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Remember the moment at the end of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire when he funds Fred and George’s joke shop?  What is it he says to them?  Ah yes. “I could do with a few laughs. We could all do with a few laughs. I’ve got a feeling we’re going to need them more than usual before long.”  I feel like, once again, Rowling put her finger on the pulse of what we need to hear.  Today’s post is in honor of that spirit.

Here’s a little happy news for you to kick it all off.  The World Science Fiction Society (WSFS), coordinator of the World Science Fiction Convention (WorldCon) has given first approval to a new Young Adult Science / Fantasy Award.  The problem?  It needs a name!  That’s where you come in.  There’s a name-the-award-survey out there, but the deadline is November 15th.  Now, could we talk about doing something similar for ALA’s YALSA Award for Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adults?  Perhaps rename it and stat?

In other news, the nominees for the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award for 2017 were announced.  If you’re unfamiliar with that particular award, it’s the one with the biggest monetary prize attached to it.  The prize can go to any author, illustrator, storyteller or “reading promoter”.  American nominees on this year’s list include:

I’ve very much been enjoying the multiple articles out there about Are You an Echo?, that remarkable picture book biography/poetry collection about Misuzu Kaneko.  First there was this 7-Imp interview with David Jacobson, the writer/translator of the book.  Then there was this great piece over at Playing By the Book that gives additional background information about its illustrator Toshikado Hajiri.  Love it.  Be sure to check out the interior art at 7-Imp here as well.

It occurs to me that I don’t think I’ve ever had a chance to examine Robert McCloskey’s artwork and sketches up close before.  If I were in Boston I could remedy the situation with the upcoming Make Way for Ducklings: The Art of Robert McCloskey, held at the Museum of Fine Arts Boston.  Good to know about in any case.

It’s not uncommon for me to be the last to know when a picture book has struck a nerve.  Such was the case with Shmelf the Hanukkah Elf, though if I’d taken even two seconds to think about it I probably could have seen it coming.  Marjorie Ingall slices and dices the book, clarifying precisely why what it does doesn’t work.  There’s also a truly lovely shout out in there for  Dear Santa, Love Rachel Rosenstein which I gave too little attention to when it came out.  Well played, Marjorie.

By the way, I feel I should also mention her stellar post How to Explain the Refugee Crisis to Kids as well.  If you read nothing else today, read this.

Oh.  I won a thing but I don’t think I mentioned it before.  Remember when I said in an earlier post that A Fuse #8 Production was nominated for a 2016 FOLIO: Eddie and Ozzie Award?  Well, it won!  Yep!  Neat!

Conspiracy theories and children’s books: Two great tastes that taste great together.  Nowhere more true than in the recent 100 Scope Notes piece We Found a (Man in the Yellow) Hat? It ties an old picture book to a new one in an original way.  No small task.

Boy, if it weren’t for the Cubs winning the World Series, I’d swear the universe had it out for me.  Now I hear that the Rosenbach of the Free Library of Philadelphia lost a significant chunk of its case against the Sendak Estate?  Doggone it.  That’s it.  I’m moving to Australia.

Hey!  Did you know that there’s a Chicago Book Expo?  News to me.  Better still, there’s a neat event going on there called Our Voices Initiative: Encouraging Diversity in Publishing.  Here’s the program description:

The demand for diverse, quality books is great. Independent publishers have responded with an explosion of books by and about diverse people. Join members of the American Library Association Our Voices advisory council, who represent professionals from across the book ecosystem, to discuss the issue of diversity in publishing and the work they are doing to promote and support diverse content. Come and add your voice to the discussion.

Panelists will include Curt Matthews, Founder and Chairman of the Board for the Chicago Review Press and Independent Publisher’s Group; Jeff Deutsch, Director of the Seminary Co-op Bookstores, which includes 57th Street Books; Felicia Shakespeare, best-selling author and library media specialist; and Joy Triche, Founder and Publisher of Tiger Stripe Publishing. Donna Seaman, Editor, Adult Books at Booklist, will moderate the discussion.

You can see more information at this Facebook link too.

