Betsy Bird's Blog, page 108

Fuse 8 n’ Kate: Blast Off by Linda C. Cain and Susan Rosenbaum, ill. Leo and Diane Dillon

Kate and I are on a perpetual hunt for older children’s books that broke new ground, and show that the history of children’s book publishing could occasionally incorporate a wider variety of voices and styles. Today we take a trip back to 1973 to a book that was originally released just a year after the final Apollo missions. It has now been reprinted for the first time in years by The New York Review Children’s Collection, released just last week. Think that’s good? Kate points out that thi...

When Carrot Met Cookie: Book Trailer Premiere!

In this world, my children, you have your cookies and you have your carrots. And then you have your picture books that talk about them using 1980s references. THAT is what I call a good idea.

When Carrot Met Cookie is the latest offering from author Erica Perl and illustrator Jonathan Fenske. Here’s the best description of it:

“When their other pals make fun of their friendship, Cookie and Carrot start to wonder if different food groups can ever really be friends, in this “punny” tal...

Review of the Day: Someone Builds the Dream by Lisa Wheeler, ill. Loren Long

Someone Builds the Dream
By Lisa Wheeler
Illustrated by Loren Long
Dial Books for Young Readers (an imprint of Penguin Random House)
ISBN: 978-1-9848-1433-3
$19.99
On shelves now

Whenever I write a review I first ask myself a simple question: What does this book do that sets it apart from all the other books out there? That question goes tenfold for picture books. With hundreds and hundreds of picture books published in a given year, the dreck can far outweigh the good. That said, you could have ...

Saving American Beach: An Interview with Author Heidi Tyline King

Have you guys noticed that this blog has sort of slipped into a regular two-interviews-per-week model? I’m quite fond of it, actually. It allows me to pick the brains of clever creative folks doing clever creative things. For example, they might highlight historical figures in picture book biographies that even five years ago would never have seen their stories come to light in this way.

Heidi Tyline King’s new bio Saving American Beach: The Biography of African American Environmentalist Mav...

A True Wonder: Talking With Kirsten Larson About Wonder Woman’s Real Origins

As a child of the 80s, I’ve a funny relationship to Wonder Woman. Too young to have appreciated her when her live action television show ran on TV, I nonetheless have crystal clear memories of Lynda Carter and Miss Piggy on the Muppet Show bashing the crap out of a dressing room while singing I Enjoy Being a Girl. And yes, if you just protested that that song was actually sung with Cheryl Ladd, you’re not wrong. Memory is a funny thing. Still, as a kid I knew that Wonder Woman had something to d...

Beautifully Me: A Talk With Nabela Noor

Should the matter come up, 2021 has turned out to be a particularly good year for body positivity in picture books. The sheer range of titles I’m seeing hitting the market right now, from a variety of different angles, is infectious. Whether it’s done with a story, as in the family-oriented THE BIG BATH HOUSE by Kyo Maclear, or as a catalog of body parts in BODIES ARE COOL by Tyler Feder, I’ve been impressed. Now we have BEAUTIFULLY ME by Nabela Noor. Here’s a rundown on the plot:

“From desig...

Fuse 8 n’ Kate: Pinkerton, Behave! by Steven Kellogg

Lick lick lick lick lick! Here we have a rare opportunity to examine an old book from 1979 and its 2014 update. Kate challenged me to come up with a dog picture book and I realized that we had never done one of the most fascinating cases in American children’s literature. As we explain on the show, Kellogg used to live in Sandy Hook. When the school shooting occurred he was deeply affected. And, in light of objections he’d heard regarding the burglar and his gun in his book Pinkerton, Behave...

Review of the Day: Race Against Time by Sandra Neil Wallace and Rich Wallace

Race Against Time: The Untold Story of Scipio Jones and the Battle to Save Twelve Innocent Men
By Sandra Neil Wallace and Rich Wallace
Calkins Creek (an imprint of Boyds Mills & Kane)
ISBN: 9781629798165
$18.99
On shelves now

They say history is written by the winners, but I’m not so sure about that. Sometimes the winners are entirely written out of history, even when they accomplished something extraordinary. To look at Race Against Time you would not immediately jump to the conclusion that you...

Guest Post: Nonfiction for the Win! Choosing Books Kids Will Love by Melissa Stewart, Cynthia Levinson, and Jennifer Swanson

Melissa Stewart was kind enough to answer my questions about her book 5 Kinds of Nonfiction last week. Now she returns with Cynthia Levinson, and Jennifer Swanson to discuss a recent news article that had some real gaps. Take it away, folks!

In a recent The Washington Post article titled “Summer reading struggles? Here’s how to help your child now and into the school year,” author Kendra Stanton Lee stresses that when children have the chance to read what they like, they keep reading. The...

NINA: A STORY OF NINA SIMONE – An Interview with Author Traci N. Todd

There are moments when you see the cover of a book and your jaw just drops. Just falls right off, hits the floor, and rolls under the credenza.

Here.

I’ll hand you an example:

There you go. Now fetch your jaw and wipe off those dust bunnies before you go reattaching it.

NINA, which releases on September 28th, is not the first picture book biography of Nina Simone out there. It will not be the last picture book biography of Nina Simone ever written. But what it does it does exc...