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• I’ve been watching The Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt recently.  So far the resident husband and I have only made it through two episodes, but I was pleased as punch when I learned that the plot twist in storyline #2 hinged on a Baby-Sitter’s Club novel.  Specifically Babysitter’s Club Mystery No. 12: Dawn and the Surfer Ghost.  Peter Lerangis, was this one of yours?  Here’s a breakdown of the book’s plot with a healthy dose of snark, in case you’re interested.

• And now a subject that is near and dear to my heart: funny writers. Author Cheryl Blackford wrote a very good blog post on a comedic line-up of authors recently presented at The Tucson Festival of Books. Mac Barnett, Adam Rex, Jory John, Obert Skye, and Drew Daywalt were all there.  A good crew, no?  One small problem – we may be entering a new era where all-white male panels cannot exist without being called into question.  Indeed, I remember years ago when I attended an ALA Conference and went to see a “funny authors” panel.  As I recall, I was quite pleased to see the inclusion of Lisa Yee.  Here, Tucson didn’t quite get the memo.  The fault lies with the organizers and Cheryl has some incisive things to say about what message the attendees were getting.

• Speaking of Adam Rex, he’s got this little old major feature film in theaters right now (Home).  Meanwhile in California, the Gallery Nucleus is doing an exhibition of Rex’s work.  Running from March 28th to April 19th, the art will be from the books The True Meaning of Smekday and Chu’s Day.  Get it while it’s hot!

• Boy, Brain Pickings just knows its stuff.  There are plenty of aggregator sites out there that regurgitate the same old children’s stuff over and over again.  Brain Pickings actually writes their pieces and puts some thought into what they do.  Case in point, a recent piece on the best children’s books on death, grief, and mourning.  The choices are unusual, recent, and interesting.

Chomping at the bit to read the latest Lockwood & Company book by Jonathan Stroud?  It’s a mediocre salve but you may as well enjoy his homage to Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.  Mind you, I was an Hercule Poirot fan born and bred growing up, but I acknowledge that that Doyle has his place.  And don’t tell Stroud, but his books are FAR closer to the Nero Wolfe stories in terms of tone anyway.

Over at The Battle of the Books the fighting rages on.  We’ve lost so many good soldiers in this fight.  If you read only one decision, however, read Nathan Hale’s.  Future judges would do well to emulate his style.  Indeed, is there any other way to do it?

You may be one of the three individuals in the continental U.S. who has not seen Travis Jonker’s blog post on The Art of the Picture Book Barcode.  If you’re only just learning about it now, boy are you in for a treat.

• I was fully prepared to ignore the recent New Yorker piece Children’s Books for the One Per Cent.  But I have to give a couple points for this title:

“Really? Rosé?”

That one took some thought.

• Daily Image:

And now, the last and greatest flashdrive you will ever own:

Could just be a librarian thing, but I think I’m right in saying it reeks of greatness.  Many thanks to Stephanie Whelan for the link.

When I was ten the kids in my neighborhood started a rather odd obsession.  For a time the Trixie Belden series was released with new covers, giving those books from the 50s, 60s, and 70s a kick in the pants.  Note how hip and cool these covers were:

Awwww, yeah.

So the girls on my block started a Trixie Belden obsession.  We loved her short hair, the way she called her mother “moms”, her gang The Bob-Whites, and her penchant for touching the mysteries that prissy little Nancy Drew would probably avoid.  I mean seriously, did Nancy ever come face to face with a Sasquatch?

Not likely!  Clearly I had a thing for preferring knock-off mystery characters to their better known Stratemeyer Syndicate contemporaries (I love The Three Investigators and to this day abhor The Hardy Boys).

Anyway, the problem with our Trixie love was that the darn books weren’t all in print with these snazzy covers.  Some of them you had to track down, like old Sasquatch here.  This being a pre-internet era, we set about trading the hard to get ones in an attempt to finish the whole series.  It’s an instinct a lot of kids have.  When they love a series they want to read all the books out there.  But what can they do when that series is out-of-print?

Fast forward to last Friday and I’m hanging out with my children’s book group talking about titles they’d like to see added to the library system.  Suddenly they all start talking about The Baby-Sitters Club.  And no, not the graphic novels or the recently released original four.  No, what they want are the originals with their terrible 80s hair and copious scrunchies.  The ones that look like this:

The kids don’t care how old those covers are, by the way.  They systematically plow through them caring not a jot about the lack of cell phones or references to something called “VHS”.  Scholastic, in the depths of their cruelty, makes the full list of BSC titles available to kids.  But do they actually publish those books anymore?  No!  (Is it bad that I totally geeked out over The Hairpin’s The Baby-sitters Club: Where Are They Now? recently?  The info on Janine is DEAD ON.  And the Dawn . . . oh, the Dawn.)

So here is what it comes down to.  What makes a series catch fire with a generation of kids, long after that series has effectively died?  If kids found my beloved Three Investigators today would they enjoy them as much as I did (and they weren’t exactly young in the 80s, y’know).

Occasionally publishers will try to republish books that were once hits in the hope of making them viable moneymakers today.  Trouble is, it rarely works.  Take BSC.  When Scholastic republished the first four books they did so with what may have been the dullest jacke

• “Jarrett Krosoczka is one of 25 hottest children’s authors in the nation.” So said Henderson City Mayor Andy Hafen when presenting Mr. Krosoczka with the key to the city.  I’ll just say that again.  The mayor of a city mentioned Jarrett being part of my old The Hot Men of Children’s Literature series when presenting him with that city’s key.  Geez o’ petes.  Looks like I’m going to have to restart that series one of these days (though I KNOW I did more than just twenty-five!).  Credit to The Las Vegas Review Journal for the image.

• In my children’s room we have two copies of Florence Parry Heide’s The Shrinking of Treehorn.  It is regularly requested throughout the system, though sometimes difficult to find thanks to its small size (it will occasionally meander over to our Little Books Shelf when it’s in a wandering mood).  Thus it was with sadness that I learned that Ms. Heide passed away recently at the age of 92.  We should all reread Treehorn (or any of her other works, for that matter) in her honor.

• Wow.  I am in awe.  Here we have a really amazing and worthwhile piece over at Teach Mentor Texts charting a teacher’s changing attitude towards Jon Klassen’s I Want My Hat Back.  From initial disgust to grudging appreciation to possible enjoyment.  It’s a testament to keeping an open mind after a first reading, and the amount of self-awareness at work here is amazing.  Folks sometimes tell me that my reviews of picture books are far too long, but I think this post makes it infinitely clear how there is to be said about the power of that format.

• Remember that picture book manifesto that aired recently?  Well at Fomagrams there’s a piece from David Elzey called of picture books and amnesiacs that gives that document a thorough once over.  Everything from the statement on “robust criticism” to the relative honesty or dishonesty of “tidy endings” is examined thoroughly.  Today I appear to be linking to posts from folks unafraid to use their brains.  A nice trend.

• Is 90% of everything crap?  Jonathan Hunt says so, sparking a variety of different comments from his regular readers.  Heavy Medal is always good for thoughts of this sort.  In fact, I recently decided that the site has given me a chance to examine my own personal Newbery book prejudices.  Prejudices, I would add, that most committee members share, but prejudices just the same.  More on that when I tally up the final predictions at the end of the year, of course.

• Speaking of the Newbery, is it a good or bad idea to find out as much as you can about a book before rendering a final decision about its worth?  I ask this because Jules recently had 6 Comments on Fusenews: “A sort of child’s Jane Eyre.”, last added: 11/2/2011