The New York Times Best Illustrated list of 2016 children’s books was released earlier this month.  Some good choices.  Some choices that cause me to grind my teeth in a counter-clockwise direction.  In other words, a pretty standard year.

Fun Fact: Were you aware that Lois Lowry’s Anastasia Krupnik books were never meant to be a series?  Do you know what Ms. Lowry thinks about censorship?  Do you know what her next projects are (and that they’re completely out of her genre)?  Good news then.  Over at the Cotsen Children’s Library the podcast The Bibliofiles has an interview with Lowry about all these things.  And more.

Daily Image:

I’m fine.  I’m all fine here now, thank you.  How are you?

Teachers often ask how to keep up with the best new books. Good intentions are one thing, and real life (long days, class prep, paper grading) is another.

For those with limited time, I recommend going online near the end of the year when children’s book review journals post their “best of the year” lists. They tend to print these lists in their December or January issues, but well before publication you can find those same lists on their websites. Take a look at each one and see which titles pop up on multiple lists and make sure you read those few titles that everyone is talking about. But do try to read all the annotations and think about which books might work in your classrooms, either for the entire class or for free reading.

Here’s a list of the lists, with links.

Already out:

• National Book Award finalists (chapter books and information books for middle school and high school)
• New York Times Best Illustrated list (mostly picture books)

Coming soon:

• National Book Award Winner (this Wednesday 11/18 at the link above)
• SLJ’s Best of 2015 (Scheduled for November 28)
• Horn Book Fanfare (Scheduled for December 9)
• BCCB Blue Ribbons (Normally posted January 1)

And of course there are the ALA awards which will be determined during the Midwinter conference in Boston in January

• Notable Children’s Books (the long list is already available here)
• Best Books for Young Adults (from YALSA)
• Children’s Media awards (announced January 11, 2016; watch the live webcast courtesy of ALSC)

The post The best-of-the-year lists have begun appeared first on The Horn Book.

• Oh, thank the high heavens.  Good news, folks. The celebrities have arrived to show us how to write books with darker themes. Thank goodness they’re here!  Until now the field of children’s literature was just an unending vista of sunshine and daisies. But thanks to the combined efforts of Evangeline Lilly (“I look around me and I see a lot of young people who are very entitled and who are very confused when life isn’t perfect. I think that often comes from some of the messaging we receive as children from our stories, but that’s really not life and especially not on the playground”) and Bruce Springsteen (“Bruce Springsteen on Outlaw Pete and Not Sheltering Kids From the Realities of Life“) we can finally stop handing our children consistently sweet and innocent . . . hey. Psst.  You there.  Sit down.  You too.  And I don’t even want to talk about you.  All youse guys.  You’re ruining my moment.  Stop being so doggone subversive!  You don’t want to prove the singer and the elf wrong, do you?  They’re famous.  They know what they’re talking about.*

• Kudos to Sarah Seltzer and her Flavorwire piece Please, let’s not extend the literary genre wars to kids books.  Written as a response to Rebecca Mead’s recent New Yorker piece pooh-poohing Percy Jackson (and could you find a more innocuous thing to pooh-pooh if you tried?) it contains the phrase, “Burn, I guess?” which I shall now appropriate and work into at least one conversation today.

• Publishers. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, we need ‘em.  Hence the piece Save the book publisher.  Hard to argue the man’s points.

“Thousands of illustrations, books, comics, graphic novels, animations, products, paintings and more will be on view. In addition, a Children’s Reading Room within the gallery will hold hundreds of children’s books by SVA alumni.”  What’s that, you say?  It’s only the description of the upcoming We Tell Stories exhibition of work by more than 250 alumni of the School of Visual Art’s MFA Illustration as Visual Essay program.  Jules Danielson alerted me to this event and can’t go (seriously, someone just send her to New York City already – she deserves it!) but those of us in NYC can certainly try.

