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I have a two-year-old son. He is very cute. He is also the most stereotypical boy reader I’ve ever encountered in my life. Trucks, trains, construction equipment, you name it. Unsurprisingly he’s also keen on community workers so every other day we read through Richard Scarry’s Cars and Trucks and Things That Go. Or, when we’re feeling a bit jaunty, we’ll reach for Everything Goes On Land by Brian Biggs. Combine that with his other relatively new obsession with the Brownie and Pearl books (also illustrated by Mr. Biggs) and you’ll understand that Chez Bird is The House That Biggs Built.

When I heard that Mr. Biggs had a new series coming out from Abrams called Tinyville Town, I was naturally curious.  What’s interesting about the books and the series is that rather that conform to the usual Scarry model, the stories examine “the city” as a concept in and of itself.  So we had a talk about it and the more he spoke about it, the more interesting it became.  The end result is this interview.  Bear in mind that this isn’t just about Brian’s work on the series.  In the course of this interview he delves into some really interesting ideas about the influence of Italo Calvino, city planning, what Sesame Street did along these same lines, and what we mean when we say something is “timeless”.  I urge you to pay particular attention to what he has to say about gender roles and picture books as well.

By the way, I usually do interviews where the interviewer (me) and the interviewee (in this case, Mr. Biggs) are represented solely by their initials.  Today, for obvious reasons, that’s not going to work out.

Betsy Bird: I’m interested in how this series tackles the idea of “the city” as more than just one of those random places that people live.  Historically, Americans mostly lived in the country.  Now we mostly live in cities but books that convey how interconnected we all are to one another there aren’t all that common.  So what was the impetus for starting this series in the first place?  And what, if you’ll forgive me, makes it different from your average everyday Richard Scarry fare?

Brian Biggs: To be honest, the argument could be made that the impetus for Tinyville Town came from a blog-entry you wrote about Everything Goes back in 2011. That series was definitely about vehicles, but I think you were on to something when you wrote that the first book, Everything Goes On Land, was really about my love for cities. Three years later, when I was playing with the idea of a series of little books about people and their jobs, it occurred to me that this, too, was potentially an excuse to draw another city and explore the streets and buildings within.

I’d put it on the record that Italo Calvino is just as big an influence here as Richard Scarry, and that’s not something you can say for just any board-book for three-year-olds. I read Invisible Cities when I was living in Paris, in 1991, just after college, and the book adjusted the way I looked at these random places that people live, as you write. I could close one eye, and Paris was a chaotic mass of people moving about, with no order, no sense. I could look with the other eye, and it was a latticework of streets and alleys with recognizable patterns and clear intents of the designers. I could squint, and imagine the connections between people in my neighborhood, from the taxi drivers to the family that ran the Chinese restaurant below my building to the woman who operated the laundry across the street. I don’t want to get carried away here — Tinyville Town is not a philosophical prose poem on the nature of our existence. But when later that year I left Paris for the Fort Worth suburb of Euless, Texas, I was able to find these stories there as well. Euless and Paris are nothing alike, yet they are. People go to sleep there, and wake up there, and go to work there, and live their lives there.

When I was a kid, I watched a lot of Sesame Street. Sesame Street did a great a job of finding connections and figuring out how to make a Brooklyn city block relevant to this kid watching tv in Little Rock. That neighborhood sure looked different from my neighborhood. But what I identified with were the people who lived there and their relationships to one another. Bob and Maria and Gordon, and even Oscar and Ernie and Big Bird, interacted with one another in ways that I did and my parents did with neighbors, and the guy at the grocery store, and the mailman. It wasn’t lost on me that, years later in Texas, what Euless and Paris had in common were those same people living vastly different yet very similar lives.

So, Sesame Street is a show that teaches numbers and the alphabet, and entertains kids so their parents can get the laundry done. But it’s much more than that, isn’t it? By hanging these lessons on this setting and with these people, Sesame Street teaches us so much more. Yes, Tinyville Town began as a simple series of little books about people with jobs. A day in the life of a fire fighter, and a veterinarian, and a librarian, doing the things that these people do. And while it might be difficult to explore the nature of existence and sociology in 24 pages, I’m hoping that these influences and these roots give me a stage that’s a little bigger than what might be immediately visible, and a setting in which I might be able to do a little more than count to ten.

Betsy: You’ve done books that take broad concepts and then define them in simple terms that no one else has really thought of before.  Your “Everything Goes” series, for example, was both broad and meticulous.  Are you doing something similar here?

Brian: Oh, sure. At least, I hope so. The structure of the series is built on this very idea. The larger picture books in the series, “Tinyville Town Gets to Work” being the first, are about the town. How the people of Tinyville Town work together to get something done. These books are the “broad” you mention. The smaller board books are the “meticulous,” each telling the story of one citizen of Tinyville Town. Visually, Tinyville Town doesn’t fill the page the way that Everything Goes does. There aren’t the hidden details and birds with hats. The surprises reveal themselves more slowly and are more relevant to the stories of this town.

Betsy: I mentioned Scarry earlier, and I suspect that of all the classic children’s authors of the past he’s the one you get compared to the most.  We’ve this feeling that he’s “timeless” in some way (though anyone who has ever eyeballed Ma Pig’s Jane Fonda-esque headband in Cars and Trucks and Things That Go would take issue with that statement).  “Timeless” is a goal of a lot of authors.  It’s a kind of key to perpetual publishing.  Is that something you consciously think about when you make a series like this one or does it not concern you?

