SATA

• Pop! Goes the Nursery Rhyme - 2025 Union Square Kids, New York, NY
• Long Road to the Circus (Betsy Bird ; illustrations by David Small) - 2021 Alfred A. Knopf, New York, NY
• The Great Santa Stakeout (Betsy Bird ; illustrated by Dan Santat) - 2019 Scholastic Inc., New York, NY
• Funny Girl: Funniest. Stories. Ever. - 2018 Puffin Books, New York, NY
• Giant Dance Party (Betsy Bird ; illustrated by Brandon Dorman) - 2013 Greenwillow Books, New York, NY
• Children's Literature Gems: Choosing and Using Them in Your Library Career - 2009 American Library Association, Chicago, IL

• The BookFest - https://www.thebookfest.com/betsy-bird/

  Betsy Bird is the Collection Development Manager of Evanston Public Library and the former Youth Materials Specialist of New York Public Library. She is the creator of the 2016 FOLIO Award winner for Best Blog,  A Fuse #8 Production. Fuse #8 is a children’s literature site, hosted by School Library Journal where Betsy is a regular contributor. She reviews for Kirkus and, on occasion, the New York Times and produces year end Best Of lists for Parenting Magazine and the National Public Radio’s Book Concierge.

  Betsy is the author of the picture books  Giant Dance Party  illustrated by Brandon Dorman (2013) and  The Great Santa Stakeout, illustrated by Caldecott Award winner Dan Santat (2019). She is the co-creator of the very adult  Wild Things: Acts of Mischief in Children’s Literature, co-written with fellow bloggers Peter Sieruta (Collecting Children’s Books) and Julie Danielson (Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast) as well as ALA Edition’s  Children’s Literature Gems  (2009). Betsy is also the editor of the middle grade anthology  Funny Girl,  which brings together some of the funniest women writing for kids today. Most recently, Bets is the author of the upcoming Long Road to the Circus (2021), a middle grade novel, illustrated by Caldecott Award winner and National Book Award finalist David Small. She has contributed introductions to the reissue of the 1933 Newbery Honor winning book  The Winged Girl of Knossos  by Erick Berry and Jason Boog’s Born Reading: Bringing Up Bookworms in a Digital Age — From Picture Books to eBooks and Everything in Between. She also co-authored the chapter “Picturebooks and illustrated books” with Junko Yokota in The Routledge Companion to Picturebooks, edited by Bettina Kummerling-Meibauer.

  Betsy is the host of two different podcasts.  Story Seeds  is a production of Literary Safari and pairs kid writers with real adult published authors to create stories together. Her other podcast  Fuse 8 n’ Kate  is done in partnership with her sister Kate Ramsey and is a podcast about figuring out which picture books deserve to be remembered as “classics”.

  She has served on ALSC’s Arbuthnot committee, Newbery committee, and Legacy committee as well as the Library of Congress’s committee to determine the National Ambassador of Young People’s Literature. Betsy has also served on the Boston Globe-Horn Book Award committee and has served twice on the New York Times/New York Public Library Best Illustrated Award committee as well. 

• Only Picture Books - https://www.onlypicturebooks.com/2021/10/25/librarian-author-interview-betsy-bird/

  Librarian/Author Interview: Betsy Bird
  On October 25, 2021 By Only Picture BooksIn Behind the Books
  This month’s Industry Insider interview is with a name you likely know well–author, librarian, blogger, podcaster, and reviewer Betsy Bird. Welcome, Betsy!

  She’s the Collection Development Manager of Evanston Public Library, and the former Youth Materials Specialist of New York Public Library. She blogs frequently at the School Library Journal site A Fuse #8 Production, and reviews for Kirkus and The New York Times on occasion.

  Betsy also hosts two podcasts, Story Seeds, which pairs kids and authors together to write stories, and the very funny Fuse 8 n’ Kate where she and her sister debate the relative merits of classic picture books. Plus, she’s a terrific writer who’s edited anthologies, written middle grade novels, and authored picture books like Giant Dance Party and The Great Santa Stakeout.

  Let’s move on to the interview to find out what, why, and how Betsy manages to do all these amazing things!

  Betsy’s website
  Betsy’s blog
  Betsy’s Twitter
  Betsy’s Instagram
  Betsy’s Pinterest
  RVC: How do you think about yourself in terms of your professional identity? Are you a librarian who writes and podcasts and more? Are you like a writer who also librarians? How do you keep it all straight?

  BB: Man, I tell you, when I was starting out, I wanted to be like THE EVERYTHING of children’s literature. I wanted the academic side and I wanted the writing side and I wanted the librarianship side. And I didn’t want the teaching side. So, forget about that. But I wanted all the different parts of the personality of a children’s literature person that you could possibly cram into one human. At this point, it hasn’t gotten any less confusing. And I’ve certainly written more books. So, now it mostly just falls between librarian and author, but there’s the podcasting. And then the blogger part is a distinct part. So, I guess anything else falls into the blogger sphere. Podcasting…that’s a blog thing, right? So, that sort of falls into that area. And if I write an article for something…yeah, I’m not sure what I am. I’m a mess!

  RVC: From one mess to another, I understand completely.

  BB: Excellent.

  RVC: Let’s jump back to the beginning here. What was that first picture book love moment where it all just clicked?

  BB: The thing is, there’s not a click moment if it’s just what you breathe. There’s not a moment where you suddenly wake up one day and you’re like, “Air is amazing!” Because you’ve always had it.

  RVC: So, you had a childhood with lots of books.

  BB: I grew up in a house with books, yes–there were picture books everywhere. It wasn’t like it was even given as an option. It was just this thing one does. So, I had my books, and I had books that I really liked.

  The idea of becoming an author probably didn’t come until I realized I had an aunt who was an author. That made it seem like a legitimate job that people have. I was like, “Okay, so that’s a thing.” But yeah, there was no click, there was no lightning flash to love books.

  RVC: Did you have any favorites though, either authors or books?

  BB: Absolutely. Yet when people ask you that, you’re supposed to say something cool. Like “Shel Silverstein was a god to me.” I mean, I like Shel Silverstein, but who I loved was very uncool. Very, very uncool. When I say her name, people who know her are like, “Oh, that isn’t cool. You’re right.”

  RVC: I SO have to know now. Please dish.

  BB: Tasha Tudor. Totally not cool, since it looked like the 1880s. But she didn’t live then–she wrote a lot in the 1950s and 60s, but she dressed like she lived a century prior.

  She had this book, A Time to Keep, and it was my Favorite Picture Book of All Time. I read that thing to death. I’ve still got it in my home. My children refuse to look at it, but that’s okay because it’s my book. Mine!

  RVC: I feel your pain because my honest answer is The Saggy Baggy Elephant. Why did I like it? Because he was saggy. Nothing more, nothing less.

  BB: Oh, yeah. You DO feel my pain!

  RVC: Exactly!

  BB: Tasha Tudor knew how to draw cupcakes REALLY well. That’s it. That’s all a kid needs.

  RVC: When did you really start to think about the kidlit world as a career pathway for you?

  BB: I always assumed I’d be a librarian. So, that was just considered the thing that I would do. Growing up, when we got VHS tapes, I was the kid who made an entire cataloguing system–they had all those little numbers on the side of them, remember? I alphabetized the family’s books. With our National Geographic magazines, I’d make subject heading lists to go with them. Just in case I needed capuchin monkeys for a report…which I never did.

  In college, I thought it’d be cool to be a photographer. Though I’m a terrible photographer, which I know because I have just enough talent to recognize who is a good photographer. So, I did go to library school with the idea that I’d be an archivist. I wanted to preserve books. I was going to be THAT person.

  Yet I took a kids book class on a lark. Now, I was already reading kids books, and had been reading then for years. When I went on my foreign study program, the second Harry Potter book had just come out. My mom told me to buy it, because somehow She Knew. And I read the entire thing that first night. And I’ve been reading like Philip Pullman and more. So, I took that kid literature course and saw that it was books I’d been reading already on my own, which hit me like a little lightning flash. It was like, “Boom, this is what I do!”

  RVC: Now, you’re the first official librarian I’ve ever interviewed at OPB, and I’ve been saving this librarian question. Now it’s time to unleash it. Here goes.

  Did you ever have one of those amazing moments where you you recommended a book, and a kid came back after having read it, and their life had been changed?

  BB: Apparently I did and didn’t know it at the time. Just a week or two ago. Stephen Savage–a picture book, author/illustrator–sends me an email. He says, “I was in New York, and I was in a restaurant…”

  Now, for this story to work, you have to understand that I skim email, so…

  Steve wrote, “I saw Fred Hechinger. And he saw my New York Public Library mask and he asked if I knew you, and he said, ‘Betsy Bird changed my life.’ ” And I’m sitting there going…who the HECK is Fred…wait…there was this kid named Fred from three different book groups a while back, and though he was like 10 then, he’d go to YA panels to discuss things, and he was just a delightful, charming kid. You know, I think he like interned at Scholastic for a while.

  I was like, “Fred, good old Fred!” But I have no idea how I changed his life. Did I give him a reference? No idea. Did I give him a book he really liked? Entirely possible.

  I went back and carefully looked at the email. And how it actually began was that Steve was in a restaurant and he looked over and saw Fred Hechinger. So, he went over to say hi because Steve liked his performance on White Lotus. As it turns out, Fred’s an actor who was on the Fear Street trilogy, and he’s apparently just about everywhere. I had no clue. He was just a good book club kid. So, thumbs up to book club kids. They’re awesome!

  RVC: When did you decide to do the authoring and not just the curating, collecting, archiving, and everything else?

  BB: When I was a kid, I wanted to be an author, but then I got older and I was like, “Oh, health insurance. Now what’s going to happen? I’m not going to become an author!” I didn’t take any writing classes or anything like that in college. So, I kind of put that on the side and I became a librarian. When I finally started thinking a little bit about it again, I had some ideas. Then Brandon Dorman, the New York Times bestselling illustrator, contacted me and was like, “Hey, let’s do a book together. You write it. I’ll illustrate it. I just want it to be about one thing–giants leaping up.” I was like, “You got it!” We wrote three books together and Greenwillow bought two. That’s how I became an author.

  It’s a terrible story to tell because people want to know what blood, sweat, and tears you went through, and for me it was just a dude who was like, “Hey, you want to do something?” and I was like, “Yes!” so we did.

  RVC: [Making Note to Self: become friends with bestselling, award-winning illustrators who might need authors to work with.]

  BB: That’s just it–they don’t need authors. But I used to do a yearly roundup on my blog of who did the best middle grade book cover. Inevitably, it was him. He did a bunch of great covers. So, I guess he just figured I might be able to write a book?

  RVC: Makes perfect sense to me!

  BB: You are not, by the way, supposed to walk into a publisher with the author and illustrator, saying, “We wrote a book together!” They hate that. They like pairing authors and illustrators themselves. That’s how it works.

  Do NOT walk in together.

  RVC: Like you did?

