How to use this Page

We’re just hitting it out of the park now.  Fast on the heels of our last Salon with Jeanne Birdsall and N.D. Wilson (info below), this coming Saturday I managed to bring together the three kings of children’s book social media.  Behold!

If you’d like to watch the discussion live, tune in 2:00 CST here.  And if you live in the area, you simply have to come.  Never before have these three been interviewed at the same time by . . . uh . . me.  Or possibly anyone else (note to self: check if this is true).

Curious about Travis Jonker’s picture, by the way?  As I recall it was made for him by video and film director Michel Gondry.  You can read Travis’s piece about it here.  John’s is by Dan Santat.  I’m going to need to ask Colby who did his.

By the way, did you miss our last Salon last Saturday when Jeanne Birdsall and N.D. Wilson spoke on the topic of how their personal belief systems inform their writing?  Good news!  Not only did I record the, quite frankly, killer talk but the sound quality was a lot better than last time.  Here’s the timeline of the video:

• At 0:00 Nate is running a bit late but since it was a live feed I wanted to keep folks watching in the loop.
• At 2:36 Jeanne Birdsall and I have a finger puppet show as we wait for Nate to show up.  I have flashbacks to my sock puppet interview from 8 years ago.
• At 3:30 the talk begins.
• And at 12:45 I tilt the screen back a bit so that it doesn’t look like our heads are all scraping the ceiling.

Enjoy!

Author Megan Spooner is featuring my writing space at her blog this week. Stop by to have a look and enter to win a copy of MAY B. The winner will also receive a copy of my Navigating a Debut Year mini-poster (in the turquoise frame below).

WARNING: Be prepared to have this song in your head all day!  Especially after using it in a storytime!

See what librarians and teachers are saying about PETE THE CAT: ROCKING IN MY SCHOOL SHOES by Eric Litwin and James Dean:

“The text invites students to sing along with Pete as he rocks in his new school shoes. It also invites them to jump in with the place in the school where Pete is doing whatever it is he is doing. A perfect book for young children at the beginning of the school year. So many possibilities!” ~ A Year of Reading

“This book is a perfect fit for preschoolers through early elementary, and potentially as fun for the reader as the listener (I suggest belting out Pete’s song right along with him in your jazziest voice!).  It might be a comfort to kids who are experiencing first-day jitters, as Pete’s sense of calm and cool is a tad infectious.  And just like this cat, school IS cool, after all!  My grade for Pete, the coolest cat around?  A+.” ~ Book Talk (King County Library System)

“PETE THE CAT: ROCKING IN MY SCHOOL SHOES is the perfect back-to-school story for preschoolers through first graders. You better believe you’ll hear enthusiastic singing and clapping coming from my school library.” ~ Watch. Connect. Read (Mr. Schu)

PETE THE CAT: ROCKING IN MY SCHOOL SHOES
by Eric Litwin and James Dean
Available now

ISBN  9780061910241

Check out the website!

It’s hard to have a favorite part of the Newbery/Caldecott Banquet to look forward to, but definitely up there is the red carpet interview portion.  Each year Jim Averbeck whips out the camera and questions and has the luminaries of the field give their thoughts and opinions on a variety of schtoofs.  2011 was no different and he was joined in his efforts this year by fellow co-hosts Kristin Venuti and our own Katie Davis. Here is one of the many videos Jim has placed on the marvelous Kidlit On the Red Carpet blog.  Extra points for interviewing bloggers like Liz of Tea Cozy and Sondra Eklund of Sonderbooks in addition to authors and illustrators like David Diaz, Yuyi Morales, Ellen Hopkins, Jenny Han, John Rocco, Katherine Paterson, Clare Vanderpool, Margi Preus, Alan Katz, Javaka Steptoe, Kirby Larson, Lin Oliver, Duncan Tonatiuh, Kimberly Marcus, Jeanette Larson, and Adrienne Yorinks.  Check out the Facebook page if you’ve half a mind to do so.

Now let us begin today’s trailerfest with a remembrance of notable librarians past.  The great children’s librarian Anne Carroll Moore had no tolerance for children’s books that she considered gimmicky.  Pat the Bunny, for example, was hardly up her alley.  So one wonders what she would make of this children’s book coming out this November from McSweeney’s McMullens.  It’s called Keep Our Secrets by Jordan Crane and I can honestly say I’ve never seen a book for kids do this before . . .

Apparently the ink never fades and works like this every time.  They say that, but when I was a kid we had hypercolor shirts.  So I’ve been burned before, McSweeney’s.  That pain of seeing what happened to my shirt when it went through the wash never really went away.  Oh, the humanity.

Let’s do a more traditional picture book trailer now.  Thought: Can you can something “traditional” if the medium itself has only been in existence a couple of years?  In any case, I rather liked this trailer for David Mackintosh’s Marshall Armstrong is New to Our School.

Thanks to Pamela Paul for the link.

Of course it’s an extra special treat when a trailer includes the author and even gives some background on the creation of the book itself.  And look!  Behold the remarkable Jarrett Krosoczka and his first new picture book in years!