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• Me stuff.  You have been warned.  So the first thing to know today is that this coming Saturday I’ll be speaking at the Eric Carle Museum about Wild Things: Acts of Mischief in Children’s Literature.  It will prove to be an amusing talk and if you live in the area I’d desperately love it if you could attend.  I’d like to see your smiling faces, rather than the sea of empty chairs that greets me whenever I close my eyes and imagine worst case scenarios.  It will be at 1 p.m.  In other news, the panel I conducted on Native Fiction was summarized at Tu Books as well as a rather in-depth write-up in Publishers Weekly.  So well done there.  Finally Jules and I were interviewed in conjunction with our book by Cynthia Leitich Smith over at Cynsations.  Woohoo!

• Ooo.  Harry Potter travel posters.  Here’s one:

• And for those of you who know who Suzuki Beane is, enjoy this little GIF of her dancing up a storm.  If I were ever to get a tattoo it would be one of those images.  Or this one.  Thanks to Sara O’Leary for the GIF.

• Monica Edinger was kind enough to field some questions from Jules and me about obscure Alice in Wonderland facts.  I thought I’d heard them all, but that was before I learned about Harry, Alice Liddell’s older, forgotten brother.  A boy who existed before Alice?  There’s a book in that . . .

• Okay.  So we all know that we need diverse books.  Understood.  Done.  But where precisely do you find lists of such titles?  Check out the all new Where to Find Diverse Books site.  Everything from books on disability to Islam to LGBTQIA is included.  Think something’s missing?  Let ‘em know!

• Things I Didn’t Know: So when we talk about podcasts of children’s literature we rarely consider the academic side of things.  Imagine then my delight when I discovered the Raab Children’s Literature Podcasts created for the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection and the Teachers for a New Era Project.  Quite the listing!

• And speaking of Things I Didn’t Know (a topic worthy of its own post, I suspect) Jules recently discovered that there is such a thing as a Coretta Scott King Book Awards Fair out there.  Did you know that?  I, for one, did not.  The event “celebrates the Coretta Scott King Awards, those authors and illustrators who have received the award, and books that (as the Award states) demonstrate an appreciation of African American culture.”  Jules interviews the organizer and founder of the event, Collette Hopkins.  Interested in bringing it to your city?  Read on.

• So I was moderating a panel at a Penguin Random House teacher event this past Monday (I’m just dropping the “Me Stuff” left and right today) and one of the giveaways was Ian Doescher’s William Shakespeare’s Star Wars.  I’m sure you’re familiar with it.  It seemed like a cute gimmick and I thought maybe to snag a copy and give it to my brother for Christmas or something.  Little did I realize that it’s actually a rather brilliant piece of work.  From R2-D2′s soliloquy placing him squarely as a trickster character in the vein of a Puck, to Han Solo’s line after shooting Greedo (“[To innkeeper] Pray, goodly Sir, forgive me for the mess. / [Aside] And whether I shot first, I’ll ne’er confess!”) I was hooked the minute I read it.  My husband’s been on a bit of a Star Wars kick himself as of late.  First there was his three part series on “Why We Like Luke Skywalker”.  Matt posed the question to James Kennedy and got an epic response that is worth reading in Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.  Then there was Matt’s post on what Jonathan Auxier’s The Night Gardener and Star Wars have in common.  There are other Star Wars posts as well that are worth discovering but I think these make for pretty in-depth reading anyway.

• Daily Image: With Halloween on the horizon it’s time to start thinking about costumes.  For inspiration, why not check out BuzzFeed’s 31 Amazing Teacher Halloween Costumes?  Lots of children’s literature references in there.  Three of my favorites included:

Thanks to Kate for the link.

She’ll have a book contract within a week.  This was undoubtedly the most popular video of the past week, making the rounds amongst folks who (A) like cute French kids (B) like Winnie-the-Pooh and (C) are aware that Pooh books are strikingly lacking in “singes”.  Many thanks to BoingBoing for the link.

But really, this week 100 Scope Notes had all the good videos.  In fact, if you read your 100 Scope Notes regularly (as I know you should) then you’ve probably seen all of these already.  Like this young woman reading Fox in Socks faster than any human has ever been able to before.

What really stands out to me while watching that video is how remarkable Seuss’s writing is, was, evermore shall be.  He did something so original that it can never be effectively replicated.  Now I need to run off and read some Fox in Socks.

Oh, how adorable.  I’ve only attended the ALA Media Awards since they got huge.  But Travis managed to find an old C-Span video of the award announcement from way back in 2001.  A full ten years ago.  How time has changed things.  And did I hear Lisa Von Drasek screaming “Yes!” when Casey at the Bat was mentioned as a Caldecott winner?  I think I did.  In any case, these are always fun to watch, if only to hear the reactions from the audience.

Fabulous find, Travis!  Thanks to 100 Scope Notes for the link.

In this next one, I saw on Swiss Miss that a photographer had taken a lot of neat photographs around New York, many in Bryant Park behind my library.  I then discovered this video of how he made the photos.  The first one shown here is in the Bryant Park fountain.  Apparently they took some in my library as well (undoubtedly when the guards were looking the other way).  Here’s a video on how they were made.

Thanks to Swiss Miss for the link.

Booktrailer time.  Carolrhoda Books (in conjunction with Lerner) put out this great little quick look at how Stephen Gammell paints his newest creation Mudkin.  Gammell.  There is no one on this good green earth that kind paint like he can.  No one.