  BB: Like I did.

  RVC: Let’s circle back on this librarian thing. What’s something that most writers wouldn’t know or appreciate about being a librarian?

  BB: Excellent question. Back in the day, it would have been that not everyone who works in the library is a librarian. That gets some people all riled up and angry, like “I worked for two years on my Masters of Library and Information Science degree, and then you’ve just called any old person who’s here a librarian? Harrumph!”

  Now, who cares? Call them a librarian.

  Today, though, what they may not know, I suppose, is the degree to which we do social work. We have a social worker paid for by my city. At my library, we are very lucky–every library should come with its own built-in social worker, because we are not trained in social work. And we should be trained in social work, because we often deal with the same things. Even in the children’s book world, you got to deal with a lot of issues that you did not get taught when you went to your library school. And you didn’t have a class on this. Maybe these days they do. I don’t know.

  RVC: Care to share an example?

  BB: My first library job was at the Jefferson Market branch, a beautiful, beautiful location in Greenwich Village. Absolutely beautiful. And we had to deal with a very interesting set of clientele. One day, you might have to deal with a man with a sword. Here at my library in Evanston, we had to deal with a guy with a BAG of swords! We once had a guy with a parrot. He brought it in because he simply wanted to bring in his parrot. I also had kids set off a stink bomb in the children’s room, which was the most adorable tiny prank of all time–it was kind of cute.

  But less adorable is the library branch where someone got attacked by a knife. You’ve got to know how to de-escalate. And, of course, every time there’s a weekday off of school, the library becomes the de facto daycare, right? Because parents who can’t afford to take off put the kids somewhere and they don’t want them at home. They think the library is the safest place, so they just drop them off. And some may or may not have lunch with them.

  RVC: My goodness! Let’s talk about something happier, and what comes to mind is illustrators. You’ve had the good fortune of working with really fine ones, such as Dan Santat on The Great Santa Stakeout, and, of course, David Small on Long Road to the Circus. How’d you get so lucky as to work with big-time pros like them?

  BB: First, I have to clarify something. Earlier, I said that you’re not supposed to walk in to a publishing house with your Illustrator. There’s almost never been a time I haven’t. Every time I do a book, I pretty much walk in with the illustrator which works when they’ve won Caldecotts. So for The Great Santa Stakeout, I wrote it and then gave it to my agent–who doesn’t do many picture books–and she was like, “Alright, who do we want to do the art?” I said “Dan Santat.” She said, “Go ask him.” So, I did. I told Dan, “Hey, man, I got a book. You want to do it?” And Dan, who’s completely booked up all the time said, “Can you wait two years?” I was like, “You betcha!” Lo and behold, he did it.

  How I got to work with David Small is a little bit more of a story. As family lore has it, my grandma’s no-good uncle would skip out on his farm chores to walk over to an elderly ex-circus performer’s house to learn how to teach horses some circus tricks. Like you do.

  RVC: Indeed.

  BB: The woman’s name was Madame Marantette. And that woman’s house is currently owned by…David Small! When my mother learned this fact, she realized this family story that we all thought was jokey and silly was, in fact, true. And that this was something she had to tell me because it was actually kind of cool. I filed it away in my brain like, well, that’s neat. Later, I was like, “Man, what if I wrote a book that involved Madame Marantette, and maybe that uncle, and maybe some other things, and maybe David could do the pictures.” So, I wrote it as a picture book. To make a long story short, I showed it to David and he was interested, but said, “I see it more as a novel.” I’d never written a novel, but I did it, and David did spot art throughout. It worked out really well.

  RVC: Amazing. Thanks for sharing those stories. I’m now curious to hear about your work as a reviewer. What was it like the first time you had a review of yours in a big-time venue like The New York Times?

  BB: That was a real thrill. I think I’ve reviewed for The New York Times twice. The first time was for Raina Telgemeier’s Smile, which nobody knew was going to blow up and be the biggest thing in the entire world. I just really liked it.

  RVC: How’d you get that opportunity?

  BB: I knew two New York Times editors just from living in New York–you just run into people at different events. And so I knew two of them. I’d already been writing my reviews in the style of a New York Times review, so it did feel very full circle to me to write for them, though it had a lot more pressure because they were actually fact-checking me, which nobody does. So, that was new, but they do a good job and were actually paying for it. They also asked me to review Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales: Donner Dinner Party.

  RVC: You create some very good reviews. What’s your methodology for reviewing a picture book? For instance, what do you focus on? What do you think about? What’s your process?

  BB: It really depends on the book. There are really good picture books out there that I can’t review. They’re great, and they might even be the best of the year, but when I sit down to review them, I can’t think of a word to say that would be original. Like “Book good, pictures pretty, story great.” Ugh.

  RVC: As someone who’s been reviewing books for a half dozen years, I’ve been there.

  BB: The book has to have a hook–there has to be something that I can hook the review on, something that I can say about it that’s new. So, I end up with eclectic choices in terms of the books that I reviewed if only because these are the ones that have given me something to say. That goes for any book, whether middle grade, or picture book, or board book–I can write five or even ten paragraphs on a board book if the board book gives me something to write about.

  Someone once called me out for how I review picture books. They said, “You do the opening paragraph, then you do the summary of the book in the second one, and you have some thoughts, then you just do a concluding paragraph.” And to that person, I’m like, “Well, yeah.”

  It’s funny because sometimes I write a review and I’m just like, “This is the best review!” And sometimes I do it and they’re not great. They might be very positive and people might be very grateful because I put lots of words into them. But they vary in quality like anything else.

  RVC: What’s one thing that people maybe don’t fully appreciate about writing reviews?

  BB: A review isn’t just if the book is good or bad. It’s asking questions like:

  What is the larger context of the book exists?
  What is the bigger picture?
  Why is this book different? (especially if you’re talking about picture books, where the sheer scads of picture books being published in a given year is just staggering–there’s just loads of them.)
  What does this book have to say about the world?
  You know, in some way, what makes a book meaningful doesn’t have to be big. It could simply establish itself as important in this day and age in some fashion. Even if it’s like a goofy little book about a balloon that, you know, farts all the time. What does that say about fart books? There are lots of fart books. Walter the Farting Dog was a fart book. How does this new fart book fit in the ranking of fart books? Why do kids like fart books? What does a fart book do for a kid? Why do grownups hate fart books? There’s a bunch of stuff you can bring into this.

  RVC: What do you do when you’re considering reviewing a book by someone you know?

  BB: When I was young, I was a jerk. I didn’t care. I would tear a book asunder. Man, I got to tell you, if I can tear a book apart, it’s a thrill. But I haven’t torn a book apart in a while. I don’t know if this is because I’ve written books myself, or because I don’t want to be that jerk author who tears up other authors. When you’re the jerk LIBRARIAN who tears up books, that’s fine. That’s natural. That’s part of your job, so they can just dismiss it. But if you’re the jerk AUTHOR, you might end up in a publisher dinner with these people. I mean, they’re in the same boat as you, and it just feels trickier.

  RVC: Agree completely.

  BB: If a person I like does a book I don’t like, I don’t review it. I don’t mention it. I don’t put it in a roundup of any kind. I pretty much ignore it. That doesn’t mean that if they have a book that I’m ignoring that I necessarily dislike it. They’ll never quite know what my thoughts are unless I write up a Goodreads thing, which sometimes they notice (which isn’t healthy–don’t spend time reading all your reviews!).

  There was a book out last year that I hated. I didn’t review it, though I really went back and forth on that decision. By all accounts, the author was the nicest person. And I thought about doing that review. This book didn’t win any awards. If it had started winning awards, I might have had to do a review of it and I really didn’t want to.

  Once, there was a book I didn’t like that was literally number eight on Amazon. Now usually I don’t critically review a first-time author. But this book was number eight on Amazon and I didn’t like it. So, I did a negative review. That author wasn’t used to this kind of criticism and went off on my blog, and went off on their Facebook page. I don’t know this for a fact, but I think their publisher had them take it down on Facebook. But I didn’t take down their comment on my blog. That’s still up. Anyone can read it any time, and wow, were they mad. My little review somehow stuck them where it hurt. I was like, “Please, man, I’m not a drop in your ocean.” Yeah, that book is still popular to this day, so it shows what I can do!

  RVC: Let’s talk about Fuse #8. How did this happen? And what do you get out of it?

  BB: When I graduated from college, I had this 1989 Buick Century that my grandmother had given me because it was so ugly from sitting out in the sun all the time. She didn’t want it. So, free car. Awesome! And I parked the car one day, then took the key out, and the electric door locks went up and down and up and down. And up and down, up down. It was possessed. We called it Linda Blair. Unfortunately, it meant the electrical system was broken. I just graduated college, I had no job to speak of–I worked part-time for the summer for the Richmond, Indiana Symphony choir–so I was making no money. Still, I took it in to get it fixed. The mechanic could just see this person has no money, so he reached into the glove compartment and pulled out fuse number eight. “Look,” he said. “When you have it parked, just pull out this. It’ll stop your battery from getting drained.”

  Now, fast-forward many years. My husband is a filmmaker, and at one point, he needed a name for his production company. He was having a hard time with an estate, so he wanted to call it Widow-Be-Damned Production, but no, we weren’t doing that. I suggested, “Fuse #8 Production. That’s catchy. It’s got a number in there. It’s got like a little hashtag. It’s awesome.” He didn’t think so. I thought I’d use the name someday, so when it came to name the blog, even though it had literally nothing to do with children’s books, I named it Fuse #8 Production, and it was catchy. There’s something to be said for a catchy name.

  RVC: Great story. What do you like most about podcasting?

  BB: It’s funny, I podcasted way back when I was in New York for a little while and I just couldn’t deal with the editing. I was like, “Too much editing! Not enough reason to do this!” So, no, I couldn’t. It was a lot of work. I thought about doing a one-woman show, but why?

  When I moved to the Chicago area, my sister also moved back here. And when she did, I was like, I could do another podcast. But this time, I can make her do all the editing. I said, “Look, I know everything about picture books, while you know almost nothing. We’ll both go through a picture book each episode, and we’ll never run out. You can never run out of classic picture book. We’ll just do one per episode. You go out and read it, then you come back and we talk about it.”

  She was like, “So, I’m the dumb one?” I told her, “No, you’re the innocent one.”

  What do I get out of it? Sister bonding. I also host the Story Seeds podcast. And that one’s just really cool. I don’t do much except do the narration for it. I sometimes interview authors on that one. It’s just really fun.

  RVC: Do you have a favorite episode? If someone’s never listened before, what’s a great starting place for each podcast?

  BB: That’s a really good question. With the one I do with my sister, basically, you just need to find a book that you dislike and see what we think about it. If you hate Love You Forever, we might be the podcast for you. If you’re weirded out by Goodnight Moon, definitely check out our episode on that. Absolutely.

  In terms of Story Seeds. I mean, it’s got Jason Reynolds on there. So, you may as well just start at the top. It’s Jason Reynolds. It’s a cool episode.

