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Hi, folks. Haven’t done one of these in a while. Let’s see what there is to see.

If I’m feeling nostalgic for NYC this week there’s little wonder.  Whether it’s an article on many library branches’ secret apartments (I visited 8-10 of them in my day and someday a clever photographer should do a series on them) or New York Magazine’s (justifiable) kvetching over the new Donnell, it’s like I’m there again.

Speaking of kvetching, this article about My Little Free Library War is amusing. When I was leaving the aforementioned NYC I found I had too many books.  The solution?  Daily trips to the local Little Free Library.  I’d fill them up one day and then come back the next with more.  I don’t care what anyone did with them.  That box was like Mary Poppins’ carpetbag.

Waldo’s cool with it. He doesn’t mind sharing the spotlight.

As for my current town, how cute is this?  Our downtown is doing a Where’s Waldo / Where’s Warhol scavenger hunt.  It all begins at the wonderful bookstore Bookends and Beginnings and goes from there.

This next piece is fantastic and I’ve never seen anything quite like it before.  A British children’s literature blogger comes to America.  Walks into a Barnes and Noble.  Immediately she is struck by the massive differences between how a major British chain (like Waterstones) sells children’s books vs. how and American chain (B&N) does it.  She writes up the differences in the post Picture book differences between the main bookshop chains in the US and UK – Paeony Lewis.  What struck me as particularly interesting is the emphasis the author makes on how American bookstores don’t promote and sell paperbacks to the same degree that the British stores do.  As a result, our books are more expensive.  What are the greater repercussions of this?  Fantastic read.

I got the following message from ALA last week and figured this was a good place to share.  Ahem:

Now is the Best Time to Help Dr. Carla Hayden Become Librarian of Congress
The American Library Association (ALA) is urging the library community to contact their U.S. senators (before they adjourn next week) to encourage them to confirm Dr. Carla Hayden to become the next Librarian of Congress. This is the first time in more than 60 years that a librarian is poised to take on this role. ALA offers these talking points. Visit the ALA Legislative Action Center to email your senators, contact them on Twitter, or for information on calling your senators.

There’s been a lot of talk about Ms. J.K. Rowling in the news lately.  Specifically, in terms of the international magic schools she’s been introducing.  I feel inadequate to speak about them, and fortunately I don’t have to. Monica Edinger has written a great piece called J.K. Rowling’s Unfortunate Attempts at Globalization.  A lot of people have focused solely and squarely on the references to Native Americans in the American school.  Monica sheds additional light on the African, Japanese, and Brazilian ones, for which I am VERY grateful.

By the way, having problems with J.K. Rowling in this vein is hardly new.  You can read Farah Mendelsohn’s academic paper Crowning the King: Harry Potter and the Construction of Authority from 2001 right now, if you like.

By the way, if you missed Jules Danielson’s interview with Evan Turk over at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast, turn right around, leave this blog, and go over there.  The art . . . the art . . .

For a while there I enjoyed a little Reading Too Much Into Picture Books series before my Fuse 8 TV interviews.  Very much along the same lines is the recent Salon piece Pat the Bunny Is Kind of Twisted and Other Lessons I Learned from Picture Books.  It’s not the same three tropes garbled over and over again.  There’s a lot of smart stuff being said here.  Enjoy!

Wait, what . . . The Mazza Museum has a summer conference?  Why was I not informed?  *clap clap* My chariot!  The first day is July 18th.  There’s still time!

There are many reasons to listen to the NYPL podcast The Librarian Is In.  Reason #24601: Check out this simply adorable photograph of a young Lois Duncan.

Hey there!  What Nibling just won herself a 2016 South Asia Book Award?  Would that be Mitali Perkins for her absolutely fantastic Tiger Boy?  Dang right it would!  Go, Mitali, go!

Because my day job requires me to keep up with adult literature I read a lot of Publishers Weekly (that sounded like a very earnest television or radio ad for PW, by the way).  The other day I was reading its articles on what Brexit is going to mean for the literary world, and I briefly toyed with the notion of doing a blog post on what it would mean for the children’s literary world.  I decided not to pursue this idea since I know next to nothing about the topic and while that normally wouldn’t stop me, Phil Nel did it best anyway.  Check out his piece Children’s Lit VS Brexit.

Curious about the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award?  Want to know more about it?  Interested in reading an interview with a woman who would visit Anne Carroll Moore in the library as a child?  You can get all that and more with this interview with this year’s BGHB committee chair Joanna Rudge Long.

