Betsy Bird's Blog, page 254
November 2, 2015
Review of the Day: Gone Crazy in Alabama by Rita Williams-Garcia
Gone Crazy in Alabama
By Rita Williams-Garcia
Amistad (an imprint of Harper Collins)
$16.99
ISBN: 978-0062215871
Ages 9-12
On shelves now.
I’m a conceited enough children’s librarian that I like it when a book wins me over. I don’t want them to make it easy for me. When I sit down to read something I want to know that the author on the other side of the manuscript is scrabbling to get the reader’s attention. Granted that reader is supposed to be a 10-year-old kid and not a 37-year-old w...
November 1, 2015
Won’t Somebody PLEASE Think of the Pixels?
The other day I asked my husband, “Am I a Millennial?” “No,” he said. “You’re right between the Millennials and the Generation Xers. You don’t really belong to either.” That’s about right. Millennials always feel too young to me (I can’t discuss Boy Meets World with them at all) and Generation Xers are great but tend to enjoy The West Wing more than I ever could (how’s THAT for generalizing?). So if I identify as anything it’s that sterling, if slightly off-putting, moniker “Child of the 80s”...
October 29, 2015
Review of the Day: One Day, The End by Rebecca Kai Dotlich
One Day, The End
By Rebecca Kai Dotlich
Illustrated by Fred Koehler
Boyds Mills Press (an imprint of Highlights)
$16.95
ISBN: 978-1-62091-451-9
Ages 4-7
On shelves now.
Last evening I was reading Quest by Aaron Becker to my daughter for bedtime. It’s a good book. I’ve read it approximately 20 times by now, so I should know. Anyway, we’re reading the book, which is wordless and requires that the reader really pay attention to the story, and as we start I point out to my daughter some fe...
October 27, 2015
Fusenews: The Anti-Effacing Differencer
Morning, folks. Let’s see, let’s see. After yesterday maybe it would be a good idea to do a post on rainbows and unicorns and cute little puppy dogs cavorting in the sun. I’m a little exhausted after yesterday’s post so let’s just do a quickie Fusenews of wonderfullness instead.
October 26, 2015
You Have to Read the Book
I think if you’ve read any of my opinion pieces in the past then you’ll notice that I’ve cultivated over the years a somewhat namby pamby style. This consists of the following:
Step One: Ask a bunch of questions.
Step Two: Answer one.
Step Three: Ask a bunch of other questions based on that statement.
Step Four: Answer one.
Step Five: Ask a whole SLEW of questions (possibly contradicting the previous questions).
Step Six: Answer one. Finis!
Well, a person’s got to take a stand on SOMETHING ar...
October 24, 2015
Video Sunday: Spiritual Otters and Evangelical Raccoons
Woot! I’ve scraped and saved and slavered and after a couple weeks have culled together enough videos to constitute a truly lovely Video Sunday. And since Halloween is near upon us (a holiday I will, strangely enough, be spending at an outside wedding in Maine) why not begin with the king of frightening children’s literature himself, Stephen Gammell. Mental Floss recently released a post called 14 Terrifying Facts About Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark. Fine and good but the link to the docu...
October 21, 2015
Return of the Attack of the Getty Images (Part Deux!)
Just when you thought it was safe to pick up your middle grade galleys for 2016 . . . .
Remember when I posted recently about originally seeing a Barbara O’Connor book?
And then later I saw this rather similar adult title?
Well now I’ve found a third book with the doggie in question! Hold onto your hats, folks, because Houghton Mifflin Harcourt in 2016 is going to feature . . . .
Collect them all!
October 19, 2015
Review of the Day: Human Body Theater by Maris Wicks
Human Body Theater
By Maris Wicks
First Second (a imprint of Roaring Brook and division of Macmillan)
$14.99
ISBN: 978-1-59643-929-0
Ages 9-12
On shelves now.
I gotta come clean with you. Skeletons? I’ve got a thing for them. Not a “thing” as in I find them attractive, but rather a “thing” as in I find them fascinating. I always have. Back in the 80s there was a science-related Canadian television show called “Owl TV” (a Canuck alternative to “3-2-1 Contact”) and one of the regular feat...
October 18, 2015
Hands Off, Hussy! Hot Men of Children’s Literature Under (Too Little?) Fire
As I see it, the relative success of the blog A Fuse #8 Production hinged almost exclusively on being in the right place at the right time. I started the site at the cusp of the blogger movement, a time when they were just beginning to be viewed as hip and new. I specialized in a simultaneously popular and somewhat obscure topic. I was a children’s librarian in Manhattan, the heart of the publishing industry. Right place. Right time. Right content. It’s easy almost a decade on to forget that...
October 17, 2015
Are Historical Heroes Allowed to Have Prejudices in Children’s Literature?
I don’t usually post anything aside from videos on Sunday but after attending the IBBY Conference in NYC this past weekend this topic came up and seemed well worth pursuing.
Not long ago I reviewed The Hired Girl by Laura Amy Schlitz. It’s a fine, unique historical novel about a 14-year-old girl who escapes a grim farm existence by running away to Baltimore to work as a hired girl. She’s the product of a cruel father who denies her any schooling leaving her little comfort except that which co...