Brian: It does concern me, and I’ve had discussions with Traci, my editor, about ways to make Tinyville Town “timeless.” But I haven’t really worked out exactly what this means, or even whether it is a good idea or not.

For example, one of the first things I decided about this series was that there are no mobile phones in Tinyville Town. When we see a group of people standing at a bus stop waiting for the bus, they were going to be reading books and newspapers, not staring like zombies at their smart phones. I can’t tell you how long it’s been since I saw someone waiting at a bus stop with a book, but there is just something about that scene that I could not bring myself to include. On the other hand, I think readers really like to see things like that they recognize. Early on, in the first Everything Goes book, I have a driver cutting through traffic, talking on his mobile phone. Kids often point this particular detail out. They know it’s something you’re not supposed to do, and they love it on the next page when we see the same driver pulled over by the police car, getting a ticket. Twenty years from now, will a reader know what the heck is going on there? Will we get pulled over in the future for talking to our robot helpers on our telepathic com-links while our automated flying Google cars get us from place to place? Will this scene render Everything Goes dated and dull?

When I was researching firefighters for Tinyville Town, I learned that firehouses aren’t built with sliding poles any more, for insurance reasons. And the firehouses that do have them, don’t use them. But when you talk to kids about fire stations, a pole is still among the first things they want to see. I gotta have that pole, even though it’s an anachronism. So, what is it that makes a book “timeless,” anyway? Mike Mulligan and his Steam Shovel was one of my favorite books when I was a kid. I had no idea what a steam shovel was, and that book was big-time dated when I read it in the 1970s. But I loved it. It’s timeless. Not because a steam shovel was still a relevant piece of cool construction technology, but because the theme of “new and improved” versus familiar and reliable, and the David and Goliath story buried in that book will always be relevant.

Betsy: So I did this post the other day about gender and how construction workers (and even their equipment) are shown to be both male and female or simply male.  Some folks wrote in saying they’d never seen a female construction worker in all their livelong days.  You, however, do give professions of every sort dual genders (I was always quite grateful for the female pilot in Everything Goes in the Air).  How do you reconcile this with a real world that isn’t always as gender neutral as we’d like it to be?

Brian: I’m going to quote a friend here, who told me that “even if it isn’t seen, that doesn’t mean it’s right and it doesn’t mean things should stay that way. If kids can see it, it’s easier for them to imagine being it.” This friend recently became one of the few female electrical linemen in Philadelphia. A while back, when she saw some early sketches I’d posted for I’m a Firefighter, she pointedly asked me why there were no women working at the Tinyville Town fire station. I couldn’t believe I’d let this get by me. And I was so so happy she’d pointed it out. But did I ask myself how many women really are firefighters? Do I need to go by all the fire stations in Philadelphia to see how many women work there before I can include them in my book?

This ties in directly with the discussion about timelessness, doesn’t it? Ten years ago there was this big brouhaha when someone noticed that the Busytown books he was reading to his kids were different from the ones he had when he was growing up. At some point the publisher had redrawn many of the characters and even some complete scenes to reflect a more modern sensibilty. A father bunny rabbit had joined a mother bunny rabbit in the kitchen preparing dinner. The “pretty stewardess’” job description had changed to “flight attendant” and the “pilot” was no longer “handsome.” The mouse in the canoe was no longer wearing the potentially offensive and stereotypical feathered headdress, and a menorah had been added onto the holiday celebration. These changes came along right around the time I was reading Scarry’s books to my own kids, and as a responsible parent, I was pleased. There was a part of me, the sentimental child within, that wondered if I should be angry at this absurd kowtowing to political correctness, but do I want my daughter thinking that flight attendants are supposed to be pretty? Do I want my son to think that husbands are supposed to be waited on by their wives? These books aren’t supposed to be snapshots of a particular time. They’re not Little House on the Prairie.

Before 2008, one could set a tv show in the near-but-still-far-away future by having a U.S. President be African American, or female. It was maybe somewhat conceivable, but it hadn’t happened yet. Now, there’s a fairly good chance we’re going to elect a female president this year, which would mean that in 2020 there will be a generation of kids who don’t know how impossible this so recently seemed. To these kids, those 43 previous white guys are mere history. That’s just amazing to me.

People have never seen a female construction worker? They’re not paying attention.

Betsy: What’s the ultimate goal with this series?

Brian: Well, of course, the ultimate goal is to create an entertaining, satisfying series of books that kids like to read over and over again. I actually don’t think much about teaching lessons when writing these things, and I don’t think that reflecting the world I live in, or I want my kids and eventual grandkids to live in, is any sort of political agenda, and certainly not a hidden one.

I don’t expect Tinyville Town to be some kind of a catalyst for change. Really, I just want a kid to read I’m a Firefighter, make loud siren noises as the fire truck speeds through town, and cheer when the fire at the bakery is put out at the end. If she then goes to bed thinking “I want to be that,” well, that’s just gravy, isn’t it?

I want to thank Brian for taking quite a bit of time to put down these thoughts for us today.  Tinyville Town Gets to Work hits shelves September 6th alongside the board books Tinyville Town: I’m a Veterinarian and Tinyville Town: I’m a Firefighter.  And yes, in case you were wondering, there is a librarian on the horizon as well:

Author Jon Scieszka and illustrator Brian Biggs star in a video promoting audiobooks. The video embedded above features Scieszka wearing a mad scientist outfit and Biggs donning a robot mask.

