Colleen Mondor at Chasing Ray and Gwenda Bond over at Shaken and Stirred  both have some great posts up that touch on the issue of class in children's books.  Look through the titles on current bookstore shelves and find me the lower income contemporary kids that lead happy lives.  As Colleen said, "I don't think economic conditions were better reflected 30 years ago. (I don't recall ever reading a book about a kid with divorced parents - where the bo...Read More

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Great theater for kids is a hard one to find.  Well it looks as if the Lifeline Theatre KidSeries over in Chicago is doing a show well worth your eye.  Just in time for the presidential season they are preparing a musical version of Duck for President (book originally by Doreen Cronin).  This seems like a very good idea to me.  In case you live in the area, here's the info as it was sent out:

WHAT:            ...Read More

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• I get a lot of books.  A lot.  Of books.  And simple mathematics tells me that unfortunately I cannot physically read all these books unless I A) Give up my job and B) Give up my blog (which somehow seems counterproductive).  Of course, there are still books I miss on top of this.  For example, I certainly haven't laid so much as a golden eyelash upon author Haven Kimmel's children's title Kaline Klattermaster's Tree House.  Such is life.  That said, I was pleased as punch when Jules from 7-Imp let me know that Ms. Kimmel has a blog. Ho-hum, you say?  Well aside from her vo...Read More

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Over my vacation I ate poorly and often, slept a lot, and didn't exercise a jot.  In short, a good time was had.  However, my blogging muscles are now just as flabby as my bodily ones and I must get back in the rhythm pronto.  Here then is a little Fusenews, all rather old but still very interesting.

• From Cynopsis Kids comes a surprise of a movie adaptation.  It's not often that an older realistic children's novel gets a push towards the theater.  But if it star...Read More

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The faithful blog failed to be faithful in my absence.  So now let's redo that cover discussion I had.  This time . . .  with covers!

When you're a librarian your work is never done.  My theory is that great librarianship is something you love and nuture.  And what better place to love and nurture your knowledge of what's out there than by taking at trip to your local bookstore?

In New York City there are many places to go when you want to know what's new and hot.  There's Books of Wonder, of course.  But while their selection in autographed titles is excellent, they're not so great on creating large sections of new books and up-to-the-minute releases.  Bank Street Bookstore has ...Read More

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Aaaaah.

Nothing is finer than coming home from vacation and finding that your blog has systematically gotten rid of every image you uploaded to it during your absence.  

Corrections are being corrected.  Good to be back, though.  More to come.

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Garmann’s Summer
By Stian Hole
Eerdmans Books for Young Readers
$17.50
ISBN: 978-0-8028-5339-4
Ages 4-8
On shelves now

In the head of even the most open-minded person there are still in-born beliefs of what purpose a picture book really serves. If you sat your average citizen down and played that old word association game, the term "picture book" would inspire thoughts of Seuss...Read More

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Huh! Not a bad idea here. Actors wanting to play Jamaican need to learn how to speak Jamaican patois anyway. Why not learn via YouTube? Here's a Dr. Seuss title and one by Robert Kraus, read with great aplomb.

...Read More

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Just making sure you're all still awake.  I dedicate this find in honor of Lincoln's upcoming 200th birthday.

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Sometimes I unconsciously play a game with myself where I keep track of the similarities and ties between one book and another.  When you read a bunch of children's books in a row and there isn't much lag time, your instinct is to make connections.  I call it the Book-to-Book Game.  Well recently I had a hitherto unheard of four book streak.  Man, if anyone else can beat this, I would love to hear about it.  Remember, the rules stipulate that you're reading these books randomly and NOT because you think you'll be able to make connections.  The connections have to be entirely out of the blue.  Here's what I found:

Cicada Summer by Andrea Beatty – A sentence from page 39 says, “Fern and Dad chat about this and that, but after a while, Fern gets quiet and closes her e...Read More

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A call to arms!  A call to hanging out drinking ludicrously expensive mixed drinks!  It's all part and parcel of the Kidlit Drink Nights here in NYC.  It's not until July 29th, so cool your pretty little jets, but the place is quite fab.  Cheryl Klein and I were discussing where to hold the next one and the thought of The Library Hotel came to mind.  Surely some of you have heard of it before.  Here in New York there is a hotel that describes itself thusly:

"The Library Hotel in New York City is the first hotel ever to offer its guest over 6,000 volumes of books organized throughout the hotel by the Dewey Decimal System.* Ea...Read More

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Sea Queens: Women Pirates Around the World
By Jane Yolen
Illustrated by Christine Joy Pratt
Charlesbridge
$18.95
ISBN: 978-1-58089-131-8
Ages 8-15
On shelves now

Do you remember that whole Girl Power craze roundabout ten or so years ago? It was the oddest thing. Girls were supposed to seek empowerment in an era of Spice Girls and Ally McBeal on the one hand while appreciating Buffy th...Read More

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