Fusenews: Terms we can live without = Young-young Adult

Amusing. I wrote an article for SLJ about the Bologna Book Fair and why librarians should attend in droves.  I was unprepared for some of the formatting choices on the piece, though.  The title Betsy Goes to Bologna caught me off guard, though it’s certainly true.  But it was the art created for the piece showing a pregnant and hugely stylish librarian jet setting about the town that really caught my fancy.  First off, I’ll have to find out from artist Ali Douglass where I can go about getting some of the shoes my avatar is sporting in these pics.  Second, anyone who saw me in Bologna will be amused by the difference in relative ankle circumference.  Mine were, needless to say, more akin to sturdy oaks than the svelte saplings portrayed here.

• You have to wonder how bad a book can be when its celebrity author can’t make a sale.  In this case, Sarah Ferguson can’t sell a picture book about a little heroic pear tree on 9/11 to U.S. publishers.  To which we say, thanks guys.  I think I owe you one.  And if you’d like to abstain from printing any other celebrity picture books, please!  Don’t feel you have to ask permission.

• The other day I was kvetching my usual kvetch about how it is that anytime a children’s middle grade novel appears in the news, it’s instantly dubbed “YA”.  Seems that I’m not the first person to notice this oddity, though.  Monica Edinger pointed out to me that over at the fabulous Misrule blog, Judith Ridge wrote the piece Whither the Children’s Books?.  In it she discusses, amongst other things, the fact that she once saw a reviewer refer to a book as “young-young adult”.  It’s enough to make your teeth itch.

• I think it was Travis Jonker who pointed out the strange thing about this article.  Not that thousands of people were able to locate adequate Where’s Waldo outfits.  It’s the fact that there was already a world record for Most Waldos.  Of course, over in Britain he’s known as Wally (if anyone can give me an adequate reason for the American name change I’d love to hear it).  My favorite line from the piece?  “The Street Performance World Championships managed has organised similar events and last year broke the world record for the most people on space hoppers.”  Space hoppers?  Still, it looked mighty impressive:

Thanks to Travis Jonker for the link.

• ALA is over and done with once again.  So what did we learn?  New author Jonathan Auxier has some answers to that question in his Five Things I Learned at ALA.  My favorite without a doubt: 4) Don’t Tell Lauren Myracle Anything.

• All good little Anglophiles love them some Mini Grey.  Now read her interview over at Playing By the Book and discover whether it’s true or not that she was born in a Mini Cooper and got her name accordingly.

• In my children’s room in the library I have a tendency to hold on to works of fiction that get a lot of circulation but have been out-of-print for years but still get a lot of requests.  So why did it never occur to me to badger The New York Review of Books to reprint Margery Sharp’s fantastic pre-Disney classic The Rescuers?  Our first edition could stand to meet a replacement.  Their timing is good.

• Elizabeth Fama had the best line on this article when she said, “Because babies are so interested in the roller-coaster romance between a wealthy aristocrat and the about-to-be impoverished daughter of a profligate father whose estate is entailed to a male heir. And if they can’t have that story, they definitely want a board book about two families whose feud results in the senseless deaths of their children, who have secretly become lovers.”

• The BBC clarifies where Thomas the Tank Engine’s land of Sodor is.  Not Sodom.  That would be weird.

• I love hearing about stage adaptations of children’s books that aren’t in the usual canon.  So I was pretty thrilled to hear about a production that will be of interest to those of you in the D.C. area.  The Wit’s End puppets will be performing Alma Flor Ada’s The Malachite Palace in shadow puppet form.  Such a great idea.

• Beats Hans Zimmer. From Cynopsis Kids:

Music and movie industry icons T Bone Burnett (Crazy Heart, Cold Mountain) and Danny Elfman (Alice in Wonderland, Spider-Man) sign on to collaborate on the music score for Lionsgate‘s feature film adaptation of The Hunger Games, which is based on the first book in the young adult trilogy by Suzanne Collins.  Burnett will also serve as the film’s executive music producer, producing songs for the film and soundtrack.  Sounds great to Hunger Games fans as well as Burnett and Elfman fans too.  Production president Alli Shearmur is overseeing the production for the studio.  The deals for both Burnett and Elfman were negotiated by Tracy McKnight, Lionsgate’s Head/Film Music, with Lenny Wohl, EVP/Business Affairs Music & Publishing, on behalf of Lionsgate.

• Daily Image:

Got this one over at Crooked House.  She called it “Books Contain Worlds”.  Nuff said.

Filed under: Fusenews