Fusenews: Pajamas – Will sappers

Mine is a dual blogging household, and now the resident husband and I are talking about the same topic.  Case in point, Matt’s recent article for the site ScriptShadow.  Matt gave several books a close examination and determined which ones would make the best films.  His conclusion?  Keep a close eye on The Boneshaker by Kate Milford (which I have also read and enjoyed immensely), Fat Vampire by Adam Rex, and The Carbon Diaries by Saci Lloyd.  Good reading.

• Elizabeth Bluemle has yet again compiled her invaluable list of the books granted stars in 2010.  Thus far, only five books have gotten the much sought after five star status, and none have gotten six in total.  Six stars are admittedly rare.  As I recall, not a single book got six last year.  Fingers crossed that something does this year.

• Will Manley writes articles for American Libraries Magazine, does he not?  I only ask because recently The Gothamist revealed that Manley has recently released the results of a survey he conducted in 1992 that got him fired from his job.  It’s about sex and librarians.  One wonders if such a thing could get you canned today.  Thanks to Dan for the link.

• I’m kind of loving Under the Greenwillow’s constant creativity.  Not that the other publisher blogs out there don’t have distinct personalities, but it takes a particular kind of brilliance to create something like Greenwillow’s recent Social Media Boot Camp.  I just love the idea of Awful Ogre just typing "Oh, snap!" to everything.  Thanks to 100 Scope Notes for the link!

• The Top 100 Children’s Novels Poll is the gift that keeps on giving.  Tons of folks have been using the list as a kind of meme which I believe Teacherninja began.  Folks show how many of the books they’ve read and rank themselves.  That’s pretty cool, but I think we all know that the poll results were a little whitey whitey.  Sure would be nice to work some diversity in there, eh?  Well now you can!  Thanks to the ingenuity of That Blog Belongs to Emily Brown, a kind of solution has been reached.  On her site she writes, "After the jump are all of the chapter books on the CCBC’s 50 Multicultural Books Every Child Should Know. There are ten. (How perfect!) So give yourself 10 points for each of the following that you have read. Now average that with your Fuse #8 grade. Now you have a grade which is adjusted for white bias. This is obviously mathematically suspect, but entertaining, no?"  Oui oui!  The best thing about that list is how often it’s updated.  Heck, it has this year’s Boys Without Names on it!  Hello, To Be Read pile….  Thanks for the quick thinking, Emily. 

• Speaking of the poll, one of the books in the Top 10 is about to be turned into a graphic novel adapted by the multitalented Hope Larson.  I like Ms. Larson’s work.  Her Chiggers was sublime.  Can you guess which book she’s adapting?  Probably.  Thanks to Kristen Northrup for the link.

• The second part of Marjorie Ingall’s written piece on the Jewish Canadian groups seeking to ban The Shepherd’s Daughter is up and running.  In this article Marjorie suggests some good Israeli-Palestinian middle grade and YA titles. 

• Is it Friday yet?  It’s not?  Why the heck not?  I want to post about this poetry posting and usually that’s best done on Poetry Friday.  Ah well.  Since April is National Poetry Month, I suppose it still counts.  Travis recently highlighted some Book Spine Haiku that is often silly and sometimes mind-blowing.  Thanks to 100 Scope Notes for the link!

• Speaking of poetry, illustrator Melanie Hope Greenberg waxes nostalgic over poet Norman Rosten and how she came to know him better.

• May 1st I’ll be conducting a panel of children’s book translators at my library at 2:00.  Much along those same lines is this fantastic conversation between two of the great children’s translators of today.  Doris Orgel and Anthea Bell talk about their lives and their work with one another as part of PEN’s Pen Pals series.  Out of everything in today’s Fusenews, this is your required reading.  

• For that matter I’ve an upcoming Literary Cafe that discusses the future of children’s books on e-readers (but not for a while).  My techie buddy Dwayne pointed out to me recently that on the site ePubBud there is a mess of children’s books there waiting to be downloaded.  Many older titles too.  It’s interesting.  The site is ostensibly for folks to self-publish their own work instantly.  Yet it’s the children’s literature that’s the most interesting feature to me.  Huh.  What are we to make of this?

• While you ponder that, feel free to read the wonderful Pixie Stix Kids post Obvious Watch: Preparing Kids for that Digital Future with Great Books.

• Daily Image:

I’m off of work for the next few days in the desperate hope that I’ll be able to get some work done on my books.  So life’s pretty much just looking like this print from Timothy Buckwalter (which may or may not have come from Futurama originally):

Thanks to BB-Blog for the link.

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