  RVC: What do you do if someone comes to you and says, “I want to write picture books.” What what would you recommend they do?

  BB: That happens every other week. And I ask, “Are you familiar with the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators? Because if you’re not, this is an organization that you should consider joining, or at least attending a couple meetings of to get a feel for. They can really help you as you’re working out what you want to do and what you want to make.”

  You do not say, “Oh, show me your manuscript!” because people like to use librarians as free book editing advice. Only once in a while did we see really good ones when I was on the desk. There was one which had seven-foot-tall puppets made out of masking tape. Oh, the creepiest thing you ever saw.

  First and foremost, though, I recommend SCBWI, and there’s the annual Children’s Writer’s & Illustrators Market Guide book. We always have a copy here that people can look at. But it’s mostly do your research and read books you like. If you want to write a picture book, find other picture books like yours and read them. Get a sense of what’s out there. Do your homework and ask questions.

  RVC: We here at OPB are a big fan of Jane Yolen. We did a big To-Do about her 400th published book when it came out not that long ago. What’s your favorite book of hers?

  BB: It’s not exciting. Owl Moon. In fact, it’s the boringest answer I could give since it’s her Caldecott winner, but I recently talked about it on my podcast with my sister. The book holds up. The writing holds up. The owl holds up. The whole darn kershmazel holds up.

  RVC: The owl does, indeed, hold up nicely. Now…one last question for this part of the interview. What are you working on next?

  BB: I’m working on another novel.

  When I was younger, all these authors like Robert Newton Peck and Richard Peck–pretty much anyone with the last name Peck–was doing these nostalgic books, like Ray Bradbury with Dandelion Wine. Where are the nostalgic books for the 80s with the Pocket Rockers and the Pogo balls and He-Man? Doggone it, it was the last gasp before the internet took over everything, right? And so I’m writing the most ridiculous book. It’s just stories and a lot of it’s based on my youth. And it’s so fun, so enjoyable.

  RVC: What’s the target audience?

  BB: 9 to 12, though it could go younger. I’m basically trying to tap into that kind of Calvin-and-Hobbes-in-their-backyard-in-the-woods type of feel, where it’s just kids running around with no parents because that’s how it was at the time. I tell my kids how when I was a kid, my parents were like, “Here’s a sharp rusty nail and a brick, go play.” That was parenting in the 80s. “And come back at dinnertime!”

  RVC: Okay, Betsy, it’s now time for…THE SPEED ROUND. The point values are quadrupled, and the stakes couldn’t be higher. Let’s zoom through these final six questions. Are you ready?

  BB: As prepared as I can be!

  RVC: Best place in Evanston for Chicago-style pizza?

  BB: Union Pizza.

  RVC: Favorite drink and/or snack for a late-night reading session?

  BB: I’m horribly addicted to iced chai latte from Starbucks. And their brownies, too, which no longer have espresso beans, but I forgive them.

  RVC: What’s a secret talent you have?

  BB: Oh, I can spin on a spinning wheel. If you give me a spinning wheel and you give me some roving (wool), I can give you yarn.

  RVC: What’s the best picture book you’ve read this year?

  BB: The first one that just pops into my mind–maybe it’s not the best of the year, but it’s near and dear and close to my heart–is Off-Limits by Helen Yoon. And it’s a great readaloud. Man, I could read that thing aloud so well! It’s a COVID book to a certain extent. It really caught me by surprise. It’s only like her second picture book, but it’s a delight.

  RVC: What’s an underappreciated-but-great picture book?

  BB: A really good question. Someone who doesn’t get enough attention is Keiko Kasza. My Lucky Day is one of the greatest readalouds of all time. Yeah, I said it. It’s amazing. That book does not get enough respect.

  RVC: That pig is just so clever.

  BB: Seriously, right? And how many picture books can you think of with a narrator you can’t trust? It’s a great book.

  RVC: What’s the most memorable kid + picture book experience you’ve been part of?

  BB: There was a kid who was obsessed with getting a certain book in my library. And he tromps up to me. Oh, this kid has clearly explained it 100 times to other adults because he’s like, “I need the orange book. It’s the one about the woman and she’s got the white hat. She’s NOT a pilgrim. And there’s baby Jesus. And there’s a baker.”

  I ask: “Is there anything else?”

  The kid says, “There’s a pasta pot.”

  Me: “Is it Strega Nona?”

  The Kid: “YEEESSSSS!”

  Oh, yeah. There’s the baby Jesus. And there’s Strega Nona, who is not a pilgrim. And she’s got a white thing on her head–I’ll give you that!

  RVC: Thanks so much for doing this, Betsy. This was a total and complete hoot of a good time.

• WeGrowMedia - https://wegrowmedia.com/betsy-bird/

  Betsy Bird: From “Invisible” Introvert to Author, Critic, Blogger and Librarian

  How does one go from being a painfully shy child who barely spoke five words per day in school, to being a well-known children’s book blogger, librarian and author? In today’s interview, I chat with Betsy Bird, Youth Materials Specialist of New York Public Library who also runs the blog A Fuse #8 Production on School Library Journal’s website. She is the author of Wild Things: Acts of Mischief in Children’s Literature, Giant Dance Party, and Children’s Literature Gems: Choosing and Using them in your Libarary Career.

  I am a huge fan of Betsy’s, and have profiled her several other times:

  How to Become a Superstar Blogger (2009)
  The Value of Blogging (2010)
  How Betsy Bird Got 4 Book Deals Because of Her Blog (2010)
  We met years ago when I was working with School Library Journal. In today’s interview, we touch upon a number of topics about risk and developing a meaningful body of work. But one topic in particular really amazed me: her experience going from a painfully shy introvert as a child, to someone who shares so much of herself online, and even — unintentionally — courts controversy in the book world.

  Click ‘play’ above to listen to the podcast, or subscribe on iTunes, or download the MP3.

  This podcast is part of the research for a book I am writing called Dabblers vs. Doers, which is about working through RISK as you develop your craft and build a meaningful body of work.

  We spoke in the in the Stephen A. Schwarzman Building — otherwise known as the big New York City Public Library, the one with the lions in front of it. She took me into an abandoned wing, and we sat down and spoke in a room that is no longer open to the public, and served as the New York Public Library’s very first children’s room when it opened back in 1911. Here is a brief tour:

  Betsy and I:
  Betsy Bird and Dan Blank

  The famous lions out front:
  New York Public Library

  The employee-only hallway that leads to the old children’s room:
  New York Public Library

  Details from the old children’s room — original shelving and lamps that look to be, if not original, at least very old!
  Betsy Bird and Dan Blank

  Fun fact: this library also contains the original Winnie the Pooh and friends, displayed in a public area:
  Winnie the Pooh and Friends

  Here are some excerpts from our chat, where we dig into her journey:

  “I would have killed to be an extroverted child. I was the introverted introvert. I was the shyest creature you have ever met in your life. I was the kid who never raised her hand in class. Even now, if you watch me in a meeting, you will never see me raise my hand or bring up a point. It’s automatic: sit there and don’t draw attention to yourself. I was invisible through most of my school years. It took me a long time to become social, someone who enjoyed people.”

  I asked her about a quote I read where she said she would say less than five words per day in school as a child; her response:
  “Five words would have been impressive! My goal was to be invisible, because if you were invisible, people didn’t bother you. Children were wild animals, and had to be avoided, so I did not talk.”

  “My dad recently remarked to my mom, “At what point did she get ambition?’ Because I didn’t seem to have any beyond a job that brings a paycheck. That was something I struggled with, a children’s librarian has to perform — that is a performing job. You have to do storytimes constantly. You have to talk to strangers at a desk constantly. Yes, you are talking about children’s books, but they are strangers, they could say anything. Many people do view the captive reference librarian as a free therapist. My mother always said, ‘You should have a social work degree along side your MLIS just because of the people you have to deal with at a public library desk.'”

  “Children’s librarianship really changed all of that. I had to do storytimes constantly throughout the day, I had to go into schools and talk to strangers and get them on board with the summer reading plan, and talk to teachers. All sorts of things that were forcing me out of my introverted life. In New York City, if you are forced out of your introverted life, by association with the city, you get ambition because you are in the right place for it. If I started this blog in Minnesota, would it have been noticed? I don’t know the answer to that. I can sit down for lunch with School Librarian Journal, I can go to publishers previews.”

  What is so intriguing to me is not just that she shares so much of herself and her opinions via the blog, social media and her own books, but that in doing so, it sometimes invites not just social situations, but controversy:

  “That’s when you know you’ve made it, when you get in trouble with a bunch of folks.”

  “There are different types of controversy, I have found. I have been lucky, I will criticize something and what people will take from it is usually not a criticism of me, they will take something I am saying and try to correct it. That is wonderful, I love that. Once in awhile, it will get personal, but I don’t post those comments. I don’t mind posting comments that take me to task on certain things.”

  “I have encountered people where it has been awkward because I have given them bad reviews. If I give a critical review, and I’m in New York City, I probably know the editor, I definitely know the publicity team, I probably know the author and illustrator, and if I don’t, I will be seated next to them at a dinner at some point. Thats where this gets really weird. I am a critic – and I consider myself a critic, because if I am not a critic then I am a cheerleader, or a promotional wing of the publisher. There are many blogs who refuse to do anything critical, and they are fine and wonderful but to my mind, they are cheerleaders, and may as well be working for the publishers. I like to be critical once in awhile because it keeps me honest. Otherwise, I may as well be getting a paycheck from these publishers. The downside is that I am going to meet these people at some point, and it is going to b awkward.”

  “I once critically reviewed a very very very popular picture book. I pointed out some things I had a problem with. You would have thought that I had shot the author’s puppy dog the way that these people were piling on me. It was really strange for me. If you read the comments, they just spiral into madness. You just have to be ready for controversy.”

  “My natural inclination is to be liked, and mostly the blog fulfilled that need, it sets off those endorphins. I write a review about a book I really like, then I get a Tweet back from the author saying, ‘This is awesome!’, and they are Tweeting it to their followers, and I get that happy feeling of, ‘Oh, I’ve made a person happy, and maybe more people are happy too. Everyone is happy happy happy happy.’ That is what a lot of people use blogging for. If you review a book, it makes you happy, it makes the publisher happy, it makes the editor happy at ALA, you get invited to the fancy dinners because, ‘Oh! You are the reviewer who liked this book so much, come to this dinner, the author really appreciated it.’ You get to sit down with the big-wigs and talk about future books and things like that. It’s so alluring. But if you are going to be a reviewer, you have to say when things are bad. I criticize myself, I don’t do it enough. For awhile, with every review, I tried to say one critical thing. I have not done that as consistently as I should, but I still think it’s important. Because otherwise it is all sunshine and rainbows, cupcakes, sparkles and unicorns, and that’s fine, but every book could be better. It’s hard for me – I want to be liked, I want that validation.”

