Betsy Bird's Blog, page 52

Cover Reveal and Q&A: A Peek at JUST FLOWERS from Erin Dealey

In spite of a quick bout of unseasonably warm weather this week, for the most part my garden has been hunkering down and preparing for fall. The ivy on the house has turned orange. The tree outside our window is red. My tomatoes are doing that thing where they try to convince you that they are TOTALLY fine and gonna pull through (spoiler alert: they will not). And my flowers? Aside from some hardy fall plants and some mildly psychotic zinnias (I specialize in mildly psychotic zinnias) they’r...

Continuing a Living Legacy: A Dual Interview with Dr. Ebony Joy Wilkins and Dare Coulter About Zora the Story Keeper

When it comes to writing picture books, reality may be the hardest topic to portray. Every day at my lunchtime I make a point to read at least five new picture books. By doing this, I get a clear sense of what’s being published in this current day and age. And while I cannot tell you that reality is uncommon in picture book publishing, I can say that it’s far less common than more fantastical picture book plots. Now when I first laid eyes on the book Zora the Story Keeper I noted a couple featur...

An Excerpt and Guest Post Double Whammy: Stephen Bramucci Talks ADHD and The Race for the Ruby Turtle

Here on this site, I’m a big time fan of process. Any chance I can get to peer into the mind of an author or the hands of an artist, and I’m there. I also get a fair number of requests for folks to do guest posts on this site. Some of these I turn down. Not because the books sound bad or uninteresting, but there needs to be that hook. Something to get me a little more interested in the book. Considering the sheer number of picture books and middle grade novels that come out for kids every we...

Fuse 8 n’ Kate: The Vanishing Pumpkin by Tony Johnson, ill. Tomie dePaola

Let the record show that I read through a slew of different Halloween-centric picture book titles before I alighted upon one that was appropriate for the season. Who knew that Tony Johnston and Tomie dePaola would be the answer to my prayers? Today we consider a book about, at its core, the difficulty of growing more than a single pumpkin in your pumpkin patch. Kate and I, failed pumpkin farmers both, can relate. In today’s podcast episode we talk Jawas, rain barrels, hairless leprechauns, a...

What Is Color? From Squished Sea Snails to Flesh Eating Fashion, Steven Weinberg Discusses His Upcoming Informational Book

Funny story. So way way back in November of 2021, author/illustrator Steven Weinberg wrote me to tell me about a project he was working on. He said:

“I’m currently dummying out a leviathan (about 100 pages) of a nonfiction kids book all about how color is made for Roaring Brook. Working title: MANGO PEE, DRAGON’S BLOOD AND SQUISHED SEA SNAILS. (Yes, all pigment sources!) I remember the copies of THE WAY THINGS WORK that I checked out from my school library. Those had been read and poured over...

What Is Color? From Squished Sea Snails to Flesh Eating Fashion, Steven Weinberg Discussing His Upcoming Informational Book

Funny story. So way way back in November of 2021, author/illustrator Steven Weinberg wrote me to tell me about a project he was working on. He said:

“I’m currently dummying out a leviathan (about 100 pages) of a nonfiction kids book all about how color is made for Roaring Brook. Working title: MANGO PEE, DRAGON’S BLOOD AND SQUISHED SEA SNAILS. (Yes, all pigment sources!) I remember the copies of THE WAY THINGS WORK that I checked out from my school library. Those had been read and poured over...

Writing for the Gaps: A Richard Fairgray Guest Post

What’s all this I hear about people banning books with LGBTQIA+ content? Seems a bad idea. I’m not a fan.

What am I fan of? Well, Richard Fairgray, for one. You may know him best for his marvelous, miraculous, thoroughly creepy Black Sand Beach series (which, at this point, my son has read more of than I have). I’m also a big fan of his work on the Cardboardia series that he makes with Lucy Campagnolo. But one book I hadn’t heard of before was Four-Color Heroes.

Now, I don’t do anything ...

Crank(y) It Up! A Very Cranky Book Interview with Angela and Tony DiTerlizzi

Who are the great cranky characters of children’s literature that come immediately to mind? The Pigeon certainly has cranky moments (albeit usually just when he doesn’t get his way). Would you call Grover from The Monster at the End of This Book cranky? He isn’t inherently so, but forces beyond his control corral him in that direction. These are just situational cranksters, though. Who is cranky from page one onward? Who embodies that petulant, no-filled, preschooler that we’ve all either known ...

Fuse 8 n’ Kate: Monster Mama by Liz Rosenberg, ill. Stephen Gammell

Remember when I said to Kate that I wanted to do a certain book for Mother’s Day but would settle on doing it for Halloween season instead? What book could possibly encompass those two holidays? Behold! The rare Mother’s Day/Halloween crossover hit! Brought to you by the illustrator best known for Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark (though he’ll always be the winner of the Longest Caldecott Award Speech to me), this is a marvelous combination of love for your mama and downright scares. What c...

Re-experiencing Stories In Whole New and Thrilling Ways: An Interview with the Team Behind the Watership Down Graphic Novel Adaptation

Today’s post, I’m presenting to you something that has rarely happened on this site before. I suspect that for many of you, the idea of graphic novel adaptations of classic works of fiction is not unheard of. I’ve seen version of 1984, Kindred, Animal Farm, Brave New World, The Alchemist, and more over the years. Such books are released regularly, but rarely with the blessing of the books’ estates.

Today’s book is different. I was alerted to the following:

Watership Down: The Graphic Nov...