Fusenews: Sit On a Tea Party a Spell

Haven’t done one of these in a while. To be fair, there’s been so much crazy news out there that it’s almost too intimidating to do something as light and fluffy as this. Best if I stick with the news that matters. And, occasionally, the stuff I don’t remember seeing already on PW Children’s Bookshelf.

First up, this probably was on PW Children’s Bookshelf and I was just sleeping that day. As you might recall, my recent anthology FUNNY GIRL kicks off with some advice on how to be funny written by Delaney Yeager and her sister Mackenzie. Well the other day Delaney mentioned casually that this was not the end of her ties to Penguin Random House. Turns out, she’s been a writer on the upcoming Who Was series coming to Netflix and out this January. It’s based on the “Who Was” nonfiction series from Penguin and is described as “a mixture of comedy and history and will feature key leaders, innovators and creative trendsetters while placing historical figures into context for today’s children.”  All of which I read as “Drunk History for Kids”. Right-o. I’m on board with that. Sans the whole alcohol part. Of course, y’all should have hired Nathan Hale on your writing staff, though (y’hear me, Kalan?). Dude’s been doing this stuff for years.

Remember the last American Library Conference here in Chicago? Times were simpler then. We were all so much younger. It was at least a good (checks watch) two months ago or so. For those of you unable to attend but find yourselves often wondering, “Was there ever an audio file for that panel moderated by Sharyn November featuring Andrea Beaty, Erica Perl, Betsy Bird, Cece Bell, and Rita Williams-Garcia about women and humor?” the answer is yes and you can find it here.

Can I tell you how pleased I am that Julie Danielson chose to highlight my favorite board book of the year? So pleased. So very very pleased.

In my city of Evanston, 2014 was the year the schools banned leggings. 2017 is now the year that ban was lifted. As such, I expect everyone at ETHS to start wearing these ASAP:

EVERYONE. Though preferably with shirts, of course. And shoes.

“I’m pretty sure I was the least productive Sendak Fellow.” That’s a good line. As you may know, every year a small group of artists are offered the chance to stay for a month in Maurice Sendak’s home in upstate New York. The whole idea is to help them with their work. But, as Elisha Cooper put it, “I didn’t.” Find out why here.

It’s been a while since I’ve seen an old-fashioned attempt at homophobic book banning. Still, that was the case just yesterday when the Illinois Family Institute attempted to remove This Day in June by Gayle E. Pitman, illustrated by Kristyna Litten, from the West Chicago Public Library shelves. If you read their recommendation for removal you’ll undoubtedly come across what, to me, was the most chilling line in the piece: “Since libraries work together through inter-library loans, if one library has it, it will be available to regional libraries as well. Thus, one need not live within the West Chicago Library district to be heard.” Put another way, as long as there is inter-library loans, any book, anywhere, is fair game for a banning, regardless of whether or not you actually belong to that library system or not. Well, the votes came in and as Plainfield Public librarian Joe Marcantonio put it,

West Chicago Public Library board was ???? tonight! They voted to retain “This Day in June” a children’s book about a Pride Parade and kept it in the children’s area. One of the board members said “You have a right to censor your children from these books. You don’t have the right to censor other people’s children from these books.

Bolded text my own.

Lithub, I salute you and thank you dearly. I’ve never saw as beautiful an encapsulation of the history of the board book as physical object as I did with your recent piece The History of the Bendable, Durable, Chewable Board Book. And, of course, as a result of reading it I’m now hugely curious about the “macabre King Gobble’s Feast“. Well done, Olivia Campbell.

Daily Image:

Sandra Boynton won Twitter the other day. Or did you miss that?

Filed under: Fusenews