  Thank you to Betsy for making the time to meet with me. You can find her online at:

  Her blog: A Fuse #8 Production
  BetsyBirdBooks.com
  Twitter: @FuseEight

• Mackin Community - https://www.mackincommunity.com/2022/05/25/betsy-bird-theres-a-book-for-every-reader/

  Betsy Bird: There’s a Book for Every Reader
  By Lisa Bullard
  May 25, 2022
  Photo credit: Sonia Sones

  Betsy Bird will tell you that she has “the best job in the world”: reading children’s books. And she advocates for those books (and kids) in a variety of ways—as a librarian, blogger, reviewer, and podcaster. Fortunately for young readers, Bird also finds time to add another important role to that list: author. Her middle-grade novel, Long Road to the Circus (Alfred A. Knopf BFYR, 2021), was named one of the Best Children’s Books of 2021 by the New York Times. Illustrated by Caldecott Award-winner David Small, the novel follows twelve-year-old Suzy Bowles as she meets a legendary former circus queen, takes up ostrich riding, and launches herself on a life-changing adventure.

  Here, Bird talks with Lisa Bullard about how family stories shape us, why writing humor presents a unique challenge, and the magic of matching each reader with the right book for them.

  Long Road to the Circus was inspired by your family’s stories. How do stories shape families? How have your family’s stories shaped your writing?

  When you’re a kid, sometimes older family members have a tendency to drown you in family stories against your will. That was certainly the case in my life. After a while, it got me to thinking that you really need to be careful what you do in the course of your life. For example, there’s a family story about my great-great-grandfather’s youngest son, who, when he was seven, inspired the family phrase, “You didn’t tell me it was hot!” Imagine all that you’re ever remembered for is a catchphrase based on one silly thing you did as a kid. But honestly, we’re lucky if we even have family stories to fall back on. They give a sense of continuity and shape who we are as people.

  I’m always interested in how the stories we tell about ourselves affect our actions and decisions. And in the case of Long Road to the Circus, they were imperative. As a writer, I found that when I needed to invoke characters or a time or a place, I fell back on those old stories I heard as a kid. Some of them (my mom will assure you) I may not have written with strict historical accuracy, but for the most part, they became essential to the book. And if you have stories from your family to draw on, you’ll never run out of material!

  If you have stories from your family to draw on, you’ll never run out of material!”
  David Small illustrated the novel, and the two of you connected over the book’s backstory in a unique way. Can you tell us about that?

  Absolutely. David was actually a local illustrator when I was a kid. He came to my elementary school in fourth grade and did drawings in the library. And since my mom worked at the oldest independent bookstore in Kalamazoo, Michigan—the Athena Bookshop—I attended his book-release parties from a young age. Yet I had no idea that he lived in a house that had a direct tie to my grandmother’s no-good uncle. You see, we had this family story about how that uncle would skip out on his farm chores to go to an elderly ex-circus performer’s house in Mendon. He’d go to see if he could learn how to teach the farm horses circus tricks. The circus performer herself was named Madame Marantette. One day, David mentioned to my mom that he was living in the old Marantette house in Mendon, and Mom realized that this old family story of ours might hold some kernel of truth!

  What kind of impact did working with David have on your writing process?

  Long Road to the Circus, as I envisioned it, was supposed to be a picture book. When David told me he envisioned the book as a novel, I was stumped. I’d toyed with the notion of writing novels before. Heck, I have a whole folder of ideas that I’ve slowly added to for years. I now found myself in the interesting position of having to take something that was thirty-two pages and turn it into something four or five times longer. Fortunately, I had an ace up my sleeve: ostriches. From the beginning, I wanted Suzy to ride an ostrich. When I was handed a packet of information on Madame Marantette (I owe Holly Stephenson of the St. Joseph Historical Society so much), I read through it and the story just came to me. Sometimes words flow from your fingers onto the page with only the gentlest of nudges to help them along. This book wrote itself.

  The pandemic actually allowed David and I to connect over the story in ways we couldn’t have otherwise. He’d send me the art as he worked on it, and I’d offer suggestions. Then I’d work on my edits, and he’d suggest adding things like chickens to the start of a chapter (because he really wanted to draw spot art of chickens there).

  Sometimes words flow from your fingers onto the page with only the gentlest of nudges to help them along.”
  Your novel is packed full of comedic moments. You’re also the editor of the middle grade collection Funny Girl: Funniest. Stories. Ever. (Viking, 2017), and two humorous picture books, The Great Santa Stakeout (Arthur A. Levine Books, 2019) and Giant Dance Party (Greenwillow, 2013). What are the challenges that come with “writing funny”?

  You know, I once asked Jon Scieszka why funny books don’t win as many awards, and he told me something very wise that I’ve been turning over in my mind ever since. Jon pointed out that if you present someone with a dead-dog book, then we can all agree that it’s sad. The dog is dead. I’m sad. You’re sad. We’re all sad. But if you present someone with a book that’s funny, you’re going to get wildly different reactions. I might find it hilarious, but you might not find it funny at all, and another person might just find it mildly amusing. You can imagine what kind of effect that has on award committees.

  What does humor offer readers that makes meeting those challenges worth it for you?

  I write humor because I honestly don’t know how not to. The idea of writing something deadly serious is alien to me. Plus, there’s no better way to get kids to love something than to make them laugh.

  Betsy Bird Raves About These Recent Reads
  Picture Book
  My Parents Won’t Stop Talking! by Emma Hunsinger and Tillie Walden (Roaring Brook, 2022). When you just want to leave and your parents are talking to other adults for ages and ages, what do you do?

  Nonfiction Picture Book
  Action! How Movies Began by Meghan McCarthy (Simon & Schuster, August 2022). The silent-film era comes rip-roaringly to life in this fantastic book that ties in old films to movies kids recognize today.

  Poetry
  Marshmallow Clouds by Ted Kooser and Connie Wanek; illustrated by Richard Jones (Candlewick, 2022). Poetry can be a hard sell, but this compendium of clever verse is probably the best I’ve seen in years. I think it has serious Newbery Award chances.

  Middle Grade Novel
  Aviva vs. the Dybbuk by Mari Lowe (Levine Querido, 2022). This remarkable, smartly written, slim little novel expertly dissects shared family trauma, but is also peppered with fun, ridiculous moments.

  Graphic Novel
  Miss Quinces by Kat Fajardo (Graphix, May 2022). Sue would rather write comics all summer than visit her extended family in Colombia, but no one asked what she wanted. And now she’s forced to have a quinceañera, too?

  Nonfiction for Older Readers
  Star Child: A Biographical Constellation of Octavia Estelle Butler by Ibi Zoboi (Dutton Children’s Books, 2022). A stunner of a biography; the life of Octavia Butler is told through poetry, her own observations, and a wonderful recounting of her history.

  There’s no better way to get kids to love something than to make them laugh.”
  The desire to “run away to join the circus” plays a key role in your novel. Is there something in your life that represented that same desire for you?

  It’s so odd that I’ve almost never been asked this before. When I was younger, I was quite convinced that when I grew up, I’d go away to college, then come back to my hometown and settle down there. So, kind of the opposite of wanting to join the circus. But as I got closer to my high school graduation, I came to the realization that this plan I’d established as a kid was not going to fly with my teenage self. I went to college, and the minute I graduated, I took off. I found I wasn’t afraid to try new things. For someone who was so convinced that my hometown was the place to be, I never lived there again. I imagine telling this information to my younger self and watching her jaw drop in shock. I wasn’t that adventurous as a kid. I seem to have made up for it later.

  Do you have any tips to offer young writers?

  One of my favorite books of writing advice is Jack Gantos’s Writing Radar: Using Your Journal to Snoop Out and Craft Great Stories (Farrar Straus Giroux Books for Young Readers, 2017). Ostensibly written for kids, I’ve poached from it more than once for the writing classes I occasionally teach. The book is ideal for those kids who are told to write about their lives and who say that nothing interesting ever happens to them. It’s also filled with all kinds of great writing exercises. One of my favorites is when Jack urges kids to make maps of their homes or their neighborhoods. Then they think of things that happened in those spaces. The more you fill in, the more you have to write about!

  What’s the best piece of advice you have to offer educators who want to get their students more engaged with reading?

  Hmmm. I’m a big proponent of meeting kids where they are. I remember with crystal clarity a time a dad dragged his ten-year-old son into my library’s children’s room to grab a copy of Treasure Island from our shelves. The kid was obviously not a huge reader and was moaning like crazy as his dad informed him that he’d be reading the entire book. It was all I could do not to grab the graphic novel version from the shelf and tell the dad to start slow and work up to the final text. You can’t run before you walk. You want kids to be engaged with books? Find out what their interests are. It could be that you have a kid who only loves expository nonfiction (facts and figures, like in a Guinness Book of World Records). They like comics? You increase the complexity with some of the best on the market. You feed into what they love and go from there. For example, for the kid who likes comics but won’t touch history, give them something from the Nathan Hale’s Hazardous Tales series (Amulet Books). There’s a book for every reader, but it takes some investigative work to find the right one. It’s worth it, though. When you get it right, there’s magic.

  There’s a book for every reader, but it takes some investigative work to find the right one. It’s worth it, though. When you get it right, there’s magic.”
  What are the best ways for readers to connect with you or to follow you on social media?

  You can find me on Twitter at @FuseEight and on Instagram at @fusenumber8. The best way to read me, however, is on my School Library Journal blog, “A Fuse #8 Production,” found at afuse8production.slj.com. And, of course, there’s my website, betsybirdbooks.com. And if you’d like to hear the melodious strains of my vocal modulations, I have a nearly weekly podcast with my sister at Fuse 8 n’ Kate and a slightly less frequent but more professional podcast that I host called Story Seeds.

• Indigo's Bookshelf: Voices of Native Youth - https://indigosbookshelf.blogspot.com/2020/04/mentors-influencers-1-interview-with.html

  Mentors & Influencers # 1-- An Interview with Betsy Bird, by Alexis, 20
  April 17, 2020

  We are all doing at-home school or college and not reading a lot for pleasure. Some of us are experiencing major stress and flare ups of existing conditions. Our parents are out of work or in essential jobs. We have a half dozen unfinished kidlit & YA Lit reviews and essays, which we promise we'll get to. In the meantime, we are excited to present interviews by a handful of our mentors and influencers.
  The first person we talked to is Betsy Bird. You know Bets. She of the literary children's blog, A Fuse #8 Production. Author and editor of fabulous fiction and nonfiction titles, including FUNNY GIRL, THE GREAT SANTA STAKEOUT, WILD THINGS! ACTS OF MISCHIEF IN CHILDREN'S LITERATURE, and her upcoming MG debut, LONG ROAD TO THE CIRCUS. I've got to take an online anatomy quiz now! She can tell you the rest.

