdiger Roth about the incredible response to My First Kafka, what inspired the writing that came before, and the journey to his favorite neighborhood in NYC.

Read the full article here:
http://ditmasparkcorner.com/blog/art-music/matthue-roth-on-legos-all-his-best-plans-the-exception-that-is-ditmas-park