Fusenews: Channeling My Oddness

Let’s do a Fusenews today that’s in an extra-quick crunchy fast style! To wit:

• The Slate article that compares children’s biographies of Presidents to those for adults could be mighty damning were it not for the fact that most of their examples are much older titles.  The two notable exceptions are a George W. Bush biography and Yes We Can: A Biography of Barack Obama by Galen Thomas.  I’ve been increasingly impressed in the last few years by how a lot of children’s biographies have found ways to portray their subjects as complex human beings.  So to see a piece that lumps children’s bios, old and new, together and makes them all seem the same, kind of chaps my hide. Ah well.  It’s not as if they don’t make some excellent points.  Thanks to John Peters for the link.

• Claire Gross of The Horn Book considers the Percy Jackson film and finds it a bit lacking.  Sounds like a royal mess.  She makes some great points that are well worth considering when your kids ah-bug you to see it too.  Your necessary reading of the day then.

• And now, for those of you desiring to pluck out thine own eyes, from Cynopsis Kids:

"Tori Spelling first kid’s book, Presenting  … Tallulah , will be published by Aladdin , which is an imprint of Simon & Schuster, on September 21, 2010.  Loosely based on Spelling’s childhood experiences Presenting … Tallulah revolves around a young girl who is trying to figure out who she is and move away from all the people telling her what she can’t or shouldn’t do.  The book features illustrations by Vanessa Brantley Newton. While this is Spelling’s first book for kids, she has previously penned two adult books (Mommywood , sTORI ), with the third, tentatively titled uncharted terriTORI , will be published in June 2010."

• Getting kids to read is hard enough for librarians.  Actually sitting down and teaching it to them like teachers do?  All the more reason to read the New York Times‘ question What Are Your Favorite and Least Favorite Books to Teach?  Think of so of it as the anti-Best 100 Children’s Novels List (though the titles definitely overlap).  Thanks to Educating Alice for the link.

• This may be off-topic but it’s still awesome.  Elliott Kalan, brilliant comedian and writer for The Daily Show, has done a great piece for Popular Mechanics on the 70th anniversary of the closing of the 1939 World’s Fair.  A remarkable article, with some fantastic commentary.  Just figured you’d be interested.

• See, the thing I love about Colleen Mondor (don’t you love walking into my conversations part way?) is that she isn’t afraid to ask the hard questions.  Questions, quite frankly, that other people should really be asking.  So when she wrote the piece Questioning Claudette about things the rest of us should have been asking all along, I applaud her.  Claudette Colvin: Twice Towards Justice by Philip Hoose won a Newbery Honor this year and is maybe one of the most brilliant biographies I’ve seen.  All the stranger that I’m only considering the questions Colleen brings up now.

• Daily Image:

I think we need a blog that is the opposite of Cake Wreaks and focuses entirely on the world of children’s literature.  Roger Sutton posted this image on his blog the other day.

It reads "TERRIFIC BABY".  Shoot, I’ll have a baby if it means I get some cake!  Thanks to Read Roger for the link.

Filed under: Fusenews