Um… so this one has nothing to do with children’s books and everything to do with my own childhood.  Basically, if you’ve been waiting for an article to justify Lady Elaine Fairchilde as the feminist icon she truly was, your prayers have been answered. Extra Bonus: Check out the perhaps indeed legit comment from Lady Aberline.  Or read my piece on the new Lady Elaine.  Clearly this is a trope in my life.

Just want to give a shout-out to Christine Inzer, the self-published teen graphic novelist whose book Halfway Home was reviewed here in 2014.  Christine got herself a real publisher and her new book just earned a stellar review from Publishers Weekly.  Yay, Christine!

New Podcast Alert: In case you are unfamiliar with it, The Writing Barn is the brainchild of Owner & Creative Director, Bethany Hegedus, and offers writers “ways of deepening their process and perfecting their craft, whether they travel cross-town or across the country to our retreat and workshop venue”. Now Bethany has created Porchlight, a podcast that interviews the Barn’s guests as well as folks in the world at large.  You know I’ll be listening.

Daily Image:

Best. Library. Clock. Ever.

Seriously, I want to do this with picture books.  If not in my library then in my home. I should solicit the right titles, though.  Hmmm…

Suggestions welcome.

You know that nightmare you have where you’re up on a stage and you suddenly realize you have to give a TED talk but you have absolutely no idea what the subject is and you’re pretty sure you don’t have the little remote that’ll allow you to flip between slides anyway?  That one?  You don’t have that one?  I sure do.  I have that one all the time.  Which is weird because public speaking is a large portion of what I do for a living. Nevertheless there is something about the TED Talk format that utterly terrifies me. Whether it’s the  sheer size of the audience or the bright lights or the headset (it’s probably the headset) my innards freeze into tightly compacted fro-guts when I think about what a TED Talk would consist of.  That’s why I must doff my proverbial hat to the three authors recently featured in SLJ’s spotlight on writers doing TED Talks.  I’ll just post Mac’s here (which has . . . um . . . 123,740 hits as of this post) but be sure to check out Linda Sue Park and Jarrett Krosoczka as well:

One video you will not find on that post is this very recent one posted as of two days ago, starring Grace Lin.  She has that format down, man.  Down.

Thanks to Jarrett Krosoczka for the link.

I got this next one from Travis Jonker. Did I ever tell you about my childhood crush on Gene Wilder?  Seriously those eyes. Blue. So very blue. You can moderate all the debates you want, Willy Wonka.  I won’t mind.

Thanks to 100 Scope Notes for the link.

I think I want to steal this idea.  Last minute book reports is a grand idea.  And, bonus points, it has a theme song. I think they should do a children’s book edition on particularly long or dense titles.  But this will do in the interim.

So they say that Seth Rogan is making a Where’s Waldo film.

Of course, it’s already been done.

And for our off-topic video, I coulda done without the fainting but the tiny octopus is cute.

After a brief hiatus I’m back with my regular interview series, Fuse #8 TV. By complete coincidence (fortune favors the busy) I didn’t have an interview slated when I was in the thick of my move to Evanston. Now that I’m safely ensconced in Illinois (albeit with oddly empty bookshelves) I’m fully ready and prepared for this month’s interview. And what an interview it is! Here is a bit of what you’ll find in this one:

STRIPPING!
TATTOOS!
YETIS!

Not necessarily in that order. Or, odder still, all at the same time. You see, this week we’re interviewing the hugely amusing Kevin Sherry, author of THE YETI FILES, an early chapter book series one and all should know. And in the course of our talk he not only removes (temporarily) articles of clothing but we also get to learn about his magnificent puppetry.

On top of all that, I continue my “Reading (Too Much Into) Picture Books” series in which I tackle the true villains of the Where’s Waldo series. If you watch it with the sound off, you can have fun with my facial expressions.  So please, enjoy! I sure did.

All other Fuse #8 TV episodes are archived here.

Once more, thanks to Scholastic for being my sponsor and helping to put this together.

Here's a new clothing line for investment bankers and studio execs who want to pretend they like cartoons.

Mm. Double quick time Fusenews today, I should think. All the goodness. Less of the commentary. As such . . .

• What is the scariest children’s film of all time? If you mentioned a particular film that involved decapitated heads and Wheelers, this link’s for you.

• I’m not a teacher so I had no idea what the Best Websites and Apps for teaching and learning really were.  Now I do.  Thanks to Travis and Mr. Schu for the link.

