Fusenews: Odds Are You Won’t Live to See Tomorrow

As I was tightening up a speech I’ll be giving at this weekend’s Comic Con I set about typing up a nice little recommended book list of graphic novel titles.  To do this I hopped on over to my page on the Children’s Book Review wiki where I regularly maintain and update a complete list of all my reviews (tis handy, though I still have many old books to add).  In the various graphic novel sections my little eye fell on that old review of Fashion Kitty I did lo these many years ago.  Fashion Kitty.  Now there’s a comic for kids that deserved more attention.  These days author Charise Mericle Harper is better known for her Just Grace books (also known as: those doggone early chapter books you can NOT keep on your library shelves) but to me she’ll always be Fashion Kitty’s momma first.  Alison Morris recently put up a post about some awesome homes of children’s authors/illustrators and one of the featured sites was a peek into Ms. Harper’s own house.  It’s a good home to look at.  Good for the soul.  You can look and say to yourself, "Very well.  I will never actually live in a house that is even half as awesome as this.  That is fine."  And then you will feel positively Zen about it.

• I was pleased to see that three different authors not only attended my SCBWI/Kidlit Drink night last Friday past but they also took pictures (which I never think to do) and blogged about it as well.  First, Stephanie Blake took some choice shots. Next, Fran Cannon Slayton gives a thorough look at the evening in question.  And finally Jay Asher included his two cents.  They convey to varying degrees how crowded and loud the room was, and I was amused to see that I have the exact same facial expression in almost all the posts.  I can explain this.  Sometimes when I am uncertain of how to look in a picture I become convinced that if I can lower my chin in just the right way I will hypnotize the camera into being kind.  It didn’t work, but you can see me attempting various kinds of camera/mind control in each case.

• The low down on Houghton Mifflin Harcourt is discussed at length within the pages of the online edition of The Boston Globe.  The title Publisher teeters is not the most encouraging headline I’ve ever read.  I was intrigued, however, by the statement that there are, "rumors that French-based Hachette Book Group, owner of Little, Brown & Co., might be a suitor," in purchasing the behemoth.  You know, the other day I was talking to an editor about how sorry I felt for Little, Brown for not getting any cool ALA Awards.  The editor sputtered at length over this, reminding me of how well they’ve done with the whole Twilight/Gossip Girls thing.  I guess.  *sigh*  Thanks to Read Roger for the link.

• Chesley Sullenberger (described by my husband as looking like the guy you do NOT want to ask for his daughter’s hand in marriage) was the pilot who successfully landed his plane in the Hudson River recently.  Gawker is quite taken with old "Sully" particularly after they discovered that he recently contacted some librarians about renewing a library book . . . left in the cargo hold of that downed plane.  "And in a sickeningly heartwarming addendum, the book was about ‘professional ethics’." Thanks to Sarah Hampton for the link.

• The other day someone on Goodreads tried to convince me to join a Stephen King fan group.  I’ve never read a single thing by King a day of my life (except for On Writing, I guess) so I was baffled by the request.  Then I read this article where King says, without any doubt whatsoever, that "Stephanie Meyer can’t write worth a darn."  Awww.  So cute how he said "darn" too.  I take it back.  Sign me up for that Goodreads group!  Pronto!

• Author/illustrator Melanie Hope Greenberg has a great interview on her blog with Ben Sapp, director of the Mazza Museum.  According to Melanie, "The Mazza Museum . . . was founded in 1982 at the University of Findlay in Ohio and is the first and the largest teaching museum devoted to literacy and the art of children’s picture books."  Huh!  I feel rather ignorant for not knowing about it before.  Thanks for the interview, MHG.

• Daily Image:

Daniel McCoy, a comedian of the well-known Flophouse podcasts, sent me this link from Cinematical.  I fell for it at first.  The title of the piece is 1960s Book Cover for Popular Movies.  You can see how I got fooled:

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