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Good morning, everyone, and thank you for attending yet another edition of the A Fuse #8 Production interview series.  I am, as ever, your host Betsy Bird and before we go much further you might have noticed something a little different about me.  Is it my hair?  The fact I have my contacts in?  Or could it possibly be the fact that I am a toilet paper tube wearing a cute red dress* with matching shoes?  Sharp eye spotters will realize it is the last option.  It’s like Michel Gondry, but even smaller!

Yes, as you see here I am appearing before you today in my toilet paper tube form, due entirely to our guest Dana Sheridan.  Dana is one of those people with a life and job so amazing, that you may find you resent me slightly for introducing her to you in the first place.  The quickie bio is as follows:

“Dana Sheridan received her Ph.D. and M.Ed. in Educational Psychology from the University of Virginia. While her academic work focused on how children learn in free-choice environments, her professional passion has always been the design of dynamic hands-on programs and presentations for children. She has worked in a variety of settings, including a children’s hospital, special collections libraries, a children’s museum, a science center, and a major city zoo.

Additionally, she has been a guest lecturer at literary society meetings, children’s literature classes, and education courses. She currently works at the Cotsen Children’s Library at Princeton University, and blogs about her creative literacy work at Pop Goes the Page: blogs.princeton.edu/popgoesthepage”

At which point you might say, “There’s someone at Princeton who gets to work with children’s books all the time?”  Yep.  And what’s more, her projects?  They’re drop dead amazing.  But enough lead up!  Let’s talk to the woman one-on-one.

Betsy Bird: First off, your job is so incredibly interesting, but it’s not the kind that you learn about in library school.  Can you tell me a bit about how you came to it?

Dana Sheridan: The short answer is a friend spotted it for me! The long answer is that my friend, Mary Maher, is childhood friends with Lila Fredenburg, the former head of HR at the Princeton University Library. The Cotsen Children’s Rare Books and Special Collections Library was looking for a new Education & Outreach Coordinator, and the job was drastically different from the other University library postings. So Lila sent the job description to Mary, who is a denizen of the children’s museum world. And Mary sent it to me. And I yelled and screamed and jumped around and had my application in a week later. I had just finished my Ph.D. at the University of Virginia. While in grad school, to counter all the dry academic reading I was doing, I started revisiting my favorite children’s chapter books. The next thing I knew, I was devouring stacks of 15-20 books a week. I was thoroughly enjoying reading for the sake of reading, not realizing I was setting myself up for the perfect job at Princeton University. When I received the offer from Princeton – and I am not kidding about this – I was so excited, my nose started bleeding.

BB: What does a typical day look like for you?

DS: I arrive at work at 8:30am, and depart around 6:30pm. What falls in between those hours varies wildly. My library offers two weekly story times that meet year-round (with the exception of August). During the academic year, we have a bi-weekly children’s literary society, a bi-weekly collections education program for local schools, Saturday events, 3 author webcast premieres, a writing program for teens, and an annual writing contest for kids ages 9-14. My creative blog, Pop Goes the Page, posts twice weekly, year-round. I also do workshops and site visits to other places…and…I am the only full-time person on staff! I have an assistant who works 20 hours a week, and I hire Princeton University students for targeted projects as well. So on any given day, I could be photographing a blog project, researching a historical program, prepping for a preschool story time, working with my assistant to develop a new program, doing the post-production on an author interview, or all five at once!

BB: Part of what I love about what you do is how you’re able to really tap into your creative side.  I’m thinking not just of the projects you do with the kids but of your blog work as well.  What project would you say has remained your favorite to do?

DS: Oooo not fair! That’s like asking me what my favorite children’s book is! I do so many different things, and they all have their special moments. Seeing a 3 year-old create a project they’re proud of, interviewing an author I admire, talking books with tweens, helping a University student develop a workshop (we have a whopper Harry Potter Latin one coming up), or sharing a laugh with my assistant when I’m doing something ridiculous for the blog. It’s all good.