• In case you missed it, the Guardian Children’s Fiction Award 2015 longlist was released and there are at least two Yanks present and accounted for.

• This one’s for any high school students you might know.  They’re looking for kids who know how to write funny stuff.  Since this is very much my wheelhouse, I’m going to ask you to think particularly of any funny girls you know.  Let’s make sure this puppy is well represented in both genders, shall we?  Due date: August 3rd so get cracking!

• The Kirkus/7-Imp piece on Private Readers is absolutely fantastic.  It isn’t just what we read but how we chose to read it (and keep it to ourselves).

• Made my day:

So did this, actually.

• Absolutely love this too:  Non-required summer reading.  Beautifully rendered. Thanks to Mike Lewis for the link.

• Question: Which hugely famous (and still alive) children’s book illustrator used to paint naked geishas for the troops during WWII?  The answer may surprise you.  Or not.  After all, have you ever checked out the bodies in A Circus is Coming?  Va-va-voom!  Extra sidenote: Is that clown with the glasses a barely disguised Kay Thompson?  Discuss.

• How sad that one of my former co-workers won’t be around to bid me goodbye as I leave NYC.  I mean, I understand why.  He’s got places to go.  People to see.  But still, bidding goodbye to the talking parrot head just isn’t going to have the same oomph.

• This note is just for my sister.  Kate, we need to do this.  Call me.

• Daily Image:

Okay. So this is pretty much just about the coolest float I’ve ever seen. As I am moving to Evanston, IL, it seems only fitting to know how they celebrate the 4th of July.  Recently, this float (in a photo taken by Junko Yokata) was on the route.  I have never, in all my livelong days, seen a Newbery float before.  Absolutely remarkable.

Thanks to Junko for the image.

• The weather!  She has warmed here in NYC!  The crocuses and daffodils and purple flowers that I can never identify are blooming in my front yard.  The birds are singing and there are buds on the trees.  Tis spring spring spring!  To celebrate, we begin today with a poetic celebration of baseball (a very spring thing) written by none other than my father.  You may have known that my mother was talented in this manner.  So too mon pere.  Enjoy!

• News That Did Not Make a Sufficient Splash in America: How is it that we are not ALL aware that over in Bologna the small Brooklyn publisher Enchanted Lion Books won the prize for Best Children’s Publisher of the Year in the U.S. category?  I do not recall seeing this in my PW Children’s Bookshelf (though perhaps I missed it) nor on my tweets.  Come on, people!  Big time honor here and it couldn’t have gone to a nicer company.  Well done!

• There are few things the British like more than rereleasing new Harry Potter covers.  They just revealed the new Jim Kay cover and while it does resemble some of the European covers I’ve seen, I think it is the very first time I’ve ever seen a hog associated in any way with Hogwarts.

Harry’s hair is actually messy!  And here is a nice interview with the artist in question.

• Did you read The Toast take on The Boxcar Children?  Not as creepy as their usual takes but it’ll do.  It’ll do.  If it’s horror you seek then Ayn Rand’s Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, also at The Toast, will fill that need.  That place is fair crawling with former English majors, it would seem.  Dobby’s tombstone was particularly choice.

• I admit it.  There were facts in this Mentalfloss article 10 Things You Might Not Know About Anne of Green Gables that I was unaware of.  Poland?  Really?  Knock me over with a feather.

• I say this in all sincerity: The Bay Area Children’s Theatre may be the coolest theater of all time.  Yes, I love the New Victory Theatre in here NYC and my heart will always have a soft spot for Children’s Theatre Company of Minneapolis, but check out this upcoming season.  It was Rickshaw Girl that drilled it all home for me.  Rickshaw Girl!  That would work brilliantly on the stage.

• Oh. Ah?  Er. *sigh*

• This one’s interesting.  There’s an extension (I think they’re called extensions, though I’m a little hazy on that point) that once installed on your computer allows you to browse Amazon.com and see the availability of the items there in your local library.  The applications, should they get out, could be enormous.  Using an online retailer to search your local library (which could be useful if your library’s search engine is archaic).  Curious how people feel about this one.  It’s called Library Extension.

• We’ve seen books written by children reach various levels of popularity over the years.  Swordbird, Eragon, She Was Nice to Mice, etc.  And we’ve seen celebrity children’s books flood our shelves whether we want them or not.  Now the two have come together with an upcoming release and it’s . . . um . . . well, it’s kind of the ULTIMATE celebrity child author of all time.  This I’ll pass on, though.

