Betsy Bird's Blog, page 173

Diary of a Wimpy Kid Back Cover Reveal

I want to show you something that hangs on the wall of my stairwell.

Here it is:

That would be a pencil drawing of my favorite joke in the very first Diary of a Wimpy Kid book. Now take a trip back with me in time to 2007. My blog was still at Blogger, not SLJ yet, and in the course of my transactions I stumbled across this new book by an author named Jeff Kinney. I read it and found it really and truly hilarious. Honest, you should read my original review, which contains the opening line, “...

Top Five Alice: A Wonderland Ranking

Alice. Wonderland. It is interesting, is it not, that it is difficult to find anything particularly offensive about the book. I’m not saying it’s impossible, but when you search for possible problems with the text when viewed with 21st century eyes the most you’ll find are thoughts on whether or not Alice could be seen as a colonizer who is ultimately rejected by the people she’s invading. I suspect something could possibly be made out of the caterpillar, but for a book originally published i...

Newbery / Caldecott 2020: Spring Prediction Edition

Huh.

Is it just me or does it year 2020 look wrong whenever you see it written down? Like it’s some kind of typographical printer’s error. 2020. Doesn’t sound like a year. Sounds more like the vision I never had.

Well, silly numbered year or no, this is roundabout the time of year when I start stretching the old award-season muscles. And I gotta tell you, I’ve probably never gotten them so doggone wrong before. This past award season was a humbling affair, teaching me once again that you simp...

10 in 2019: Upcoming Picture Book Titles

Tooling about the internet yesterday, I ran across Travis Jonker’s recent blog post 10 to Note: Spring Preview 2019. Naturally, I could not resist reading it. I mean, who could? And lo and behold I saw the man had made some stellar picks of what to peruse in the coming year. So good, in fact, that it was enough to make me want to rip off the idea entirely. Only while Travis is restrained and gentlemanly, keeping only to the Spring, I just couldn’t keep myself from throwing some fall books on...

Review of the Day: The Happy Book by Andy Rash

The Happy Book
By Andy Rash
Viking (an imprint of Penguin Random House)
$17.99
ISBN: 978-0-451-47125-3
Ages 3-7
On shelves now.

So much of picture book writing consists of rehashing old concepts. When your audience consists almost entirely of small, new people, necessity dictates that you will have to present familiar ideas to them in a host of different ways. Consider your average preschool teachers. Not only do they have to keep their charges fed, napped, and relatively clean, but the...

Walking and Talking with . . . Jerry Craft!

For the past five years this site has been the proud home of author (and cartoonist!) Steve Sheinkin’s “Walking and Talking” series of interviews. We’ve a real treat for you today. As Steve wrote me, “Jerry Craft came to our local bookstore last week to talk about New Kid, and I nabbed a quick interview for the comic.” Perfect! I don’t know about you but we’re all big time New Kid fans at my library. Haven’t seen it yet? I recommend you remedy this situation, pronto. In the meantime, here’s J...

Fuse 8 n’ Kate: Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile and The House on East 88th Street by Bernard Waber

Today, to make up for the missing episode last week, you get a twofer. You see, there’s a bit of a problem with old Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile. Most people remember the title of the second book in the series, but are we to ignore Book #1? I gave Kate the chance to decide which one to do, so what did she decide? To do both, of course! In the course of things we discuss alligators vs. crocodiles, who exactly this “Salt Bae” person is, the interior decorating schemes of the early 60s, and (we can bot...

Press Release Fun: The 2019 Mathical Book Prize Winners Announced!

Math + Literature =
2019 Mathical Book Prize Winners! From the inspiring true stories of the Apollo 8 astronauts and a pioneering woman mathematician to tales of a middle school girl struck by lightning and a young elephant who loves to build towers of wooden bricks, this year’s Mathical Book Prize winners offer young readers a glimpse of the exciting—and sometimes unexpected—ways that mathematical ideas fit...

Review of the Day: Sweet Dreamers by Isabelle Simler

Sweet Dreamers
By Isabelle Simler
Translated by Sarah Ardizzone
Eerdman Books for Young Readers
$19.00
ISBN: 978-0-8028-5517-6
Ages 6-10
On shelves March 26th

You know how they say robots are going to take our jobs someday? And you know how they say that if you can describe your job easily then yours will be the first to go? A bunch of hooey, right? But while I might pooh-pooh the coming robot apocalypse, I gotta give those binary-heads a bit of credit. 15 years ago when I was a young,...

Guest Post: “… doing our very best only.” Marc Aronson and the Global Cooperation of the Thai Cave Rescue

Today I am pleased to be hosting Marc Aronson, the writer, editor, publisher, speaker, and historian. This post discusses his new work Rising Water: The Story of the Thai Cave Rescue which, in a starred review, Kirkus said his, “Solid writing preserves the natural rising suspense and astonishing details of this rescue.”

 

I was hiking in the Swiss-Italian Alps with my family – guided by Roy Freeman, Don-of-Corduroy-fame’s-son and my earliest friend – when I got an email from Atheneum asking...