Lolly Robinson speaks truths bloggers may not like to hear. It’s not specifically blogger-related either.  It’s just an issue we all have to deal with these days.  Can you really and truly be critical of a children’s book if you’re buds with that particular author or illustrator?  Lolly weighs in and her thought process winds around until she ends with, “What would happen if EVERY picture book had a YouTube video revealing the details of its creation?”  Spoiler Alert: It would be fantastic.  Meantime, I’ll just say that she’s speaking in the piece as a Horn Book reviewer and not a blogger.  Bloggers, for the most part, are not held to the standards of a Kirkus or a Horn Book.  We have no editors.  We are judge, jury, and executioner (at times) all in one.  As such, you take every blogger with a grain of salt, just as you take every professional review with a similarly sized, if somewhat different, salt grain as well.  And for my part, I review so few books these days that my selection simply consists of those titles I think deserve particular attention or are deserving of criticism.  In fact, I’ve got a rip-roaring critical review on the horizon . . . but I shall say no more.

• The Best Books lists have begun with a mad sprint.  On the one hand you had PW’s Best Books of 2014.  The middle grade fiction category is particularly remarkable.  Then you have the New York Times Best Illustrated list.  Now just as that Lolly article talked about, I’m buds with two of the jurors who were on that committee.  So I can inquire with calm patience and certainty WHAT THE HECK WERE YOU GUYS THINKING WHEN YOU DIDN’T INCLUDE LINDBERGH?!?  *ahem*  That was awkward.  Good show, blokes.  Nice list.  Moving on.

• By the way, Travis Jonker’s analysis of the NY Times Best Illustrated books and how well they do Caldecott-wise upset a lot of my expectations.  I did NOT see those stats coming.  Fascinating!

• In the words of the great Jan Thomas, can you make a scary face? Cause I can.  So can Kate Milford, Jonathan Auxier, and Aaron Starmer for that matter.

• Here’s my dirty little secret.  I have never, not a single day of my life, biFirsnge watched a single show.  Maybe I indulged in a few too many Northern Exposure‘s when I was young, but that’s it.  However, upon hearing that A Series of Unfortunate Events is slated to be an all-new Netflix series, this record I hold may have to change.  This interview with Handler about the show is worth reading, particularly when the subject of casting comes up. Sez he, “As Count Olaf, James Mason. In 1949. You can see why my involvement may or may not be welcome.”  Thanks to Kate for the news.

• The old book smell.  Want to know its chemical composition?  Darn tootin’ you do!  Thanks to Mike Lewis for the link.

Daily Image:

Halloween has come and gone but one thing remains clear.  The folks at FirstBook DC?  They won it.  They won Halloween.

If this picture means nothing to you then go here and read up.

*As you might imagine, Bruce is far less to blame here than Ms. Lilly.  He didn’t seek out the picture book writing life and says nothing detrimental about the state of children’s literature today.  It’s the article writer I probably have more of a beef with.

Here it is! http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2014/10/30/books/review/2014-BEST-8.html?_r=1&

Usually this list matches up pretty well with our Calling Caldecott list with one or two big surprises. This year I am finding more surprises than matches. But you can be sure we will be locating the books that weren’t so much on our radar and will weigh in as we get our hands on them.

This list always seems to be a bit idiosyncratic. The team of three judges is comprised of one critic and two illustrators. This year they were Jennifer Brown (Bank Street College, Shelf Awareness), Brian Floca, and Jerry Pinkney. When Roger was on this committee, he said that rather than discussing the books together, each member added their favorites to the list, pretty much split evenly. I don’t know if this is how it always works, but the result is always an interesting list.

Please let us know in the comments which of these you love (or don’t) and why. Now I have to go look for some books…

The post New York Times Best Illustrated list announced appeared first on The Horn Book.

• Oh, you lucky bugs.  Do you know what today is?  Today is the first day of Kidlitcon and for those of you still interested in joining (and who wouldn’t be?) you have a last minute chance to be a part of the fun.  Always assuming you’re in the Austin area, of course, but I bet that LOTS of you are located in that general vicinity.  As you’ll recall, last year Kidlitcon was held in New York City and we did very well indeed with the vast hoards of people.  This year it’s a slightly smaller affair, but no less fascinating and fun.  Full details can be found here but don’t worry if you’ve missed the opening ceremonies.  The bulk of the action is on Saturday anyway, so you’ve still time to join.  So go!  Shoo!  Why waste your time here?

