SUBSCRIBE
SUBSCRIBE
SLJ Blog Network +
  • 100 Scope Notes
  • A Fuse #8 Production
  • Good Comics for Kids
  • Heavy Medal: A Mock Newbery Blog
  • Teen Librarian Toolbox
  • The Classroom Bookshelf
  • The Yarn
  • Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • About/Contact
  • Fusenews
  • Reviews
  • Librarian Previews
  • Best Books
    • Top 100
    • Best Books of 2022
    • Best Books of 2021
    • Best Books of 2020
    • Best Books of 2019
    • Best Books of 2018
    • Best Books of 2017
    • Best Books of 2016
    • Best Books of 2015
    • Best Books of 2014
    • Best Books of 2013
  • Fuse 8 n’ Kate
  • Videos
  • Press Release Fun

April 11, 2008 by Betsy Bird

Fusenews: Now With a Poetic Twist!

April 11, 2008 by Betsy Bird   6 comments

  • I saw this on my beloved BB-Blog and started tittering like a schoolgirl for a good 35 minutes.  It’s rather Poetry Friday/Poetry Month appropriate too.  My screenwriter husband who recently wrote a bio-pic of Alan Turing commented that this cartoon was very Turinesque.  Turing apparently speculated quite a lot about whether or not robots could write poetry.  Something to chew on, then.


  • In case you missed it, editors Donna Bray and Alessandra Balzer just lit out from Hyperion books to start their own Harper Collins imprint called . . . . wait for it . . . . Balzer & Bray.  I like the name, actually.  It sounds like a drink I might order if I were in the mood to quaff something a little out of the ordinary.  "Oh, barkeep! I’ll have a glass of your finest Balzer & Bray.  Heavy on the Bray, and don’t spare the lemon".  Galleycat speculates that this may be a very bad thing for poor little Hyperion too.  "…after Balzer takes authors like Mo Willems and Eoin Colfer out the door with her, there isn’t going to be much for Hyperion Books for Children to do but publish Disney-branded book content."  Ach.  Did she have Kadir Nelson as well?  I don’t know enough of these matters to say.  In any case, we’ll all have to warily watch what happens.


  • Diary of a Wimpy Kid books are being compared to Harry Potter . . . in that they both make a lot of money. And both boys and girls read them. Thanks to Chicken Spaghetti for the link. Incidentally I was speaking to an editor the other day and she told me that recently she’d been cleaning out her old e-mail folder.  And there, circa 2005 or so, was a message called "Diary of a Wimpy Kid".  Apparently they passed on a profitable thing back in the day.  Ouchie!


  • Somehow or other I completely missed that Your Neighborhood Librarian was in the business of unfugging the overly fuggable/forgettable READ posters that adorn libraries all over the country.  She has a couple mots that are particularly bon.  Here’s a good example of her taking down Julia Stiles: "Me and my girls in the museum library in NYC used to dress like this Every Day in 1998. Long black skirts or knit pants, long black sweaters, black Dansko clogs… we looked like a murder of crows. Listen, Stiles: when the librarians wear your outfit and think it’s frumpy… it’s frumpy."  For the record, Julia Stiles is one of the few celebrities I have actually helped while working a reference desk.  And I had Hope Davis in a storytime.  God, I miss working in Greenwich Village sometimes.


  • Oh me. Oh my. It’s a venn diagram t-shirt of vowels and consonants. 

I don’t even wear t-shirts with images or words on them, and yet somehow I really want this.  Thanks to Alison Morris for finding the link and, more importantly, coming up with the term "venn diagram".  Cause you know I sure as heck wouldn’t have been able to pluck it from the murky recesses of my own mind.

  • Everyday blokes like myself hear about cool authorial opportunities in a rather roundabout way.  Last fall I discovered this interesting creature going by the name of the Rutgers One-on-One Conference.  People in the publishing industry offer their two cents to burgeoning authors and illustrators in a one day extravaganza.  Is fun. Is useful. Is on October 18th this year.  Just thought you might want to know.


  • If you’ve noticed, I’ve been neglecting my podcast lately.  I’ve three speeches to give in two weeks at the SCBWI regional conference in Seattle (more on that later) and all my spare time has been devoted to them.  The weird side-effect is a reluctance to discuss anything that has to do with podcasts, but childrensbookradio.com sounds as if it might slake your thirst for news of this sort.  And though it has been mentioned on a number of different sites, thanks in this particular case to BookBuds for the link.


  • Do I repeat myself?  Very well, I repeat myself.  It’s just because I never know who’s reading at a given time.  Well, if you’re a foodie or (at the very least) you like knowing that beautiful food arrangements can be made by librarians, please oh please go on over to Pinot and Prose.  Children’s literature and food is on the . . . see, I was going to end that sentence with the word "menu" but couldn’t make myself do it.  I still have some shame.

  • And to finish, it doesn’t have anything to do with children’s literature, but I’m in an image-minded mood today. Look! It’s street art made out of plastic bags that spring to life every time the subway passes underneath.



Twenty different shades of awesome.

Filed under: Fusenews

SHARE:

Read or Leave Comments

About Betsy Bird

Betsy Bird is currently the Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library system and a former Materials Specialist for New York Public Library. She has served on Newbery, written for Horn Book, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of EPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on Twitter: @fuseeight.

