Fusenews: Putting the haha in the brou
Well, far be it from me to begin with a Facebook link when I know full well that some of you don’t have Facebook accounts and still others can’t view Facebook links while you’re at work (schools in particular come to mind). But this is just so kinda cool that I can hardly resist. If you’ve visited me in my library in the past year you might have noticed an ungodly amount of scaffolding around my building. That is because 2011 marks the 100th birthday of New York Public Library’s main branch (known as the Stephen A. Schwarzman building) and a major restoration project has been in effect. As of right now, the place is a fine, shining, gleaming white and there are some delightful before and after pictures of the job available for viewing here. Do check them out, if you have a chance. Manifique!
- That’s a good idea. I have a great deal of respect for folks out there that know how to rustle up a new blog post. Book Aunt (run by none other than author Kate Coombs) had a lovely example up the other day called Thoughtful Picture Books You’ve Never Heard Of. Note that she didn’t say, “You’ve Never Read” because she might have my number on that one. As it stands, I have heard of quite a few of these, though definitely not the Loren Long/Walt Whitman title. Wow! When did that come out?
- Fat Vampire has been banned. Somewhere. So we learn from its author Adam Rex, who recounts a vindictive little cuss of a parent who managed to get a school principal to remove the book from the school library. Adam has a rather choice little response that you might be interested in reading.
- Speaking of the removal of YA books, y’all know that I don’t cover YA stuff. Not my bag. If you asked me to name three angel-related teen romance novels, I couldn’t do it. Still, even I had to sit up and take notice at the Bitch Magazine brouhaha that erupted earlier this week. Here’s the deal. The magazine produced a list of 100 recommended YA novels. Everyone was happy except a few folks who said they didn’t like one book or another for various reasons. So the magazine confessed it hadn’t read said books and when they did they decided they didn’t like the books either and had them removed and replaced with the World’s Most Benign Replacements. Which is to say, Diana Wynne Jones, who I love, but taking off Living Dead Girl and putting on Howl’s Moving Castle is . . . peculiar. Folks, understandably, got mad at the mag, particularly when they described books like Living Dead Girl of having a “triggering nature”. At this point when folks got fairly livid Bitch said this wasn’t a “feminist list” a bunch of authors asked for their books to be taken off, and the magazine got huffy and said no. There are lots of great round-ups of this still going down, but the two I particularly like came from bookshelves of doom (who rounds up the other folks talking about it) and Chasing Ray who almost did a blow-by-blow in real time. And y’all wonder why I don’t like to dip a toe in the YA waters more often . . . yeesh!
- My poker face is fine. My ability to keep myself from wriggling in my seat with joy when I have a good hand? Lamentable. Laughable. Pitiable. So I will not be attending this fundraiser for 826NYC, that bastion of wonderful free tutoring and classes for kids in Brooklyn. Pity since those of you who are interested could compete against folks like Ira Glass, John Hodgman, and Michael Ian Black. It’s all going down in a Texas Hold ‘Em Poker night February 17.
- If I were Maurice Sendak I’d be a little put out by all these reports about “the only surviving mural by Maurice Sendak” floating around out there at the moment. I mean, the man’s not dead! Maybe he’s working on a mural right now. We don’t know. We can speculate that it’s highly unlikely, but we don’t know. In any case, apparently Sendak painted this mural on the wall of a friend’s apartment back in 1961:
Cool, eh? Now the mural has upped and moved to the Rosenbach Museum and Library where conservation efforts to keep it intact have just finished. So those of you in Philadelphia are lucky! It’s on display now (note the hours) for anyone interested in seeing it. I’m envious. Sounds like a real treat. Thanks to @HarperCollins for the link.
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- I dunno. This doesn’t sound all that shocking to me. Dr. Seuss + Burlesque? Heck, the books kind of naturally lend themselves that way anyway, don’t you think? Still, I’m intrigued by this performance on February 10th at the Galapagos Art Space. Apparently they’ll have pieces based on The Lorax, which baffles me a tad. Even more so, The 5,000 Fingers of Dr. T? Well, I guess if you did a backwards version of Do-Mi-Do Duds, maybe . . .
- Big time wonderful award news. Big Red Lollipop by Rukhsana Khan, illustrated by Sophie Blackall has just won the 2011 Charlotte Zolotow Award! Woot! The Zolotow tends to go to books that show “outstanding” writing in the picture book format. I commend this particular choice to the hilt. They could not have chosen a brighter title, to my mind. K.T. Horning announced the winner on the CCBC-Net listserv and went on to say that, “The 2011 Zolotow Award committee named four Honor Books: ‘April and Esme, Tooth Fairies,’ written and illustrated by Bob Graham, edited by Joan Powers, and published by Candlewick Press; ‘City Dog, Country Frog,’ written by Mo Willems, illustrated by Jon J Muth, edited by Christian Trimmer, and published by Hyperion / Disney Book Group; ‘Hip-Pocket Papa,’ written by Sandra Markle, illustrated by Alan Marks, edited by Emily Mitchell, and published by Charlesbridge; and ‘A Sick Day for Amos McGee,’ written by Philip C. Stead, illustrated by Erin E. Stead, edited by Neal Porter, a Neal Porter Book / Roaring Brook Press.” Links entirely mine. Thanks for the heads up, K.T.!
- SLJ summarized some of the discussions going down at Digital Book World 2011 the other day. I was interested in the piece primarily because apparently Alison Morris (with whom I dined the other night) mentioned the need for a legitimate review source for these products and a Michel Kripalani from Oceanhouse Media “implored attendees to create a service to curate apps, telling them that you can make a fortune in affiliate links alone.” Dunno about a fortune part but I agree that we definitely need some kind of a new review journal for this media. Go to it!
- I haven’t given you any sufficiently interesting Cynopsis Kids news lately about events on the movie front, have I? Here, I’ll make it up to you:
I’ve read it several times to myself in my head. Still doesn’t make a heckuva lot of sense, but I like Bill Joyce. And Isla Fisher.
- Daily Image:
According to its website, this isn’t an actual Fables cover but rather one that was inspired by the graphic novel series’ 100th issue. I’ve never been able to get into Fables myself but I like this. Thanks to the Infomancer 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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Wait…more Guardians? Are these the owls again? Or some different type of guardians?
Entirely different Guardians. Not a feathered pate to be seen. No worries.
Thanks for that Adam Rex link.
Does this say Alec Baldwin as Santa Claus? I’m stunned.
Thanks for the Zolotow Award news, especially. I’d missed it.