Fusenews: Mmmm. A delicious slush stack could really hit the spot right now.

• Ain’t It Cool news finally got their paws on Spike Jones and they had him tell everything he knew about the upcoming Where the Wild Things Are movie.  There are lots of great tidbits in it, like the fact that Jonze initially wanted to produce Harold and the Purple Crayon.  And then there’s this great part where they talk about the film’s difficulties:

Even if you don’t make it to the end of the interview (it’s massive) be sure to check out the photographs Ain’t It Cool News secured.  I hadn’t seen the sunset one before.  Thanks to Educating Alice for the link.

• I know that his post is interesting above and beyond the usual twaddle, but I was delighted beyond measure when I saw that J.L. Bell had posted a photograph of an actual honest-to-goodness slush pile on his blog.  It’s from Tor in 2006, but I do not care.  Doesn’t look much like a pile, though.  More like a slush stack.

• News to make you sit up and weep for joy: Justine Larbalestier and Holly Black are editing an anthology called Zombies Versus Unicorns.  According to Galleycat io9 has the scoop: "[the] anthology that will be half zombie stories and half unicorn stories, with Larbalestier editing the former and Black the latter."

• As I am sure you already know The National Book Award for Young People’s Literature was announced the other day and it just happened to go to Judy Blundell for What I Saw and How I Lied.  In case you’d like a systematic look at each book, Collecting Children’s Books has provided, along with notes on how available their first editions are.

A 12-year-old kid who won a competition to make the cover for The Wind in the Willows will have it printed on the new Vintage Classics Edition.  Aw.  Check out the runners-up as well, if you’ve a chance.  Can we start having competitions like this on our side of the pond?  Thanks to Bookninja for the link.

You know, if a hundred libraries working a hundred hours tried to find a way to make (suppress gag reflex) reading cool, they could do no better than to turn the word "book" into a term of adulation and praise.  But according to Alien Onion, a new editorial blog (!!) the term is being used by the kids today as a stand-in for "rad" or "gnarly" (and yes I am 100 years old, why do you ask?).  By the way, if someone could identify for me the publication house of Alien Onion I’d be obliged.  I like their tone, I do.

• The Winter Blog Blast Tour may be over for this season, but that doesn’t mean there aren’t other great interviews out there.  From an interview with illustrator Matt Phelan (The Higher Power of Lucky) conducted by The Longstockings:

• An authorial website is a work of art.  It typifies a writer’s personality and soul.  A good website is a purely personal creation and when done well signifies a kind of artistic expression (even though half the time it was put together by a designer and not the writer in question).  Lisa Greenwald has a new one up at the moment and it’s a wonderful example of how to be eye-catching without being annoying.  Kudos to you, Lisa!

• Heads up, people!  Editorial Anonymous here’s got herself an Open Mike Night at the Synopsis Lounge.  When someone asked old EA on the ins and outs of an average synopsis, the challenge was thrown down for the masses.  "Please email me with synopses of well-known, published middle-grade/YA novels (synopses should be no more than 150 words). I’ll post them with my comments regarding thoroughness, clarity, style, and appeal in a separate post."  So far only two submissions have been entered.  See if you can up the count before the end of the weekend.

• The things you learn. Here I am in my new digs. Got my marble walkways. Got my stucco. Got my gold inlays. And now I’m learning about some of the hip projects happening above my head.  Listen to this:

• By the way, did you guys catch the Amulet Spring 2009 preview and the Abrams Spring 2009 preview all over at designer Chad Beckerman’s blog?  They came out a while ago but I’m behind on my blog reading.  Worth checking out.

• I don’t suppose I link to my fellow SLJ bloggers quite enough.  Well if you pop on over to Good Comics for Kids you’ll see a nice little post called "T" is for Teenagers, Not Kids.  Snow Wildsmith makes some excellent points about kids reading comics that are inappropriate for their maturity levels.  Makes me kind of happy I have my all-children’s-all-the-time library room.  It can’t last, but it’s lovely not having to deal with these issues.

• Daily Image:

The Jim Flora advocates out there just keep the kicks coming.  Now they’ve created their own shop called Little Shop of Flora (add requisite groans here).  I have to admit that they’ve some fairly nice wares to hock as well, though.  Check it:

Thanks to Irwin Chusid for the link.

Filed under: Fusenews