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By:
Betsy Bird,
on 11/21/2010
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When you work with the real Winnie-the-Pooh you have a tendency to get complacent. “Oh sure,” you think. ” I know everything about that bear. Absolutely everything.” So it’s nice when the universe gives you a swift kick in the pants to remind you that you are not always up on your Pooh knowledge. Or at least not as up on it as you might think. For example, I completely missed the fact that they just reissued The Winnie-the-Pooh Cookbook by Virginia H. Ellison (amusingly my library’s gift shop has known for quite some time has stocked several copies accordingly). I found this out when a reporter from the Associated Press wanted to interview me (or anyone else who worked with the silly old bear) about Pooh and food. The final piece, Counting pots of honey? Pooh’s recipes for them consists of me desperately trying to think of ways to describe Pooh and food. You will probably enjoy it more for the cute honey gingerbread cookie recipe at the end.
- The article in Tablet Magazine (“A New Read on Jewish Life”) is entitled The Others: Several new books for children and young adults ask us to see the world through Palestinian kids’ eyes. Its author is Marjorie Ingall, one of my favorite children’s book reviewers, most recently seen heaping praise upon A Tale Dark & Grimm in the last New York Times children’s book supplement, as is right. The article in Tablet gives great insight into books like Where the Streets Had a Name (which I reviewed myself) as well as Sarah Glidden’s How to Understand Israel in 60 Days or Less, which I have on order with my library. For this article, Marjorie is lambasted in her comment section. Some of the comments are thoughtful, but a great many show why this issue is so rarely discussed in children’s literature today.
By:
Betsy Bird,
on 9/14/2010
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Oh man. I need to get my third Newbery/Caldecott predictions up and pronto. Now that the Heavy Medal blog has entered the arena again you just know that the debating is about to begin. Already I can see that I’ll have to fight tooth and nail for my beloved One Crazy Summer and that Nina and Jonathan will have to convince me on why a person would want to read a children’s book on playing bridge (no one has given me an adequate explanation of its charms quite yet). Most importantly, can A Conspiracy of Kings stand on its own without a person having read the other books? Which is to say, am I gonna have to read it? Ooo! I love these debates! So much to talk about already. Now I need to finish Only One Year . . .
- Great news came to me yesterday all thanks to Cynopsis Kids. Check it out, Kevin Lewis fans:
“Disney Publishing Worldwide names Kevin Lewis as Executive Editor, Disney Hyperion Books, an imprint of Disney Book Group. In his new position Lewis is responsible for acquiring and editing picture books, as well as middle grade and young adult novels for Disney-Hyperion. Most recently, Lewis was Editorial Director, Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers, and prior to that as an Associate Editor with Blue Sky Press, an imprint of Scholastic.”
This makes me happy. Some of us have been waiting on tenterhooks to hear where Kevin would settle down next. This is the guy who has, in the past, edited folks like Tony DiTerlizzi and Kadir Nelson. We have little doubt he’ll work his magic at Hyperion now. Couldn’t be happier.
- Sick and tired of not getting enough Monica Edinger? Well if Educating Alice doesn’t satisfy you then you might be pleased to learn that our Dalton School blogger has a good looking HuffPo blog up and running as well these days. A smart idea too. It’s always wise to expand your audience.
- RoadsideAmerica.com (“Your Online Guide to Offbeat Tourist Attractions”) stopped by the old children’s room to have a gander at our famous residents. It’s a rather smart little write-up with some facts in there that I myself was not entirely clear on. They get extra points as well for the snarky end to the write-up. Couldn’t agree with them more. Thanks to The Infomancer for the link.
- You can criticize a person’s personal beliefs, clothes, worldly possessions, and general attitude all you want but better keep your hands off their The Giving Tree. Yes, the triumvirate of mediocrity made the news yet again with the New York Times article Children’s Books You (Might) Hate and Silverstein’s weirdo tale is
By:
Betsy Bird,
on 8/29/2010
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Due to the sheer proliferation of book jackets featuring photographs rather than illustrations, I think the time is right to offer a little ode of praise to our brave illustrators who work so hard to give us great illustrated chapter book covers. In an age when it feels like all the teen covers are dedicated to giving us variations on the same theme, it’s refreshing to consider that some artists do more than just Photoshop a girl’s dress from pink to blue.
