I had a good time writing and article for School Library Journal this month about social media. They sneakily went and added an illustration (by Tom Richmond) of me where I’m sporting my favorite green sweater. Click here to see the sweater (oh, and read the article).

As a sidebar, I listed five people you should be following on Twitter. Click here for that list.

It’s a hotly contested race, but I’d say Unshelved wins with a USB drive that looks like a card catalog. They pulled off a hugely successful Kickstarter to make it happen. Click here to see it.

My award for Best Recent Interview goes to Watch. Connect. Read. and Lane Smith. Click here to read it.

My close runner-up for Best Recent Interview goes to Out of the Box and B.J. Novak, who talks about making a picture book without pictures. Click here to read it.

Have you been noticing a rise in the number of clever book covers featuring skulls? This post over at Likey Stories confirms your suspicion. To this list I’d also add the upcoming Diamond Boy (see above).

Forward has a profile of ‘former Zen Buddhist, former cult member, former NPR commentator, former sculptor’ and children’s author Daniel Pinkwater. Fascinating stuff. Click here to read.

(Thanks to Boing Boing for the link)

Did you know there’s a Counting By 7s film in the works? Waking Brain Cells has the info. Click here to read it.

The Five of Us by Quentin Blake. Out March 3, 2015

Like many people, I’m a sucker for a good teamwork story. Especially the kind where everyone brings a specialty to the table. If it’s created by children’s literature legend Quentin Blake, all the better.

You’ve gotta love it when you send out a random tweet requesting a blog about furniture in picture books and someone says “I agree, and I’m going to do it”. It all happened after I read The Memory of an Elephant: An Unforgettable Journey, a book full of well-known 20th century furniture. I tweeted that it would be cool to see a blog or post that looked at furniture in picture books. Danielle over at This Picture Book Life was game, and whipped up an excellent post on the topic. Click here to read it.