Fusenews: The Peep That Ate the Literary Scholar

• The finalists have been announced for the TD Canadian Children’s Literature Award.  Here they be:

Carnation, Lily, Lily, Rose: The Story of a Painting
by Hugh Brewster
with paintings by John Singer Sargent
Kids Can Press

Darkwing
by Kenneth Oppel
HarperCollins Publishers

Elijah of Buxton
by Christopher Paul Curtis
Scholastic Canada

Eye of the Crow: The Boy Sherlock Holmes, His First Case
by Shane Peacock
Tundra Books

Please, Louise!
by Frieda Wishinsky
illustrated by Marie-Louise Gay
Groundwood Books

Very nice to see Ms. Wishinsky getting her due.  And I saw an ad for that Sherlock Holmes book at the Tundra Books booth at the ALA Conference in Washington D.C., if I’m not too much mistaken.  Always kinda wanted to see the finished copy since the cover was so magnificent.  Glad to hear it’s worth reading too.

• From Cynopsis Kids:

"Willa’s Wild Life debuts Monday, September 1 at 6p. The series is based on author Dan Yaccarino’s book An Octopus Followed Me Home and follows the animated adventures of 6-yr-old Willa, who adopts all sorts of animals of all sorts, who in turn offer her advice."

• Coming up with just the right title for your children’s book is a skill worth honing. That’s why I was so pleased to read over at Cheryl Rainfield’s blog that there’s a prize out there for Oddest Book Title of the Year.  Note to Authors: My favorite picture book title of 2008 remains Monkey With a Tool Belt.  If you can top that (or, one of the past award winners, How to Avoid Huge Ships) you will have my instant and undying gratitude.

• I feel as if I saw this a long time ago, but it wasn’t until I saw the link on 100 Scope Notes that the memory was reawakened.  Someone a while ago did a comic version of Jon Scieszka and Lane Smith giving a talk at a local bookstore.  You can tell that it’s old since Jon and Lane haven’t been going ’round together since Mr. S nabbed himself a l’il ole ambassadorship.  The fellow who made this should do a sequel with Mo and Jon as well.

• Speaking of 100 Scope Notes, there’s a mighty fine encapsulation there of children’s literary tattoos in all their myriad forms.  From book covers (c’est moi!) to a knock ’em dead one of Matilda that deserves to be seen by the masses.

• Are there any Chicago librarians/publishers in the hiz-ouse?  Which is to say, does anyone in Chicago happen to read me?  If so, would you be so kind as to email me (Fusenumber8@gmail.com)?  I’ve a question I’d like to put to you, but not one that I need the whole wide wonderful world knowing.  Much obliged.

• Anne Carroll Moore love!  It’s sweeping the nation!  Who wants to pay me money to make t-shirts with the grand dame’s face on them?  Better yet, who wants to make that t-shirt and let ME give YOU the money?  I bring all this up because Roger Sutton recently remembered that Barbara Bader wrote her own encapsulation of Ms. Moore back in a ’97 Horn Book and it’s available for reading online.  Thanks to Read Roger for the link (and for putting up with snarky anonymous commentators that say things like "I think the Horn Book just doesn’t like criticisms of critics").

• Ah. The legal ramifications of stuff we do mindlessly and without malicious intent.  LibraryLaw Blog (almost but not quite as much fun to say as Bob Loblaw’s Law Blog) has just put up a post called Book jackets – can libraries put pictures of book covers on the websites?  Sure hope so.  But then this may just be one of those issues that law librarians like to ponder, just as philosophers wonder why we are here.  Thanks to Tea Cozy for the link.

• When the AP headline reads Julia Child part of WWII era spy ring… nuff said.

• Daily Image:

Lisa Yee has created post after post after post on her blog about the most recent SCBWI Conference in L.A.  Well worth reading, if you happen to like famous faces (and sugary confections).  The sheer mass of pictures she has put up bear viewing but my favorite without a doubt was this one:

I will tell you why.  Leonard Marcus (author most recently of Minders of Make-Believe) is essentially our patron saint of children’s literature.  In this shot the man appears to be practically glowing.  It looks like a devotional photograph, as if the man is about to hand you the sacred Peep in some obscure kidlitcentric ceremony.  I, for one, salute it.  Now run along and read the rest of Ms. Yee’s posts.

Filed under: Fusenews