Fusenews: Strikes and a Funny Word
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I was rather taken with Random House editor Janet Schulman’s recent take on the beautifully named 1974 Macmillan Massacre . Working as I do with a lot of old children’s books, I often wonder what has happened to the old publishing houses and imprints of yore. I am often ignorant of stories of this sort. Would be nice if someone compiled such recollections as this into a book, but maybe that would be too insidery to sell all that well. Thanks to PW Children’s Bookshelf for the link.
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It must be every author’s dream to someday hit the heights of fame wherein they are able to have wardrobe malfunctions reported in such illustrious publications as the lofty Mirror. Or, y’know, not. Thanks to bookshelves of doom for the link.
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Kelly Herold speculates on the subject of Googlegangers. A Googleganger is someone with your name that crops up with you Google yourself. Young adult novelist Maureen Johnson unsurprisingly has quite a few (as mentioned in this New York Times Lifestyle piece ). For the record, the term "Googleganger" does not appear on Wikipedia yet, so while it may be the the American Dialect Society’s “most creative” word of last year, it does not exist in the world of Wikiality. I’ve a couple different Google doubles that get most of the attention depending on whether or not I look up "Betsy Bird" or "Elizabeth Bird". Ironically, one of them uses my nickname as her Internet pseudonym, which implies all kinds of things. I have one friend who has ZERO Google doubles, a fact I find weirder than anything else. Imagine being the only person on the internet with your name.
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Once upon a time there was a woman who allowed her nine-year-old kid to ride the subway by himself. And lo the heavens did burst open when she wrote an editorial for the New York Sun about it and thus the people did scream and cry. Now that selfsame woman has started an interesting blog called Free Range Kid about giving your kids the freedom you had when you were a child. It’s fascinating stuff. I haven’t chicklets of my own quite yet, but this is something to look at and bear in mind in the meantime. Thanks to BoingBoing for the link
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And just for fun, here are some picks from the recent TOON Books event held at the children’s bookstore Books of Wonder here in town. All photographs were taken by Kyo Morishima.
Here’s the happy couple, Francoise Mouly and Art Spiegelman.
And in this one my husband and I talk to Laura Lutz and Michele Bayuk. Looks like quite a party, eh? I never take pictures of anything so I’m gratefully to Mr. Morishima for this one. Thanks too to Janna for passing it on to me.
Filed under: Fusenews
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.
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I like that googleganger term. I recently heard from someone with the same name as I do who found me through a google search and has requested a signed copy of my book which was very sweet.
Am going to look up that Free Range Kid but thought it worth mentioning a book by Canadian Olympic rower Silken Laumann about kids right to play – called Child’s Play.
Since today is the [unofficial] Blogger Appreciation Day, I wanted to say a quick “THANKS” for writing. I am reading and thinking about what you wrote.
Since Chen (my married name) is one of the top ten Chinese names, you can believe I show up with many googlegangers. It makes me laugh to think of everything I “could have been.”
Well thanks to you too, Diane! I had no idea it was Blogger Appreciation Day (B.A.D.?). Just goes to show.
I am the only person on the Internet with my name. This is the only good thing about my name.