Wow. I miss a week of videos and suddenly I have more than I can handle. Magnificent! Let’s start off with some book trailers then. Leila at bookshelves of doom turned me onto this stellar trailer for a picture book. Scieszka/Lane fans rejoiceth. The time for mixing seafood and flour biscuits is nigh. My friend [...]

I had just such a lovely day yesterday.  The patrons were sweet and asked questions that I could actually answer.  The children crushed only one Lifesaver candy into our carpet.  The weather was soft and sweet, the city full of last minute film shoots, and all was right with the world.  Aaaaaaaah. From the Department [...]

Running a literary children’s blog requires a certain level of restraint. The person who reviews picture books and middle grade novels and YA titles is going to have a gap in their repertoire here and there. Unless, of course, they do it for a living (which, insofar as I know, is not yet an option). [...]

(CONTINUED FROM PART ONE) Oh, but he’s a sweet guy. When I got to the front Perry gave me a great big hug, remembered my name, and even had the first ever Hot Man of Children’s Literature story, which I shall recount here. *ahem* How People Magazine Found Perry Moore Because I do not have [...]

Last year I served on the Newbery committee which was fun, awesome, and ultimately very exhausting.  Attempting to read every children’s book published in 2006 turned out to be quite a feat.  After a while I would notice weird trends in the titles that passed under my nose.  Kids who got their hands injured in [...]

MotherReader has posted the megalist of the Best Books of 2007. Those of you looking for Newbery and Caldecott contenders (to say nothing of the other awards) would do well to consider the books listed here. Just looking at it I could see a couple titles I should have added to my own list. Happily, [...]

I’m just warming up!  Here is even MORE news for the day.  HA HA! I justify letting you know that Stephen Fry has a blog by pointing out that he reads the Harry Potter audio books in England.  A slim but sufficient connection. Oz and Ends speculates that So You Want to be a Wizard [...]

By and large, if an artist is generous and draws something nice and pretty for me I won’t usually blog about it on this site.  I may love the work but how is it applicable to A Fuse #8 Production as a whole?  Today’s image is therefore an exception to this rule. Jon Buller must [...]

You can live a long time in New York City and never know about rather large, rather important, rather influential literary organizations until they pop up in front of your nose.  So it was that had you said the words, "PEN American Center" or "PEN Children’s Book Committee" to me roughly one week ago I [...]

(CONTINUED FROM PART ONE) Being that the evening was based on the concept of providing honest books for young readers, it seemed logical for the discussion to take into account the idea of what it is to "lie".  Lipsyte was adamant on this point.  He made it very clear that lying is NEVER acceptable in [...]

(CONTINUED FROM PART TWO) It all got me to thinking too.  I mean, what do we consider "lying" in fiction?  Remember the anger that was lobbied against The Boy in the Striped Pajamas?  Were people mad because they felt that the whole fable aspect wasn’t a delightful trope but, instead, a very painful lie?  How [...]