Fusenews: A little moly with your holy, miss?
- Well a tip of the hat and an apology to Mr. Schu. Looks like he in the guise of Babymouse came to visit me at The Children’s Center at 42nd Street located in the main branch of NYPL. Alas, I am no longer in that location, having been picked up and dropped off in Long Island City where I continue to do the same job, albeit far away. Weep not for me (it’s significantly less frozen than that ice box behind the lions) but at the same time seek me not in my old room. Chances are, you will not find me.
- Book Awards You Should Know About and Don’t: Today’s let’s talk about The Phyllis Wheatley Awards. This year marks the 15th anniversary of the Harlem Book Fair and amongst the events are these awards. Given out by QBR: The Black Book Review, the nominees in the Young Readers category are:
Tea Cakes for Tosh by Kelly Starling Lyons, Illustrated by E. B. Lewis
Squeak! Rumble! Whomp! Whomp! Whomp! by Wynton Marsalis, Illustrated by Paul Rogers
What Color is My World? by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar & Raymond Obstfeld, Illustrated by Ben Boos and A. G. Ford
Twice as Good: The Story of William Powell and Clearview by Richard Michelson, Illustrated by Eric Velazquez
Ellen’s Broom by Kelly Starling Lyons, Illustrated by Daniel Minter
Well done, nominees one and all! Those of you interested in attending the award ceremony may find further information about it here.
- And speaking of book awards (probably my favorite subject, second only to talks involving chocolate cake in some way) the shortlist for the PEN/Steven Kroll Award for Picture Book Writing (an award that comes with $5,000) has been announced.
SHORTLIST:
Snakes (Scholastic), Nic Bishop
Oh, No! (Schwartz & Wade Books), Candace Fleming and illustrator Andrea
Castellani
I Lay My Stitches Down (Eerdmans), Cynthia Grady and illustrator Michele Wood
Those Rebels, John & Tom (Scholastic), Barbara Kerley and illustrator Edwin
Fotheringham
The Fantastic Jungles of Henri Rousseau (Eerdmans), Michelle Markel and illustrator
Amanda Hall
Excellent choices all around! A round of applause for judges Barbara Shook Hazen, David Wiesner, and Cheryl Willis Hudson.
- Holy moly. When you hear a statement like “The world’s first green library for children has opened” your mind naturally imagines rock gardens and quite a lot of brown. What you probably do not imagine is something as eye-popping as this:
That would be the Central Public Library in Bras Basah, Singapore. My favorite part of all this? They currently carry 45,000 books and ” a full 30% of these books are focused on green living topics such as animals, plants, nature, water resources, weather, environment, recycling and climate change.” Did I mention holy moly?
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- This summer I’m reading a lot of children’s nonfiction. Can the same be said for kids? A recent Mind/Shift piece interviews author Vicki Cobb and contains a list of selected works of nonfiction for kids. No 2013 titles, but still a nice looking list.
- Aw, man. I was very sad to hear that Barbara Robinson, the author of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever (amongst other books) recently passed away. Now there’s a funny female children’s author I remember perfectly from being a kid myself. I would have loved to have met her. You will be missed, Barbara.
- And now, a very short list of things I am not sad about today.
Ahem.
#1: The fact that the Kickstarter to finance a Where the Wild Things Are sequel is kaput. The quote at the end of the article is particularly choice.
That is all.
- Daily Image:
This is how librarians have fun. We sit around asking one another, “Who was the only Newbery Award winning author to create the cover art for a fellow Newbery Award winning book (not their own)?” The answer, as I’m sure many of you know, is Ellen Raskin. Author of The Westing Game she initially wanted to win herself a Caldecott, but for various reasons that never quite panned out. Now the collection of Crossett Library of Bennington College has generously posted online a variety of the adult book jackets Ms. Raskin created in her lifetime. Here’s a small of-its-era sampling:
You can see the rest here. Thanks to Mac Barnett 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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How cool to learn about Ellen Raskin’s book jackets! I just mentioned Ellen Raskin in a FB post asking for obscure children’s books. I will not let go of my copy of Nothing Ever Happens On My Block.