That said, sometimes it’s hard to tell who the cover artist is on an individual book. A lot of galleys and advanced readers copies may refuse to mention the jacket artist’s name, perhaps because they are reserving the right to choose a different cover at any time. As for the artists themselves, they’re not usually all that prompt with their online portfolios. With that in mind, these are the only artists I could think of off the top of my head that are doing more than one chapter book cover in the year 2010. If you can think of someone I’ve missed (or can identify another 2010 cover that is by an artist listed here) please let me know and I’ll add them as time permits.
Scott Altmann
Here’s a guy that sneaks up on you. You don’t notice him for a while and then BLAMMO! The dude seems to be everywhere. This year Altmann’s been impressing youngsters with …
The Smoky Corridor by Chris Grabenstein:
The Death Defying Pepper Roux by Geraldine McCaughrean:
The Shadow Hunt by Katherine Langrish:
The Ring of Five by Eoin McNamee:
On the other side of the pond Altmann gets his own fair share of work. I was pleased as punch, for example, to see that they had reissued Astrid Lindgren’s Ronia the Robber’s Daughter over there this year.
Not that I don’t still love the original Trina Schart Hyman illustrations from over here.
While fellow artist Brandon Dorman does the Fablehaven books in the States, Altmann is doing them in the UK. He’s also doing the Charlie Bone series over there as well. All the more interesting that he didn’t do the UK versi
By:
Betsy Bird,
on 8/15/2010
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We begin today with a mild pet peeve of mine. Here we go. You see this lovely new paperback edition cover of the book Neil Armstrong Is My Uncle and Other Lies Muscle Man McGinty Told Me? Well I had great affection for the original story, though I was relatively lukewarm on its first cover. The original jacket just sported an image of the moon with a little astronaut sticking in a flag. Clearly they wanted to spice things up a bit. I don’t blame them. Lots of great books see a second life in paperback when they go with a more contemporary photographed look. That said, this particular book’s new cover suffers from a current trend I’ve found in some children’s jackets. It is a whatever-you-do-don’t-make-the-kids-think-the-book-is-historical cover. Now look at it. Look long and hard. Is there anything about the hair or dress of these two kids that screams 1969 to you? You might argue “well, is there anything that looks absolutely contemporary?” and you’d be right. But they’re definitely fudging the time period. This will happen from time to time. A bit of historical fiction will end up faking its cover to look contemporary, for all sorts of reasons. Generally you can get around this if you shoot the photo close up (as with Frances O’Roark Dowell’s Shooting the Moon) or the characters backs (though I’m still pretty sure the hair on Doris Gwaltney’s WWII novel Homefront was a bit suspect). Still and all, though I peer at this new Neil Armstrong book with a suspicious eye (shouldn’t Muscle Man McGinty be wearing glasses anyway?) it’s still loads better than the original back of the jacket for A Friendship for Today by Patricia McKissack. There you saw two pairs of legs wearing jeans (on girls in the American South in the 1950s) and Airwalk sneakers. Airwalks were established in 1986, folks. My oh me oh my. Nice book, though.
- Ah! It’s that time of year again. Time for Lee & Low to hand out their New Voices Writers Award. As they say, “LEE & LOW BOOKS, award-winning publisher of children’s books, is pleased to announce the eleventh annual NEW VOICES AWARD. The Award will be given for a children’s picture book manuscript by a writer of color. The Award winner receives a cash grant of $1000 and our standard publication contract, including our basic advance and royalties for a first time author. An Honor Award winner will receive a cash grant of $500.” You can see more information here if you’re interested.
By:
Betsy Bird,
on 7/25/2010
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On Saturday, August 7th at 2:00 p.m. I will be moderating a talk with Stephen Roxburgh of namelos and Jennifer Perry, the Assistant Vice President & Editorial Director of the Book Publishing Group at Sesame Workshop, about ebooks, digital literature, and the current children’s literary industry. As preparation, this article from Publishers Weekly called The Digital Revolution in Children’s Publishing could not be better timed. I was particularly taken with this quote from Kristen McLean (executive director of the Association of Booksellers for Children) regarding interactive content: “Early reports indicate that this content is not replacing traditional books. It’s replacing games . . . Parents would rather see their kids engaged in book content than in game content.” For my part, I hope that in the future more authors will be directly involved in the interactive aspects of some of these books. Or that we get more designers that study exactly what works and doesn’t work with our kids from a storytelling standpoint. Whatever the case, I’m inclined to suggest to attendees of my panel discussion that they read this article before attending. It’s sure to answer a lot of questions, and raise even more.
