The biggest news of the day came in the form of a single headline in The New York Times yesterday: New York Library Drops Plan to Renovate Flagship. Whoa! So. That happened. Wowzah. This news comes to us less than a week after Coldplay (yes, that Coldplay) hid something in one of the books [...]
Previously on A Fuse #8 Production . . . In 2012 I came up with a crazy idea. We all love Dr. Seuss. We all know his work. So for fun I asked folks to illustrate a scene from their favorite Seuss book in the style of a different children’s author. The result: The Re-Seussification [...]
Meet Isol. Incredibly badass Isol. The fact that you may not know her name instantly is a crime. We Americans are fairly . . . how to put this . . . screamingly awful about paying attention to authors and illustrators from other countries. Isol won the most recent Astrid Lindgren Award, but she’s hardly [...]
Dwell not on the fact that you were unable to attend the Newbery/Caldecott Banquet whilst your fellows caroused to all hours of the night (or so I assume . . . I left when I felt sleepy, party animal that I am). Now you can feel like you were there in the supple flesh all [...]
You know what’s hot these days, topic-wise? Diversity! Or maybe just the lack thereof. Seems its all anyone can talk about this week. First the First Book blog reported that “at the 2013 Clinton Global Initiative America (CGI America) meeting, hosted by President Bill Clinton, [they] announced First Book’s commitment to create a sustainable solution [...]
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, [...]
Now this is really neat. There’s a series called BOOKD through THINKR (apparently E’s are considered gauche these days) that will take a topic and really go into it with a panel of experts. In this particular case the question is whether or not you should re-read Charlotte’s Web. Author Bruce Coville and teacher/blogger/author Monica [...]
I must apologize to you for falling down on my regular Video Sundays. Saturday night I made the executive decision to rewatch Ghostbusters so as best to ascertain its relative awesomeness. Conclusion: The movie continues to rock. I was surprised to hear that the shots of the Ghostbusters in the stacks of my library were [...]
Sign up today and be the first to receive School Library Journal‘s exclusive PDF collecting all of the Top 100 Picture Books posts from Fuse 8′s Betsy Bird. Simply fill out linked form and you will receive an email with a link to download the PDF as soon as it’s published! #1 Where the Wild [...]
#79 Pierre by Maurice Sendak (1962) 25 points Growing up, my first exposure to Pierre came when I joined the Kalamazoo Civic Youth Theater, a program for the kids of Kalamazoo, and did tech work on their production of Really Rosie. There I saw firsthand a sung version of the ultimate in children-being-eaten literature (here’s [...]
We’ve lost one of the old guard. One of our legends. The fellow you could name in a crowded room and find that everyone, regardless of their age or occupation, knew in some way. Maurice Sendak, as I’m sure we all know by now, passed away Tuesday. While the CBC Gala celebrating the Children’s Book [...]
And then it’s February. How the heckedy heck did that happen? Looks like 2012 is already establishing itself as the Blink and You’ll Miss It year. Well, let’s get to it then. First and foremost was the announcement of Battle of the Books 2012. Or, as I like to think of it, the place where [...]
You just know a video is big when it has folks outside the usual children’s literary circles talking about it. Such was the case with the recent Colbert Report interview with Maurice Sendak. Somebody must have tipped off Stephen to the fact that Maurice would make for a brilliant interview. It’s pretty clear from the [...]
Yesterday we had a fabulous Children’s Literary Salon at the library with Jules Feiffer, Laurie Keller, Nick Bruel, and Dave Roman. Afterwards we swapped stories and someone started to tell me that once Maurice Sendak paired with the Pilobolus Dance Theater for a theatrical presentation. And since this is the 21st -century I was able [...]
Because when it comes to downright silly blog titles, I am one with the universe. In a recent interview with The Guardian, Maurice Sendak was heard to say that of all his books over the years his favorite, without a doubt, is Outside Over There. Funny. I would have pegged him as a Higglety Pigglety [...]
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