• What kinds of children’s books would you like to see?  Where are your pet personal gaps?  Marc Aronson begins the conversation.

• Daily Image:

I don’t usually show tweets that amuse me, but this one had me laughing aloud in public for days.

• Howdy do.  As per usual I’m going to direct you this morning to that lovely little Wild Things website where Jules Danielson and I have been posting the stories that got cut from our upcoming book Wild Things: Acts of Mischief in Children’s Literature.  If you haven’t already seen them you might like to read some amusing stories about:

- Some Madeleine facts you may not have known, two straight lines and all.
- The downside of owning your own tropical island, even if you DID do all the art for The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.
- The story I was MOST sorry to cut. War of the Pooh! It’s what happened when a British MP decided that the dolls of Pooh and friends had to come back to the UK. What followed . . . got a little crazy.
- A quick look at some of the WORST school visits suffered by authors and illustrators of all time.
- Children who would one day become writers bugging cranky older authors. It’s one of the more peculiar posts but it has nothing on . . .
- Udders, cleavage, and a monster penis. Need I say more?
- A nightmare publishing story to rival publishing stories.

• The New York Public Library’s pathetic summer reading list for kids. Come again?  That would be The New York Post taking issue with a list that includes books kids would have fun reading as well as dreaded diversity.  Apparently if a book contains a non-white kid it can’t possibly be any good and must have appeared on a summer reading list to appease some kind of demographic.  Full disclosure, I’m one of the folks that made the list (which wasn’t just for NYPL but for Brooklyn and Queens library systems as well) so all I’ll do is gently point you to Rita Meade’s incredibly restrained response.

• And how did you spend your evening last night.  For my part, I saw The Snow Queen.  The composer of the show is my buddy Haddon who, years ago, did the intro music for a podcast I posted for a while (the podcast is no longer up so his good work has been lost to the wilds of time).  Now the show is here for a limited run in NYC, before the inevitable Frozen musical steals its thunder.  Of Snow Queen musicals there can apparently be only one.  Here’s a New York Times article about the show, if’n you’re interested.

Where do you even get a Where’s Waldo costume, I wonder.  Everyone’s favorite stripey hero is key to this very clever children’s bookstore promotion thingy thing.  In Kalamazoo the fabulous bookstore Bookbug is hiding Waldo in 26 of the local businesses on sort of a scavenger hunt.  Other small town bookstores take note.  It’s good for the store and good for the other businesses.  I love a clever campaign.  Thanks to Colby Sharp for the link.

If you have ever taken the Leonard Marcus walking tour of children’s literature here in NYC then you’ve probably seen Margaret Wise Brown’s house in Greenwich Village.  Good thing you did since the poor little structure is slated to be razed.  Has someone alerted Leonard?  I think we’d better start sounding the alarm on this one.

• Don’t have enough conferences in your life?  Well The Nerdy Book Club was kind enough to feature this post on the upcoming Kidlitcon.  The only conference out there for children’s and YA literature bloggers, it’s happening in October in beautiful Sacramento, CA.  Would that I could go!  If you’re able, I highly recommend a trip.

• This.  Just . . . . this.  No words.

• Not a shabby idea.  Over in Britain they recently had a Great children’s books author bake off for all those novels and picture books featuring baked goods.  I am hungry.  Therefore someone should do this over on our side of the pond.  And then invite me.  Nom nom nom nom.

• Two recent 100 Scope Notes pieces caught my eye.  The first has the rather memorable title All middle grade novels should be 192 pages. No exceptions.  The other is the hugely amusing Wildest Children’s Books of 2014.  I’ve missed a couple of these on my maternity leave.  Glad to have Travis keeping me up to speed!

• Daily Image:

Finally, could somebody do this for a couple works of children’s and YA literature?

If I had my choice I’d like some Westing Game tights.  And imagine how much money you could make off of The Fault In Our Stars tights.  The mind boggles.  Thanks to Aunt Judy for the link.

Hey all!  Before I dive into the oddities of the world in which we live, I just wanted to give a bit of a shout out to two distinct groups that allowed me to sprawl my librarian self all over their respective gatherings.  First up, credit and love to Nancy Castaldo and all the folks who made this weekend’s Eastern NY SCBWI Regional Conference the success that it was.  I’m mighty appreciative that I was able to offer the dessert keynote on Saturday.  Moreover, thanks to everyone who came out to see my censorship panel on Saturday at the Brooklyn Book Festival with David Levithan, Francesca Lia Block, and Lauren Myracle.  It’s always nice to moderate something that hardly needs any moderation at all.  Extra thanks to anyone who stayed around for my picture book reading later.  David Maybury I be looking at you.

