- The fabulous Cynthia Leitich Smith interviews my favorite scholar, Leonard S. Marcus, who has turned out a host of amazing books about the history and art of children’s literature, including Dear Genius: The Letters of Ursula Nordstrom (he has a great compilation of commentary about her in the current Horn Book issue, btw), The Wand in the Word: Conversations with Writers of Fantasy, and Margaret Wise Brown: Awakened by the Moon, to name a tiny sampling of my favorites (read: the ones I’ve read so far).
- When the news stings, Matt Ruff suggests tiny piggies!
- The Stranger has a former bookseller’s thoughts on book thievery, and books most frequently stolen. (Via Scott Edelman.)
- Kids and lying.
- Carrie Jones takes her recent discussion of writing characters with disabilities to the Fangs, Fur & Fey community on LJ; see also a follow-up post on writing mental illness.
- Jules on David Almond’s My Dad’s a Birdman, which is on my ever-growing stack.
- io9 has a good, trivia-filled tribute post on Gary Gygax, the Dungeons and Dragons creator who passed on this week. I am utterly charmed by all the personal stories everywhere about how D&D changed people’s lives; keep it up.
- Ghostbusters! (Via Jenny D.) Also known as the movie most quoted in my daily life.
- Michael Chabon has a fun essay in the New Yorker about the clothe de superhero.
- NPR on Harriet the Spy. (Via Stephany Aulenback.)