It is WAY too late in the day for me to be only starting a Fusenews post now.  All right, guys. Looks like we’re gonna have to do today double quick time.  Sorry, but I’ve a ticking time bomb in the other room (sometimes also known as “my daughter”) and I gotsta gets to bed before midnight.  Here we go!

How does one receive the news that they won a Caldecott?  Peter Brown gives us the rundown. February means only one thing.  The Brown Bookshelf has resumed their 28 Days Later campaign.  So stop complaining about the fact that black writers and illustrators aren’t better acknowledged and actually read all about them!  This is your required reading of the month.  And no, I’m not joking. Some sad Obit news.  Diane Wolkstein, storyteller and picture book/folktale author passed away after heart surgery in Taiwan. Happier news.  My mom, the published poet, gets interviewed by Foreword Magazine.  Note the copious Little Women references. The happiest news of all.  This will, if you are anything like me, make your day.  Delightful doesn’t even begin to describe it.  Thanks to Robin Springberg Parry for the link. Were you aware that there was an offensive Flat Stanley book out there?  Nor I.  And yet . . . Hat tip to the ShelfTalker folks for actually putting together the top starred books of 2012.  Mind you, only YA titles can get seven stars because (I think) they include VOYA.  Ah well. Breaking News: People use libraries.  In a related story, sun is hot and water is wet.  Sheesh. My new favorite thing?  Jon Klassen fan art.  Like this one from Nancy Vo.  Cute. Meet Eerdmans, my new best friend.  Look what they put on their books for the last ALA Midwinter.

Thanks to Travis Jonker for the heads up!

Hey!  Public school librarians and public library librarians!  Want money?  The Ezra Jack Keats Foundation is giving away grants.  Free money!  Take it, people, take it! The Battle of the (Kids’) Book Contenders are announced and nigh.  I’m a little bit late with that info.  Ah well. One of my children’s librarians has been getting twenty different kinds of attention because she circulated an American Girl doll.  Now try and picture how many donations she now has to deal with.  Yup. An interesting use of the term “whittle”.  As in, “I think I’m going to whittle off all the toes on my feet”.  Except more drastic, less cosmetic. A very personal response from Zetta Elliott after this last awards round.  She’s out. Travis Jonker and the very fun idea to create a Children’s Literature casting call.  I’d counter that Josh Radnor is more Jarrett Krosoczka (though I may be just a bit confused since Jarrett was actually in the background of an episode of How I Met Your Mother in the past), Lisa Loeb is more Erin E. Stead, Neal Patrick Harris as either Mac Barnett or Adam Gidwitz, Stanley Tucci as Arthur A. Levine, and maybe Jeffrey Wright as Kadir Nelson, except that Kadir is better looking.  Hm.  This will bear additional thought. Daily Image:

Fair play to The College of Creative Design. I do like this new ad campaign of theirs.

Thanks to The Infomancer for the link.