Betsy Bird's Blog, page 230

Press Release Fun: Cricket Media and Lifelong Learning

THIS HOLIDAY SEASON, GIVE THE GIFT OF READING WITH CRICKET MEDIA’S “DOUBLE THE GIVING” CAMPAIGN

With Each Magazine Subscription Purchased, Cricket will Donate One to

a Child in Need in Partnership with Two Award-Winning Literacy Charities:

Libraries Without BordersandParent-Child Home Program

VisitDoubletheGiving.comand Join a Charitable Movement

Guaranteed to Spark a Lifetime Love of Reading!

McLean, VA (November 7, 2016) — This holiday season, Cricket Media, and its award-winning family...

31 Days, 31 Lists: Day One – 2016 Great Board Books

We kick off our 31 Days, 31 Lists at the lowest age level imaginable. Finding quality board books for babies and toddlers is a challenge. It’s not enough to simply have thick pages. You need to be able to engage the interest and attention of someone who is still developing their visual and auditory processing skills.

That said, there is a belief amongst some people that board books are for babies alone. Not so. As the mother of a very active 2-year-old I can attest that one is prone to sighs...

31 Days, 31 Lists: 2016 Great Board Books

We kick off our 31 Days, 31 Lists at the lowest age level imaginable. Finding quality board books for babies and toddlers is a challenge. It’s not enough to simply have thick pages. You need to be able to engage the interest and attention of someone who is still developing their visual and auditory processing skills.

That said, there is a belief amongst some people that board books are for babies alone. Not so. As the mother of a very active 2-year-old I can attest that one is prone to sighs...

Something’s Coming . . . I Don’t Know What It Is But It Is Gonna Be Great!

The title of this post isn’t entirely accurate. I know perfectly well what’s coming. Tomorrow starts off a magnificent run of Best Books lists. Yes, starting December 1st I will begin running the 31 Days, 31 Lists streak. I even have a catchy visual to go with it! Check it out:

You’ll be seeing a lot more of it in the coming month.

The premise behind all this is simple. For each day in December I will run a “Best Of” list of some sort. The reason for this is that I’ve read so many books this...

Guest Post: Rediscovering Alvin Tresselt

With November coming to a close and the end of the year fast approaching, we are nearing the announcement of the 2017 Newbery / Caldecott Awards with every passing minute. This may be the perfect time to take a step back and think about those winners from years past. Some of them remain in our collective unconscious but a number of them have been unjustifiably forgotten. Today I am pleased to introduce a guest post from Fred Guida. He was kind enough to allow me the chance to feature his piec...

Walking and Talking with . . . Grace Lin!

Steve Sheinkin is back with his beloved series! If you’re unfamiliar with it, Steve has a conversation with an author of books for kids or teens and then plucks from it the best parts. So in spite of the fact that he has a brand new book out in early 2017 (Undefeated: Jim Thorpe and the Carlisle Indian School Football Team) he still took time to give us this great discussion with Grace Lin. For the full list of interviews, see the links at the bottom of this post.

Enjoy!

Catch up with the wh...

Video Sunday: Yesss! Boyz II Men Inclusion Accomplished!

Morning folks. I’ll start today with a video that contains some classy tunes. It’s my recent interview with Eric Rohmann about his new book GIANT SQUID. Delicious delicious giant squids. Sorry. This interview occurred on a day when I was half hoping the staff recording the interview would have a big steaming plate of calamari waiting for me. Twas not to be.

Britain’s doing that thing again. That thing where they throw a bunch of celebrities into a video for charity. I could recognize about 5...

Fusenews: Some remedies are worse than the disease itself

Happy day after the day after Thanksgiving. Today I’m going to start you off on serious news story and that will pretty much set the tone for the day.

I live in Evanston, IL. It’s home to Northwestern University and like a lot of college towns it’s a pretty liberal place. We sit just north of Chicago. We’re are ethnically and economically diverse. We like to think we live apart from the rest of the world in a little bubble. We don’t and it behooves us to remember that. Unfortunately, we can...

2017 Picture Books I’m Really Looking Forward To

Ending on a preposition and regretting nothing.

Here are the 2017 books I’ve seen that I’ve found positively delightful. These are all completely and utterly worthy. Put them on your To Be Read list today:

Baby’s First Words by Christiane Engel

I like a good book for the little littles where the fact that a kid has two dads is part of the equation but not the focus. Additionally, there’s a stay-at-home dad here that’s awesome.

Home and Dry by Sarah L. Smith

A peculiar little book, but I...

Beware of Exploding (Numbers of) Nutcrackers

It sort of feels like someone took a starting pistol and called out to the universe, “Nutcracker picture books! On your mark . . . get set . . . . GO!” And off they went!

2016, for whatever reason, has turned out to be a VERY Nutcracker heavy year. If you are unaware or only vaguely familiar with what The Nutcracker is, I will sum up. In 1816 Prussian Romantic author E.T.A. Hoffman wrote an odd little children’s story called The Nutcracker and the Mouse King. It was this wild bit of imagining...