Betsy Bird's Blog, page 26

In Which Betsy Is Rendered Speechless: Tanya Lee Stone and Gretchen Ellen Powers Remember Rosalind Franklin in Conversation

Imagine that for a full year, at work, you read five picture books a day, Monday through Friday. That’s quite a few picture books. The books range between fiction and informational. And many, truth be told, are forgotten over the course of several months. Of course they are. How could they not be? The human brain is really only capable of remembering so many books in a given span of time.

That’s my current situation. I love reading these picture books. I love discovering them and enjoying the...

Fuse 8 n’ Kate: Kitten’s First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes

Fellow librarians who have been around a day or two: Can you believe that Kitten’s First Full Moon came out TWENTY years ago? Kate had asked me to come up with an election picture book and I failed miserably (since we already did So You Want to Be President? and Duck for President previously). So Kevin Henkes used to be Mr. Mice. He just did all mouse picture books all the time. My theory is that the turn came around the time he created Kitten’s First Full Moon. These days, Mr. Henkes is muc...

Happy Dia de los Muertos! Duncan Tonatiuh Joins Jolene Guti��rrez in Conversation

As far as I can tell, today is Dia de los Muertos, and to celebrate I am absolutely honored and delighted to host a conversation between two picture book powerhouses. Jolene Guti��rrez, a veteran teacher librarian, has written a picture book called The Ofrenda That We Built (Chronicle Books, out now). A cumulative tale, the book reminds me of both The Cazuela That the Farm Maiden Stirred and An Ofrenda for Perro. Jolene explains where the book came from this way:

“My husband immigrated to Am...

Book Announcement and Q&A: IF KAMALA CAN – A Talk with Carole Boston Weatherford and Ariana Pacino

I do not wish to alarm you, but there appears to be an election coming up. A vital one. One that will determine, in many ways, the future of this country.

I take it back. I do wish to alarm you. I wish to alarm you into thinking and deciding and voting, and I also wish to introduce you to a book slated to appear on shelves in early 2025, possibly before the new President of the United States is sworn in.

If Kamala Can happens to be by Carole Boston Weatherford with art by Ariana Pacino. ...

Newbery/Caldecott 2025: Fall Prediction Edition

Folks, you just never know what people are going to miss.

Under normal circumstances I have a very steady schedule when it comes to my Newbery/Caldecott Predictions. The spring predictions come out around March 15th, the summer around June 15th, the fall around September 15th and the final prediction edition is around January 15th or so. This year, my September was a bit on the wonky side of things. I got busy. I got distracted. And ultimately I failed to remember to do my fall prediction...

Fuse 8 n’ Kate: Skeleton Hiccups by Margery Cuyler, ill. S.D. Schindler

“A ludicrous concept that is funny because it is ludicrous.” Just in time for Halloween we have our last Halloween-adjacent picture book title just in time for the season! Kate and I begin by having a detailed discussion of what constitutes a racist or offensive Halloween-related picture book. That won’t be a problem with today’s book, though. We’ve been asked for years to do this particular title and with its 2002 publication date, the time has definitely come (we have a 20-year rule when i...

A Repository Like No Other: Diving Deep Into the Kerlan Collection of Children’s Literature with Lisa Von Drasek

I got the news a month or so ago. In the business of children’s literature, any work to preserve the legacy of creators of the past is both rare and worthy. And when it comes to collections, one of my absolute favorites is the��University of Minnesota’s��Kerlan��Collection of Children’s Literature, which��holds more than 100,000 children���s books, original manuscripts, correspondence, artworks, galleys, color proofs, and other material for more than 1,700 authors and illustrators (including��Go...

Review Rewind: The Wild Robot by Peter Brown

I was tooling about Goodreads the other day when I stumbled across an old review of mine from 2016. Apparently (and I had forgotten this) I reviewed The Wild Robot by Peter Brown back in the day. Now adapted into a film clocking in at an impressive 98% on Rotten Tomatoes, I had a chance to see it the other day and enjoyed it mightily.

Today, let’s take a trip back in time to my old review. We’ll see how the book was received in the early days and you may enjoy my assessment at the end. For my...

Announcing Evanston Public Library’s 101 Great Books for Kids: 2024 Edition

There are few pleasures a librarian can experience to compare to rolling out a whole new list of fantastic publications for one and all to enjoy. This year the staff members serving on Evanston Public Library’s 101 Great Books for Kids List Committee literally read hundreds and hundreds of publications printed for children between the ages of 0-12 in 2024. Here’s a peek at what my shelves looked like by the end:

After an entire year of work, we are pleased to present to you the fruits of our...

Fuse 8 n’ Kate: The Wretched Stone by Chris Van Allsburg

While doing another Chris Van Allsburg picture book may seem like a relative no-brainer around the Halloween season, maybe there’s a reason we hadn’t done this particular title before. Unlike The Stranger, The Widow’s Broom (which I mistakenly call “The Witch’s Broom” on the podcast), or even The Mysteries of Harris Burdick, this particular title feels less like a tribute to the uncanny and more like a failed 1991 diatribe against television. The monkey sailors have NOT aged well, and it jus...