The creative duo collaborated together on the Frank Einstein books. ABRAMS just released the newest installment of this middle-grade series, Frank Einstein and the Electro-Finger. (via Shelf-Awareness.com)

Morning, folks. We’re beginning this Sunday morn with stuff that’s good for the soul.  How often have you said to yourself, “I’d love to own some original art from illustrator Matthew Cordell but I’m too busy spending all my cash on children’s literacy foundations”?  Well, fear not!  Now you can do both.  In celebration of their book Special Delivery, Messrs. Cordell and Philip Stead are going to hold a raffle for five pieces of awesome art.  You win by donating money to good causes.  The details are here and the video here:

Next up, the American Hogwarts.  I mean, it is if by “Hogwarts” you’re referring to a well-established university setting with a clear cut amazing children’s collection, staff, program schedule, and more.  Princeton finally decided to create a little trailer for the Cotsen Children’s Library, and I have to say I’m stunned. First off, there’s my girl Dana Sheridan killing it with the storytimes.  Then there’s the just wide range of services they provide.  And the furniture, dear GOD the furniture!!  I’m fascinated by the Cotsen Critix program too since bookclubs for 9-12 year-olds are my weakness.  Wish I lived closer to it!  Here’s more background information and here’s the trailer:

Someday I shall teach a course on the art of the book trailer. In it I will show all the different myriad styles and techniques one can utilize when coming up with your very own.  And always assuming that I remember, I shall include this simple, lovely trailer for The Mystery Hat by Rune Brandt Bennicke and Jakob Hjort Jensen .  Sometimes it’s all in the soundtrack, folks.

There go Scieszka and Biggs.  I’ve suspected for years that they were in the pocket of Big Audiobook but never had the proof . . . until now!!

Seriously, though, I’m-a wanting that crazy white wig.

So this year we are seeing not one but TWO different early chapter book series about Latino girls. This is a good thing since the running tally before 2015 was . . . um . . . yeah, it was zero.  Zero series in total.  The first is the Emma Is On the Air series by Ida Siegal and illustrated by Karla Pena.  The second is the Sofia Martinez series by Jacqueline Jules, illustrated by Kim Smith.  But only one of these (as of this post) has a book trailer:

It’s not a children’s book.  It’s not even a YA novel.  It’s (*gasp* *shudder*) an adult book . . . but its book trailer is adorable.  I can resist it, not at all.

Thanks to Alison Morris for the link.

I had not yet taken the time to see the trailer for the Lena Dunham/Hilary Knight documentary. Nothing too surprising to see here, but it’s certainly a very clear cut case of a famous person attempting to shine their light on someone they admire who might not be a household name (though Eloise certainly is).

Thanks to educating alice for the link.

And I’m not feeling too creative on the off-topic video of the day.  And when the going gets tough, the tough links to cat/dog videos.  So goes the world.  So goes the world.

Frank Einstein and the Antimatter Motor By Jon Scieszka and Brian Biggs is the first in series of highly illustrated books, ideal for the 8-12 crowd, which encourage readers to explore how things work and get experimenting themselves.

Given our recent foray into tinkering, Frank Einstein is my new favourite scientist.

The brain child of Jon Scieszka, Frank loves to tinker, using old household appliances to create robots which one day come to life. There’s lots of real science, a good dose of silly science-fiction, adventure, and a whole lot of fun.

Although Jon Scieszka has sold over 11 million books, he’s not as well know over here in the UK as he is in his native US. But later this week he arrives on our shores ready to take Brits by storm I took his impending invasion as an opportunity to interview him; I hope you’ll enjoy what he had to say and be tempted to seek out Frank Einstein and the Antimatter Motor, which I highly recommend.

Zoe: Hi Jon, I’m honoured and delighted to have the opportunity to put some questions to you in advance of your UK tour. In the US you’re something of a superstar but perhaps it is fair to say that over here in the UK you’re not quite so well known. So to get us started, what are the three most important things we should know about you?

Jon Scieszka:

Zoe: Ha! I like what you’ve done there Jon
I think I should also add:

Given your family background, Jon, did you ever consider becoming a professional wrestler? …I’m thinking here of your brothers, and how this along with going to an all boys’ school may have influenced your outlook on life…

Jon Scieszka: After growing up with 5 brothers, teaching elementary school for ten years, and raising a son and daughter, I pretty much am a professional wrestler. Also a pro golfer, chef, babysitter, racecar driver, garage cleaner, and dog poop picker-upper.

Jon’s work place

Zoe: You’re coming over to the UK in October to spread the word about the first book in a new series, Frank Einstein and the Antimatter Motor, a brilliant collision of fact, science and fun all about a kid who just loves to figure things out for himself, run experiments and make machines. What were the key points on your journey to seeing Frank Einstein released into kids’ hands around the world?

Jon Scieszka: I always loved science, studied in college to be a doctor, and ended up teaching science in elementary school. Having been a teacher, my writing is always about intriguing my readers to ask why. So I thought up FRANK EINSTEIN, kid inventor genius as a great way to introduce kids to all of Science, conveniently broken down into 6 illustrated books.

With an evil genius.

And an evil sidekick chimpanzee named Mr. Chimp.

Zoe: You strike me as a bit of a renaissance man: You love science and maths, but you also crazy for fairy tales, myths and legends. Where did this come from?

Jon Scieszka: I had a wonderfully supportive mom and dad, and a great education where I was always encouraged to study everything and anything that interested me. So I took both literature classes and comparative anatomy classes. I read comic books and Tristram Shandy. And I think it was my myth and religion studies that lead me to fairy tales and legends. Well, that and Bugs Bunny cartoons and Mad magazine and Rocky and Bullwinkle’s Fractured Fairy Tales

Zoe: Humour is incredibly important to you and your writing. Do you think there is such as thing as an American sense of humour which is different to a UK sense of humour (especially when it comes to kids)?

