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August 6, 2009

In the News

• A New Look for ‘Liar’
  Bloomsbury Children’s Books has told PW exclusively that it will change the controversial cover of Justine Larbalestier’s 'Liar.' Bloggers and the author herself had criticized the publisher’s choice of a white girl with long, straight tresses for a novel about an African-American girl with "nappy" hair. "We regret that our original creative direction for 'Liar' has been interpreted by some as a calculated decision to mask the character’s ethnicity," more » » » 
• Borders Adds Toys, Games to Children's Section
  Borders has added toys and games to the children's sections in its superstores. The space for the games and toys came out of areas previously dedicated to music and movies. According to Borders, the toys and games the stores carry have been chosen to help children learn to become readers by “promoting diversity, fostering creativity and helping build cognitive skills.” Borders will staff the children’s section with a specialist to help with recommendations. more » » » 

Maple Street Children’s Book Shop Closes After 34 Years
After 34 years in business, New Orleans’s Maple Street Children’s Book Shop is closing. Owner Cindy Dike made the decision after "running out of cash and credit." The factors that contributed to the store’s demise form a kind of perfect storm. Hurricane Katrina forced many of the middle-class families out of New Orleans. "Customers with young children moved on to places where they felt more secure," Dike said, "and that population hasn’t bounced back." more » » » 
• The Phenomenon of Fandom: An NYPL Panel
  Whether one is actually part of the fan community or not, the impact of the Twilight and Harry Potter worlds are inescapable. Melissa Anelli of The Leaky Cauldron and Laura Byrne-Cristiano of the Twilight Lexicon witness firsthand the intensity of the online fan community, and spoke about it at a recent New York Public Library panel. more » » » 
• HarperTeen's Amanda Project Web Site Goes Live
  After much industry hoopla over HarperTeen's ambitious web/book series, The Amanda Project, the site built around the books has gone live. On the site—the first thing unveiled by Lisa Holton's new company, Fourth Story Media—kids can find out who the character of Amanda is (a high school girl who has gone missing) and register to join the conversation about where Amanda might be. more » » » 

Blogs

• ShelfTalker: A Children's Bookseller's Blog
  Josie Leavitt, Co-owner, Flying Pig Bookstore, Shelburne, Vt.
  To Return, or Not to Return...
  To return or not to return? This is an age-old question in the book business. I've always thought that doing returns was good for me and the bottom line, but I wanted to test that, so I set about...
  more » » » 
  
• A Fuse #8 Production
  Elizabeth Bird, Children's Librarian, Children's Center at 42nd Street
  Review of the Day: Robot Zot! by Jon Scieszka
  Robot Zot! By Jon Scieszka Illustrated by David Shannon Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers $17.99 ISBN: 978-1416963943 Ages 4-8 On shelves September 22nd Fred and Ginger. Abbott ...
  more » » » 
  
• Good Comics for Kids
  Katherine Dacey, ,
  Summer Reading Challenge: Astronaut Dad and First in Space
  As we celebrate the fortieth anniversary of Neil Armstrong’s historic moonwalk, it’s easy to overlook the nearly fifteen years of planning and testing that made the 1969 lunar landing poss...
  more » » » 
  

Book News

• Drawing Comics Is Easy! (Especially When You’re Alexa Kitchen)
  When Alexa Kitchen says that she started drawing at age three, but didn’t start to get good until she was six or seven, you don’t need to take her word for it. Her first book, Drawing Comics Is Easy! (Except When It’s Hard), was composed of illustrations done when she was just seven years old. Now 12 and about to start seventh grade, Alexa says that her new book is "basically about kids and how adults frustrate them." more » » » 
• A Gesture of Generosity Inspires Picture Book
  In 14 Cows for America, Carmen Agra Deedy, in collaboration with Wilson Kimeli Naiyomah, tells the true tale of Kenyan villagers after the horrific events of 9/11. Naiyomah was in New York City on the day of the terrorist attacks. He later relayed the story of the tragedy to his fellow Maasai. In response, tribe members donated 14 cows, revered in Maasai culture, which they asked the tribe elders to bless before symbolically offering the animals to Americans to help them heal. more » » » 
• Kids' Authors Team Up for 'Exquisite Corpse'
  Plans are ramping up for the ninth annual National Book Festival in Washington, D.C., which will take place on September 26. For 2009, the Library of Congress and the National Children’s Book and Literary Alliance have teamed up with 18 children’s book authors and illustrators for a special presentation entitled The Exquisite Corpse Adventure, an ongoing story that will be unveiled over the course of a year. more » » » 
• Kids Can Rolls Out CitizenKid
  Corus Entertainment’s Kids Can Press this month launches its first branded program, CitizenKid, a collection of books that focus on global issues and inspire young readers to become better global citizens. The debut collection consists of two new titles plus five backlist books. "As a company, we are very interested in global citizenship and making complex world subjects more accessible to kids," says Karen Boersma, publisher of Kids Can Press. more » » » 

