How to use this Page

• Me stuff.  You have been warned.  So the first thing to know today is that this coming Saturday I’ll be speaking at the Eric Carle Museum about Wild Things: Acts of Mischief in Children’s Literature.  It will prove to be an amusing talk and if you live in the area I’d desperately love it if you could attend.  I’d like to see your smiling faces, rather than the sea of empty chairs that greets me whenever I close my eyes and imagine worst case scenarios.  It will be at 1 p.m.  In other news, the panel I conducted on Native Fiction was summarized at Tu Books as well as a rather in-depth write-up in Publishers Weekly.  So well done there.  Finally Jules and I were interviewed in conjunction with our book by Cynthia Leitich Smith over at Cynsations.  Woohoo!

• Ooo.  Harry Potter travel posters.  Here’s one:

• And for those of you who know who Suzuki Beane is, enjoy this little GIF of her dancing up a storm.  If I were ever to get a tattoo it would be one of those images.  Or this one.  Thanks to Sara O’Leary for the GIF.

• Monica Edinger was kind enough to field some questions from Jules and me about obscure Alice in Wonderland facts.  I thought I’d heard them all, but that was before I learned about Harry, Alice Liddell’s older, forgotten brother.  A boy who existed before Alice?  There’s a book in that . . .

• Okay.  So we all know that we need diverse books.  Understood.  Done.  But where precisely do you find lists of such titles?  Check out the all new Where to Find Diverse Books site.  Everything from books on disability to Islam to LGBTQIA is included.  Think something’s missing?  Let ‘em know!

• Things I Didn’t Know: So when we talk about podcasts of children’s literature we rarely consider the academic side of things.  Imagine then my delight when I discovered the Raab Children’s Literature Podcasts created for the Northeast Children’s Literature Collection and the Teachers for a New Era Project.  Quite the listing!

• And speaking of Things I Didn’t Know (a topic worthy of its own post, I suspect) Jules recently discovered that there is such a thing as a Coretta Scott King Book Awards Fair out there.  Did you know that?  I, for one, did not.  The event “celebrates the Coretta Scott King Awards, those authors and illustrators who have received the award, and books that (as the Award states) demonstrate an appreciation of African American culture.”  Jules interviews the organizer and founder of the event, Collette Hopkins.  Interested in bringing it to your city?  Read on.

• So I was moderating a panel at a Penguin Random House teacher event this past Monday (I’m just dropping the “Me Stuff” left and right today) and one of the giveaways was Ian Doescher’s William Shakespeare’s Star Wars.  I’m sure you’re familiar with it.  It seemed like a cute gimmick and I thought maybe to snag a copy and give it to my brother for Christmas or something.  Little did I realize that it’s actually a rather brilliant piece of work.  From R2-D2′s soliloquy placing him squarely as a trickster character in the vein of a Puck, to Han Solo’s line after shooting Greedo (“[To innkeeper] Pray, goodly Sir, forgive me for the mess. / [Aside] And whether I shot first, I’ll ne’er confess!”) I was hooked the minute I read it.  My husband’s been on a bit of a Star Wars kick himself as of late.  First there was his three part series on “Why We Like Luke Skywalker”.  Matt posed the question to James Kennedy and got an epic response that is worth reading in Part One, Part Two, and Part Three.  Then there was Matt’s post on what Jonathan Auxier’s The Night Gardener and Star Wars have in common.  There are other Star Wars posts as well that are worth discovering but I think these make for pretty in-depth reading anyway.

• Daily Image: With Halloween on the horizon it’s time to start thinking about costumes.  For inspiration, why not check out BuzzFeed’s 31 Amazing Teacher Halloween Costumes?  Lots of children’s literature references in there.  Three of my favorites included:

Thanks to Kate for the link.

I dunno.  Seems pretty coincidental that the man who does all the Harry Potter audio books in England (Stephen Fry) would get into trouble because he tweeted some HP pics without the express permission of Warner Bros.  Then again, England is a mighty small island.  Hey, I know a fun game we can do!  Let’s play six degrees of Harry Potter!  So, um, Stephen Fry was in Wilde with Jude Law who was in A Series of Unfortunate Events with Timothy Spall who plays Wormtail in the Harry Potter movies.  That’s okay, but I bet you can link him even faster than I.  Maybe you could use the Spice Girls Movie or something.  Don’t use Extras, though.  Television shows don’t count.

