Fusenews: I’ve Got Two Words for You – Golden Underpants

Whoa.  Did you see that?  Look up.

Yeah, that’s my name.  In an ad banner.  Do you know that this is the very first time I’ve ever appeared in one of my ad banners?  They usually just flit about hither and yon, sometimes for books I like, sometimes for books I loathe.  There was a brief period where when you came to the bottom of this page you’d see an ad for that unfortunate (to put it mildly) movie adaptation of The Dark is Rising called The Seeker.  This is an improvement.  Mildly hypnotic (words go up, words come down, words go up, words come down) but fun.  Now where was I?  Ah yes!

• The winners of the Cybils Awards have at long last been announced.  There are some really fabulous winners on display.  Congrats to all the readers and all the judges who spent countless hours reading and rereading to find the perfect combinations of fun and well-written.  Brava!  You can see Mr. Schu’s own amazing video-based release of the winners here.

• Recently I was given the ability to check my own statistics on this blog.  It’s kind of thrilling.  I haven’t had a chance to view where you guys are all from (and how many of you there really are) since the good old days when Fuse #8 was on Blogger.  One of the surprises has been the fact that the top read posts on this site every week, bar none, are the Top 100 Picture Books Poll and Top 100 Chapter Book Poll results.  Every week, bar none.  Now the Scholastic Parent and Child Magazine has released its own 100 Greatest Books for Kids.  According to this The USA Today article they polled parent bloggers and then the editors culled down the list.  Would have been interesting if they’d polled literary bloggers as well, and maybe they did.  It just says they got advice from “literary experts”.  I think that may mean educators, though.  It’s an interesting list and while I’d disagree with some inclusions I was pleasantly surprised by others (Team Moon!).  They included Hunger Games but not Twilight because Twilight was “too mature” (mutated kids ripping the throats out of other kids is apparently G-rated) and there isn’t a graphic novel to be seen, with the possibleexception of Captain Underpants, which isn’t really a GN.  They did make a pass at diversity though and that’s something.  Worth looking at.

• Unrelated Thought: Did anyone else love it when Schmidt on The New Girl referred to The Phantom Tollbooth as “The Phantom T”?  And I thought I couldn’t love that show any more.

• I love the British.  I love them for a lot of reasons but the fact that they use terms like “rude bits” makes them especially dear to me.  Take the recent Playing By the Book piece The Best New Read Aloud With Rude Bits.  Now granted it’s about a book that has yet to make it to the States (Sir Scallyway and the Golden Underpants by Giles Andreae and Korky Paul) but it also happens to show what occurs when you can make your own golden underpants.  Long story short, you’re the coolest kid on the block.

• Boy, are you guys in luck.  Leila Roy of bookshelves of doom has some new gallery items up and running.  This week: stamps of famous children’s literary folks turned into necklaces.  Sorry I didn’t tell you about this sooner.  Most of the Struwwelpeter ones are long gone.  There are still a few left, though.  Catch ’em while you can!

• I hope you’re impressed.  It’s not everyone who gets to help jury the prestigious Bologna Ragazzi Award for the 2012 Bologna Children’s Book Fair.  But then, not everyone is Jules Danielson.  Fresh and back from her jaunt to Italy, she discusses the fact a tiny bit here.  Tis quite the honor, if I do say so myself.

• Fancy Nancy + Tina Fey + movie = The fact that somebody appears to have a six-year-old daughter. *ahem*  Additional Fun Fact: Did you know that Tina Fey lives in the same apartment building as R.L. Stine?  Put that in your pipe and smoke it.

• Good old SLJ did their homework when they reported that YALSA Stirs Controversy Over ‘Booze for Books’.  I wondered if they’d remember that this isn’t the first time such questions have been raised.  Remember 2009?

• Great PW article on Jimmy Gownley and his Amelia Rules series.  I find a great deal of satisfaction in that series.  Not just because you can seen Gownley’s art really improve over the course of the books, but because of the depth of the subject matter.  I’m sad to hear it’s coming to an end at long last, but the notion that he’ll work on other stuff encourages me.

• Seriously, the more they find media tie-ins for this movie the more surreal it is for me.  Here’s the latest from Cynopsis Kids:

Lionsgate and CafePress partner to create an official online store for the movie The Hunger Games (http://shop.cafepress.com/hungergamesmovie). The site will launch on Tuesday, February 21 and will offer consumers both officially licensed film merchandise (apparel, accessories, and novelty items) and fan created designs (self-designed t-shirts, canvas bags, water bottles, etc.). Additionally, via a special promotion beginning now and running throughout the lifetime of the store, fans will also have a chance to create a free District ID Card through a new exclusive Hunger Games Facebook application (www.becomeacitizen.pn), which can also be accessed via the CafePress shop. Fans that register for an ID card through the app can claim a physical ID card that shows their district and job assignment, among other things. Existing “citizens of Panem” can also claim their free The Hunger Games ID card (shipping fees and exceptions may apply) through the app. The Hunger Games movie releases March 23, 2012.

I’m just going to repeat that.  You can get a District ID Card.  For fun.  To become a Panem citizen.  Next thing you know they’ll create an amusement park of Hunger Games world where you get to wander through the wasted districts.  Whee!!

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• Daily Image:

When they say to immerse yourself in books they are rarely so literal.

I’m only going in if they fill it with the liquid pulped pages of King Bidgood’s in the Bathtub.  I do have my standards after all.

Thanks to Katie Davis for the link!

Filed under: Fusenews