The Yarn
January 24, 2017 by Betsy Bird
Now THAT is how you do an award season, my friends. Boy oh boy, I was mighty pleased MIGHTY PLEASED by a good 98% of the winners (and of that 2% that didn’t please me, I’ll never tell). I fully intend to do a post about all the neat stuff I saw on the conference […]
January 18, 2017 by Betsy Bird
Are you excited? I’m excited. Who wouldn’t be? Very soon, almost too soon, it will be Monday morning and all around the world we’ll be able to tune into the live feed of ALA’s Youth Media Awards to hear the winners of the Caldecott, Newbery, Printz, etc. Not like in the old days when you […]
January 4, 2017 by Betsy Bird
Normally published in December, now pushed up to January for your reading pleasure. But I’m shaking things up this time around. Let’s do something a little different. In all my past Final Prediction Editions of Newbery/Caldecott winners, I cling stubbornly to the same format: name the predicted winner and honors. This year I’m going a […]
September 27, 2016 by Betsy Bird
Cloud and Wallfish By Anne Nesbet Candlewick Press $16.99 ISBN: 978-0-7636-8803-5 Ages 9-12 On shelves now Historical fiction is boring. Right? That’s the common wisdom on the matter, certainly. Take two characters (interesting), give them a problem (interesting), and set them in the past (BOOOOOORING!). And to be fair, there are a LOT of dull-as-dishwater […]
September 19, 2016 by Betsy Bird
Mmmm. It’s that time again. The summer is beginning to cool its jets and with fall on the horizon I need to present the third in my yearly four-part prediction series. What was that fantastic quote Travis Jonker came up with the other day? Ah, yes. “Those who have knowledge, don’t predict. Those who predict, […]
August 11, 2016 by Betsy Bird
Ghost By Jason Reynolds Atheneum (an imprint of Simon & Schuster) $16.99 ISBN: 978-1-4814-5015-7 Ages 9-12 On shelves August 30th This is a generalization, but in my experience librarians really enjoy reading within their comfort zones. They’ll travel outside of them from time to time but always they return to the books that they like […]
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June 20, 2016 by Betsy Bird
Fickle little me. Titles appear. Titles disappear. Many of the books I placed on my Spring 2017 predictions list are gone by June, and what has changed? Aren’t the books as wonderful now as they were when I originally propped them up? Of course they are, but I’ve done enough book discussions in the intervening […]
April 14, 2016 by Betsy Bird
Raymie Nightingale By Kate DiCamillo Candlewick Press $16.99 ISBN: 978-0-7636-8117-3 Ages 9-12 On shelves now My relationship to Kate DiCamillo’s books is one built entirely on meaning. Which is to say, the less emotional and meaningful they are, the better I like ‘em. Spaghetti loving horses and girls that live in tree houses? Right up […]
March 24, 2016 by Betsy Bird
When Green Becomes Tomatoes: Poems for All Seasons By Julie Fogliano Illustrated by Julie Morstad A Neal Porter Book / Roaring Brook Press (Macmillan) $18.99 ISBN: 9781596438521 Ages 6 and up On shelves now. I don’t think I can adequately stress to you the degree to which I did not want to review this book. […]
March 16, 2016 by Betsy Bird
What? Who? Now? Yes, if you’re checking the calendar you’ll see that three whole months of 2016 have gone by and you know what that means. Prediction time! But Betsy, you say, that is quite simply the kookiest thing I’ve ever heard. It’s March, for crying out loud. We’ve ten months until the next award […]
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