But it you were really going to pin me down, I would probably say my favorite was a Lightning Thief event in 2011. We had 34 different tables that each featured an element of the series as hands-on project, demo, performance, activity, or something cool to take home. We had science, history, art, giant snakes in “Medusa’s lair,” Greek hoplites in full armor, a 1,200 ton ice sculpture of a Greek temple (Poseidon, of course), a Socratic method philosophy table, dyslexia and ADHD awareness tables, harp music, architecture, Mythomagic, mechanical bull “Minotaur Rides,” delicious blue chocolate chip cookies – the works! The audience was thrilled (there were about 5,000 people in attendance), everything went without a hitch, I got to spend the day draped in a comfy chiton, and it was just completely…magical. But the reason it’s my absolute, ABSOLUTE favorite event is that 6 days later, my precious baby daughter was born. She managed to wait until I had penned the last thank you note, and then off to the hospital I went the very next morning! The fact that I managed to attend the event, see all the hard work pay off, observe how delighted the attendees were, AND get to cuddle a newborn 6 days later makes it my number one.

BB: A lot of your work has examined the necessity of making reference collections and rare books accessible, in some way, to kids.  How do you go about doing that sort of thing?  I have kids.  Their hands are remarkably sticky.

DS: Yes indeed! The Cotsen Children’s Library is actually a wing of Rare Books and Special Collections at Princeton University. We have over 600 centuries of rare books, objects, original art, manuscripts, and games all related to children’s literature. One of my programs, Cotsen in the Classroom, takes collections education to local schools and homeschools. Each grade level has its own designated area of the collections, from Beatrix Potter to 18^th century geographic games. I used reproductions of historic objects and high res photographs of collections items on display boards. There are plenty of hands-on activities built into each 45 minute presentation. If you’re interested, You can see an article I wrote about the program here: https://popgoesthepage.princeton.edu/teaching-the-untouchable/

BB: What do you have coming up in the future?

DS: Currently, my assistant and I are testing out Viking activities for a How To Train Your Dragon program and doing historic research for a Victorian tea program. Additionally, I’m crafting questions for a terrific Alice in Wonderland panel I’m moderating for the NYPL in December, and gearing up for three library workshops in Long Island in January. I just finished interviewing Tracey Baptiste (author of The Jumbies) so that’s in post-production for February. But the BIG FUN comes in April. I’ll be interviewing Norton Juster in front of a live audience (the interview will be available as a webcast too!) AND we’ll be hosting a big math literacy program called “A Day in Digitopolis” that same month. I’m also in the middle of reading Charmed Life at our story time for 6-8 year-olds (They love it! I knew they would!) and merrily planning story time projects, blogging, and having miscellaneous good times.

BB: Thanks, Dana!  I appreciate your answering my questions and for giving us a sneak peek into your life.  And because I figure we should give you your proper due, here’s a quick series of photos from a variety of Dana’s different programs.  The first two might be my favorite.  Dana conducted a tie-in craft for the book Pirate, Viking, Scientist by Jared Chapman.  It was so successful that folks from Little, Brown followed her steps for the annual Halloween costume contest.  See if you can figure out which ones are the publishers.

The kids were told to look fierce, by the way.

Here are more images from the Lightning Thief party she mentioned:

This is ice.

For far more of this kind of thing, Dana’s amazing Pinterest page can be found here.

Thank you, Dana, for joining me today!

[*  I thank her too for putting me in a red dress.  Long time readers will recall the Red Dress Incident of 2006, when I attempted to locate a red dress to wear to the Newbery/Caldecott Banquet the year Higher Power of Lucky won (you’d need to read the book to know why).  My attempts met with abject failure, so this comes as a nine-years-in-the-making consolation prize.  Ta.]

Morning, folks. We’re beginning this Sunday morn with stuff that’s good for the soul.  How often have you said to yourself, “I’d love to own some original art from illustrator Matthew Cordell but I’m too busy spending all my cash on children’s literacy foundations”?  Well, fear not!  Now you can do both.  In celebration of their book Special Delivery, Messrs. Cordell and Philip Stead are going to hold a raffle for five pieces of awesome art.  You win by donating money to good causes.  The details are here and the video here:

Next up, the American Hogwarts.  I mean, it is if by “Hogwarts” you’re referring to a well-established university setting with a clear cut amazing children’s collection, staff, program schedule, and more.  Princeton finally decided to create a little trailer for the Cotsen Children’s Library, and I have to say I’m stunned. First off, there’s my girl Dana Sheridan killing it with the storytimes.  Then there’s the just wide range of services they provide.  And the furniture, dear GOD the furniture!!  I’m fascinated by the Cotsen Critix program too since bookclubs for 9-12 year-olds are my weakness.  Wish I lived closer to it!  Here’s more background information and here’s the trailer:

Someday I shall teach a course on the art of the book trailer. In it I will show all the different myriad styles and techniques one can utilize when coming up with your very own.  And always assuming that I remember, I shall include this simple, lovely trailer for The Mystery Hat by Rune Brandt Bennicke and Jakob Hjort Jensen .  Sometimes it’s all in the soundtrack, folks.

