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Christopher Weyant’s work has been published worldwide in books, newspapers, magazines, and online. His cartoons are in permanent collection at The Whitney Museum of American Art and The Morgan Library & Museum in New York City. YOU ARE (NOT) SMALL is his first children’s book.

The 2013 finalists for the Children’s Choice Book Awards have been revealed. Kids can vote from March 19th to May 9th.

The winners will be announced live at the Children’s Choice Book Awards gala on May 13th. Nominees have been divided into four groups classified by different school grades.

In the Author of the Year category, middle-grade fiction writers and young-adult novelists dominate. The nominees include The Fault in Our Stars by John Green, Diary of a Wimpy Kid 7: The Third Wheel by Jeff Kinney, Wonder by R.J. Palacio, The Heroes of Olympus 3: The Mark of Athena by Rick Riordan, and Insurgent by Veronica Roth.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

The Invention of Hugo Cabret author Brian Selznick has created the beautiful 2013 Children’s Book Week poster embedded above, a tribute to authors and illustrators Remy Charlip and Maurice Sendak.

Schools and libraries can get free copies of the poster during April and May, encouraging kids to keep reading. To order a copy, you must pay for shipping. Here’s more information:

To receive a free poster(s) with activity guide, please send a 9 x 12 self-addressed envelope (for 1 or 10 posters) or a 10 x 13 self-addressed envelope (for 25 posters) with appropriate postage affixed. Note that Postal regulations have changed. Please use the USPS Postage Price Calculator to determine postage cost, or ask for help at your local post office … There is a 25 poster maximum per person. Due to the volume of poster requests, we cannot process any poster orders that do not include a self-addressed, stamped envelope.

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New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

#81 Fortunately by Remy Charlip (1964)
25 points

When I worked in the Children’s Center at 42nd Street I had a bad habit of relying on the same storytime picture book readaloud staples over and over and over again.  And Fortunately, for good or for ill, was one of those staples.  I loved it for so many reasons.  For one thing, when you show kids the cover they are not enthused.  It doesn’t look interesting to them.  But about the time you get to the motor in the airplane exploding, they’re hooked.  And when the pitchfork and the tigers come along you have them squarely in the palm of your hand. There have been lots of imitators since its creation (Fortunately, Unfortunately by Michael Foreman, Boing! by Sean Taylor, That’s Good! That’s Bad! In Washington D.C. by Margery Cuyler, etc.) but none can touch it.

The description from the publisher reads: “Fortunately, Ned was invited to a surprise party. Unfortunately, the party was a thousand miles away. Fortunately, a friend loaned Ned an airplane. Unfortunately, the motor exploded. Fortunately, there was a parachute in the airplane. Unfortunately, there was a hole in the parachute. What else could go wrong as Ned tries to get to the party? Readers will cheer as Ned’s luck turns from good to bad to good again, while clever illustrations tell the story of his wacky adventure and narrow escapes.”

I was in Bologna in 2011 and while there I saw that the book was being heavily promoted by . . . oh, let’s say the Italians.  A little late since the book originally came out in 1964, but better late than never.

By the way, if you’re unfamiliar with Mr. Charlip but his name seems to ring a bell then it’s may be because Brian Selznick used him as the model for George Melies in The Invention of Hugo Cabret. He talks about Remy as an inspiration here.

I hesitate to post this due to the fact that my wet hair looks like nothing so much as an up-and-coming rat’s nest, but in any case here is a video of me reading this book aloud.  You may see why I like it so.

by Sandol Stoddard Warbugillustrated by Jacqueline ChwastHoughton Mifflin 1965My wife likes to say I have a sticky brain. This is a fairly accurate description of my proclivity to spout lots of useless bits of cultural flotsam that I can recall at a moment's notice. I can, for example, sing jingles from television commercials that haven't aired in over 35 years without the crutch of revisiting