  Betsy at 13--who you are

  A: Were you a big reader as a child? What were some of the books you enjoyed?
  B: Yep, pretty much. Now, I’ll tell you truly that I cannot recall a single librarian’s name from that time. Yet in spite of that terrible failing, I liked my books. In elementary school I pretty much scoured every Scholastic Book Fair flyer for books about ghosts. Getting older I devoured mysteries and fantasies and anything that looked slightly magical. If Harry Potter had been around, it would have changed my life, I know it. Specifically, I loved books like the Willow Davis Roberts THE GIRL WITH THE SILVER EYES about a girl with ESP. I liked the Trixie Belden mysteries, which were old even when I was a kid. She was like a much cooler version of Nancy Drew. I liked The Three Investigators, which were a MUCH better version of The Hardy Boys, and really drilled down on the creepy supernatural mystery genre. Of course, when I got older I read the only YA we had, which mostly consisted of a lot of Christopher Pike. It was not a good era for teen literature, I’m afraid.

  Who you want to be

  A: How did you springboard from there to becoming a children’s librarian?

  B: Well, I didn’t want to be a librarian. Nope. Sorry. Booooring! All this in spite of the fact that as a kid I organized my family’s bookshelves, cataloged the VHS tapes, and created subject heading lists of my National Geographics… for fun. Yeah. When I finally caved and went to library school I still thought I wanted to be an archivist. It took my husband pointing out that I’d set my coffee cup down on my book on how to preserve books that told me that maybe that wasn’t the life for me. Then I took this children’s literature course to fulfill a credit and it was like lightning struck. Boom! This is what I was meant to be! I’d been reading children’s literature for fun for years. Now I finally had a way of using that knowledge practically!

  These are not books!

  A: When did you become interested in youth collection development, and, did that lead to an awareness of a need for diversifying public library collections? (That’s probably a “leading question.”)
  B: The great thing about New York Public Library (my first employer as an official librarian) was that it had this longstanding history of looking at its collections (and employees for that matter) with an eye to diversity. This isn’t to say that they didn’t make a lot of mistakes. Of course they did! But from the moment I joined on it was made very clear to me that no collection was adequate unless it showed a wide range of voices.

  When I started at NYPL it was as a humble children’s librarian. But with each job I would look to the next thing in line. From children’s librarian in a branch to children’s librarian in the biggest children’s room in New York City. Then I saw the ultimate job: Youth Materials Specialist. If I got that position then I would be able to buy the children’s books for Manhattan, Staten Island, and the Bronx. Just me! Me! And after a few years I got it. My dream job, it was. My boss, Jeanne Lamb, was very good at always telling me that no matter what list we were putting together, no matter what cart in Baker & Taylor I was purchasing, no matter what summer reading collection we were discussing, they HAD to show a range of voices, ethnicities, religions, sexualities, and more. She was a huge influence on my work.

  Cool place to work--diverse kid population

  A: What do you think are some of the most accomplished and unique books to come out of the Own Voices movement so far?

  B: Lord, how do I choose? The past few years have been a cornucopia of fantastic new creators! Okay, lemme just jot down a couple I’ve particularly enjoyed really recently:

  Christine Day– I Can Make This Promise

  Remy Lai –Fly On the Wall

  Zanib Mian, ill. Nasaya Mafaridik – Planet Omar: Trouble Magnet

  Jessica Kim – Stand Up, Yumi Chung

  Renee Watson – Ways to Make Sunshine

  And most of those are just from this year alone!!

  A: I see an Indigenous New Wave finally happening. Christine Day, Kevin Maillard, Traci Sorrel—wow! But there’s still an abundance of inaccurate and offensive Native content on library shelves. See: almost anything tha@nksgiving- related and some popular “classics.” How can we turn that around?

  B: God, I wish you could tell me. Two years running I’ve had the unpleasant experience of having to vet what my kids get taught in school.
  My daughter, for example, was given a Thanksgiving worksheet from, I kid you not, 1979 and it was so offensive I almost had to keep from screaming at it in front of her.

  I think one solution, or at least an aid, is to keep this Indigenous New Wave (perfect term) happening. More more more! It’s not just children’s books either. I’m seeing a marked increase in books for adults by Indigenous voices as well. The next step is to educate the educators, and a lot of that starts in grad school for librarians and educators. We’ve got to get them to realize from the get-go what is and is not appropriate on our shelves. Finally, calling out offensive content whenever we see it. We need to be unafraid to have discussions and conversations because if we don’t talk then we don’t learn. And if we don’t learn then we can’t change anything!

  A: You’ve promoted anti-racist teaching materials like NOT MY IDEA: A BOOK ABOT RACISM, by Anastasia Higgenbotham. How do you approach texts including anti-Native bias, racism or other prejudices with your own kids? If you liked a book then realized it was problematic, do you share that with them?

  B: Happens all the time. I once wrote a blog post called Surprise! It’s Racist! about that universal occurrence in every parent’s life when you’re reading a book with your kids and you hit on something that just shocks you. The clearest example of this is the Dr. Seuss book If I Ran the Zoo which was reprinted in 2014 and sports a shiny Caldecott Honor on its cover. A more racist children’s book currently in print you will have a hard time finding! When this happens we always take time to explain to the kids why that image or term (“slant-eyes” for example) is awful, outdated, and just plain wrong. Then there are the books we love from our youth. My husband loves reading the kids old comics, but realized fast that he just couldn’t read the kids one of his favorites, Terry and the Pirates, because there’s a Chinese character in there that is simply pure, walking stereotype. Meanwhile I read my daughter Cheaper by the Dozen and skipped an entire chapter because of a racist chef character. You pick your battles. Some books just aren’t worth it. Others are teachable moments. You have to figure out which is which and go from there and do your best.

  Smells like racism

  A: You seem to be a big fan of humor in children’s literature. Hence: the hilarious, diverse anthology you edited, Funny Girl: Funniest. Stories. Ever. Do you feel funny books don’t get enough respect? (You also seem to have a love-hate relationship with poetry, but we don’t have to discuss that.)

  B: Poor funny books. It was Jon Scieszka who once explained to me why they don’t really win that many awards. I mean, if we read a dead dog book then I know the dead dog is sad, you know the dead dog is sad, and we can be sad together. But if there’s something funny in the book, our senses of humor might be so different that I find it hilarious and you feel like it’s a failed joke. Humor isn’t always universal. But kids absolutely adore them! And, being kids, they love the scatological stuff that adults would eschew. So when you’re making a funny book for them, it’s cool if you can put in a little something for everyone.

  A: What’s a great, little – read children’s book you wish everyone knew about?
  B: Well, it’s kind of ridiculous but I absolutely adore it and it’s recently come back in print. There’s this book called The Winged Girl of Knossos that won a Newbery honor back in the 1930s. This book was bonkers. Ostensibly it was the Icarus myth if Icarus was this crazy cool lead girl character and not some dippy boy that got too close to the sun. The main character dances off of bulls, deep dives for sponges in shark-infested waters, hang-glides, and basically kicks ass and takes names. The book had kind of an outdated cover which, unfortunately, wasn’t updated for the new edition. I discovered it a long time ago and was impressed by how the language really stood up to scrutiny.

  Shonabish, Betsy!

• BookPage - https://www.bookpage.com/interviews/24496-betsy-bird-childrens/

  October 07, 2019
  Betsy Bird
  Unmitigated enthusiasm
  Interview by Cat, Deputy Editor
  Our holiday wish (though it’s a bit early) was that Betsy Bird would visit Nashville sometime soon—and we must’ve been good this year, because she’s coming for the Southern Festival of Books.

  Share this Article:

  Betsy Bird is one of the most beloved children’s librarians, dare we say, of all time. This holiday season, she joins with Caldecott Medalist Dan Santat for a picture book about a clever Santa scheme. In The Great Santa Stakeout, Freddy Melcher is a St. Nick uberfan, and he’s determined to get a photo with the jolly old elf.

  Our holiday wish (though it’s a bit early) was that Bird would visit Nashville sometime soon. We must’ve been good this year, because she’s coming for the Southern Festival of Books. Here she chats about the joys—and confrontations—of a children’s book event.

  What is the mark of a really great book event?
  Sheer unmitigated enthusiasm from all sides. The best book events I’ve ever seen are the ones where the staff putting on the event are engaged and excited, the authors and illustrators being featured are active and interested, and the attendees who have come are just generally in a hazy state of joy. It’s that combination of elements that yields magic. We’ve all seen bored authors, droopy readers and disinterested staff. It makes us appreciate all the more the people who absolutely love this business and everything it entails.

  What is most challenging to discuss with readers about a book or the writing process?
  You’ll hear authors kvetch when they get the “where do you get your ideas?” question, but I don’t believe it’s because the question is overdone. It’s more that authors often have no idea what the true answer is. Writing is, by definition, strange. I’m going to sit down, create words that represent pictures that appear in my brain and put them onto a page in an order that not only makes sense but, ideally, will reach into YOUR brain and elicit some kind of a response. Humans are keen on tangibles, and nothing is more intangible than writing. Trying to say as much to an earnest 8-year-old, however, requires a great deal of verbal wrangling.

  When visiting a city for a book event, do you have any rituals, either for yourself or to get to know the city?
  I don’t, but I think I should. What a good idea. You know what I’d like to do? I’d like to visit a children’s librarian in every city. Nobody knows the ins, outs, oddities, peculiarities and specificities of a city like a librarian that works with kids. Someday, when I am rich and bored with oodles of time on my hands, I want to become a roving reporter that visits cities in the news and interviews the children’s librarians there. Until then, maybe I should start with these book events.

  “Nobody knows the ins, outs, oddities, peculiarities and specificities of a city like a librarian that works with kids.”

  If you could sit in the audience for an event with any author, living or dead, who would you like to see read from and discuss their book?
  Oh! That’s easy. I’m going to cheat and say four authors. I would like to sit in the audience and watch a three-way conversation between Shel Silverstein, James Marshall and Trina Schart Hyman. I would like this conversation to be moderated by Maurice Sendak, who would periodically yell at the panel to stay on topic or derail everything with his own anecdotes and stories.

  Has a reader ever asked a question or made a comment at an event that made you see your work in a new light?
  That’s the wonderful thing about kids. You think you know your book? You don’t know ANYTHING, bub! Not until you’ve faced down a 4-year-old that has told you, in no uncertain terms, that your picture book is little more than a bald-faced lie. A cupcake has clearly been portrayed on the cover, indicating that there are more cupcakes inside the book. But are there more cupcakes inside the book. There are NOT! I ask you, madam author, how do you sleep at night?

  Children’s librarianship has a lot of skills and characteristics in common with the work that Santa and his elves do—getting to know kids, connecting with them on things they want and need, etc. If Santa asked you to assist him as an elf in his workshop or on his delivery route, how would you stack up?
  I would be a living nightmare. You are correct that there are some correlations between Santa’s elves and children’s librarians. However, when we produce miracles, they are often unforeseen. If a child walks into my library and asks for a book, and that book is not there, I am trained to find the child, as fast as I am able, magnificent, wonderful, compelling alternatives to the missing item. Now imagine me as an elf. A child has politely asked me for a children’s book that I think is less than stellar. Come Christmas morning, they gleefully rip open their presents to find . . . a huge pile of (in my opinion) preferable readalikes. AUGH! That poor kid. I’d be so busy trying to find the right book for the right reader that I’d probably spend 20 minutes on one child while the list of others just grew and grew. I don’t think I’m cut out to be an elf quite yet.

