Day: October 20, 2008

Mug shots. Probably not the nicest way of saying it. But …okay. I said it anyway. Mug shots: those senior portraits.

I mock because I love, but I’m not doing it.

No, I have to …think about it. But Jay (and Robin!) of the Disco-ing Mermaids have once again thrown down the peer pressure, so the rest of us must assemble our high school geekesque selves and post our senior pictures. Betsy Bird has shown us the way, as has Sara — looking wholesome and sweet (why, yes, like granola, Sara!), and really, Jay and his bad boy guitar and Robin with her fluffy hair are adorable. I stole my friend Dan’s sweater for my senior picture, and it LOOKS like it. Plus, my chin is all weird. SO, no, I’m not posting mine, although I just looked at them this weekend. *shudders.*

Okay.
Now, I …I… MotherReader, can you hear me? I’m going to have to get out the BACA stamp and put on my kickers. What IS IT with these autumn titles!? And Doret, his HEAD IS ON THE COVER.

“It’s something that as a father you kind of have to sacrifice what you want to do, because boys do what you want to do. If I want to go to the farm and shoot guns or ride four-wheelers in the mud when it’s 40 degrees … the girls aren’t really interested in doing that,” he said.

But McGraw said he’s found that his daughters like coming along while he does simple, everyday stuff, like running to the grocery store or stopping by the office.

Tim McGraw, talking about his daughters and his children’s book: My Little Girl.

Perhaps it would have been better if he’d put in My Stereotypically Simple Little Girl. Or, maybe, just.. you know, The Little Woman.

*mumbles, kicks dirt, says bad things under breath*

Tami Lewis Brown and Liz Gallagher are exploring horror at the Tollbooth. And Cynthia L. Smith is being interviewed on GottaWrite Girl. Check her out.

New books in the world today: first, Bay Area SCBWI member Deborah Underwood is the ghost writer on Whoopi Goldberg’s new children’s book (!), Sugar Plum Ballerinas. Doret@ Happy Nappy Bookseller gives it a vote of confidence — surprise, surprise. Apparently, this is NOT a BACA Book (though if you’re in need of some real snark on the topic the Guardian can still make you laugh). Props to Deborah Underwood!

The 2008 Cybils Nominees are all wrapped and packaged and ready for reading. Take a zip through the list, which is thoughtfully broken down by genre, and get ready to do some holiday shopping! It’s definitely going to be a book year in our family; I just found out my wee nephew calls spiders “Kill-its” (thanks to his paranoid and beastly father) and so I shall be forced to buy him a book that displays spiders in a positive role, uses their actual name, counts their legs, etc., until he graduates to Charlotte’s Web and learns of arachnid fabulosity himself. (Since he’s 14 months old, we have a ways to go.)

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was proclaimed 60 years ago, in 1948, by the United Nations General Assembly at the end of World War II, and if you’ve never looked at it, please take a minute to do so! You’ll note that it has a lot of … words in it. Honestly, they’re good words and gorgeous words, and words that will make you put your hand on your heart and close your eyes and dream hard of a better world. But, there’s also a lot of “whereas”-es and “thereins” and that kind of thing in it. Enter We Are All Born Free a lovely children’s edition of the UK version of the declaration (spelled with more u’s), illustrated by the bright lights of children’s literature here, the sale of which will benefit Amnesty International.

This beautiful little volume came out the first of October and I WISH I’d recommended for the Cybils! Since I didn’t, I’m going to flog it here. Go and page through it online and tell me it’s not something that would be really amazing for not necessarily just small children, but bigger ones, who need to know the awesomeness of the dream that was held for the world, once upon a time, before things got messy… What a great, tangible reminder of a way to get back on track, and what a good personal reminder about individual freedoms, and that basically, not even your parents have the right to force you to do things — nor do you have the right to force others. Everyone should know their rights, and relish the right to be left alone, and politely demand from their governments what is due to each.

