Betsy Bird's Blog, page 18
February 5, 2025
Publisher Preview: Transit Editions (Spring 2025)
Fresh off their incredible Batchelder Honor win for A Sleepless Night (written by Micaela Chirif, illustrated by Joaqu��n Camp and translated by Jordan Landsman and the only ALA winner this year to contain, what I’m dubbing, the-greatest-fart-of-all-time), the team at Transit Editions was willing to sit me down and tell me about their NEXT round of books they have coming out this (and next!) season. So hold onto your butts, folks. We have a range of lovely titles here and they are like nothi...
February 4, 2025
Let’s Be Bees! A Q&A with Shawn Harris About This Newly Created Storytime Staple
Back in June of 2024, I was attending the American Library Association conference in San Diego, as one does. And somewhere in the course of things I ended up at a lunch that was presenting a wide range of lovely titles. Whale Fall by Lynn Brunelle and Justin Chin. The Table by Winsome Bingham and Wiley Blevins with Jason Griffin. With Dad by Richard Jackson and Brian Floca. And… a slightly odd 2025 picture book as well.
It wasn’t really like anything else I’d seen in a long time. For one ...
February 3, 2025
The Fast-Paced, Page-Turning Adventure Series That’s a Celebration of African Cultures: Bernard Mensah Discusses “Kwame’s Magic Quest”
Last year I was getting ready to start putting together my 31 Days, 31 Lists posts for 2024. I knew I hadn’t seen everything out there, but I get a fairly good, fairly rounded sense of what’s being published. Still, there are two lists I await eagerly every year: The New York Public Library best book lists for kids and the Chicago Public Library best book lists for kids. And lo and behold, when I saw CPL’s Best Fiction for Younger Readers 2024 I saw an early chapter book, first in a series, that...
January 30, 2025
Cover Reveal and Q&A: It’s Diego Fuego with Allison and Rafael Rozo
Because sometimes you just want to do a post about a tiny firefighting dragon.
Today we’re in conversation with a debut. A double debut! Allison and Rafael Rozo have penned a snappy little bilingual/Spanish picture book called Diego Fuego (out July 22nd), described by its publisher in this way:
Diego Fuego lives on the southernmost tip of South America in Tierra del Fuego with his dragon family. Even though the rest of the dragons can powerfully roar fire, Diego is allergic to smoke and c...
Cover Reveal and Q&A: It’s Diego Fuego with Allison and Raphael Rozo
Because sometimes you just want to do a post about a tiny firefighting dragon.
Today we’re in conversation with a debut. A double debut! Allison and Raphael Rozo have penned a snappy little bilingual/Spanish picture book called Diego Fuego (out July 22nd), described by its publisher in this way:
Diego Fuego lives on the southernmost tip of South America in Tierra del Fuego with his dragon family. Even though the rest of the dragons can powerfully roar fire, Diego is allergic to smoke and ...
January 29, 2025
Exclusive Cover Reveal and Q&A: Cabin Head and Tree Head with Scott Campbell
There are some books that you read and midway through you realize that you are reading for the very first time a title that will now be counted amongst your favorites for the rest of your life. That was my experience reading Cabin Head and Tree Head. Now it’s not coming out until September 16th, but I’m excited about this book NOW so NOW we will talk about it!
Written by Scott Campbell, the book exhibits an incredible friendship between two little creatures that live in a world where everyon...
January 28, 2025
Review of the Day: Bad Badger by Maryrose Wood, ill. Giulia Ghigini
On shelves February 25thI���ve been thinking a lot about friendship. Specifically, friendship as it���s depicted in books for kids. By necessity (and the need for a little bit of drama) tales of friendship can be fraught. Frog and Toad were best friends but that didn���t mean Frog didn���t laugh at Toad���s bathing suit once on a while. For our younger readers...
January 27, 2025
Everyday Bean: A Cover Reveal and Q&A with Creator Stephanie Graegin
Earlier this month I did a post on this site called And Now Some Books I’m REALLY Excited For in 2025 in which I mentioned some of the children’s books I was most looking forward to in the coming year. Now I can confess to you that there were a couple books I really and truly wanted to mention and couldn’t. Why? Because I hadn’t done the cover reveals for them yet!
Two such books shall appear on this site this week.
Everyday Bean is the first.
How can I adequately explain to you what...
Everday Bean: A Cover Reveal and Q&A with Creator Stephanie Graegin
Earlier this month I did a post on this site called And Now Some Books I’m REALLY Excited For in 2025 in which I mentioned some of the children’s books I was most looking forward to in the coming year. Now I can confess to you that there were a couple books I really and truly wanted to mention and couldn’t. Why? Because I hadn’t done the cover reveals for them yet!
Two such books shall appear on this site this week.
Everyday Bean is the first.
How can I adequately explain to you what...
January 26, 2025
Fuse n’ Kate: The Story of Jumping Mouse by John Steptoe
We return to John Steptoe once again today, though with perhaps a more complicated title than many of his that we’ve done before. We discuss at length whether or not this book can legitimately call itself “A Native American legend” and what that does for a contemporary read. This book won itself a Caldecott Honor. Did it deserve it? We have a lot of other questions as well. Does the magic frog have an angle here? Where does the fat old mouse fit into it? Is the aforementioned Magic Frog just...
