Thursday, November 30, 2006

www.icdlbooks.org

The International Children’s Digital Library Foundation

"The mission of the International Children’s Digital Library Foundation is to excite and inspire the world's children to become members of the global community – children who understand the value of tolerance and respect for diverse cultures, languages and ideas -- by making the best in children's literature available online."

1048 online books, from all over the world. I found this site at Bibi's Box.

So who is this Petr Horacek?

This is Petr Horacek.

(But so is this. Could they be one and the same?)

There's the Horn Book List and Kirkus List, and SLJ and...

You know that Tom Lerhrer song about the elements? Well if I had the ambition, and were not dyslexic, I could put all of those best of children’s lit lists to the same tune. Instead I’m lucky just to get my url links coded correctly.

Here are a couple more Best Of lists. One is from Horn Book, and one is from Kirkus (Thank you bookshelves of doom, for linking these titles!)
Here's the full Kirkus list in pdf form.

Wednesday, November 29, 2006

*Cybil Nominations/2006 Fiction Picture Books*

(All linked up and alphabetized)

www.storyopolis.com

Storyopolis "is the home to over 150 of the world’s top illustrators, specializing in both original art and limited edition prints."

12348 Ventura Blvd, Studio City, CA 91604

Tiphanie Beeke
Dan Yaccarino

Thanks so much for the link, Gregory K.
And thank you Fuse #8

Monday, November 27, 2006

Sunday, November 26, 2006

Leonard Weisgard

Vaudeville Horse by Leonard Weisgard from leonardweisgard.com

And an illustration from The Little Island written by Golden MacDonald (aka Margaret Wise Brown) Caldecott winner from 1947


Right now I’m working on a series of magazine illustrations, and the continuity of scale is important. So it is interesting to see Weisgard’s very odd shifts of scale in THE LITTLE ISLAND. Scale changes bother adults much more than they bother young children--do kids care that the kitten in the book changes size dramatically from page to page? At one point the kitten is a larger-than-life cat, the next minute he looks like a kitten again, and he's inexplicably flying over the little island.

I like Weisgard’s ability to draw both realistically and flatten or abstract the picture at the same time. But this book is wacky, or surreal. Sometimes there is something in Weisgard’s vivid lights and shadows that is slightly menacing. In his Caldecott acceptance speech he says, This is not the time to tell you of the comic books of the past which also caught a directness of action and a luridness of detail.

Here's the beginning of his acceptance speech:

When news of the Caldecott Award for The Little Island first arrived, life couldn't have been brighter or more exciting. But when I was told a speech had to be prepared for it, life became gloomier and gloomier. Speeches terrify me; right here and now I expect to disintegrate into a puddle of fear, wetness and bewilderment.

Update -- July 13, 2013

I just finished reading The Little Island again, and I now wonder  - did I just see pictures of The Little Island when I wrote this? I don't find it  wacky. A little  hypnotic, maybe. Both ethereal and concrete (with the details of island life).  It's the absence of humans (they arrive by boat, but you never really see them) that make it feel lost in time, or like a creation story. The cat is a stand-in for a child, and the fact that he changes size is an important part of the book.

The island is not truly cut-off from the rest of the world (just because people don't live on it).

One size fits all

Knitty.com

Chickengirl Design

A Flickr Slideshow

Wednesday, November 22, 2006

How Did the Chicken Cross the Road?

Just what kind of chicken was it? What time did this crossing occur, and on what road?

It’s interesting to see how different people approach the same subject-- how one comic tells the same joke so differently from another comic, for example. That’s why WHY DID THE CHICKEN CROSS THE ROAD? sounds interesting. I haven’t seen it. But I’m curious.

(thank you Kids Lit)

Longlists and Shortlists





I haven’t sorted out which is which, but here goes:
Thank you Big A little a
for steering me to the Carnegie longlist via the Guardian.

The nominations for the Kate Greenaway medal for illustration have been announced and two artists have received two nominations each: Jane Ray for Lugalbanda and Moonbird, and Emily Gravett for Meerkat Mail and Orange Pear Apple Bear. Other illustrators nominated for the Greenaway medal are Mini Grey, Chris Riddell, Nick Sharratt (with author Kes Grey), and Colin Thompson. The full longlist can be seen here.

Emily Gravett received this year’s Greenaway medal for Wolves. You can see the other nominees on the shortlist (nominations took place in 2005) here.

Now the Cybil Nominations:

Wolves has also been nominated for a Cybil. You can see the rest of the picture book nominations here.

You can see the Cybil non-fiction picture book nominations at Bartography.

Monday, November 20, 2006

Taking the Kids to Dia

For a decade I avoided Dia Beacon. I thought that it was a long way to go to see a room filled with dirt. I was wrong. The only Dia filled with dirt is in NY City, and there’s a lot more to Dia Beacon.

My kids loved walking through the Richard Serra sculptures almost as much as they loved The Larson Farm haunted corn maze.

Serra’s tilting steel walls are in a gigantic room on the ground floor. (I’m sure it’s the only floor strong enough to hold them.) And nothing will make you appreciate, and question, the stability of a Serra sculpture like standing inside one with your children.

Sunday, November 19, 2006

Steven Heller Blogs

If you are interested in graphic design you might be interested to hear that Mr. Heller is soon to add a blog to his website.

He recently reviewed the illustrations of Laura Ljungkvist, Hervé Tullet, Paul Rand and Taro Miura for the NY Times: Designs for Playing.

More of Laura Ljungkvist's wonderful meandering line can be seen here.