• Speaking of tweets, how many of you were aware that Peeta from The Hunger Games has his own twitter feed?  Tis true.  Alongside HalfPintIngalls (who always outdoes herself with the Halloween tweets) there is a dedicated and growing fictional community out there.  Thanks to @molly_oneill for the link.

• Webcomics. Love ‘em or hate ‘em, they’re out there (have you seen the great Dracula-related Hark, a Vagrants?).  At least I can appreciate the one called Waiting for Bilbo.  There’s a premise that makes sense to me.  You’ve got your plot, your characters, your end date, all that stuff.

• We can still milk a couple Halloween links for all they’re worth, right?  I’m thinking specifically of the pictures Alvina Ling posted of the Little Brown costumes.  Everything from Arthur to The Curious Garden to (my personal favorite) the cover of Twilight.  Now THERE is an obvious LB&Co. costume!  Very fun.

• Monica takes our recent debate about the role of real world facts in fictional books and displays a chart that shows “the continuum between nonfiction and fiction.”  That’s how the teacher types do it.  With charts!

• New Blog Alert: I would be amiss in missing a missive (all right, enough of that) about the new Horn Book blog.  Tantalizingly named Out of the Box: “An exclusive look at what comes into the Horn Book offices”, the site is the brainchild of editorial and marketing assistant Katie Bircher.  Gotta say, I like what she’s written so far.  I mean, I totally missed that the endpapers of The Baby Goes Beep failed to make the cut in the board book version.  That didn’t stop me from giving it to one of my buddies’ new babies recently though.  I mean, the book’s a hoot.

• Philip Nel writes, “People once
  9 Comments on Fusenews: Too bad his duck is so crazy, last added: 11/4/2010
  Display Comments
  david e said, on 11/2/2010 9:52:00 PM
  

  am i missing something, ms fuse? are you quoting tim eagn’s dodsworth? and if so… why?

  Monica Edinger said, on 11/3/2010 1:43:00 AM
  

  Thanks so much for mentioning my chart. The link is: http://medinger.wordpress.com/2010/10/29/telling-the-reality-behind-fiction/

  And, David, I’m guessing the answer is yes! One of my favorite early reader series.

  Elizabeth Bird said, on 11/3/2010 4:14:00 AM
  

  I am indeed, David. But it requires you to follow the commonplace book link. I make my readers work for my references!

  And sorry about the missing link, Monica. Apparently my brain has a hard time remembering to put more than one in any given post. Whoops!

  Cindy said, on 11/3/2010 5:10:00 AM
  

  Stephen Fry was in Peter’s Friends with Kenneth Branagh, Emma Thompson and Imelda Staunton, who’ve all been in one or another Potter movie.

  rams said, on 11/4/2010 2:29:00 AM
  

  Cindy’s point makes me realize that Hugh Laurie was the other now-big name in that movie, but no Harry P for him. Hmmmm….. Who should he have played? Lupin, maybe?

  Elizabeth Bird said, on 11/4/2010 4:41:00 AM
  

  He would have made a superb Lupin, I agree. The thing you always hear about Lupin is that he looks exhausted. Laurie could look perpetually exhausted with very little effort. And thanks to his work on House we don’t have to go far to imagine his dilapidated state.

  david e said, on 11/4/2010 4:55:00 AM
  

  ah, i see what i did. i thought i clicked the link, but it was the regular list and not the children’s-only list, and that’s how i missed the connection with the quote. i figured it had to be me.

  that crazy duck!

  Terry Doherty said, on 11/4/2010 5:08:00 AM
  

  Thanks for the link to Out of the Box! I had missed that one. Love the idea of book characters becoming tweeters … gotta believe someone out there is already thinking Wiki!

  :paula said, on 11/4/2010 10:18:00 AM
  

  Any British actor can usually be linked through Gosford Park. The cast of that movie was enormous, and I always forget – oh yeah! Clive Owen AND Stephen Fry AND Lord Cutler Becket from Pirates of the Caribbean AND Derek Jacobi AND Richard E. Grant AND Helen Mirren… and both Dumbledore (mark II) and McGonagle. Michael Gambon gets killed in that movie too, come to think of it!

  Add a Comment