In the Media

• From the New Yorker:
  Though the story doesn’t break new ground, this week’s New Yorker looks at the complex relationship between Laura Ingalls Wilder and her daughter Rose Wilder Lane, and once again raises the question of Rose’s role in the writing of the Little House on the Prairie books. more » » » 
• From Reuters:
  Twilight author Stephenie Meyer is accused of plagiarizing from an obscure novel; she denies the charges, which her publisher calls “meritless.” more » » » 
• In other Stephenie Meyer news, from Entertainment Weekly:
  The bestselling writer’s success story will be told in a forthcoming issue of the biographical comic Female Force, which celebrates women in society and pop culture. more » » » 
• From PW Comics Week:
  See a Q&A with Caldecott Medalist David Small; his memoir for adults, Stitches, which is written in a graphic-novel format, comes out from Norton in September. (A preview of the book can be found here). more » » » 
• From School Library Journal:
  In a story called “When Harry Met Bella,” SLJ looks at the proliferation of fanfiction across the Internet, discusses the legal issues that it raises, and gives some pointers to would-be fan writers. more » » » 

In Brief

• Colbert to the ‘Rescue’
  Library funding is a particularly sensitive topic in Pennsylvania at the moment, as the governor and the state legislature are struggling to hammer out an overdue budget. But two recent segments on The Colbert Report touch on some of the not-so-funny complications that libraries face when it comes to their funds. On July 27 Colbert reported that seven-year-old voracious reader Dominick Philip had been asked to surrender his library card to the Memorial Library of Nazareth and Vicinity in Pa. when it was discovered (via a photo in the local paper) that Dominic and his family live in neighboring Tatamy Boro and do not pay the per capita tax that supports the Nazareth Library. more » » » 
• Click, Clack, Moo: Cows with Hype!
  A stage adaptation of Doreen Cronin and Betsy Lewin's Caldecott Honor book Click, Clack, Moo: Cows that Type (S&S, 2000) is now playing at New York City's Lucille Lortel Theatre, and the reviews have been good (the New York Times said director John Rando "manages to, well, milk the most from this talented cast" and Variety noted, "The world finally has the musical about computer-literate livestock it deserves"). Here (l. to r.) actors Gretchen Bieber, Kristy Cates and Michael Thomas Holmes appear as three of Cronin's boisterous cows in the Theatreworks USA production. more » » » 
• Blackall’s ‘Brilliant’ Blog
  Illustrator Sophie Blackall (who recently illustrated the cover of Rebecca Stead's When You Reach Me) is receiving some high-profile praise for her Missed Connections blog, which is featured in the "highbrow and brilliant" quadrant of the Approval Matrix in the August 10 issue of New York magazine. Blackall's site offers her illustrations of posts from the Missed Connections section of Craigslist. The illustration pictured here accompanies an entry that reads "Cursive, on leaving, stepped on my foot. Wish I could have stricken up a conversation." more » » » 
• Happy Birthday, Tomie!
  Children's book author and illustrator Tomie dePaola is getting a head start on his 75th birthday with a celebratory exhibition at The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art in Amherst, Mass. "Drawings from the Heart: Tomie dePaola Turns 75" runs through November 1. (His real birthday is still a few weeks away, on September 15.) As guest curator Barbara Elleman, author of Tomie dePaola: His Art and His Stories, notes, putting the exhibit together was not without its difficulties. "Think of the fact that he has created around 250 books and that there is at least 32 pages of art in each book," she told Bookshelf. "And one can immediately see the challenge in deciding what to include in an exhibit." more » » » 

Q & A

• Q & A with Gennifer Choldenko
  Q: When you finished writing Al Capone Does My Shirts, did you think Moose’s story wasn’t finished? How did this second book come about?
  A: Actually, while I was working on the first book, there was so much material and I tried to shove it all in the first book. But honestly, it was so challenging to write the first book. So when I finished the first one, I did not want to do a second one. I knew there was a lot more to Moose’s story, but I needed time away from it. more » » » 

Featured Reviews

• Can You Make a Scary Face?
  Jan Thomas. S&S/Beach Lane, $12.99 (40p) ISBN 978-1-4169-8581-5
  As long as story time does not have to be synonymous with quiet time, Thomas's (Rhyming Dust Bunnies) latest goof makes a great pick (the first page of this book enjoins readers, “Hey, you! Yes, I'm talking to you! STAND UP!”). In fact, the book's cheerleading narration, bold cartoons and fluorescent backdrops actually deliver an even more kinetic reading experience than the title implies. more » » » 
• Going Bovine
  Libba Bray. Delacorte, $17.99 (496p) ISBN 978-0-385-73397-7
  Cameron Smith, 16, is slumming through high school, overshadowed by a sister “pre-majoring in perfection,” while working (ineptly) at the Buddha Burger. Then something happens to make him the focus of his family's attention: he contracts mad cow disease. What takes place after he is hospitalized is either that a gorgeous angel persuades him to search for a cure that will also save the world, or that he has a vivid hallucination brought on by the disease. Either way, what readers have is an absurdist comedy… more » » » 
• 
  
  Tales from the Slush Pile

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