100 Scope Notes
July 31, 2017 by Betsy Bird
Last year I went a little bit gaga over a book that I truly thought was a standout. And while Cloud and Wallfish by Anne Nesbet didn’t get any of the Newbery love I so craved for it, my admiration for Ms. Nesbet’s work is, was, and ever more shall be through the roof. Fast […]
July 31, 2017 by Betsy Bird
We recorded this week’s podcast during Shark Week. What better way to celebrate than to read the shiniest fishy in the sea. This week we experimented with putting me in the left ear and Kate in the right. Is this a good way of handling the problem of our similar voices or deeply annoying to […]
July 27, 2017 by Betsy Bird
Today on the Fusenews we begin with a mystery. Help me out here, gentle readers, I need your crowdsourced wisdom to solve a query for the ages. Every week I get my new copy of Publishers Weekly and settle down during my lunch break to read it cover to cover. It is one of my […]
July 26, 2017 by Betsy Bird
Let’s Clap, Jump, Sing & Shout; Dance, Spin & Turn It Out! Games, Songs & Stories from an African American Childhood By Patricia McKissack Illustrated by Brian Pinkney Schwartz & Wade (an imprint of Penguin Random House) $24.99 ISBN: 978-0-375-87088-0 All ages On shelves now. Would you like to know the last film Orson Welles […]
July 24, 2017 by Betsy Bird
Oh. We’re churning them out now. We’ve got a rhythm. We’ve got a beat. And now we’re going to start rip-roaring through our books. This week’s podcast episode (found here or on iTunes under “Kate n’ Fuse 8”) was a good one too. I decided to finally crack one of the Top Ten books that […]
July 23, 2017 by Betsy Bird
Over at Read-Aloud Revival they hosted two of my favorite people in conversation. Honestly if you could just give Jeanne Birdsall and N.D. Wilson their own talk show, I would be first in line to be in the studio audience. Here’s how they described this talk at Anderson’s Bookshops: Jeanne and N.D. are good friends, […]
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July 20, 2017 by Betsy Bird
Recently I had a chance to see an upcoming jacket for a 2018 middle grade novel. Check it out: If the name “Varian Johnson” is ringing a bell, it may be because of this cover a couple years ago: His 2018 book, The Parker Inheritance, is billed as having distinct similarities to The Westing Game […]
July 18, 2017 by Betsy Bird
Sometimes people turn to children’s literature in an attempt to ignore the goings on in the world today. But books for kids don’t exist in bubbles. A person could spend their entire life examining the many ways in which the world of adults seeps into books for kids. Why is this? Sometimes it’s unconscious. Sometimes […]
July 17, 2017 by Betsy Bird
New episode, new episode, new episode, alert, alert! It’s been a little while but we’ve a new episode up and running. I’m so pleased to say that my podcast Fuse 8 n’ Kate which I do with my sister went in a distinctly Sendakian direction. We delve deep into the oddities of the book, some […]
July 13, 2017 by Betsy Bird
On Monday I gave two talks at the 2017 NerdCamp conference held in Parma, MI. This would be the second time I spoke at the conference and my talks probably couldn’t have been more diametrically opposed. The first was one of those slam dunk panels you hope for. I had the chance of moderating a […]
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