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July 8, 2008 by Betsy Bird

Fusenews: Blog Strategery (misspelling intentional)

July 8, 2008 by Betsy Bird   15 comments

  • Very sad news.  It seems that not long after my post praising the animated version of The Brave Little Toaster the author of the original book, Tom Disch, committed suicide this past July 4th.  Making Light has more information.


  • Roger calls this a picture book for adults.  All I could think was, "This is from the guy who gave us The Police Cloud?"  Seriously, this is great.  Wrap it up in a paper format and I’ll be first in line to buy. Thanks to Read Roger for the link.


  • Philip Reeve says that all Englishmen represent one of the four characters in The Wind in the Willows and that he is Mole.  If what he says is true, what American book contains four characters that represent all Yankee women?  I suppose an American equivalent which would be… um… hm. This will stand some thought.  Suggestions are welcome.  Thanks to bookshelves of doom for the link.


  • Clearly I’m catching up on all my Leila Roy reading.  Whoocheemama, it’s been a long time.  Look what else she found!  It’s an entire livejournal community dedicated to writing in the margins of books.


  • I’ve stayed mum, to some extent, over the Newbery/Caldecott acceptance speeches.  Pretty much this is because they were the best speeches ever concocted by man, woman, or small toothy beastie.  I do not kid.  I haven’t the talent for it.  And my silence on the topic (I had such lovely seats!) is also due to the fact that I have some pictures from the event that I’d like to share with you in one fell swoop.  Maybe tomorrow.  In any case, I’m reading Marc Aronson’s recap (Judy Freeman, I kiss your tiny feet) and my eye alights on a comment by Scholastic p.r. guru John Mason.  He says, "Mark, you are right that ‘seeing is believing’ and the Weston Woods CD set of recordings of the speeches contains a bonus DVD with Brian Selznick’s visual presentation. So Weston Woods, like Horn Book, will give people the full experience of the speech."  For half a second there I thought that Mr. Mason meant a video recording of the evening.  But no, he was just referring to the cool CD/DVDs we received with our dinner that had the speeches pre-recorded.  So I guess I have to ask: Does anyone know if there was an official recording of the evening made?  And, if not, did anyone create a bootleg?  Inquiring minds want to know.


  • No one can call me particularly observant. I shudder to recall how long it took me to notice the piano my family once placed in the living room. So it took me a while to notice that the nice Omnivoracious blog that kept linking to me was, of all critters, an Amazon blog.  Huh!  Now, thanks to Children’s Illustration, I can read about their quote unquote blog strategy.  Fun term!  I wonder what my blog strategy is.  Must run something along the lines of "do not misspell the word ‘separate’ two times in two days."  That’s a strategy I can deal with.


  • Not only am I not observant, but I’m also behind the times.  I like to take note of cool publishing blogs, particularly those of small publishers that are worth keeping an eye on.  Somehow in my travels I missed the Stone Arch Books Blog of Capstone Publishing.  A small publishing house based out of Minneapolis (woot!) they’re fairly regular at posting and have been doing so since January.  Nice to see.


  • Daily Image:


Aw. Little Boo and Baa dolls from Sweden.  Are you guys familiar with the Boo and Baa books?  Simply adorable.  The site that sells these also appears to sell Pippi Longstocking dolls and Linnea from Linnea in Monet’s Garden. 

Thanks to Children’s Illustration for the link.


Filed under: Fusenews

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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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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. Mary Lee says

    July 8, 2008 at 6:11 am

    Oops. In bullet #3, that’s Philip REEVE who said that about Wind in the Willows, not Philip Pullman!

  2. david e says

    July 8, 2008 at 6:25 am

    5 don’t think we limited it to the four main characters, but we used to play the game growing up that everyone we knew was one of the characters in “The Wizard of Oz.”

  3. david e says

    July 8, 2008 at 6:26 am

    That first word should be an “I” not a 5.

  4. Libby says

    July 8, 2008 at 6:41 am

    My family has played the Wind in the Willows game for years. Though all toddlers are Toad, and most grandfathers are Badger, so I think you really end up choosing between Rat and Mole. And of course Little Women is the American girl analogue, right? Or one can always find oneself in one of the four Pevensie siblings in the first two Narnia books.

  5. Chris in NY says

    July 8, 2008 at 7:05 am

    Yeah- I think Little Women is the female archetype book for US women/girls. (On an aside note- what was I thinking to always have milktoast Beth as my favorite when I was growing up. Ugh.) Although the Pevensies are a good one too if you are going to include males into the mix. My favorite would be the denizens of Swallows and Amazons, thought.
    On another note- after your earlier entry I went trolling through the catalog to find out which library in our system had a copy of the Flying Toaster for viewing. Coulda knocked me over easily when I found out my miniscule home library had one of two copies. I am guessing that whoever bought it had no idea how subversive/twisted it was. I am now on the waiting list.

  6. Fuse #8 says

    July 8, 2008 at 8:17 am

    Clearly my mistake on Philip’s last name betrays my own associations. When I picture Mole I must picture Philip Pullman, not Reeve. I wonder if psychology majors ever do thesis papers on the unintentional misspellings and typos of blog postings. And I considered Little Women, but do we not have an American animal-based book here to consider? They’re so common, and yet I’m coming up short trying to think of a particularly good or well-known one. Not that it HAS to be an animal book. I’m just curious as to why the American Wind in the Willows is eluding my cranium.

  7. Anon. says

    July 8, 2008 at 8:43 am

    “So Weston Woods, like Horn Book, will give people the full experience of the speech.”

    They’ll come with chicken?

  8. Chris VA says

    July 8, 2008 at 9:18 am

    Your cranium is forgetting Charlotte’s Web. I think perhaps we’re all in there… unfortunately lately I’m favoring Templeton and my crowded house is showing it.

  9. SamR says

    July 8, 2008 at 9:45 am

    Yes, I think OZ has everybody, especially if you open it up to sequel characters, such as The Hungry Tiger. For female characters alone, we’ve got Ozma, The Patchwork Girl and Billina the chicken.

  10. Fuse #8 says

    July 8, 2008 at 10:07 am

    Mmm. Oddly fried chicken. Charlotte’s Web and Oz. Most brilliant. I’d rejected Oz because I figured that the brain would simply align itself with the four major characters, but when you add in all the supporting people it becomes that much more interesting. The only problem with Charlotte’s Web is that I think everyone feels a little Templeton a lot of the time. Certainly the state of my desk right now is Templetonesque (sans rotting eggs, thank god).

  11. Dan Blank says

    July 8, 2008 at 1:59 pm

    Betsy, your blog strategy is simple: “Be Betsy.”

  12. Fuse #8 says

    July 8, 2008 at 3:17 pm

    New blog strategy: Be Tina Fey. I just think she’s neat.

  13. Carterbham says

    July 9, 2008 at 8:16 am

    American girls archetype… I think we’re forgetting The BSC. Maybe there’re just too many characters in there, but it seems like it’d cover everyone.

  14. Julie says

    July 9, 2008 at 8:37 am

    It’s not you. It’s them! Amazon should put their banner at the top. I don’t see anything wrong with the Amazon blogs except that you can’t easily see that they’re Amazon blogs.

  15. Julie says

    July 9, 2008 at 8:48 am

    Okay, there is a banner, but it should be a lot bigger.

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