Overly Anxious Latkes and Charlie Brown Chic

• How exactly did we all miss the fact that there’s a new Lemony Snicket Hanukkah book coming out this holiday season?  When I read about The Latke That Couldn’t Stop Screaming it wasn’t in School Library Journal or Publisher’s Weekly or on a blog.  It was in Entertainment Weekly.  Must we stoop to getting our news via entertainment magazines?  For shame.  Has anyone anywhere seen this book?  And what’s more, should Handler really keep writing under the Snicket pseudonym even when the character of Lemony has no presence in the story itself?  Apparently there will be an event for this book at the McNally Robinson bookstore on December 5th, though.  Mark your calendars.

• J.K. Rowling has just written a new book. Not that you’ll benefit from it, of course. They’re only making seven copies. Says CNN:

"The Tales of Beedle the Bard" is mentioned in the final Potter book, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows," as a gift left by headmaster Albus Dumbledore to Harry’s friend Hermione.  They also say:  The volume, bound in brown morocco leather and mounted with silver and semiprecious stones, will be auctioned at Sotheby’s on December 13 with a starting price of $62,000. Proceeds will go to The Children’s Voice, a charity that helps vulnerable children across Europe.  And of course Christmas is just around the corner…

• Hey! Adam Rex drew inspiration for his book The True Meaning of Smekday from John Marsden and Shaun Tan’s The Rabbits, a book both near and dear to my heart.  Excellent.

• Everyone’s favorite Hot Pig of Children’s Literature got a cameo in the most recent issue of Time Out New York. It’s an article about a bookstore, but take a close look at the picture they’ve included. Pig’s agent has also informed me that the URL for the bookstore is incorrect. It should be http://www.unnameablebooks.net/.

• Colleen Mondor of the blog Chasing Ray introduces the upcoming Winter Blog Blast Tour in all its infinite glory. Check out some of those names on the roster. Judy Blume. Rick Riordan. I’ll be interviewing Jane Yolen and Laura Amy Schlitz, to my own infinite delight.

• And your daily laugh.  Just check out this image that Children’s Illustration found.  It’s Charlie Brown vogue.  I shudder to think what they did to Linus’s blanket.

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