Some me stuff to start us off. NYPL turned its handy dandy little 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing 2014 list into an interactive bit of gorgeousness. So as to help it along, I wrote a blog post on the library’s website (I have two blogs, if you want to get technical about it, but only one of them has my heart) with the following clickbait title: They Put THAT Into a Book for Kids?! Forgive me, oh blogging gods. I couldn’t help it. It was too much fun to write. Oh, and while we’re on the NYPL blogs, I really enjoyed Andrea Lipinski’s post about our old (and I mean OLD) Books for the Teen Age lists. How can you resist this cover, after all?
- Recently I was alerted to two older but really fascinating links regarding ARCs (Advanced Readers Galleys) and their procurement and use in the book world. Over at Stacked Books one post discussed the current state of handing out galleys at large national conferences like ALA. The other one took the time to poll people on how they use their ARCs and what they do with them. Both make for magnificent reading. Thanks to Charlotte Taylor for the links.
- It’s sort of nice when our reference librarians, both past and present, get a little acknowledgment for the super difficult questions they have to field. Boing Boing recently related a piece on some of the crazier questions the adult reference librarians have to field. Children’s librarians get some out there ones as well, but nothing quite compares to these.
- Ah. It’s the end of an era, everyone. In case you hadn’t heard the ccbc-net listserv has closed its doors (so to speak) for the last time. Now if you’re looking for children’s literary listservs you’ve PUB-YAC and child_lit. Not much else to read these days, I’m afraid. Except bloggers, I suppose. *irony laden shudder*
- I was over at Monica Edinger’s apartment the other day when she showed me this little beauty:
She’d already blogged a quickie review of it, so when the news came in that it won a UK Costa Award I had the odd sensation of being, if only momentarily, inside the British book loop. And if you looked at that cover and thought to yourself, “Gee, that sure looks like a WWI sequel to E. Nesbit’s Five Children and It” you’re sort of right on the money.
- So I’m prepping my branches for some hardcore Día programs (El día de los niños/El día de los libros or Children’s Day/Book Day) by buying them lots of Día books. I go on the Día website to order off of the book lists they have there, and what do I find? Some of the coolest most up-to-date STEM/STEAM booklists I have EVER had the pleasure to see. They’re so good, in fact, that I had to alert you to them. If you’re looking for STEM/STEAM fare, search no further.
Pretty much off-topic but while strolling through Bryant Park behind the main library for NYPL, my boss and I came across the fountain back there. Apparently when the temperatures plunge they figure it’s better to keep it running rather than risk bursting the pipes. Whatever the reason, it now looks like this:
It is WAY too late in the day for me to be only starting a Fusenews post now. All right, guys. Looks like we’re gonna have to do today double quick time. Sorry, but I’ve a ticking time bomb in the other room (sometimes also known as “my daughter”) and I gotsta gets to bed before midnight. Here we go!
- February means only one thing. The Brown Bookshelf has resumed their 28 Days Later campaign. So stop complaining about the fact that black writers and illustrators aren’t better acknowledged and actually read all about them! This is your required reading of the month. And no, I’m not joking.
- Some sad Obit news. Diane Wolkstein, storyteller and picture book/folktale author passed away after heart surgery in Taiwan.
- Happier news. My mom, the published poet, gets interviewed by Foreword Magazine. Note the copious Little Women references.
- The happiest news of all. This will, if you are anything like me, make your day. Delightful doesn’t even begin to describe it. Thanks to Robin Springberg Parry for the link.
- Were you aware that there was an offensive Flat Stanley book out there? Nor I. And yet . . .
- Hat tip to the ShelfTalker folks for actually putting together the top starred books of 2012. Mind you, only YA titles can get seven stars because (I think) they include VOYA. Ah well.
- My new favorite thing? Jon Klassen fan art. Like this one from Nancy Vo. Cute.
- Meet Eerdmans, my new best friend. Look what they put on their books for the last ALA Midwinter.
Thanks to Travis Jonker for the heads up!
- Hey! Public school librarians and public library librarians! Want money? The Ezra Jack Keats Foundation is giving away grants. Free money! Take it, people, take it!
- The Battle of the (Kids’) Book Contenders are announced and nigh. I’m a little bit late with that info. Ah well.
- One of my children’s librarians has been getting twenty different kinds of attention because she circulated an American Girl doll. Now try and picture how many donations she now has to deal with. Yup.
- An interesting use of the term “whittle”. As in, “I think I’m going to whittle off all the toes on my feet”. Except more drastic, less cosmetic.