- Whoopsiedoodle (yes, I just wrote that word and yes, I regret nothing). Looks like I missed talking about ShelfTalker’s latest Stars Thus Far posting. You’ll remember that Elizabeth Bluemle takes it upon herself to accomplish the Herculean task of collecting all the starred children’s book reviews for a given year on a regular basis. In this latest one I see that I missed that Cosmic by Frank Cottrell Boyce achieved the very rare SIX STAR level! Even When You Reach Me never accomplished that. Well done, Mr. Boyce! Pity you’re ineligible for a Newbery, eh? Now if I can only convince Harcourt to send me a copy of Ubiquitous . . .
- I was enjoying the Jacket Knack post The Unexpected Ordinary anyway. Then I saw the picture of the new paperback jacket for How to Ditch Your Fairy by Justine Larbalestier. Oh man. I am suddenly in love with some unknown Art Director. Of course, it immediately brings to mind Lady Cottington’s Pressed Fairies, but that is not a bad thing. That book particular book is due for a YA revival anyway. Or maybe we’ll just wait for the current crop of Rainbow Fairy enthusiasts to hit their teen years. Give it 5 years or so.
The other day I was talking about some favorite books that were getting re-published when in the comments Annette wrote about another book she would like to see in print again:
“The Wedding Procession of the Rag Doll and the Broom Handle and Who Was in It, by Carl Sandburg (pictures by Harriet Pincus but some wonderful new artist could do fantastic things). A book I don’t mind reading aloud over and over and over.”
It got me to thinking. Any time a publisher chooses to rerelease picture book or children’s novel with brand new illustrations that is not a general classic (which is to say, doesn’t show up on the Top 100 Picture Books Poll or Top 100 Children’s Novel Poll results) it is a cause for curiosity and interest. Some recent examples of this might include:
The Mouse and His Child by Russell Hoban.
Old Cover:
New Cover:
The Enormous Egg by Oliver Butterworth
Old Cover:
New Cover:
The Toothpaste Millionaire by Jean Merrill.
Old Cover:
New Cover:
Many Moons by James Thurber
Old Cover:
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10 Comments on Re-Illustrate That Sucker!, last added: 7/21/2010
When you work with the real Winnie-the-Pooh you have a tendency to get complacent. “Oh sure,” you think. ” I know everything about that bear. Absolutely everything.” So it’s nice when the universe gives you a swift kick in the pants to remind you that you are not always up on your Pooh knowledge. Or at least not as up on it as you might think. For example, I completely missed the fact that they just reissued The Winnie-the-Pooh Cookbook by Virginia H. Ellison (amusingly my library’s gift shop has known for quite some time has stocked several copies accordingly). I found this out when a reporter from the Associated Press wanted to interview me (or anyone else who worked with the silly old bear) about Pooh and food. The final piece, Counting pots of honey? Pooh’s recipes for them consists of me desperately trying to think of ways to describe Pooh and food. You will probably enjoy it more for the cute honey gingerbread cookie recipe at the end.
10 Comments on Re-Illustrate That Sucker!, last added: 7/21/2010
Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate — water and OJ. Get as much sleep as you can. And find a great book to re-read. (I am a firm believer in self-medicating with doses of carefully chosen literature. Something funny/happy/uplifting. As the old saying goes, “It’ll do you good and help you, too.”
Feel better, Betsy! Thanks for the link.
And I give up — WHICH That 70s Show star is in Molly’s Pilgrim???
Oh, boo! Shoo that cold away. Hope you feel better.
Answer: Mila Kunis, of course! She looks exactly the same at 10 as she does today. The true irony is that the actress was born in Kiev and yet plays a part where she mocks a girl for being Russian. Sweet irony.
The Hundred Dresses has also been performed at Imagination Stage in Bethesda, MD, a few years back.
I loved Departure Time too! Thanks for the recommendation. What a great read!
How strange–I loved all the Casson books but never really got into the Penderwicks. It just felt too much like Elizabeth Enright’s work for me to really love it.
Maybe it’s an either/or proposition. Either you like one or another. Interesting.
I enjoyed reading the news today. Hope you feel better. And don’t forget that you and I became friendly due to a critical yet astute observation of my picture book (even if I still disagree). Good things grow from honesty.
Thank you so much for the news that The Winnie-the-Pooh cookbook is back in print! Now if only I can get my hand on those adorable cookie cutters . . .