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I was walking the stacks yesterday, minding my own business, when this book catches my eye:

I stare at it for a moment. It looks remarkably familiar for some reason, though I know I’ve never seen it before.  Then it hits me:

Barbara O’Connor fan that I am, I remember really adoring this cover when the book came out.  Check out my review if you don’t believe me. But in terms of the cover here’s what I waxed eloquent upon at the time:

Bravo. Bravo, Farrar, Straus & Giroux. You’ve managed to create the most adorable cover featuring a canine since last year’s Sheep by Valerie Hobbs. This is almost too perfect in execution. Nitpickers might point out that this scene never happens in the book, but I say pah. Pah, I say! First of all, this dog looks exactly like the one in the book, down to the black circle around one eye. He’s the right size and his little body is just adorable. I love the use of yellow as a background as well. It really allows the book to pop. Then there are the aesthetics to consider. The black and white of the dog match the black and the white of the spine. This book is one of those rare covers that will lure in an equal amount of boys AND girls. It’s a magic combination, and I just want to credit jacket designer Barbara Grzeslo for a bang-up job. Getty Images strikes again. THIS is a cover.

Keyword: Getty Images.  Because, of course, just because an image appears on one book that doesn’t mean it won’t appear on another.

Now I distinctly remember this coming up when Twilight became a huge hit.  The image of the hands holding the apple was striking, but I feel like it appeared on other books prior to Twilight‘s publication.  Yet a search of the internet today yields nothing.  Am I making this up?  Possibly, but I feel like this was my first real understanding of how Getty Images would work.

Even more recently, it came up when I saw adult author (and friend of my mom) Bonnie Jo Campbell’s latest novel:

A great image.  Just not the first time the picture has been used:

Or even the second time:

A great image remains a great image, no matter how it’s used.  There’s no shame in sharing your book jacket’s photo with other books.  It just behooves reviewers like myself to take every great Getty Image cover with a grain of salt.

By the way, if we’re talking about my favorite incident involving a stock image, then it’s a story that appeared in Wild Things: Acts of Mischief in Children’s Literature, which I co-wrote with Julie Danielson and Peter Sieruta.  The following adult novel was published with a strangely famous author on its cover:

Who’s the writer playing the accordion?  How did he get on the cover of a book by a Bosnian novelist in the first place (because I assure you, he was completely unaware of the book until it was brought to his attention)?  For the answer to that, I highly recommend that you come by my talk on October 7th at National Louis University in Skokie, IL.  I’ll tell all!  Or, failing that, you can buy Wild Things.  Honestly, I’m easy either way.

Shameless self-promotion, out!

I think I’m getting the hang of this whole living-in-Evanston thing.  All moves take adjustment, but you know the one thing that makes a transition smoother?  Finding a great new bookstore.  I was wondering the streets of downtown Evanston when I saw this sign advertising a bookstore down an alley.  And while alley walking isn’t my usual way to go, having living in NYC for eleven years (a land, admittedly, without much in the way of ANY alleys) I was curious.  The sign advertised a bookstore called Bookends and Beginnings.  So I walked to it and discovered a marvelous little shop.  First and foremost it had a great Alice in Wonderland display, celebrating 150 years, and showing off some very cool foreign editions.  Then I took note of the fact that children’s books were meticulously scattered throughout the store.  Salsa by Jorge Argueta and illustrated by Duncan Tonatiuh was in the poetry section.  Migrant by Jose Manuel Mateo was in the current affairs.  But best, by far, was the children’s section.  There, tucked away in the back of the store, was the greatest collection of contemporary children’s book imports, translations, and foreign children’s books I’d ever seen sold to the public.  It was awe-inspiring.  Truly a work of a specialist.  Indeed, as I later learned, Ms. Nina Barrett was the one responsible for the translations while her husband Jeff Garrett specialized in the foreign children’s fare.  Seriously, check out their staff recommendations.

As I walked about in a daze I stumbled across an interesting item sitting at the front desk.  It wasn’t a title I’d run across on my librarian rounds, possibly because it could never work in a circulating collection.  Some of you may know my opinion of Peter Pan.  Which is to say, I don’t much care for it.  I like aspects of it, but the book itself contains one too many twee moments for this average gal.  Nonetheless, after spending less than 30 seconds in the presence of Peter Pan by Minalima I was enthralled.  The book takes the Peter Pan story and inserts little interactive elements along the way.  Reports and a fairy believer’s clap chart, maps and more (you can see some prints from the book here).  It was like the Griffin & Sabine of children’s literature.  And I wanted it.

It also got me to thinking.  Few of us have unending shelf space.  So when we go in for certain works of children’s literature we usually get just one version to suit our needs.  Sometimes we may have more than one, but at least one has to be there.  With that in mind, what is your perfect Quintessential Edition Collection?  If you could have only one version of any classic work of children’s literature, what would it be?  The question is a tricky one.  Not long ago when I sat and watched the speakers at the remarkable Where the Wild Books Are conference created by Etienne Delessert I watched an Italian scholar describe in detail a variety of different takes on Pinocchio by decade.  It was the kind of presentation that made clear to me that no matter what your favorite book, you’ll never be aware of all the various permutations out there.

Here is my own personal list.  Very personal, since the books listed here are an interesting mix of desire for the unqualified “best” illustrations, titles from my own childhood that made a lifelong impression, and books that I would like to use with my own kiddos.

Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland by Lewis Carroll.  Illustrated by Helen Oxenbury.

The first thing you’re going to notice about my choices here today is that they tend towards the heavily illustrated, “and what is the use of a book . . . without pictures or conversations?“, a wiser woman than I once asked.  Few children’s books are illustrated and re-illustrated quite as often than Alice.  We all have our favorites, and this is mine.  I am aware of the “GAP Alice” moniker the Oxenbury version attained when it first was published, but I remain steadfast and true to it.  Few books are as perfect in child-friendliness than this (and yes, the text was never meant for the youngest of readers, but why quibble?).  By the way – this past summer in NYC I noticed that Alice was on a number of summer reading lists.  I decided to buy some extra copies of the book for the system.  I was then baffled to discover that it was remarkably difficult to buy a simple Alice book in large quantities.  Indeed, this edition that I love so much is out-of-print.  All the more reason to get it while you can.

The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe by Lewis Carroll.  Illustrated by Michael Hague

Now I assume that there simply must be more than one fully illustrated version of this book out there.  That said, this is the only one I’ve ever seen.  It’s also the version I grew up with as a child.  For a while there, Hague was the only game in town when it came to gorgeous, storytime ready, fully illustrated books for kids.  He did them all (and you may see his name appear on this list at least once or twice again) and wasn’t afraid to summon the ghost of Arthur Rackham to aid him in his endeavors.  This book in particular really solidified the story in my brain.  That shot of the statues in the White Witch’s garden?  *shudder*

Pinocchio, retold by Kate McMullen. Illustrated by Pascal LeMaitre

Translation is a funny fickle fellow.  I don’t know that many Americans read their Pinocchio with an eye towards preserving Collodi’s cadences.  Instead, it’s his story, his weird weird weird weird story, that pulls us in.  Now I’ll be the first to admit that when this version of the tale came out I was skeptical.  It seems to combine an odd cartoonish style with an early chapter book format of a classic title.  How does THAT work, exactly?  But when I read it to my daughter, magic.  This was the first chapter book she had the patience to listen to front to finish.  It’s not hard to see why.  Originally serialized in newspapers, the story is episodic and odd.  The plot hops at a breakneck pace.  Characters die and come back to life without much rhyme or reason, and you simply accept it.  Add in LeMaitre’s illustrations, which give the story both its mischievousness and a kind of innocence as well, along with McMullen’s fun telling, and you’ve got yourself a winner.

Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lindgren. Illustrated by Lauren Child

Sort of a no-brainer, this one.  It’s big and beautiful (though they came out with a very workable paperback edition not too long ago).  Child’s art works so well with the storyline that you suspect she was very influenced by this book when she herself was a child.

Sarah, Plain and Tall by Patricia MacLachlan. Illustrated by P.J. Lynch

No one said I couldn’t include versions of relatively recent children’s book illustrated in other countries to this list, of course.  Few Americans are familiar with this British edition of the beloved Newbery winner and more’s the pity.  I’m pretty much just going to refer you to the cover and leave it at that.

The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. Illustrated by Inga Moore

The other day I found myself describing the plot of A Secret Garden to my daughter.  She asked so many questions about it that at last I asked her if she wanted to see it for herself.  She did, so I was finally able to pull this version down off the shelf for her.  It’s my favorite, probably because it gives ample weight and attention to the garden itself.  Also, her sickly Colin is SUPER sickly.  That’s a kid who’s never felt sunshine on his skin, you betcha.

The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame. Illustrated by Michael Hague

Even more Rackham-esque than his Lion, Witch and Wardrobe.  When I was a child my mother had many of the more evocative pictures from this book framed and placed around our house.  If I’m not too much mistaken there may be one or two still hanging up around there somewhere.  I should note for purists that when she would read the book to me she would also show me the version penned by Winnie-the-Pooh artist Ernest Shepard, and I liked them fine.  They just weren’t as lush and amazing as Hague’s.  I mean, that Pan beats all other Pans out there (sorry, 1913 Paul Bransom edition).  This is a name dropping sidenote, but once I was in conversation with the late, great Brian Jacques and he mentioned he was doing the audiobook of The Wind in the Willows.  I asked if it was unabridged and would include “The Piper at the Gates of Dawn” section.  A lifelong Willows fan, he answered strongly in the affirmative.  Of course it would!  Of course! How could I even doubt it?

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz by L. Frank Baum. Illustrated by Michael Hague

Fans will note that for some odd reason Elizabeth Zwerger, Robert Ingpen, and some of the other bright lights of illustration have not been included here.  But when you select only one version of anything, that’s the price you pay (though I’m rather intrigued by the Ingpen version of this book, so if someone would like to, ah, send me a copy I might be willing to reconsider).  And yes, this is Hague’s third appearance on this list.  Like I said, a lot of these have to do with childhood affection.  That said, I really truly and honestly have never encountered a Wizard of Oz book to compare to this.  The full color map of Oz on the endpapers was killer, as was his interpretation of so many scenes.  It was Hague who showed me that the Wicked Witch of the West is never mentioned as having green skin at any time (and so his doesn’t).  I’m sure there are folks out there who love Denslow’s original art, but if L. Frank Baum’s wife was allowed to dislike it then so am I.

That’s all I can think of off the to of my head.  If you’ve versions of any of these that you’d like to defend, lay ’em on me.

By the way, should you be so inclined, my book Wild Things: Acts of Mischief in Children’s Literature (co-authored with Jules Danielson and Peter Sieruta) mentions one particular incident when a Caldecott winning author/illustrator had a chance to illustrate J.R.R. Tolkien’s The Hobbit but due to a miscommunication with Tolkien himself was told not to do so.  Can you name the artist?

• The weather!  She has warmed here in NYC!  The crocuses and daffodils and purple flowers that I can never identify are blooming in my front yard.  The birds are singing and there are buds on the trees.  Tis spring spring spring!  To celebrate, we begin today with a poetic celebration of baseball (a very spring thing) written by none other than my father.  You may have known that my mother was talented in this manner.  So too mon pere.  Enjoy!

• News That Did Not Make a Sufficient Splash in America: How is it that we are not ALL aware that over in Bologna the small Brooklyn publisher Enchanted Lion Books won the prize for Best Children’s Publisher of the Year in the U.S. category?  I do not recall seeing this in my PW Children’s Bookshelf (though perhaps I missed it) nor on my tweets.  Come on, people!  Big time honor here and it couldn’t have gone to a nicer company.  Well done!

• There are few things the British like more than rereleasing new Harry Potter covers.  They just revealed the new Jim Kay cover and while it does resemble some of the European covers I’ve seen, I think it is the very first time I’ve ever seen a hog associated in any way with Hogwarts.

