Betsy Bird's Blog, page 4

The Situation: A former children’s librarian finds herself with a full time job where she must purchase (GASP!) adult titles for her library system? Whatever is she to do?

The Answer: Collect all the instances where children’s books and adult books overlap in strange an interesting ways.

Yes! Our regular feature of odd adult titles with kidlit connections continues. And we’ve some real doozies today, including…

Just Making: A Guide for Compassionate Creatives by Mitali Perkins

Mit...

This week Kate challenged me to come up with a summer book to do on the podcast. And sadly, the book I initially came up with was originally published in 2006 (and we have a 20-year rule on the books we can consider). I found an alternative title instead, and it involves the combo of a Newbery Award winner (Hesse) with a Caldecott Award winner (Muth) (though I don’t think either had won those respective awards when this book originally came out in 1999). It has been used in classrooms for years ...

Look, I don’t see much of a point in beating around the bush. You read the title of this post. You know what the deal is. Our dear, beloved, Dan Santat, Caldecott Award-winner, nice feller, and man-about-town, has the kickoff to a new graphic novel series coming out in 2026. It’s called Sashimi (ISBN: 9781250359995 and out April 14, 2026 ). It’s hilarious. And, yes, you’re going to want to read it the minute it comes out. Your kids? They will love it. Adults everywhere? They’ll steal it when...

It wasn’t until I started swinging by the Tapioca Stories stand at the American Library Association Annual conventions that I came to realize how impressive this small publisher truly is. If you’ve ever been to an ALA convention then you know that most publishers, even the little guys, will get a booth of some sort. Booths, however, are expensive affairs. I don’t know how much they tend to cost on average, but it’s certainly a pretty penny. With that in mind, it makes sense for the smallest ...

I’ve been thinking a bit about legacies lately. What we leave for future generations. The choices we make now that will affect the future of children’s literature as a whole, however it happens to turn out. This is probably less because I’ve grand, all-encompassing thoughts and more because I’m middle aged and there’s a bit of memento mori floating about in the brain. Or maybe it’s also because I recently attended Sophie Blackall’s Milkwood retreat and it got me to thinking all kinds of grea...

A Quick Note: At the beginning of this week’s podcast Kate’s microphone went out and only recorded me instead. So Kate starts off strong, then she’s gone, then she comes back after the background information section. As a result, you’ll hear a slightly off recording just in the first five minutes this week, and we apologize for the inconvenience.

This is a particular pity since this week’s book is one of my absolute favorites. It was one of my reliable storytime regulars. I was convinced ...

I had an amusing moment recently. I was speaking on my podcast the other day about being a bit of a “nonfiction stickler”. This made it into the show notes of the episode and when someone brought the post up in Google, they got one of those annoying AI related questions… about “the nonfiction stickler”. I found this amusing. As the official Nonfiction Stickler, I have certain things I loathe in children’s works of nonfiction. Things like faux dialogue and unsubstantiated sources.

And the...

I had an amusing moment recently. I was speaking on my podcast the other day about being a bit of a “nonfiction stickler”. This made it into the show notes of the episode and when someone brought the post up in Google, they got one of those annoying AI related questions… about “the nonfiction stickler”. I found this amusing. As the official Nonfiction Stickler, I have certain things I loathe in children’s works of nonfiction. Things like faux dialogue and unsubstantiated sources.

And the...

Back again! After all, there are always more small publishers to explore. The big guys may have all the money, but they sure as heck don’t have books like these.

This is a bit of a shorter post today, but don’t worry! Lots more are on the horizon. And if you’d like to see what we covered previously, check out Part 1 and Part 2.

Bennett’s Roof by Anuska Allepuz

English ISBN: 9788410406353

Spanish ISBN: 9788410406339

Publication Date: September 30, 2025

Isn’t that just th...

It’s not as often as I might like that I get my mind utterly and completely blown by a new book. And when it does happen it’s never for the same reason twice. Take the case of the incredible picture book bio Gabba Gabba We Accept You: The Wondrous Tale of Joey Ramone (out September 26th). Its author? He’s never written a book for kids before. Its illustrator? She’s never illustrated a book for kids before. Its publisher? They almost never publish books for kids.

And yet here we are.

T...