Elizabeth Bird

Fusenews: Mmm. Crack Me Open a Delicious Can of Library.
December 3, 2008

There's a great play-by-play of a teacher reading Blueberries for Sal to a class of well-informed third graders over at the mesmerizingly named Derfwad Manor.  I was particularly fond of the moment when a child commented, "I think Sal is a goner."  The kid has reason to be wary.  Bears are, after all, godless killing machines.  J.L. Bell takes it one step farther to discuss bear picture books.  Thanks to Oz and Ends and Bartography for the link.

• Oh goody goody goody goody!  I know that there's always a danger in as amiable a sphere as the Kidlitosphere that everything will turn into a doggone lovefest since children's literary bloggers are almost always nice.  And once a blogger compliments another's site and that compliment is given back in turn the whole procedure begins to resemble nothing so much as those adorable Goofy Gophers from the old Looney Tunes shorts.  That said, Collecting Children's Books is a blog that I watch and read with great anticipation at all times.  It appears that its owner does the same in the case of my own blog.  So the other day I was discussing endpapers and I said in a pseudo-practiced-offhand manner "Think we can convince Peter from Collecting Children's Books to post some of his own collection's beauties?”  To my infinite delight he has consented!  Hurrah!!  So at freakin' 6:15 in the morning he was pulling down beauts from his shelf and just came up with a whole host of magnificent spreads.  My favorite was the one for Maggie MacIntosh.  He also makes a point about how few fiction titles today make an effort to really pour on the good looking endpapers.  I'd mentioned in a previous post that The Night Tourist won the Best Endpapers in a Children's Book Award of 2007, but who has a shot at the title here in 2008?  And where on earth is the Children's Endpapers Blog?

• Quiz Question of the Day: What was the 1988 equivalent of Twilight?  Think carefully now.  You'll probably get the answer if you were a tween to early teen girl at that time, but I'll give you a hint.  It featured a brooding obsessed male, a relatively useless female, and zippo sex but oodles of longing.  Give up?  The answer.

• Sure the Book Design Review's online posting My Favorite Book Covers of 2008 includes only adult jackets, but I think it may be well worth your time anyway.  And it would be nice if someone did this for children's covers or YA covers as well.  I mean I'd do it myself but I've just developed this nasty cough. *cough cough*  Thanks to Bookninja for the link.

• Cece Bell wrote a picture book and the picture book is called Bee-Wigged.  Now Cece has dipped her toe into the treacherous waters of blog touring.  Here is the information on the matter as it was told to me:

Cece's "Bee-Wigged" blog tour is ongoing and will wrap up on Saturday (Dec. 6) back at Blog Tour HQ with a contest to win one of the actual illustrations from the book.

Blog Tour HQ is at http://www.cecebell.com

Thanks to Tom and Sam for the link.

• Daily Image:

You can cuddle your Kindles and snuggle up to your Sony E-Readers all you want.  Just remember that the so-called death of the paper book isn't a new notion.  As you can see from this ad (follow the link to read it more closely), it dates back all the way to 1936.

Many thanks to Teacher Ninja for the link. 

Posted by Elizabeth Bird on December 3, 2008 | Comments (10)