• Elementary School Librarian - https://elementaryschoollibrarian.wordpress.com/2018/02/26/author-editor-super-librarian-interview-betsy-bird/

  Author/ Editor/ Super Librarian Interview: Betsy Bird
  Feb 26, 2018
  Uncategorized
  This morning, I have the pleasure of interviewing Betsy Bird, a librarian that I really admire and look up to. I read her blog nearly every day (I only say nearly because there are a few sad days when she doesn’t post.) She’s one of the prominent voices in kid’s lit, and she’s been especially busy these last few years having also taken on the rolls of author and editor.

  1. How long have you been a children’s librarian? When did you realize that life had destined you for a life of poverty, but in the end, fulfillment?

  Heh. You hit it on the nose with the “life of poverty, but in the end, fulfillment” line. Yeah, I often say that I was doomed to be a children’s librarian from a very young age. I was the kid that made a cataloging system for the family’s VHS tapes. Who alphabetized all the books in the dining room. Who made a series of search terms (pre-internet) for the subjects of my National Geographic Magazines. Still, I fought my calling tooth and nail. I wasn’t going to be a stuffy old librarian, nuh-uh! I was going to be a photographer! Problem is, I’m not so talented in that area. So when I came to library school I decided I’d go for it, but on the archival side of the equation. I’d preserve books! It was only when I set my coffee cup down on my book talking about how to preserve books (much to my husband’s amusement) that I switched focus. I took a children’s lit class on a lark to fulfill a credit and realized with a shock that it was the place I was meant to be all along. I’ve been a librarian since 2002, and my math isn’t swell but I think that means I’ve been in this job 16 years.

  giantdanceparty.jpg
  2. First, let’s talk about Giant Dance Party (ice pops!) When did you start writing it? How long did the process take? Was the reception what you expected?
  Ice pops! Good callback.
  Yeah, that was funny. I’d always meant to be a writer (as a kid it was my dream job, until I figured it wasn’t good for paying the grocery bills) but it took kind, sweet, wonderful illustrator Brandon Dorman to make it happen. He essentially told me one day, “Let’s do a book together! You write it, I’ll do the pictures, and I only want it to be about one thing: giants leaping”. I wrote three ideas and Greenwillow bought two of them. Writing the book didn’t take all that long, but the revising process was intense. The book went through two different editors with two different visions of where it could go. As for the reception, I didn’t really have any expectations. I was a blogger with a following, but this was going out to folks who didn’t know me from boo. To my infinite amazement, the book has stayed in print all these years AND it was picked up by Scholastic Book Clubs, so that was a thrill. I’d say it’s done better than I expected.
  funny

  3. Was it harder or easier to put together a collection like Funny Girl than creating a picture book?
  Harder, yep, but it’s so near and dear to my heart that I would have walked through fire for it. The kooky thing about FUNNY GIRL was that it required me to take off my author hat and put on an editorial one. NOT something I ever saw myself doing. I mean, basically my job was to ask people to submit free material to me, I’d accept it or reject it, and I’d have to tell these talented writers when they weren’t funny. That is, should anyone ask, difficult. But I got such a wonderful crop of women helping me out that I think it worked out really nicely in the end. Whew!
  wildthings.jpg
  4. What about Wild Things? That’s a different animal (ha!) all together.
  Rowr! It was indeed. A co-collaboration with two of my favorite children’s literature bloggers. In that particular case I reached out to Julie Danielson and Peter Sieruta with a kind of vague, “Hey, I have an agent so let’s do a book together.” I was a bit hazy on the logistics. But like FUNNY GIRL I learned that if you work with extraordinarily talented people, all boats rise with the tide (as they say). My co-writers were amazing and the greatest stroke of luck was that we were paired with Liz Bicknell at Candlewick who took one look at our bloated monstrosity and basically told us, “Yeah. You need a thesis.” It’s because of her that the final product turned out as nicely as it did.
  5. I think we all saw the need for a compilation of stories by female writers. (There are so many men compilations out there) When did it hit you that they needed to be funny stories and that you were going to be the one to collect them?

  Well, if you see a gap in the marketplace, dive for it, that’s what I say. The idea came to me slowly. When DIARY OF A WIMPY KID hit the market it made funny cool for older readers. CAPTAIN UNDERPANTS had made it cool for the younger kids, but it was Jeff Kinney that had the ten and eleven-year-olds flooding the library with “What else do you have that’s funny?” requests. And like any diligent librarian I ran around grabbing everything I thought they’d need. Sometimes I had to make a conscious effort to find funny women, though, and I couldn’t help but wonder if there was a single source of funny female writers out there somewhere that I could hand somebody. When I discovered that there wasn’t, that just seemed kind of baffling to me. Just through my work and blogging I knew a whole slew of funny women, so it didn’t take much to just cram them all into a book together.

  6. I know your kid lit network is vast. How did you decide which women would be included in the compilation?
  Ah, see, that was the tricky part. I made this massive wish list of the women I wanted in the book. I got a couple verbal agreements early in the process when I was making up the proposal, but for the full list I just thought up anyone I could. My editor at the beginning of the book was Sharyn November and she contributed names as well. It was a huge list which we narrowed down as people told us they were too busy or when they just didn’t quite have a feel for the tone of the project. Still, it was an awful amount of fun. How could it not be? These are funny women, for crying out loud!

  7. Here’s what I love about the book. Girls (boys too) will come for the funny stories, but will leave feeling empowered. You set that tone from the beginning. Was it intentional from the start of the project, or did it morph into something bigger and more important than you had imagined?
  I think if my time working on WILD THINGS taught me anything it was that I’m the kind of writer that writes first, finds a thesis later. But in the case of FUNNY GIRL I wrote a proposal before the book sold, so I had to have a clear sense of what I was trying to accomplish from the very start. A lot of what ended up in my introduction to the book came straight from that proposal too (right down to the embarrassing picture of me in the 7th grade). Did I have this vast sense of how important the project was? To a certain extent, but I think Sharyn November was the one who was able to put it in Bigger Picture terms for me.
  8. Just between you and me and anyone who reads this blog, who is the funniest lady in the book?

  HAH! That’s like asking a mother to say which of her children is her favorite. Impossible! Couldn’t do it!
  . . . .
  Okay. It’s Carmen Agra Deedy. I mean. Come on. Clearly.
  9. Who would win in a stand-up comedy show-down?

  Oh, see now that’s a tough call. If I were a betting woman I think it would come down to Libba Bray and Shannon Hale. With the possible advantage going to Hale. I mean, I once saw her perform an interpretive squirrel dance with her husband. So, y’know. Girl got skills.

  10. Funniest female of all time?
  Madeline Kahn. I aspire to be her. I fail. But I aspire.
  11. Funniest female writer?

  Boy, it’s hard to get away from Dorothy Parker, isn’t it? Talk about a woman born in the wrong time. I mean, this is the lady who was told she couldn’t make a joke out of the word “horticulture” and came immediately back with “You can lead a horticulture but you can’t make her think.” Plus she wrote THE funniest negative review of Winnie-the-Pooh of all time. Look it up if you get a chance. It inspires me.

  12. Have you received any particular impactful feedback from Funny Girl readers?
  It sounds strange but one of the most meaningful interactions I had with the book occurred before it had even come out. I was cleaning up a display on my library’s first floor when a mom and her daughter come over and ask if I’m Betsy Bird. I admit that I am and the girl proceeds to tell me how much she loves FUNNY GIRL and how she’s taken the advice in the very first story (the one by the Yaeger sisters) to heart. I was floored, not least because the book wasn’t slated to come out for another month and I’d only gotten about five copies of the early galleys myself. Naturally I asked where she’d gotten the book and it turns out that one of my children’s librarians had shared it with her. You can talk about early reviews all you want but I think that particular early review was the best I’ve ever had or ever will have in my lifetime.

  13. Do you have plans to put together any more anthologies?
  I’ve been batting about a couple ideas. After the publication of FUNNY GIRL I had a lot of women put themselves forward for FUNNY GIRL 2 if it ever happens. I also wouldn’t be opposed to switching gears a little and doing COMIX GIRL to highlight the women doing amazing comics for kids in the future. But there are no immediately plans at this point in time.
  14. Switching gears, Is there anything new coming in 2018 that you’re particularly excited for?

  Ooo! Yes! Where to start? Okay, I’ll just do a quick rundown of one title per kind of book. In short:
  Picture Book: Julián Is a Mermaid by Jessica Love is still my top pick. I’ve shown it to a lot of librarians and we’re all just completely floored by it. Great art and this amazing empathetic story. This a book I’ve been waiting to see for a long time.
  Fairytales/Folktales: The Little Red Fort by Brenda Maier, ill. Sonia Sánchez is this amazing combination of the classic Little Red Hen storyline with this warm and intergenerational tale of a girl making things by hand. It hits all the right buttons (and the backmatter is to die for!).
  Early Chapter Books: Baby Monkey, Private Eye by Brian Selznick and David Serlin is a case where once again Selznick knocks it out of the park by melding his genres together. The faux Bibliography is there for the parents and the hilarious sequences that involve a monkey trying to put on pants are . . . well, actually that’s for parents AND kids, I’d say.
  Poetry: Seeing Into Tomorrow: Haiku by Richard Wright, ill. Nina Crews is another case where I feel like I’ve been waiting for this book for years. I’ve always loved the photography of Nina Crews and now to see it so beautifully rendered with the haiku of Richard Wright (who knew he did haiku?!?) is a real treat.
  Middle Grade Fiction: The Mad Wolf’s Daughter by Diane Magras is how you write a debut novel, people! This is a book that explodes off the page right from the start and doesn’t stop running until it reaches the finish line. You want excitement and strong girl characters? This is the book for you.
  Graphic Novels: Cardboard Kingdom by Chad Sell is achingly good. I was so thrilled to encounter it this year and I can’t wait until it comes out. In it you have a full neighborhood of kids that use cardboard to enact their ultimate fantasies. J’adore.
  Nonfiction: Nothing Stopped Sophie: The Story of Unshakable Mathematician Sophie Germain by Cheryl Bardoe, ill. Barbara McClintock is a picture biography of a woman I certainly had never heard of. Usually if female mathematicians get mentioned in books for kids it’s because they worked on computers in some way. Not Sophie. She’s the whole reason we have skyscrapers. Crazy, right?