There go Scieszka and Biggs.  I’ve suspected for years that they were in the pocket of Big Audiobook but never had the proof . . . until now!!

Seriously, though, I’m-a wanting that crazy white wig.

So this year we are seeing not one but TWO different early chapter book series about Latino girls. This is a good thing since the running tally before 2015 was . . . um . . . yeah, it was zero.  Zero series in total.  The first is the Emma Is On the Air series by Ida Siegal and illustrated by Karla Pena.  The second is the Sofia Martinez series by Jacqueline Jules, illustrated by Kim Smith.  But only one of these (as of this post) has a book trailer:

It’s not a children’s book.  It’s not even a YA novel.  It’s (*gasp* *shudder*) an adult book . . . but its book trailer is adorable.  I can resist it, not at all.

Thanks to Alison Morris for the link.

I had not yet taken the time to see the trailer for the Lena Dunham/Hilary Knight documentary. Nothing too surprising to see here, but it’s certainly a very clear cut case of a famous person attempting to shine their light on someone they admire who might not be a household name (though Eloise certainly is).

Thanks to educating alice for the link.

And I’m not feeling too creative on the off-topic video of the day.  And when the going gets tough, the tough links to cat/dog videos.  So goes the world.  So goes the world.

• Top of the morning to you, froggies!  I had one heckuva weekend, I tell you.  Actually it was just one heckuva Saturday.  First there was the opening of the new Bank Street Bookstore location here in NYC.  I was one of the local authors in attendance and, as you can see from this photograph taken that morning, I was in good company.

At one point I found myself at a signing table between Deborah Heiligman and Rebecca Stead with Susan Kuklin, Chris Raschka, and Peter Lerangis on either side.  I picked up the name tag that Jerry Pinkney had left behind so that I could at least claim a Caldecott by association.  Of course that meant I left my own nametag behind and a certain someone did find it later in the day . . .

Then that afternoon, after wolfing down an Upper West Side avocado sandwich that had aspirations for greatness (aspirations that remained unfulfilled) I was at NYPL’s central library for the panel Blurred Lines?: Accuracy and Illustration in Nonfiction.  This title of silliness I acknowledge mine.  In any case, the line-up was Sophie Blackall, Brian Floca, Mara Rockliff, and her Candlewick editor Nicole Raymond.  It was brilliant. There will perhaps be a write-up at some point that I’ll link to.  I just wanted to tip my hat to the folks involved.  We were slated to go from 2-3 and we pretty much went from 2-4.  We could have gone longer.

• I’ve often said that small publishers fill the gaps left by their larger brethren.  Folktales and fairy tales are often best served in this way.  Graphic novels are beginning to go the same route.  One type of book that the smaller publishers should really look into, though, is poetry.  We really don’t see a lot of it published in a given year, and I’d love to see more.  The new Lee Bennett Hopkins Poetry Award may help the cause.  It was recently announced and the award is looking for folks who are SCBWI members and that published their books between 2013-2015.  It makes us just one step closer to an ALA poetry award.  One step.

• How did I miss this when it was published?  It’s a New Yorker piece entitled Eloise: An Update.  It had me at “The absolute first thing I do in the morning is make coffee in the bathroom and check to see what’s on pay-per-view / Then I have to go to the health club to see if they’ve gotten any new kettlebells and then stop at the business center to Google a few foreign swear words.”  Thanks to Sharyn November for the link.

