Elizabeth Bird is currently New York Public Library's Youth Materials Collections Specialist. She has served on Newbery, written for Horn Book, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of NYPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on Twitter: @fuseeight.
And then it was summer. When you put out a spring prediction list you can rest safe and sure in the knowledge that there’s an entire second half of the year you haven’t seen. Now we’re in the thick of summer and while I’ve seen a good-sized chunk of the coming year, there are certainly [...]
Oh, like I was going to start off with anything else this week. Dahl was robbed! During BEA, one of the women of the hour was our own Monica Edinger (who blogged about the experience here). Her upcoming book Africa Is My Home: A Child of the Amistad is so remarkable that it is physically [...]
Things are wet in NYC these days. We’ve been experiencing a great deal of rainfall this past spring, a fact that gives me a strange sense of comfort. I can’t help but think this might be my first year here in town where all the fountains are on in all the parks this summer. I [...]
Friday, June 21, 2013 through Sunday, March 23, 2014 Stephen A. Schwarzman Building, Gottesman Exhibition Hall (Map and directions) New York Public Library The ABC of It is an examination of why children’s books are important: what and how do they teach children, and what do they reveal about the societies that produced them? Through [...]
Welcome to mid-June. That stellar time of year where librarians everywhere try to decide whether or not it’s too early in the season to put on display their five Fourth of July-related picture books (admit it – it’s true). The way my mind works it logically follows that there’s not better time to start lamenting [...]
Flora and Ulysses By Kate DiCamillo Illustrated by K.G. Campbell Candlewick Press ISBN: 978-0-7636-6742-5 $17.99 Ages 9-12 On shelves September 24th I like a bit of subtlety with my “meaning”. What I mean by that is that when I pick up a book for kids, it’s tough on me, as a reader, to go through [...]
Morning, fellow plebes! And isn’t the weather just fine and dandy these last few days? It has been in New York anyway. Which is to say, it feels like we briefly stole San Francisco’s temperatures for our own use this week. Giving it back is going to be awful. To take my mind off that, [...]
For Immediate Release Contact: Bobbie Pyron (435-645-7788, bobbie.pyron@gmail.com) Authors honor Sandy Hook victim who was an animal advocate with online auction—June 3-16, 2013 Over thirty authors—many of them award winning and New York Times best selling authors—have come together to honor Catherine Violet Hubbard, a little girl with a big dream: to provide a [...]
A Funny Little Bird By Jennifer Yerkes Sourcebooks Jabberwocky (an imprint of Sourcebooks, Inc.) $15.99 ISBN: 978-1-4022-8013-9 Ages 3-7 On shelves now When I was a kid I tried to learn how to draw by reading Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain. A lot of the book was dedicated to showing your average [...]
The other day I sat down with one Karen Coeman to discuss the state of Mexican children’s books today. Working as she does in Mexico with the hope of bringing more Mexican titles to American shores, she filled me in on a lot of the difficulties facing Mexican books for kids. Between the difficulty of [...]
You always know when I’ve been to a conference. That’s when the Press Releases start building up. Today’s actually came out of running into Lisa von Drasek at BEA, who informed me that this killer presentation in Minnesota should be better known to one and all. So if you are anywhere in or near the [...]
The sheer number of school libraries in desperate need of funding are vast and without measure. That said, there’s a special place in my heart for PS 363 here in NYC. See below for Marjorie Ingall’s plea. For more information check out the full funding site here. I wanted to give you guys a heads-up [...]
Allo! BEA is now in full swing and always assuming I wasn’t crushed to death by today’s Family Feud game (it’s librarians vs. authors and I’m on Family Librarian) I’ll hopefully be seeing at least some of you on the conference floor in the next day or so. In the meantime, take a look at [...]
As some of you may have heard, the Caldecott turns 75 this year. This begs the all important question on everyone’s lips: What are you wearing to the Newbery/Caldecott Banquet this year? And don’t tell me you’re not going. If you’re in Chicago on Sunday, June 30th then you should attend. Even if you don’t [...]
Native Americans: A Visual Exploration By S.N. Paleja Intro by Kevin Loring Annick Press $19.95 ISBN: 978-1-55451-485-4 Ages 9-12 On shelves now Nonfiction trends in children’s literature are oddities. For all that children make up such a large swath of the American population, relatively few people specialize solely in creating works of nonfiction for them [...]
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