Betsy Bird's Blog, page 62

Hummingbird Season: A Bonus Cover Reveal and Stephanie Lucianovic Q&A!

The internet age is, at heart, an odd age. I’m old enough to remember a time when a person, when asked, could easily come up with an answer to the question, “So, how did you two meet?” Now, thanks to that series of tubes that gives us cute cat videos, it’s a much harder question to answer. So how, exactly, did I meet Stephanie Lucianovic? Was it because she was such a fan of my podcast Fuse 8 n’ Kate (so much so that she has been officially bequeathed the title “The Third Sister” due to her ardo...

Fuse 8 n’ Kate: Harvey Potter’s Balloon Farm by Jerdine Nolen, ill. Mark Buehner

Could there be any connection between “Harvey” Potter and “Harry” Potter? No! This delightful picture book was released in 1994, long before the world appearance of the boy wizard. You know how we’re always talking about finding classic children’s books of the past written by Black creators that exemplify Black Joy? I submit the following for serious consideration. Strange hardly covers it. This book was a marvelous example of the strange and unusual placed in a dull setting. And how about t...

Review of the Day: Like Lava In My Veins by Derrick Barnes, ill. Shawn Martinbrough with Adriano Lucas

Like Lava in My Veins
By Derrick Barnes
Illustrated by Shawn Martinbrough
Colors by Adriano Lucas
Nancy Paulsen Books (an imprint of Penguin Random House)
$18.99
ISBN: 9780525518747
On shelves July 4th

The superhero picture book is not a new idea. It’s been around for a couple decades at least. Right off the top of my head I can conjure up titles like The Adventures of Sparrowboy by Brian Pinkney (2000) or Superhero ABC by Bob McLeod (2006). Google “superhero picture books” sometime and you’ll get...

Like Lava In My Veins by Derrick Barnes, ill. Shawn Martinbrough with Adriano Lucas

Like Lava in My Veins
By Derrick Barnes
Illustrated by Shawn Martinbrough
Colors by Adriano Lucas
Nancy Paulsen Books (an imprint of Penguin Random House)
$18.99
ISBN: 9780525518747
On shelves July 4th

The superhero picture book is not a new idea. It’s been around for a couple decades at least. Right off the top of my head I can conjure up titles like The Adventures of Sparrowboy by Brian Pinkney (2000) or Superhero ABC by Bob McLeod (2006). Google “superhero picture books” sometime and you’ll get...

Ellen Myrick Publisher Preview: Fall 2023/Winter 2024 (Part Three – Sleeping Bear Press, Soaring Kite Books, Tapioca Stories, Tiger Tales, & Tilbury House)

Part Three! As a reminder, this is the post where I round up a bunch of smaller publishers’ publications coming out in Fall 2023 and Winter 2024. We’ve a lot to get through, so let’s just dive on in and see if there’s anything in here that appeals to you particularly.

A Song So Black, So Proud by R.J. Owens, ill. Keisha Okafor

Publication Date: August 15, 2023

ISBN: 9781534112704

Not the first picture book based on a song you’ve ever seen and it certainly won’t be the last....

Banned Books and Bake Sales: An Interview with Aya Khalil and a Look at Picture Books Tackling Censorship

Banned books aren’t new. I can think of three distinct periods of book banning within my own lifetime where they’ve surged and receded, surged and receded.

Children and teen books about banned books aren’t new. Recall that as far back as 1982, Delacorte released Nat Hentoff’s The Day They Came to Arrest the Book.

But picture books about banned books? Now THAT is new! I’ll confess that I don’t remember seeing many until this year. Now in 2023 we’ve Raj Haldar’s This Book Is Banned on the on...

Fuse 8 n’ Kate: Heckedy Peg by Audrey Wood, ill. Don Wood

You know what the problem is with Mother’s Day picture books? Not enough of them are truly horrifying and scary, that’s what. So I must credit listeners Lindsey Foat & Sara Hudson for coming up with today’s suggestion. Certainly, Audrey and Don Wood have been on this podcast before. I recall having done King Bidgood’s in the Bathtub, The Napping House and even The Little Mouse, the Red Ripe Strawberry, and the Big Hungry Bear in the past. Now we tackle that universal problem of what to do wh...

Ellen Myrick Publisher Preview: Fall 2023/Winter 2024 (Part Two – Pajama Press, Red Comet Press, Scallywag Press & Sleeping Bear Press)

Part Two! This is the post where I round up a bunch of smaller publishers’ publications coming out in Fall 2023 and Winter 2024 (doesn’t that just sound like the distant future?).

To aid me today, I ask that you grant me some patience with these posts. I received feedback recently that while these are nice posts, if I highlight a book and don’t make any kind of a mention of the translator, then what am I even doing? Trouble is, not every publisher provides that kind of information. As such, ...

Review of the Day: Stories of the Islands by Clar Angkasa

Stories of the Islands
By Clar Angkasa
Holiday House
$22.99
ISBN: 9780823449781
On shelves October 31st

There was a time, oh best beloved, when fairytales and works of folklore ruled children’s libraries across America. It was an era before the big box bookstores, long before the internet, when librarians set the tone for what would and wouldn’t sell in the world of children’s literature. Back then, if you wanted to look at world cultures, fairytales and folktales were your one and only way of d...

Excerpt Time! Read the Beginning of “The Gray” by Chris Baron

All right, you yahoos. Time to do some serious excerpting. Now I know that if you read my blog on the regular, you probably like books. And if you’re anything like me, you probably also like free stuff. Book excerpts, therefore, are the perfect amalgamation of these two “likes”. They give you the delights of a book with all the thrills of a movie preview.

Now THE GRAY by Chris Baron (out June 13th) is tackling the subject of anxiety. Normally at this point in the post I’d just cut and paste ...