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 […]
Not a terribly long list today, I’ll confess, but want to know a little secret? Come close. I’m buying a house. Yep! After living in nothing but apartments (and currently renting a home that doubles as both a mystery house and a hospice for yellow jackets) I’m finally being a great big grown-up and owning […]
Happy Fusenews day to you, guv’nor. In today’s episode we tip our hat to a post last week that is probably my most popular of all time. Who knew knitting needles could be such lightning rods? In any case, on with the newz! How old is the picture book biography as we know it […]
I do not know where Monica Edinger found our first video today. All I know is that she discovered a video that is absolutely the most interesting thing you’ll see all week. It’s a young Maurice Sendak. He’d recently won the Caldecott for Where the Wild Things Are. I’ve never seen anything like this before. […]
Some me stuff to start us off. NYPL turned its handy dandy little 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing 2014 list into an interactive bit of gorgeousness. So as to help it along, I wrote a blog post on the library’s website (I have two blogs, if you want to get technical about it, but […]
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 […]
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