Fusenews: A Long Island Po-tah-to

Galleycat always reports on the goings on in the adult literary world, but recently they made a children’s literature connection that I had missed.  You are aware, I am sure, that a cartoon in the New York Post was recently considered hugely offensive.  Well apparently its creator wrote a picture book not too long ago.  Yep.  Sean Delonas wrote Scuttle’s Big Wish, a book published in 2006 (a fact not lost on irate Amazon reviewers).  One hopes the man’s next picture book will take care to avoid monkeys as potential subject matter.

• Author/poet Jil Corcoran had a pretty informative blog post up recently that alerted me to a couple facts that I had not known.  First off, did you know that Publishers Weekly keeps track of all the children’s book releases for a given season?  I can hear industry insiders saying "Duh" as one, but I simply wasn’t aware of this fact.  Ms. Corcoran posts links to each one alphabetically by publishing house.  And in the same piece she also linked to an article about three new children’s imprints.  I still get a little depressed when I think of the ones we’ve already lost, though.

• We can all agree, by and large, that celebrity children’s book authors are not a good idea.  So what’s our stand on pilots turned children’s authors?  And no, I’m not talking about Sully (though wouldn’t that be absolutely keen?).  No, there was a piece in The Telegraph about a British airline pilot making waves with his first new book.  Sometimes I feel like the Brits are more inclined towards writing swashbuckling narratives than their American counterparts.  Thanks to Bookninja for the link.

• Children’s and YA author Jaime Adoff needs your help.  Specifically, it’s his blog.  It needs a name.  He says that he, "Just started a blog/poetic meanderings and thoughts on my website jaimeadoff.com looking for a cool name for it. The winning entry will receive a free autographed book from me, your name on my website and the satisfaction of knowing you’re more creative than I am, since I can’t come up with anything! 🙂 Submit entries right to the comments on my blog, under ‘comments’ on the website or to me at: jaime@jaimeadoff.com. Could be a cool contest for teachers, students and media specialists!! Have fun!"  I’ve submitted my own proposal.  Feel free to do the same.

• Man. That’s reach.  Richard Michelson, author and gallery owner extraordinaire, wrote the following to me, "Your comment on Jarrett’s movie about recording Jane’s voice like on ‘wait, wait, don’t tell me’ inspired me. I’d always wanted Carl Kassell on my answering machine so I set the wheels in motion."  He’s not kidding either.  Listen to this.  How did he do that?  And for that matter, can I get Carl too?  Pretty please?  In the meantime, you should know that his gallery’s illustrators show has been extended through February (and Carl’s message gives you the hours). 

• A campus-wide translation contest at Princeton University has been based on turning Dr. Suess’s How the Grinch Stole Christmas into a variety of different languages.  The article is a lot of fun, though it contains the non-sequitor, "Originally from Pakistan, Haq was unfamiliar with Dr. Seuss — though he remembers watching Sesame Street in his native Urdu as a kid." And I liked this part as well, "Two submissions arrived in pig Latin, which were problematic to judge because they are identical. But surprisingly for Xiang, there were no entries in either Klingon or Elvish."  Thanks to Jenny Schwartzberg for the link.

• Daily Image:

I’ve fallen a bit hard for the Curious Expeditions blog, a site dedicated, "to unearthing and documenting the wondrous, the macabre and the obscure from around the globe."  This site was first brought to my attention because of a post concerning beautiful libraries.  I know I’ve posted this before, but it’s always worth another go.  Plus it allowed me to take a closer look at their blog.

Filed under: Fusenews