Harry’s hair is actually messy!  And here is a nice interview with the artist in question.

• Did you read The Toast take on The Boxcar Children?  Not as creepy as their usual takes but it’ll do.  It’ll do.  If it’s horror you seek then Ayn Rand’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, also at The Toast, will fill that need.  That place is fair crawling with former English majors, it would seem.  Dobby’s tombstone was particularly choice.

• I admit it.  There were facts in this Mentalfloss article 10 Things You Might Not Know About Anne of Green Gables that I was unaware of.  Poland?  Really?  Knock me over with a feather.

• I say this in all sincerity: The Bay Area Children’s Theatre may be the coolest theater of all time.  Yes, I love the New Victory Theatre in here NYC and my heart will always have a soft spot for Children’s Theatre Company of Minneapolis, but check out this upcoming season.  It was Rickshaw Girl that drilled it all home for me.  Rickshaw Girl!  That would work brilliantly on the stage.

• Oh. Ah?  Er. *sigh*

• This one’s interesting.  There’s an extension (I think they’re called extensions, though I’m a little hazy on that point) that once installed on your computer allows you to browse Amazon.com and see the availability of the items there in your local library.  The applications, should they get out, could be enormous.  Using an online retailer to search your local library (which could be useful if your library’s search engine is archaic).  Curious how people feel about this one.  It’s called Library Extension.

• We’ve seen books written by children reach various levels of popularity over the years.  Swordbird, Eragon, She Was Nice to Mice, etc.  And we’ve seen celebrity children’s books flood our shelves whether we want them or not.  Now the two have come together with an upcoming release and it’s . . . um . . . well, it’s kind of the ULTIMATE celebrity child author of all time.  This I’ll pass on, though.

• What kinds of children’s books would you like to see?  Where are your pet personal gaps?  Marc Aronson begins the conversation.

• Daily Image:

I don’t usually show tweets that amuse me, but this one had me laughing aloud in public for days.

Consider, if you will, the strange relationship that exists between a book jacket created in America vs. a book jacket created in the United Kingdom. Both are appealing to an audience that speaks primarily English.  But the perception of what will sell/appeal in one country can vary widely from that of another.  Over the years I’ve seen a whole host of British covers translated (so to speak) for Americans, and American covers translated for the British.  Today we’re going to look at a couple of these and then I shall reveal a new book jacket that makes me inordinately, enormously happy.

First, we will consider the most popular books and how they’ve fared.  For example, there was Wonder by R.J. Palacio.

American Cover

British Adult Cover

Then there are authors like Laura Amy Schlitz who have done very well on both sides of the pond with her covers.

American Cover

British Cover

American Cover

British Cover

Harry Potter is a series with book jackets that experience quite a lot of scrutiny.  Recently the books got new American and British jackets.  Which do you prefer?

American Cover

British Cover

And today, ladies and gentlemen, it is my greatest pleasure to announce that I am allowed to reveal the American cover for the Frances Hardinge fantasy novel Cuckoo Song.  I recently finished the book and it is everything I ever wanted in a new Hardinge novel.  Released as a children’s book in the UK, it will come out here in the States as YA.  With that in mind, it is a perfect companion to Laini Taylor’s Daughter of Smoke and Bone as well as the works of Holly Black, Laura Amy Schlitz, and others.  Indeed I kept thinking of Splendors and Glooms as I read this book.

So here we go.  In the spirit of this post, here is the British cover:

And here is the American:

If that isn’t the finest creepiest book jacket you ever did see I’ll eat my proverbial hat.

Many thanks to Abrams for the jacket reveal!

• As per usual there are some Wild Things links I’d love to share today.  Lemme see here . . . Well we got a real stunner of a review over at Chapter 16.  That’s some good and gorgeous stuff going down there. Phil Nel called us “Punchy, lively, and carefully researched.”   The blog The Boy Reader gave us some serious love.  And today on our blog tour we’re at There’s a Book.  And then there’s the video at the Wild Things blog.  N.D. Wilson sent us a vid of the true behind-the-scenes story of Boys of Blur.  It’s kicking off our video series “Wild Things: Sneaky Peeks” where authors reveal the stories behind their books.

Aw heck.  I’ll save you some time.  Here’s the video.  This guy is amazing:

Don’t forget to keep checking back on the site for a new author a day!

• It’s one thing to notice a trend.  It’s another entirely to pick up on it, catalog the books that represent it, and post accordingly.  I’d noticed in a vague disjointed way that there was a definite uptick in the number of picture books illustrated with photographs this year.  Trust Travis Jonker to systematically go through and find every last livin’ lovin’ one in his The State of Photography Illustration in 2014 post.  In his comment section I’ve added a couple others I’ve seen.  Be sure to do the same!

• Since I don’t have school age kids yet I’m not in the school loop at the moment.  So it was a BIG shock to me to see the child of a friend of mine having her First Day of Kindergarten picture taken this week.  Really?  In early August?  With that in mind, this may seem a bit late but I care not.  The melodic cadences of Jonathan Auxier can be heard here recommending truly fantastic summer children’s book fare.  The man has fine fabulous taste.

• In other summer news I was pleased as punch to read about the Y’s Summer Learning Loss Prevention Program.  You know summer slide?  Well it’s good to see someone doing something about it.  Check out the info.  Check out the stats.  Check out the folks trying to combat it.

• It’s interesting to read the recent PW article Middle Grade and YA: Where to Draw the Line? which takes the issue from a bookseller P.O.V.  Naturally librarians have been struggling with this issue for years.  I even conducted a panel at NYPL a couple years ago called Middle Grade Fiction: Surviving the YA Onslaught in which MG authors Rebecca Stead, N.D. Wilson (he’s everywhere!), Jeanne Birdsall, and Adam Gidwitz discussed the industry’s attempts to brand them as YA (you can hear the full incredibly painful and scratchy audio of the talk here).  It’s a hot topic.

• This.  This this this this this.  By the way, and completely off-topic, how long until someone writes a YA novel called “This”?  The sequel could be named “That”.  You’re welcome, publishing industry.

• Harry Potter fan art is near and dear to my heart but in a pinch I’m happy to consider Harry Potter official cover art as well.  They just released the new British covers (and high bloody time, sayeth the masses).  They’re rather fabulous, with the sole flaw of never aging Harry.  What poor kid wants to look the same age at 10 as he does at 17?  Maybe it’s a wizard thing.  Here’s one of the new jackets to chew on:

That might be my favorite Dumbledore to date.

• There are whole generations of children’s librarians that went through graduate school reading and learning about educator Kay E. Vandergrift.  I was one of them, so I was quite sad to read of her recent passing.  The PW obit for her is excellent, particularly the part that reads, “Vandergrift was one of the first professors to establish a significant Web presence, spearheading the use of the Internet as a teaching tool. Her website, a self-declared ‘means of sharing ideas and information with all those interested in literature for children and young adults,’ was considered an important resource for those working with children and linked to more than 500 other sites.”  If you need to know your online children’s literary history, the story isn’t complete without Kay.  I always hoped she’d get around to including a blog section, but what she had was impressive in its own right.  Go take a gander.

• I don’t consider myself a chump but there are times when even I get so blinded by a seemingly odd fact on the internet that I eschew common sense and believe it to be correct.  Case in point: The Detroit Tigers Dugout Librarian. Oh, how I wanted this to be true.  Born in Kalamazoo, a town equidistant between Detroit and Chicago, my baseball loyalties have always been torn between the Tigers and the Cubs (clearly I love lost causes).  So the idea of the Tigers having their own librarian . . . well, can you blame me for wanting to believe?  I WANNA BEE-LIEVE!

• Amazon came up with a list of 100 children’s books to read.  Amazon, I’ma gonna let you finish but the NYPL had the best 100 children’s book list of all time!  Which . . . I wrote. . . . so . . . . yeah.  No bias here or anything. *whistles to self*

• I’ve a new pet peeve.  Wanna hear it?  Of course you do!  I just get a bit peeved when popular sites create these lists of children’s books and do absolutely no research whatsoever so that every book mentioned is something they themselves read as children.  That’s why it’s notable when you see something like the remarkable Buzzfeed list 25 Contemporary Picture Books to Help Parents, Teachers, and Kids Talk About Diversity.  They don’t lie!  There are September 2014 releases here as well as a couple things that are at least 10 years old.  It’s a nice mix, really, and a great selection of books.  Thanks to Alexandria LaFaye for the link.

• So they’re called iPhone wallpapers?  I never knew that.  Neil Gaiman’s made a score of them based on his children’s books.

• Daily Image:

Maybe it’s just me but after seeing the literary benches cropping up in England I can’t help but think they make a LOT of sense.  More so than painting a statue of a cow or a Peanuts character (can you tell I lived in Minneapolis once?).  Here are two beautiful examples:

Wind the in the Willows

Alice Through the Looking Glass

Thanks to Stephanie Whelan for the link!

• First up, my little sister.  My daughter recently had her third birthday so my sis came up with a craft involving what she calls Do It Yourself Cupcakes. Each cupcake sported a teeny tiny cover of one of my child’s favorite books.  Then we took them to her daycare where she delightedly set about pointing out all the books she knew.  I have zero crafting skills but if you do then you might want to try this sometime.  It was kind of friggin’ amazing.

• Now in praise of Kevin King.  The Kalamazoo Public librarian has long been hailed as one of the best in the country.  Fact.  Children’s authors and illustrators everywhere know his name.  Fact.  But when a man attended a summer reading kickoff  for Kalamazoo Public Library with a gun, who confronted the fellow and asked him to please leave?  Kevin King.  So basically, he’s an amazing librarian AND he has the guts to talk to someone packing heat around children.  Kevin King, today we salute you.  I don’t know that many of us would have the courage to do what you did.

• Look, we all talk about how we don’t have enough of one kind of book or not enough of another.  But what do we actually DO about it?  Credit to Pat Cummings.  She doesn’t take these things lying down.  Check out the Hero’s Art Journey Scholarship then.  As the website says, “The Children’s Book Academy is proud and excited to offer merit scholarships for writers and illustrators of color, identifying as LBGQTI, or having a disability, who are currently underrepresented in the children’s publishing industry. In addition, we are offering scholarships for low income folks who might not be able to take this course otherwise as well as to SCBWI Regional Advisers and Illustrator Coordinators who do so much unpaid work to help our field.”  The first and only scholarship of its kind that I’ve certainly seen.

• Sometimes it’s just nice to find out about a new blog (even if by “new” you mean it’s been around since 2012).  With that in mind, I’d like to give a hat tip and New Blog Alert to The Show Me Librarian.  I believe it was Travis Jonker who led me to St. Charles City-County Library District librarian Amy Koester’s site.  It doesn’t have a gimmick.  It’s just an honestly good children’s librarian blog with great posts like this one on Reader’s Advisory and this one on picture book readalouds.  Them’s good reading.

• Jules would never alert you to this herself, but don’t miss this interview with the woman behind the Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast blog as conducted by Phil and Erin E. Stead.  Even if you know Jules you’ll learn something new.  For example, I had no idea she enjoyed Marc Maron’s podcast too.

• Speaking of Jules, who is the most tattooed children’s author/illustrator (since we already know the most tattooed bookseller)?  The answer may surprise you.

• “There’s not just one way of believing in things but a whole spectrum.”  That would be Philip Pullman talking on the subject of fairy tales and why Richard Dawkins got it wrong.

• I’m sorry.  I apparently buried the lede today.  Else I would have begun with the startling, shocking, brilliant news that they’re bringing back Danger Mouse.  Where my DM peoples at?  Can I get a, “Crumbs!”?  That’s right.

