Fusenews: “…there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run / There’s still time to change the road you’re on.”

The last few days have been a blur, helped not a bit by a toddler who suddenly took it into her head that 4:45 a.m. is a perfectly reasonable time to wake up and that perfectly reasonable people should be up and about and WHY ISN’T MOMMY BEING PERFECTLY REASONABLE ABOUT THIS???? … WAAAAAAUUUUGGGGHHHH!  So if I misspell things or make factual errors along the lines of “tigers have opposable thumbs” grant me a modicum of pity/slack.

Let’s start off with a larf.  And by “larf” I mean “a fact so ludicrous that you may find yourself weeping helplessly while fighting off the insane desire to giggle like a maniac”.  Such is my own personal reaction to hearing that CNBC said that the job of librarian was one of the “least stressful” in 2013.  I could respond (beyond just cackling/crying) but I’ll leave it to Miss Ingrid at The Magpie Librarian who may well be my new personal hero.  Anyone who says she freebases sequins is automatically good people.  Thanks to Sandy Soderberg for the link!


Me Stuff now.  This past Saturday I was pleased as punch to host the Children’s Literary Salon on “Nonfiction Ethics in Books for Kids” with the NF luminaries Meghan McCarthy, Deborah Heiligman, Sue Macy, and Susan Kuklin.  The event was a smash success, but alas it was not recorded for posterity.  The next best thing then would be to read the accounts of it available on the interwebs.  There was this article in SLJ Getting It Right, Making It Fun: NYPL Panelists Talk Writing Nonfiction.  Roger Sutton offered his opinion over at Read Roger.  And very soon Susan Kuklin will write up a piece on the talk at Interesting Nonfiction for Kids (or I.N.K.), though I’m not sure when it’ll be live, though.


In other news, Kyra Hicks has taken one for the team and updated her regular series on the Coretta Scott King Awards.  Now looking at the winners between 1970-2012 we can get a sense not only of decade-long trends, but also contenders for this year’s awards.  If you’ve ever thought to yourself that there were enough African-Americans working in the field, check out those numbers and think again.


There’s a blog contest on the winds . . . a blog contest involving a signed Mo Willems poster of such unbearable awesomeness and beauty that I’ve half a mind not to tell any of you jokers and just enter it entirely on my own.  MWAH-HA-HA-HA!  But then that darned angel on my right shoulder tells me that it wouldn’t be right, and the devil on my left shoulder just shrugs, puts out her cigarette on my collarbone, grumbling that there isn’t any space on the walls of my New York apartment anyway.  But YOU happy folks have a chance.  It’s a contest run by the Eric Carle Museum and involves THIS poster:

 

 

Oh, and while you’re at it, the Carle celebrating its 10th anniversary with a kickin’ Charlotte’s Web exhibition. Feel a yearning to see what that would look like?  Do the next best thing and read this review of the show.  Then, like me, plot to figure out how the heck you’re going to move to Amherst.  Librarians jobs ain’t plentiful but at this point I’d do ANYTHING  to get out there . . .


Speaking of Horn Book (which is to say, at some point in the course of this post I mentioned Roger Sutton) did you hear about K.T. Horning’s epic job?  HB Executive Editor Martha V. Parravano wrote that to celebrate the 75 anniversary of the Caldecott Medal, KT will, “examine one winning book per decade [of the Caldecott Medal], focusing each time on a book that spotlights the developing identity of the American picture book. K.T.’s inaugural column appears in this issue, beginning with the 1930s and Thomas Handforth’s now nearly forgotten Mei Li. In print, Horning focuses on how Mei Li helped the nascent children’s book field answer the question ‘What is a picture book?‘ Online [writes Martha], you will find her fascinating research into the background of author-illustrator Handforth, the China he discovered on his world travels, and the real little girl who became the inspiration for the character Mei Li…”


Daily Image:

Stairway to heaven?

Next best thing, I think.  Thanks to Aunt Judy for the link!