• I don’t know about you but typically I go through blog reading binges.  I ignore my favorites for long periods of time and then I consume weeks’ worth of material in a single sitting.  I did this recently with the beloved Crooked House.  First, I enjoyed the fact that she highlighted the book How to Do Nothing With Nobody All Alone By Yourself (notable, if nothing else, for the Lemony Snicket quote which reads, “Every great book reminds us that we are all alone in the world. At least this one provides us with the means to entertain ourselves while we’re here.”)  The second post that caught my eye was a transcribed selection from The Mermaid of Brooklyn which I perhaps enjoyed too much.  Too too much.

• Now some graphic novel news.  There are two horns worth tooting today.  First, there is the fact that I’m on ALSC’s Quicklists Consulting Committee and we recently came up with a newly revised Graphic Novels Reading List, broken down not just by age levels but by whether or not they’re black and white or color.  In related news, kudos to the folks at Good Comics for Kids as well as Snow Wildsmith and Scott Robins for their A Parent’s Guide to the Best Kids’ Comics: Choosing Titles Your Children Will Love.  The SLJ blog and the useful book were both mentioned on the most recent episode of the popular NPR podcast Pop Culture Happy Hour.  The episode Making Toddlers Into Nerds is a bit of a misnomer and they do a lamentable job of mentioning any children’s literature that isn’t either 50 years old or part of a huge series, but at least they get the graphic novels piece right.

• Questions I never thought to ask until Marjorie Ingall made me: Why do chickens play an outsized role in Jewish children’s picture books?  The answer may surprise you.  Or, at the very least, you’ll be impressed with the amount of thought Marjorie has put into this subject.

• This is a good one.  Always at the forefront of the diversity issues, Lee and Low recently put on their blog the post Literary Agents Discuss the Diversity Gap in Publishing.  The agents in question are Adriana Domínguez, Karen Grencik, Abigail Samoun, and Lori Nowicki. Much of what they’re saying echoes things we’ve heard from editors over the past few years.  Check it out.

• I received this message recently and figured you’d want to know about it.  Ahem.

I just wanted to let you know that ABFFE’s 2013 holiday auction will take place on eBay from November 26 through December 2^nd.  Please let your colleagues and friends know that this is the best place to buy holiday gifts! More than 50 leading artists and illustrators contributed to last year’s auction and we are hoping for even more art this year.  Once the auction is live, you will be able to access it from a link on www.abffe.org.

• Me stuff.  Recently I was lucky enough to serve on the New York Times Best Illustrated judging committee for this year’s books.  If you haven’t seen the results I came up with alongside Brian Selznick and Steve Heller you have two choices.  You could look at the fancy dancy NY Times slideshow of the winners here OR you could go on over to 100 Scope Notes and check out Travis Jonker’s truly lovely round-up with book jackets and everything here.

• Just as I collect children’s literary statues from around the States (I’m STILL updating that post, people, so don’t worry if your favorites haven’t made it yet) I also like to keep tabs on museums of famous children’s authors and illustrators.  You have your Eric Carle Museum, your Edward Gorey Museum, and apparently you also have a Tasha Tudor Museum.  Or, at least, you will when it finds a new host.

You may or may not have heard about the SpotLit list, created by Scholastic Book Group with the help of scholars, teachers, librarians, and other specialists in the field.  Well, two awesome infographics have been created to show off some of the facts behind it.  I like them partly because they’re infographics and partly because in the group picture it looks like I’m snuggling up to Harry Potter while Hedwig swoops down mere moments before removing my cranium.  This list discusses what the committee looked like and this list discusses what the books on the list consist of.

• When a new library branch reopens in my city I don’t always report on the fact, but this recent article about the reopened Coney Island Branch is the exception to the rule.  The place looks precisely how you’d want a Coney Island branch to look.  Granted there aren’t any half naked mermaids or rides in the library, but those photographs on the walls are worth the price of admission alone.

• Jon Klassen’s right.  Interviews with the great illustrator Arnold Lobel are few and far between.  When you can find one, you post it.  And that’s just what he did.  Thank you, Jon.