• I don’t read much YA.  Usually I’ll pick out the big YA book of a given year and read it so that I don’t fall completely behind, but that’s as far as I’ll go (right now deciding between We Were Liars and Grasshopper Jungle).  But I make exceptions and Marissa Meyer’s Lunar Chronicles fall into that gap.  Now I hear that Meyer wrote a prequel called Fairest giving her villain some much needed background.  That’s cool enough, but the cover?  You only WISH you could see more jackets like this:

• Speaking of YA, and since, by law, nothing can happen at this moment on the internet without some mention of The Fault in Our Stars at least once, I was rather charmed by Flavorwire’s round-up of some of the odd TFIOS merchandise out there.  Favorite phrase: “for the saddest party ever.”

• It’s important to remember that school library cuts aren’t an American invention.  They’re a worldwide problem, a fact drilled home recently by the most recent post on Playing By the Book.  If you’re unaware of the blog it’s run by the wonderful Zoe Toft and is, to my mind, Britain’s best children’s literature blog, bar none.  Now Zoe’s facing something familiar to too many school librarians and it’s awful.  Does anyone know of a British children’s literary magazine along the lines of a School Library Journal or Horn Book?  The fact that her blog hasn’t been picked up by such an outlet is a crime.

• “I should think there would be more chance of your child choking to death on a chocolate bar than of becoming seriously ill from a measles immunisation.”  As a woman with a child too young at the moment to be vaccinated against diseases like measles, every parent that refuses to get their own children vaccinated is a threat to mine.  So I read with great interest what Roald Dahl felt about vaccinating your kids.  It ran on BoingBoing back in 2009 but this kind of thing never dies.

• Father’s Day has come and gone but it’s never too late to look at a bunch of adorable pictures of dads reading to their kids.  Particularly when one of the dads is married to yours truly.  See if you can spot him.

• And the award for Best Summer Reading List of All Time goes to . . . Mike Lewis!  His Spirit of Summer Reading list for reluctant readers can only be described in a single word: Beautiful.  Designed flawlessly with books that I adore, this is the list I’d be handing to each and every parent who walks in my library door, were I still working a reference desk somewhere.  Wowzah.

• A whole exhibit on Appalachian children’s literature?  See, this is why I need my own private jet.  Why has no one ever given me a private jet? Note to Self: Acquire private jet, because it’s exhibits like this one that make me wish I was more mobile.  You lucky denizens of Knoxville, TN will be able to attend this exhibit between now and September 14th.  Wow.  Thanks to Jenny Schwartzberg for the link.

• So pleased to see this interview with Nathan Hale on the Comics Alternative podcast.  Love that guy’s books, I do.  Great listening.

• New York certainly does have a lot of nice things.  Big green statues in the harbors.  Buildings in the shape of irons.  Parks that one could call “central”.  But one thing we do not have, really, is an annual children’s book trivia event for folks of every stripe (librarians, editors, authors, booksellers, teachers, etc.).  You know who does?  Boston.  Doggone Boston.  The Children’s Book Boston trivia event happened the other day and The Horn Book reported the results.  One could point out that I could stop my caterwauling and throw such an event myself.  Hmm… could work. We could do it at Sharlene’s in Brooklyn… it’s a thought…

• C.S. Lewis on the Three Ways of Writing for Children and the Key to Authenticity in All Writing.  Need I say more than that?

• Daily Image:

There are bookshelves that seem kooky or cool and then there are bookshelves that could serve a VERY useful purpose, if you owned them.  Boy howdy, do I wish I owned this because useful is what it is.  It’s a “Has Been Read” and “Will Be Read” shelf.

Thanks to Aunt Judy for the link.

Here we are on the cusp of summer.  It always surprises me when the weather gets warm and yet the kids are still in school here in NYC.  Still, they’ll be out soon enough, running into my libraries with their summer reading lists clenched in their hot little hands.  Here in New York City each school, each teacher even, can have their own reading lists.  There is absolutely no consensus amongst them.  Some things in life are certain, however.  By and large, the same books show up over and over on the lists.

With all this in mind I received the following message from a fellow children’s librarian.  As her crie de coeur says, there are few things quite as disappointing in life than handing a kid a book only to see their face fall in despair when they see the cover.  Or, as she put it:

I am building a book order to replace some terrific—and completely unread—books in my elementary library, and I just wanted to take a moment to rant about book covers.

I want to replace these books with new copies with covers that might actually attract children:

Dear Mr. Henshaw

Summer of the Swans

From the Mixed-up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler

The Giver

I’m sure there are more. But alas, I cannot replace these books with new copies with more attractive covers, because an attractive cover does not exist. ARRGGHHH!

Why won’t someone somewhere create covers equal to the quality of these books?? If no one does, they are doomed to a listless life on the library shelf, pulled out only far enough for the cover to be seen, then summarily shoved back into their shelf slots. What an injustice.

Hmm.  Each one of these is a classic and in some cases their covers are considered untouchable by the masses.  But no book jacket is so perfect that it couldn’t stand an upgrade.  Let’s take a look at the offenders, shall we?

Ah, Mr. Henshaw.  Now not all of us know this, but this art was actually done by the great Paul O. Zelinsky back in the day.  It’s a lovely cover . . . if you live in 1983.  It’s that bowl haircut that does it in now.  For a second that haircut came back in, but not any longer.  You could certainly keep the interior art if you were married to it, but that cover could stand an upgrade, yep.

A 1971 Newbery Award winner and a book that has not fared well in the old book jacket department.  As you can see, it’s going the boring dreamy route.  Past covers have been little better.  They have included:

We’re not looking for anything crazy.  Just a cover that feels like it belongs in the 21st century.

By the way, back when Travis Jonker was bestowing new covers to old Newbery winners, he included this book.  You can see his results here (and it’s still better than what we currently have).

This one is going to raise some hackles.  After all, Ms. Konigsburg illustrated this cover herself, and some folks have a real, personal connection to it.  Interestingly enough, there have been other iterations of this cover.  Three of the alternative covers were just variations on the same theme (making this cover a photograph rather than a drawn image, but retaining the look).  You can see them in my summary of this book as part of my Top 100 Children’s Book Poll.  Only one cover has been significantly different and it was this one:

Seems to me another upgrade would be well in order.  Like my librarian reader, I too have had difficulty hand selling this book thanks in large part to its cover design.

And finally . . .

You may recall that just as Ms. Konigsburg did her cover, so too did Lois Lowry take this photograph.  The book has seen other covers over the years, but none of them are what you might call particularly thrilling.

This one doesn’t bother me the way the others have.  I hand this book to kids and they don’t cringe.  More to the point, the upcoming movie has created a new cover.  Voila:

I don’t mind it, but I could have lived without the gigantic sticker on the cover mentioning Taylor Swift.

What are some book jackets of days of yore that you wouldn’t mind seeing repackaged?

You know why I’m looking forward to 2014?  It’s not the fresh start that comes with every turn of the globe.  It’s not the incipient birth of my second child (I lie . . . it is that, but for the purposes of this piece we’re going to pretend that it’s not).  It’s not the fact that I’ve mistakenly thought it was 2014 already for half the year (this is what early galleys hath wrought).

It’s none of these.  It is, in fact, the plethora, the godsend, the sheer number of books with kids of color on the middle grade covers coming out in 2014.

None of you have been blind to the fact that when a middle grade novel stars a kid of color, there is a 75% chance that you’re not going to see their face on the book jacket.  Heck, Allie Bruce’s posts on the subject are worth the price of admission alone.  Then there’s the fact that sometimes even finding kids of color can be a challenge (see: 2013 Middle Grade Black Boys: Seriously, People?). With that in mind I’ve been watching the galleys for the 2014 season and I am feeling cautiously optimistic.  While the books that I’m about to list here are still just a miniscule percentage of the swath of middle grade (by which I mean, novels for kids between the ages of 9-12) titles out there, they mark a 400% improvement over . . . um . . . ever.  Here’s what I’m seeing for Spring 2014 alone:

A Medal for Leroy by Michael Morpurgo 

Nicely done.  Big full-face with the dad in the background.  Makes it clear it’s historical without feeling off-putting.  Of course the cover originated in Britain, but we’ll take what we can get.

Eddie Red Undercover: Mystery on Museum Mile by Marcia Wells 

The first in what appears to be a series, this is a SUPER rarity.  Dark-skinned boy (who is NOT a sidekick or best friend) alone on the cover of a book that actually looks fun and not meaningful or historical.  And a mystery at that?  Somebody buy me a lottery ticket quick, because I think my luck’s about to change!

The Blossoming Universe of Violet Diamond by Branda Woods

I don’t care that it’s just half a face.  It’s still a nice cover and I’m all for it.

Saving Baby Doe by Danette Vigilante 

Contemporary Latino boy?!  This is also wildly uncommon.  Kind of dig the gorgeous cover design as well.

The Crossover by Kwame Alexander

What, you thought we got rid of all the silhouette-stand-ins-for-black-kids covers?  Think again.

The Lion Who Stole My Arm by Nicola Davies

Another silhouette, but at least the title and cover blurb (which may or may not be on the American edition) are awesome.

Susan Marcus Bends the Rules by Jane Cutler 

Look at this cover long enough and you might be convinced that the “Susan Marcus” mentioned in the title was the African-American girl at the center of the other girls’ attention.  Nope.  That girl isn’t even our heroine.  A bit misleading but I sort of like the image so I’m torn.

Winter Sky by Patricia Reilly Giff 

A close kin to the silhouette cover is the back-of-the-head cover where, again, you cannot determine the character’s race.  That said, I actually like this one.  Look at her head and hands and her race is instantly apparent (it’s a little harder to see here but trust me that when you see the actual book it will be clear).  And due to the fact that there are 5 billion YA novels with white girls running away from the viewer, nothing wrong with a middle grade novel doing it’s own similar thing.

Painting the Rainbow by Amy Gordon 

Like the “Susan Marcus” book, the boy pictured here is not the hero of the tale but someone being investigated (so to speak) by the two girls in the boat.  This is, by the way, the only book with an Asian or Asian-American character I’ve seen with the sole exception of . . .

Secrets of the Terra-Cotta Soldier Ying Chang Compestine and Vinson Compestine

It’s historical (a rare fantasy set in Maoist China) and distinctly unique.

Almost Super by Marion Jensen 

Maybe she’s not the heroine proper but the character of Juanita Johnson fills me with hope.  She and Gum Girl should get together sometime and save the world.

Nightingale’s Nest by Nikki Loftin 

Winner of the Most Blurbs for a Galley award of 2014.

Zane and the Hurricane: A Story of Hurricane Katrina by Rodman Philbrick

There is an understanding these days that you cannot CANNOT write a middle grade novel about Hurricane Katrina without the book being about a dog in some way.  This title is no exception.  It does, at first, look like a series of silhouettes but if you look at the actual book you’ll see it’s more detailed than that.  I’m giving it points too for just looking like a book a kid might actually want to read.

Conclusions?  As I mentioned before, Asian characters are more difficult than usual to find this publishing season.  I was tempted to include The Dirt Diary by Anna Staiszewski in that rare category but I haven’t read the book so I wasn’t certain that I was correct.  I’ve also not seen any books about Native American kids, but unless you’re Joseph Bruchac or Louise Erdrich they won’t be putting your face on the cover anyway (Written in Stone was 2013′s rare exception).

I would also be amiss in not mentioning the fact that these are just books that are featuring kids of color on their book jackets. I’m not mentioning the books that feature multicultural kids within the pages (just not on the covers). These would include titles like Upside Down in the Middle of Nowhere by Julie T. Lamana and The Sittin’ Up by Sheila P. Moses amongst many others. Books that I am incredibly grateful for, but feel like the publishers missed a golden opportunity somewhere down the road when it came to their covers. Ah well. There’s always next year.

By the way, I just know that since I’m listing this books from the galleys I’ve received that there are bound to be some covers I’ve missed. So lay ‘em on me! What’s also out there that I’m failing to note?

Don’t you hate it when you’ve saved oodles of links for a Fusenews only to find your computer apparently ate them without informing you?  Fun times.  So if I promised some of you that I’d post something and then I didn’t, remind me of the fact.  Clearly me brain is running on fumes.

