Morning Notes: Wonka-o-Lantern Edition

FLORENCE PARRY HEIDE: 1919-2011

Florence Parry Heide, author of over 100 children’s books, passed away on October 24th. I had the opportunity to meet Heide at ALA Annual in 2009, and she was as kind as could be. Click here to read about her life and work in the Washington Post.

TAKE A LOOK AT THE FIRST CHILDREN’S BOOK

This is where it all started, folks. Not only was A Little Pretty Pocket-Book published over 250 years ago, it also contains the first known instance of the word “base-ball” in print. Click here to check it out.

JOHN GREEN: “DESIGN MY COVER”

Although the cover designers of the world must be cringing, John Green is holding a contest to have a fan design the cover of the paperback edition of An Abundance of Katherines. I’m interested in how this turns out. Click here to read more.

(Thanks to EarlyWord for the link)

PHANTOM TOLLBOOTH COVERS THROUGH THE YEARS

Does Huffington Post have a patent on the “hey, look at this” image gallery? Seems like it. Their recent gallery of Phantom Tollbooth covers worked on me. It’s always interesting to me when covers completely abandon the work of the illustrator, in this case Jules Feiffer, in an effort to freshen things up (I’m talking about you UK 2002 edition). Hey, look at this.

HAVE A CHILDREN’S LIT HALLOWEEN

Last year I tried to put together a collection of children’s lit jack-o-lanterns. Based on the following (much better) roundup at Ingrid’s Notes, I failed. My favorite?

How do you even do this?

Click here to see them all.

AND FOR YOUR COSTUME…

…with some simple modifications, Violet Beauregarde:

(Thanks to Boing Boing for the link)

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