• Turns out, there are LOTS of children’s literature conspiracy theories out there that I never even knew about.  A hat tip then to Listverse for rounding them up for us.  Clearly the Dodgson is my favorite.  Thanks to AL Direct for the link.

• I’m always keen to get a handle on the newest studies that discuss how kids handle technology.  Now the “Zero to Eight Children’s Media Use in America 2013” study has been released and Children’s Technology Review discusses the results in full.  Big time thanks to Mary Ann Scheuer from Great Kid Books for the link!

• Hat tip to Travis Jonker.  Without him I would have never known that there are TWO children’s literature podcasts out there that had escaped my attention.  I need to upgrade the old sidebar on this blog, do I not?

• And in the world of grants n’ such:

Greetings! There’s still time to apply for the ALSC Candlewick Press Light the Way grant. The deadline is December 1, 2013. This is a great funding opportunity if you have a project or program related to library service to children in special populations. The application is at this link: http://www.ala.org/alsc/awardsgrants/profawards/candlewicklighttheway

• Daily Image:

Today’s image may be classified as Best Fan Art Ever, or something along those lines.  How many of you are familiar with Helen Frost’s lovely middle grade Diamond Willow?  Well, it came out in 2008 or so but its fans continue to find it.  Case in point, this young woman who, with her Chinook pet dog, reenacted the cover.  Compare and contrast:

Original:

Fan Made:

Utterly adorable.  Many thanks to Helen for sharing this with me

As I write this I don’t know what the election results are and I shall refuse to think about them all the livelong day.  Lalalalalala!  No images today, by the way.  I apparently hit my limit and need to beg SLJ for a little more space.  I’m good for it!  Honest!

• So there’s lots of post-Sandy news and ways that you can help the libraries that got hit hard in the gut this past week.  First let’s start with something (relatively) cheery.  PW did a great series of interviews with folks in the publishing industry hit by Sandy.  There you can read how Lois Lowry and Laura Vaccaro Seeger dodged death (fairly literally) and why folks like Eric Berlin and Rebecca Stead are being namechecked in Hoboken.  They also did a piece on how folks like Kate Messner (with Kid Lit Cares) and Urban Librarians Unite have been coming together to collect books and money for hard hit systems.  Author/illustrator Peter Brown alerted me to this fantastic and continually updated list of what the various shelters and organizations in the community need desperately at this time.  Meanwhile I wanted to help out Hoboken in some way but it’s still too soon to find out how.  In the meantime, there’s a good site dedicated to Rebuilding New Jersey’s Libraries for those of you who want to help.

• There are some interesting posts ah-brewing over at the Forum of the American Journal of Education.  Steven Herb, a fellow who has served on more than a few committees during his time looks at Caldecott Awards and Honors past and present with some interesting insights. I never knew the beef folks had with Marcia Brown’s Shadow until now, but I definitely get the grumbles.  Then he goes on to answer all your questions about how the darn Caldecotts are given out anyway.  Thanks to Vic Sensenig for the links!

• One request: When I die, could someone please write a catchy song using my name that sounds as fun as this one made for picture book author/illustrator Bill Peet by the kids at The Calhoun School?  It’s all I’ve ever wanted.  Honest.  Thanks to Karen Walsh for the link.

• Suppose I should mention some of the serious news out there.  This broke just before the hurricane did but even strong winds couldn’t distract us from the fact that Penguin and Random House are set to become as one.  Naturally the response over the blogosphere is to come up with a name for this new company.  The Random Penguin House is the most repeated, so why don’t we just simplify things and just call it Odd Ice Floe instead?  Has a ring to it, it does.

