Occasionally, publishers and authors send me children’s books. When time and interest coincide (alas, too infrequently), I review them and post my reviews here. More often, I write reviews of books I’ve bought. I do not review children’s-book-related tie-ins. I view such products with some skepticism, and have written critically about merchandising that targets children.
Meet the Niblings, a new blog consortium (found on both Facebook and Twitter), representing Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast (Julie Danielson, a.k.a. Jules), A Fuse #8 Production (Betsy Bird), Nine Kinds of Pie (yours truly), and 100 Scope Notes (Travis Jonker). We considered calling ourselves “100 Notes on Why 7 8 9,” but, happily, the group liked my suggestion of “The Niblings.” Our
In America, children generally do not grow up with Tove Jansson’s Moomins as part of their childhood. Why is this? In other parts of the world, the Moomins are well-known and loved. There have been several animated television series made in countries as different as Japan, Sweden, and even the Soviet Union. There’s an amusement