• Y’all know I worship at the alter of Frances Hardinge and believe her to be one of the greatest living British novelists working today, right?  Well, this just in from the interwebs!  Specifically, from agent Barry Goldblatt’s Facebook page:

BSFA and Carnegie Medal longlister Frances Hardinge’s debut adult novel THE KNOWLEDGE, about a London cab driver with a special license to travel between multiple alternative Londons, who, after rescuing a long-missing fellow driver, finds herself caught up in a widening conspiracy to control the pathways between worlds, to Navah Wolfe at Saga Press, in a two-book deal, for publication in Summer 2017, by Barry Goldblatt at Barry Goldblatt Literary on behalf of Nancy Miles at Miles Stott Literary Agency (NA).

Mind you, this means I’ll have to read an adult novel now.  I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.

• Speaking of England, I’m tired of them being cooler than us.  For example, did you know that they have a Federation of Children’s Book Groups?  A federation!  Why don’t we have a federation?  I’ll tell you why.  Because we haven’t earned it yet.  Grrr.

• Ooo!  A new Spanish language children’s bookstore has just opened up in Los Angeles.  And here we can’t get a single bookstore other than Barnes & Noble to open up in the Bronx in English, let alone another language.  This is so cool.  Methinks publishers looking to expand into the Latino market would do well to court the people working at this shop, if only to find new translatable material.

• Fancy fancy dancy dancy Leo Lionni shirts are now being sold by UNIQLO.  Some samples:

Smarties.

• Roxanne Feldman is one of those women that has been in the business of getting books into the hands of young ‘uns for years and years and years.  Online you may recognize her by her username “fairrosa”.  Well, now she has a blog of her very own and it’s worth visiting.  Called the Fairrosa Cyber Library, it’s the place to go.  However – Be Warned.  This is not a site to merely dabble in.  If you go you must be prepared to sit down and read and read.  Her recent posts about diversity make for exciting blogging.

• Phil Nel has compiled the greatest Dr. Seuss blog post of all time.  I said it.  I stand by it.  Doubt me if you dare.

• Me Stuff: Because apparently the whole opening of this blog post didn’t count.  Now Dan Blank is one of those guys you just hope and pray you’ll meet at some point in your life.  He’s the kind of fellow who is infinitely intensely knowledgeable about how one’s career can progress over time and he’s followed my own practically since the birth of my blogging career.  If I appeared in Forbes, it was because of Dan.  Recently he interviewed me at length and the post is up.  It’s called Betsy Bird: From “Invisible” Introvert to Author, Critic, Blogger and Librarian.  I feel like that kid in Boyhood with Dan.  Really I do.

• It was Adam Gidwitz who alerted me to a theatrical production going on in town right now that holds my interest in its hot little hand.  He says the company is fantastic and that the show is entirely worth it.  Though, with a name like BAMBIF*CKER/KAFFEHAUS: A caffeinated ride through sex, death, deer, and Zionism how could it not be?

• Fact: The Cotsen Children’s Library of Princeton has been interviewing great authors and illustrators since at least 2010.

• Fact: Access to these interviews has always been available, but not through iTunes.

• Fact: Now it is.  And it’s amazing.  Atinuke.  Gary Schmidt.  Rebecca Stead.  Philip Pullman.  It’s free, it’s out there, so fill up your iPod like I am right now and go crazy!  Thanks to Dana Sheridan for the info!

The other day I linked to a piece on the term “racebent” and how it applies to characters like Hermione in Harry Potter.  It’s not really a new idea, though, is it?  Folks have always reinterpreted fictional characters in light of their own cultures.  This year the publisher Tara Books is releasing The Patua Pinocchio.  Now I’ve been a bit Pinocchio obsessed ever since my 3-year-old daughter took Kate McMullen’s version to heart (it was the first chapter book she had the patience to sit through).  With that in mind I am VERY interested in this version of the little wooden boy.  Very.

• Ever been a children’s nonfiction conference?  Want to?  The 21st Century Children’s Nonfiction Conference has moved to NYC this year and it’s going to be a lot of fun.  I’ll be speaking alongside my colleague / partner-in-crime Amie Wright, but there are a host of other speakers and it’s a delightful roster.  If ever this has ever been your passion, now’s thWe time to go.

• Diverse books for kids don’t sell?  To this, Elizabeth Bluemle, a bookseller, points out something so glaringly obvious that I’m surprised nobody else has mentioned it before.  I’m sure that someone has, but rarely so succinctly. Good title too:  An Overlooked Fallacy About Sales of Diverse Books.