• Stop.  Before you go any farther I will show you something that will make you laugh.  It is this post by my sister on making a particularly unique gingerbread creation.  If nothing else the photos at the end will make you snort in a distinctly unladylike manner.

• Bookish wanted great children’s book recommendations from NYPL so Booklish now HAS great children’s book recommendations from NYPL.  Ha HA!

• Please remind me the next time I wish to garner outrage to simply tap Philip Pullman.  The man has sway.  Big time sway.

• This is fun:

The SCBWI is proud to announce the winner and honor recipients of the 2013 Jane Yolen Mid-List Author Award.  Congratulations to winner Eve Feldman, author of such works asBilly and Milly Short and Silly (Putnam) and Dog Crazy (Tambourine).  Eve has been a children’s book author and SCBWI member for over twenty years.  To learn more about Eve visit www.evebfeldman.com.

Two Honor Grants were also awarded to authors Verla Kay and Deborah Lynn Jacobs.  Verla Kay is the author of Civil War Drummer Boy (Putnam) and Hornbooks and Inkwells(Putnam) among others.  Learn more at www.verlakay.com.  Deborah Lynn Jacobs is the author of the young adult novels Choices (Roaring Brook Press) and Powers (Square Fish).  Learn more at www.deborahlynnjacobs.com.

• Gift giving to a young ‘un when you yourself are without young ‘uns?  Well, this post A Message to Those Without Children is dead on.  She doesn’t mention alternatives but I can: What about books instead?  Board books!  Give it a whirl, prospective gift givers.

• The most amusing part of this Harry Potter Swimsuit Line to my mind isn’t the content so much as it is the models they got to wear the outfits.  Most of them don’t seem to have any clue what they’re wearing.  However, #2 in the Snape dress model appears to have been cast solely for the part and #3 has the decency to look slightly embarrassed to be there at all.  Thanks to Liz Burns for the link.

• Speaking of HP, we all knew that the covers of the Harry Potter books were being re-illustrated here in the States.  But how many of us knew that the Brits were planning on releasing full-color illustrated books with art by Jim Kay?  Does the name Jim Kay ring a bell for you, by the way?  You might be thinking of the art he did for A Monster Calls by Patrick Ness.  That was a far cry from that cutesy Harry picture included in the article.  Suddenly I can’t wait to see what the man can do with Dementors.  Thanks to Ben Collinsworth for the link.

• The site Latinas for Latino Lit has released their list of Remarkable Latino Children’s Literature of 2013.  It really is an excellent list.  And at least two of the titles mentioned appeared on NYPL’s recent 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing list too.

• Daily Image:

Happy Tuesday to you, one and all!  Hope your weather isn’t as bitingly cold as ours has been.  Time to warm up with some fresh and festive children’s literature tidbits.  Personally, I’m trying to figure out why I wrote today’s headline a couple days ago.  I’m sure there was a reason for it.  Hmmm.

• The recent NPR piece on Gertrude Stein’s children’s book reminds me that it would be great if someone wrote a fun article for The Horn Book that consisted of a systematic accounting of cases where adult authors wrote children’s books and failed miserably in the attempt (with the occasional success stories, i.e. Sylvia Plath, along the way).  The article could take into account similarities between such books, or trends in more recent examples (today we have Salman Rushdie, Michael Crichton, etc. and back then we had Gertrude Stein, Donald Barthelme, etc.).  So somebody go do that thing.  I’d love to read it.

• Best book lists are popping up hither and thither and yon.  We recently saw the release of the rather massive Kirkus Best Books List for Children as well as this one from Publishers Weekly.  Always interesting to see which non-starred books made the cut.  Now SLJ announces that they’ll reveal their 2013 Best Books on Twitter. The big reveal is Thursday, November 21, 8 pm EST.

• Allie Bruce has two fantastic blog posts up on the Lee & Low site these days discussing conversations she’s had with the kids in her school about race (amongst other issues) and book jackets.  Part one is here and part two is here.  This would be your required reading of the day.  It’s fun and makes for a great conversation.  Plus, I love how these conversations help to make kids into savvier consumers.

• Speaking of book jackets, there is nothing I do not love about the recent ShelfTalker blog post Please, Will Somebody Re-Design These Covers?  Amen, and also thank you.

• Oh!  And while we’re over at ShelfTalker, they’ve updated The Stars Thus Far.  Look at Locomotive!  Doesn’t that do your heart good?  I completely missed that it was the only children’s book this year to get six out of six.  Wow!

• Things You Might Have Missed Because I Sure As Heck Did: James Howe guest blogged over at TeachingBooks.net and his post is just the smartest thing.  From personal history to a sneak peek into his upcoming 2014 title, this is just fantastic stuff.  I tell you, man.  Guest blogging is where it’s at.

• This next one is just so cool.  I’ve been hearing from various folks the ways in which they’ve been having Giant Dance Parties as inspired by my book.  But NONE of them quite compare to this party that took place at the Cotsen Children’s Library at Princeton University.  The accompanying craft is just brilliant!  They even made little roses.  Awwww.  Still not convinced?  Then let this adorable child be the ultimate lure:

Resist if you can.  You can’t!  Thank you Dana Sheridan for the link!

• If you’re anything like me you scanned through this admittedly very cool Most Popular Books of All Time piece and looked to see how the children’s materials panned out.  Very well, it seems!  And the top of the pops?  Mr. Hans Christian Andersen himself.  Now and forever, baby.  Thanks to Aunt Judy for the link.

• My workplace is so weird.  Ask me sometime about the day Bjork came to visit Winnie-the-Pooh.

• Stockholm’s Tio Tretto Library is so cool.  If the kitchen didn’t clinch it then the sewing area would.  Stockholm tweens are clearly the luckiest in the world.

• Derek Jeter has his own publishing imprint now?  Hm.  Okay.  I’ll be fine with this, just so long as at least ONE of these books is set in Kalamazoo, our hometown.  C’mon, Jeter!  Hometown pride!  Thanks to PW Children’s Bookshelf for the link.

• Today I shall begin by ripping out your heart and stomping it into tiny shreds upon the floor.  You may be aware that for years I have worked with the real Winnie-the-Pooh toys at NYPL.  You may also know that the real Christopher Robin had a serious falling out with his father about the books.  Now Ian Chachere has written was is easily the BEST graphic story about Christopher Robin at the end of his days.  Thank you for the link, Kate.

• Well, get out your fire hoses and start running for the hills (I prefer my mixed metaphors shaken, not stirred).  The Newbery/Caldecott prediction season is about to begin 4 realz.  Calling Caldecott is gently starting its engine, checking its rear view mirror, and making sure the gas tank is full.  Heavy Medal, meanwhile, is putting pedal to the medal (so to speak), revving this puppy as loud as it can go, and then tearing down the street leaving only burnt rubber and flames in its wake.  If you have favorites, they will be systematically destroyed (even, God help us, Doll Bones if Nina’s comments are any indication).  Personally I’m just biding my time until Jonathan Hunt attempts to defend Far Far Away as a Newbery contender.

• Speaking of the berry of new, Travis Jonker is churning out the fun posts on Newbery stats.  They remind me of the glory days of Peter Sieruta (he loved these sorts of things).  Want to win a Newbery of your very own?  Then you’d better check out So You Want to Win a Newbery, Part 1 and Part 2.

• What causes the most problems in Greek mythology?  The answer may surprise you (not really).  My mom was right to point out that the last sentence should contain a he/she there.

• Whenever I hear that a celebrity has written a children’s book my reaction isn’t so much outrage as a kind of resigned, “What took them so long?”  In my perverted take on Andy Warhol’s famous quote, in the future everyone will have their own children’s book for 15 minutes.  The latest not-so-surprising travesty is Rush Limbaugh’s are-we-absolutely-certain-this-isn’t-from-The-Onion book Rush Revere and the Brave Pilgrims.  And we could pull out the usual jokes and all (certainly I’m highly tempted to buy a copy, if only to randomly quote from it on this blog to comedic effect from time to time) but it was Thom Barthelmess who classed the joint up recently by writing of it, “I believe that librarians can shape that discourse by modeling respect for those with whom we disagree. And I believe that every time we suggest to a child that her book choice is inappropriate we weaken the foundation on which she is building a life of reading. This, my friends, is where intellectual rubber meets the freedom road. Let’s be sure we’re holding the map right-side up.”

• How did I miss this?  Last year I did indeed notice the plethora of Chloes.  So why didn’t I see the abundance of 2013 Floras?  Fortunately Elissa Gershowitz at Horn Book was there to pick up my slack.

• Good old Common Core.  It’s so common.  So core-y.  Over at Publishers Weekly their inaugural Common Core column has posted.  It’s called Cut to the Core: Distinguishing Common Core Myth from Reality.  Check it.

• Speaking of Common Core, not too long ago I gave a talk about it at a New Jersey SCBWI Conference.  Now over at 1600 Words a Day, author Amy Armstrong summarizes me with a Snapshot of Betsy Bird’s Session on the Common Core with Nonfiction Recommendations.  If you want to hear what I’ve read and liked nonfictionwise in 2013, this post may prove useful.

• Once you start talking about Common Core it’s hard to stop. I’ll just close up my mentions of it here by pointing out that if you ever wanted some great reading, it’s fun to take a gander at Museums in a Common Core World.

• Um . . . awesome.

If you’re not a regular reader of the very rare middle grade science fiction / fantasy blog Views From the Tesseract, I cannot recommend it highly enough.  Stephanie’s recent post on the book The Fallen Spaceman is fabulous.  Particularly when you discover which Caldecott winner and his son did the illustrations.  Australian readers in particular are urged to comment on it.

• Daily Image:

I don’t suppose this is technically a children’s literature article, but the hidden underground flowering world they discovered not that long ago sure feels like something out a kids book. Just a taste:

Well sir, it’s a heckuva week.  Book stuff is happening out the wazoo, but for a moment I’d like to concentrate on what else is going on in the wider children’s literary world.  What say we Fusenews it up a bit, eh?

• Of course there’s no way to begin today without a hat tip to the late, great E.L. Konigsburg.  The only person, I believe, to win both a Newbery Award and a Newbery Honor in their debut year.  Top THAT one, folks!  The New York Times pays tribute to one of our luminaries.  We had managed to do pretty well in 2013 without losing one of our lights.  Couldn’t last forever.  Godspeed, Elaine.

• Speaking of deaths, I missed mentioning my sadness upon hearing of Roger Ebert’s passing. Jezebel put out a rather nice compilation of Roger Ebert’s Twenty Best Reviews.  I wonder if folks ever do that for children’s book critics.  Hm.  In any case, amongst the reviews was this one for Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.  It’s rather brilliant.  See for yourself.

• New Blog Alert: Now I would like to brag about my system’s children’s librarians.  They are uniquely talented individuals.  Smart as all get out.  One that I’ve always been particularly impressed with is Stephanie Whelan, a woman I trust more than anyone else when it comes to finding the best in children’s (not YA) science fiction and fantasy fare.  Now Stephanie has conjured up one doozy of a blog on that very topic.  It’s called Views From the Tesseract (nice, right?) and it looks at a lot of science fiction and fantasy specifically with side views of topics in the field.  You’ll find posts with subjects like A Matter of Taste: Preferring One Genre Over Another, Five Fantasy Pet Peeves, and the fascinating delve into the world of Tom Swift in The Swift Proposal.  Stephanie also has access to galleys so be sure to check out her early reviews for books like William Alexander’s Ghoulish Song and Sidekicked by John David Anderson (which I’m reading right now on her recommendation).

• Turns out that the Mental Floss piece 11 Book Sequels You Probably Didn’t Know Existed spends an inordinate amount of time looking at children’s books.  Check it out for mentions of the 101 Dalmatians sequel (missed that one), the E.T. sequel The Book of the Green Planet (which, if memory serves, was illustrated long ago by David Wiesner and is the only book he no longer owns the art of), and more.

