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I suspect that even if you have only been writing for children for a short while, if you live in the US (and maybe elsewhere) you will know the name Betsy Bird, who was the Youth Materials Selections Specialist of New … Continue reading →

You probably enjoyed Charlotte’s Web or Harriet the Spy at one point in your life. But do you know who edited those great kid’s books?

After covering the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) Summer Conference last weekend, I caught up with the New York Public Library’s Youth Materials Collections Specialist Betsy Bird and Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast blogger Julie Danielson, co-authors of the brand new book, Wild Things! Acts of Mischief in Children’s Literature (co-written with Peter Sieruta).

Q: Could you tell us more about the life and work of the great children’s book editor Ursula Nordstrom? What are some of the books you recommend from this great editor?

Betsy Bird: ”Ursula’s list begins to resemble nothing so much as a Who’s Who in children’s literature after a while. She had this crazy sense of humor that went well with her ability to spot potential children’s literature talent.

I mean, seriously, who would have looked at Shel Silverstein‘s rather explicit cartoons in Playboy and thought ‘There’s the man that children everywhere will love!?’”

(more…)

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

You folks have been awfully good about my recent shoddy blogging, so I tip my hat in your general direction.  Jules of 7-Imp and I are putting the final touches on our book for Candlewick editing-wise and, as you might imagine, it eats up large swaths of time like an irate and hungry badger.  There is no situation in which a badger cannot be used as an example.  True fact.

In other news, there’s an author/illustrator out there that I happen to like very much.  His name is Aaron Zenz and over the years he has startled me time and again with the relative brilliance of his creativity.  If he wasn’t making multiple inspired pieces for the Re-Seussification Project then his kids were contributing to the stellar Boogie Woogie blog.  Well, Aaron and Co. are some of my favorite folks so when I saw the Friends of Zenz page asking to help ‘em out in the midst of some pretty upsetting surgery, you can bet I jumped on board.  If you’ve a minute, you can too.  They’re swell folks.

So I got to meet J.K. Rowling the other day.  Yup.  The woman who basically set me on the path of children’s librarianship in the first place via her books and I up and met her.  You see the good Dan Blank had tickets and one of those tickets happened to have my name on it.  So I got to see her speak with Ann Patchett about this adult novel of hers The Casual Vacancy (a title I’m certain she stole from the notes of Lemony Snicket) and then I stood in a long line and got my copy signed.  The conversation between us is as follows:

J.K. Rowling: Thanks for coming.

Betsy Bird:  Guh.

Many thanks to Dan for the opportunity.  He’s blogged about the experience here and just so you writer folks know, he’s doing another session of his author platform course starting Oct 31, with a free webinar. The course features Jane Friedman, Richard Nash, Colleen Lindsay, Kathleen Schmidt, Joanna Penn and Jeff Goins as guest speakers.  Info on the session is here and the webinar is here.

“COMIC LEGEND: There was a Winnie the Pooh comic strip where the characters acted a lot more aggressively than most Winnie the Pooh fans are used to.

STATUS: True”

Thus we find the strangest and maybe most engaging link of the day.  Apparently there was a Winnie-the-Pooh syndicated comic strip out there for a while that contained the Disneyfied Pooh and friends.  And apparently it was written by some seriously odd souls.  How else to explain some of these downright weird inclusions?  Comic Book Legends Revealed explains more (you’ll have to scroll down a little but they’re worth finding).  This one’s my favorite:

Wowzah.

And speaking of bears . . . how do you get kids interested in the political process?  Have ‘em vote for bears, of course!  The West Linn Public Library had an inspired idea.  They’re holding a bear election through election day on November 6 and, as they explained it to me:

“inviting kids (and adults) to vote for their favorite bear from children’s literature: Pooh, Paddington, Mama Berenstain, or Corduroy. We have also gotten staff involved by asking them to volunteer to be bear campaign managers. The response from staff and patrons has been tremendous! Our campaign managers have embraced their roles beyond my wildest dreams by designing posters, stickers, bookmarks, and games to support their bear.We are having so much fun that I thought I would share with other libraries. I have even created a campaign video for my candidate, Mama Bear—here is that link: http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=vb.153513568034372&type=2“  Love it!  I suppose I’m a staunch Pooh supporter thanks to my job, but it’s tough.  Paddington comes in at a close second in my heart.

