Fusenews: Dear Weather – Knock It Off. We Liked It Better When You Were Warm (As If You Didn’t Know).

• I love reading too much into things.  I have a personal and private theory that someday people will read the current political state of the world in The Graveyard Book (example: Bod = The nobody that is the average working man and the ghosts = different aspects of the arts that keep him alive).  For now they’re just printing out interesting theories on The Wizard of Oz books.  From Oz and Ends, a book review from the New York Post of Finding Oz: How L. Frank Baum Discovered the Great American Story contained this wonderful quote: "Toto, Dorothy‘s dog, likely symbolizes the Eastern philosophy of Totality, a component of Theosophy. Schwartz suggests that the name Toto connotes Totality."  Totoality.  Love it.  Wonder what he saw in "Glinda".

• Cor blimey.  I do believe this may be the greatest scavenger hunt the world has ever known. What else can I think when I hear that, "Over 130 YA and middle grades authors have created a 10-question scavenger hunt (i.e. super fun trivia quiz) for one or more of their books"?  Thanks to bookshelves of doom for the news.

• Speaking of Leila Roy, her first issue of her literary magazine TBR Tallboy is being sold.  You should buy a copy.  You should buy it for your friends and your neighbors.  You should buy a copy for your dog, your parakeet, your Great-Aunt Matilda, your . . . . hm?  I’m not a disinterested party to be saying this?  Well, uh, no.  I guess not.  But do yourself a favor.  Get on board.  Then years later when literary scholars start talking about the great magazines conceived by bloggers you can pull out your first edition TBR Tallboy and say, "Read it and weep, suckers!"  Oh, how they’ll gnash their teeth in envy of you.  How they’ll rend their garments and pluck out their hair.  You gonna pass on all of that?  I think not.

• I like Sean Qualls.  Sean Qualls was interviewed   at 7-Imp.  I like all their interviews.  I like all the people they interview.  But I really like Sean Qualls.

• The Carnegie shortlist   has been announced!  Here are the lucky little Brit buggers:

Frank Cottrell Boyce’s Cosmic (Which Monica Edinger has " loved, loved loved ".  We get to see it in the fall).

Kevin Brooks’ Black Rabbit Summer

Eoin Colfer’s Airman (Which I have repeatedly said that I loved loved loved.  And while I adore his speaking style I don’t always love his books.  This one we see eye-to-eye on.)

Siobhan Dowd’s Bog Child

Keith Gray’s Ostrich Boys

Patrick Ness’ s The Knife of Never Letting Go

Kate Thompson’s Creature of the Night

Thanks to Educating Alice for the link.

• I guess I never really commented on the Editorial Anonymous post about book reviews.  As far as I can tell I agree with it all the way.  I’m sure my ego would love to think that a review from me means a bucket of shiny gold coins for the person I review, but I seriously doubt that’s the case.  Ditto, I can’t crush authors I don’t care for under my grimy thumb.  Good news all around, probably.

Recently a lovely little blog called Underage Reading nominated me for a One Lovely Blog Award.  This was mighty kind of them.  What I liked best about the post, though, was the fact that it allowed me to discover other blogs I’d not really been familiar with before.  There was Underage Reading, for one.  Mentioned as well was Dog Ear, which I’m rather taken with.  Nifty.

• From Cynopsis Kids, kids books and Borat come together at last:

• Jonathan Hunt already had my respect, but he got my heart as well when he wrote of the most recent Battle of the (Kids’) Books (Anderson v. Anderson): "I’m one match away from writing an expose about the whole thing: Has the Battle of the (Kids’) Books Lost Its Way?".

• I like Jenny Brown (I like lots of people today).  Not only does she edit the mighty useful e-newsletter Shelf Awareness but she hails, like myself, from Kalamazoo.  Shelf Awareness is neato (I am engaging in slang circa 1954 this week) but it does not specifically target kids.  Now a new site by Ms. Brown, Twenty By Jenny, does just that.  It’s not an e-newsletter, though.  More a regularly updated website with reviews and lists.  Plus the lady has good taste.  There’s that to consider as well.  Thanks to SLJ’s Extra Helping for the tip.

• And Collecting Children’s Books wins for coming up with a viable children’s book post related to the swine flu epidemic as early as last Sunday.  Well played, sir.  And disturbing.  Veeeeeeery disturbing.  Almost as disturbing as the wholly accurate readers theater he’s written for the debate that rages over Love You Forever.  Should anyone ask I’m Reader #4.  And if anyone wants to perform this with me, I’m game.

• At a recent PEN meeting here in New York we were joined by Jason Low of Lee and Low books.  I had a very important job at this meeting.  I was going to record the talk so that Fran Manushkin could send it on to Mark Blevis at Just One More Book for posting on their wonderful podcast.  The fly in the ointment?  My iPod was dead and I left my microphone at home.  I’m a class act, I am.  Fortunately someone had a laptop with recording capabilities and so it went and so it goes. You can hear the full audio here.

• Daily Image:

My cupcake addiction is no secret.  It’s problematic, but ultimately pretty manageable.  A friend of mine stopped by my apartment the other day and intended to buy me a cupcake on the way, but found that my local patisserie sells only croissants.  No cupcakes.  This is why I have not ballooned to 300 pounds quite yet.  And then Jama Rattigan found a pretty fat free way of bringing my job and my need for small circular cakes together on one neat page.  See here:

If I skip lunch, this is often how I see my patrons for the rest of the day.  Thanks to Jama Rattigan for the link.

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