• Nice blogger mentions this week.  Thanks to Sara O’Leary for mentioning my new website and to Jen Robinson’s for the nice review of Giant Dance Party.  I appreciate it, guys!  Plus Jen is the first review I’ve read that draws a connection between my book and the Hunger Games series.  Few can say so much.

Speaking of reviews, I owe Travis Jonker a debt of gratitude for reviewing Marguerite Abouet’s Akissi.  I read that book in the original French a year or two ago and was completely uncertain if it would ever see the light of day here in the States due to a final story that, quite frankly, DEFIES anything I’ve seen in children’s literature before.  The kind of thing that makes Captain Underpants look tame.  You have been warned.  Great book, by the way.  Let’s not lose sight of that.

• Not too long ago I spoke to a group of 6th graders at Bank Street College’s school about contemporary book jackets and how they’re marketed to kids.  Only a portion of my talk was dedicated to race or gender.  Fortunately, the kids have been thinking long and hard about it.  Allie Bruce has posted twice about a covers project the kids have participated in.  Be sure to check out race and then gender when you have a chance.  Food for thought.

• For a certain kind of person, the title of this website alone will cause a flutter and palpitation of the heart: The Last Unicorn Screening Tour (featuring Peter S. Beagle and fans everywhere).  You know who you are.  Big time thanks to Marci for the link.

• Newsflash: Americans Still Love Libraries.  Comes with its own infographic, so you know it’s true.  Thanks to Lese Dunton for the link.

• What do Pinkalicious, A Ball for Daisy, and Square Cat all have in common?  Read ‘em to your kids and you’ll be teaching them that consumerism is king.  So sayeth a 196-page thesis called “Cultivating Little Consumers: How Picture Books Influence Materialism in Children”, as reported by The Guardian.  And they might have gotten away with the premise to if they just hadn’t brought up I Want My Hat Back.  Dude.  Back away from the Klassen.  Thanks to Zoe Toft (Playing By the Book) for the link.

• You may have heard that Simon & Schuster finally announced that it will start making e-books available to all three New York City public library systems.  The press certainly picked up on the story and many articles have been generated.  Curious?  Then read these pieces in Mashable, The NY Daily News, MediaBistro (Galleycat and Fishbowl NYC), Publishers Weekly, Fast Company and The Associated Press.

• Okay.  I’m just gonna go out on a limb here and say it.  Marjorie Ingall has created, without a doubt the most impressive children’s book footwear post of all time.  Honest-to-god, if you don’t bow down before her for that English Roses shoe, you have no soul.

• Required Reading of the Day: There are few authorial blogs out there even half as interesting as Nathan Hale’s.  And when the guy gets a fact wrong in one of his books, he’ll do anything to set it right.  Even if it means going to Kansas.  Here’s how he put it:

We made a HUGE historical error, and we are going to fix it! We are going to learn why Kansas wasn’t a Confederate state–why it was a “Free State,” and how it happened. We are also going to visit Kansas on an official apology and correction trip. When we are finished, all Hazardous Tales readers will know how to correct their own copy of Big Bad Ironclad! Stay tuned!

You can see the official ceremony here, but be sure to read all the blog posts he drew to explain precisely why Kansas was a free state anyway. You can see Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, and Part Six.

• Daily Image:

It’s not the holiday gift giving season, but if you know a librarian in need of a unique gift, I have your number.

Awesomesauce.  Thanks to Marchek for the link.

Before we begin I would like to have a few words with the publishers on behalf of catalogers nationwide.

Ahem.

Hi, guys.  How’s it going?  Heckuva weird weather we’ve had lately, right?  Yeah . . . so . . . here’s the thing.  You know how you’ve been rereleasing a couple classic children’s books recently like Slake’s Limbo and all the Ramona Quimby books?  That is just awesome of you.  Seriously, new covers were desperately needed.  But, you’re kind of doing this weird thing that’s messing everything up.  See, for some reason you’re changing the covers but you’re keeping the old ISBNs.  And we wouldn’t really mind if it was just the jackets you were changing, but in the case of the Ramona books you have new interior illustrations.  This is a HUGE disservice, not only to libraries, but to your new illustrator, Ms. Jacqueline Rogers.  If you keep the same ISBN then in records across the country previous illustrators will be listed in the system.  Not Ms. Rogers.  So, I know we’re supposedly going to go through some crazy crisis where we run out of all the ISBNs, but do a gal a favor and change the ISBNs on rereleases if you have new interior art (or, also in the case of Ramona, new pagination).  It just makes good clean sense.

Okay!  Moving on.

• If I say that Travis Jonker fellow at 100 Scope Notes is a nice guy I’m not exactly telling you anything you don’t already know.  But how nice is he?  Well, in his awesome 10 to Note: Spring Preview 2013 do you know what book he led with?  MINE!! I’m thrilled and flabbergasted all at once.  Ye gods!  I hit the big time, folks!  Now I just need to get my hands on that cool looking Lauren Myracle early chapter book and that new Charise Mericle Harper graphic novel.  Woot!

• You know you’re cool when the National Coalition Against Censorship collects cool birthday wishes for you.  You’re even cooler if those birthday wishes come from folks like Jon Scieszka, Lois Lowry, and the aforementioned Lauren Myracle.  And if you happen to be Judy Blume?  Icing on the cake, baby.

• On the one hand, it’s awfully interesting to hear folks speculating on what really made Mary Ingalls blind.  On the other hand  . . . . NBC News linked to me, linked to me, linked to me me me!

• In case you happened to missed it, I hosted a helluva Literary Salon the other day.  Yup.  Jeanne Birdsall, Adam Gidwitz, N.D. Wilson, and Rebecca Stead all gave up their precious time to stop by old NYPL for a Children’s Literary Salon where they debated why pop culture at large tries to label middle grade fiction as YA.  The whole conversation was, for the very first time, recorded for posterity.  That’s the good news.  The bad news is that the audio feed is lousy.  Not sure what I did but it’s a bit mucked up.  Clear enough that you could make a transcript from it (casts meaningful looks into the nethersphere) but not so clear that you could actually enjoy listening to it.  A little later in the podcast some folks stop speaking into mics.  That actually helps.  Rear in Gear reports on how it went from  the frontlines.  By the way, the title “Why YA” is a good one.  I might shorten it to Y.YA, then proclaim that to be the newest bestest trend without explanation.  Cause that’s how I roll.

• Speaking of my Children’s Literary Salons, I’ve one in early March on the topic of Diversity and the State of the Children’s Book that will prove to be most fascinating (and better recorded, I hope).  Much along the same lines is a truly fascinating post over at Ms. Yingling Reads.  The post concerns those book jackets that do not reflect the ethnicity of the characters within, but brings up a very interesting p.o.v. from that of the smaller publisher reliant on stock images.  This post is your required reading of the day.  Many many thanks to Carl in Charlotte for the heads up.

• The post on 10 Fictional Libraries I’d Love to Visit is a lot of fun, but I would add the library featured in Neil Gaiman’s Sandman books most certainly.  That would be the library that contains every book conceived of but never published by the world’s greatest writers.  The in-jokes alone are worth it.  Who doesn’t love Psmith and Jeeves?

Thanks to AL Direct for the link.

• Nerd that I am, I cannot help but be thrilled that the Bologna Book Fair has just established a new prize for the Best Children’s Publisher of the Year.  What a fantastic idea, and why has no one else come up with it before?  Now THAT is something I can get behind.  Boy, yeah.

• Flavorwire’s Conspiracy Theories About Classic Literary Characters doesn’t tell you a lot you haven’t already heard about your classic books (Nick Carraway = gay, Holden Caulfield = gay, yadda yadda yadda) but there are some fun exceptions on the children’s literature side.  I think I’ve heard the Winnie-the-Pooh theory before, and I certainly heard the Harry Potter one (Rowling herself even addressed it) but the Wizard of Oz one is actually entirely a new one on me.  Huh! Thanks to Annie Cardi for the link.

• I like it when authors reveal the covers of their upcoming books.  I especially like it when those authors are folks I’ve heard of before and have enjoyed thoroughly.  I met Matthew Kirby (The Clockwork Three, Icefall) at a SCBWI event recently and now I find out that he has revealed his latest title The Lost Kingdom.  Yep.  I’ll be reading that one.

• The other day I spoke on a panel for some young publishers about the library’s role in the pursuit of Common Core.  I was on that panel with Scottie Bowditch of Penguin and John Mason of Scholastic.  After the fact I learned that Scholastic has been working to get their hands on all this Common Core schtuf by creating the site Common Sense for the Common Core.  It was created to help parents through this tricky time, but no doubt we librarians would benefit a tad as well.  FYI!

• You may have heard that tornadoes recently ripped through Mississippi on Sunday causing untold devastation in their wake.  They hit in a number of places, including Hattiesburg, Mississippi.  Why do I mention this?  Well, are you aware what resides in Hattiesburg?  That would be the University of Southern Mississippi.  And what is the University of Southern Mississippi home to?  If you answered that it was the de Grummond Collection “one of North America’s leading research centers in the field of children’s literature” you would also be correct.  So did the collection survive the storms?  We are happy to report that they did.  And on the de Grummond’s Twitter feed they assured everyone that they were safe and sound.  Whew!

• Look me in the eye.  Right here!  Right in my beady little eye and tell me that this is not the smartest use of The Pigeon you’ve seen in a long long time.  The crazy thing?  I thought they melded together a bunch of different Pigeon books.  Not true!  Instead, all these panels come from The Pigeon Wants a Puppy.

• Remember when NPR started that program they called NPR’s Backseat Book Club?  They said they would pick a new book for kids every month and discuss them.  Well, the whole “every month” part of that plan has been spotty and the selections have been even spottier.  Seems to me NPR isn’t taking full advantage of the field.  I mean, Black Beauty and Wimpy Kid?  Is that the best you can do?  Fortunately it looks like they’ll crank things up a notch when they discuss Gary Schmidt’s Okay for Now.  In fact, kids are encouraged to submit some questions to the author ahead of time.  Got yourself some kids?  Then go to it!

The best books lists are abundant and here!  So very exciting, yes?  I do love this time of year, and so it makes sense to begin with the cream of the crop.  I refer, of course, to NYPL’s 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing 2012.  Split into seven different categories (Picture Books, Folk and Fairy Tales, Poetry and Song, Stories for Younger Readers, Stories for Older Readers, Graphic Books, and Nonfiction) the list has been around for precisely 101 years and is decided by the NYPL children’s librarians who go above and beyond the call of duty in reading EVERYTHING they can get their hands on.  Seriously, those folks are the best.  I tip my hat to them.

• In other best books areas, over at Tablet we have the best kids books of 2012 containing Jewish themes and characters.  How Marjorie Ingalls finds them all I do not know, but she is meticulous!  I thought I’d seen everything but there were definitely a couple titles in there that flew under my radar (Sons of the 613, anyone?).  Horn Book also came up with their Fanfare Books of 2012, and I was very very pleased to see Jimmy the Greatest on there.  Woot!  PW separated their top children’s books into the categories of Picture Books, Children’s Fiction (YA is sorta just crammed in there), and Nonfiction (only four titles?!?).  Finally there was the Notable Children’s Books of 2012 list by the New York Times which has some truly eclectic ideas.

• By the way, if you want to see other best children’s book lists in this vein, there’s a Pinterest page of them up and running.

• In other Pinterest news (a sentence I can honestly say I’ve never written before), Nicole Deming of the CBC let me know about some cool children’s literature-related Pinterest lists they’ve created and that you might want to put on your radar.  There’s Favorite Vintage Kids’ Books, Kids’ Book Creators, Kidlit Maps (maps from children’s books, old and new), and Kidlit Illustrators We ♥ .  Thanks for the heads up, Nicole!