Okay, let’s do the Me Stuff all in one fell swoop today.  First off, I made a reading list for NYC’s New Victory Theater to accompany their upcoming shows.  Check it out here.  I never properly thanked Miss Kathleen at Mental Floss for including me in the 24 Library-Centric Sites We Love round-up, to say nothing of the compliments regarding my video with Travis Jonker. Thanks to Maureen Petry for the links!  I’m speaking at a Joan Aiken event tonight so enjoy this piece written by Lizza Aiken, Joan’s daughter, entitled Voices: The magical mysteries of children’s literature.  I was interviewed at the blog The Children’s Book Review as part of their ongoing librarian series.  And the Children’s Media Association blog gave me what could well be the most flattering spotlight I’ve received in my long internet life. Whew!

There was a Bibliography-Off between Judy Blume and one of my favorite comics Patton Oswalt not long ago.  As Jezebel described it, “The only thing that could really be better than this (for a Sunday, anyway) is if Calvin and Hobbes were real and they spoke at a TED Talk about the vividness of a small child’s imagination.” I just wish S.E. Hinton had heeded Patton’s call to give him a hand.  She’s on Twitter all the time, y’know.  Thanks to Marjorie Ingall for the link!

Maybe you can’t see Phil Nel speaking in my library tomorrow about Crockett Johnson.  If not, here’s the next best thing.

Last night I received a phone call from Jules Danielson of the Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast blog and one of my co-writers on a book for Candlewick.  We’d been working on it for a couple years now with our fellow blogger, Peter Sieruta of Collecting Children’s Books and had turned our edits in not too long ago.  Saturday night phone calls were not a normal thing for us, though, so I wasn’t sure what to expect.  Whatever it was, I didn’t expect this.  Jules informed me that on Facebook she had just learned that Peter, our friend and co-writer, has passed away.

The details are still being released at this time, but what I can say is that this loss is beyond devastating.  I’m lucky enough to say that I’ve never experienced a friend’s death.  Peter is the first.  He worked cataloging children’s books for Wayne State University and his life was dedicated to the history, the cultural import, and the criticism of children’s literature.  That’s the dry explanation.  The heart of the matter is that he loved kids books.  Loved them more than anyone else I know.  Some of us talk about dedicating our lives to them.  Peter actually did it and with his death there is absolutely no one to fill his shoes.  Peter didn’t just know the history of children’s literature, he made it accessible to the masses.  When I discovered his blog Collecting Children’s Books all those years ago it was like stumbling on a veritable goldmine.  His writing wasn’t just smart.  It was funny, infinitely witty, and easily put my own to shame.  Nobody knew as much as he did or was as good at conveying that info in such an engaging way.

Peter, Jules and I had a book contract with Candlewick to create a book about the true stories behind your favorite children’s books and I believe Jules joins me in saying that of the three of us Peter left us in the dust.  His passages came to us like they’d been in books for years yet he never seemed to show any much deserved pride in them.  He was such a professional, modest to a fault, zero ego, always willing to help us out when we were feeling stuck.  It is intolerable to lose him.

Author Helen Frost recently shared one memory of Peter with me.  If you have others you’d like to share, please consider posting them here or on Jules’ blog where she has offered up her own memories of Peter.  Said Helen:

“I met him in person a couple of months ago, at a book launch for STEP GENTLY OUT. It was hard for him to make himself socialize to that extent–he posted about that on facebook–but once he got there, we had such a lovely evening in a little room at the back of the Bookbeat bookstore. He sat in a chair and conversed with me, Kathe Koja, Sarah Miller, Rick Lieder, and my husband for over an hour, as others came in and out, and Rick and I signed books–surprising himself, I think, by how comfortable he became after a few minutes. I treasure that memory. He asked me if I’d like to see his book collection–so sweetly asked, and I said I’d love to.”

You can see that amazing children’s literary collection here.

And here’s the video he took of his Newbery books:

Goodbye, Peter.  I think you were my friend.  I was yours.

I get by with a little help from my friends.  I get quilts from them too, as it happens.

I’ve gotten a slew of amazing and fantastic presents from friends and well-wishers upon the birth of my babe.  Hopefully I’ve thanked you all (if I haven’t, I’m a putz). One gift that I have received that makes for a good blog post is this little number here:

No, not the baby.  That one I came up with myself.  No, my co-authors Jules Danielson of Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast and Peter Sieruta of Collecting Children’s Books decided to get my offspring something particularly special.  So they pooled their resources and contacted Robin Smith.  Reviewer, teacher,  committee member, amazing gift giver (thank you for the adorable sweater and hat!!!), you may add “quilter” to that list as well.  As it happens, Robin made this marvelous Alice in Wonderland quilt for the Baby Bird.  As you can see, she’s taken to it.

And check out that detail!

Fantastic stuff.  Big time thanks to Jules, Peter, and Robin.  My wee oiseaux could ask for nothing better.