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February 10, 2009 by Betsy Bird

Fusenews: Hobbits, Flight of the Conchords and Me*

February 10, 2009 by Betsy Bird   6 comments

Time to depress some of the author/illustrators out there.  Interesting Fact of the Day: Robert McCloskey was 28 when he won a Caldecott for Make Way for Ducklings.  But if it’s any comfort Peter at Collecting Children’s Books determined that the average age of a winner is 47.5 years.  And having already done all the Newbery winners, he also organizes the winners in order of age with additional fascinating stats.  I don’t even know how one goes about looking this sort of thing up.  The rest of the post It’s Sunday Brunch Time Again bears reading.  Of course.

  • Chasing Ray has a great piece up regarding the Jonah Winter/Calef Brown picture book biography of Gertrude Stein called Gertrude is Gertrude is Gertrude.  It’s the kind of blog post where you can watch the preconceptions and gears in the writer’s head change in the course of the posting.  Best of all, it made me want to read the book.  Like . . . right now.  Makes me sad I missed the last S&S librarian preview too.  Oh, and exactly how many book is Jonah Winter putting out this year?  Did he buy a house or something?  Prolific doesn’t even begin to describe him.


  • I’d heard mild details about this before but now we have the detail details.  From Cynopsis Kids:

"The feature film adaptation of author Beverly Cleary‘s kid’s book Beezus and Ramona, which is based on her Ramona book series, will star Selena Gomez (Wizards of Waverly Place) as Beezus and Joey King (The Suite Life of Zack and Cody) as Ramona.  Elizabeth Allen (Aquamarine) directs from a screenplay by Laurie Craig and Nick Pustay, Denise Di Novi (The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, Little Women) and Alison Greenspan are producing for Fox 2000 Pictures and Walden Media.  Twentieth Century Fox releases Beezus and Ramona on March 19, 2010."

  • Awww.  A visual approximation of what Pete’s a Pizza by William Steig looks like if you bring the story to life.  Lots of running is involved, that’s for sure.


  • Here is a view of the cover of our most recent Newbery winner, now translated into German.  I assume the Germans have their own word for "graveyard" but maybe printing the word in English gives it a tangy Amero-Brit edge.  Thanks to Neil Gaiman for the link.


  • And now for another installment in our regular feature Notable Quotables.  This week, I got quoted in Idealog, a New Zealand publication with the interestingly vague description "Rich With Ideas".  All right then.  They had a piece up called The day of the Gecko, in which they highlighted Gecko Press which publishes "English versions of foreign-sourced children’s books with a focus on strong stories and quality illustration."  It’s a great piece, particularly if you ever wanted to know more about the state of the New Zealand publishing industry (admit it… you did). 


  • Huh.  That’s an intriguing opening sentence.  "Monday morning, Melissa Sweet of Rockport, a children’s book illustrator and author, got one of the calls everyone in her field dreams about … only she didn’t actually get it."  The Village Soup describes how Melissa Sweet failed to get "the call".  Sometimes I think the "failed to get" stories are as good as the "got it" stories.  It’s a pretty cool piece.  Thanks to Cynsations for the link.


  • I miss the funnies.  In my Sunday talk with resident husband and Sophie Brookover we wandered off onto a tangent about reading the Sunday color comics as kids with our families and what a great experience that was.  I don’t often see color comics here in New York and when I do they’re never the strips I like.  But I’ve always had a fondness for Zits (based partly on the fact that it’s drawn by the original creator and not his son/grandson/great nephew, which is a comic strip pet peeve of mine).  And this Zits was pretty sweet.  Thanks to Bookmoot for the link.


  • Think you might want to blog?  Need a spot of advice to help on that desperate path?  MotherReader has come up with two posts on the matter but the second contains everything you need to know.  And I agree about Blogger.  It really has one of the nicest layouts.  Very classy.


  • Daily Image:


Life’s too short not to own a robot.  Or at the very least, covet one.


Thanks to bookshelves of doom for the link.

*Note: Neither Flight of the Conchords or Hobbits will not be mentioned in today’s Fusenews.  Just New Zealand.  I was feeling a bit shameless when I wrote that.

Filed under: Fusenews

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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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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.

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. JMyersbook says

    February 10, 2009 at 8:35 am

    Anybody interested in a highly palatable sample of Stein should listen to the CD of the Broadway musical “Loving Repeating.” The entire libretto has been pieced together from Stein’s writings. It’s a lively, tuneful and informative show!

  2. Jana says

    February 10, 2009 at 9:09 am

    I think Beezus is a fourth grader in that book. In fact I am pretty sure of it since I am reading it to my son right now, and Ramona is like, four. I think Selena Gomez is a titch old. But, since when have movie makers listened to book lovers?

  3. Monica Edinger says

    February 10, 2009 at 10:24 am

    Das Graveyard Buch? Guess Friedhof wasn’t acceptable? (And despite being pretty fluent I am not sure if it would be Der Friedhof Buch or Das Friedhof Buch. But guess it is all moot anyway.)

  4. DanMc says

    February 10, 2009 at 1:04 pm

    On the other hand, Bets, I’ll take this as an opportunity to mention that I met Kristen Schaal recently. She shook my hand and smiled indulgently when I mentioned that I worked on Sara Schaefer is Obsessed With You when she was a Law & Order guest.

  5. Fuse #8 says

    February 10, 2009 at 1:13 pm

    Kristen Schaal! I love her so. Glad to hear you met her. And just to tie everything together, she’s in the upcoming Cirque du Freak film. Which . . . makes my brain slow down.

  6. WendieO says

    February 10, 2009 at 7:45 pm

    “A visual approximation of what Pete’s a Pizza by William Steig looks like if you bring the story to life. Lots of running is involved, that’s for sure.”…. Yes, that’s for sure. I lived that event for over a year with my grandkid. Lots of running, not to mention lots of giggling. NOT a quiet bedtime story at all. –wendieOld

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