Fusenews: Gooey Meets Googly

• Here in New York I sometimes suffer from library collection envy.  This is a patently ridiculous response I have when I hear that another library has an item on display that I believe mine should have.  For example, The Morgan Library has a show coming up on September 19th called Drawing Babar: Early Drafts and Watercolors.  The description reads, "The exhibition Drawing Babar returns visitors to the two essential moments of Babar’s creation: when Jean de Brunhoff and, years later, his son Laurent, set down their initial thoughts on paper. Their earliest drafts, shown in juxtaposition with their finished watercolors, allow viewers to track the changes, both subtle and substantive, that both men made as they refined their work, bringing together word and image with elegance and exuberance."  I am virtually green with envy.  However, if any of you happen to be in the city between the 19th and January 4th, let me know.  I’ll go see it with you.

• Author photos.  Good?  Bad?  No opinion?  Alison Morris discusses the presence of photos on children’s books and gets a variety of reactions to her post.  And of course someone had to mention the Shel Silverstein photo.  They only mention one but I challenge you to find any pictures of Mr. S that would constitute a "normal" sitting.  He just didn’t have it in him to toe the line.  I think Lisa Yee’s comment was my favorite though: "I asked my editor at Arthur A. Levine Books/Scholastic why they rarely have author photos. (Not even JK Rowling has her photo next to her bio.) I was told that kids sometimes look at the author photos and think that person is the protagonist of the book."  *snicker*

There’s a really wonderful graphic novel short story available online that gives children’s books, particularly our childhood favorites, the honor they are due.  It is a short story by Darko Macan and Tihomir Celanovic from Eastern Europe called Mister Bookseller.  You must read it.  I insist.  It will make your day.  Thanks to Bookninja for the link.

• From a press release I recently received:

Disney Book Group announced the official one-day laydown—Tuesday, May 5, 2009—for the release of Percy Jackson and the Olympians, Book 5: The Last Olympian , the highly anticipated final book in Rick Riordan’s blockbuster series. The prophecy surrounding Percy’s sixteenth birthday will be revealed in the momentous final book in the series.

• On the child_lit listserv Roger Sutton called this the fastest traveling of an urban myth he’d seen.  If you received that list of books Sarah Palin wanted banned up there in Alaskaworld, sobering news.  The list is a fake.  I got an email from a non-library buddy about it asking if it was real, which is the first time a friend of mine from the non-library world has shown an interest in book banning.  ALA should somehow capitalize on this for Banned Books Week.  Something along the lines of, "They May Not Have Been Banned By Palin, But Other People Have Wanted These Books Pulled".  Galleycat has a nice piece up on the subject as well.

• Daily Image: 

By all rights I should be saving this for some kind of Halloween-related post, but it’s just too good not to share immediately, I think.  Are you planning on doing some kind of a mad scientist program in the near future?  Or maybe just anything that would require a craft with googly eyes.

What if I told you that you could make your own . . .  EDIBLE GOOGLY EYES?

Makes me think of that fabulous SNL sketch where you get to hear Christopher Walken say the word "googly" over and over.  Thanks to John for the edible link.

Filed under: Fusenews