  15. What is your favorite book of all time?
  That changes every other day. Since you’re asking me right now at this point in time I’m going to have to go with A FACE LIKE GLASS by Frances Hardinge. It taps into that little sense of “weird” in me that I need.
  16. So, we’ve all read the SLJ article, and spent hours scrolling though the comments. Personally, I was blown away by some of the men being accused. (This could be because I’m a man. I know lots of women who weren’t surprised at all) One name in particular, bothers me very much. His books are staples of my story time and favorites of my students. As kid’s librarians, how should we respond to these allegations? I know some librarians who are pulling books off of their shelves, others who are keeping them there, but won’t read them to kids anymore, and more who are still celebrating the books, but are separating that from celebrating the book creators. What do you think, as a leading woman in this field, we should do?

  I mean, we’ve faced this kind of thing before with children’s books in the past. This isn’t a new situation when you think about it. What’s one of the most censored children’s books of last year? The Little Bill series by Bill Cosby. What do you do with those? Heck, let’s go a little farther back in time. William Mayne was a beloved children’s author/illustrator and he was actually convicted on child molestation charges. Yet you’ll still find his books in the library. But to get to the nut of this argument you have to ask what the role of the library is. I’ve seen articles about bookstores pulling these authors’ books, and that’s a little different to me. A bookstore is under no obligation to provide access to literature. A library is. I’ve got books by Hitler on my shelf, and you don’t get much worse than that guy. There are books in my children’s room that I find personally offensive. Do I burn them in my parking lot after hours? I do not. Like it or not, our job is to provide these books to the public and let them decide. And, if it turns out that the public rejects someone and doesn’t check out their books for years at a time, then I am well within my rights to weed these “dead” items. But you’re getting into very sticky territory when you are making moral calls about literature for children.
  Thanks, so much, Betsy! Keep up all of the good work!
  Betsy Bird is the collection development manager at Evanston Public Library. You can find Funny Girl, Wild Things and Giant Dance Party in bookstores now.

Bird, Betsy POP! GOES THE NURSERY RHYME Union Square Kids (Children's None) $18.99 3, 18 ISBN: 9781454960461

Mother Goose ditties are upended by a frenetic weasel.

The digital compositions accompanying each verse unfold on a double spread. Mary (an adult sheep) and her ever-present lamb ride a bicycle in tandem; Jack and Jill--a fox and a coatimundi--race up a hill of sand castles. Every final line ("The lamb was sure to " "And Jill went ") is completed--and transformed--after a page turn, as the antagonist bursts onto the scene with a "POP! GOES THE WEASEL." A secretary bird (perhaps a nod to the author's last name) appears on the title page; much like other protagonists of recent interrupting stories, this character can tolerate only so many intrusions. The bird comments on and corrects the wily behavior. After the weasel pops into the gym, where a buff, rodent Miss Muffet drops her dumbbells and bowl, the bird asserts: "GAK! Curdled curds everywhere! Wasted whey! Why, why, why?" Tsurumi employs a pastel palette and cartoon conventions--motion lines, flying objects in diagonal formations, and constantly changing facial expressions--for comic effect. The final scenario ("One, Two, Buckle My Shoe") stretches out for several quiet pages, deftly building suspense toward the anticipated outcome. While the physical comedy will make for an intensely funny read-aloud, the book will be best appreciated by children who have absorbed the original rhymes and are in on the changes.

Catnip for adults who like to perform their picture books to giggles and guffaws. (author's note)(Picture book. 3-6)

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2025 Kirkus Media LLC
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"Bird, Betsy: POP! GOES THE NURSERY RHYME." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Feb. 2025. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A827101195/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=27219883. Accessed 27 July 2025.

Pop! Goes the Nursery Rhyme Betsy Bird, illus. by Andrea Tsurumi.

Union Square, $18.99 (48p)

ISBN 978-1-4549-6046-1

* Bird (The Great Santa Stakeout) and Tsurumi (There's No Such Thing as Vegetables) imagine the giggly-good havoc wrought by ending myriad nursery rhymes with "POP! Goes the Weasel." The story's canon-tweaking mischiefmaker--introduced in the book's first featured rhyme--is a weasel in pink overalls who leaps into the framing of each classic final line, generally with arms and legs akimbo. Countering the repeated action with protests, a pearl-clutching secretary bird desperately tries to maintain decorum ("Oh my goodness, no, no, no. There are no weasels with Jack and Jill"), leading to a final scenario that employs jack-in-the-box tension. Throughout, the characters are elaborately choreographed: Mary, of "Mary Had a Little Lamb" fame, appears as a well-heeled but spunky mutton matron, the little lamb as her cosseted, coolly confident charge. Gaily upsetting the proverbial apple cart again and again, the creators craft a raucous celebration of rule-breaking that will have young readers eagerly anticipating each rhyme's incoming "POP!" An author's note concludes. Ages 3-5. Author's agent: Stephen Barbara, InkWell Management. Illustrator's agent: Stephen Barr, Writers House. (Mar.)

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2025 PWxyz, LLC
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"Pop! Goes the Nursery Rhyme." Publishers Weekly, vol. 272, no. 2, 13 Jan. 2025, p. 55. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A828299926/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=1f7b148f. Accessed 27 July 2025.

LONG ROAD TO THE CIRCUSBy Betsy BirdIllustrated by David Small

Quick: What's the one thing you know about ostriches? Probably that they bury their heads in the sand. Actually, they don't; they're just checking their eggs. But I was in the same ostrich-ignorant boat until I met Gaucho, the avian sidekick in Betsy Bird's charming, galvanizing and slightly wacky novel ''Long Road to the Circus,'' about a 12-year-old farm girl, Suzy Bowles, who, in the summer of 1920, sets her sights on ostrich-riding as her ticket out of sleepy Burr Oak, Mich.

Before I educate you about these ''keen, kooky, modern-day dinosaurs,'' let me introduce you to Gaucho's co-star. Suzy is the second-youngest of five kids and the daughter and granddaughter of hardworking folks who do their chores, get to church and occasionally enjoy a scrumptious-looking homemade apple pie. (You haven't seen a lattice crust until you've beheld one illustrated by David Small.) Suzy loves her family, but the last thing she wants to do is become a local biddy gabbing outside the library (''a woman who sees gossip more like air than food'').

One morning she follows her ''lag-about,'' ex-cowboy uncle to a farm owned by the regal and refined Madame Marantette, formerly of Ringling Brothers (before their merger with Barnum & Bailey, apparently). There, Suzy meets Madame's herd of ostriches, one of whom -- the ornery Gaucho -- has been conscripted to pull a surrey at the country fair. His owner has designs on a world record, and Suzy wants in on the plan. If you've ever read a book involving a plucky girl who falls under the sway of a reclusive outsider, you won't be surprised to learn that preparations include not only Gaucho's training, but also the education of Suzy, who gets a crash course in poise and tenacity. Wrangling an ostrich is no easy feat, and neither is preparing for the world she glimpses in Madame's photo albums.

But about those birds. Props to our aptly named author, a librarian who purées factual information into her story without a hint of spinach aftertaste. Here's what I learned while rooting for Suzy and getting my bearings in Burr Oak: Ostriches weigh around 320 pounds, the same as two sheep. They can run 40 miles per hour. They don't sweat, they pant. And their eyeballs are bigger than their brains. Suzy describes Gaucho's neck as a freaky hybrid of an elephant's trunk and a snake. ''Name me one thing in this good great world important enough to justify a neck like that,'' Bird writes. ''One thing. Can't be done.''

Occasionally we encounter language that's out of step with the time period -- for instance, I don't think a ''woman-owned'' photography studio would have meant much to a 12-year-old during the Woodrow Wilson administration. But the appearance of, say, ''literally'' and ''deal'' in their modern incarnations may help acclimate history-wary readers. (''Olden times? Forget it,'' a close relative once said of the Little House books.)

Small's illustrations will also pull in reluctant types. A cozy house at sunrise, a gaggle of feisty chickens, a scarecrow minding a field -- these drawings made me homesick for the Bowles place when I left. We learn that the setting was inspired by Bird's grandmother's farm, which wasn't far from the home of the real-life circus performer Madame Marantette -- which happened to be the same house where David Small lived when Bird was growing up in Kalamazoo, Mich., in the 1980s. (He came to speak at her school.)

Even more amazing is the rush that comes from racing across a field on the back of an ostrich, braids flying, Queen Anne's lace speeding by in a blur. With its timeless messages about big dreams and the beloved people who make them possible, ''Long Road to the Circus'' takes you there. It is -- sorry not sorry -- a brass ring to grab with both hands.

Elisabeth Egan is an editor at the Book Review and the author of ''A Window Opens.'' LONG ROAD TO THE CIRCUS By Betsy Bird Illustrated by David Small 248 pp. Alfred A. Knopf. $16.99. (Ages 10 to 12)

CAPTION(S):

PHOTO

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2021 The New York Times Company
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Egan, Elisabeth. "Flight of the Ostriches." The New York Times Book Review, 14 Nov. 2021, p. 32(L). Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A682339048/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=789b0e93. Accessed 27 July 2025.

Bird, Betsy LONG ROAD TO THE CIRCUS Knopf (Children's None) $16.99 10, 5 ISBN: 978-0-593-30393-1

A farm girl learns to ride an ostrich.

The year is 1920, and the place is Burr Oak, Michigan. Twelve-year-old Suzy Bowles has grown a bit tired of her small-town life, working her father's farm with her siblings. She feels an itch to explore the world, but no one in her family encourages her to give that itch a scratch. When Fred, Suzy's ne'er-do-well uncle, moves back to the farm only to skip out on his chores every morning, Suzy decides to follow him to figure out what he's doing with his time. This leads her to legendary former circus queen Madame Marantette and her amazing ostriches. It doesn't take long for Suzy to become wrapped up in the world of traveling entertainers; a spark is lit within her to grab on tight to this ticket out of Burr Oak. Readers will find Suzy an engaging protagonist, feeling simultaneously thoroughly contemporary and classic in a story whose narrative arc is well-crafted. Suzy's itch to leave the farm is balanced by an earnest appreciation for those who are contented to stay behind--the author makes it clear that what's good for them isn't exactly good for Suzy, and there's no fault or shame on anyone's plate. Small's energetic illustrations are expressive and humorous, vividly evoking the time and setting. Main characters default to White. (Note: Bird is a freelance contributor to Kirkus.)

A wonderful character piece. (historical notes) (Historical fiction. 9-13)

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2021 Kirkus Media LLC
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"Bird, Betsy: LONG ROAD TO THE CIRCUS." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Sept. 2021. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A673649670/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=a303fd4a. Accessed 27 July 2025.

BIRD, Betsy. The Great Santa Stakeout. illus. by Dan Santat. 40p. Scholastic/Arthur A. Levine Bks. Sept. 2019. Tr $17.99. ISBN 9781338169980.