- Travis Jonker and the very fun idea to create a Children’s Literature casting call. I’d counter that Josh Radnor is more Jarrett Krosoczka (though I may be just a bit confused since Jarrett was actually in the background of an episode of How I Met Your Mother in the past), Lisa Loeb is more Erin E. Stead, Neal Patrick Harris as either Mac Barnett or Adam Gidwitz, Stanley Tucci as Arthur A. Levine, and maybe Jeffrey Wright as Kadir Nelson, except that Kadir is better looking. Hm. This will bear additional thought.
Fair play to The College of Creative Design. I do like this new ad campaign of theirs.
Thanks to The Infomancer for the link.
Durn. This is what I get for not doing a Fusenews in a while. A whole plethora of good stuff! Let’s see what we can use up in a single day, eh?
For the record, if you haven’t read these Hunger Games comics (in the style of Kate Beaton, no?) then now’s the time. They’re surprisingly good.
Good old poetry month. From spine poems to 30 Poets / 30 Days the celebrations are magnificent. Go ye, seek out and find.
- I won’t normally link to podcasts but this recent Scriptnotes that covers how a screenwriter options a novel he wants to adapt includes a discussion of older children’s books that were considered for screen adaptation. FYI!
- On the one hand they’re 9 Barbies Based on Books. On the other hand, if that Edward doesn’t sparkle and glow in the dark then I hope the people who purchased him got their money back. Thanks to bookshelves of doom for the link.
- When I worked the reference desk I got a lot of Stumpers. Folks would ask me to come up with a beloved book from their childhood and I would try to figure it out. If I couldn’t find it I’d take down all their information and ask PUBYAC on their behalf. If that didn’t work I’d suggest Loganberry Books, even though they charge money. Would that I had known about Whatsthatbook.com. A free site where folks post their stumpers and other folks answer them, it’s pretty cool. Sometimes I just like hearing the wacky descriptions. Current favorite: “Young girl reading to an older lady, girl almost gets caught in quicksand”. I hate it when that happens.
- Hello, under-a-rock denizens. J.K. Rowling’s newest book is going to be released. Hope you like community politics!!!
- Do Childish People Write Better Children’s Books? Dude, if you want to walk up to Maurice Sendak and inform him that he is childish, be my guest. I’m just gonna go hide behind this sturdy concrete pillar over here until the spatter of your remains stops with the spattering.
With Book Expo going full-blast in town and my library celebrating its Centennial all at the same time, blogging is possible but slightly more difficult than usual. I am amused to find that when I skip a day some folks worry that I might be in labor. Fear not. I’ll find a way to update the blog with that news, come hell or high water. Tonight, meanwhile, is also my final Kidlit Drink Night (at least for a while) so if you’d like to view my largess (or, rather, largeness) here are the details. Meanwhile, back at the ranch . . .
- So I go into the administrative office the other day to pick up my room’s checks and WHAM! Two gigantic Lego statues of Patience and Fortitude (the library lions) are just sitting there, chewing their cuds (or whatever it is Lego lions chew). I showed them to a class of second graders on a tour a day or so later (they’re on display in our main hall, if you’re curious) and one kid said that looking at them was like looking at a computer screen. He had a point. They’re mighty pixilated.
- Wow. That’s pretty cool. The organization Keshet (“a national organization working for the full inclusion of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender Jews in Jewish life”) is releasing posters of LGBT Jewish Heroes. One of the posters available? Leslea Newman of Heather Has Two Mommies and my favorite LGBT board books Mommy, Mama and Me and Daddy, Papa, and Me. Thanks to Marjorie Ingall for the link.
- Do you have what it takes to take on the Sixth Annual 48 Hour Book Challenge? I don’t want to hear your excuses! I want to see you reading. You’ve some time to prep so get those eyeball stalks limbered up.
- Recently I attended SLJ’s Day of Dialog (slooooow emerging blog post to come on the subject). The keynote speech was delivered by Katherine Paterson who began, much to my delight, with some praise of New Zealand children’s book superstar Margaret Mahy (who would be a superstar here if they just friggin’ republished The Changeover *coughcough*). Anyway, it seems she recently won in the picture book category of the 2011 New Zealand Children’s Book Awards. What would you like to bet me that someday they’ll rename those awards “The Mahys”? I give it ten years, tops.
Come gather round me children and hear the tale I tell.
Cute goose, right? Well I don’t usually recount stories from my workplace, it being all marbley and imposing and such, but this is a good story. It involves a goose rescue mission, Long Island City, and Brian Selznick, not necessarily in that order. I explain.
