I think the nicest thing about the internet, for me anyway, is that if you wait around long enough things that you’ve seen live will appear online and then you can let lots of people know about them. For example, this video of Daniel Handler/Lemony Snicket and Maira Kalman is not new. It does, however, [...]
Review of the Day: Splendors and Glooms by Laura Amy Schlitz
By on December 13, 2012
Splendors and Glooms
By Laura Amy Schlitz
Candlewick Press
$17.99
ISBN: 978-0-7636-5380-4
Ages 10 and up
On shelves now.
Do you remember that moment in the film version of The Princess Bride where the grandfather is trying to convince his stubborn grandson that the book he’s about to read is fantastic? He lures the kid in by saying the book [...]
Review of the Day: Splendors and Glooms by Laura Amy Schlitz
By on December 13, 2012
Splendors and Glooms By Laura Amy Schlitz Candlewick Press $17.99 ISBN: 978-0-7636-5380-4 Ages 10 and up On shelves now. Do you remember that moment in the film version of The Princess Bride where the grandfather is trying to convince his stubborn grandson that the book he’s about to read is fantastic? He lures the kid [...]
Giving Scaredy New Reasons to Fear: A Gingerbread House Extravaganza (With Some Shrinky Dinks for Spice!)
By on December 11, 2012
The jolly gift of the season, for me, is to have friends with oodles, sheer oodles, of talent just ah-flowing out of their gills (so to speak). Last year I posted about how some buddies and I got together to make Shrinky-Dink Christmas ornaments (which, in turn, led to Shrinky-Dink Caldecott jewelry later in the [...]
Giving Scaredy New Reasons to Fear: A Gingerbread House Extravaganza (With Some Shrinky Dinks for Spice!)
By on December 11, 2012
The jolly gift of the season, for me, is to have friends with oodles, sheer oodles, of talent just ah-flowing out of their gills (so to speak). Last year I posted about how some buddies and I got together to make Shrinky-Dink Christmas ornaments (which, in turn, led to Shrinky-Dink Caldecott jewelry later in the [...]
Video Sunday: “…Rousseau and his mate Voltaire.”
By on December 9, 2012
Oh, why not. Let’s just start with what is undoubtedly the best thing ever. Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending the 90-Second Newbery and James Kennedy, the author and organizer, was clever enough to know how to start things off. It seems that Aaron Zenz and his Boogie Woogie kids have made another [...]
Video Sunday: “…Rousseau and his mate Voltaire.”
By on December 9, 2012
Oh, why not. Let’s just start with what is undoubtedly the best thing ever. Last weekend I had the pleasure of attending the 90-Second Newbery and James Kennedy, the author and organizer, was clever enough to know how to start things off. It seems that Aaron Zenz and his Boogie Woogie kids have made another [...]
Fusenews: Bets lists towards best book lists
By on December 7, 2012
The best books lists are abundant and here! So very exciting, yes? I do love this time of year, and so it makes sense to begin with the cream of the crop. I refer, of course, to NYPL’s 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing 2012. Split into seven different categories (Picture Books, Folk and Fairy [...]
Fusenews: Bets lists towards best book lists
By on December 7, 2012
The best books lists are abundant and here! So very exciting, yes? I do love this time of year, and so it makes sense to begin with the cream of the crop. I refer, of course, to NYPL’s 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing 2012. Split into seven different categories (Picture Books, Folk and Fairy [...]
Review of the Day: The Chicken Problem by Jennifer Oxley and Billy Aronson
By on December 5, 2012
The Chicken Problem By Jennifer Oxley and Billy Aronson Random House $16.99 ISBN: 978-0-375-86989-1 Ages 3-7 On shelves now. I was once in Prospect Park in Brooklyn when I passed a very small child wearing a porkpie hat running as fast as his chubby legs could carry him. Behind him his father yelled out (to [...]
Review of the Day: The Chicken Problem by Jennifer Oxley and Billy Aronson
By on December 5, 2012
The Chicken Problem
By Jennifer Oxley and Billy Aronson
Random House
$16.99
ISBN: 978-0-375-86989-1
Ages 3-7
On shelves now.
I was once in Prospect Park in Brooklyn when I passed a very small child wearing a porkpie hat running as fast as his chubby legs could carry him. Behind him his father yelled out (to little avail), “Pontius! Pontius, [...]
Press Release Fun: Independent Publishing In an Age of Mass Marketing
By on December 4, 2012
Let hurricanes deter us not. Sandy might have delayed my next Children’s Literary Salon at NYPL, but we have regroup, recouped, and reassembled. Come this Saturday to see a panel that is all the more timely in the wake of the Penguin/Random House merger. The description reads:
While huge companies like Scholastic, Macmillan, Harper Collins, [...]
Press Release Fun: Independent Publishing In an Age of Mass Marketing
By on December 4, 2012
Let hurricanes deter us not. Sandy might have delayed my next Children’s Literary Salon at NYPL, but we have regroup, recouped, and reassembled. Come this Saturday to see a panel that is all the more timely in the wake of the Penguin/Random House merger. The description reads: While huge companies like Scholastic, Macmillan, Harper Collins, [...]
Librarian Preview: Chronicle Books (Spring/Summer 2013)
By on December 3, 2012
With all the mergers going on within the publishing world these days, a couple librarians and I were joking the other day about those mergers we’d actually like to see. And because we are horribly spoiled east-coasters it didn’t take long for us to wish that Chronicle Books could merge with someone like Enchanted Lion [...]
Fusenews: Grumble fish
By on November 30, 2012
“Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again.”
That would be an old line from a TV column in the Marin Independent Journal by one Rick Polito describing the film The Wizard of Oz. My brother-in-law Steve brought it up [...]
Pop Song Picture Books: A Couple Predictions
By on November 27, 2012
With the odd exception, it’s safe to say that when it comes to celebrity picture books most of us out here in libraryland are less than impressed. The announcement that the latest reality star or pop singer has a picture book coming out allows us to check out the illustrator’s talent far more often than [...]
Review of the Day: Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales (One Dead Spy & Big Bad Ironclad) by Nathan Hale
By on November 26, 2012
Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales: One Dead Spy
Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales: Big Bad Ironclad!
By Nathan Hale
Amulet (an imprint of Abrams)
$12.95
ISBN: 978-1-419700396-6
ISBN: 978-1-4197-0395-9
Ages 9-12
On shelves now
If you should find that you share your name with a Revolutionary War Hero you have various ways of making use of that fact. You could join Revolutionary War re-enactors [...]
Fusenews: The P.D. Eastman Influence
By on November 23, 2012
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 [...]
Thanksgiving Greetings from Your Friendly Neighborhood Swede
By on November 22, 2012
Press Release Fun: The 90-Second Newbery Film Festival Returns to New York City!
By on November 21, 2012
And I am SO going to be there. This is a crazy good line-up.
Thalia Kids’ Book Club Presents
The 2012 90-Second Newbery Film Festival
Sunday, December 2 at 4 pm at Symphony Space
All Tickets: $15 ($12 for members)
This special event marks the debut screening of the top videos submitted by kids to the second annual 90-Second Newbery Film [...]