Gr 1-3-Santa Claus may be famous, but he is one elusive character. Freddy Melcher is his number one fan. The boy's room is decorated with Santa memorabilia, and Freddy dresses like Santa for holidays all year long. Freddy needs only one thing to complete his Santa Claus collection: a selfie with the jolly old elf himself. But how can Freddy outwit someone who knows when he is sleeping and when he is awake? Freddy prepares for an entire year to trap his hero, but on the big night, things do not go as he predicts; instead, he receives a prize he had not anticipated. The mystery of Santa Claus is one that intrigues many children and adults alike, and this is a clever take on the topic. The illustrations are brightly colored and heavily emotive, making the images more reminiscent of graphic novels than of traditional picture books. Oversize pages form the perfect backdrop for this story, as each spread is doubly engaging thanks to its size and saturation of color. Written primarily for an early elementary school audience, the text varies in length on each page, with some words exaggerated in size for additional visual appeal. Some pictures incorporate text that is not part of the story, inspiring readers to look closer. VERDICT A delightfully lighthearted holiday addition for fans of The Santa Clause and How the Grinch Stole Christmas.--Mary Lanni, formerly at Denver Public Library

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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Lanni, Mary. "BIRD, Betsy. The Great Santa Stakeout." School Library Journal, vol. 65, no. 9, Oct. 2019, p. 57. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A601871446/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=9f570624. Accessed 27 July 2025.

Bird, Betsy THE GREAT SANTA STAKEOUT Levine/Scholastic (Children's Fiction) $17.99 9, 3 ISBN: 978-1-338-16998-0

Can Santa's biggest fan snap the ultimate selfie?

Freddy Melcher (who has light skin and brown hair and eyes and whose surname is a clever variant of the Wise Man moniker, Melchior) could be Santa's biggest fan. All year long, he celebrates the jolly old elf and collects all things St. Nick. As Christmas Eve approaches, Freddy is determined to capture a photo "with Santa, fresh out of the chimney." He devises a four-step plan involving a rooftop trap and goes to bed determined to stay awake and meet his idol--but, alas, sleep takes hold. A sudden "CRASH!" awakens Freddy, who sees "something big [roll] right off the roof." Is Santa hurt? Poor Freddy dashes outside, fearing the worst, only to find a Santa lawn ornament headfirst in the snow, with a note attached reading, "NICE TRY, FREDDY! --SANTA." Santat cleverly depicts this note viewed from Freddy's perspective, which aligns readers with the protagonist and hides his reaction--for the moment. A page-turn reveals that Freddy feels "FANTASTIC," because "while other kids nestled all snug in their beds, Freddy had played hide-and-seek with his hero!" Never mind a happy ending, this is a downright jolly one--merry, even. Santat's multimedia art elevates Bird's joyful, playful text to holiday picture-book excellence, his use of chiaroscuro especially masterful in the nighttime scenes.

Sure to be caught under many a tree. (Picture book. 4-8)

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2019 Kirkus Media LLC
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"Bird, Betsy: THE GREAT SANTA STAKEOUT." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Sept. 2019. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A597739258/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=bd7694b6. Accessed 27 July 2025.

BIRD, Betsy, ed. Funny Girl: Funniest. Stories. Ever. 224p. illus. Viking. Jun. 2017. Tr $16.99. ISBN 9780451477316.

Gr 4-6--A collection of hilarious short stories, comics, letters, and quizzes, geared toward middle grade girls. A range of well-known authors contribute pieces (Amy Ignatow, Libba Bray, Raina Telgemeier, Ursula Vernon, and Shannon Hale) along with lesser-known writers. The pinkish cover, depicting a girl dangling upside down and reading Funny Girl, is appealing, as are the accessible font styles and comic illustrations throughout. Many of the stories describe bodily functions (farts, poo, pee, and periods all make appearances), proving boys don't have a monopoly on toilet humor. Though the majority of the humor is lighthearted and kid-appropriate, some jokes hit a sour note. In the first story, "How To Tell a Joke" by Delaney Yeager and Mackenzie Yeager, the narrator relates the tale of watching an antidrug assembly featuring a former drug addict with a prosthetic hand. She explains how she later imitated the man by putting her own hand inside her shirt and suggests that this is a good way to get laughs from classmates-a gag she comes back to several times in the chapter. Readers whose families have experienced addiction or who have physical disabilities are likely to find these jokes painful rather than chuckle-worthy. Authors and characters come from a range of backgrounds, including Cuban American, Native American, and Indian American. A short biography of each author can be found in the back matter. The stories work especially well when read consecutively, since several jokes recur, but most pieces stand alone. VERDICT With the exception of the first chapter's insensitivity, these stories are bound to engage most readers and tickle ribs.--Michelle Anderson, Tauranga City Libraries, New Zealand

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 A wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
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Anderson, Michelle. "Bird, Betsy, ed.: Funny Girl: Funniest. Stories. Ever." School Library Journal, vol. 63, no. 6, 1 June 2017, pp. 84+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A493916058/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=8c4c7e8e. Accessed 27 July 2025.

Bird, Betsy FUNNY GIRL Viking (Children's Fiction) $16.99 5, 9 ISBN: 978-0-451-47731-6

The 28 short stories, autobiographical essays, and comic strips in this entertaining anthology are meant to prove that females can be funny, and they succeed. Librarian and blogger Bird has gathered contributions from a stellar group of female children's and teen writers and illustrators, including Rita Williams-Garcia, Jennifer Holm, and Shannon Hale, plus a few professional comedians who give advice on crafting and delivering jokes. Variety abounds, encompassing Lenore Look's pun-filled Chinese zodiac, Mitali Perkins' "Brown Girl Pop Quiz" of multiple-choice questions, and Raina Telgemeier's comic strip "Attack of the Killer Bee." Among the standouts are Carmen Agra Deedy's first-person account of the time her mother set a bathtub on fire to rid it of germs and Libba Bray's "Public Service Announcement About Your Period" from a witty 12-year-old girl who objects to the secrecy surrounding the subject. A handful of other entries also deal with girl-specific topics such as bra shopping, and nearly all the stories and reminiscences focus on girls. Boys will also enjoy the humor, which ranges from slapstick to subtle. Brief biographical notes about the contributors conclude the volume. Whether these live up to the subtitle's claim of "funniest stories ever" is subjective, but the lighthearted array will surely appeal to a wide audience. (Anthology. 9-13)

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 Kirkus Media LLC
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"Bird, Betsy: FUNNY GIRL." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Feb. 2017. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A480921923/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=15d264fb. Accessed 27 July 2025.

Giant Dance Party

Betsy Bird, illus. by Brandon Dorman.

Greenwillow, $17.99 (32p) ISBN 978-0-06196083-3

Readers will finish this debut picture book from children's librarian and book blogger Bird understanding the value of facing one's fears, but even more likely, they'll want lessons in Irish step dancing and the electric slide. Lexy loves dancing at home, but stage fright takes over during recitals: "She'd freeze like an ice pop and never dance a step. Not one. Not ever." Dorman's (Snowman Magic) candy-colored digital illustrations capture Lexy's mood swings as she sulkily announces she's quitting dance, attempts to overcome her stage fright, and hits on the perfect solution: she'll become a dance teacher. Response to Lexy's advertisements is muted (read: nonexistent) until five furry blue giants appear on her doorstep, requesting lessons. Bird's chatty narrative is dynamic and funny, as are Dorman's images of the twirling giants, which resemble a cross between pigs and fuzzy indigo caterpillars. Happily, Bird sticks to fun over "message moments," though Lexy's exuberant final performance has a grain of advice for readers attempting something scary: don't over-think it. Ages 4-8. Author's agent: Stephen Barbara, Foundry Literary + Media. Illustrator's agent: Peter Lott, Lott Reps. (May)

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2013 PWxyz, LLC
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"Giant Dance Party." Publishers Weekly, vol. 260, no. 11, 18 Mar. 2013, p. 82. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A323348665/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=292e6735. Accessed 27 July 2025.

Bird, Betsy GIANT DANCE PARTY Greenwillow/HarperCollins (Children's Picture Books) $17.99 4, 23 ISBN: 978-0-06-196083-3

Lexy lives to dance, but she dreads those terrifying recitals. Somehow all the joy she feels in dancing deserts her entirely when she is on a stage in front of an audience. She freezes like an ice pop. All her efforts at overcoming this phobia fail, so she quits dance school. She decides to take a totally different approach by becoming a dance teacher, since they don't have to perform. But in spite of great advertising and preparation, not a single pupil appears. The tale leaves the realm of the ordinary by introducing a group of fuzzy giants who truly love to dance, begging Lexy to teach them. Soon, they are leaping and step dancing and doing the twist. But at their recital, they turn into matching ice pops. Lexy leaps onto the stage, dances with joy and thaws the giants, who join her in a rip-roaring, crowd-pleasing spectacle, and, voila, stage fright is over for all of them. Strong, action-packed language and syntax that speaks directly to readers keep the tale flowing at a brisk pace and make the fantasy elements completely believable. Lexy is a charmer, full of pep and verve and enthusiasm, fully realized in Dorman's large-scale digital illustrations as she sprightly cavorts through the pages. Sheer joy. (Picture book. 3-8)

Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2013 Kirkus Media LLC
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"Bird, Betsy: GIANT DANCE PARTY." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Mar. 2013. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A322002811/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=add52d43. Accessed 27 July 2025.

"Bird, Betsy: POP! GOES THE NURSERY RHYME." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Feb. 2025. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A827101195/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=27219883. Accessed 27 July 2025. "Pop! Goes the Nursery Rhyme." Publishers Weekly, vol. 272, no. 2, 13 Jan. 2025, p. 55. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A828299926/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=1f7b148f. Accessed 27 July 2025. Egan, Elisabeth. "Flight of the Ostriches." The New York Times Book Review, 14 Nov. 2021, p. 32(L). Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A682339048/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=789b0e93. Accessed 27 July 2025. "Bird, Betsy: LONG ROAD TO THE CIRCUS." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Sept. 2021. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A673649670/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=a303fd4a. Accessed 27 July 2025. Lanni, Mary. "BIRD, Betsy. The Great Santa Stakeout." School Library Journal, vol. 65, no. 9, Oct. 2019, p. 57. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A601871446/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=9f570624. Accessed 27 July 2025. "Bird, Betsy: THE GREAT SANTA STAKEOUT." Kirkus Reviews, 1 Sept. 2019. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A597739258/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=bd7694b6. Accessed 27 July 2025. Anderson, Michelle. "Bird, Betsy, ed.: Funny Girl: Funniest. Stories. Ever." School Library Journal, vol. 63, no. 6, 1 June 2017, pp. 84+. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A493916058/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=8c4c7e8e. Accessed 27 July 2025. "Bird, Betsy: FUNNY GIRL." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Feb. 2017. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A480921923/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=15d264fb. Accessed 27 July 2025. "Giant Dance Party." Publishers Weekly, vol. 260, no. 11, 18 Mar. 2013, p. 82. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A323348665/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=292e6735. Accessed 27 July 2025. "Bird, Betsy: GIANT DANCE PARTY." Kirkus Reviews, 15 Mar. 2013. Gale General OneFile, link.gale.com/apps/doc/A322002811/ITOF?u=schlager&sid=bookmark-ITOF&xid=add52d43. Accessed 27 July 2025.

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