Betsy Bird's Blog, page 66

Announcing the 2022 Winners of the Annual Blueberry Literary Award!

Is it not strange, that in an era of climate change and environmental extremes there is not quite yet a nationally recognized children’s book award for titles celebrating the natural world and what we humans can do to support and appreciate it? Well, here in Evanston, Illinois we aim to change all of that. Announcing the 2022 Blueberry Award winners, honors, and changemakers! Granted yearly to those books “published in America that inspire a love of nature & action for planet Earth” for chil...

Announcing the 2023 Winners of the Annual Blueberry Literary Award!

Is it not strange, that in an era of climate change and environmental extremes there is not quite yet a nationally recognized children’s book award for titles celebrating the natural world and what we humans can do to support an appreciate it? Well, here in Evanston, Illinois we aim to change all of that. Announcing the 2023 Blueberry Award winners, honors, and changemakers! Granted yearly to those books published in America that inspire a love of nature & action for planet Earth” for childr...

Creating a Collective Black Ancestry: Researcher Kimberly Annece Henderson Discusses Dear Yesteryear

When I was a teenager, I had a secret passion. It’s a little odd, but I loved going to antique shops and looking through the old photographs they had on sale there. These were forgotten photos from the late 19th early 20th century, and often I would buy the ones that I thought were the most interesting and take them home. There, I’d make up stories about them and what their lives might have been. Photography has always been something that’s fascinated me. Little wonder that when I heard about De...

Bonds and Books: An Interview with Megan Dowd Lambert About Building Connections Through Family Reading

Okay, so right now I need you to take a look around. If you are reading this post in March then I’m going to do something that I have never asked you to do before: I want you to look at the ads. That’s right. This book has ads, usually by the publishers (though on slow months it just tends to be for other LJ/SLJ products) and I don’t tend to notice them much. But this month I was delighted to find that the posts were for none other than Megan Dowd Lambert and her latest book BOOK BONDING: BUILDI...

Cover Reveal: This Book Is Banned – The Latest from Raj Haldar (With a Helpful Q&A for Spice)

I like big swings in my picture books. Risks. I like it too when people come up with ideas that seem like they should have existed long before now. In short, I like Raj Haldar.

Name ringing any bells? I suspect you’ve seen his P is for Pterodactyl: The Worst Alphabet Book Ever, a book that my kids were particularly fascinated by when I brought it home. He followed it up with No Reading Allowed, which was very much in the same vein. Today, we introduce a third picture book from Mr. Haldar and...

The Jewish Board Book Experience: Five Children’s Book Creators Answer Questions About This Dynamic

If you know me then you know that I’ve an inordinate fondness for board books. I round up my favorites every year but that hardly encompasses how interesting I find them. Often I feel that they have so much untapped potential. A potential that, in the right hands, could yield wonders.

So it wasn’t long ago that author Vivian Kirkfield, knowing my predilection for the form, came to me with a proposal. Vivian’s a former kindergarten and Head Start teacher with a masters in Early Childhood ...

Fuse 8 n’ Kate: A Bad Case of Stripes by David Shannon

To my amazement we have somehow never done this particular David Shannon book before. Tis possible? Tis! It is, as Kate says, “The trippiest book,” which is part of why I respect it. I freak out over the fact that this came out the same year as No, David (how often does an author/illustrator have two classic books come out in the same year?). Meanwhile Kate freaks out over the creepy guys lurking on this poor girl’s lawn. But the important thing? We debate whether or not you can buy lima bea...

Exclusive Cover Reveal: Stuntboy In-Between Time by Jason Reynolds, ill. Raúl the Third

Remember Stuntboy, in the Meantime? Allow me to jog your memory. It was by former National Ambassador of Children’s Literature Jason Reynolds. It received four starred reviews. It was illustrated by the remarkably talented Raúl the Third. It remained on the New York Times bestseller list for over eight months. Any of this ringing any bells?

How about this final fact: It has a sequel, Stuntboy In-Between Time, out August 29th, and I’m revealing the cover today.

Not bad, right? It isn’t ever...

Books From Bologna: Titles I’d Love to See in America (Part Two)

Yesterday I ran through a variety of different books seen at the Bologna Children’s Book Fair that I would adore seeing here in the States. Today? The rest of what piqued my interest. Hold onto your butts cause we have a whole slew of interesting titles at work here!

Graphic Novels

The way I figure it, kids devour comics at a prodigious rate. How to keep up with demand? Import ’em! We already do, of course, but let’s import MORE of ’em!

Diana Sottosopra by Kalina Muhova [Italian]

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Books From Bologna: Titles I’d Love to See in America (Part One)

All right. This is it. The penultimate capper. The moment of truth. The posts to end all Bologna posts. I’m back in the States now, so I figure this is a pretty neat way to round everything out.

A couple caveats before I begin, though. While I play fairly close attention to what does and does not make it to American shores, I miss things. And some of the books I’ll be mentioning here (though I won’t know which ones) will have come out years and years ago and did, in fact, make it to the State...