Fusenews: Copious Overflows of Ghastly Bosh… Of a Fashion
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I like to think of myself as a reviewer that doesn’t indulge too often in full-throated bile. But boy. Sometimes you gotta feel envious of the reviewer who just lets it rip. Maud Newton recently quoted a bit of old Ambrose Bierce’s review of Oscar Wilde’s The Wasp. Open your ears unto this: "He has mounted his hind legs and blown crass vapidities through the bowel of his neck, to the capital edification of circumjacent fools and foolesses, fooling with their foolers. He has tossed off the top of his head and uttered himself in copious overflows of ghastly bosh." It goes on. Speaking of Wilde, chalk this photo up on the list of unique authorial statues. Man. Only in Ireland. Rowrrr.
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Roger Sutton has opened the floodgates in asking a fairly innocent question: Who should be the next Ambassador of Children’s Literature? The masses are speaking to the tune of 100+ comments. Yet to my mind, many are forgetting one of the great requirements of Ambassadorship. For one thing, the person needs to be able to jet set constantly back and forth around the country. This makes parents of small children less likely to get the job. A couple folks would be particularly nice. I like the Linda Sue Park suggestions and I wonder if anyone has suggested Lisa Yee yet. Granted she’s still a relatively new author, but her kids are older rather than younger and she’s a fine n’ fancy public speaker. And think of the blog posts!
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Over and over in 2009 I’ve seen children’s and YA literature unafraid to invoke God or return time and again to a church setting. I wouldn’t necessarily call this a trend, of course. Religion and children’s books go hand in hand and have done so pretty much from day one. I’m thinking of Leonard Marcus’s Minders of Make-Believe which talks a bit about the earliest abecedarian delights. More recently were the good old Betsy-Tacy books which I didn’t really recall were all that spiritual. Beth Davies-Stofka’s piece on Children’s Literature and Faith, however, talks a bit about it. Thanks to Mitali Perkins for the link!
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Writers? Some advice on turning points. Or rather, several turning points. Rather fascinating as an authorial technique. Thanks to Cheryl Klein for the link.
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As I may have mentioned before, I finally caved and joined Twitter. And, just as I feared, find it fascinating. It got worse when I found this We Follow site where you can find out who the top followed folks are in a given designation. I decided to see who the top of the top was in http://wefollow.com/twitter/kidlit. #1? The CEO of a children’s ebook company. Huh! Pleased to see Just One More Book and Greg Pincus on the list of Top Five too. You go, guys!
Where the Wild Things Are has Terrible Yellow Eyes. On a far more limited range is The Design Inspiration’s 25 Various Styles of the Wizard of Oz Illustrations. It’s fun but, as J.L. Bell pointed out, rather movie-inspired. Check out his post on the matter for additional Oz art links.
Our own Liz B of Tea Cozy has written a cool SLJ piece on fan fiction called When Harry Met Bella, which is a title I kinda sorta love. She and co-writer Carlie Webber ask, "Fanfiction is all the rage. But is it plagiarism? Or the perfect thing to encourage young writers?" Funny that it wasn’t really something kids did when I was a young ‘un. I imagine some pretty adorable/horrible Phantom of the Opera Mary Sues would have appeared (see the article to know what that term means).
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Want good karma? I mean really head of the class, sweet smelling, top of the line karma? The kind of karma your neighbors will look at enviously from afar? Well, have you ever heard of Oyate? Say they of themselves, "Oyate is a Native organization working to see that our lives and histories are portrayed honestly, and so that all people will know our stories belong to us … Our work includes critical evaluation of books and curricula with Indian themes, conducting of ‘Teaching Respect for Native Peoples’ workshops and institutes; administration of a small resource center and reference library; and distribution of children’s, young adult, and teacher books and materials, with an emphasis on writing and illustration by Native people." They’ve also been offered the chance to have a website redesign. Unfortunately the August 1st deadline for matching their grant has passed, but I don’t think they’d mind if you happened to give them a donation for the redesign anyway. Take it under consideration.
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Daily Image:
I’d put it here, but it really wouldn’t show up properly. Read it here instead. And thanks to jlbellwriter for the link.
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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I’d venture to say that fanfic wasn’t something kids *talked* about doing when you were a young un, but I’m certain that some of them were doing it. It’s only been in the last ten years or so that fanfic authors have felt free to publicly admit that they do that sort of thing — or put a name to it. A lot of us who wrote fic as kids just fell into it and thought we had very cleverly invented a whole new genre that nobody else had thought of — I know that was the case for me. If somebody had said “fanfic” to me I’d have had no idea what they were talking about… and yet I was doing it. I bet at least a few of your schoolmates were as well.
My first fanfic: a crossover between Star Trek and Battlestar Galactica with a Mary Sue character. And this was back when there were only the original series out. Didn’t know it had a name, of course.
Ambrose who?
If I recall my visit to that Oscar Wilde statue correctly, the best thing about it is that he’s looking directly at a statue of a naked male torso. Hence the nicknames.
Ambrose Bierce!
tinyurl.com/m64whs
Someone did mention Lisa Yee. I love that idea! She’d be fantastic at getting kids excited and involved.
Hi Anon, Thanks for the link. Interesting. However, I never heard of Ambrose Bierce before (not that it makes any difference)
and Oscar Wilde is a world class writer. My original comment was meant to be wry she says skulking out of the comment box….
Ah, but Mr. Bierce is also the man behind “Occurance at Owl Creek”, one of those short stories I devoured by the dozens in high school. I recall the short film of it quite well too. For some reason I always think that O. Henry wrote it. Not sure why.
For some reason Bierce gets no respect.
We mistake his work for someone else.
His name is to used when teasing others. Poor Ambrose. Probably why they called him “Bitter Bierce”.
Sorry if (that) my Bierce link was a little snarky, MHG. Probably not so snarky that Bierce himself would have approved it, but that’s not a goal for everyday life. Anyway, I know him mainly through The Devil’s Dictionary. A little goes a long way, but it has its dark pleasures.
Come back to the light 🙂 All is forgiven person I do not know.