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 [...]
The last few days have been a blur, helped not a bit by a toddler who suddenly took it into her head that 4:45 a.m. is a perfectly reasonable time to wake up and that perfectly reasonable people should be up and about and WHY ISN’T MOMMY BEING PERFECTLY REASONABLE ABOUT THIS???? … WAAAAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH! So [...]
Hope you all had a marvelous Thanksgiving yesterday! I had family in town, including my niece and brother-in-law. Steve, the bro-in-law in question, has a kind of genius for synthesizing down P.D. Eastman books to their most essential lessons. He’s always objected to Are You My Mother? on the basis that this baby bird is [...]
#3 Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus by Mo Willems (2003) 198 points Proof that temper tantrums are an art form of their own. – DaNae Leu Top three betraying my love for fourth-wall-breaking. – Robin Parry Remember when picture books never broke the 4th wall? When I read this book to students after [...]
#7 Knuffle Bunny, A Cautionary Tale by Mo Willems (2004) 129 points These perfect pictures of New York City complement the family tale of Daddy who is wrong, wrong, wrong, and Trixie, who is totally right, but can’t yet say words to tell him. Heartwarming and hilarious. – Diantha McBride And this is the book [...]
#26 We Are in a Book by Mo Willems (2010) 59 points Great to read aloud. This book has a lot of emotions- humor, sadness (especially when we near the end), etc. Brings the characters to life- and teaches about the “metaphysical” on a grade school level. – Gina Detate After getting to know and [...]
#60 There Is a Bird on Your Head by Mo Willems (2007) 31 points I love so many of these, and so do the kids at my school. I find them reading – and acting them out – all the time, even though they’ve been read and reread and reread. And not just the youngest [...]
Yep. Odds are that this may be the best book trailer ever produced for a classic work of children’s literature. I mean, looking at it don’t you feel inclined to reread the book? I sure as heck do. And remember, if you want to see Lois Lowry, Madeleine L’Engle, Rebecca Stead, and R.L. Stine talk [...]
I can’t pinpoint what it was that made me think of this. In this day and age with children’s picture book characters appearing as television and movie characters every other minute, to say nothing of the new deals being made with the names of classics we all grew up with, it’s a lot easier to [...]
Yep. A good old-fashioned bit of library/musical theater parody. Joyce Valenza got some students to explain curation things Broadway style. They do a good job. I was trying to think up other Fiddler-inspired MLIS songs but it’s tough. 20 points if you can come up with another. I like to say that writing a really [...]
Somewhere along the way I completely missed this Percy Jackson video in which everyone from Brian Selznick to a moustachioed Eoin Colfer (when did that happen?) chat it up. Video #2 contains a bit of advice that John Rocco actually had to contend with when he made the jacket for The Lightening Thief: “Green covers [...]
Ruh-roh. I’ve been having too much fun earning a living to leave enough time for blogging. Time yet again for a super quickie point-by-point-without-the-details Fusenews! Hold onto your hats . . . Who are the artists overlooked by the Caldecott? Elizabeth Bluemle has the scoop. An East Harlem bookstore needs your help! Thanks to Heather [...]
Maybe half a year ago I mentioned that Ms. Lucy Knisley had created a cartoon poster for the first four Harry Potter books. Now with the final Potter movie coming out, the posters are at long last complete. They follow the plots of the books, not the films, but the look of the characters can [...]
Oh, blooming heck. Now if you clicked on this little video image then you probably read the explanation of what it is. If you would rather stay comfortable on this blog for the time being, however, simply know that Mo Willems created a delightful little video for this year’s Children’s Choice Awards. Then things went [...]
It begins! The thing with the books and the thing with the thing. Which, if you wish me to be slightly more coherent, roughly translates to, “It begins! The Battle of the Kids’ Books wherein great authors go through great books to decide which ones they like the best!” This little video is kicking everything [...]
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