Betsy Bird's Blog, page 89

Cover Reveal and Interview with Candace Fleming and Eric Rohmann: POLAR BEAR!

I’m perfectly aware that I’m spoiled. Spoiled by the amount of sheer talent currently residing in the Chicago area. And when I say “talent” I am of course referring to the great children’s book writers and illustrators that dwell within a certain radius. Sometimes they even live in the same home. Candace Fleming and Eric Rohmann are a pretty darn good example of this. If you’ve seen the work that they done together recently then you know that books like Giant Squid and Honeybee are some of the m...

Cover Reveal and Interview with Candice Fleming and Eric Rohmann: POLAR BEAR!

I’m perfectly aware that I’m spoiled. Spoiled by the amount of sheer talent currently residing in the Chicago area. And when I say “talent” I am of course referring to the great children’s book writers and illustrators that dwell within a certain radius. Sometimes they even live in the same home. Candice Fleming and Eric Rohmann are a pretty darn good example of this. If you’ve seen the work that they done together recently then you know that books like Giant Squid and Honeybee are some of the m...

Some of the Best Graphic Novels for Kids of 2022 (so far)

It’s fair to say that I have never encountered a year as full of truly high quality graphic novels and comics as I have in 2022. If I cast my mind back to about 15 years ago, I can remember when I ran a children’s book group at NYPL and we’d occasionally do comics. We met weekly, and each week one of the kids would run up to me and ask eagerly, “What are the new comics this week!” These days she might actually get a happy answer. Back then? I had to regularly break it to her that new comics were...

Guest Post: Joke Books in the Classroom and Library by Kevin Purdy

Been a while since we had one of these! It is my very great pleasure to introduce a guest post today. An honest-to-goodness guest post! Kevin Purdy is a retired reading instructor with an MA in reading instruction and National Board Certification (NBPTS) in reading & writing instruction. He’s taught remedial & developmental reading in grades 1 – 12 (mostly at the middle school level) for over 25 years in Montana, Oregon & Colorado. Not long ago, he found an old blog post I wrote about books ...

Coming Up for Air: A Johnnie Christmas Interview About the One and Only Swim Team

Seems to me that when a man has the name “Johnnie Christmas”, the very least you can do is conduct an interview with him. Tomorrow morning, bright and early, his debut graphic novel for kids SWIM TEAM will be hitting bookstore and library shelves everywhere. You may have heard of the book since it’s been getting praise from all corners. This story description comes to you directly from the publisher itself:

Bree can’t wait for her first day at her new middle school, Enith Brigitha, home to th...

Fuse 8 n’ Kate: I Stink! by Kate & Jim McMullan

We continue to dive into the many publications of 2002, so as to determine if the more popular titles of that time have been able to survive two decades. Today’s book is a McMullan joint that is still inspiring sequels to this day. We talk typography, readalouds, and more. In the course of things we figure out which of the elements in the trash listed here should be composted and engage in a VERY long discussion of what a yam would look like if it had been hanging around for a year. You kno...

Cover Reveal: THE NOTE WHO FACED THE MUSIC by Lindsay Bonilla

The dam has broken. Once you start publishing cover reveals for 2023 books, it’s awful hard to stop. Today I am pleased as punch to introduce Lindsay Bonilla. The Note Who Faced the Music, illustrated by Mark Hoffman and out in March of 2023 anthropomorphizes NOTES! The musical kind, no less. Here’s the publisher description:

Half Note doesn’t feel whole. With two beats, she isn’t as big and beautiful as the longer notes, or quick and upbeat like the shorter notes. She’ll never measure up! So...

Review of the Day: You Ruined It by Anastasia Higginbotham

You Ruined It
By Anastasia Higginbotham
Dottir Press
$19.95
ISBN: 9781948340304
On shelves now

Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. You hand a child a book. No act, good or bad, is without its own set of consequences. What are the consequences of handing a child a book? You engage their minds outside of your own influence. This book, whatever it might be, is now inside your child’s head. You have no control over that, aside from taking the book away again. We don’t think through this...

The Sun Does Shine: How Does an Adult Title Get Adapted for Young People? A Talk with Olugbemisola Ruday-Perkovich and Anthony Ray Hinton

I’m perpetually fascinated by the process that adapts a book intended for an adult audience to a younger reader format. It seems to me that this is done poorly more often than it’s done well. There is, you see, a sort of art to it. A symbiotic relationship between the original text and the messaging that would engage young readers. But how do you tease that relationship out? How do you make it work? We’re aiming to answer such questions today.

In 1985 Anthony Ray Hinton was wrongly convicted ...

ACTION!: How Books About Movies Get Made – A Meghan McCarthy Interview

A treat. A treat for you, a treat for me, a treat for anyone, anywhere that loves old movies.

Recently I’ve been wracking my brain, trying to think of any books for children that talk about the origins of film. The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick is probably the most obvious example, but there are others out there. There have been picture book bios of Buster Keaton (and graphic novel suppositions about his youth). There have been picture book bios of Charlie Chaplin (and older...