And now, because the weekend was so darned exciting, I’m going to do some super quickie round-ups of the recent news.

• What’s that you say?  Beautiful posters inspired by the work of Roald Dahl?

Don’t mind if I do!

• I have dealt with difficult reference desk requests in the past, but Benji’s story on dealing with a student looking for Effie?  That takes the cake.  Thanks to 100 Scope Notes for the link.

• All right.  Love this look at what the voices behind Disney’s Winnie-the-Pooh looked like when it first came out and what they look like today.  Had no idea Clint Howard was Roo.  That’s gonna take some reconfiguration in my noggin.  And I thought Thurl Ravenscroft was the first Tigger!  No?  Thanks to PW Children’s Bookshelf for the link.An

• Though it falls squarely into the Couldn’t Be Published in America category of European picture books, Sergio Ruzzier’s remarkable The Birds is WELL worth reading through today.  And not just because I like the name.

• Ever been curious about the history of children’s theater in New York City?  Well, you lucky ducks, I just found a post that’s gonna make your day.

• Confused as to where exactly I work and what exactly I work for?  My job has gotten a bit more complicated since I became part of BookOps.  This interview with my colleagues by Booklist should clear up any and all confusion, though.  At least I hope it does.

• Take one look at this image and tell me what you think it is:

If you said it was an Anne-of-Green-Gables-inspired-wedding-shoot you would be correct.  Sadly it wasn’t a real wedding, but you can tell it’ll serve as inspiration to a lot of folks.

• The title probably says it all for this one: Reading for pleasure puts children ahead in the classroom, study finds. Yup.  Thanks to Amie Wright for the link.

• Hooray!  The good Elizabeth Bluemle has collected The Stars Thus Far for 2013 and they’re a doozy.  A bunch of five stars are up, but not a single six star book has appeared so far this year.  Whodathunkit?

• Looks like we have a bookless library on our hands.  Now the only question is whether or not we’ll be seeing the community clamoring for print or not.  Not so sure I agree with the statement that “it will take more than 100 years before all libraries are paperless” (so that’s inevitable, eh whot?) but we can all watch this site with some interest.

• Daily Image:

Yup.  That’s gonna be the walls of my house someday.  Though the books will undoubtedly be thinner.

Thanks to Aunt Judy for the link!

Morning, folks.  Bird here.  Seems this book I’ve written with fellow bloggers Peter Sieruta of Collecting Children’s Books and Jules Danielson of Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast is in the last stages of completion.  Fun With Copyedits is the name of the game this week, which means that my blogging may suffer a tad here and there.  Mea culpa.  I give you a bright and shiny blog posts to make it up to you.  Eat it in good health.

• First off, April’s only here and that can only mean one thing.  There’s a call for new spine poetry.  Do you have what it takes to stack books in a coherent and literary manner?  Well, do you?  Punk?

• I love Cracked online but honestly sometimes their headlines tip a little too far into the realm of the hyperbole.  Consider the following: 5 literary classics that put x-rated movies to shame.  It’s actually not inaccurate to say that of numbers one through three, but by the time you get to number five (Where’s Waldo) it’s stretching it a tad.  Then again, the naked clown on the pogo stick isn’t exactly normal . . .

• In case you missed it, Marjorie Ingall alerted me to the children’s literature reference name dropped by Bob Balaban on a recent episode of Girls.  Sorry I missed this one.  I’ve been too busy catching up on episodes of Once Upon a Time which is admittedly corny, but weirdly similar to LOST before the show went haywire.  Hence the fix.

• And what will YOU be doing on April 2nd of this year?  Celebrating International Children’s Book Day, I certainly hope.  Seriously, are you going to let this Ashley Bryan poster go to waste?  For shame!

• Speaking of worldwide travels, care to attend an Irish children’s literary conference?  Would I kid?  Observe:

“We are delighted to announce that the CBI 2013 Conference Rebels and Rulebreakers is now open for booking! We’re really looking forward to a weekend with some of the most exciting names in writing, illustration, publishing and criticism in the fabulous surroundings of Lighthouse cinema on May 18th and 19th. Click here for the booking form or call CBI on 01 8727475 to secure your place. Remember the conference is open to everyone with an interest in children’s books so tell your friends! We’ve started counting down to the conference weekend with blog features on Sarah Ardizzone, Sarah Crossan and Colmán Ó Raghallaigh.”