Jon Scieszka: There is something different about the US and UK senses of humor. But I’m not sure what that difference is. I am a huge fan of Ricky Gervais and Stephen Merchant, Hitchhiker’s Guide, Little Britain, Terry Pratchett, Eddie Izzard, Python, my older brother Roald Dahl, Wallace and Gromit, Steve Coogan, Simon Pegg, and some of Philip Ardagh’s work.

With kids I think the humor difference is often just a matter of vocabulary.

In the US, the fox’s line of dialogue in The Stinky Cheese Man story, “What is that funky smell?” gets huge laughs. Everywhere. I think because it sounds to the American ear, very much like another, very inappropriate f-word. But that line just doesn’t get the same laughs in the UK.

Frank Einstein

Zoe: I was racking my brains for a joke about noodles as I know you love them a lot and I came across this one – I’m not sure if it will make you smile or groan! – but would you share a favourite joke of yours?

Jon Scieszka: A recent favourite told to me by a second grader: What is brown and smells and sits in the woods? Winnie the Poo.

Zoe: [Groaning] …Something else which you’re passionate about is getting boys reading. In the UK boys typically do less well in reading tests and enjoy reading less than their female classmates – a situation which mirrors that in the US to some extent. You decided to try and do something about this by setting up Guys Read – please can you tell us a little about it?

Jon Scieszka: Boys not reading is a worldwide problem. In the US, boys have tested lower in reading in every age group for every one of the last 30 years that kids have been tested. But there has been no federal effort to address this.

I started Guys Read ten years ago first to just get people to realize that boys are having trouble, and second to try some practical solutions to get boys engaged in reading – like allowing them to read texts they enjoy, expanding the definition of reading to include humor, science fiction, graphic storytelling, non-fiction; and providing male role models for reading.

The website guysread.com collects texts that boys like to read, and suggests them to other guys.

Zoe: Are there any UK Field Offices? If someone wanted to start one, what would your advice be?

Jon Scieszka: We do have one very fine field office at the International School of Aberdeen. But there should absolutely be more UK branches. Go to the Start Your Own section of the website (http://www.guysread.com/program/) and get cracking, UK! It’s all there.

Zoe: As part of Guys Read you’ve edited and contributed to a series of themed short story books all targeted specifically at boys – their titles all make it clear that these are books for boys. I personally hate seeing books labelled as “for girls” as such titles seem to me to only pigeonhole what girls and young women can be and might like. Why is it ok to have books categorically labelled as “for boys” (or even “guys”)?

Jon Scieszka: The Guys Read Library of Great Reading is curated to give boys a reason to want to be readers. My experiences as a parent, a teacher, and a book writer have all shown me that the most effective way to inspire boys to be readers is to give them something they are interested in reading; and that in the most broad strokes, many boys are interested in types of reading that are different from what interests girls. These genre-themed short story collections aren’t meant to limit or exclude anyone. They are simply offered as a wide range of stories (written by great male and female authors) that boys can peruse … and hopefully find an author that inspires them to want to read more.

Jon’s office

Zoe: Recently there was a lot of debate and even anger here in the UK about the gendered marketing of books, a debate sparked by the author Jonathan Emmett, who argues that the UK “picture book industry reflects girls’ tastes more than it does boys’ and that this bias is exacerbating the gender gap between boys’ and girls’ reading abilities.”

To what extent do you think the same could be said for the US market?

Jon Scieszka: I think Jonathan Emmett made a very thoughtful, considered, statistical, and careful presentation about the realities of children’s publishing. The statistics and challenges he mentions for the UK are very much the same in the US. Here elementary school teachers, librarians, children’s booksellers, and children’s book prize committee members are mostly women. It is not unreasonable to wonder if this gender inequality might influence what is produced and bought and awarded in children’s books.

And I think the anger this question provokes is more about gender inequality in the wider world at large than just about kids’ books.

Zoe: Ok, so that was a pretty hefty couple of questions I guess, so now a couple of easier ones to wind down with! What’s the last book you read?

Jon Scieszka: I just finished Mac Barnett and Jon Klassen’s Sam and Dave Dig a Hole, David Mitchell’s The Bone Clocks, and Edward Creasy’s Fifteen Decisive Battles of the Western World.

Zoe: Who would your dream dinner party guests be and why?

Jon Scieszka: I would invite Auguste Escoffier to cook, Baron Rothschild and Madame Clicquot for beverages, Ursula Nordstrom and Maurice Sendak for kids book thoughts, Napoleon for a dash of military history, comedian Hannibal Buress for long funny stories, and Bugs Bunny for surreal relief.

Zoe: Would you serve noodles or stinky cheese at the party or something else entirely?

Jon Scieszka: That will be up to Monsieur Escoffier.

Zoe: And if your dinner guests begged you to read an excerpt from one of the things you’re working on right now, what would you read them?

Jon Scieszka: I think I would distract them with a dramatic reading of one of my favourite books: Go, Dog.Go! I never read unfinished pieces of stories I am working on to anyone.

Zoe: Many thanks, Jon. Here’s wishing you an exciting and welcoming time this side of the pond.

You can see Jon at the following public events:

Jon Scieszka’s website: http://www.jsworldwide.com/
Jon Scieszka on Twitter: @Jon_Scieszka

Here we are in the glory of spring.  With all the beauty just ah-popping outdoors, what better time to sequester ourselves inside to watch mad videos about children’s literature related affairs?

