Fusenews: Cover Controversies and Leggy Blondes
Okay. First things first. I’m back from ALA, rested, recouped, and ready to go. So I’ve noticed that I’ve not been keeping up on the awards front. Sure, the big time ALA Media Awards were announced (your Caldecotts, your Newberys) but what about the others? In my round-up of the awards I felt seven kinds of smug for including the Stonewall Book Award for children and young adults. What I forgot to include, however, were (amongst others) the Third American Indian Youth Awards (I am pleased to report that A Coyote Solstice is on my library’s shelves even as I write this), the 2010 NCTE Orbis Pictus Awards, and the Edgar Award nominees for Best Juvenile books (is it just me was 2009 a particularly stronger year for mysteries than we’ve had in a while?).
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And in case even that is not enough for you, Kyra Hicks has come out with her annual summary of the Coretta Scott King Book Award statistics. She has posted them on the Black Threads in Kid’s Lit blog. A bunch of surprising statistics on there. For example, "60.6% of all Coretta Scott King awards for illustration have gone to the same 11 talented artists."
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Meanwhile in other news, Mitali Perkins has reprinted a 2009 Illustrated Books with African-American Characters list as compiled by compiled by Laura Scott of Farmington Community Library through the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC) list-serv. Bookmark that.
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Speaking of race, I leave for just a couple of days and already we’ve another cover controversy brewing in my absence? I can’t leave you people alone for five minutes, can I? *sigh* Yes folks, there are people saying that there’s another YA cover out there with a white girl on the jacket posing as the dark skinned main character. I know very little about it, but Jezebel and some commenters are clearly up in arms. One of the reasons? The book was published by Bloomsbury.
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Little, Brown & Co? You got some ‘splaining to do. Both 100 Scope Notes and bookshelves of doom bring up a bit of whitewashing that I was assured at the time was a one time printing mischief on the first cover . . . unaware that it happened again on the second. And the third. You know what I’m talking about, Mysterious Benedict Society.
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So much for my vow never to cover YA. But we actually keep copies of Margaret Mahy’s killer paranormal teen romance The Changeover (long overdue for a reprint) in the children’s section of my library, because rules are meant to be broken. Now Sarah Rees Brennan has done a killer summary of some of her favorite YA romances. It’s Howl’s Moving Castle, Pride & Prejudice, and The Changeover like you’ve never seen them before. Thanks to @chasingray for the link.
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Sometimes I’ll get a confused parent walk up to me and point to the cardboard cutout of Arthur waving above my desk. "What is he anyway?" they ask. If I say aardvark they give me a pitying look, sure in their knowledge that I don’t know what an aardvark looks like. Well the clever folks at Shelf Talk (a Seattle Public Library blog, and one of the nicest of its kind that I’ve seen) have come out with Extreme Makeover: Picture Book Characters Edition. And amongst their characters is Marc Brown’s Arthur. As one commenter to the post says, "I always felt that Arthur was sort of the Michael Jackson of children’s book characters." And who knew that the Tappletons changed species? You learn something new every day. Thanks to Linda Johns for the link!
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Feel like wasting a couple hours of your day poring over jaw-droppingly beautiful paintings from children’s stories? Then high thee henceward to the post Gustaf Tenggren and the Genesis of the Golden Book Style. By the time you finish reading you won’t just be a fan of the work of Mr. Tenggren. You’ll be committed to tracking down each and every one of his books. Wow. Just . . . wow. A billion thanks to Tom Angleberger for the link.
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Random Fact of the Day: Jerry Nelson who did roughly 35% of all the Muppets you know and love has an album out. Thanks to Wilson Swain for the link.
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You tip your hat to me and you may find that hat tipping right on back to you. I have a genius for not being in my branch whenever somebody stops by to see me. Sometimes I’m lucky, but I swear that 70% of the time folks are swooping in on my free days or times when I’m headed to conventions. Such was the case of Rebecca Serle. Fortunately, she has written a very nice post that really just boils down to an appreciation of libraries and children’s literature. Thank you kindly, Rebecca.
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You look like you could use a smile. A smile that can only come from looking at a collection of the worst possible covers attached to books still in the public domain. I warn you, the water in your eyes might bubble just a tiny bit. Thanks to @nyrbclassics for the link.
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Missed the Children’s Literary Cafe where a panel consisting of Linda Simensky, v-p of Children’s Programming at PBS, producer Diana Manson, children’s book authors Laura Vaccaro Seeger and Jim Jinkins, and Liz Nealon, former general manager of Kidz Bop LLC discussed the process of turning picture books into children’s television? PW did a recap of some of it here. It kindly does not mention my fumbling with various technologies throughout the discussion. Fortunately the panelists were pros and the talk a rousing success. We got an audience of 109+ on a Saturday morning. Big thanks to everyone who spoke, and everyone else who attended.
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New Blog Alert: One of my favorite small publishers is Simply Read Books. How many pubs can you name off the top of your head that spend extra money so that some of their books smell good? Yeah. That’s right. Just one. Well now they have a little blog of their very own that includes posts like this one about book-related handbags. Cute cute cute!
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We all have different reasons for why we became librarians. This story is my newest favorite.
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At the last ALA Conference I went to a Peter Reynolds party for his upcoming book/project Zebrafish. It was cool, but I never really got a chance to speak to Peter. Nope. Spoke to his twin brother Paul instead (I am not making this up). In any case, I almost missed this very cool conversation between Peter Reynolds and Amy Krouse Rosenthal featured at Omnivoracious recently. Now there’s an interesting pairing.
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The Guardian appears to be employing a Book Doctor as one of their regular features. Hm. It’s a good idea, but I wish it said a little more about who the "doctor" is. And the commenters are less than entirely complimentary regarding her answers.
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Daily Image:
Well, you can give me this much. Due to the name of the author, it’s gotta be literary.
Yup. That’s from a post on postmodernbarney.com where folks scanned in a bunch of old paperback covers and sent them in. This one was clearly my favorite because of the author. Love the Fahrenheit 451 one too.
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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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Another winner: MARCELO IN THE REAL WORLD won this year’s JHunt Award (a fun survivorish game at the adbooks list).
Oh my, The Changeover. LOVE that book. It’s been way too long since I’ve re-read it and yet bits of pieces are still bright and vivid in my memory. THAT’s talent. Three cheers for the ever-versatile Margaret Mahy.
FYI, the ALA’s 2010 Rainbow List was just released, too, including picture books. 🙂
http://www.rainbowlist.wordpress.com/rl-2010/
Is the deadline for the Top 100 Children’s Fiction Poll today? I didn’t see a mention of it, and I can’t remember your e-mail address, dear Fuse. Help!
I agree, Betsy. It was an excellent year for mysteries.
I also agree about the Benedict Society covers. Sad! And counter-productive, I would think.
The poll isn’t really up until the end of the month (the 31st). Don’t worry. I’ll loudly cry to the hills when it’s nigh. In the meantime, you can find my email by clicking on my name at the beginning of each post. Takes you directly to a page with my address.
Bloomsbury will rejacket Magic Under Glass (story on Publishers Weekly’s site).