• Though she was by no means the first children’s librarian in the country, NYPL’s own Anne Carroll Moore was a force to be reckoned with, back in the day.  Now there’s a picture book bio of her coming out called Miss Moore Thought Otherwise by Jan Pinborough.  A Women’s History Month series celebrates the book and Ms. Pinborough discusses why she wrote it in the first place.  Thanks to Lisa Taylor for the link.

As my recent review of the Matilda musical will attest, I’m a sucker for stage adaptations of children’s books.  So how completely and utterly delightful does this version of Owl Moon look to you?  Picture book adaptations are always difficult, whether it’s to the stage or the screen.  Dance is honestly the only way to go sometimes. Consider this post your required reading of the day.

Hey!  In all the flutter and kerfuffle surrounding the ALA Youth Media Awards it’s mighty easy to forget about the 2013 Notable Children’s Books list that was announced at the end of February.  Nice to see my beloved Zombie Makers getting some love.

Daily Image:

Oh good.  Something new to desire.  I was running low.  It seems that a certain Charlotte Olympia has taken it upon herself to create a fairytale line of shoes.

If you happen to purchase that $985 froggy pump for me, I honestly won’t be embarrassed by the largess of your generosity.  Scout’s honor.  You know where to reach me.  Many many thanks to Marjorie Ingall for the link.

Fabulous moments speaking in Seattle:-

The two Marks – President of the PTA and the school librariqn – at Kokanee Elementary School Woodinville in Seattle support

- I Am Jack and NO to bullying at this wonderful school set among evergreens with stunning snowcapped mountatins as a background.

The principal dressed as Where’s Waldo? supported I Am Jack and NO to bullying at the wonderful school Gildo Rey Elementary School Auburn (Seattle)

Teachers and young people were engaged and connected with the JACK books and Butterflies (Kane Miller Books)  offering insights about how we all deserve t live:-

that is to be all that we can be.

Loved the day.

According to Deadline, MGM will  to adapt the popular picture book series Where’s Waldo into a live-action movie.

MGM motion picture group president Jonathan Glickman has secured the film rights to the franchise. Who would you cast as Waldo?

Here’s more from the article: “Created by Martin Handford and first published in 1987, Where’s Waldo? is one of the most recognizable characters in the world and a pop-culture icon. A publishing phenomenon with more than 55 million books sold worldwide from New York to Sydney to London to Tokyo, Where’s Waldo books are available in more than thirty-eight countries and have been translated into more than thirty languages. Where’s Waldo has also been spotted in gaming, selling more than 4.6+ million Apps for iPhone and iPad.”

continued…

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Ruh-roh.  I’ve been having too much fun earning a living to leave enough time for blogging.  Time yet again for a super quickie point-by-point-without-the-details Fusenews!  Hold onto your hats . . .

Who are the artists overlooked by the Caldecott?  Elizabeth Bluemle has the scoop.

An East Harlem bookstore needs your help! Thanks to Heather Scott for the link.

• Can celebrities write good books for kids? One person points out that maybe they aid in giving illustrators a leg up.

• Everything in this Horn Book article Board-book-a-palooza by Cynthia K. Ritter I agree with.  Everything.

• Speaking of HB, Roger’s blog has a new format.  Love that bow-tied avatar of his.  Who drew it, I wonder?

• Don Tate has a fun piece about his time at the Highlights first illustrators intensive Founders workshop. He happened to stay in the same cabin that I did when I visited last summer.  I had no idea I’d stayed where Floyd Cooper had.  Fabulous!

• Don’t get me wrong.  I love Where’s Waldo but how dedicated am I?  Not this dedicated.  Yeesh!  Thanks to Molly O’Neill for the link.

• Dunno. If I were to find a title for this story of the 1500 pound Mo Willems sculpture of a pachyderm I think I would have gone with “Elephant and Piggie Iron”.  But that’s me.

• Who knew that random stills of that old Spider-Man cartoon could be this fun?  Particularly when they involve librarians.

Kseniya Yarosh, I tip my hat to thee.

• Beautiful vintage dust jackets from classic novels.  That Catcher in the Rye is particularly shocking to me.  Thanks to Mike Lewis for the link!

