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 [...]
Happy Mother’s Day! It was Monica Edinger who alerted me to the fact that fresh on the heels of the Matilda musical is an upcoming British production of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. She has the details and directed me to this truly unfair let’s-not-give-anything-away teaser trailer. This introduction is a bit better. You know [...]
Morning, folks. Bird here. Seems this book I’ve written with fellow bloggers Peter Sieruta of Collecting Children’s Books and Jules Danielson of Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast is in the last stages of completion. Fun With Copyedits is the name of the game this week, which means that my blogging may suffer a tad here [...]
I do more than books from time to time. On Tuesday night I had a bit of a treat. Something I’d been looking forward to for years and years was finally within my grasp. You see, a couple years ago my opera singer friend Meredith went to a performance of a musical in Stratford-on-Avon and [...]
Not sure how long I’ll get to keep calling my little news items “Fusenews” since the Fuse network, hitherto not a problem in my sphere, has just decided to call their news program, you guessed it, Fuse News. But really, who am I to complain? It’s a kicky little term. So! The 2012 Cybils Awards [...]
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 [...]
Allrighty then (remember when this phrase was a thing?). Time to whip out a Fusenews in this new format. Let’s crank her up and see what she can do! Let’s start with the me stuff. This happened while I was on vacation: The folks at the New York Times asked me to be a part [...]
Okay, so I have to ask. What is up with various members of The Decemberists and children’s literature these days? First lead singer Colin Meloy writes a fantasy novel. Now Jenny Conlee helps compose a score for a stage adaptation of Matt Phelan’s The Storm in the Barn playing at The Oregon Children’s Theater. You’ve [...]
Aw yeah. I’m breaking out the big guns today. Cute kids trying to raise library funds. The catchy song and good cause don’t hurt much either. Seems a little town called Shutesbury has been having a difficult time raising funds for a new library. Their old one is, as you can see “wicked small”. So [...]
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 [...]
The last time I did a Fusenews was more than a week ago. As such my links all seem a bit out of date. Ah well. Let’s have fun with a partially abbreviated Fusenews today then. However, to begin . . . Sometimes it feels like we always lose some of the best ones at [...]
We begin this week with something extraordinary. A book trailer that looks like a movie trailer (no real surprises there) but that includes so many specific details to its book that you’re half inclined to think that the movie version already exists. Super 8‘s actor Joel Courtney stars in trailer for The Dragon’s Tooth by [...]
Amusing. I wrote an article for SLJ about the Bologna Book Fair and why librarians should attend in droves. I was unprepared for some of the formatting choices on the piece, though. The title Betsy Goes to Bologna caught me off guard, though it’s certainly true. But it was the art created for the piece [...]
Well, first things first! The Ezra Jack Keats New Writer and New Illustrator Awards were handed out two days ago, and at long last I can finally tell you the winners. These awards are given out to new authors and illustrators of children’s books with no more than three books to their names that “portray [...]
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