Fusenews: Well, There’s ONE Childhood Nightmare Explained Away

• Vintage Kids’ Book My Kid Loves does a lovely tribute to a wonderful William Steig book The Amazing Bone.  TBA is remarkable for a variety of reasons, but if you hear it mentioned today it’s usually because someone’s trying to ban it.  You see the robbers in the book (the creeeepy creeeepy nightmare-inducing robbers) are carrying guns.  It’s the same reason they tried banning Pinkerton, Behave until its publishing company went and changed the cover on subsequent reprints.  Guns make folks goofy.  Kids couldn’t care less, of course, and I think I turned out all right, but Steig certainly didn’t have it in mind when he wrote his own book.  So there you go.

• 2009 Books I Want: Alison Morris is talking up one Magic Box by Kate Cleminson, and I can’t help but want want want it.

• 100 Scope Notes takes an inventive stab at ye olde blog interview.  This one is with author/illustrator Laurie Keller, and it really is an excellent example of how to make an interview visually stimulating as well as informative.  Top drawer.

• In spite of the fact that it categorized it under its YA Wednesday heading, Omnivoracious highlights four 2009 middle grade novels that take place in the west.  I’ve read three out of the four and in the case of Lifting the Sky, Bull Rider, and Heart of a Shepherd all three books had one definite thing in common: Opinions on branding.  It basically boils down to Bull Rider: Pro.  Heart of a Shepherd: Pro but conflicted.  Lifting the Sky: CON CON CON!  Branding.  It’s the hot issue of the day.  That and God (but I’ll talk more about that later).

• Speaking of godlike matters, after I mentioned on my blog that Laurel Snyder had written a piece that brought up my own questions about the dearth of contemporary Jewish kids in children’s literature, Liz B. picked up the ball and asked What About the Catholics? She’s come up with a list of books that she could think of, but there’s always room for more suggestions of you have any. 

• Two Words: Bacon Fest.  One additional word:  Gimme.

• To bloggers, comments are our sustenance.  They prove to us that in this wide-eyed crazy world where so much is left to chance, at least someone out there cares about what we say.  All the more reason my come-again-go-again comment feature drives me so crazy.  Bloggers have recently come up with different methods of garnering comments.  There was MotherReaders’ comment challenge, which went quite well as I recall.  And now the marketing/authorial site Market My Words has come up with the "Comment Your Butt off" Contest! with a free website as one of the prizes.

• And in a new feature I offer Happy Birthday Greetings to: Arthur A. Levine, Sean Qualls, and Lisa McMann.  Many happy returns, you creative folks!

• Daily Image:

Yeah. That’s pretty much how I imagined the inside of Mo Willems’ house would look.

Though, to be honest, that’s how I envision the inside of ALL artists’ houses to look.  A simple pleasure for my simple mind.  Check out his blog for details on the interior.

Filed under: Fusenews