• I don’t usually do this but once in a while you meet a new or upcoming author who just catches your attention fully.  I met a 6th grade schoolteacher in town the other day by the name of Torrey Maldonado.  Torrey’s the author of the YA novel The Secret Saturdays.  Knowing he worked in a public school I asked what he knew about Common Core.  Quite a lot, it seems, since he created an entire page on his website dedicated to the Core and how to teach his book using it.  To top it off, I’ve gotta say that I haven’t met an author with the sheer levels of enthusiasm and charm of Mr. Maldonado in a long time.  Keep your eye on this fellow.  I predict big things.

• Newsflash: Young Latinos don’t see themselves in books.  Duh.  Duh duh duh duh duh.  It’s a really weird fact, and absolutely true.  You go out there and find me an early chapter book series starring a Latino girl and I will give you a cookie.  Go on.  I’m waiting.  I’ve got all day.

• Okay. Now I’m officially depressed.  I was sorting through some books earlier today and I discovered the most recent “Amelia Rules” by Jimmy Gownley called Her Permanent Record.  I own all of the Amelia Rules books except this one so I was pleased to down it during my lunch break.  Then I went online just now to see when the next book in the series will be out . . . only to find that that was the LAST ONE.  Hunhuna?  Now that is depressing.  I’ve deeply enjoyed this series for years and years now, and to think that it’s over fills me with a kind of strange dread.  Gownley hasn’t entirely ruled out the possibility of more Amelias in the future . . . . but still, man.  It’s kinda hard to take.

• The Dudes of YA, a “Lit-Erotic” Photo Spread.  We would have also have accepted the term “The Hot Men of YA Literature”, but I suppose that would be copyright infringement or something, eh long-time readers who get my reference?

• Look me in the eye.  Now tell me this amazing new invention will not now appear in hundreds of middle grade spy/mystery novels.  A pity you can’t get them in time for Christmas.

• Friend and YA author Daphne Benedis-Grab writes an excellent article over at She Knows about raising a girl in a day and age where beauty standards have never been more impossible to attain.  It’s called Raising a girl to be more than a pretty face.  Testify!

• PW Children’s Bookshelf linked to some pretty thought provoking articles this week.  My favorite: Leonard Marcus at Horn Book talking about book jackets . . . for picture books!

• In other news, PW did a very strange bit of reporting.  It mentioned the recent 90-Second Newbery at Symphony Space, which was a packed house and a big success.  However, there is a VERY odd lack of any mention about the organizer, YA author James Kennedy.  Read the piece and you’ll have the distinct impression that it happened spontaneously and without his back-breaking work.  Reporting fail, PW my dear.

• Changes are afoot at The New York Times.  Looks like they’re separating out their children’s books from their YA fare, a move that is excellent and long overdue.  Well done, old gray lady.

• I got the following message from Jane Curley of the Eric Carle Museum and I am passing it on because it sound bloody blooming amazing: “I’m giving a talk for the Victorian Society on 19th century British picture books. It’s on Tuesday, December 11 at 6PM at the Dominican Academy, 44 East 68th St.It’s free, no reservations required, and I’ll be showing some gorgeous pictures! The link is below. Cheers, Jane http://metrovsa.org/calendar.htm“.

• Daily Image:

I ran about the internet trying to find the perfect thing for today’s post but in the end I had to come back to the washable keyboard.  The perfect gift for your favorite hypochondriac this holiday season.

Thanks due to AL Direct for the link.

So I’ve finally gotten around to reading Crow by Barbara Wright.  It only took me a good nine months to do so but with the award season coming up I’m trying to give a good look to all the serious contenders (Bomb, I’m gunning for you next).   Why the long delay?  Well, sad as it is to admit it, whether consciously or unconsciously, I have a tendency to judge a book by its cover.  I don’t mean to, but when you see as many titles for kids in a given year as I do you find yourself relying on some pretty odd reasons to chose to read one book over another.

Not knowing much about the book, and having only glanced at its cover in passing, I guessed at the plot.  My assumption was that it was the story of a Chinese-American immigrant, possibly a messenger of some sort, probably historical.  It wasn’t until I started reading that I realized that I was way way off the mark.  Historical it may be, but our hero is an African-American boy in the South.  Why the confusion?  Well I took another much closer look at a jacket I’d only glanced at before.  It’s one of those rather tasteful covers that appeal to adults 79% of the time more than kids.  Artist Edel Rodriguez has penned an elegant pen and ink of Moses Thomas riding hell-for-leather on a bicycle.  He’s clearly black too.  No hiding or covering him up.  So why my confusion?

Maybe it had something to do with the fact that finding a young black man on a middle grade novel this year is a rarity.  I’ve seen a large swath of titles from every American publisher there is (as well as a few Canadians) and this report is the sum total of all the middle grade (not early chapter book, not YA) fiction fare I have found that shows the hero front and center.  Note that the low numbers have a lot to do with the fact that even finding any stories starring black guys is difficult.

After Crow, which I would call the book starring an African-American boy that has the greatest award prospects in 2012, we have another work of historical fiction, Jump Into the Sky by Shelley Pearsall.  I was a big fan of Pearsall’s earlier novel All of the Above and was particularly thrilled to see this next one. Cast thine peepers upon this:

Isn’t that a beauty?  There’s the face, front and center, no bones about it.  Now if there’s one problem with have with jackets, if they aren’t being sneaky about a character’s race (more on that soon) then they’re hiding the fact that the book takes place in the past.  And what I like so much about Jump Into the Sky is that I feel like the jacket makes a great compromise.  It doesn’t look like it takes place in any particular time period, and that’s fine.  Sure beats having inauthentic details cluttering up your narrative (paging The Romeo and Juliet Code).  Here we have mostly just a face representing a story that takes place on the homefront during WWII.  Beautiful.

If you think historical African-American boys are difficult to come by, allow me to introduce you to the wide and wonderful world of contemporary fiction.  Last year, at the very least, we had the marvelous Ghetto Cowboy to show.  This year things get tricky.  I would greatly appreciate some suggestions, actually, because in all my searching his appears to be the one and only book I could find starring (not merely acting as a supporting character) an African-American male hero.

It’s called Buddy by M.H. Herlong.  Buddy is an excellent example of how not to do a MG cover.  Apparently it is very difficult to talk about Hurricane Katrina in a book if you don’t include a dog.  I am referring, of course, to last year’s Saint Louis Armstrong Beach by Brenda Woods which told the tale of a boy and the dog that separated from him during the flooding.  Now that book wasn’t afraid to show its hero.  Maybe it made a mistake in not showing the dog more prominently, though.  After all, cute dogs sell books.  Everyone knows that, right?  Well that’s all well and good insofar as your dog is supposed to be cute.  Trouble with Buddy is that here we have a dog that isn’t.  Cute, I mean.  Described as scraggly, here you see a severe case of Because of Winn-Dixie Syndrome.  Just because a writer says that a dog looks like something the cat upchucked, that doesn’t mean the art director is going to pay attention.  And yes, Buddy is indeed described as sporting a white heart shaped patch on his face, but here it is ridiculously cute, not to mention prominent.  Oh, and not our hero Li’l T.  Do you see him?  Look closely now.  If you squint at just the right angle you can kind of make him out in the background.  Pity his face wasn’t considered as cute as a dog’s.  Apparently the writing in this book is utterly fabulous too, so make a note.

Contemporary series fill a bit of the void.  Haven’t read it myself, I will freely admit, but as covers go this isn’t terrible.  Amar’e Stoudemire has a new paperback series out called STAT (Standing Tall and Talented).  The author’s an NBA All-Star and the books follow in the vein of the Tiki and Ronde Barber books in that they’re about the author as a kid.

Speaking of which:

What about African-American girl heroines?  Again, the situation isn’t stellar but maybe they do slightly better.  From the fantastic covers on The Mighty Miss Malone and Lone Bean (extra points for contemporary setting AND glasses) to Kizzy Ann Stamps with a dog who knows how to share some cover space (though sadly Letters to Missy Violet eschewed an interesting jacket) there are girls with faces.  Apparently you can’t write a novel about them without putting their names in the titles, though (Missy Violet being the exception there as well).

I haven’t brought up EllRay Jakes or other early chapter books because I’m keeping my focus squarely on the 9-12 year old reader set.  Still, when we think of the HUGE numbers of books with white kids on their covers, a dinky four to five examples of 2012 titles seems, to put it lightly, a bit lacking.

Now what have I failed to mention?  Lay it on me.

• “I just finished a poem where St. Francis and St. Clare double-date with Thoreau and Evita and it just makes me very happy.”  My mother was the winner of the 2011 Prairie Schooner Book Prize because she is as good as it gets.  No brag.  Just fact.  Prairie Schooner recently interviewed her as well and I recommend looking at it, partly because this my mother we’re talking about and she makes me very proud and partly because it raises the old interview bar, so to speak.  Clearly I need to put more work into my own.

• Once in a great while my husband’s occupation and my own will intersect.  He is a screenwriter and will alert me to interesting news items on the cinematic side of things.  This week he pointed me to a ScriptShadow piece.  If you are unfamiliar with the site it’s where a fellow going by the name of “Carson Reeves” reads and reviews the scripts that have recently sold in Hollywood and critiques them long before they are turned into films.  Each Friday Carson has something he calls Amateur Friday where folks submit their own screenplays for his review.  Last Friday someone handed in a script called Fifi, A Monkey’s Tale.  Those of you familiar with the story behind Curious George will recognize this as the original title of that manuscript.  The script essentially tells the tale of the Reys’ escape from the Nazis in WWII.  Only to punch it up a bit the screenwriter (and I kinda love this) rewrote history so that Goebbels himself wants Mr. Rey destroyed.  Something you have to see for yourself, I think.

• Do you like awards?  Do you like children’s books that come from countries other than America?  Well then, folks, have I got great news from you.  After her recent trip to Italy to judge the awards, Jules at 7-Imp let me know that the winners have been announced:

The 2012 Bologna Ragazzi Awards have just been announced! Here are links for interested folks:

Fiction winner and mentions: http://www.bolognachildrensbookfair.com/en/boragazziaward/images_award/fiction;
Nonfiction winner and mentions:http://www.bolognachildrensbookfair.com/en/boragazziaward/images_award/non_fiction;
New Horizons winner and mentions:http://www.bolognachildrensbookfair.com/en/boragazziaward/images_award/new_horizons;
Opera Prima winner and mentions (Opera Prima is for new artists):http://www.bolognachildrensbookfair.com/en/boragazziaward/images_award/opera_prima.

• I long for the day Save NYC Libraries can be shut down, but until that happy day occurs it’s a hugely useful and well-organized site for fighting mayoral cuts.  Recently the mayor rolled out his old budget again and yep.  You guessed it.  We’re
  5 Comments on Fusenews: Shelve the books but shelve them slant, last added: 2/24/2012
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  tanita said, on 2/23/2012 1:15:00 AM
  

  Your mom is, as always, kind of amazing. I aspire to her grasp of the sestina…

  Ed Spicer said, on 2/23/2012 5:53:00 AM
  

  And all this time I have been here in Kalamazoo reading about and admiring yet another astonishingly good writer from the Kalamazoo area… I never knew. I can see your mother in you. Wear that pride proudly!

  Ed Spicer said, on 2/23/2012 6:01:00 AM
  

  Thanks, too, for posting the various award lists–I always appreciate seeing what is available internationally (and then become seriously miffed that we don’t have places close to my home that will have the actual books).

  Elizabeth Bird said, on 2/23/2012 8:53:00 AM
  

  Thanks, Tanita! And Ed, if you ever stopped by the Athena Bookshop back in the day you would have run into her. These days she does do some work with the libraries. FYI!

  Ed Spicer said, on 2/24/2012 10:07:00 AM
  

  Loved Athena and visited often. Was sad to see it go away. I’m sure I must have had several conversations with you mom (and George Hebben). The staff in general was excellent and they also provided all the books for the KPL events.

