Fusenews: Foo, Fuffle, and Forty

I owe you, the reader, one Kidlit Drink Night Recap.  I owe me, the writer, one decent night of sleep.  Have some tidbits instead.

• The Al Roker Bookclub for kids is now going to be reading Molly Moon’s Incredible Book of Hypnotism.  They’re reading it at PRE-cisely the moment we got rid of most of our paperback copies here at Donnell (weeding n’ such).  Ah well.  I do like the book.  Kudos to whoever selected it.  Thanks to bookshelves of doom for the link.

• I feel obligated to mention this since it involves middle grade literature, but boy o’ boyo boy.  Kerfuffle nothing.  Brouhaha?  More like a brouhardyhar.  Have you guys been keeping up with the Class of 2k9/2009 Debutantes craziness?  Greg Fishbone sums it all up on the brink of his wife giving birth, so that gives you some kind of an impression of how important it is.  Bookshelves of doom has all the links you’ll need to parse this weirdo occurence in the heart of Happy Kidlit Land.

• The New School has created a host of author you might know and love (ever heard of The Longstockings?).  Now they’re hosting some forums on the topic of writing for the kiddies.  Here’s the press release:

The New School in New York City is hosting a series of forums on writing for children. The second will take place on Tuesday, February 19 from 6:30-7:30 p.m. and will feature a panel of publishing professionals on the topic of getting published. The panelists are Edite Kroll of the Edite Kroll Literary Agency; Jeanne McDermott, director of marketing at FSG Books for Young Readers; and Susan Van Metre, editorial director at Abrams/Amulet. Tickets cost $5 and can be ordered from the New School box office by calling 212-229-5488. For more information about the series, call 212-229-5611.

• There are people in this world that love Eloise.  I do not know them personally, but I have been told that they exist (this is the cue for the Eloise lovers of the world to unite, by the way).  It is for them that I present this bit of mind-baffling news.  From Cynopsis Kids:

Uma Thurman joins the cast of the upcoming live-action movie adaptation of Eloise in Paris , as Nanny, per Variety .  Based on the book, Eloise in Paris , penned by Kay Thompson and illustrated by Hillary Knight, the movie begins production this summer.  Directed by Charles Shyer , Eloise in Paris is produced by Handmade Films , which hopes to make this the first in a series of Eloise movies.  The title role has not been cast.

Oogy.

• New Blog Alert (NBA?): Canada.  Children’s literary blogs in abundance it hath not.  There are one or two notable exceptions, but for such a big country they’ve a relatively small showing.  That’s part of the reason I was so thrilled to run across Wide-Mouthed Blog.  She doesn’t update too regularly, but I’m willing forgive it all in exchange for knowing about the book Me Write Book: It Bigfoot Memoir.  Will nice publishers here in New York please to buy this for America?  Pretty please?  With sugar on top?

• Speaking of Canadian blogs, did you see the recent podcast interview Just One More Book did with illustrator Oliver Jeffers.  Man.  Almost enough to get me to jump start that Hot Men of Children’s Literature feature all over again.  Rowr!

• Educating Alice tells us via Bookwitch that a new Zizou Corder novel is nigh.  It’s called Lee Raven, Boy Thief and it is set in the future.  Monica would like to know when it’s coming out here in the U.S.

• The librarians amongst you will appreciate this.  It’s like a creative writing project with Little Bunny Foo Foo as the focus.  Thanks to Shaken and Stirred for the link.

• Yesterday Mr. Mo turned 40 and you didn’t even get him a card!  Shame on you!  Just for that, no cake.  I figure his birthday this way: I have a little more than 10 years to conquer the world as he has done.  It’s good to give yourself a timeline, no?

• I did not even notice that the xkcd comic was looking back at Redwall recently.  Fortunately I can just read Oz and Ends
  

• And finally, if you don’t regularly read Walter Minkel’s blog The Monkey Speaks then I suggest that it is high time that you start.  He has a piece up on the homeless in libraries, something on his recent interview with Jon Scieszka for SLJ, and info on a USA Today poll of library use. 

Filed under: Fusenews