I’m always curious how illustrators choose to depict the sun. How can they solve the problem of making something so common look beautiful and unique? I decided to start collecting suns on Instagram using the hashtag #illustratorsun. Click here to see what I have so far. Oh, and it turns out, I’m not alone with […]
The barcode – oh clawmark of capitalism! Oh mandatory stain of consumerism! Oh ruiner of book jackets! But, soft! what light through yonder window breaks? Books with creative barcode placements, restoring my faith in art and design! Previously . . . Gallery: The Art of the Picture Book Barcode Gallery: The Art of the Picture […]
Before we left to go West, I had a tough decision to make – which books do I bring? Here are the books that are coming along for the ride: The author of the wonderful First Rule of Punk has a new one coming out and I’m looking forward to it. I enjoyed Miller’s last […]
I’m traveling West with my family until the end of the month. I have all my posts here set to run, but I won’t be minding the blog day to day until we return. If you’d like to see what I’m up to, I’ll be over on Instagram.
The Poet X by Elizabeth Acevedo has had an incredible year. It’s been a New York Times bestseller. It’s won all the awards. Now the cover of the book is causing a stir. It appears that the cover image was plagiarized. Appears? Make that WAS: This is so disappointing/maddening/illegal. Now it’s in the hands of […]
Over on Twitter, The Hate U Give author Angie Thomas talked (as a number of authors have) about the practice of readers tagging authors when they post a negative review of the author’s book. If you’re unfamiliar with this situation, you might be surprised to learn that this simple, reasonable request made some readers mad. […]
After Part I and Part II, today is the dramatic conclusion to my 2019 ALA Annual Conference experience. Sunday began with the Coretta Scott King breakfast. It’s when all the CSK winners accept their awards. There was a lot of love in that room, and the speeches were as moving as they come. An ALA […]
After experiencing an early victory (click here to read Part I), everything else is gravy. What follows are details about that gravy. Here I am at The Yarn HQ. My first full day of conferencing was pretty Yarn-centric. As you saw in the last post, the day began with Dave Eggers. Following Dave was: Yep, […]
I had one goal for the 2019 American Library Association Annual Conference in Washington D.C. My goal was to experience, for the first time, the landmark dedicated to my favorite president, Abraham Lincoln. You know the landmark I speak of: Sure, I was also there to interview some children’s book makers for The Yarn podcast […]
The other day the editors at SLJ put together a great roundup of things they’re excited about at the upcoming American Library Association Annual Conference in Washington D.C. They gave me all sorts of good ideas. Here are a few additional things I’m looking forward to this weekend. Interviews for The Yarn Podcast ALA is […]
Over the last few years, I’ve noticed an uptick in books that reference themselves. You could call them meta, you could call them descendants of a classic, or you could call them ‘This Book’ books. Here are all the recent (2019 or 2020) examples. *NOTE* This Book is Literally Just Pictures of Cute Animals . […]
The school year has ended around here and books that haven’t been on the shelves since September have returned. So forgive me for thinking I’m seeing things. Hold on – is that a dragon? Wait, no – it’s just the rarely spotted shelf full of Dork Diaries. SHHH! I think I see a Griffin. No! […]
Do you ever read this blog and wish, “Yeah, but where are the bad drawings and pictures of semi-obscure picture books?” Well, then I invite you to follow 100 Scope Notes on Instagram. It’s the place where I do secret stuff. Click here to check it out.
Once again, it’s the game that’s sweeping the country. I used this website to (virtually) create 3 LEGO book covers. They’re listed from least challenging to most challenging – see how many you can name. #1: Answer #2: Answer #3: Answer How’d you do? Previously . . . Name That LEGO Book Cover! (#1) Name That […]
Towards the end of the year I like to look at the circulation stats and see if anything unexpected pops up. Amid the swarms of Pilkey, Renee Russell, and Willems, a few books that I didn’t expect got checked out a whole lot this school year. Here they are, along with my guesses on why […]
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