Monday morning links.

• At Quora: What is so great about Ron Weasley? "Throughout the books Ron has to struggle with the conflict that comes with being overshadowed. This is the conflict between loyalty and decency on the one hand, and the jealousy and insecurity that come with this situation on the other. He often feels useless and resents the fact that everyone around him seems better and gets more attention. This feeling in turn brings a terrible guilt."
• Start planning for NEXT Halloween: How to dress as Edward Scissorhands, a Tusken Raider, or Oogie Boogie.
• At Design Taxi: If ‘Mr Men’ & ‘Little Miss’ Characters Were Millennials. (I wish this had been titled something more along the lines of 'Mr Men' & 'Little Miss' Characters for the 21st Century, because Millennial-mockage is old and boring and annoying.)
• ZOMBIE THOUGHTS: Why Do Zombies Shuffle? and Beetles would strip Zombies to the bone. Using flesh-eating beetles to combat zombies is a GREAT idea, as long as eating the zombie brains doesn't somehow give the beetles a taste for LIVE meat.
• At Sprout's Bookshelf: 30 Days of Diverse Picture Books. (via @JensBookPage)
• At the Guardian: A Gallery of Paddington Bear sculptures.
• Challenge update: Northview school officials: graphic Jaycee Dugard memoir inappropriate for some students. "Dugard’s memoir will remain as an option for choice reading selection in classroom libraries at the high school if a teacher determines it is appropriate for inclusion in her/his classroom library, school officials said." Previously.
• At Welcome to Twin Peaks: This 7 Feet Wide Twin Peaks Chalk Mural Portrays Dale Cooper, Audrey Horne, Killer BOB, And 17 Other Characters. There's also one of The Warriors.
• At the Toast: How to Tell if You Are in a Gothic Horror Novel. "One of your children is crushed to death by a humongous helmet on the day of their wedding." Ahahaha, I'd forgotten about that. The Castle of Otranto is totally bananas. 
• At Publishing Perspectives: Exploring the African Continent in Children’s Books. "The books in our local languages were usually published by missionaries who had previously used the vernacular languages to translate the Bible, which meant that our local language books were firstly, extensions of that project. Other than that, they mostly contained folktales that had been selected for their moral values. In that sense, those books only continued with the oral narratives, except that they could be read in collected form. I am of the opinion that throughout, that practice has impacted strongly on Africa’s literary outlook."