Betsy Bird's Blog, page 184
October 16, 2018
Book Trailer Premier: Silver Batal and the Water Dragon Races by K.D. Halbrook
When I was a kid I didn’t actually use my public library much. Like a lot of kids, it was the school library where I discovered the books that would be most beloved to me. And in one particular case, I found a book that stayed with me a very long time. I’m not sure whose idea it was to put Dragonsong by Anne McCaffrey in an elementary school library, but boy was I glad that they did. Though I never would have pegged myself as a dragon person, I just adored that book. It actually led me to th...
October 15, 2018
Best Halloween Picture Books (an Entirely Subjective List)
Visual approximation
About 2010, when I still worked as a children’s librarian for New York Public Library, I was sitting at the Reference Desk in the Children’s Center at 42nd Street when this 3-year-old walked up to me, bold as brass. He had the biggest brown eyes I’d ever seen outside of a Chuck Jones cartoon, and an adorable little lisp to match. “I want scary books,” he informed me. I looked about. No parent in sight. No one to curb the boy’s desires. This was an interesting puzzle. Back...
October 14, 2018
Fuse 8 n’ Kate: A Tiger Called Thomas by Charlotte Zolotow
Older holiday books for kids have a tendency to be a bit on the white side. So I was thinking I was pretty slick when I came up with A Tiger Called Thomas for today’s discussion. But here’s the thing; I thought the version illustrated by Diana Cain Bluthenthal was the only one out there. I was unaware that this book hadn’t just been re-illustrated once but has FOUR different artists! Just to make all of this clear from the start, the four versions we’ll be discussing are:
A Tiger Called Thoma...
Fuse 8 nâ Kate: A Tiger Called Thomas by Charlotte Zolotow
Older holiday books for kids have a tendency to be a bit on the white side. So I was thinking I was pretty slick when I came up with A Tiger Called Thomas for today’s discussion. But here’s the thing; I thought the version illustrated by Diana Cain Bluthenthal was the only one out there. I was unaware that this book hadn’t just been re-illustrated once but has FOUR different artists! Just to make all of this clear from the start, the four versions we’ll be discussing are:
A Tiger Called Thoma...
October 10, 2018
Review of the Day: Marcus Vega Doesn’t Speak Spanish by Pablo Cartaya
Marcus Vega Doesnât Speak Spanish
By Pablo Cartaya
Viking (an imprint of Penguin Random House)
$16.99
ISBN: 9781101997260
Ages 9-12
On shelves now
The other day a woman contacted me and wondered if I could offer any picture book/middle grade/ YA suggestions for a list of various topics. The list consisted of things like âOCDâ, âdeath/grievingâ, âtraumaâ, etc. Some of the subjects were difficult and others too easy (that âdeath/grievingâ category by far had the most titles). And then the...
October 9, 2018
Even Sendaks Make Mistakes: When Your Hero’s Book Just Doesn’t Work for You
Can you keep a secret? An awful, terrible secret that could get me officially disbarred from all future children’s literature events from now until the end of time? This is just between the two of us, right? No one else is listening in and you won’t tell a soul. Okay. Here goes.
I don’t think everything Maurice Sendak did was brilliant.
There! I said it! It’s out in the open now. No shoving it back into Pandora’s box or anything. Phew! You know, it feels pretty good to say out loud after all...
October 8, 2018
Fuse 8 nâ Kate: Duck, Death, and the Tulip by Wolf Erlbruch
We’re killing two birds with one stone this week (pun reluctantly intended). A reader suggested today’s book a long time ago. Add in the fact that it’s October and we should be doing some Halloween-themed titles and you’ve got yourself today’s latest edition of International Classic Picture Books. Take a trip to Germany to visit one of the loveliest, softest books about life and death out there. Maybe it’s not classic Halloween fare, but I like it.
By the way, it may amuse you to know that wh...
October 7, 2018
Unexpected Jolts of Children’s Literature: You’re Covered in Bees!
By night I blog as a children’s literature groupie, but by day I am mild mannered Betsy Bird, Collection Development Manager of Evanston Public Library, responsible for purchasing all the latest books for adults. Odd, no? But while you might be able to take the girl off of the blog you can never truly take the blogging out of the girl. So it is that every time I see an adult book that contains children’s literature in some way, I must tell you about it! And what more fitting title to begin wi...
October 4, 2018
Censoring the Unsaid, OR, Damned If You Do, #%&*@ If You Don’t
Semantics. Oh yeah! I said it!
Today we look at the strangest of trends I’ve encountered in a while, but one that is of infinite interest to me. It is not necessarily new, but I find it far more insidious than plain old-fashioned book banning. We are familiar with people censoring, removing, or otherwise restricting books because of what the books say. But from time to time you get the opposite case; people censoring removing, or otherwise restricting books because of what the books didn’t sa...
October 2, 2018
Review of the Day: The Funeral by Matt James
The Funeral
By Matt James
Groundwood Books (an imprint of House of Anansi Press)
ISBN: 978-1-55498-908-9
$18.95
Ages 4-7
On shelves now
They say you don’t truly fear death until you have children. I’ll tweak that slightly. I say, you don’t truly fear talking about death until you have children. At least if you’re an American. The other day I brought home the classic German picture book Duck, Death, and the Tulip by Wolf Erlbruch and found, to my consternation, that I didn’t really want...
