A Fuse #8 Production

November 7, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

I started working at the Central Children's Room at the Donnell Branch of NYPL around four years ago.  While working there I often spoke with author Esther Hautzig, an author and volunteer who dedicated much of her time and energy to the place.  Esther was lovely, and I understood her to be an author.  What I did not understand was her history, and how it informed her work over the years.

At the age of nine, in 1939, Esther and her family were put on a deportation train by the invading Russian army and shipped to Siberia. This later appeared in her memoir for children, The Endless Steppe.  After that she was sent to America and eventually ran the publicity and libr...Read More

November 6, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (4)

• Working with Pooh Bear is lovely. He is polite and refined.  A little honey in his pot and that is all that he requires. Really, he's the perfect working companion. But this new girl who just moved in? Ugh! Talk about a holy terror. If she's not running helter-skelter around the building she's dumping our new books down the nearest unused book drop to see where they go. Pooh and I have decided that we'll just relegate her to the archivists and let THEM handle her from here on in. L...Read More

November 5, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (0)

Y'all like free books and I like debut authors.  Two great tastes that taste great together then.  Take note fellow librarians:

The YA and MG authors of the 2009 Debutantes are giving away a 46-book set of their debut novels to ONE lucky library, anywhere in the world! In light of recent budget cuts to libraries in Pennsylvania, Ohio, and other communities, these debut authors would like to contribute their library to your library, offering up brand new novels for your patrons at no cost.

The collection includes #1 New York Times bestseller WINGS, by Aprilynne Pike, critically-acclaimed novels THE FOREST OF HANDS AND TEETH by Carrie Ryan, HATE LIST by Jennifer Brown, FLASH BURNOUT by L.K. Madigan, TWENTY BOY SUMMER by Sarah Ockler and THE SEASON by SARAH MACLEAN, Juni...Read More

November 5, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (12)

It's all about self-published authors and flowers this year.

I will endeavor to explain.  Eventually.

Yes, it's that time once again.  Time to sit back, sip your orange juice, and revel in the Harper Collins librarian preview, season Spring '10 (you heard it here first) '10.  We are now officially in the future.

A blogger can't have favorites.  A blogger can, however, determine the strength of a given season, and this HC season seemed to have legs.  But see for yourself what you think.

Greenwillow

...Read More

November 4, 2009 | Link This | Email this | Comments (7)

Wild Things
By Clay Carmichael
Front Street (an imprint of Boyd Mills Press)
$18.95
ISBN: 978-1-59078-627-7
Ages 10-14
On shelves now

I like children's books that touch you without pandering at the same time. I like books that make you cry, but don't bend over backwards to make you think that they're sob-worthy. Basically, I like books that can get at the heart of a story the old-fashioned way. Through plain good writing. Now I don't know this Clay Carmichael character. According to her bio she's a resident of Carrboro, North Carolina. She's written three picture books in the ...Read More