In 2006 I was a new blogger, a relatively new children’s librarian, and I became acquainted with a new (at that point) British author. Her name was Frances Hardinge and she had recently published her first novel Fly By Night on either side of the Atlantic. I instantly fell in love with the book, not least because it featured a homicidal goose. All books, I have come to expect, would benefit from the simple addition of a homicidal goose. In any case, back then NYPL had big meetings of children’s librarians where we’d swap ideas for readalouds and booktalks. And I got it into my head that the best possible way to do a Fly By Night booktalk would be with a goose puppet.*
One problem: They don’t exist. Or rather, nice ones don’t. At the time of my brilliant notion the goose pickings were slim. I managed to find images of a really lovely gander from Folkmanis, but sadly it was out of stock (never, I now see, to return). So in a fit of pique I wrote in December of 2006:
“By the way, anyone that procures for me an Out of Stock Folkmanis goose puppet wins my heart, my mind, and any other intangible parts of my self they wish to lay claim to. I’d love to do some booktalking with my very own Saracen on my arm. Can’t you imagine me talking to kids as the goose hisses like a veritable fiend at them?”
So Brian Selznick sent me a goose puppet.
This is actually true. Some of you may be aware of Mr. Selznick’s puppet connections. He’s been active in the puppet scene for years, and has accumulated a couple here and there. The goose, however, had been a kind of gift. As he wrote me:
“When I was working on The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins I was bitten by a goose in the park where the dinosaurs still stand in London. A bookseller gave me this goose puppet in honor of that somewhat painful incident.”
Brian didn’t need the goose, and when he read my plea on my blog (I had made him a Hot Man of Children’s Literature the previous March) he was inspired to lend me a hand. This is because he is a stand up fella.
So I had me a Selznick goose on my hands! And it really is a lovely thing. So downy and white. My regular storytime puppet is a Folkmanis white mouse named Basil that cannot be beat for sheer expressiveness (proof here) but Saracen the goose turned out to have his own charms. And so we were happy for a time. Until 2008 rolled around, that is.
In 2008 the Donnell branch of New York Public Library was sold. Every part of the enormous library had to vacate, including the Central Children’s Room. We’d had five children’s librarians working in a large children’s room doing all kinds of programs for fun. Now we had three and we needed to go live elsewhere. Fortunately, we landed at the main branch of NYPL where, from 1911 to 1970, the room had existed in the first place! Score!
In the course of packing up we hired a set of movers who, I must say, did a splendid job. And here is where the story takes a b
Taye Diggs isn’t quite good looking enough, either, but he’s another possibliity.
Betsy,
I am very sad that Dr. Zetta Elliott feels the need to move away from the world of children’s literature but understand her reasons all too well. Perhaps what we need more than a “read these books” campaign is a “buy these books” push. I want to adapt the Room of One’s Own bookstore (Madison, WI) campaign to challenge readers of your blog and elsewhere to pledge to buy two more books this year that are written by people of color than were purchased last year.
On a completely different note, I hear that there may be a mother daughter signing in Kalamazoo in April! Don’t completely fill up your schedule until we have a chance to chat! Cheers!
You should do more posts late in the day and in a hurry as this one is pretty darned good. Lots of good links and the “If someone offers you art school, just say ‘No’ ” ads are hillarious.
Me, too, Ed. Maybe we can add a twist to the challenge of buying two more books by people of color… what if we also asked for our money back on one with racist images?
Flat Stanley at Mount Rushmore (Betsy linked to my critique) is one option. So are the LITTLE HOUSE books. Yesterday, Ebony Thomas pointing me to an illustration of Pa in blackface in LITTLE TOWN ON THE PRAIRIE. I added that illustration to my post about Pa remembering how, as a kid, he’d imagine himself hunting Indians (http://goo.gl/oXb3f). Every time I think about that idea being in a children’s book, I’m blown away.
Some years ago, I asked people on child_lit and elsewhere to tell me of another children’s book in which a character expressed that idea (hunting Indians or any people) and the only title anyone could remember was a short story sometimes read in high school English classes.
So—what if we bought two books and returned two others at the same time? Or bought two books and deselected two and wrote to the publisher letting them know we were deselecting the two books and why… Or bought two books and blogged about two we were pledging not to use anymore with children (saving them, perhaps, for use in a high school Social Justice class or the like)…
One thing I learned in my Collection Development class is that by deselecting (weeding) books from a library shelf, there is room for new books. We need room for new books—not just on the shelf—but in our hearts and minds, too. We’ll need to be willing to admit that some books gotta go!
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