Fusenews: Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Top of the morning to ye, lads and lassies.

• Oh who are the Irish illustrators in your neighborhood?  In your neighborhood?  In your neighborho-ood?  Don’t know of any Irish illustrators off the top of your head.  For shame!  Run rather than walk on over to Illustrators Ireland: Home of the Illustrators Guild of Ireland and remedy this problem (thanks to Cachibachis for the link).  Better yet, take a gander at their blog Scamp.  It is there that you will learn about a children’s book that is published by the Institute of Accountants in Ireland described as "a sort of Animal Farm about general economics".  Or, if you prefer, there’s a piece on the new Irish picture book Moxie the Underdog.  And best of all is the post where a whole bunch of different illustrators created their own 21st century leprechauns.  As some examples, this little fella is by Chris Judge.

And this one is Phil Dunne.

• The American Book Review has collected what it believes to be the best 100 last lines in literature on its site.  Better still, they have a list of Nominated Best Last Lines From Novels as well.  There are nods to Little Women ("Oh, my girls, however long you may live, I never can wish you a greater happiness than this!”), The Wonderful Wizard of Oz ("I’m so glad to be at home again."), and a rather long one from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland which is clearly to last lines what Anne of Green Gables is to first ones. Thanks to Educating Alice for the link.

• Award announcements.  I was pleased as punch to get some insider info on Friday that the Ezra Jack Keats Book Award winners have been named and they are familiar, I hope, to us all.  The award is given every year to, "to recognize and encourage authors and illustrators new to the field of children’s books."  This year the winners are:

For Illustration: Jonathan Bean for The Apple Pie that Papa Baked

For Writing: David Ezra Stein (from one Ezra to another, eh?) for Leaves

• In other Awardy news, the British equivalent of the Quills called The Galaxy British Book Awards have released their Children’s Books of the Year Shortlist.  Thanks again to Educating Alice for the link.

• This bit came from the Publishers Weekly Children’s Bookshelf (which is well worth reading each and every week).  I was particularly amused by a piece they had on Diary of a Wimpy Kid: "Jeff Kinney’s Diary of a Wimpy Kid isn’t just a hit here in America. It’s a hit overseas as well— so far rights have been sold in 32 countries.  In Germany, Greg’s Tagebuch: Von Idioten umzingelt! is in its third printing after four weeks. And Wimpy Kid is just coming out in Italy, Austria and Switzerland. Clearly the humor in Kinney’s middle-grade novel travels well. And while the phrase "wimpy kid" might be hard to translate, sometimes the alternate versions provide their own humor. The Italian title translates as: Diary of an Incompetent . The German edition: Greg’s Journal: I’m Surrounded by Idiots ."  I was also pleased to see that NPR did a piece called ‘Wimpy Kid’ Keeps Kids of All Ages in Stitches.  Good stuff.

• Finally, how should you go about encouraging people to read your new book?  Why not give out the most delicious fortune cookies in the world?  That’s certainly what Jason Eaton did when he gave out fortune cookies with the release of his new book The Facttracker (which, by the way, is quite funny).  Queens Materials Specialist Laura Lutz blogs regularly about food and children’s books on her site Pinot and Prose, and recently she discovered the tastiness of these cookies. Upon trying the chocolate fortune cookie she wrote "It was completely fresh and crispy and crunchy – the chocolate flavor wasn’t too sweet or cloying, and it was mild enough that I could still taste that typical vanilla fortune cookie flavor. And it was so light that I didn’t feel like I was being overindulgent."  Turns out that they’re from Fancy Fortune Cookies, and make a brilliant complement to a book with a plot that relies on small written messages.

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