Betsy Bird's Blog, page 141
June 29, 2020
The Default in Our Stars: A Guest Post by Linda Sue Park
On occasion the posts I host here on my blog inspire me to do better. Linda Sue Park has that ability.
Book review journals, book reviewers, book bloggers everywhere: I’m looking at YOU
By Linda Sue Park
“When race is a factor or is important to the story, we expect our reviewers to reflect that in their assessment.”
This is a quote from a response I received when I wrote to the editor of children’s book reviews at a major newspaper. I had written to ask them to change ...
June 28, 2020
Fuse 8 n’ Kate: George Shrinks by William Joyce
Funny to think about the authors and illustrators we’ve never quite gotten to on the show. Sometimes the trick behind selecting a book isn’t so much which artist to do but what book to do from a given artist. After much soul searching I decided that George Shrinks trumps Dinosaur Bob and the Family Lazardo in terms of sheer fame. It’s a funny kind of book, and you can trust Kate to winnow out every possible detail on the page. Hope you like your kids short, your cats cruel, and your teddy be...
June 27, 2020
Edi Campbell – The Talk: Conversations About Race, Love & Truth
title: The Talk: Conversations About Race, Love & Truth
editors: Cheryl Willis Hudson; Wade Hudson
date: Crown Books for Young Readers; September 2020
In a recent interview in their “Just Us &” series on YouTube, Cheryl Willis Hudson and Wade Hudson entered into conversation with George and Bernette Ford. The talk they had was pure gold as they offered up personal insights into the history of Black children’s literature. Bernette remembers what it was like in the 1970s, the early da...
June 25, 2020
Edi Campbell: Two Reviews
title: My Best Friend
author and illustrator: Rob Hodgson
date: Frances Lincoln Children’s Books; 2020
title: Cannonball Coralie and the Lion
author and illustrator: Grace Easton
date: Frances Lincoln Children’s Books; 2020
Toni Morrison once said that literary discourse should transform “from the racial object to the racial subject; from the described and imagined to the describers and imaginers; from the serving to the served.” That encourages me to critique beyond literary devices and provide a...
June 23, 2020
Edi Campbell – Author Interview: Kim Johnson
Kim Johnson is a debut young adult author. Her book, This Is My America (Random House Books for Young Readers) releases in July. I could talk with her for hours! I’ll definitely add her book to both my personal and college libraries. I’m really glad she was able to find time for this interview.
Synopsis from the publisher:
Every week, seventeen-year-old Tracy Beaumont writes letters to Innocence X, asking the organization to help her father, an innocent Black man on death row. After se...
June 22, 2020
Edi Campbell: Pass the Hope
Well, if you’re expecting Betsy today, I hope you’re not going to be too disappointed. I usually blog at CrazyQuiltEdi but the mic was passed to me and here I am! I have a variety of posts planned for this week, from general commentaries to book reviews and even an interview.
I hadn’t heard of #passthemic until Betsy approached me and offered to share her platform with me. The opportunity came at a rather dismal time. Seeing so much change, so much possibility for real change in the United St...
Edi Campbell: Beaucoup de Petites Choses
Well, if you’re expecting Betsy today, I hope you’re not going to be too disappointed. I usually blog at CrazyQuiltEdi but the mic was passed to me and here I am! I have a variety of posts planned for this week, from general commentaries to book reviews and even an interview.
I hadn’t heard of #passthemic until Betsy approached me and offered to share her platform with me. The opportunity came at a rather dismal time. Seeing so much change, so much possibility for real change in the United St...
June 21, 2020
#passthemic: Edith Campbell Takes Over A Fuse #8 Production for the Week
I am pleased to announce that this week you’re going to hear an entirely different voice at the blog A Fuse #8 Production. In the spirit of #passthemic, where white folks give over their platforms to people that deserve a wider audience, I am handing over full reign of this site to Edith Campbell.
For those of you unfamiliar with Edi, she’s pretty much one of the most longstanding children’s book bloggers out there. I just went through her site and traced her blog back to at least June 3,...
#passthemic: Edith Campbell Takes Over A Fuse #8 Production
I am pleased to announce that this week you’re going to hear an entirely different voice at the blog A Fuse #8 Production. In the spirit of #passthemic, where white folks give over their platforms to people that deserve a wider audience, I am handing over full reign of this site to Edith Campbell.
For those of you unfamiliar with Edi, she’s pretty much one of the most longstanding children’s book bloggers out there. I just went through her site and traced her blog back to at least June 3,...
June 20, 2020
Fuse 8 n’ Kate: Show Way by Jacqueline Woodson
I broke the rules. Under normal circumstances I won’t consider a children’s book for this podcast unless that title is less than 20 years old. But since I made that rule in the first place, I guess I’m the one who gets to break it. And today’s book is, in its blood, a rule breaker. In the course of this episode I attempt to encapsulate all of Jacqueline Woodson’s major awards (this is a difficult thing to attempt, by the way), Kate and I honor Juneteenth, and we try desperately to figure out...
