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Mmm. Vanity straight up. So I never quite know how to post “me stuff” news when it’s particularly nice. On the one hand I could post the link with the typical “I’m not worthy” statement attached, but that always sounds as if I doth protest too much. Or, I could go the other route, and just celebrate the link with a whole lotta hooplah and devil take the consequences. I think, in the end, I’d prefer to just preface the link with a long, drawn out, ultimately boring explanation of why these links are problematic in the vague hope that your eyes glazed over and you skipped to the next bullet point. That accomplished, here is a very nice thing I was featured in recently at Bustle. I think Anne Carroll Moore probably should have taken my slot, but insofar as I can tell, she is not around to object.
- There comes a time in every girl’s life when she realizes that all the funny stuff on the internet was written by a single person. That person’s name, it turns out, is Mallory Ortberg. And if you doubt my words, read her recent Toast piece The Willy Wonka Sequel That Charlie’s Mother Deserves. It’s applicable to the book as well, though in that case it would be “The Charlie and the Chocolate Factory Sequel That Charlie’s Mother and Father Deserve”.
- It was Jarrett Krosoczka who alerted me to the fact that Jeanne Birdsall has a blog. Jeanne, you sly devil! Why didn’t you tell us?
- Are discussions of children’s book illustrations given adequate attention when people interview authors about the books that influenced them when they were young? Mark Dery at The Ecstasist doesn’t think so. In a recent interview with Jonathan Lethem, the two discuss, amongst other things, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, a psychedelic children’s book by popular shrink, Dr. Eric Berne (who wrote Games People Play) called The Happy Valley, The Goops, Rabbit Hill, and the odd thickness (and hidden erotic meanings) behind Ferdinand the Bull’s neck.
- I don’t usually advertise journal’s calls for contributions, but this seemed special. Bookbird (a journal close to my heart for obvious reasons) is calling for contributions for a special issue exploring Indigenous Children’s Literature from around the world. So if you’ve a yen . . .
Recently I hosted a Children’s Literary Salon on Jewish children’s literature, its past, present, and future. It was a really great talk and has inspired, I am happy to note, a blog post from one of the panelists. Marjorie Ingall of Tablet Magazine recently wrote the piece Enough With the Holocaust Books for Children!: Yes, we need to teach kids about our history. But our history constitutes a lot more than one tragic event. It quotes me anonymously at one point as well. See if you can find me! Hint: I’m the one who’s not Jewish.
- And to switch gears, the cutest children’s librarian craft idea of all time. A teeny tiny traffic jam. Alternate Title: Dana Sheridan is a friggin’ genius.
- Not too long ago I helped usher into completeness a brand new children’s book award. Behold, one that’s all about the math!! Yes, like you I was an English major who thought she feared the realm of numbers. Now I see the true problem: there were no good math books for me as a kid (and subsisting entirely on a diet of The Phantom Tollbooth doesn’t really work, folks). Now worry not, interested parties! The Mathical Award is here and the selections, not to put too fine a point on it, are delightful.
- Out: Dark Matter. Five Minutes Ago: Gray Matter. In: White Matter. At least when it comes to how children learn to read. The New Yorker explains. Extra points to author Maria Konnikova for the Horton Hatches the Egg reference buried in the text.
- Full credit to Aaron Zenz for turning me onto the site Sketch Dailies. Cited as a place “that gives a pop culture topic each week day for artists to interpret” there are plenty of children’s literature references to be found. Draco Malfoy. The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Hedwig (more owl than Angry Inch). Warning: You will get sucked in, possibly for a very very long time. Three of the Very Hungry Caterpillar winners recently were here, here, and here.
- Oop! The end of the voting on the Children’s Choice Book Awards is nigh. Your last chance to “voice your choice” is looming. Voting for @CBCBook’s Children’s Choice Book Awards closes at ccbookawards.com on May 3rd. And, if I might be so bold, you may notice something a little . . . um . . . interesting about this year’s hosts of the CBC Gala. *whistles*
This one’s going out to all my Miyazaki fans. In the event that you ever needed a new poster for your walls. The title is “And Made Her Princess of All Wild Things:
- This news comes to us less than a week after Coldplay (yes, that Coldplay) hid something in one of the books in my Children’s Center at 42nd Street. Apparently the doors opened that day and people tore into the room demanding, ultimately, Jeff Belanger’s Who’s Haunting the White House? One wonders what Jeff Belanger thinks of all this. Or if sales of his book have gone up. Six copies of the books are now checked out of my system, I see.