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As you may be aware, each year SLJ hosts the Battle of the (Kids’) Books, which provides a new way in which to discuss literature for the young.  With bracketed books “competing” against one another, famous child and YA authorial judges determine the winners after much soul searching and chest beating. Now in its third (third? third) year the roster of books is up and running.  It puts me in a jackety frame of mind.

Not long ago The Millions posted a piece entitled Judging Books By Their Covers: U.S. Vs. U.K. In conjunction with the Morning News Tournament of Books they took some of the titles battling it out and compared jackets in the States to jackets in the U.K.  The results are so good that the people at Battle of the (Kids’) Books offered me the chance to do my own rendition.  You will find the American covers on the left and the British covers on the right.  Now obviously a lot of the books up for contention this year have the same covers here as well as there, but there are a few that look significantly different, most notably . . .

The general understanding is that “Dead End” was the title Gantos originally wanted for his book but his U.S. publisher preferred the slightly more descriptive “Dead End in Norvelt”, which probably pleased the current residents of Norvelt more than anyone else.  Here we’ve two entirely different philosophies on how to sell books to kids.  At first it looked like the U.S. publisher wanted to go a little dark with an image of Jack on the cover wearing a bloody (due to a nosebleed) shirt.  Then they decided to go a little subtler with a cover you can see below.  The problem with that cover (aside from its similarities to fellow Newbery contender Okay for Now) was the fact that it made the hero look like he was wearing a blue jean skirt.  Hee hee.  So they moved him over, put some manly red stripes on his sleeves, pinked it up (?) with fluffy Thomas Kinkade-esque clouds, and slapped on a Dave Barry quote to show it was funny.  The Brits?  Well they recognized the “Dead” part of the book and went from there.  The skeleton is eating cookies, so that would be an allusion to the fact that the book’s funny.  Which do I prefer?  Cookie chomping skeleton, of course.  I can sell that book to a kid.  The other one?  It would just take a little more work.

Here’s the galley cover for the second iteration of the book for the sake of comparison:

Two authors of children’s books passed away recently, one on the American side of the equation and one across the sea in Britain.  For the Yanks, Bill Wallace has been on our shelves for any number of years.  You can read a lovely SLJ obituary for him here.  As for the other person, that would be Mr. Samuel Youd.  That name, I suspect, raises few flags but if I were to tell you his pen name, John Christopher, that might be a different story.  Practically Paradise offers a great encapsulation of tributes to the man behind the tripod series (periodically we receive announcements that it will be a major motion picture, and then nothing ever occurs). There is also a nice remembrance in Timothy Kreider’s Artist’s Statement (more than halfway down) where he puts Christopher’s writing in context, highlighting its real strengths.

• Great great, great great great great piece from Marjorie Ingall on the sticky tricky territory of teaching your kids about the Holocaust through books.  The advice offered from the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C. in the second to last paragraph of the piece should be printed out, laminated, and handed out to every parent there is.  Re: the recommended reading list in the final paragraph, ditto.

• New Blog Alert: In other news the CBC (Children’s Book Council) recently celebrated their Diversity Committee “dedicated to increasing the diversity of voices and experiences contributing to children’s literature.” The members of this committee are from children’s book publishers across the board. Some great posts currently exist on the committee’s blog, all of which I recommend.  The piece on Felita is particularly noteworthy since the sheer lack of middle grade novels starring Hispanic American children gnaws at my entrails every year.

• There was a recent article in the most recent American Libraries that got the juices flowing in my gray matter this week. In O Sister Library, Where Art Thou? author April Ritchie asks what it would be like if big public libraries with lots of funds paired with little libraries that need a leg up. “A new model for enhancing library services in these more vulnerable areas is emerging in Kentucky, a state with libraries at both ends of the economic spectrum.”  Awesome piece and an even better idea.  Go check that out.

• I’m sure I’m not telling you anything new when I inform you that The Brown Bookshelf has again started its yearly initiative 28 Days Later, a celebration of African American authors and illustrators.  It is THE #
  7 Comments on Fusenews: In which I cram in a whole mess of resources just for the heck of it, last added: 2/11/2012
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  Jennifer Schultz said, on 2/10/2012 6:27:00 AM
  

  Many great links here–thank you! The children’s books award in Iran is very interesting–love hearing about awards given in other countries. And the Lucy website is a great find, especially the adoption bibliography.

  Is this the Marjorie Ingalls article? http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-life-and-religion/89630/fear-factor-2/

  I need to reread it again–I’m just catching up on my blogs before our Baby Steps program–I will share this with our youth services reference team. One of the best Holocaust books for young children that I have read is Hana’s Suitcase.

  Donna Koppelman said, on 2/10/2012 8:17:00 AM
  

  What a wealth of resources in this post! Thanks for taking the time to give us such great detail and information. And *LOVE* the bookshelf. Thanks for all you do to spread the amazing gift of children’s literature.

  Genevieve said, on 2/10/2012 8:56:00 AM
  

  You’re not the only one – that game sounds exceptionally creepy. I guess they’re not actually in the Games, is the only saving grace.

  rams said, on 2/10/2012 10:06:00 AM
  

  Nice tights, kid.

  mhg said, on 2/10/2012 12:51:00 PM
  

  I want those tights! Thanks for using the photo and for the blog plug!

  Elizabeth Bird said, on 2/10/2012 6:10:00 PM
  

  Oh doggone it. Totally forgot to include the Ingall link, didn’t I? Uno momento . . .

  Patrick Miller said, on 2/11/2012 8:24:00 AM
  

  Good information for sure…thank you! We are in the process of developing value-driven lesson plans for elementary/preschool teachers surrounding our new children’s literature and music as well, and are continually reading up on ways to incorporate various children’s lit. into the classroom.

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Daylight Saving (not “Savings” I just learned) has arrived and you know what that means?  It means babies have a terrible sense of telling time.  Just awful.  And that, in turn, means I’d better crank out a lickety-split Fusenews before I hear the telltale sound of little eyelids opening.

First up, The New York Times Best Illustrated Books of 2011 were announced.  I like to keep a tally of what I managed to review in time vs. what got missed.  The winners were:

• “Along a Long Road,” written and illustrated by Frank Viva (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)

• “A Ball for Daisy,” written and illustrated by Chris Raschka (Schwartz & Wade)

• “Brother Sun, Sister Moon: Saint Francis of Assisi’s Canticle of the Creatures,” written by Katherine Paterson, illustrated by Pamela Dalton (Chronicle Books)

• “Grandpa Green,” written and illustrated by Lane Smith (Roaring Brook Press)

• “Ice,” written and illustrated by Arthur Geisert (Enchanted Lion Books)

• “I Want My Hat Back,” written and illustrated by Jon Klassen (Candlewick Press);

• “Me … Jane,” written and illustrated by Patrick McDonnell (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)

• “Migrant,” written by Maxine Trottier, illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault (Groundwood Books);

• “A Nation’s Hope: The Story of Boxing Legend Joe Louis,” written by Matt de la Peña, illustrated by Kadir Nelson (Dial)

• “A New Year’s Reunion,” written by Yu Li-Qiong, illustrated by Zhu Cheng-Liang (Candlewick Press)

Well, three out of ten ain’t . . uh . . . ain’t all that hot, come to think of it.  Next year I shall vow to do better!  I liked Travis at 100 Scopes Notes and his reaction too.

• Amazon has just put out their list of the Best of 2011 too.  I’ve read eight out of ten and reviewed five of those.  Much better.

• While I’m thinking of it, there was announcement of the Carnegie Medal and Kate Greenaway Medal nominees over in Jolly Old England.  The Carnegie (their version of the Newbery) nominees include a couple Americans, a couple titles we’ve seen stateside, and a lot of surprises.  I’ll be rooting for Tall Story by Candy Gourlay, The Cardturner by Louis Sachar, and The Crowfield Curse by Pat Walsh.  On the Greenaway (their Caldecott) nominee side I’ll
  10 Comments on Fusenews: In which I get to use the term “mankiest”, last added: 11/10/2011
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  Molly said, on 11/9/2011 1:51:00 AM
  

  Bad news for your 2011 Carnegie/Greenaway horses: those books were on the longlist for the 2011 awards which were announced in June, 2011. (To satisfy your curiousity, Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness and FArTHER by Grahame Baker-Smith were the winners). This year’s longlists were announced on November 4th and can be found at: http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/pressdesk/press.php?release=pres_nom_car_2012.html
  and:
  http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/pressdesk/press.php?release=pres_nom_green_2012.html

  The award covers books published from 01.September to 31. August of the year before the award. Thus the 2012 longlist is for books published in 2010 and 2011 – just a little confusing and perhaps a bit after the phenomenon has passed, I thought when I was nominating.

  And for the record, my money’s on A Monster Calls for the Carnegie, but the Greenaway is any librarian’s guess.

  janeyolen said, on 11/9/2011 4:46:00 AM
  

  As I will be at the magical Connecticut Children;s Book Fair in Storrs, Ct at the UConn campus this weekend, presenting and signing books along with a boatload of other authors including my gorgeous daughter Heidi Stemple, I will be buying loads of books. Thanks for the head’s up, though! LOL

  Jane Yolen

  Elizabeth Bird said, on 11/9/2011 4:54:00 AM
  

  Oops! I’m way behind the times, it seems re: Carnegie/Greenaway. Thanks for the heads up!

  Jennifer Schultz said, on 11/9/2011 6:18:00 AM
  

  Oh, the best lists are coming out…good times.

  (PS-we’re in standard time. Daylight Saving begins in the spring and ends in the fall. Regardless, bum times for babies and new parents!.)

  Jennifer Schultz said, on 11/9/2011 6:19:00 AM
  

  (However, folks in AZ and HI don’t deal with the back and forth fol-de-rol.)

  Sarah said, on 11/9/2011 6:20:00 AM
  

  Thanks so much for doing the interview Betsy! You are so right on about the greek myth dilema. And I think I’m going to have to start requesting Mexican Wrestler books too- I’m too curious not to!

  Kathryn Fredrickson said, on 11/9/2011 7:01:00 AM
  

  At least the time doesn’t depend on where you are…in your house!

  http://itsasmalltownlife.blogspot.com/2011/08/i-say-fast-time-you-say-slow-timelets.html

  Also, I might be in love with that Lucy bear!

  DaNae said, on 11/9/2011 9:31:00 AM
  

  Dang! For a minute I thought that filing cabnit cover was a piece of wall art I could purchase.

  I want the funny books! I also want the Scieszka Pirze up and running in this country! PDQ!

  Scope Notes said, on 11/9/2011 10:25:00 AM
  

  Oh, man – the New Covers guy is at Candlewick? They’re going to do some amazing things together.

  Lee Bennett Hopkins said, on 11/10/2011 4:47:00 PM
  

  Dear Bird:

  I thought I was missing you. How do I get on your e-listings for Fuse #8? Hope
  you and the baby are doing fine with the time change. Love-ness…Lee

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Since I don’t do much with YA on a regular basis I don’t read the blog of The Book Smugglers as often as I would like, even though they’re some of the best in the biz.  Love their reviews.  Really top notch stuff.

Anyway, they recently reviewed a book called The Girl of Fire and Thorns by Rae Carson and they got to talking about plus sized folks on covers.  The initial galley for Carson’s book featured a waiflike slip of a white girl when the character is supposed to be plus sized and dark-skinned.  Necessary changes were made to the final cover, but you still wouldn’t be able to tell the girth of the heroine from either of them.  The Book Smugglers end their review with, “Something we haven’t talked much about, however, is this concept of slenderizing a plus-sized character for a cover. We’ve seen it before in books like Everything Beautiful. Have you noticed any of this in your reading?”  Elizabeth Fama recommended a great Stacked piece on the subject from 2009 which I remember seeing some years ago that discussed this very thing.