• And speaking of diverse books, here’s something that was published last year but that I, in the throes of the whole giving birth thing, missed.  The We Need Diverse Books website regularly posted some of the loveliest book recommendations I’ve ever seen.  We’ve all seen lists that say things like “Like This? Then Try This!” but rarely do they ever explain why the person would like that book (I’m guilty of this in my own reviews’ readalikes and shall endeavor to be better in the future).  On their site, the WNDB folks not only offered diverse readalikes to popular titles, but gave excellent reasons as to why a fan of David Wiesner’s Tuesday might like Bill Thomson’s Chalk.  The pairing of Lucy Christopher’s Stolen with Sharon Draper’s Panic is particularly inspired.  The covers even match.

Daily Image:

I am ever alert to any appropriation of my workplace that might be taking place. Recently I learned that in the Rockettes’ upcoming holiday show there will be this set in one of the numbers.  Apparently Patience and Fortitude (the library lions) will be voiced by (the recorded voices of) Tina Fey and Amy Poehler.  I kid you not.

Years ago when I worked in the old Donnell Library I looked out the window of the Central Children’s Room to see three camels standing there chewing their cud or whatever it is that camels chew.  They were with their trainer, taking a walk before their big number in the Rockettes’ show.  The crazy thing was watching the people on the street.  The New Yorkers were walking past like the it was the most natural thing in the world.  This is because New Yorkers are crazy.  When camels strike you as everyday, something has gone wrong with your life.

• Recently I’ve grown rather fascinated with the academic children’s collections of the world.  The rare book collections in particular.  With that in mind, what do you do if you’re an institution that specializes in archived materials, and yet you still want to engage young readers in some capacity?  Enter Teaching the untouchable, a great article by Dana Sheridan at the Cotsen Collection of Princeton University.  Written for College and Research Libraries News the piece really delves deep into how to best conduct rare book programs with real honest-to-goodness children.  Great stuff.

• I’m also fond of international children’s book festivals.  Monica Edinger just got back from FILIJ: Mexico’s International Children’s Book Festival and is willing to tell all.  Sounds like it was absolutely amazing.

• Whatcha up to tonight?  Got big Tuesday night plans?  No?  Excellent since there’s to be a Twitter chat between Debbie Reese of American Indians in Children’s Literature and brilliant librarian Allie Jane Bruce at 9:00 p.m.  Just go to #SupportWNDB.  Be there or be square.

• So cool.  Over at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, Jules got cartooned up.  I would love it if that became a regular thing at her site.  Everyone should cartoonify her when interviewed.

• Jules also tackled a recent re-illustrated title that will have librarians everywhere just shaking their heads, trying desperately to figure out where to put the darn thing in their collections.  If you’re familiar with the 2001 picture book Jim’s Lion by Russell Hoban then you’ll have a hard time looking at its new incarnation without blanching.  It’s one of the most innovative children’s books of the year but a psychological nightmare that would actually pair magnificently with Patrick Ness’s A Monster Calls, if nothing else.  Jules has the scoop.  Well played, she.

Wow.  Just, wow.  Kidlit TV is live, people, and boy does it look fancy.  I mean just LOOK at that site!  Someone put their heart and soul into it, that’s for sure.  Makes me feel like a bit of a slacker, if I’m going to be honest.  Boy howdy.

I am always very pleased with folks take public review sites like Amazon or Goodreads and use them to have a bit of fun.  One Hamilton Richardson evidently must have sat through one Mr. Men book too many and the result is a series of thoroughly enjoyable “reviews” that are all distinctive in their own little ways.  Thanks to Steve for the link.

• Sometimes you just don’t know if the name you see on a series is a real person or not.  Take R.A. Montgomery, for example.  Recently he passed away in his Vermont home, and if his moniker is ringing a couple bells that might be because he’s the fellow behind the Choose Your Own Adventure series.  Like any good child of the 80s I devoured my own fair share of CYOA titles back in the day, perfecting the art of sticking all my digits in between the pages so that the moment I chose poorly I could instantly retrace my steps.  There’s a metaphor lurking in that statement somewhere, I’d wager. Thanks to Mom for the link.

