Fusenews: On the bocce ball court with a banjo

• In the realm of “How crazy is this?” I have a whopper of a weirdo story.  As you may or may not know, for many years I worked with the delightful Winnie-the-Pooh toys in the Children’s Center at 42nd Street.  Because the toys originally hailed from Britain I become well and truly familiar with folks insisting that they be sent “home”.  In fact, if you’d like to read the entire history of the British M.P. who made it her misbegotten mission, you can do so here.  I hadn’t thought of the debacle in a while, until a most peculiar and bizarre piece ran in Newsweek.  It is difficult to ignore a clickbait headline like Behind Bullet-Proof Glass Winnie-the-Pooh Is In Jail.  Come again?  Riddled with inaccuracies one Cole Moreton decided it would be a good idea to give the impression that the Winnie-the-Pooh toys are now housed in the “basement” of the Schwarzman building.  By “basement” one assumes he means “ground floor” but from the piece you’d be convinced that they were stuffed in a dusty closet lit by a single lightbulb on a string.  It is a shockingly poor piece of journalism (not a single NYPL employee is interviewed).  If Mr. Morten had spoken to even a single person he might have scooped Time when they reported that Winnie might be making a visit to Britain in the future.  Ah well.

• In other news, my library’s President was recently interviewed by Humans of New York sounding the good sound byte.  Go, Tony, go!

• I am very very very very excited by this list: African-American Interest Young Reader’s Titles 2014-15.  It shall aid in my buying, yea verily it shall.

• From time to time I do some freelance for the company Zoobean.  They specialize in reader’s advisory and now, for the first time, they’ve paired with the Sacramento Public Library to use Beanstack, an advisory app for young children.  Well played, y’all!

• Christmas may be over but that doesn’t stop me for wanting things.  Like this poster from Sara O’Leary’s upcoming picture book This Is Sadie, illustrated by Julie Morstad:

• Oooo. Pretty.  Pop-Up glow-in-the-dark Harry Potter books.  Purdy.

• My reviewing took a bit of a header since the birth of kiddo #2 but I still engage.  Just the same, I cannot say that I haven’t engaged in all the Top 20 Most Annoying Book Reviewer Cliches at one time or another.  With the possible exception of “unflinching”.  That one doesn’t come up when dealing with board books very often. (example: “Martin offers an unflinching look at a brown bear’s ursine strength, never hesitating from delving into what it is they truly do see”).

• “Are You an Adult Who Reads YA Novels? Congratulations, You Saved Publishing in 2014.”  You heard it here first, folks.  Thanks to Wayne Roylance for the link.

• Daily Image:

Hope you got all the gifts you desired. Me? I never got this amazingly hipsterish version of Clue, but boy is it special.

I mean, what kind of Clue makes Miss Scarlett the least attractive?

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