MORE 'VIDEOS' POSTS
It’s a little crazy but do you know how hard it is to find a decent edition of Jack and the Beanstalk these days? The Galdone version is, I’m sorry, really weird and the E. Nesbit too long. Honestly, one of the best versions I’ve run across is Josh Funk’s It’s Not Jack and the […]
The book trailer. It’s a weird invention. When publishers started to create them, the librarians, booksellers, and educators sat back and tried to figure out their ultimate purpose. It’s been a little more than a decade since their emergence and I don’t think we’re any closer to determining their final purpose. I’m working on a […]
Every year in December I do this 31 Days, 31 Books series. On each day I present a different list full of the best of the year. Board Books one day. Funny picture books another. And somewhere in there I put out a list I like to call Transcendent Holiday Books. These are the books […]
Look, I don’t want you to think I’m easy or anything. “Old Betsy Bird,” you’d say. “She’ll post pretty much any kind of video on her site”. Not true, sez I! I just like what I like. And what I like is process. Getting into the heads of the creators of some of my favorite […]
When I was a kid I didn’t actually use my public library much. Like a lot of kids, it was the school library where I discovered the books that would be most beloved to me. And in one particular case, I found a book that stayed with me a very long time. I’m not sure […]
A new Molly Idle book is naturally a cause for some celebration. All the better if it happens to involve something awesome. Something like . . . mermaids. When Ms. Idle gets her hands on a mythical creature, however, you simply want to see more of them. Unicorns! Griffins (with her love of birds she’d […]
People are on to me. I seem to have given away the game. Looking at me you’d never know I harbor a sweet spot for Nonfiction, but my love goes down and deep. Now I know I just did a book trailer premier yesterday. I don’t want you to think I’m getting sloppy on you […]
Yesterday I produced my Fall Prediction listing of 2019 Caldecott and Newbery contenders. But what if one of those books wins the Caldecott or Newbery Award proper? You know what happens in these cases, don’t you? Either the poor winner is so overwhelmed by the question “What’s Next?” from a populace expecting brilliance that they […]
The summer is dying. Every night the crickets sing. I haven’t had to turn the air conditioning on in my home for weeks and just yesterday morning my daughter begged me to consider increasing the heat (it was 65 degrees inside so . . . no). But summer isn’t quite done with us yet so […]
Last month I found myself overwhelmed. Overwhelmed, that is, with an incredible desire to review a book a full four months before its publication date. This is not an unheard of action on my part, but I do try to avoid talking up books too far in advance of their releases. Sometimes, though, when the […]