Fusenews: “I speak for the trees” just isn’t working for us. Can we have him say “TreeFail 09”?

• NYPL has lots of directors.  Sure they do.  It’s a big system.  David Ferriero is one of them.  Nice enough bloke.  Stops by my children’s room sometimes.  So it’s a touch unnerving to read a headline like NYPL’s Ferriero Nominated as Archivist of the United States.  We can do that?  Be the archivist of the WHOLE ENTIRE United States?  Shoot.  I should have followed up on that archivist dream I had back in grad school.  Well, congrats to David in any case.  Pretty sweet job.

 
This is an infinitely fun idea.  Author Brenda Ferber is having a lookalike contest to celebrate her newest book Jenna Hartman, Camper Extraordinaire.  The jacket charmed me the minute I saw it.  Now she’s offering autographed books to the most Jenna-like gals out there.  Cute.  I wonder if other authors will pick up on this idea.  Thanks to PW Children’s Bookshelf for the link.

• Scholastic editor Cheryl Klein has posted her talk Finding a Publisher and Falling in Love: A Convivial Comparison online for one and all to see.  Chock full of good advice from page one onward.  Well worth your eyeballs if you’ve a penchant for publication.

• You’ve heard of summer reading.  But have you ever witnessed the Holy Grail of summer reading spottage?  Jill Davis saw it recently, and if it weren’t for the picture I might never have believed it.  Here in New York, in our very own Riverside Park, it’s the sight that only comes but once in a blue moon.  Hula hoop reading.

• Get your fuzzy wuzzies over at ShelfTalker when Josie talks about When Kids Pay with Money.  And she’s right.  Kids always do want bags.  Someone should do a study to find out why this is.

• Movie news.  100 Scope Notes is on fire this week!  First the create your own YA cover idea and now original pictures from the upcoming film of The Fantastic Mr. Fox.  I swear that Wes Anderson has been working on this idea for the last 10 years.  Clearly this amount of time has paid off.  It looks amazing.

• Hrm.  This is odd.  When Harper Collins put out The Frogs and Toads All Sang by Arnold Lobel, it was a classy release.  Real tasteful.  Now, however, the L.A. Times has decided, for reasons of its own, that it should be considered a direct relation to Lobel’s Frog and Toad books.  Of course, it does note that "The most striking absence is that Lobel had not yet developed the friendship between Frog and Toad; these poem-stories are about frogs and toads as a group."  Oy.  Thanks Oz and Ends for the link.

• Sometimes it feels like we go full weeks without any interesting book to film news.  Other times we get a ton of news in a single day.  From Cynopsis Kids (though, by now, it has appeared everywhere):

I wonder if they’ll be able to call her Mrs. Frisby instead of Mrs. Brisby in this new film.  As I recall, they decided not to use the name from the book in the original movie because they worried that it would give free advertising to Frisbees.   True story.

• That was news #1.  File news #2 under "Gee, What Could Possibly Go Wrong?".  Also from Cynopsis Kids :

I suspect they’ll hire Chris Kattan to play The Lorax.  Or Will Ferrell.  It’s a toss-up.  On the serious side I will bet you dollars to donuts that they give it a really happy ending.  Watch.

• "Reed Business Information is putting Publishers Weekly and its affiliated publications, Library Journal and School Library Journal, up for sale."  So so sayeth PW Daily.  Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to run over here, stick my fingers in my ears, and sing "LA LA LA LA!" loudly.

• It has never happened before.  May never happen at all.  But Collecting Children’s Books poses an interesting query.  Could there ever be a year without a Newbery?

• Let’s just label this next bit the "most interesting press release of the day":

• The chance to get your kids a naked picture book character has never been better.  And no, I am not referring to a Mickey action figure.

Everybody’s favorite Michael Stearns has up and moved himself into his very own literary agency.  Called Upstart Crow Literary (I like the name), Stearns says it will be, "a more author-focused, editorially minded, artisanal sort of agency."  I have a hard time seeing the word "artisanal" without immediately following it up with the word "cheese".  And I like cheese.  So I like this agency.  Thanks to PW Children’s Bookshelf for the link.

• New blog alert.  Andrea Zimmerman has created a nice new little site called Picture Book Party which seeks to talk about and give advice upon the art of creating picture books on a regular basis.  Go give it a looksee.

• Petulant Daily Image:

I have promised to be a good doobie.  I will not steal images from Publishers Weekly and put them on my blog.  I will not, will not, will not.  But, ARG!  How fair is it that I can’t foist that picture of Meg Cabot standing in front of a freakin’ sign that says "Betsy’s House"???  It’s causing me real physical pain to leave it alone.  Bad, Betsy.  Leave it alone.  Shoo now.  Shoo.

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