Fusenews: I Never Wanted to be a Librarian. I Wanted to Be . . . A Lumberjack!*
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A blogger on a site called My Friend Amy asks the question that dare not speak its name, "Do you ever get tired of reviewing books? Do you get more comments on book reviews or other posts?" Awwwww, shoot. Yes, I get tired. Really tired. Because I have systematically trained myself to write the kinds of reviews that I do using a strict regimen of brownies-as-reward. The result is that I find that I am almost incapable of just jotting off a quick paragraph about a book anymore. When I wrote one sentence reviews of titles I wasn’t able to get to in 2008 it caused me a kind of pain in my soul, alleviated only by watching copious hours of How I Met Your Mother. My reviews are the only real content I indulge in regularly, the rest of my blog being dedicated primarily to stealing cool links (like this one) from other more competent bloggers. But they don’t usually get more comments than my other posts, with the obvious exception of that nutty Hunger Games review. So thanks to Jen Robinson’s Book Page for this link!
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I was quite fond of the recent Oz and Ends piece on Beautiful Words. Of course when you think of lovely syllables the mind instantly darts to the film Donnie Darko where teacher Drew Barrymore makes the case that the most beautiful words in the English language are "Cellar Door". I think Bell is on to something, though, when he writes, ". . . ‘surreptitious’ and ‘plethora’ overcome their negative connotations with their cascades of soft syllables."
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People continue to send me their Top Ten Picture Books of All Time, in order of preference, and I continue to carefully mark them down and tabulate the results. It’s getting exciting. Two picture books in particular are duking it out for #1, though I’m fairly certain of the winner at this point. I urge you to email me your own picks if you haven’t done so already. Your inspiration? Yuyi Morales made a beautiful list of favorite and beloved books that you should take the time to look at. I love the range of picks people are sending me, but I need more. Gimme gimme gimme your opinions, folks.
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I remain relatively baffled by the people who object heartily to the casting of the upcoming The Lightning Thief film. There’s even a Goodreads group (or was it a Facebook group?) solely dedicated to disliking these men. Anyone want to tell me why? These young fellers look fine as far as I can see.
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I admire the blog The Millions, but it doesn’t often traipse into my area of expertise. This recent piece might be of interest to those of you with a yen for a Mr. Anderson. Called The Millions Conversation: M.T. Anderson’s Octavian Nothing (Part One) the thoughts on intended audience in particular are interesting. Thanks to Garth Risk Hallberg for the link.
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David Elzey over at excelsior file recently deemed the pro-unicorn factions (versus zombies, their natural enemies of course) "The Unicorn Contingent". Which, for the record, would make a pretty good blog name. If you’re into that kind of thing.
I like my parties, don’t get me wrong. But it takes a certain level of party dedication to attempt to visit as many Dr. Seuss celebrations at as many different libraries as possible. Enter the Seuss-a-thon. Candace Ryan scours the library systems of the Western seaboard (new term) to visit Seuss parties here, there, and everywhere. Observe Party #1, Party #2, Party #3, and Party #4.
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If I were a more optimistic person I might have said that this was inevitable. As it is, I’m pleased to see that there is now a New York Times Graphic Books Best Seller List for public consumption. Thus far it’s called "Graphic Books Best Seller List (Hardcover)", "Graphic Books Best Seller List (Softcover)", and (interestingly enough) "Graphic Books Best Seller List (Manga)". One wonders if they’ll follow the trend fiction started by creating a separate Children’s Graphic Novel (oh… right… Graphic "Book") List in the future. Particularly if Naruto continues to dominate. Thanks to John Shableski for the link.
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And because Bookninja just ruined my day, I hereby ruin yours if so choose to click on this link. You thought I was kidding, didn’t you?
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Daily Image:
Geez. It’s like Max meets The Lorax.
Though in a fair fight between Max and a Lorax, my money’s still on Max. Thanks to Alison Morris (who can tell you where to purchase this t-shirt) for the link.
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*Blog post title untimely ripped from Alison’s comment section, by the way.
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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Fantastic t-shirt art! Very spooky.
Oh, I thought your title referenced something Tomie de Paola has said in his speeches before: ”
I didn’t want to be Picasso, I wanted to be Beatrix Potter!”
Wow, 55 comments on your Hunger Games review? Amazing. And they keep coming. Is that a record for you or do you have posts that have more? -wendie old
It’s a record on this blog. However on my old site there was one debate that reached 66 comments in the end. I had published a letter someone sent me about whether or not SCBWI was an organization worth joining or not. Talk went back and forth, much to my delight. You can see the final results here at fusenumber8.blogspot.com/2006/10/scbwi-debate.html. Take a gander, if you like.
Thanks for linking to my Seuss-athon! I attended the culminating party at the L.A. Central Library yesterday. Today has been all about sleeping in. 🙂
I used the link and read that SCBWI debate. Very interesting and long, it needed two sittings. For some reason SLJ kept crashing my browser lately but seems to be working again. Yay!
Ha – didn’t ruin my day. I don’t know that one.
I have always disliked The Final Countdown. It was the epitome of the Bad Hair Band song and I was working in Classic Rock Radio when we played it Waaaaay too many times.
My personal hell now is that my son is a senior in the high school marching band. They LOVE that song and play it when ever possible. Oy!
Arrested Development sort of redeemed the song a little in my eyes. If only because it knew how to play on its kitchy value.
Ha! I actually *like* that song. Sick, I know, but there it is. And you didn’t ruin my day. 🙂
I’ve thought about this for a couple of days, and I really don’t get tired of writing book reviews because they are so useful to me and to my students and teachers. I do try to stick to one paragraph, because that’s all the attention span most of (what I view to be) my audience has! I am starting to wonder, however, if my reviews aren’t very good, because I can’t seem to break into the role of ”