Ooh, new vampire book from Marcus Sedgewick. I’m still traumatized from the first book of his I read; I may have to wait until summer to read this one.

I’m used to finding the odd (and in the case of The Slidy Diner VERY odd) Random Illustrator Features over at the 7-Imps, but was pleasantly surprised to discover this illustrator interview with Nicole Tadgell over at Big A, little a. No Mush Today is a book by Sally Derby from Lee & Low, and it’s adorable and colorful and full of disgust for squishy hot cereal and squishy, stuffed-toy-stealing baby brothers. (I completely relate to this book as I am still smarting from the theft of a particularly cute lamb toy by my… *cough* a perfidious baby I know. Who is now, like, seventeen. But I digress.) Nicole is a fabulous, lively illustrator, and I love that there are pictures of her working — I can never get enough of seeing regular people at their desks, doing their thing.

And speaking of regular people at their desks, procrastinating, that’s it for me. Happy Monday.

New books in the world today: first, Bay Area SCBWI member Deborah Underwood is the ghost writer on Whoopi Goldberg’s new children’s book (!), Sugar Plum Ballerinas. Doret@ Happy Nappy Bookseller gives it a vote of confidence — surprise, surprise. Apparently, this is NOT a BACA Book (though if you’re in need of some real snark on the topic the Guardian can still make you laugh). Props to Deborah Underwood!

The 2008 Cybils Nominees are all wrapped and packaged and ready for reading. Take a zip through the list, which is thoughtfully broken down by genre, and get ready to do some holiday shopping! It’s definitely going to be a book year in our family; I just found out my wee nephew calls spiders “Kill-its” (thanks to his paranoid and beastly father) and so I shall be forced to buy him a book that displays spiders in a positive role, uses their actual name, counts their legs, etc., until he graduates to Charlotte’s Web and learns of arachnid fabulosity himself. (Since he’s 14 months old, we have a ways to go.)

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights was proclaimed 60 years ago, in 1948, by the United Nations General Assembly at the end of World War II, and if you’ve never looked at it, please take a minute to do so! You’ll note that it has a lot of … words in it. Honestly, they’re good words and gorgeous words, and words that will make you put your hand on your heart and close your eyes and dream hard of a better world. But, there’s also a lot of “whereas”-es and “thereins” and that kind of thing in it. Enter We Are All Born Free a lovely children’s edition of the UK version of the declaration (spelled with more u’s), illustrated by the bright lights of children’s literature here, the sale of which will benefit Amnesty International.

This beautiful little volume came out the first of October and I WISH I’d recommended for the Cybils! Since I didn’t, I’m going to flog it here. Go and page through it online and tell me it’s not something that would be really amazing for not necessarily just small children, but bigger ones, who need to know the awesomeness of the dream that was held for the world, once upon a time, before things got messy… What a great, tangible reminder of a way to get back on track, and what a good personal reminder about individual freedoms, and that basically, not even your parents have the right to force you to do things — nor do you have the right to force others. Everyone should know their rights, and relish the right to be left alone, and politely demand from their governments what is due to each.

Ooh, new vampire book from Marcus Sedgewick. I’m still traumatized from the first book of his I read; I may have to wait until summer to read this one.

I’m used to finding the odd (and in the case of The Slidy Diner VERY odd) Random Illustrator Features over at the 7-Imps, but was pleasantly surprised to discover this illustrator interview with Nicole Tadgell over at Big A, little a. No Mush Today is a book by Sally Derby from Lee & Low, and it’s adorable and colorful and full of disgust for squishy hot cereal and squishy, stuffed-toy-stealing baby brothers. (I completely relate to this book as I am still smarting from the theft of a particularly cute lamb toy by my… *cough* a perfidious baby I know. Who is now, like, seventeen. But I digress.) Nicole is a fabulous, lively illustrator, and I love that there are pictures of her working — I can never get enough of seeing regular people at their desks, doing their thing.

And speaking of regular people at their desks, procrastinating, that’s it for me. Happy Monday.