So first and foremost, you may have seen me make mention of the fact that I had a podcasting-related Children’s Literary Salon last weekend.  My Lit Salons are monthly gatherings of children’s literature enthusiasts who come to the main branch of NYPL to watch me finagle different topics out of incredibly interesting people.  People often ask me to record these, but at this time there is no place online for such talks to live.  Happily, that problem was solved recently when Katie Davis (Brain Burps About Books) , John Sellers (PW KidsCast), and Matthew Winner (Let’s Get Busy) came over and Matthew recorded the whole dang thing.  This is, insofar as I know, the very FIRST time a moderated event has covered this particular topic (children’s literature podcasts).  With that in mind, enjoy!

“John Newbery ate every single book he ever read”.  That was going to be my subtitle for today’s blog post.  I may still have to use it at some point because it’s one of the highlights of this James Kennedy / Libba Bray interaction at the recent 90-Second Newbery show here in NYC.  For years, I’ve been sitting on my laurels with my Randolph Caldecott music video.  Now I’ve been royally trumped and it’s all thanks to the song “What Would John Newbery Do?”  I can’t top this.

And now, with the approach of the Children’s Book Week Awards, time to break out the big guns.  And these, ladies and gents, are some SERIOUSLY big guns!

Turns out the CBC collected a whole CHUNK of these videos and they’re just out there!  Like this one starring two of my favorite author/illustrators, Amy Ignatow and Brian Biggs.  You must be SURE to stick around for the ghost of David Wiesner.  And it backs up my theory that every person in my generation has one rap song memorized.  Mine’s “Shoop”.

Nice use of “Rock Lobster” too.

We’re about three days away from El día del niño, otherwise known as the day of the child.  Unfamiliar with Dia?  Not anymore.  Here’s a quickie recap for those of you who are curious:

Día means “day” in Spanish. In 1996, author Pat Mora learned about the Mexican tradition of celebrating April 30th as El día del niño, the day of the child. Pat thought, “We have Mother’s Day and Father’s Day. Yes! We need kids’ day too, but I want to connect all children with bookjoy, the pleasure of reading.”  Pat was enthusiastically assisted to start this community-based, family literacy initiative by REFORMA, the National Association to Promote Library & Information Services to Latinos and the Spanish Speaking. El día de los niños, El día de los libros/Children’s Day, Book Day, also known as Día, is a daily commitment to link all children to books, languages and cultures, day by day, día por día. Many resources and an annual registry are available at the Association for Library Services to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA). Every year, across the country, libraries, schools, and community organizations, etc. plan culminating book fiestas creating April Children’s Day, Book Day celebrations that unite communities.
Join us!

Interested in participating? It’s not too late.  Best of all, here’s a video from previous years of what folks have done in their libraries.  Viva Dia!

We’ve sort of an embarrassment of riches this year in terms of trans boy picture books (see the 7-Imp recap of this very thing here).  Now one of those books, Morris Micklewhite and the Tangerine Dress, has a book trailer that hits on the tone about right.  Let’s put it up on the big board!

Thanks to Fred Horler for the link.

This next one is a fictional tie-in to a nonfiction subject.  Which is to say, a CCSS dream.  I’m not usually on board with rhyming picture books, but this one actually gets away with it!

And for the off-topic video of the day, we all love Neil deGrasse Tyson.  This is the video of him slowed down ever so slightly.  He loves it.  Shows it at his talks sometimes.

And for fun, you can watch the original here:

I have a sister.  Did you know that?  Tis true.  She’s not a librarian and her interest in children’s literature pretty much begins and ends with me, which is probably why she hasn’t come up before.  One thing she is?  Crafty.  Crafty as all get out.  And the kicker is that she’s just started this new blog called The How To, How Hard, and How Much to Your Creative Products.  Here’s how she describes it:

What if there was a blog out there that took Pinterest ideas and showed people how to do it, how much time it took, how much money was spent, and had a level of expertise (1-5). Maybe even sell the final product. Is this something people would read? Has it already been done? How could I rope guys into doing it (other than if it involved mustaches and bacon)? I’ve never blogged before but I feel like it might be helpful, especially since the holiday season is quickly approaching. People could even send me recommendations and I could do those as well.

And make it she has.  Amongst other things she has a wide range of Halloween ideas including spider cookies, 5 minute ideas, and my personal favorite, the cleaver cupcakes.  In fact, if you could just repin those cupcakes onto your Pinterest boards she’d be mighty grateful (there’s a contest she’s entering them into).  But of special interest to the blog (aside from outright nepotism) was her recent posting on literary jewelry where she turned a book of mine into a bracelet.  Nicely done, l’il sis.

• I attended the Society of Illustrators event the other day (did you know the place is free on Tuesdays?!) and the New York Times Best Illustrated results are on the cusp of an announcement soon.  Both lists are chosen by artists as well as librarian types, and so one could consider them the form with which artists are allowed to voice their opinions about the best of the year (just as the National Book Awards are how authors talk about writing).  Still, there are those that have disliked the Caldecott from the outset because it is decided not by artists but librarians.  Robin Smith recently dug up a 1999 interview with Barry Moser voicing just such a concern.  A hot little discussion then emerged in the Horn Book comments.  Go!  See!

• Brian Biggs + Jon Scieszka + 6 way auction = interesting.

• I think a fair number of us have seen Business Insider’s Most Famous Book Set in Every State map by this point, but I’d just like to mention that what pleases me the most about it is the fact that they included children’s books as well as adult.  Six children’s and one YA novel by my count.