I’ve been wondering about portrayals of overweight children in books for kids myself.  With obesity rates the highest they have ever been amongst our nation’s youth, ours is a country that doesn’t know how to deal with its large children.  Their portrayal in literature, therefore, is something to think about.  Usually, if you’re a kid and fat in a book then you’re a villain of sorts.  A Dudley Dursley or Augustus Gloop.  If, by some miracle, you’re the hero of the book that’s fine, but you’d better be prepared to disappear from your own cover.

So I tried to find representation of fat children on middle grade book covers.  Alas, these are the only books I was able to come up with, and as you can see they’re hardly ideal.  Let’s look at what book jackets tend to do to large kids.  As far as I can tell, these fall into three distinct categories: Inanimate Objects, Taking Advantage of Momentary Slimming, or Part of the Body.

Inanimate Objects

By far the most popular solution.  On the YA end of things it’s almost de rigueur.  On the children’s side it’s less common but not entirely unheard of.

Larger Than Life Lara by Dandi Daley Mackall

Here we had a book about a confident, well-adjusted girl who was also fat.  And here we have a book cover of a dress, with no girl in sight.  Yes, it refers to the plot, but still . . .

Slob by Ellen Potter

Owen, the hero of this book, is a big guy but you wouldn’t know it from looking at the cover of the book.

So I’m reading through my weekly edition of AL Direct and I notice that no matter what worldwide occurrence takes place, librarians are always there. Whether it’s damage to two libraries in Egypt, stories from the librarians in Christchurch, New Zealand, or how the Wisconsin Library Association delayed Library Legislative Day due to the protests, the profession is there.  That last story was of particular interest to me, since I had wondered whether any school librarians were amongst the protesters in Wisconsin lately.  According to the article, they most certainly are.  You go, guys!!  Seriously, I want to hear more about it.  If any of you know any school librarians marching in WI, send them my way.  I’d love to do a full post on them.

• Speaking of folks in the news, I have to give full credit to author/illustrator Katie Davis for consistently locating the hotspots in children’s literature and convincing folks to talk to her about them on her fabulous podcast.  In the past she’s managed to finagle everyone from the editor who wanted to replace the n-word in Huckleberry Finn to James Kennedy on the 90-Second Newbery.  Now she’s managed to get Bruce Coville to talk about what went down when he and fellow children’s author Liz Levy got stuck in Egypt during the protest period.  That Katie.  She’s got a nose for news.

• I’m having a lot of fun reading How I Became a Famous Novelist by Steve Hely these days, and I can’t help but see echoes of the plot in this story about the man behind the Hardy Boys novels.  We hear about the various Carolyn Keenes all the time, but why not the Dixons?  After reading this old piece in the Washington Post from 1998 (The Hardy Boys The Final Chapter) I feel vindicated.  I reread some of my old Three Investigators novels not too long ago and they STILL held up!  I always knew they were better than The Hardy Boys.  Now I have proof.  I was going to save the link to this essay until the end of the Fusenews today, but it’s so amusing and so delightfully written that I just have to encourage you, first thing, to give it a look.  Thanks to The Infomancer for the link.

• Fun Fact About Newbery Winning Author Robin McKinley: She’s learning to knit.  Related Sidenote: She also has a blog.  Did you know this?  I did not know this.  And look at the meticulous use of footnotes.  McKinley should write the next Pale Fire.  I would
  10 Comments on Fusenews: “The Hardy boys were tense with a realization of their peril.”, last added: 2/25/2011
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  Jonathan Auxier said, on 2/23/2011 11:21:00 PM
  

  I’ve been meaning to pick up HOW I BECAME A FAMOUS NOVELIST ever since John August mentioned it on his blog. He tells the story of optioning the book in his usual charming fashion here: http://johnaugust.com/archives/2009/how-i-became-a-famous-novelist. I’m gratified to hear someone dumping on the Hardy Boys. I hated those books as a kid … along with all the other series in which nothing actually happened to the characters. Why read a book that ends where it starts? (I will make an exception for Beckett.) That bias is probably the same reason I don’t watch procedural dramas today.

  Elizabeth Bird said, on 2/24/2011 6:04:00 AM
  

  I’m probably reading the book for the same reason you’ve been meaning to pick it up. Which is to say, I think Matt read the John August piece, got intrigued, read it, and passed it on to me. It feels so up-to-date and contemporary too. I have to wonder how well it will age, or if the books that are blockbusters now will continue to remain the same kind of blockbusters ten or twenty years down the road.

  Three Investigators 4-Evah.

  Julia Karr said, on 2/24/2011 10:58:00 AM
  

  Ah, I was always a Nancy Drew fan and only read Hardy Boys comics (put out by Walt Disney when they were airing The Hardy Boys on The Mickey Mouse Club.) However, my tender young writer’s heart was crushed when I found out that Carolyn Keene was a psuedonym for a stable of writers. *sigh*

  Jean said, on 2/24/2011 11:48:00 AM
  

  “You go, guys!!!” How about a little objectivity? How about a Wisconsin public school where the librarian’s job description, according to the principal, was “to provide release time for the teachers”, which they were entitled to in their union negotiated contract? Yes, I went – to a non-union charter school (at half the pay), not to protest in Madison.

  Dan McCoy said, on 2/24/2011 1:41:00 PM
  

  >bites his lip, Jupiter Jones-style and nods approvingly<

  Sondy said, on 2/24/2011 1:57:00 PM
  

  I am SO with you on the 3 Investigators! Jupiter Jones rocks!

  Hey, I’m planning to do a little piece of Library Advocacy this weekend with the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors. I’ll post about it on my blog, and then will try to get a little attention… We’re supposed to be happy that they aren’t planning any further cuts this year, after they cut 30% the last two years. I am glad to have a job back, but it’s still rotten for the people of the county….

  Tracey said, on 2/24/2011 4:18:00 PM
  

  I LOVED the 3 Investigators!

  I was in first grade when the childrens librarian introduced me to the Hardy Boys. I didn’t like them that much, but I could read them very quickly, which mattered to me for some reason. And then, I found Nancy Drew and I never picked up another Hardy Boys again. To this day, I wonder why the librarian showed me the Hardy Boys but not Nancy Drew.

  Lisa Yee said, on 2/25/2011 8:30:00 AM
  

  L is for Lisa who loves your blog.

  I’m in Boston this weekend, signing at Peter Reynold’s Blue Bunny bookstore on Saturday. When I saw on your blog that there’s a Gorey exhibit in town I was soooooo excited. Can’t wait to see it!

  Sergio Ruzzier said, on 2/25/2011 8:36:00 AM
  

  Thank you Betsy! I should get images from the show in a week or so.

  Joanne Fritz said, on 2/25/2011 7:12:00 PM
  

  The entire first chapter of HARRY POTTER AND THE SORCERER’S STONE on a bathroom wall? Some people have waaaaay too much time on their hands.

  Great post, Betsy!

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In my travels I’ve been perusing the historical fiction that’s been coming out lately and I think I have detected an interesting trend.  An interesting book jacket trend, no less.

Consider the following:

What do all of these have in common?  Well, first off, they’re all historical fiction.  Historical fiction that, in some cases, is desperately trying to look like modern day.  Let’s take this chronologically then.

Freedom Stone by Jeffrey Kluger.  Era: Civil War.  Thoughts: Admittedly I didn’t realize that this was historical when I first looked at it.  The cover is making use of the old silhouette technique so common on books where the protagonist is African-American.  I’d love to see a study done on black kids in silhouette on covers versus kids of any other race, just to see whether or not my perception that this happens FAR more often to kids of color is true.  In this case, nothing about the cover seems particularly anachronistic.  It gets a pass then.

Bird in a Box by Andrea Davis Pinkney. Year: 1936.  Thoughts: More silhouettes.  And the characters?  Black.  If you get beyond that fact you can see that they are looking at historical objects.  I don’t like silhouettes much these days, but I appreciate that the book isn’t shying away from its era.  Which brings us to the most blatant misrepresentation on today’s list:

The Romeo and Juliet Code by Phoebe Stone. Era: 194

I’m not telling you anything new by bringing this up now, but for those of you who may yet be unaware, the great Brian Jacques of the Redwall books passed away last weekend.  I only had the pleasure of meeting Brian once at an event at the Campbell Apartment, and he was charming.  I determined that the best way to speak to him was to bring up The Wind in the Willows, a book he adored.  When I mentioned the Pan chapter he became wildly enthused, quoting whole passages verbatim.  Later in the evening he would tell tales of fellow author and friend Paula Danziger (also deceased) and how she once leapt into a ball pen where she got firmly stuck.  There are a couple obits worth mentioning of the man.  Over at The Guardian Alison Flood recalls her talking animal phase while Julia Eccleshare writes his obit.  The Telegraph gave their two cents.  The Liverpool Echo had a great obit too, though it left me wanting to know more about the schoolteacher that taught Jacques, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison, so thank you @PWKidsBookshelf for the link.  Even the Audubon Magazine had a sweet take on the Jacques legacy (thanks to @MrSchuReads for the link).  Can’t say I’m the world’s biggest fan of this British cover, though.  A bit too symbolic for me.

Needs more fur.

• Speaking of British covers, I was a little surprised to see that the British edition of When You Reach Me (which they seem to have only just now brought over there in paperback) sports the same Sophie Blackall cover as the one we have here in the States.  Almost the same, I should say.  Can you spot the difference?

Someone explain that one to me, please.  I’m baffled.  Anyway, I think I like the Aussie cover best an

Marketing yourself.  Yeah, forget the hokey-pokey.  We know what it’s really all about in this game.  You poor authors and illustrators.  Isn’t it enough that you sweat and strain to create the highest quality literature for the generation that will inherit the earth after we are dead and gone . . . and now you’ve gotta go and publicize your own book yourself?!?  Who’s the yahoo who made THAT rule up?  I feel your pain, and so in an effort to help you I shall direct you, today anyway, to someone who shows that the best way to bring attention to yourself is to be creative, low-key, and involve a lot of other folks.  The author of Will Work for Prom Dress, Aimee Ferris (she of many names) has for the past few weeks been “posting daily photos of ‘mystery YA authors’ in their angsty teen best (showcasing a range of tragic teen fashion choices), as well as a few truly surly anti-prom shots on http://willworkforpromdress.com/ in anticipation of my upcoming book release on Feb 8.”  She’s calling it the “Promapalooza” and promises that in the future weeks there will be serious cases of “Man Perm” an “Agent Week” and much much more.  What she has up already is pretty impressive though.  I’m not giving away who the cute gal in this photo I lifted from her site is, but I will say that she has a picture book out this year (and she’s definitely not me).

• New Blog Alert: One of my favorite children’s book illustrators is now penning one of my favorite children’s book blogs.  Meghan McCarthy participates from time to time on the Blue Rose Girls blog, but I always secretly hoped she’d strike out on her own someday.  She has one of the more distinctive personalities, and her penchant for what kids like gels with what I like.  So it is that she has begun Children’s Books: The Good, the Bad, the Ugly and it does not disappoint.  Between talking about the mounted heads of Dr. Seuss to comparative studies between YouTube videos utilizing Post-It Notes (I am SO stealing one of those for Video Sunday) Meghan is constantly interesting and never dull.  Just like her books.

• Speaking of Blue Rose Girls, we’ve all heard of authors and illustrators talking about getting “the call” that told them they’d won a Caldecott or a Newbery.  But an agent talking about getting “the call”?  I’ve never heard of that one before.

• Well, geez.  I was all set to tell you about Ward Jenkins and his crazy contest to convince enough people to “Like” his Facebook profile page for the upcoming picture book Chicks Run Wild.  He said that if 300 people “liked” it he’d wear a chicken suit.  The happy ending?  It hit 333 as of this post.  Didn’t need my help.  Chicken suit-up, Ward my man.

• All sorts of folks have been sending in images of dads reading to their kids to James Preller’s 11 Comments on Fusenews: Laika Chow!, last added: 1/19/2011