You may have missed it, and you’d be forgiven if you had, but the New York Times Best Illustrated list of 2012 is out and boy is it a doozy!  The winners include:

• Bear Despair written and illustrated by Gaëtan Dorémus (Enchanted Lion)

• The Beetle Book written and illustrated by Steve Jenkins (Houghton)

• House Held Up by Trees written by Ted Kooser; illustrated by Jon Klassen (Candlewick)

• The Hueys in the New Sweater written and illustrated by Oliver Jeffers (Philomel)

• Infinity and Me written by Kate Hosford; illustrated by Gabi Swiatkowska (Carolrhoda)

• Little Bird written by Germano Zullo; illustrated by Albertine (Enchanted Lion)

• One Times Square: A Century of Change at the Crossroads of the World written and illustrated by Joe McKendry (Godine)

• Red Knit Cap Girl written and illustrated by Naoko Stoop (Tingley/Little)

• Stephen and the Beetle written by Jorge Luján; illustrated by Chiara Carrer (Groundwood)

• Unspoken: A Story from the Underground Railroad written and illustrated by Henry Cole (Scholastic)

I’ve read each and every last one of these and what strikes me is how international it is this year.  French, Irish, Japanese, Canadian, and more author/illustrators grace the list.  A special shout out to Claudia over at Enchanting Lion Books for getting two titles on there, but it’s just as nice to see little guys like Groundwood and Lerner having their day in the sun.  I haven’t reviewed a single one of these, but now I’m thinking maybe it would be a good idea.  Dunno.  They’re all rather . . . rather tasteful, wouldn’t you say?

• Hobbit to star in the silver screen adaptation of Molly Moon.  Okay . . . that’s not exactly how they’re pitching it, but that’s how I see it.  We would also have accepted “Back-up Driveshaft guitarist” as a description as well.  Thanks to PW Children’s Bookshelf for the link.

• Hey!  Travis Jonker over at 100 Scope Notes went and had a baby on us!  Well, congrats to you, Travis!  Little bugger is one good looking dude.  Woo-hoo!

• You know how college kids are always creating elaborate, relatively clever pranks in their Senior years?  Well, when I attended Earlham College back in the day I walked into our cafeteria (called, like every other cafeteria in the nation, Saga) to find that someone had managed to paint a huge image on the ceiling .  We’re talking a good 40 feet off the ground, there were some beloved character’s from the school newspaper, Plato’s Republic, as penned by Alexis Fajardo.  They were reenacting Michelangelo’s God touching Adam’s finger moment.  It was beautiful.  Fast forward some 20 odd years later (doing the math . . . not quite right but close enough) and that same Alexis Fajardo has started a Kickstarter page for his graphic novel series Kid Beowulf.  Seems that his publisher up and died on him as he was producing the third volume, so he needs a bit of a kick.  Check out the site and see what you think.  I guarantee you won’t find another comic starring Beowulf and his twin brother Grendel having adventures.

• Finally, the following notice was sent by author Kathi Appelt.  I met Laura myself, so I know how important this can be.  In lieu of a Daily Image today, please read the following:

Daylight Saving (not “Savings” I just learned) has arrived and you know what that means?  It means babies have a terrible sense of telling time.  Just awful.  And that, in turn, means I’d better crank out a lickety-split Fusenews before I hear the telltale sound of little eyelids opening.

First up, The New York Times Best Illustrated Books of 2011 were announced.  I like to keep a tally of what I managed to review in time vs. what got missed.  The winners were:

• “Along a Long Road,” written and illustrated by Frank Viva (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)

• “A Ball for Daisy,” written and illustrated by Chris Raschka (Schwartz & Wade)

• “Brother Sun, Sister Moon: Saint Francis of Assisi’s Canticle of the Creatures,” written by Katherine Paterson, illustrated by Pamela Dalton (Chronicle Books)

• “Grandpa Green,” written and illustrated by Lane Smith (Roaring Brook Press)

• “Ice,” written and illustrated by Arthur Geisert (Enchanted Lion Books)

• “I Want My Hat Back,” written and illustrated by Jon Klassen (Candlewick Press);

• “Me … Jane,” written and illustrated by Patrick McDonnell (Little, Brown Books for Young Readers)

• “Migrant,” written by Maxine Trottier, illustrated by Isabelle Arsenault (Groundwood Books);

• “A Nation’s Hope: The Story of Boxing Legend Joe Louis,” written by Matt de la Peña, illustrated by Kadir Nelson (Dial)

• “A New Year’s Reunion,” written by Yu Li-Qiong, illustrated by Zhu Cheng-Liang (Candlewick Press)

Well, three out of ten ain’t . . uh . . . ain’t all that hot, come to think of it.  Next year I shall vow to do better!  I liked Travis at 100 Scopes Notes and his reaction too.