• Let’s Talk About Dav Pilkey, Captain Underpants, and Misogyny.  So says author Lynn Messina.  Interesting title, no?

• And since we’re on an interesting title kick, let’s throw out another one.  True or False? Multicultural Books Don’t Sell.  We’ve all heard that argument before.  Now an actual honest-to-god bookseller tackles the question.  You may normally know Elizabeth Bluemle from the ShelfTalker blog at PW, but here she’s guest talking at Lee & Low.  Cleverly, she specifies whether or not we are talking about how they don’t sell to kids or how they don’t sell to adults.  Without giving anything away, let me just say that her experiences mirror my own in the library.

In other press release news, I am shocked and appalled that I wasn’t aware of this until now.  I mean, I knew that Kate Beaton, the genius behind Hark, A Vagrant, was working on children’s books.  What I did not know was how close to fruition my dream of shelving her in my children’s sections truly was.  The Wired blog Underwire, of all places, was the one with the scoop when they interviewed Ms. Beaton.  She discusses the book, which contains her most famous creation (the fat pony) and a princess.  Says she about princesses in general, “. . . for little girls historically [princesses] are the only people like them who had any power at all. It’s not just oh, princes and dresses. It’s also, here’s a person with agency. Is she just someone who wants a pretty dress and prince? Or is she a warrior living in a battle kingdom? I think it just depends on how you depict what a princess is.”  I think we know the direction Ms. Beaton will go in.  And I waaaant it.  Thanks to Seth Fishman for the link.

• As slogans go, this might be one of my favorites: “Kill time. Make history”.  How do you mean?  Well, NYPL is looking for a few good bored folks. Say they, “The New York Public Library is training computers how to recognize building shapes and other information from old city maps. Help us clean up the data so that it can be used in research, teaching and civic hacking.”  Sometimes I just love my workplace.

• Me stuff time.  Or rather, stuff I’m doing around and about the world that you might like to attend.  You see, on November 6th I’ll be interviewing legendary graphic novelist Paul Pope at 4pm at the Mulberry Street library branch here in NYC.  If you are unfamiliar with Mr. Pope’s name, all you really need to know is that he’s a three time Eisner Award winning artist who wrote the recent GN Battling Boy and whose work is currently on display at the Society of Illustrators on their second floor (which just means I get to tell you again that you can get in for free on Tuesdays).  This event will also be free.  If you’ve ever wondered what the “Mick Jagger of graphic novels” would look like, you’ll find out soon enough.

• Also going on in NYC, they have transferred Allegra Kent’s Ballerina Swan to the stage for kids.  Makes perfect sense when you put it that way.

• This is utterly delightful.  Recently Picture Book Month’s Education Consultant Marcie Colleen contacted me with this awesome PDF entitled Picture Book Month Teacher’s Guide: Why Picture Books Belong in Our Classrooms.  It was so useful, in fact, that I tapped her for an upcoming Children’s Literary Salon about the Core Curriculum.  More about that later, though . . .

• My reaction to finding out that Henry Selick was going to direct Adam Gidwitz’s A Tale Dark and Grimm was simple.  The best possible person is doing the best possible thing and is making everyone happy in the process.  My sole concern?  Selick’s going live action on this.  What was the last live action film he directed?  Monkeybone, you say?  Ruh-roh.  Thanks to PW Children’s Bookshelf for the link.

All right.  Me stuff off the bat.  I was recently asked to moderate a panel of authors for the Children’s Media Association.  The panel consisted of Ame Dyckman, Joanne Levy, Katherine Longshore, Elisa Ludwig, Lynda Mullaly Hunt, and Sarvenaz Tash.  During the course of the evening it was suggested that we perform a Giant Dance party.  Joanne was kind enough to edit the footage and the results . . . well, here you go.  I’m the one in the middle, for the record.

Goof-tastic!

In other news, NYPL recently turned my Children’s Literary Salon that featured Leonard Marcus talking about the current NYPL exhibit The ABC of It: Why Children’s Books Matter as interviewed by Jenny Brown into a Google+ Hangout.  Here is the gist of it.  You’ll probably want to start watching after the 5 minute mark.  Unless you like watching empty chairs.  In which case, go crazy.

It’s worth it for the info on the ivory umbrella handle info alone.

And since I’m on a roll with the NYPL events, any interest in hearing Leonard Marcus interview Judy Blume and Eric Carle at the same time?  Hit the 9:50 mark on this l’il ole video and it’s all yours.

Okay.  Now it’s time to acknowledge that Halloween is nigh.  Scaredy Squirrel created a PSA / book trailer.  Pretty good, though I’m amused that Scaredy is still drilling home the fear of apples.  In the history of man I’m pretty darn sure no one ever actually put a razorblade in a fruit.  That was a myth.  Ah well.  Scaredy wouldn’t care.  It’s still a potential threat.

In other book trailer news, this one’s pretty cute.  Let’s hear it for effective Flash animation paired with music that bloody gets caught in your brain.

And speaking of earworm music . . .

Everything Goes: By Sea (animated trailer) from Brian Biggs on Vimeo.

And for our off-topic video of the day, technically this is a GIF and not a video but I figure if it moves and slows down my computer’s operating system, that’s close enough for me.  Et voila:

EG2 cover timelapse from Brian Biggs on Vimeo.

This was such a fun video to watch - Go on over to Brian Biggs' blog to read all about his process for designing the cover for his latest book, Everything Goes In the Air. Read about the whole series on his website, here.
The Brownie & Pearl books, illustrated by Brian Biggs were well read in our home, so I think I'm overdue to check out this series.
Also of note: Brian has a vast amount of images, videos, reviews, and quotes on his site. It's a really great model for other authors/illustrators.

