Betsy Bird's Blog, page 59

Are You Afraid of the Dark? A Remy Lai Q & A and Excerpt Reveal from Ghost Book!

What was your first Remy Lai? I bet you remember. For me, it was Pie in the Sky, that magnificent little graphic novel about moving to a new country where you don’t speak the language and, naturally, bake cake after cake after cake. Mind you, I liked that book but the one closest to my heart was actually Fly on the Wall. The deceit! The betrayal! Oh man. I gotta reread that again. Or are you a dog person? Many are. Pawcasso proved to be irresistible to canine lovers everywhere.

Now let’s talk...

Fuse 8 n’ Kate: Hippos Go Berserk! by Sandra Boynton (Live from ALA!)

Have you ever wanted to listen to an episode of our podcast but thought to yourself, “This is good, but what would it sound like with more background noise?” At last! Now you have your answer! At the most recent American Library Association Annual Conference in beautiful downtown Chicago, Illinois we bring to you the first LIVE recording of Fuse 8 n’ Kate! And what book could be deemed worthy enough of this recording? That would have to be Hippos Go Berserk! by Sandra Boynton, published in 1...

BIPOC Picture Book Classics Galore!: A Booklist of Necessary Titles for Every Library

At the end of June of this year I attended the American Library Association’s Annual Conference and had the express pleasure of watching a number of delightful panels. See enough of them and they all begin to blur together, but I have a clear cut memory of a woman on one of the stages proclaiming loudly that when we think of picture book classics we tend to think of books about and by white people.

This struck me as odd. It is true that historically white creators and their white subjects hav...

Celebrating Jewish Holidays All Year Round: An Interview with Jane Breskin Zalben About Beni’s Tiny Tales

Imagine, if you will, a children’s book that encompasses not simply one or two Jewish folktales but a wide range of them. A huge swath, all contained in a single location, complete with adorable illustrations of several generations of a family. Years and years ago Jane Breskin Zalben created the “Beni” series, and now, twenty-five years later an all new collection is available to readers in BENI’S TINY TALES: AROUND THE YEAR IN JEWISH HOLIDAYS (available everywhere August 8th).

Betsy Bir...

Celebrating Jewish Holidays All Year Round: An Interview with Jane Zalben About Beni’s Tiny Tales

Imagine, if you will, a children’s book that encompasses not simply one or two Jewish folktales but a wide range of them. A huge swath, all contained in a single location, complete with adorable illustrations of several generations of a family. Years and years ago Jane Zalben created the “Beni” series, and now, twenty-five years later an all new collection is available to readers in BENI’S TINY TALES: AROUND THE YEAR IN JEWISH HOLIDAYS (available everywhere August 8th).

Betsy Bird: Jane!...

Ellen Myrick Publisher Preview: Fall 2023/Winter 2024 (Part Seven – Flowerpot Press, Gecko Press, Helvetiq, & Inhabit Media)

We took a little break but now we’re back and stronger than ever. So far we’ve covered small publishers and their upcoming lists in six parts (Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, and Part Six). Now it’s time to see how many we can do in Part Seven:

Animal Jokes and Jokes that Go by Zach Matheson

Pub Date: October 17, 2023

Animal Jokes ISBN: 9781486727889

Jokes that Go ISBN: 9781486727896

I want to talk to you about joke books. They’re the most wanted, mo...

Review of the Day: The Mona Lisa Vanishes by Nicholas Day, ill. Brett Helquist

The Mona Lisa Vanishes: A Legendary Painter, a Shocking Heist, and the Birth of a Global Celebrity
By Nicholas Day
Illustrated by Brett Helquist
Random House Studio (and imprint of Random House Children’s Books)
$22.99
ISBN: 9780593643846
Ages 9-12
On shelves September 5th

I sense that we are on the brink of something. I’ve sensed it for a while. Do you remember when Smile by Raina Telgemeier came out and all of a sudden the demand for graphic novels and comics for kids reached a fever pitch? Do y...

Guest Post: Featuring Lindsey Leigh, Author and Illustrator of THE DEEP!

Oh, I’m so very very excited today! If you know me then you know there’s a spot in my heart for the wonderful nonfiction titles we’re seeing coming out every year. And speaking of which, have you ever seen this beautiful baby before?

Gorgeous, right? So it is my true and distinct pleasure to announce that its creator, Lindsey Leigh, will be providing today’s guest post.

Enjoy!

Writing and illustrating this book was a bit like taking a deep dive into the ocean on a voyage of dis...

The Top Ten Worst Parents in All of Children’s Literature

Parents. They are stumbling blocks in children’s books. Authors that kill off parents kill off impediments. It’s hard for your main character to get anything done when they have attentive guardians hovering over their shoulders every minute of the day. But what’s even better than a dead parent in a book for kids? An evil one!

Today, after conducting a couple haphazard online polls, I bring to you a plethora of some of the vilest, worst, most disreputable parents in the whole of the genre. An...

Book Trailer Premiere: The Last Zookeeper by Aaron Becker

Now that the latest American Library Association Annual Conference has come to a close, I am so pleased to bring to you something that has had me buzzing for quite a while.

Many of you are well and truly familiar with the career of Aaron Becker, but just in case you haven’t fallen under his spell quite yet, allow me to remind you of his Caldecott Honor winning book Journey and its subsequent sequels Quest and Return. Or maybe you’ve been blown away by his board books, like You Are Light, eac...