Betsy Bird's Blog, page 261
June 28, 2015
International Migratory Bird Day or Bye Bye, Birdie
Those canny readers amongst you will notice immediately that the date of this post is all wrong. What am I trying to pull here? After all, International Migratory Bird Day (as every good schoolchild knows) is always held on the second Saturday in May. Yet here I am on June 29th, saying unto you that it is nigh. And, in a way, it is.
Folks, what is the state bird of Illinois?
Me.
Actually, it’s the plucky little Northern cardinal (plucky, because it’s apparently the state bird for seven states...
June 26, 2015
Press Release Fun: Balloons Over Broadway
When Lisa Von Drasek does a program, you bloody well publicize that program. Here she just let me know about these multiple, awesome programs. Well worth noting, folks.
People often ask me how could I give up being at Bank Street College of Education to live in Minnesota. The answer is the Kerlan Collection. This is one of the largest repositories of Children’s Book manuscripts, art and first editions. We hold the papers of all of the Ambassador’s for Your Peoples Literature (if you are count...
June 25, 2015
Of Ponies and Princesses: An Interview with Kate Beaton
Well, I’m just about as pleased as I can be. For years I’ve adored and promoted and generally yammered endlessly about webcomic artist Kate Beaton and her Hark, A Vagrant strips. Whether it was her Nancy Drew covers or her psychedelic take on The Secret Garden (to say nothing of her history strips) she’s one of my heroes. This year, she’s gone a step further and created her very first picture book. Called The Princess and the Pony, it’s edited by Cheryl Klein and Emily Clementand published by...
June 23, 2015
Newbery / Caldecott 2016: Summer Prediction Edition
The Summer Prediction edition of my Caldecott/Newbery ponderings is always a tricky beast. If the spring edition is looking primarily at books coming out in the spring, summer, and early fall, then the summer edition is looking at almost the entire year. However, at this point I’m still relying more on buzz than the considered opinions of colleagues and friends. Once we get to the fall edition I’ll have heard a lot of debates surrounding the books up for consideration and I’ll have a better s...
June 21, 2015
We Are the Book Champions, My Friends
Image credit: Travis Jonker
Here’s how I blog. I sit around, twiddling my thumbs, waiting waiting waiting for someone else to write something on a topic that has been bubbling and percolating in my noggin. Then, when they go that extra mile, I STRIKE! Today’s example: Travis Jonker’s piece Where Do You Fall On The Book Critic/Book Champion Continuum? A hotsy totsy topic if ever I saw one.
Here’s the long and short of it. Travis distinguishes between people who evaluate books and people who “c...
June 19, 2015
Review of the Day: Return to Augie Hobble by Lane Smith
Return to Augie Hobble
By Lane Smith
Roaring Brook (an imprint of Macmillan)
$16.99
ISBN: 978-1-62672-54-1
Ages 9-12
On shelves now
Here is what we can say about Lane Smith – he does not go for the easy emotional pass. There are countless author/illustrators out there for whom risk is an unknown concept. The idea of writing a book, to say nothing of your first middle grade novel, and making something new and strange of it, would put them off entirely. For Smith, it’s all in a day’s work...
June 18, 2015
Let’s Put On a Show! The Introvert’s Dilemma
Keep it classy, Bird.
The other day Monica Edinger writes to me, ” I hate performing in public and am far more comfortable shmoozing at dinners and lunches. You seem to be just the opposite.” An interesting statement, to be sure. For while I love me a good lunch and dinner shmooze, I certainly won’t pass up an opportunity to grab a spotlight and milk it for all it’s worth (I also believe a healthy mixed metaphor early in a blog post is good for the constitution, but that’s neither here nor th...
June 17, 2015
Fuse #8 TV: Steve Sheinkin
Allo, folks!
Hosting Steve Sheinkin on Fuse #8 TV this month does have a bit of the old bringing coals to Newcastle feel to it. After all, Steve’s been generous in sharing his Walking and Talking comic series with us on this site regularly. So regularly, in fact, that it would be easy to forget that he’s one of our premiere YA nonfiction authors working today. Now his most ambitious book to date is coming out. Called MOST DANGEROUS: DANIEL ELLSBERG AND THE SECRET HISTORY OF THE VIETNAM WAR, i...
June 16, 2015
Press Release Fun: Salt wins the New York Historical Society Children’s History Book Prize
THE NEW-YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY ANNOUNCES 2015 CHILDREN’S HISTORY BOOK PRIZE RECIPIENT: HELEN FROST FOR SALT
Award to be presented by Chancellor Fariña June 18; Families invited to meet the author June 20
NEW YORK, NY (June 16, 2015)—Dr. Louise Mirrer, President and CEO of the New-York Historical Society, announced today that author Helen Frost will receive New-York Historical’s 2015 Children’s History Book Prize for Salt (Macmillan, 2013), which tells the story of two 12-year-old boys grow...
June 15, 2015
Press Release: Children’s Artists for Gun Safety
Politics and children’s literature are, to a certain extent, inextricable. The education of our children is so closely tied into our understanding of what education could and should entail (and for whom) that it is innately political. But there are other issues that are affected by politics too. Children’s author/musician/performer Bill Harley is familiar to many for his good work over the years. Now he’s sent out the following call for better gun laws in our country. For those like-minded au...