I know I featured this website when it first appeared but it is new and improved!  Check it out.  Everything Goes by Brian Biggs!

By Nina Schuyler, The Children’s Book Review
Published: August 9, 2012

What is it about boys and wheels? Yes, I’m making a gross generalization and relying far too heavily on anecdotal evidence, but I don’t see our neighbors with daughters outside at 6:30 am on Garbage Day, watching the parade of garbage trucks go by. All to the delight and squeals of my 14 month old son, a son who bolts up in bed when he hears the first rumble of the trucks. A son whose bedroom rug is decorated with things that go– airplanes, fire trucks, cars, trains, and helicopters—and it is the wheel, that black round object, to which he points and drools.

In honor of boys and things that go, here are a handful of new books that celebrate the wheel.

Picture Books

Trains Go

By Steve Light

Steve Light, the author and illustrator of Trains Go knows the allure of trains. It’s not just the rattle and clang or the choo choo or whoosh, it’s the length. How the train just keeps going by, car after car, as if it will never end. Light uses watercolor and black ink and beautifully illustrates trains –freight and diesel and speed and more. When you open the page, the train stretches to two feet. That’s a lot of train!

Ages 1-5 | Publisher: Chronicle Books | January 25, 2012

Train Man

By Andrea Zimmerman and David Clemesha

In Train Man, by Andrea Zimmerman and David Clemesha, we enter the realm of a boy’s imagination as he considers what he’ll be when he grows up. A train man, without a doubt, with a train man hat and overalls. As the story progresses, his toy train turns into a big engine and he is at the helm, traveling up the mountain and back down again, then finally into his room with his track and miniature trains.

Ages 2-5 | Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.| March 13, 2012

Machines Go to Work in the City

By William Low

Since I received this book a couple weeks ago, my son has picked it up probably fifty times. (You’ll see why in a second). William Low’s Machines Go to Work in the City opens with a garbage truck. “Vroooom! Here comes the garbage truck, making its run! When the truck makes its last pickup, are the garbage collectors done for the day?” The page on the left folds out or up or down to give you the answer: “No, they must go to the landfill to empty the trash.” (And then I launch into a discussion of how we want to try to recycle because look at that yucky landfill. Never too early to start, I suppose). That’s the pattern of the book as it moves through commuter trains, vacuum trucks, tower cranes and airplanes. After the umpteenth reading, my son now says very clearly and distinctly the word, “No.”

Ages 2-6 | Publisher: Henry Holt and Co.| June 5, 2012

Everything Goes On Land 

By Brian Biggs

Everything Goes On Land by Brian Biggs illustrates the entire page, using lots of color and capturing the sense of a city with its busyness and packed streets. We move through the city with a little boy and his father, who is driving. They see cars, trucks, RVs, bikes, buses, motorcycles, subway and trains. The book is interspersed with detailed explanations about particular vehicles. We even get to learn about how an electric car works. Biggs has a wonderful sense of the silly, letting the dogs and birds talk. He’s also built in a sort of I Spy game with birds wearing hats and random things that just don’t belong.

Ages 4-8 | Publisher: HarperCollins | September 13, 2011

A Chapter Book

Stealing Air

By Trent Reedy

Trent Reedy in Stealing Air has a keen sense of what might appeal to a young boy– not only things that go, but boys who build rocket bikes and real airplanes in secret sheds.( Yes, a bike that with a flip of a switch zooms down the road.) Brian, a newcomer to Iowa, makes friends with Max, who shares with him his secret—in a hidden shed, he’s building a real airplane that looks like a flying motorcycle. But Max is afraid of heights so he solicits help from Brian and Alex, the popular kid from school, to serve as pilot and co-pilot.  If the plane is ever to get off the ground, the boys have to overcome fights at home, at school, and a bully named Frankie.

Ages 8-12 | Publisher: Scholastic, Inc. | October 1, 2012

Nina Schuyler’s first novel, “The Painting,” was nominated for the Northern California Book Award and was named a ‘Best Book’ by the San Francisco Chronicle. Her next novel, “The Translator,” will be published by Pegasus Books in New York, Spring, 2013. She is the fiction editor for www.ablemuse.com and teaches creative writing at the University of San Francisco. 

Original article: Kids Car Books & Things That Go: Airplanes, Fire Trucks, & Trains. Oh, My!

©2012 The Childrens Book Review. All Rights Reserved.

Watch Brian Biggs draw the cover to his next book in the Everything Goes series: Everything Goes in the Air.

Everything Goes on Land
By Brian Biggs
Balzer & Bray (an imprint of Harper Collins)
$14.99
ISBN: 978-0-06-195809-0
Ages 3 and up
On shelves now

There is much to be said for simplicity. The elegant understated picture book that contains peaceful moments of serenity with the idea that a child might get lost in the image of a single field during a snowstorm, say, for hours at a time. Yes indeed. Nothing like it. There is much to be said for simplicity, but let me level with you. When I was a kid I liked quiet books, but only when my craving for the wild, colorful, frantic, and fast-paced had been fulfilled. It’s easy to swallow Tasha Tudor when you’ve supped first on some Seuss and Scarry. Part of what I love about picture books is that there’s room for all kinds. The long and the short. The classic and the new. The understated and, in this particular case, the overwhelming. Brian Biggs has brought to life the literary equivalent of Pop Rocks and Pixie Stix dissolved into Jolt Cola. A hugely entertaining, entirely loving citywide romp that puts the author/illustrator on the map and (I predict) will be impossible to pries from the hands of many a vehicular loving tot.

