Betsy Bird's Blog, page 252

Video Sunday: It burns!

You know that recurring nightmare where you have to give a TED talk at TedX Beacon Street in Boston? The one where they fit you with a teeny tiny hand free mic on your head and then you have to stand in front of a series of two-tone cubes? To combat this fear of mine I watch other people’s. Particularly if they are about children’s literature, of which, I can only think of three. As a wise woman once told me, children’s books are woefully underrepresented on ted.com. To get on the site, a vid...

Disaster Distress Resources

In the wake of the recent San Bernardino shooting, it can be difficult to find resources for children. Recently Andrew Roszak of Child Care Aware offered the following resources to people looking for help and links. I include his resources here today:

Disaster Distress Helpline:1-800-985-5990

The helpline is also available in Spanish, by text and by TTY.
http://www.disasterdistress.samhsa.gov/

Talking to Children about the Shooting

http://www.nctsn.org/sites/default/files/assets/pdfs/talking...

Clever Bill and the Death of Script

And now a word in support of listservs.

In an era where serious debates attempt, and fail, to be conducted on such sites as Twitter, a place never meant for serious discussions of any significant length, allow me to sing the praises of an almost old-fashioned web tool that continues to have meaning and currency long after many would have predicted its demise. Listservs, those mailing lists where people talk to one another via email in a digest form, have survived the rise and fall of Pets.com...

Favorite Galley of the Week

Even though I have moved to the wilds of Illinois, I still find myself the happy recipient of many fine and fancy advanced reading copies of children’s books. It’s very nice, and not something I take for granted, but I’ll confess that in a given season sometimes the titles will blur together. Plots get jumbled in my brain. Characters become fuzzy. It really takes something special to wake me up. And this week, that book was this:

Skeptical are you? You’re looking at that cover and thinking t...

Walking and Talking With . . . Dav Pilkey

Such a treat! So I’m finally reading Steve Sheikin’s latest nonfiction work, Most Dangerous, and then out of the blue he sends me the latest in his “Walking and Talking” series. Dav Pilkey, Mr. Captain Underpants himself, is today’s subject. Fun Pilkey Fact You Never Knew: He has exquisite taste in cakes. True fact!

Thanks once again to Steve for allowing me to showcase his work. For previous entries in the “Walking and Talking” series, please be sure to check out the following:

Walking and...

Video Sunday: Monsters, Taxidermy, LeVar and Adele (Though Not Necessarily In That Order)

Morning, folks! Not much in the way of videos caught my eye lately, but the following crew struck me as particularly toothsome. First up, LeVar Burton being LeVar Burton.

Next up, libraries that circulate more than books. Things like . . . pelts! Cause where else are you gonna find a beluga vertebrae on such short notice.

Thanks to Kate for the link.

I’m not particularly familiar with illustrator Sydney Smith, so it was rather nice to see this piece on using stencils to illustrate.

Thanks...

Review of the Day: The Red Hat by David Teague

The Red Hat
By David Teague
Illustrated by Antoinette Portis
Disney Hyperion (an imprint of Disney Book Group)
$16.99
ISBN: 9781423134114
Ages 4-7
On shelves December 8th

There is a story out there, and I don’t know if it is true, that the great children’s librarian Anne Carroll Moore had such a low opinion of children’s books that involved “gimmicks” (read: interactive elements of any sort) that upon encountering them she’d dismiss each and every one with a single word: Truck. If it w...

The Diversity List: Picture, Easy, and Early Chapter Books of 2015

So I’m going to confess something to you. All year long, from January onward, I’ve been keeping track of any picture book, easy book, or early chapter book I’ve seen containing some kind of diversity. Have I missed books? Of course I have! You cannot make a list like this without missing something. Books from publishers like Kar-Ben Books and Inhabit Media (amongst others) should be better represented, but I failed to keep proper track early in the year. There probably isn’t enough Lee & Low...

The Strangest Pinocchio I Know

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about illustrated books for children (as opposed to picture books) in all their various forms. And since I’ve a penchant for nostalgia, I often think of my youth and the illustrated novels I read then. The mid to late 1980s were an odd time for illustration in general. For whatever reason, fantasy illustrators who worked primarily in the field of adult literature would occasionally show up on the covers of middle grade, or what passed for YA, titles at this tim...

Review of the Day: Emu by Claire Saxby

Emu
By Claire Saxby
Illustrated by Graham Byrne
Candlewick Press
$16.99
ISBN: 978-0-7636-7479-3
Ages 4-7
On shelves now.

Alas for poor emu. Forever relegated to be consider a second rate ostrich, it encompasses all of the awkwardness and none of the stereotypes. Does anyone ever talk about burying your head in the sand like an emu? They do not. Are schoolchildren routinely called upon to ooh and aah at the size of an emu’s egg? They aren’t. And when you watch Swiss Family Robinson, do...