• Daily Image:

Christmas is on the horizon and you know what that means?  Time to start trying to figure out what to purchase for the children’s literature-obsessed person in your life.  Want an early idea?  I know it isn’t even Thanksgiving yet but I just discovered that that Children’s Book Council sells their old Children’s Book Week posters in a variety of different forms, dating back to 1921.  Everyone from N.C. Wyeth to the most recent one by Robin Preiss Glasser.  Here are some of my own personal favorites:

• So what’s the talk of the town these days?  Well the relative brouhaha came about at the end of last week when ReedPOP announced a panel of “the world’s biggest children’s authors” in the field.  That the luminaries in question were all white and male struck a raw nerve with a whole slew of folks.  Since that moment there’s been some fancy footwork and a promise to add some additional folks.   The solution is ludicrously simple, of course.  If the gist of the grouping is to have the top selling authors of books for kids then just grab Rachel Renee Russell and ask her to join.  The fact that she isn’t tapped for more panels has always struck me as odd.

• Okay!  So I swear to you, it’s going to happen.  Wild Things: Acts of Mischief in Children’s Literature is on the roster and slated for release in August.  Don’t believe me?  Then believe the world’s most beautiful press release, replete with a Q&A between myself and my co-writer Julie Danielson.  Candlewick, man.  Even their press releases are gorgeous.

• I am not immune to professional jealousy.  Wish that I was.  Fortunately, most of the time I am able to convert the green eyed monster into genuine fascination and interest (much, I’m sure, to the discomfort of the people I’m suddenly obsessed with).  Take this week’s example: One Margaret H. Willison.  I was listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour, a podcast I like quite a lot in spite of the fact that they can’t tell YA fiction from MG.  Anywho, they have a children’s librarian that they love very very much.  Ms. Willison has been a longstanding fan of theirs and Stephen Thompson mentioned that she was on track to be the next Nancy Pearl of children’s books.  Oh aye!  So I checked her out and she did a NPR piece called 3 Bedtime Picture Books That Won’t Put Parents to Sleep.  Excellent choices one and all.  She’s one to watch then.

• This news made me inordinately happy recently.  The Multnomah County Library System and the Seattle Public Library went head to head in an all out reference battle.  The question?  Who could answer the most book recommendation queries via Twitter?  And I am happy to report that Portland (where the Multnomah system lives) won all the way!!  Way to go, you literary denizens you.  Thanks to AL Direct for the link.

• Recently a new library opened up at NYU.  Called the Georgiou Library and Resource Center for Children and Literature the site will do a lot of outreach to the community as well as operate as a research facility.  Its librarian is the multi-talented Kendra Tyson and the collection, “contains several categories of children’s literature, including counting books, fairy tales, poetry, biography, and holiday books. It also houses Mother Goose books geared for African, Chinese and Russian audiences, bi-lingual counting books, and the Metropolitan Museum’s of Art’s Museum ABC (Little Brown, 2002), which portrays a range of world cultures through its collections.”  I was lucky enough to attend a small event for the library recently and in the course realized that there are other similar collections out there that I just don’t know well enough.  Like the Cotsen Children’s Library, for example.  Some of you will nod sagely and murmur “of course” when I mention it but to me I was ashamed to discover that not only are they the Princeton children’s library but they maintain these FABULOUS blogs!  The Cotsen Children’s Library blog is updated quite regularly and the Pop Goes the Page is maybe the best arts & crafts for library programs blog I’ve witnessed in a very long time.  They’ve also archived a variety of different interviews with children’s authors called The Bibliofiles that are well worth finding too.  Man.  That would be the life working at either of these libraries, am I right?

• Good old, ShelfTalker.  I love it when they list a whole slew of their favorite first lines of 2014.  And in the process I discovered at least one book that I hadn’t even heard of until I read its line.  Bonus!

• You know what?  Fair play to Mackenzie Kruvant.  There she is at Buzzfeed, slaving away with such pieces as “Which Sex And The City Guy Is Your Soulmate?” but often she’ll come up with a really good children’s literature piece.  Example: 15 Adorable Children’s Books For Your Little Architect .  Perhaps she got some help from a librarian somewhere to write it, but if she didn’t then it’s a pretty darn good encapsulation of what’s out there.  Well played, madam.

