Fusenews: I Never Read Sweet Valley High Either
Maira Kalman gives a visual account of the recent inauguration. I’m just sad she didn’t do her own version of Obama. I’m trying to get every illustrator to make one so that I can collect them all. Then I’ll be the coolest kid on my block. Thanks to Children’s Illustration for the link.
Like a car crash you can’t tear your eyes away from, Leila Roy examines that unholiest of holies, that worst of inadvertent children’s literature, Flowers in the Attic. As a child I knew many girls who read these books voraciously. I avoided them like the plague. I was the kind of kid who’d avoid anything and everything popular, hence my lack of knowledge regarding any book involving wolves, dolphins, or girls dying of a terminal disease. In this particular case, however, apparently I wasn’t missing much. Except, of course, for sentences like "From what my mother wrote on a separate sheet of paper which my father didn’t read, your grandfather cannot possibly live more than two or three months longer at the most." For me, I can now know what the book’s about without wasting precious hours of my life/brain cells of my head in the process.
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I am growing increasingly reliant on the Horn Book‘s movie reviews. There’s a new one up regarding the Inkheart film. Apparently it’s not half bad. I do wonder of people who watch LOST regularly will find Capricorn’s "hound" reminiscent of the smoke monster, though.
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Peter gets an additional 100 points for saying that people who supported Chains as the Newbery winner were part of "the Chains gang". For those of you keeping score at home, that keeps him firmly in the lead. This line is used in Peter’s post on the recent ALA winners entitled Only My Right Frontal Lobe Exploded. Great stuff, though I disagree on some of his Newbery dislikes. For me there wasn’t a book I particularly disliked that got an award or Honor this year. Which is a novel feeling.
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Interesting facts:
Number of holds on new Newbery Award winner The Graveyard Book in the NYPL system: 78
Number of holds on new Caldecott Award winner The House in the Night : 5
Number of holds on new Prinz Award winner Jellicoe Road : 13
Number of holds on new Sibert Award winner We Are the Ship : 1
We’ll just assume that everyone’s read We Are the Ship already and that’s why its stats are so low. Ahem.
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Daily Image:
Unfortunately the site I got this image from already used the title "I’ll eat you up". And for this kind of meal the other line "And it was still warm" isn’t going to fly. In any case, delicious delicious Wild Things.
Thanks to Take a Long Drive With Me for the link.
Filed under: Fusenews
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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I have trouble getting the food I make on the table, forget getting all artsy with it. However, this is amazing. I wonder if my kid would eat if I did THAT to his food? Hmmmmmmmm…..
Thanks for sharing.
Wow for Maira Kalman!