- Oh, and it only took a year but The Paris Review finally made it over to NYPL to check out the current children’s book exhibit The ABC of It. They liked it, which is good when you consider that it’s up and running until September now.
- May as well seek out the Secret Libraries of New York City as well, if you happen to be in town. I knew some of these but others (the Conjuring Arts Research Center?!) who wholly new unto mine eyes.
- Unless you resided under a Wi-Fi free rock you may have missed the #WeNeedDiverseBooks campaign that went wholly and totally viral. PW summed the whole thing up with its piece BookCon Controversy Begets Diversity Social Media Campaign. At the time, I didn’t think to alert NYPL to the campaign, but as it turned out the folks there were already on board with it. They whipped a Celebrate Diverse Children’s Books list out of some of the titles that have appeared on our 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing lists over the last three years. It’s a nice list too. Good show.
- There are, of course, children’s awards out there that remain under the radar, no matter how many diversity campaigns spring up. Such is the case with the Children’s Africana Book Award. Their history? According to their site: “In 1991 the Outreach Council of the African Studies Association accepted a proposal from Africa Access to establish awards for outstanding K-12 books on Africa published in the U.S. The awards are designed to encourage the publication of accurate, balanced children’s materials on Africa, to recognize literary excellence and to acknowledge the research achievements of outstanding authors and illustrators. Collectively CABA winners show that Africa is indeed a varied and multifaceted continent. CABA titles expand and enrich our perspectives of Africa beyond the stereotypical, a historical and exotic images that are emphasized in the West.” I was pleased beyond measure to see that Monica Edinger’s Africa Is My Home: A Child of the Amistad won in the Best Book for Older Readers category. Well played, Monica!
- In other news the Tomás Rivera Book Award Winners which honors, “authors and illustrators who create literature that depicts the Mexican American experience” were announced and amongst the winners was Diego Rivera: An Artist for the People by Susan Goldman Rubin. Woohoo!
- Just to round out the awards, the winners of the 2014 Irma Black Award were announced and the results were absolutely splendid. PAR-ticularly The Cook Prize for the best STEM picture book. The Boy Who Loved Math was a shoo-in to my mind, but it’s nice to see folks agreeing on that count.
- And here I thought I knew the bulk of the Maurice Sendak illustrated classics. So how is it that only now I’m hearing about the fact that he illustrated The Velveteen Rabbit? The technique is fascinating. Like he wanted it to look as if a child had scribbled all over the book at strategic moments. See, here’s what I mean:
- There are just too many folks to congratulate with the recent bout of 2014 ALSC Election Results but I will give one or two shout-outs just for the heck of it. Big time congrats and woohoos to Andrew Medlar, our bright and shiny new Vice-President/President Elect. On the Caldecott committee, our fair GreenBeanTeenQueen Sarah Bean Thompson will be serving (yay, bloggers!). The Newbery committee is seeing the delightful Allie Bruce of the Bank Street College of Education (did you see her latest SLJ article?) and Christine Scheper, my Materials Specialist colleague at the Queens Library System. Well done, everyone!
- The issue of when one should begin telling kids about the Holocaust has come up time and time again in conversation. How young is too young? What makes a book appropriate or deeply inappropriate for a given age? Well, Marjorie Ingall over at Tablet Magazine has some thoughts on the matter, even as she examines two very recent Holocaust titles that she admires (and that I need to read stat). As Marjorie puts it, “A lot of us drag our heels when it comes to discussing the subject at all. We tell ourselves we want our kids to maintain their innocence for as long as possible. But what avoidance means, practically speaking, is that someone else often does the educating.”
- This is fun. Recently I took part in a Facebook chat on the subject of getting kids into summer reading as well as various topics books can cover (the stars, science fiction, and camping, amongst others). With that in mind the illustrious Lori Ess and I created the Reading Under the Stars Pinterest page. A collection of spooky, camping, and space titles, it covers ages 0-18 and has a little something for everyone.
