Pleasantness

Oodles of it, actually.

• If you will direct your attention to a couple blogs here and there, you will find interviews and reviews with a wide assortment of fabulous personages. For example, on Book Buds is an interview with the great and powerful Jane Yolen. And in this corner over here is another tri-review over at 7-Imp. This time the gals are gaying it up alongside Roger Sutton with a review of Hero. Hero‘s YA, so I didn’t review it myself, and now I see I’ve no need to do so. When these people review, they review!  Do be so good as to check it out.

• From Cynopsis Kids: "VOOM HD Networks ‘ Animania HD acquired three new kids series. Animalia, based on Graeme Base’s picture book of the same name, will make its world premiere on November 2 at 8:30p."

Remind me, how exactly do you make a series out of Animalia again?  I bet it’s taken entirely from the point of view of those computer savvy mice.

• I’m so glad they posted this on the First Second blog. Recently I heard Nick Abadzis talk about his new graphic novel Laika. And at this particular posting he answers the age old question of where he gets his ideas. In the course of the piece is a section that shows that sometimes life imitates art. Particularly when one creates a character for a book and then finds out later that she’s real.

• While I follow the children’s literary blogs, my husband follows the comic ones. Recently he found this piece at Comics Should Be Good:  "Weirdly — well, it seems weird to me — the explosion of comics into our public libraries over the last couple of decades is a phenomenon that goes largely unremarked in the mainstream comics press. I hardly ever see anyone in the comics press talk about it, anyway, so I decided that I’d ask a couple of the youth librarians I knew to share their thoughts on the subject."

Well worth reading, particularly if you want a little more info on how comics and graphic novels fit into the broader library oeuvre.

• Part of what I love about blogging is that you can get different perspectives on big events. Take the recent Rutgers One-on-One Conference. I wrote my piece on it, but Leeza Hernandez had a far better one, and look at this awesome sketch she made of my panel!

She drew me! And check out Nancy Mercado’s magnificent hair. Good going, Nancy. That brings the number of awesome artists who have sketched me to 2 (here’s number one). In other news, I am freakin’ scary. Just check out this dispatch from the recent children’s literary blogger conference by author Brian Mandabach. I KNEW wearing all that black velvet would pay off! Fear me, little people! Booga booga!

• And here is an interview with graphic novelist Marjane Satrapi. Awesomeness. Thanks to Children’s Illustration for the link.

• Librarians should take note of the Light the Way Grant currently being offered from Candlewick Press as it involves a whopping $5,000.

• I haven’t included any great BB-Blog pieces in a while. Check out this exceedingly simple little piece of furniture for your home then.

A certain type of person (archival-type person) will shiver at the strain this places on the book’s binding, but my ARCs and paperbacks could definitely use it.

• And for your random, exceedingly random, piece of the day, author Elizabeth Fama drew my attention to the New York Times article, Fearing Crime, Japanese Wear the Hiding Place. I am in love with the pictures involved.

The caption on this image read, Though street crime is relatively low in Japan, quirky camouflage designs like this vending-machine dress are being offered to an increasingly anxious public to hide from would-be assailants.

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