In the first few panels we see a boy and his father hop into their car and take off. Onto highways, off ramps, and finally into the big city. The two take note as they drive of all the kinds of vehicles they see. Different kinds of cars and bicycles. An array of motor homes and motorcycles. Trains and trucks. Buses and subways. Basically if you can think of the method of ground transportation, it’s in here somewhere. Biggs breaks up his incredibly detailed city scenes with close examinations of the vehicles in question. You might see the different parts the bicycle on one page or the way a motorcycle comes together on another. Finally, we learn about the duo’s ultimate destination and then it’s a quick jaunt home yet again.

No surprise that Mr. Biggs loved to pieces his copy of Richard Scarry’s Cars and Trucks and Things That Go when he was a kid. This book feels like nothing so much as the lovechild of Richard Scarry and Robert Crumb with a healthy dose of Mark Alan Stamaty for spice. I explain. The Scarry comparison is obvious. One of the great joys of his books is that in the midst of great big city scenes you can find small storylines and continuing gags. Like Scarry, Biggs makes a point of identifying vehicles of different types and kinds. Yet he also

When I was a kid, one of my favourite books was Richard Scarry’s Cars and Trucks and Things That Go — page after page of every imaginable cartoon automobile.

Today, one of my favourite children’s illustrators is Brian Biggs, and his new book Everything Goes On Land is a spiritual successor to Scarry’s book.

Mr. Biggs is so deft at drawing cars — each one with its own personality — that it’s his work I visit when I have trouble drawing cars myself. Modern cars are particularly tricky to get just right, with their weird, slick shapes. In Everything Goes, Biggs’s chunky colourful cars and trucks have a distinct old-fashionedness to them, which only adds to the charm.

And just like Richard Scarry’s book had the fun game of trying to find the hidden Goldbug on each page, so too does this book — on each page there’s a bird wearing a hat, and throughout the book the numbers 1 to 100 are hidden somewhere in the illustrations, adding a Where’s Waldo element.

So great! And there’s an Everything Goes in the Air, and an Everything Goes By Sea in the works.

Be sure, too, to visit Brian’s blog — especially under the Everything Goes category, for all sorts of process stuff and preliminary sketches. It’s where I found this trailer, too:

Eek!  We forgot to post the winners of our EVERYTHING GOES: ON LAND giveaway contest yesterday as promised!

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE FOLLOWING WINNERS!

Jana

Jennifer Coffelt

Holly Baker

We’ll contact you shortly to get your mailing address and congrats!

When I was a teenager, my little sister got into the Where’s Waldo? books.  I certainly didn’t admit it at the time – so of course I’ll admit it publicly now as a blogger – but, at 17, I totally loved those books too.  It took me so long to memorize where Waldo was on every page and, after I did that, I was able to look at all the other people and look for all the other objects.  The fun was endless, it seemed.  At any age.

That’s exactly how I feel about EVERYTHING GOES: ON LAND by Brian Biggs.  In this oversized picture book, Henry and his dad drive around town, looking at everything that goes.  It’s interactive and bright, and we have so many ways you can use it in your libraries and classrooms:

• EVENT KIT
• DOWNLOADABLE ACTIVITIES
• DOWNLOADABLE COLORING BOOK

And check out this darling book trailer:

So here’s the great news!  We’re giving away THREE COPIES of EVERYTHING GOES: ON LAND!  Post a note to us in the comments telling us what your preferred method of transportation on land is and we’ll enter you to win a copy of the book.  You have until Sunday, September 25th at 11:59 p.m. EST to enter, and I’ll announce the winners next week.  Open to U.S. and Canada only.

Add this book to your collection: Everything Goes: On Land

Have you read this book? Rate it:
Note: There is a rating embedded within this post, please visit this post to rate it.

©2011 The Childrens Book Review. All Rights Reserved.

Our popular feature is back!  Blank-Meets-Blank was actually started first by Betsy Bird at Fuse #8 – she ranks the best “Blank-Meets-Blank” when she attends publishers’ librarian previews.  This is an awesome way to booktalk to kids and teens in your library or classroom!

Today, we’re sharing the best Blank-Meets-Blanks for our upcoming Fall 2011 titles:

EVERYTHING GOES: ON LAND by Brian Biggs
On-sale 9.13.11

LIESL & PO by Lauren Oliver
On-sale 10.4.11

MO WREN, LOST AND FOUND by Tricia Springstubb
On-sale 8.23.11

VARIANT by Robison Wells
On-sale 10.4.11

EVERYTHING GOES: ON LAND by Brian Biggs (by HarperKids)

I love Brian Biggs’s art and I love big find-em books like Where’s Waldo, so you can bet I’m looking forward to Everything Goes: On Land, and its eventual sequels.

From Brian Biggs’s blog:

Over the next week I’ll be posting ten trick-or-treaters here and on my Flickr page. They need names and maybe little descriptions. This is where you come in. In the comments section here and on my blog you can give each character a name, and tell his/her story.
The contest is being judged by Adam [Rex] himself, world-famous author Judy Sierra, and if I can talk them into it, my kids. The winner will receive a copy of the book that Judy wrote and I illustrated called BEASTLY RHYMES, signed by me and I’ll draw the winning character in it. There will likely be more prizes as well. Stuff like canned fish and M&Ms. I hope to announce the winners on Halloween, Friday October 31.