- Woo-hoo! I love hearing whom The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art will honor at their yearly gala. This year marks the ninth annual gala and fundraiser and so they’ll be honoring the following folks:
Artist: Jerry Pinkney
Angel: Reach Out and Read represented by Brian Gallagher and Dr. Perri Klass
Mentor: Henrietta Smith
Bridge: Françoise Mouly
For what it’s worth, I had the honor of hearing Dr. Perri Klass speak recently at the opening of a new NYU library and she was fan-friggin’-tastic. So pleased she’s getting her due! Henrietta Smith, for her part, is a children’s librarian so cool she has her own Wikipedia page. And she served under Augusta Baker! Man! I wanna meet her stat.
- When I was asked if I had heard about the anthology Altered Perceptions I had to confess that I had not. And here I thought I knew all the anthologies out in 2014. Turns out, Altered Perceptions is a unique case. Thirty-one authors ranging from Shannon Hale and Sara Zarr to Lauren Oliver and Brandon Mull have joined together to help out writer Robison Wells. Rob suffers from four different mental illnesses, so his friends have donated writing to help him out of his financial debt. It’s sort of a win-win situation. You buy a book that includes work from one of your favorite authors and you help a guy out. They’re halfway to their stated goal with only 17 days left to raise the funds. Be a sport. Help a guy out.
- When I hear that the Huffington Post has an article out with a title like 50 of the Best Kids’ Books Published in the Last 25 Years all that I ask of the universe is that when I open the dang thing I don’t immediately cringe upon seeing the picture book image they used to headline it. So I opened this piece up and . . . yep. Sure as shooting. Cringeworthy. Now add in the factual mistakes (the Galdone version of The Three Billy Goats Gruff came out in 1973, folks, not 1989). Most of the books are fantastic, but man oh geez it’s an odd little list.
I’ve blogged the Little Golden Book Gown before on this site, so the fact that it exists shouldn’t be too much of a surprise. What I did not know was that it’s about to be on display here in NYC on May 30th.
Stats about the dress include the fact that the paper skirt is comprised entirely of the original book illustrations sewn together with metallic gold thread and that the bodice is made from the books’ foil spines backed by tape adhesive. So if anyone wants to lend this to me for an upcoming Newbery/Caldecott Banquet . . . hey, I’m totally game!
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 #
As I explained to Jarrett: It Is Not A Blog. Not Even Close.
Betsy, how often does a person get linked with Beverly Cleary and J. Edgar Hoover? The mind boggles.
Betsy, I went to the National Math Festival on Saturday and met the Mathical Award winners! I was just writing a review of “Really Big Numbers” and looked up the award — and saw you were on the selection committee. *Great* job!
And I’m just saying — but if they ask you for the name of a librarian who would *love love love* to be on future selection panels — please think of me? There can’t be *too* many children’s librarians out there who also have a Master’s in Math, can there?
I had an awesome time at the Festival, and was thrilled to also get to attend a book signing. Of course, I was already a huge fan of Richard Evan Schwartz (for You Can Count on Monsters — awesome book).
Me and J. Eddie H. We’re besties.
You’re so cute. It’s totally a blog. Which is to say, anytime you write is a time to celebrate. Blog, I declare! Blog!
You have a Master’s in Math? Consider yourself on my list, missy. You are a rare bird and I shall make use of you when the time is right.
Thanks!
Yes, my Bachelor’s was also in Math, and Math was my first Master’s — I taught college math for 10 years. Just between you and me, I *love* the career change to Librarian, and haven’t looked back — but I also really love doing Math-related library programs. (Did you know that Bedtime Math has a prepackaged Math Club they offer for free to libraries? It’s awesome!) And the Mathical Award? Call me totally jazzed. 
Betsy, I can’t get over how “packed with good stuff” this post is! Yay for you and Bustle! Talk about a thumbs up! And you look great in that picture, btw
And Jeanne—it sure looks like a blog 
I am so happy to read that Jeanne Birdsall has a blog. I’ve been PENDERWICKS obsessed for years and years! Now stalking is made easy!