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Posts

January 2019

Fusenews: All the news that's fit to fuse

by Betsy Bird

December 2018

Fuse 8 n' Kate: Knuffle Bunny by Mo Willems

by Betsy Bird

November 2018

Fusenews: She Has a Name

by Betsy Bird

October 2018

Fusenews: We Would Have Also Accepted "Fast Food Fairies"

by Betsy Bird

September 2018

Fusenews: STEM Girl Fashions, the Death of "Hypothesis", and More

by Betsy Bird

ADVERTISEMENT

SLJ Blog Network

100 Scope Notes

U.S. Gov: ‘All Books Must Have Round Corners’

by Travis Jonker

A Fuse #8 Production

Review of the Day – Bear and Bird: The Picnic and Other Stories by Jarvis

by Betsy Bird

Good Comics for Kids

Review: Swim Team

by Esther Keller

Heavy Medal

March suggestions: early Mock Newbery possibilities

by Emily Mroczek-Bayci

Teen Librarian Toolbox

Write What You Know. Read What You Don’t, a guest post by Lauren Thoman

by Amanda MacGregor

The Classroom Bookshelf

The Classroom Bookshelf is Moving

by Erika Thulin Dawes

The Yarn

Jarrett and Jerome Pumphrey Try Something New

by Travis Jonker

ADVERTISEMENT

Related Articles on SLJ

6 Chapter Books Series Updates for Transitioning Readers

Remember: 10 Titles to Read for Holocaust Remembrance Day

4 Books To Introduce Holi to The Littlest Readers

6 Middle Grade & YA Novels on Repeat for Groundhog Day

First Books About Large Gatherings | Milestones

About Betsy Bird

Betsy Bird is currently the Collection Development Manager of the Evanston Public Library system and a former Materials Specialist for New York Public Library. She has served on Newbery, written for Horn Book, and has done other lovely little things that she'd love to tell you about but that she's sure you'd find more interesting to hear of in person. Her opinions are her own and do not reflect those of EPL, SLJ, or any of the other acronyms you might be able to name. Follow her on Twitter: @fuseeight.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Gregory K. says

    April 11, 2008 at 12:55 am

    A venn diagram! It’s geek heaven! I am curious, though, if W has lost it’s “sometimes vowel” moniker. Cwm, anybody?

  2. your neighborhood librarian says

    April 11, 2008 at 6:19 am

    I felt a little ashamed fugging Julia Stiles. She’s obviously a reader – I love that she visits the public library! But that outfit was just so severe and unappealing.

  3. lisa chellman says

    April 11, 2008 at 9:09 am

    Plastic bag polar bear–how sweet! I was going to comment that GalleyCat’s assessment of what Hyperion will be after Balzer & Bray (double-shot, please) leave was pretty harsh, considering they’ve put out a ton of really excellent children’s books that have nothing to do with Disney or Eoin Colfer, etc. Then I saw the bit about Disney changing the imprint’s name to “Disney-Hyperion.” It does certainly sound like its face will be changing, alas…

  4. Fuse #8 says

    April 11, 2008 at 9:23 am

    I believe that some of the newer Hyperion books actually have that written on the lower spine.

  5. your neighborhood librarian says

    April 11, 2008 at 11:42 am

    BTW, Alan Turing FTW! What’s the title of your husband’s movie so I can look out for it?

  6. Fuse #8 says

    April 11, 2008 at 5:14 pm

    It’s called “The Man Who Won the War”. It won the Sloan Award at Columbia last year. Keep your eyes peeled.

ADVERTISEMENT

Archives

  • External Links

    • A Fuse #8 Production Reviews
  • Follow This Blog

    Enter your email address below to receive notifications of new blog posts by email.

    This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

    This coverage is free for all visitors. Your support makes this possible.

    Primary Sidebar

    • News & Features
    • Reviews+
    • Technology
    • School Libraries
    • Public Libraries
    • Age Level
    • Ideas
    • Blogs
    • Classroom
    • Diversity
    • People
    • Job Zone

    Reviews+

    • Book Lists
    • Best Books
    • Media
    • Reference
    • Series Made Simple
    • Tech
    • Review for SLJ
    • Review Submissions

    SLJ Blog Network

    • 100 Scope Notes
    • A Fuse #8 Production
    • Good Comics for Kids
    • Heavy Medal
    • Neverending Search
    • Teen Librarian Toolbox
    • The Classroom Bookshelf
    • The Yarn

    Resources

    • 2022 Youth Media Awards
    • The Newbery at 100: SLJ Celebrates the 100th Anniversary of the Award
    • Special Report | School Libraries 2021
    • Summer Reading 2021
    • Series Made Simple Spring 2021
    • SLJ Diverse Books Survey
    • Summer Programming Survey
    • Research
    • White Papers / Case Studies
    • School Librarian of the Year
    • Mathical Book Prize Collection Development Awards
    • Librarian/Teacher Collaboration Award

    Events & PD

    • In-Person Events
    • Online Courses
    • Virtual Events
    • Webcasts
    • About Us
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Subscribe
    • Media Inquiries
    • Newsletter Sign Up
    • Content Submissions
    • Data Privacy
    • Terms of Use
    • Terms of Sale
    • FAQs
    • Diversity Policy
    • Careers at MSI


    COPYRIGHT © 2023


    COPYRIGHT © 2023