• Amazon has just put out their list of the Best of 2011 too.  I’ve read eight out of ten and reviewed five of those.  Much better.

• While I’m thinking of it, there was announcement of the Carnegie Medal and Kate Greenaway Medal nominees over in Jolly Old England.  The Carnegie (their version of the Newbery) nominees include a couple Americans, a couple titles we’ve seen stateside, and a lot of surprises.  I’ll be rooting for Tall Story by Candy Gourlay, The Cardturner by Louis Sachar, and The Crowfield Curse by Pat Walsh.  On the Greenaway (their Caldecott) nominee side I’ll
  10 Comments on Fusenews: In which I get to use the term “mankiest”, last added: 11/10/2011
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  Molly said, on 11/9/2011 1:51:00 AM
  

  Bad news for your 2011 Carnegie/Greenaway horses: those books were on the longlist for the 2011 awards which were announced in June, 2011. (To satisfy your curiousity, Monsters of Men by Patrick Ness and FArTHER by Grahame Baker-Smith were the winners). This year’s longlists were announced on November 4th and can be found at: http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/pressdesk/press.php?release=pres_nom_car_2012.html
  and:
  http://www.carnegiegreenaway.org.uk/pressdesk/press.php?release=pres_nom_green_2012.html

  The award covers books published from 01.September to 31. August of the year before the award. Thus the 2012 longlist is for books published in 2010 and 2011 – just a little confusing and perhaps a bit after the phenomenon has passed, I thought when I was nominating.

  And for the record, my money’s on A Monster Calls for the Carnegie, but the Greenaway is any librarian’s guess.

  janeyolen said, on 11/9/2011 4:46:00 AM
  

  As I will be at the magical Connecticut Children;s Book Fair in Storrs, Ct at the UConn campus this weekend, presenting and signing books along with a boatload of other authors including my gorgeous daughter Heidi Stemple, I will be buying loads of books. Thanks for the head’s up, though! LOL

  Jane Yolen

  Elizabeth Bird said, on 11/9/2011 4:54:00 AM
  

  Oops! I’m way behind the times, it seems re: Carnegie/Greenaway. Thanks for the heads up!

  Jennifer Schultz said, on 11/9/2011 6:18:00 AM
  

  Oh, the best lists are coming out…good times.

  (PS-we’re in standard time. Daylight Saving begins in the spring and ends in the fall. Regardless, bum times for babies and new parents!.)

  Jennifer Schultz said, on 11/9/2011 6:19:00 AM
  

  (However, folks in AZ and HI don’t deal with the back and forth fol-de-rol.)

  Sarah said, on 11/9/2011 6:20:00 AM
  

  Thanks so much for doing the interview Betsy! You are so right on about the greek myth dilema. And I think I’m going to have to start requesting Mexican Wrestler books too- I’m too curious not to!

  Kathryn Fredrickson said, on 11/9/2011 7:01:00 AM
  

  At least the time doesn’t depend on where you are…in your house!

  http://itsasmalltownlife.blogspot.com/2011/08/i-say-fast-time-you-say-slow-timelets.html

  Also, I might be in love with that Lucy bear!

  DaNae said, on 11/9/2011 9:31:00 AM
  

  Dang! For a minute I thought that filing cabnit cover was a piece of wall art I could purchase.

  I want the funny books! I also want the Scieszka Pirze up and running in this country! PDQ!

  Scope Notes said, on 11/9/2011 10:25:00 AM
  

  Oh, man – the New Covers guy is at Candlewick? They’re going to do some amazing things together.

  Lee Bennett Hopkins said, on 11/10/2011 4:47:00 PM
  

  Dear Bird:

  I thought I was missing you. How do I get on your e-listings for Fuse #8? Hope
  you and the baby are doing fine with the time change. Love-ness…Lee

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