Betsy Bird's Blog, page 131

We’re Going on a Bear Island Hunt: Matthew Cordell Talks Grief and Hope and Bears

At this time in the season we tend to look forward to the new year with great anticipation. But never before, I think, have we wanted so desperately for a year to end. It gives all those upcoming books we’d like to see a special little spice, don’t you think? And one can only feel even happier when the upcoming book is by Caldecott Award winner Matthew Cordell.

Behold the beauty of Bear Island:

A synopsis from the publisher? Don’t mind if I do!

Louise and her family are sad over th...

31 Days, 31 Lists Returns!

I am pleased to announce that in spite of COVID-19 doing its best to remove the memory of physical galleys and ARCs from our collective consciousness, I was able to work on these lists all the year. I definitely missed things. We all did! How could we not? But thanks to the efforts of my library’s 101 Great Books for Kids committee, I have a pretty good sense of the year. I’ve seen beautifully written, horribly depressing middle grade novels galore (more than usual, I think). The physical abuse ...

The Foundation Les Maitres de l’Imaginaire Exhibits in China!

People who work in the field of children’s literature often hear quite a bit about China’s growing interest in books for youth. Now, at Tsinghua University Art Museum in Beijing, 180 works from 40 international illustrators, including the U.S., are on display. The illustrations, are part of the collection of the Foundation Les Matres de l’Imaginaire and include illustrations for books, and art for classic fairy tales and original stories.

The show currently contains the following artists:

...

Librarian Preview: Small Publisher Spotlight (Spring 2021): Part One

Back in May of this year (which is to say, 1,000 years ago, give or take) Ellen Myrick, of Myrick Marketing & Media LLC, was kind enough to give me a preview of the small publishers she represents and what they had on the horizon. It was such a treat, in fact, that she offered to do it again. Why not? Never have our delicate little hearts felt more hopeful and wary than ours do on the cusp of 2021.

At this point Ellen represents Agnes & Aubrey, Barefoot Books, Blair, Cassava Republic Press, ...

Much Ado About Baseball: A Rajani LaRocca Cover Reveal and Interview PLUS a Recipe!

*puts on old lady cap*

All right, young ‘uns. Let’s talk a little bit about what children’s novels were like when I was a kid. WHEN I WAS A KID we didn’t have yer fancy recipes all stuck in the back of your fiction titles when you were done reading them. We didn’t have Jonas’s apple crisp recipe from The Giver or Meg’s hot chocolate from A Wrinkle in Time. No sir! Our books were plain and simple and . . . and . . . and actually it would have been awesome if there had been a recipe or two in t...

Fuse 8 n’ Kate: Cranberry Thanksgiving by Wende and Harry Devlin

I don’t care what any of you say. Sweet potatoes shall never cross this Thanksgiving plate o’ mine. To celebrate the season (though we all know it’s pared down terribly this year) Kate requested a Thanksgiving picture book classic. We got some great suggestions from our readers all of which I am placing on the back burner for next year. That’s because this year, I’m doing a book circa 1971. One that I remember pulling out every year when I was a children’s librarian in NYC. In the course of ...

Working in Translation: An Interview with Editor-at-Large Louise May

Folks, I know you’ve been hearing an awful lot of interviews this week, but we simply are not through! You see, recently it occurred to me that when it comes to bilingual picture books, there is a kind of art to their design. To place two languages on a page and have the end result look beautiful and memorable is, quite frankly, a wonder. And some of the best of these bilingual texts comes out of none other than the publisher Lee & Low. Knowing this, I set out to find out WHO precisely was r...

Review of the Day – Waa’aka’: The Bird Who Fell in Love with the Sun by Cindi M. Alvitre, ill. Carly Lake

Waa’aka’: The Bird Who Fell in Love with the Sun
By Cindi M. Alvitre
Illustrated by Carly Lake
Heydey Books
$17.00
ISBN: 978-1-59714-509-1
Ages 4-8
On shelves now

There was a time when children’s librarians collected picture book retellings of Native American stories without thought or consideration. Once, the picture book industry was dominated by publications of “folktales” and fairytales. Librarians, being the primary purchasers of children’s books, held inordinate sway over what was published,...

Interview and Cover Reveal of The League of Picky Eaters by Stephanie V.W. Lucianovic

The other day I participated in one of those online memes where it will list something like 50 different kinds of food and you report how many of them you would willingly eat. My number was woefully low and after I reported it people started boasting their own numbers loud and proud. In our society it is a badge of honor to have a wide palette. One thing I noticed, though, was that members of my own family would write in and, like myself, they too had low numbers. Picky eating, it would seem, ha...

Exclusive Cover Reveal & Interview with Margarita Engle: A SONG OF FRUTAS

Sun. Warm, delicious sunlight. We’re mid-Autumn but already the sun of summer feels like it was all just a beautiful dream. And trapped as we are by the COVID virus in our homes, it’s not like we can hop a plane to a sunny climate. In lieu of that, we can do the next best thing. We can let author Margarita Engle take us there via her latest picture book A Song of Frutas / Un pregón de frutas.

Today, Ms. Engle joins me as we discuss her latest, take some peeks at interior spreads, and finally ...