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Those of you familiar with the Jackson 5 song I’ve referenced in my title are probably now throwing virtual rotten fruit in my general direction.  Still, I can’t say it isn’t accurate.  This weekend I am pleased to be a speaker at the SCBWI Indiana conference in Zionsville, IN.  I haven’t been back in Indiana since my last college reunion in 2010.  It’ll be good for me to fill the lungs with some pure uncut Midwestern air once more.  A gal need to fill up before heading back into the NYC fray.  While you read this I may be zooming up into the clouds above, so enjoy some ephemera in my absence.

• Sure.  On the one hand Spain’s reading net, highlighted by Boing Boing this week, looks AMAZING.  But while it may work well for Spanish children, you just know that our kids would be leaping and jumping all over that thing within seconds.  Plus, there appears to be a gigantic hole in it that’s just asking for trouble.  Or maybe that’s how you get in.  That would make sense.

• Views From the Tesseract has reached its 100th post and as a result Stephanie came up with What Stories Have Taught Me in 100 Small Lessons.  It’s nice without being sentimental.  Plus, if you’re in the market for good quotes from children’s books, this here’s the place to go for your one stop shopping!

• AAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!  Thanks to Marci for the link.

• My l’il sis is at it again.  This time she came up with a way to create comic book shoes.  I cannot help but think that this might be possible with old Advanced Readers Copies.  Or YA craft programs.  Yeah.  I think you can tell that the next time I go to the Newbery/Caldecott Banquet I’m recruiting Kate to help me with my outfit.  She made one shoe superheroes and one supervillains.

For the record, she also did a post on how to make a hollow book.  If you read it, just remember that the world is FULL of extra Harry Potter 7s.  One or two less isn’t gonna hurt anything.

• And while we’re feeling crafty, Delightful Children’s Books has come up with such a good idea: a Bookish Advent Calendar.  Genius!  I may have to steal this idea myself.  If I do, though, I’d better get cracking.  Start placing holds now.  December is practically nigh!

• On the more serious side of things, Marjorie Ingall writes great posts no matter where she is, but it’s her titles that consistently blow me away.  At the blog Modern Loss (a site for “navigating your life after a death”) Marjorie wrote 5 Kids Books That Go There: The best of the ‘talking to kids about death’ genre (drumroll, please).  It’s a strong five.  I’m trying to think what I might add.  This year’s Missing Mommy by Rebecca Cobb, maybe.  That book ripped my heart from my chest and danced a tarantella on the remains.

• *sigh*  Well, if nothing else, this clarifies for me who exactly “McKenna” is and why folks keep asking me to buy her books.  And Saige, for that matter.  Alexandra Petri writes a rather amusing piece on what has happened to American Girl.

I’m far less upset about the fact that they’re turning What Does the Fox Say? into a picture book.  For one thing, I’m weirdly thrilled that the Norwegian YouTube hit sensation has a Norwegian illustrator.  And one that clearly has a sense of humor.  Hey!  Whatever it takes to get some new names from overseas into the American market.  At the very least, I want to see it (though I’m fairly certain it is NOT the first picture book to be based on a YouTube sensation).  Thanks to Playing By the Book and Matt for the info.

• Daily Image:

Today, I show something I may have shown before.  It’s lithographs of famous books where the text from the story makes up the image itself.  Here are some examples:

A Christmas Carol

Alice in Wonderland

A Little Princess

Thanks to Marci for the link!

 

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I am hosting a Carol Sing at my house tomorrow night at 5 pm (in case you actually know where that is) to celebrate the beginning of Advent.  Come on down.  We'll be using the Friends' Hymnal and Songs of the Spirit, most likely.

Hub and I moved the piano from the dining room into the living room and since we did, I have been playing much, much more.  The piano gives the living room more purpose now, I think.

So bring your instruments and your voices and some snacky thing and join in.  And if you are far away, or don't know where I live (something I don't actually share on this blog), just sing your favorite carol at 6 pm EST on December 1st.  I'll hear you in my soul.

On the subject of Advent, I just purchased a boatload of digital Advent calendars from JacquieLawson.com. 
Jacquie and her pals offer some lovely greeting cards for all seasons for a yearly subscription fee.  Their Advent calendars are delightful.  (Some tech snobs might criticize the animation.  Bah Humbug to them!)  So check them out.  I wish I could share the calendar with you.

If you don't want to spend any money, I found some sites that will send you to FREE Advent online Advent calendars.  One site sends you to Jan Brett's totally awesome print out, full color, Advent calendar.  But it is such a nice calendar and Jan Brett is such a wonderful illustrator here is the link to her site.

Check out these websites for links to many other Advent calendars.  I haven't checked all the links so I hope they are all active.

From Dec. 2009, Make Use Of's blog lists 10 Free Advent calendars.  The ones I checked still work.

Nature Detectives has a 2012 list of downloadable Advent activities.

Check out Activity Village's Advent calendar for this year.

This ThriftyFun list is from 2004 but most of the links still work.

Happy Waiting everyone!

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The Guardian - The British newspaper, not the defunct TV series - has offered us all a joyful online Advent Calendar centered on books for children and teens.  These are British books, mind, but a whole lot of those have captured the American readers' attention - Harry Potter, for instance.

The selection for Dec. 2 is a slide show about Raymond Briggs.

Click here and then bookmark the page so you can check back every day for quizzes and author interviews and other fun for us older fans of kids' lit.

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Boy, I picked the wrong week to go about putting off my regular Fusenews.  What we’ve got here is a veritable fusey newsy pile-up.  I shall endeavor to separate the wheat from the chaff, but no guarantees it’ll actually work.  Let us see what all I’m able to pack in for today then:

Lucky ducks!  New York Public Library has just released the 100 Books for Reading and Sharing list for 2010.  I participated a bit this year, so you’re certain to find my favorites on there.  Of course it was a committee so the results may hold some surprises as well . . .

• Tis also the season for booklists!  And not just any booklists.  Jewish booklists!  Two entirely different sources came to my attention recently.  First up, my favorite historical children’s literature blog (favorite blog that looks at historical fiction and non-fiction for kids, that is) The Fourth Musketeer just came up with a list of My Top Books for the Eight Nights of Hanukkah.  My library is pretty depleted of Hanukkah books at the moment (no surprise there considering the timing) but even so I can see from Margo’s list that we’ve some gaps in our collection.  I mean, there’s a Paschkis Hanukkah book out there and we didn’t buy it?  This shall not stand.

• And into the Best Books of 2010 category comes Marjorie Ingall, who recently posted on Tablet Magazine the year’s best Jewish picture books and the year’s best Jewish books for older kids.  Great lists all around.  In terms of picture books I included The Rooster Prince of Breslov by Ann Redisch Stampler on my own Magnificent Books of 2010 list, but I wish I’d seen that fabulous looking Zishe the Strongman by Robert Rubinstein too.  On the chapter books side I’m ashamed to say I’ve read only two of the books listed, though Hereville by Barry Deutsch also made it to my magnificent books list.  Love that title.  Thanks to Marjorie Ingall for the links.

• The Guardian recently revealed a list of what it called The 10 best illustrated children’s books.  PW Children’s Bookshelf called this list “quirky”.  That’s one word for it.  We would also have accepted “freaky deaky”, “positively peculiar”, and “quoi?”  Or maybe that just applies to the first selection.  After all, it’s hard to fault a list that includes The Magic Pudding AND Shaun Tan in one fell swoop.  Thanks to 10 Comments on Fusenews: If it has Jeffrey Tambor in it, it’s gotta be good!, last added: 12/8/2010