Out of the Mouths of Babes

Slaughter-House Five

“It’s about the desert. It’s a mystery about the desert. You know, I think it’s actually about a slot machine that is lost in the desert.”

This hilarious synopsis comes from the daughter of book blogger Strollerderby.  What happens when a six year old judges a book by its cover? Check out the blog for more including Animal Farm, The Great Gatsby and Lord of the Flies.

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Want to show us a little love? Then show your support with one of our Dewey Diva’s badges! Feel free to grab a badge and copy and paste the HTML code below onto your website.
The coding and badge is under our tab "Spread the Word".

Kidsbooks Rocks!

Vancouver's Kidsbooks has some of the most awesome windows in retail. This one features a new kids series from Chronicle Books: The Templeton Twins Have an Idea by Jeremy Holmes this series is A Series of Unfortunate Events for the younger set. Today's Parent calls it a hilarious story...and I laughed out loud in quite a few spots.

It Don't Mean a Thing (If it Ain't Got That Swing)

Ted Gioia is a recording artist and author of eight books about jazz, including the classic, The History of Jazz.

His latest book, Jazz Standards, is a guide to 250 key jazz compositions. It’s packed with information about how each song was written, who recorded it, and the song’s place in jazz history. It’s interesting to see which songs Gioia chose for the list, but also which recording he deems to be the best.

Jazz Standards is very accessible for beginners, but it also contains lots of anecdotes and background history for the aficionado. It tells the story behind songs such as “Ain’t Misbehavin’”, “Come Rain or Come Shine”, “Nice Work if You Can Get It” and many more.

First Ever International Ivy + Bean Day!

Calling all bookstores, schools and libraries! The new Ivy + Bean releases this month. October 13th is the first ever Ivy + Bean Day. Annie Barrows will be coming to Toronto October 19th and 20th. She is scheduled to appear at Indigo
If you are interested in hosting your own event click here for more details on how you can get an event kit.

Event Kit Includes:
Customizable event signs and bag stuffers
Buttons for staff
Silly bandz bracelets
Balloons Letter from author and illustrator
Activity sheets
Stickers
Poster
Character standee 

10.10.12 Seven is coming...Are you Ready?

For Canadian children's publishing, it doesn't get anymore rock star than this. Seven of Canada's best know kid's writers have come together to write a very cool series about seven grandsons that have seven tasks to perform as decreed by their late Grandfather's will. All seven books will be release on 10.10.12 and the authors  Sigmund Brouwer,  Norah McClintock,  Shane Peacock,  Richard Scrimger, Ted Staunton,  Eric Walters,  John Wilson are going to be all over Canada to promote. To find out more about the series you can go to the Seven website.

BookNet Canada: Canadian Book Buyers and Their Relationship to Libraries

BookNet Canada has a sneak peek of their forthcoming study: The Canadian Book Consumer. This snippet is all about libraries. In the first quarter of 2012, 59.43% of book buyers claim to have visited the library within the last 12 months. Of those respondents, 19.4% visit the library, either in person or online, 2 to 3 times a month and 16.3% visited once a month. For more of this article you can click here.
The Canadian Book Consumer study will be available soon. To pre-order your copy, or to learn how they can customize our research for your company, email research@booknetcanada.ca.

Mike Shatzkin and Publishing into the Flood

Quill and Quire has an excellent podcast series. This summer Mike Shatzkin spoke at Book Summit  which took place at Harbourfront. His talk was entitled Publishing into the Flood. He touches on many issues in publishing such as ebooks,  Amazon and the role of publishers today.

"What Kind of Problem Is A Library?"

 

In the NYRblog, Zadie Smith has written a great piece on bookstores and libraries. My favourite line in it is about her local bookstore who's philosophy is "giving the people the books they didn't know they wanted"...which is a big difference from giving people the books they want. Check it out.