Fusenews: Fun Covers and Uncloseted Lists

• Rocco Staino of the Friends of the Libraries wrote to me that The Central Children’s Room in New York City is one of only seven NYC literary landmarks.  I’ll be hornswaggled!  The others are pretty cool too, though.  These include:

The Little Red Light House (Still standing under the George Washington Bridge)
The Algonquin Hotel for its famed round table
Chumley’s in Greenwich Village
Pete’s Tavern for O’Henry and Ludwig Bemelman ( he began writing Madeline in NYC rather than Paris!)
Bank Street College for Margaret Wise Brown
The Plaza Hotel for Eloise. Even though the hotel is closed the plaque is still on display.

• The Brown Bookshelf has been doing some pretty keen interviews in conjunction with Black History Month.  You noticed?  You didn’t?  Go look.  First of all, there’s an interview up with Janice Harrington.  Ms. Harrington wrote what might have been my favorite picture book of 2007 The Chicken Chasing Queen of Lamar County and the interview has the effect of making me mad all over again that it didn’t win enough shiny medals.  Then there’s an interview with Sean Qualls, which is the first of its kind I’ve seen.  It reminds me to review his upcoming picture book when I get a chance.  And then there’s an interview with G. Neri up which is coincidental since I sat down and recorded both him and illustrator Jesse Joshua Watson last night for an upcoming podcast.  There are others interviewed too, but hopefully this will give you a taste of what they have going on.  Pretty impressive, I’d say.

• A brand new booklist is in our midst so let’s stand up and give it a hand.  The Rainbow Project announces its first annual GLBTQ book list for youth and I couldn’t be happier.  It was co-sponsored by the American Library Association’s Social Responsibility Round Table and the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgendered Round Table, and the annual bibliography is meant for young readers from birth through age 18.  This year there are 45 fictional and informational books on the list which are viewable here.  The list even has its own MySpace page, clearly marking it as a trendsetter amongst ALA lists.  Notables take note.

• David Itzkoff has contributed one of the more inane statements to the general discourse lately.  "I sometimes wonder how any self-respecting author of speculative fiction can find fulfillment in writing novels for young readers. I suppose J. K. Rowling could give me 1.12 billion reasons in favor of it: get your formula just right and you can enjoy worldwide sales, film and television options, vibrating-toy-broom licensing fees, Chinese-language bootlegs of your work, a kind of limited immortality (L. Frank Baum who?) and — finally — genuine grown-up readers. But where’s the artistic satisfaction? Where’s the dignity?"  This from a man who writes for the Times.  Then again, he seemed far more impressed with Un Lun Dun than most of the people I know.  I can only assume he doesn’t get out much.  Thanks to bookshelves of doom for the link, to say nothing of her round-up of responses.
  

• BB-Blog says that that whole "don’t judge a book by its cover" thing is a crock and that sometimes a bad book is easily identifiable. I don’t know where she’s coming from with tha . . . .

Oh.

Judge a Book by its Cover has more, if you’re yearning for them.  Thank you, BB-Blog, for all the joy you bring.

Filed under: Fusenews