A couple of things in the New York Times's Sunday Book Review:
- John Schwartz reviews Pale Male: Citizen Hawk of New York City by Janet Schulman
- Lisa Von Drasek considers three new baseball books for the middle grade reader. I love the last few lines of Von Drasek's review, which read: "Summer reading is about teamwork — parents, teachers and children showing up for practice. It’s not about showboating: reading the most books, the most pages, racking up the numbers. It’s about patience, waiting for the right pitch, the book that comes right to you, and knocking that one out of the park."
Also in the Telegraph, Melanie McDonagh talks about why she's "drawn to children's picture books." Quote: "For the best children's books, traditional and modern, share the same characteristics: an element of subversiveness, perhaps of danger overcome, refuge from the rest of life and ideally a sense of justice being done."
Leanne Italie recommends books to take on the road for the Associated Press (via the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette).
Who doesn't love Mal Peet? Fortunately for us, he talked to the Guardian during the Hay Festival and tells us what he reads. Quote: "I don't read much teenage fiction anyway - and lots of my fellow authors say the same thing. Firstly because you get depressed that other people are better than you are, and secondly because authors are intuitive thieves, and we're afraid of unconsciously stealing stuff from the thing we just read and kidding ourselves we thought of it."
Speaking of authors and their reading, Michael Cunningham responds to the question [What is] A major work you revisited with disappointment? with a children's book choice in Newsweek: "The Narnia books by C. S. Lewis. I loved them as a kid. But the writing doesn't stand up. The Catholicism feels really oppressive."
And don't miss the May Carnival of Children's Literature up just yesterday, the last day of May. Tons of great reading for everyone!
The crazy first-person story behind the Paddington Bear doll in the Times.
Also in the Times, Amanda Craig reviews Macbeth: The Graphic Novel and Sovay, by Celia Ress, is the Children's Book of the Week (reviewed by Nicolette Jones).
Bernie Goedhart recommends many a picture book for the Montreal Gazette.
Susan Perren reviews five new children's books--including Mo Willems's latest--for the Globe and Mail.
Gail Rosenblum talks to Judy Blume for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune. (Judy's tap-dancing these days.)
