Fusenews: Grumble fish

“Transported to a surreal landscape, a young girl kills the first person she meets and then teams up with three strangers to kill again.”

That would be an old line from a TV column in the Marin Independent Journal by one Rick Polito describing the film The Wizard of Oz.  My brother-in-law Steve brought it up this past Thanksgiving and I’ve been savoring it ever since.  What better way to kick off this lovely Friday morning then, eh?  The birds are singing.  The fish are grumbling.  Let’s get to it then!

• Let’s get the me stuff out of the way first.  Lemme see, lemme see.  First off, over at the blog For the Future: What Today’s Youth Services Librarians Want the Next Generation to Know I answer some questions about the state of librarianship today, what to know, what to do, etc.  Then SLJ did a very nice write-up of a recent panel I moderated with the Women’s National Book Association.  It was a talk with industry professionals that examined how one goes about making a YA bestseller.  The article is good, but you will have to forgive my mugging in the accompanying photograph.  As god is my witness, I thought the angle the photographer took meant that I wasn’t going to be in the frame.  So I hedged my bets and posed, but in such a way where I look like I’m hosting a reality show and these are my ill-fated contestants.  Forgive me, Hannah.  I meant not to block you like that.

• Speaking of advice to folks about the fine state of librarianship, if you have not read Kelly Jensen’s corrective You’re Going to Piss People Off do so.  Something to chew on for you newbies out there.  Heck, something to chew on for us oldbies as well.  Cause we do, man.  We do.

• Oh, man.  Three words for you: Ed Emberly fabric.  Go wild, tootsies.  You know you wanna.

• The gift giving season approacheth.  The pocketbook expandeth.  And the gift giving ideas dryeth up like a tiny puddleth.  That’s why it’s important to have resources on hand.  Resources like MotherReader’s recent 150 Ways to Give a Book.  Gift giving advice.  It’s the gift that keeps on . . . er . . .

• I’m feeling old.  I have lived long enough to see books for kids appear and disappear only to potentially reemerge years later with the force of a petition behind them.  Hand me my cane, I am done, but not before I let you know about this rather fascinating attempt to garner online support.  Any of you remember the Wright & Wong series from a couple years ago?  Well before the current flush of books with kids with Asperger’s it was the rare pre-London Eye Mystery mystery series starring a kid with AS.  Now with so many folks clamoring for books of this sort to appear, an online petition has been created and the authors are putting out the word that they need support for it to come back.  To be honest, I’ve never seen this sort of thing before.  Let’s watch and see what happens.

• Should you happen to read the interview with Daniel Handler in The New York Times you will no doubt curse as I did at those horrid little words, “INTERVIEW HAS BEEN CONDENSED AND EDITED” found at the end.  Pfui.

• I read with great interest the opinion piece What Should Children Read? which discusses the Common Core and reactions to it.  I should like to sit on it and process it for a while, though.  Seems to me one of the more interesting discussions on the topic.  I am torn.  A tip of the hat to PW Children’s Bookshelf for aiding in this confusion.

• Several months ago the great and legendary editor Patti Lee Gauch spoke in my library with a talk entitled The Picture Books as an Act of Mischief.  Now that very talk has been typed up and put online over at Horn Book.  Huzzah, sayeth I.  And also hooray.

• Daily Image:

You could be forgiven for wondering if artist and cartoonist Saul Steinberg ever made a children’s book.  To the best of my knowledge he did not, but many was the child like myself that grew up seeing his New Yorker covers hither and thither.  The discovery of this Saul Steinberg mask series pleases me to no end.  Some examples:

Thanks to Lisa Brown (see you this Saturday, yes?) for the link.

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