• That’s it. I’m making my own Funny Book prize.  This time for American books.  Because, quite frankly, they’re hard to write and I’m jealous of the Brits for getting to have their Roald Dahl Funny Prize.<
  8 Comments on Fusenews: Zap! Pow! Zam! (Zam?), last added: 9/21/2011
  Display Comments
  Zoe said, on 9/19/2011 11:11:00 PM
  

  I see in your Gatekeeper’s post you mention Jon Klassen’s book… he’s on my blog today talking about his bookish inspiration. I was quite surprised by his choices, I wonder what you’ll make of them. I love these round ups – like a magpie’s nest full of lovely sparkly bits I want to pick up and have a look at.

  Nina Crittenden said, on 9/20/2011 6:53:00 AM
  

  Thank for posting the Lord of the Flies link- I sent it on to my neighbor’s son (who is quite a talented young artist).

  MR said, on 9/20/2011 7:06:00 AM
  

  Doesn’t the Sid Fleischman humor award count?

  Elizabeth Bird said, on 9/20/2011 7:10:00 AM
  

  It does but I like the shortlist aspect. The Fleischman Award only goes to one book a year, yes?

  Jennifer Schultz said, on 9/20/2011 10:11:00 AM
  

  Did you see that Emma Thompson is writing a new Peter Rabbit story?

  http://www.publishersweekly.com/pw/by-topic/childrens/childrens-book-news/article/48708-new-peter-rabbit-tale-to-be-written-by-emma-thompson.html

  Elizabeth Bird said, on 9/20/2011 12:37:00 PM
  

  Oh yes. Hard not to be torn on that one. On the one hand, we all like Emma Thompson. On the other hand, is this the first time where a public domain children’s literary character had their story appropriated by a celebrity author?

  Jennifer Schultz said, on 9/21/2011 6:03:00 AM
  

  I wish she would write her own story. She’s a talented and witty writer (the screenplay for Sense and Sensibility is a treat to read); it’s not like she just decided to start writing out of the blue.

  Elizabeth Bird said, on 9/21/2011 6:17:00 AM
  

  Actually she did write a Nanny McPhee sequel. But again that was taking an existing character and expanding on it rather than thinking up her own work. She could potentially be the next Julie Andrews Edwards of children’s literature if she let herself.

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Amusing. I wrote an article for SLJ about the Bologna Book Fair and why librarians should attend in droves.  I was unprepared for some of the formatting choices on the piece, though.  The title Betsy Goes to Bologna caught me off guard, though it’s certainly true.  But it was the art created for the piece showing a pregnant and hugely stylish librarian jet setting about the town that really caught my fancy.  First off, I’ll have to find out from artist Ali Douglass where I can go about getting some of the shoes my avatar is sporting in these pics.  Second, anyone who saw me in Bologna will be amused by the difference in relative ankle circumference.  Mine were, needless to say, more akin to sturdy oaks than the svelte saplings portrayed here.

• You have to wonder how bad a book can be when its celebrity author can’t make a sale.  In this case, Sarah Ferguson can’t sell a picture book about a little heroic pear tree on 9/11 to U.S. publishers.  To which we say, thanks guys.  I think I owe you one.  And if you’d like to abstain from printing any other celebrity picture books, please!  Don’t feel you have to ask permission.

• The other day I was kvetching my usual kvetch about how it is that anytime a children’s middle grade novel appears in the news, it’s instantly dubbed “YA”.  Seems that I’m not the first person to notice this oddity, though.  Monica Edinger pointed out to me that over at the fabulous Misrule blog, Judith Ridge wrote the piece Whither the Children’s Books?.  In it she discusses, amongst other things, the fact that she once saw a reviewer refer to a book as “young-young adult”.  It’s enough to make your teeth itch.

• I think it was Travis Jonker who pointed out the strange thing about this article.  Not that thousands of people were able to locate adequate Where’s Waldo outfits.  It’s the fact that there was already a world record for Most Waldos.  Of course, over in Britain he’s known as Wally (if anyone can give me an adequate reason for the American name change I’d love to hear it).  My favorite line from the piece?  “The Street Performance World Championships managed has organised similar events and last year broke the world record for the most people on space hoppers.”  Space hoppers?  Still, it looked mighty impressive:

Thanks to Travis Jonker for the link.

• ALA is over and done with once again.  So what did we learn?  New author Jonathan Auxier has some answers to that question in his Five Things I Learned at ALA.  My favorite without a doubt: 4) Don’t Tell Lauren Myracle Anything.

