Fusenews: Thwart Warts

Monster haikus like "Tokyo summer. / Mothra flies into a sign / again and again," may be the official domain of author/illustrator Adam Rex but that’s not going to stop him from holding a Kaiju Haiku Contest!  Adults, you are allowed to enter but the magnificent grand prize (and it is pretty magnificent) is going to a kid anyway, so you may as well just pass this on to a little one.  Potential prizes and rules are listed on Adam’s site and he also includes this helpful note: "Teachers! Want to submit the entries of your entire class at once? Post them all together in one comment, or email them to me and I’ll do it."  Whatta feller.

• For her recent Cool Overlooked Book posting, Finding Wonderland takes a long luxurious glance at Jean and Johnny by Beverly Cleary.  She’s not a particular fan of the newest cover on the title, but I rather like it.  Certainly it circulates better than our old beat up yet authentic hardcover.  Besides, name me all the books you can where a girl is pictured with a cute boy and she’s wearing glasses.  Maybe one of those Wrinkle in Time editions.  Maybe.

• I was flipping through my regular reading of Golden Age of Comic Book Stories and saw that Mr. Door Tree had done a piece on some of the work of illustrator Kay Nielsen.  I know very little of Nielsen’s life, work, or gender.  What I do know is that any artist that can create this image:

and this image:

in the same book deserves copious claps, not to mentions pats of the head.  Check out the full post for more beauts.

• The other day I’m at author Lisa Graff‘s birthday party and her agent Stephen Barbara imparts a bit of knowledge that somehow I’d missed in the clutter and business of my day-to-day living.  Children’s editor turned agent Michael Stearns has a blog!  A blog called As the World Stearns (groan).  How ’bout that.  It’s a nice little place to visit too.  For example he produced quite a lovely post the other day on one of his favorite children’s books from youth Half Magic.  Add it to your industry links ASAP.

• Speaking of magnificent blogs, illustrator Calef Brown’s site Polkabats is really worth reading.  I’ve been a fan of Mr. Brown’s work ever since I read his Flamingos on the Roof a couple years ago.  Plus I find myself mesmerized by posts with text and pictures along the lines of:

"Government scientists, working diligently
over the past decade, have finally developed
an ice cream cone capable of battling
oversized evil insects. They have not , however,
perfected the piece of cake which can thwart warts."

• Daily Image:

Hypnotic prints for purchase abound at the elsita Etsy shop.  Some, as you can see, are mighty children’s literature-centric:

Sort of Hans Christian Andersen, aren’t they? This is the one I’d buy in a heartbeat (what with my last name and all):

Thanks very much to Sherry Parker for the link.