Betsy Bird's Blog, page 196
April 19, 2018
Q&A and Cover Reveal: After Zero by Christina Collins
A lot of librarians are familiar with books in which a character, maybe the main character or a sibling or a friend, does not speak. The term I always thought applied to this situation was “selective mutism”. It’s so common in books that when I keep track of the books I read on Goodreads I’ve actually made it its own category. Turns out, I may have had my terminology wrong all along. Today we sit down and talk with Christina Collins. Christina suffered from low-profile selective mutism as a c...
April 18, 2018
Review of the Day: The Parker Inheritance by Varian Johnson
The Parker Inheritance
By Varian Johnson
Arthur A. Levine Books (an imprint of Scholastic)
$16.99
ISBN: 978-0-545-94617-9
Ages 9-12
On shelves now.
The other day I was asked to come up with ten children’s book equivalents to Claudia Rankine’s book Citizen (which, should anybody ask you, is not for kids). To do this, I wanted to include a range of different kinds of books at different ages. Picture books and nonfiction titles. Early chapter books and poetry. And, of course, socially cons...
April 16, 2018
Fusenews: Eat Your Heart Out, “Awful Library Books”
As a librarian I know that reading aloud to children is necessary for their growth and development. And I know that periodically new parents that happen to be writers in other fields will come to children’s books through their offspring and suddenly be overwhelmed with the importance of reading. In cases such as these they will typically write articles that range from “Am I the only one out there that hates Maisy the mouse?” to “Golly! Books are good!” Then they’ll say something about Dr. Se...
April 15, 2018
Fuse 8 n’ Kate: Rumpelstiltskin by Paul O. Zelinsky
Mother’s Day isn’t exactly around the corner, but this episode is basically our present to our mom. She’s been bugging us to do this particular book for ages. Certainly that Caldecott Honor in the corner of the cover gives it the necessary picture book classics cred. Rumpelstiltskin is, indeed, one of my favorites. As you know, accuracy in the fiber arts is one of my picture book bugaboos.
Listen to the whole show here on Soundcloud or download it through iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or you...
April 14, 2018
Video Sunday: I Walk It Like I Talk It With a Wocket in My Pocket
Maybe it was School of Rock that started the interest in working with children. Certainly the Goosebumps movie was an indication, and who can forget Jumanji? However you want to look at it, Jack Black at some point in the proceedings became the friendly face of children’s books adapted to the big screen. Considering the fact that this book would make a difficult movie to begin with, I take no issue with the liberties you’ll see on screen. There appear to be creepy moving automatons involved i...
April 12, 2018
Review of the Day: A House That Once Was by Julie Fogliano, ill. Lane Smith
A House That Once Was
By Julie Fogliano
Illustrated by Lane Smith
Roaring Brook Press (an imprint of Macmillan)
$18.99
ISBN: 978-1-62672-314-6
Ages 4-7
On shelves May 1st
When I was growing up there was an empty house across the street. A melancholy, haunted structure that seemed to wear its sadness like a badge. No one ever moved into it that I can recall, and the neighborhood kids would attempt to conjure up ghost stories to match its tired visage. I never went in it. Never even peek...
April 11, 2018
The Readalike Conundrum: What Netflix Can Tell us About Predicting Predilections
Fond as I am of podcasts, I do have a tendency to view them as conveyance systems for blog fodder. I plug in my earphones, walk home from work, and get ideas for posts. That’s the hope anyway, but nine times out of ten a podcast is just a podcast. Even the most inspirational ones (which, for whatever reason, seem to be science podcasts from NPR) yield bupkiss more often than not.
Not so the other day. Invisabilia touts itself as the podcast that hopes to look closer at “Unseeable forces contr...
April 10, 2018
Surprising Jolts of Children’s Literature
It’s that time again! Time to take a gander at what’s happening in the world of books for grown-up types. Oh sure, half the time it’s quickie diet books and memoirs of Churchill (I can guarantee that if there’s a Churchill book out there, the patrons of my library will snap it up, lightning quick) but once in a while I’ll find a title with a connection to the world of books for kids. Here are the latest titles to slot neatly into that category. Some are already out. Some are on the horizon. A...
April 8, 2018
Fuse 8 n’ Kate: Sylvester and the Magic Pebble by William Steig
“50% of this book is just depressed donkeys.”
In lieu of Shrek (which I had zippo information on hand to bandy about) I decided we’d go with what is arguably the second most famous Steig picture book out there. You know. The one chock full of sadness and woe. Along the way we tackle grammar, fetlocks, sitting on children, and donkey boulders. Lots and lots of donkey boulders.
Listen to the whole show here on Soundcloud or download it through iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play, or your preferred me...
April 5, 2018
Review of the Day: The Cardboard Kingdom, edited and illustrated by Chad Sell
The Cardboard Kingdom
Edited and Illustrated by Chad Sell
Written by Jay Fuller, David DeMeo, Katie Schenkel, Kris Moore, Molly Muldoon, Vid Alliger, Manuel Betancourt, Michael Cole, Cloud Jacobs, and Barbara Perez Marquez
Knopf (an imprint of Random House Children’s Books)
$12.99
ISBN: 978-1-5247-1937-1
Ages 9-12
On shelves June 5th
The other day I listened to a very interesting speaker as she defined in crystal clear terms the words “equality” and “equity”. Simply put, “equality” is...
