Betsy Bird's Blog, page 106

Baby Changing Station: An Interview with Dan Santat and Rhett Miller

Siblings. It’s like a relationship that’s handed to you without your input or consent. Very few children actually have much of a say in whether or not their parents add additional kids to the family unit. Once acquired, younger siblings tend to stick around too. Now I’ve seen my fair share of fantasy sequences in children’s books regarding sisters and brothers. Shel Silverstein’s poem “Sister for Sale” comes instantly to mind. But it’s one thing to sell your little sister. It would be anothe...

Baby Changing Station: An Interview with Dan Santat and Rhett

Siblings. It’s like a relationship that’s handed to you without your input or consent. Very few children actually have much of a say in whether or not their parents add additional kids to the family unit. Once acquired, younger siblings tend to stick around too. Now I’ve seen my fair share of fantasy sequences in children’s books regarding sisters and brothers. Shel Silverstein’s poem “Sister for Sale” comes instantly to mind. But it’s one thing to sell your little sister. It would be anothe...

Fuse 8 n’ Kate: The Witch Next Door by Norman Bridwell

The final Halloween-inspired episode of October is always a bittersweet time. And once more, pity my sister. I happened to notice that there’s a Clifford the Big Red Dog film out in theaters at the moment and it got me to thinking. Clifford = creator Norman Bridwell. And didn’t Norman Bridwell do a Halloween book of his own once? One that I happened to remember from my own childhood? Alas for Kate, this means that we are doing a THIRD witch and broom-related picture book in a row. I’m in a w...

Review of the Day: Living Ghosts and Mischievous Monsters selected by Dan Sasuweh Jones (Ponca Nation), ill. Weshoyot Alvitre (Tongva Nation)

Living Ghosts and Mischievous Monsters: Chilling American Indian Stories
Written and selected by Dan Sasuweh Jones (Ponca Nation)
Illustrated by Weshoyot Alvitre (Tongva Nation)
Scholastic Press
$26.99
ISBN: 9781338681628
On shelves now

I mean, if I’m going to be truly honest with you, I’m just reading children’s books to satisfy the 10-year-old that still lurks inside of me. I don’t often indulge it, because if I did then I’d pretty much just end up reading ghost story after ghost story, and whe...

Nothing a Few Chickens Can’t Fix: Adam Rex and Adam Rubin on Gladys the Magic Chicken

Chickens. They’re not just for dinner anymore. Just now I was going to write something along the lines of “2021 has been a good year for chickens” and back it up with examples of books like Mr. Watson’s Chickens or Egg Marks the Spot, but then I remembered. EVERY year is a good chicken year. Seriously, I challenge you to find a year in children’s book publishing where chickens did play a significant role in some kind of book. Like bears and bunnies, chickens are particular picture book stapl...

Of Equity and Engines: The Bob McKinnon Interview That Could

It sounds like a gimmick. Like something that happens to children’s books that end up in the public domain. As I’m sure you already know, The Little Engine That Could is so ubiquitous in our culture that it shows up in our pop songs, for crying out loud. And with its strict message of hard work winning the day, one would be forgiven for thinking that it’s incapable of conveying much more than that. One certainly wouldn’t tap it as a potential conveyor of lessons in equity. Yet when Bob McKin...

Fuse 8 n’ Kate: The Widow’s Broom by Chris Van Allsburg

“If this really is the ghost of the broom, I hope it hacks the men to pieces!”

Our search for potential Halloween classics continues!! This week we turned our eyes back to good old Chris Van Allsburg. Previously seen on a Halloween-centric episode of our show with The Stranger, he has returned! This book is from 1992, and it’s had a relative amount of success. What we end up loving about it, though, is how female-centric it is. It’s all about women helping women helping women. Look at ho...

Review of the Day: Fred Gets Dressed by Peter Brown

Fred Gets Dressed
By Peter Brown
Little, Brown and Company
$18.99
ISBN: 978-0-316-20064-6
On shelves now.

If ever you want to determine where one nation differs from another, look into how nudity is portrayed in that country’s picture books. Around the world it’s a common sight. From the Korean Bath Fairy by Heena Baek to the Dutch Coco and the Little Black Dress by Annemarie van Haeringen, to whatever the heck it is that Babette Cole was up to with Mummy Laid an Egg. In America? It’s different....

Free Will and Destiny in Middle Grade Fiction: A Talk With Karla Arenas Valenti of Lotería

Confession Time: I don’t read every book of every single person I interview.

I admit it! I don’t! Sometimes that’s because the book hasn’t come out yet. Sometimes it’s because I am lazy. Generally if it’s a picture book I’ll have to read it, of course, but middle grade fiction? Only sometimes. And today is one of those sometimes.

Karla Arenas Valenti

On October 27th I will be in conversation with Karla Arenas Valenti at our favorite feminist Chicago bookstore Women and Children First. T...

Cover Reveal & Interview: ARMADILLO ANTICS by Bill Martin Jr & Michael Sampson w/Art by Nathalie Beauvois

All right. This is a bit of a treat.

You know, I never had the pleasure of meeting Bill Martin Jr. Alas, he passed away in 2004, as I was just starting my first librarian job. Yet think how much poorer the field of books for kids would be without his contributions. No Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. No Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? And as it happens, he’s still producing (after a fashion).

Now as much as I would love to feature an interview with him today, that’s probably not going t...