Fusenews: It’s Blog, It’s Blog, It’s Better Than Bad, It’s Good!

• Just when you thought you couldn’t get anymore buzzwords.  Ever heard of Slow Blogging?  It’s a thing.  The thought is that if fast food is bad then obviously fast blogging would also be a negative happenstance.  A slow blogger would be someone like author Julius Lester.  Someone who stops and thinks about the world a little, and then blogs it.  And fast bloggers?  From the NYT article: "slow bloggers believe that news-driven blogs like TechCrunch and Gawker are the equivalent of fast food restaurants — great for occasional consumption, but not enough to guarantee human sustenance over the longer haul."  I am clearly a fast blogger.  Get you yer news bites to other sites and then off I go!  I do linger over reviews.  It is perhaps the only time I ever do linger.  But I think there are uses to both slow and fast blogging.  For one thing, if I read too many slow blogs I fall asleep at the reference desk and isn’t THAT attractive in a young New York Public librarian!  Thanks to Chicken Spaghetti for the link.

• I hate propaganda in picture books.  And the thought that the Why Mommy is a Democrat and Why Daddy is a Democrat author was churning out more of the same didn’t make me feel so hot.  But 100 Scope Notes (again) has a funny post up featuring the newest title Mama Voted for Obama.  And that makes me feel better. 

• Wanna know what the Cybils committee on middle grade graphic novels thinks of one title or another?  Pink Me has listed all the nominated books, along with links to our individual reviews.  Just gives me a hankering start doing some more GN reviewing, it does.

• This American Life and Roger Duvoisin’s Petunia come together in unexpected ways in the bottom shelf books piece Petunia: A Cautionary Tale for a Modern Jackass.

Peter over at Collecting Children’s Books had a good line the other day (which I assume you already saw since we’re all reading his Sunday Brunches without fail, yes yes?).  He had recently purchased a copy of Clare Turlay Newberry’s April’s Kittens only to find a kid had done a drawing inside of it.  Said he, "Okay, it’s a cute drawing, but now I’m never going to be able to sell this book for a profit. Ah well, one of these days I’m going to find an old scribbled-in book signed by ‘Little Maury Sendak’ or ‘Christopher V. A., age 5’ or ‘Davie Wiesner’ and may finally get rich."  Dare to dream, baby.  Go read the rest of the piece, though.  I liked the ghost story.  And the justifiable children’s literary connection to Ashelee Simpson (be comforted, she has not written a picture book . . . yet).

• Neil Gaiman’s the kind of guy that gives someone like me hope.  Not only does he blog long and lengthily (not a word) but he also apparently has enough spare time to write THREE non-fiction titles.  I’d heard about the Chinese one before.  Not so much the other two.  Thanks to Chasing Ray for the link.

• New trend I would like to see: Please, could ALL the children’s illustrators out there please sketch more faux pitch-perfect Doonesbury strips?  Pretty please?

• Daily Image:

Leila is disturbed by the fake books.  I am disturbed that it comes from Sky Mall.  In the end, however, it’s still pretty fricking sweet.

Thanks to bookshelves of doom for the link.

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