Saturday, November 18, 2006

Friday, November 17, 2006

Illustrated Children's Stories & Songs from 1920s Japan

Baby Teeth
September 1927. Hatsuyama Shigeru


Kodomo no kuni "was one of the leading artwork-featuring journals for children founded and published in 23 volumes and 265 issues from January 1922 to March 1949."

A mix of the stunningly beautiful and the odd. I found this link via Bibi's Box.

Thursday, November 16, 2006

Baker & Taylor

Today a librarian friend of mine casually mentioned a resource called Baker & Taylor. Hey! All of these children's book publisher's catalogs in pdf form, all this time, all in one place? I had no idea!

("...as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns -- the ones we don't know we don't know." You know who said that?)

Straying from the subject: Alvin Lustig

The book covers of Alvin Lustig

In honor of National Children's Book Week,

General Mills has included free books in five million Cheerios boxes. The selected titles are: http://www.powells.com/blog/?p=1592

(If you think you're getting The Unbearable Lightness of Being in your cereal box, then you've scrolled down too far.)

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

Disney's Adventures in Music: Melody

This is from a stylish series that included TOOT WHISTLE PLUNK & BOOM (where an owl explains the origins of musical instruments--my kids loved this). You can buy it on DVD.

http://media.bcdb.com/dvd/B000ATQYUG/Melody_(Adventures_in_Music).html

Ward-O-Matic has some beautiful stills from TOOT WHISTLE PLUNK & BOOM on his site.

Testing Beta at http://www.jacketflap.com

There is some glitch in beta messing with my feed to jacketflap.com. The beta people say: "Switching from current Blogger to the new Blogger in beta will cause your most recently updated 25 posts to appear as new in feed aggregators. Update (11/11): We have solved this. Unfortunately, the fix will cause all blogs currently on the new version of Blogger to appear as new in feed aggregators. We apologize for this one-time annoyance. — latest update on Saturday, November 11, 2006"

http://knownissues.blogspot.com/2006_11_01_archive.html

Monday, November 13, 2006

Betsy Tells It Like It Is

Need a baby gift? A book perhaps? Click on the title above before you head to Borders.

Plus she has a wealth of link knowledge here.
For example:
The stories of the Bible illustrated with Legos

Saturday, November 11, 2006

Weather-Beaten Melody, Fischerkoesen (1942)

The Art of Reading

Click on the the above title to see 40 beloved children's book illustrators who re-imagined their favorite childhood book, and here to see the e cards!

Friday, November 10, 2006

Little Lulu Goes to Harvard

The Little Lulu papers have found a home at the Schlesinger Library. Emerson scholar Lawrence Buell and his brother donate a "slice of Americana."

(A girl who "deserves a place beside the likes of Emma Goldman, Amelia Earhart, and Harriet Beecher Stowe," should get a little space on Fuse #8, don't you think?)

How would you stay warm if you lived in colonial times? Where would you get your clothing?



Learn about life in colonial America with children's picture book author and illustrator Jennifer Thermes, who will be speaking at the Mark Twain Library on Sunday, November 12th, from 2 to 3 pm.
Jennifer will read from her beautifully illustrated books, and talk about the history behind her stories.

Jennifer lives in Newtown, Connecticut with her family in this very old house that has "provided the perfect location for pursuing her interest in colonial history."
Click here for details.

Cybils--The 2006 Children's and YA Bloggers' Literary Awards

Fiction Picture Books

Nominations close Nov. 20.

Paul and Ann Rand's Sparkle and Spin


http://www.chroniclebooks.com/site/catalog/index.php?main_page=pubs_product_book_info&products_id=6123&store=books

Wednesday, November 08, 2006

Bob Pfeffer's Little Lulu Web Page

Created by Marge Henderson Buell, Little Lulu first appeared in the Saturday Evening Post in 1934.

Chickengirl Design: Chinese Zodiac

Chickengirl Design: Chinese Zodiac

Banner Help--What's the Code Kenneth?

Want to personalize a banner at the top of your blog? Check out this page at Eyes Wide Apart.

Also helpful was serendipitypatchwork.blogspot.com

Thank you!

Updated Nov. 20th-- For Beta banners see this link:

http://betabloggerfordummies.blogspot.com/2006/10/how-to-add-picture-to-beta-blog-header.html

via Fuse #8: PW's Best Books of the Year


CHILDREN'S PICTURE BOOKS
The Adventures of the Dish and the Spoon, Mini Grey
Owen & Mzee: The True Story of a Remarkable Friendship, Isabella Hatkoff, Craig Hatkoff and Dr. Paula Kahumbu, photos by Peter Greste
Lilly's Big Day, Kevin Henkes
Jazz, Walter Dean Myers, illus. by Christopher Myers
John, Paul, George & Ben, Lane Smith
Flotsam, David Wiesner

http://www.randomhouse.com/catalog/display.pperl?isbn=9780375836916

http://www.amazon.com/Owen-Mzee-Story-Remarkable-Friendship/dp/0439829739

http://www.powells.com/biblio?isbn=0823415457

http://www.amazon.com/John-Paul-George-Lane-Smith/dp/0786848936

Monday, November 06, 2006

Blanca <-- click to see...

another fabulous artist that I found through Illustration Friday.

This is a wonderful site too.

Why Go Digital?

Last month Leila from http://bookshelvesofdoom.blogs.com/
asked Fuse #8, "Aren't Lauren Child's books done on the computer? Or did I totally just make that up?"

Leila, you were not making that up.

"I love the computer because it's so flexible, it keeps the whole thing fluid – and I can juggle things around until I'm happy with the look of it."
Lauren Child

WHAT IS THE MAGIC PENCIL?

Today I found this site that has info about, and illustrations by some of my new favorite people.