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Elizabeth Bird (fusenumber8@gmail.com) is a children’s librarian at the New York Public Library and blogs at “A Fuse #8 Production” on SLJ ’s website. Her last feature for the magazine, “Betsy Goes to Bologna” ( July 2011), offered a bird’s-eye view of the world’s largest kids’ book fair.
Now that Heavy Medal and Calling Caldecott have been revving their proverbial engines, my idle speculations and fantasies get a bit more oomph. The nice thing is that nothing Heavy Medals has discussed so far strikes me as a serious contender (except the Spinelli, of course). I’m also choosing to post this the same morning [...]
Monster On the Hill By Rob Harrell Top Shelf Productions $16.28 ISBN: 978-1-603090759 Ages 8-12 On shelves now See, people? *shakes book in the air* How hard is this, really? I stand beside thousands of children’s librarians who have, for years now, been in a bit of a pickle with the kiddos when it comes [...]
While technically this isn’t a proper press release, I think it’s worth noting. I once conducted a Children’s Literary Salon at NYPL about alternative children’s libraries in New York City. Libraries that are free and open to the public, but you have to know about them. The Children’s Book Council’s library was amongst those included. [...]
Today I shall begin by ripping out your heart and stomping it into tiny shreds upon the floor. You may be aware that for years I have worked with the real Winnie-the-Pooh toys at NYPL. You may also know that the real Christopher Robin had a serious falling out with his father about the books. [...]
Ah. I’ve been lax on my announcements here. Did I mention to you that this past Saturday I’d be hosting a Children’s Literary Salon at NYPL that was all about the Caldecott Award winning artist duo The Petershams? I did not. I have been lax. Thus, in the spirit of humble self-promotion I present my [...]
The Meanest Birthday Girl By Josh Schneider Clarion Books (an imprint of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt) $14.99 ISBN: 978-0-547-83814-4 Ages 6-9 On shelves now. Life is easier when you can categorize it. When you can slot it in a distinct category and reduce everything to black and white terms. Gray is problematic and messy, after all. [...]
Ah, trailer premiers! They only come along once in a while but they’re often quite nice to see. Today we have the privilege of hosting the world premier of of the book trailer for Peggy Eddleman’s Sky Jumpers. I’m partial to this one, possibly because it feels like Land of the Lost to me, what [...]
Ben Rides On By Matt Davies A Neal Porter Book, Roaring Brook Press (an imprint of Macmillan) $16.99 ISBN: 978-1-59643-794-4 Ages 3-7 On shelves now. The cartoonist as great children’s book author is not a given. Consider the sad case of Berkeley Breathed, for example. He achieved levels of unattainable brilliance when he penned Bloom [...]
They say that there are more children’s book authors and illustrators in Brooklyn than any other city in the nation. How appropriate then that they should be the ones behind the inaugural Atlantic Avenue Children’s Literature Contest. The rules are simple: If you have never written a published children’s book then you are eligible. You [...]
Farmer Will Allen and the Growing Table By Jacqueline Briggs Martin Illustrated by Eric-Shabazz Larkin Readers to Eaters Books ISBN: 978-0-9836615-3-5 $17.95 Ages 4-8 On shelves September 10th It shouldn’t be this hard. You walk to a biography section of a children’s room, any children’s room, and you start searching for biographies of living people [...]
There must be a psychological disorder associated with an extreme preference for speculation over cold hard facts. Or, at the very least, a layman’s term for it. But until I research this fully, let us indulge my proclivities and talk a little about the National Ambassador of Young People’s Literature and all that it entails. [...]
A conservative estimate would say that around seven people sent me this particular video this week. A hat tip to every last person who set out to alert then. I wasn’t necessarily going to make a Video Sunday this week, but after watching this I just couldn’t pass this up. The editing, man, the editing!! [...]
Howdy, folks! So as crazy as it sounds, some 2014 titles have been wandering into my arms. And if that weren’t enough, some of them look positively awesome. With the given understanding that I’ve only read a few of these (and they were picture books, so I’m not exactly straining my abilities here) I present [...]
Africa Is My Home: A Child of the Amistad By Monica Edinger Illustrated by Robert Byrd Candlewick Press $17.99 ISBN: 978-0-7636-5038-4 Ages 9-12 On shelves October 8th It’s no secret that nonfiction in children’s literature is the buzzword of the day. Thanks to the rise of interest in the Core Curriculum State Standards, kids are [...]
Rifka Takes a Bow By Betty Rosenberg Perlov Illustrated by Cosei Kawa Kar-Ben Publishing (a division of Lerner) $17.95 ISBN: 978-0-7613-8127-3 Ages 4-8 On shelves now. History is written by the winners, they say. I’m going to lump personal history into that too. As far as I can tell, if you live long enough to [...]
All right bloggy woggers. Woggy bloggers. Froggy woggy moggy snoggers. I’m having a silly day, it seems. In any case, the time has come once again for folks to apply to be Cybils judges. Basically if you have a blog about children’s or YA books and you’d like to be on a judging panel for [...]
God Got a Dog By Cynthia Rylant By Marla Frazee Beach Lane Books (an imprint of Simon & Schuster) $17.99 ISBN: 978-1-4424-6518-3 Ages 9 and up On shelves October 29th I’ve been thinking a lot lately about whom children’s books are really for. Kids, obviously. And parents that will have to (hopefully, potentially) read those [...]
