Christoph Niemann, who wrote and illustrated a delightful picture book called The Police Cloud, also has a monthly illustrated blog, Abstract City, at the New York Times. I highly recommend the latest (first? I'm not sure) entry, "The Boys and the Subway," which is about Niemann's young sons, who are huge enthusiasts of the New York subway.Very witty and fun.
This is a bit late, but there's still plenty of time to catch the June Carnival of Children's Literature. It went up on Monday at Susan Taylor Brown's blog, and the theme is fathers in children's books.
Entertainment Weekly recently declared "1000 New Classics" in many pop-culture categories, including "the best 100 reads from 1983 to 2008." A few children's books made the cut, including Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, His Dark Materials, The Giver, and Holes. Some of my favorite nonfiction (for grownups) is on there, too: Random Family, And the Band Played On, Friday Night Lights, and Borrowed Time. Whether you agree or disagree with EW's lists, they do make fun reading. And, I know, a few of you are going to run over there and tally up, right?
Entertainment Weekly issue of June 27th/July 4th
Up and ready for reading is a new edition of The Edge of the Forest, an online journal devoted to children's literature. Included in this month's issue is an interview with Gail Gauthier. In addition to talking about her books, the author, who started her blog back in 2002, told Kelly Herold,
According to JacketFlap, there are now over 700 children's literature-related blogs that are part of its network. There are probably more that haven't hooked up with JacketFlap. That's an enormous amount of content. Many of these blogs carry really good material. But there's way more material now that I'm interested in reading than I can read. My impression is that I'm not the only person in that boat. I think we've created far more blogs than the blog-reading public has time to consume.
I agree with Gail about the overwhelming number of children's book blogs, and after reading her comments, I began to wonder. What does that 700 number mean? Are some people turned off to the kid-book blogs because there are so many? Is it hard for a general non-kid-lit-affiliated person to know where to start reading? Are we bloggers reaching our target audience, and, if not, how do we do so?
The last day of school blew in cool and breezy this morning. Of late Junior has been somewhat wistful about the end of third grade. Last night he made some cards for a few teachers and brought out every single box of art supplies before deciding on his format: watercolor pencils and construction paper.
Junior's class spent the past month writing and illustrating their own picture books. The children worked really hard, revising many times in some cases. I was very impressed by all of the books; we parents heard a number of them read aloud by the authors in small groups recently. Junior's and several others' stories were about extra terrestrials.
Each book had a dedication page, and Junior's read: "To anybody who has crash-landed in a spacecraft."
That's my boy! Happy beginning of summer, everyone.
Blog carnivals to visit on this first Monday in June:
I'm still catching up with some of the literary prizes from the spring, including the Best Books for Babies, sponsored by the Beginning with Books Center for Early Literacy, in Pittsburgh. The honored books were
Also noteworthy:
Today, May 12th, marks the third anniversary of Chicken Spaghetti. Yee ha! I have learned so much along the way. I still have fun writing the posts, and what I most want to say is this:
Thank you for reading!
One of the most fun aspects of blogging about children's books is meeting up with other kid-lit bloggers. On Saturday I met Adrienne of What Adrienne Thinks About That at the South Street Seaport in New York, where we hoped to get aboard the Ambrose. That's the vessel that Brian Floca depicted in the awesome Lightship, winner of the Cybil award for best nonfiction picture book of 2007. Unfortunately for us, Saturday was a cleaning day for the Seaport ships, and we were forced to be landlubbers.
So, Adrienne, her friend Tracy, and I ventured up to Bryant Park, which is behind the New York Public Library (the one with the lions in front) and got to hang out, drink coffee and iced tea, and chat about books and chickens. Adrienne gave me a tip on a new series that she thought Junior would like (Sandra Markle's "Insect World"). We also peeked in at the library's beautiful and impressive main reading room.
I'd thought there was a big kids' book extravaganza at Bryant Park, but that is next Saturday (May 10th), when a bunch of events for Children's Book Week take place. So much for my fledgling business as a tour guide. I was happy to meet Adrienne and Tracy, though, and have a chance to explore the city with kindred spirits.
On the train ride home, I read a lot of Jhumpa Lahiri's new short story collection, Unaccustomed Earth, which is excellent and well-deserving of the great reviews it's pulling in. (At Sepia Mutiny you'll find a review and links to other articles on the book. I'd agree with the Alice Munro comparison that a Village Voice writer made.)