• All g
  10 Comments on Fusenews: Terms we can live without = Young-young Adult, last added: 7/8/2011
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  Zoe said, on 7/5/2011 11:14:00 PM
  

  Your round ups are always full of juicy loveliness! Had been looking for a pic of all the Wallys/Waldos, so thank you for that in particular

  Jonathan Auxier said, on 7/6/2011 6:01:00 AM
  

  “Mine were, needless to say, more akin to sturdy oaks than the svelte saplings portrayed here.” It’s lines like that that make me excited to read your upcoming books!

  It’s funny that you call out “young adult” as a term; I was just thinking the other day that when I was growing up, “young adult” meant people in their twenties, and the only time it was used on teenagers was when trying to flatter them by saying they seemed older … maybe wonder if sometimes the genre as a whole does the same?

  Elizabeth Bird said, on 7/6/2011 6:18:00 AM
  

  Maybe so. Certainly the term “Teen” (recognizable to patrons of all kinds) is more straightforward. Less ambiguous. Though I couldn’t blame the kid that rejects the term “Tween”. How great a term can it be if it has the word “Twee” right smack dab in the middle there?

  Brenda Ferber said, on 7/6/2011 8:30:00 AM
  

  Wow. The Hunger Games movie seems to be doing everything right so far. Impressive.

  James Kennedy said, on 7/6/2011 10:22:00 AM
  

  Re the term “tweens” — this apparently universally reviled, unattractive term seems to have been invented by none other than the magisterial J.R.R. Tolkien! I am re-reading “The Fellowship of the Ring” and I came upon this, smack on the first page of the first chapter:

  “At that time Frodo was still in his *tweens*, as the hobbits called the irresponsible twenties between childhood and coming of age at thirty-three.”

  No joke. Look it up yourself. Strange!

  And I want to live in the world of that picture of you in Bologna, Betsy!

  Eric Carpenter said, on 7/6/2011 4:13:00 PM
  

  Great news on the music side of hunger games. I was talking with a camera crew member this past weekend and he was kind enough to show me a couple videos of the filming he captured with his phone including a video of the filming of the initial cornucopia scene with all the tributes running to the big pile of supplies. He also told me they blew the cornucopia up last week. Very cool.

  marchek said, on 7/6/2011 6:53:00 PM
  

  Did I ever tell you about the time James and I were walking in fron the the Metropolitan Museum of Art on a Saturday when we saw a young man dressed as Waldo walking through the crowd, complete with red balloon? We joked about how that guy might just like to dress up like that and see how many tourist photos he can manage to slip into.

  rams said, on 7/7/2011 2:28:00 PM
  

  Aha. Asked our English friends, and a space hopper is ” one of those bouncy balls with handles that you bounce on. ”

  Don’t mention it.

  Elizabeth Bird said, on 7/7/2011 7:00:00 PM
  

  Thank you!! And . . . wha??

  Sondy said, on 7/8/2011 1:41:00 PM
  

  When I heard about the Baby Lit books, I started a thread on Twitter #babylit, because surely lines in a board book are less than 140 characters!

  I just HATE it when parents try to “introduce” kids to the classics before they are at an appropriate age to enjoy the classics — as if there’s something magic about the story that knowing it means a person is more educated. Classics for toddlers is taking it to the extreme utter edge of ridiculousness! (I don’t even like abridged classics, but this is crazy!)

  It’s fun to make up lines for it, though:

  Mr. Darcy was mean to Lizzie. But Mr. Darcy has a nice house.

  Tybalt and Mercutio fight on the playground. Romeo tries to stop the fight. Oops! Mercutio is dead. Now Romeo kills Tybalt. Romeo is in trouble.

  Romeo is sad. He thinks Juliet is dead, but she is only pretending. Uh-oh! Romeo, don’t drink that poison! Oops! Too late!

  Can you say “inappropriate,” boys and girls?

  And the WSJ thought YA was getting too dark!

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Author: Don Gillmor
Illustrator: Marie-Louise Gay (on JOMB)
Published: 2000 Fitzhenry & Whiteside (on JOMB)
ISBN: 0773732187 Chapters.ca Amazon.com

Enchanting moonlit expanses, snappy, intelligent narration and plenty of clever details turn the tiny personal experience of that awkward first crush into a sweeping, surreal adventure that feels almost as big as infatuation.

You can hear a JOMB chat with Marie-Louise Gay here.

You can read more about Stuart McLean here.