NYPL likes it when I blog on their site from time to time, so I’ll tend to do pieces I wouldn’t normally do here.  Case in point, recently I did the post Make ‘Em Laugh: Gut-Busting Picture Books That’ll Have ‘Em Rolling in the Aisles.  I really try to give attention to funny picture books when they come out.  And though I didn’t mention them in the piece (I only included stuff you could currently check out of the collection) if I were to put that post here I’d be sure to include the 2014 titles Big Bad Bubble by Adam Rubin, illustrated by Daniel Salmieri (without a doubt their best work to date) and Monkey Goes Bananas by C. P. Bloom and Peter Raymundo.  Both books are danged funny.  If I make a funny picture book prize this year, they will both be up for serious contention.

A friend on mine on Facebook mentioned that he had a 12-year-old in his branch who was interested in Socialism and did we have any books to recommend?  Naturally my thoughts turned to Little Rebels, but that’s a lot of picture books (many of which are out of print).  Fortunately marxists.org (!) has a booklist of its own.  Say they, “This is the start of an ongoing broad bibliography of children’s literature for MIA with title first, divided by age range and fiction/non-fiction. Some of these books were written to be expressly radical, and others need a stretch to find political implications. Compiled by Sally Ryan.”  Cool.

• Hey, remember when I mentioned that I’d interviewed Deborah Underwood about her amazing Bad Bye, Good Bye?  I got a little confused about when it was going to post but now, happily, it is up up up!  If you ever wanted to know the ins and outs of writing a rhyming picture book, you are indeed lucky.

• Got a little confused with the headline on this one, but as it happens it has absolutely nothing to do with the bookstore Books of Wonder here in NYC.  No, this little article is instead about a cool new collection within the Toronto Public Library.  Its full name is “The IBBY Collection of Books for Young People with Disabilities”.  Say they: “As its official name indicates, this collection comes from IBBY, the International Board on Books for Young People. The IBBY collection features more than 3000 multilingual books in sign language, Braille, Blissymbolics, as well as cloth and tactile books and other formats — all for and about children and teens with disabilities.”  I’m downright envious again.  Thanks to Deb Pearson for the link.

• In the world of book awards we’ve two to consider today.  The Eisner Award nominations came out and I see a lot of familiar faces in the youth category.  Meanwhile the Minnesota Book Awards were announced and you might be surprised to discover some of the winners.

• Whenever someone asks adult authors to name the children’s books that inspired them there is a danger of the books being the same old, same old.  That’s part of the reason I like this post from World Literature Today.  Yes, there are some rote choices, but there are also some really obscure titles. The Summerfolk by Doris Burn? The Three Fat Men by Yuri Olesha? Tim and the Hidden People by Sheila K. McKullagh?!?  Wowza.  Thanks to Mom for the link.

• Daily Image:

Good news, poppins.  Today you have a chance to buy cool things and be a good person in the process.  And just in time for my incipient birthday too!  The site Out of Print has been killing it in the library-chic neighborhood.  Observe the cool things that there are to buy:

Mom, Kate, I will happily take that iPhone case.  Wouldn’t say no to any of those baby onesies, for that matter.

Now, how does buying this stuff make you a good person?  Well, it seems the site is THIS WEEK (it is National Library Week after all – my workplace got me a mug and everything) giving money to the following school if you buy stuff.  Voila:

P.S. 244 (The Active Learning Elementary School “TALES”) is an early childhood public school (Pre-K to 3rd grade) located in the Flushing neighborhood of Queens, New York. The majority of students do not speak English at home and qualify for subsidized meal plans, yet at TALES they thrive. A model for public schools at both the national and state level, P.S. 244 has been recognized for its focus on health and nutrition and ranks among the healthiest schools in the country. In 2013, P.S. 244 also ranked 11th in the state for test scores and has been heralded for its innovative curriculum and extremely hard working staff.

With all of these strengths, they also have challenges. The school’s current library has no formal checkout system and relies on volunteer staff. The result? The space serves more like a reading room than a true library. Students aren’t able to check out and read these books at home, families miss out on sharing the joy of reading with their kids and the school is unable to implement a summer reading program to enhance student reading skills during off-school periods.

Help us to give this school and its students the library they deserve. During National Library Week (April 13-20), we are donating a portion of our sales to purchase and implement a scanning system for P.S. 244 and to train staff to manage it. We will post updates after the donation and share stories from students and teachers about the impact of this new system.

Many thanks to Ms. Marci for the links!