{"id":623,"date":"2009-11-11T11:27:09","date_gmt":"2009-11-11T15:27:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/?p=623"},"modified":"2010-12-10T19:27:45","modified_gmt":"2010-12-10T23:27:45","slug":"jealousy-thy-name-is-abby","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/jealousy-thy-name-is-abby\/","title":{"rendered":"Jealousy, thy name is Abby"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday the newest issue of School Library Journal <\/em>arrived in my mailbox, and I felt a strong surge of an emotion I thought I’d kind of outgrown: jealousy.<\/p>\n

Everywhere you look in the children’s literature world, you see the name of Elizabeth Bird and her blog, “A Fuse #8 Production.”\u00a0 I’d decided that I hated her a long time ago simply based upon how often I see her name, but yesterday the (admittedly baseless) hatred turned to jealousy when I saw the cover photo of children’s literature bloggers, with Elizabeth Bird front and center.\u00a0 Not only is the woman a big deal in my work world, she’s also cute, young, pretty, and well-dressed.\u00a0 And she looks like someone I’d probably want to have as a friend.\u00a0 Bah humbug.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Like many of us, I had lots of visions of grandeur growing up and going through college and graduate school; I was sure <\/em>that I was wicked special and that I’d make a splash somewhere, sometime.\u00a0 But, let’s face it, fame and fortune are far away from the little town in which I work.\u00a0 No disrespect intended towards the town, but it’s small potatoes compared to New York City and the New York Public Library, which is where Ms. Bird works.\u00a0 Logically I know I’m making an impact where I\u00a0am, but I’m not too likely to meet Important Children’s Authors and Illustrators in my rural library.\u00a0 Nor will I be invited to serve on the Newbery Award Committee, or write articles for the Horn Book <\/em>magazine.\u00a0 (I barely survived six months of writing entry-level reviews for the Horn Book Guide <\/em>– what a slog that was.)\u00a0 I imagine that Elizabeth Bird probably bumps into famous authors and illustrators just buying her morning coffee before work.\u00a0 There’s no place to buy coffee in the town in which I work – no downtown, really, other than the library and the schools and the churches – and no money to buy that coffee, anyway.<\/p>\n

I’d also love to know how the object of my friendly jealousy manages to find the time to write intelligent blog posts every day, and read lots and lots of current\u00a0children’s books, while working as a children’s librarian.\u00a0 Surely she must have a staff at her disposal?\u00a0 Surely she’s mostly responsible for the big picture stuff, not all the nitty gritty details of storytimes and patron service?\u00a0 Because I’m a pretty energetic person, and I come home at the end of a work day\u00a0drained and with little creativity left to write a blog post.\u00a0 Not to mention that I rarely feel like looking at a computer screen in the evenings after having spent an entire day working in front of a computer.<\/p>\n

Or maybe she’s able to write her blog posts at work?\u00a0 Could it be that she even gets to read children’s books at work?\u00a0 That would be a dream come true for me.\u00a0 Though I truly love what I do at my job, I do feel like I’m becoming further and further removed from the analytical and theoretical side of children’s books that I so loved in graduate school.\u00a0 In recent days I’ve spent more time applying copious amounts of hand sanitizer than I have thinking about Reader Response theory.\u00a0 Actually, I don’t think that Reader Response theory has entered my mind more than once or twice in the last year.\u00a0 But I’ve thought a lot about how to project my voice at storytime or keep the kids in my book groups focused or how to locate the books that kids have been burying in odd places in the stacks.<\/p>\n

So I guess it’s official: I’m jealous because I know that my chance to Be All That has passed me by.\u00a0 And it surely doesn’t help things at all that I didn’t make good use of\u00a0my internship at the Horn Book\u00a0<\/em>to make connections with people there like Roger Sutton.\u00a0 Like most professions, to “be someone” in the children’s literature world you have to work someplace important, like New York City, and you have to have powerful friends in the business.\u00a0 In my hidden little corner of the world, I’m never going to make headlines.<\/p>\n

But at least I’m a rock star to the kids who come to my library.\u00a0 And if I were smart and mature, I’d be happy with that.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday the newest issue of School Library Journal arrived in my mailbox, and I felt a strong surge of an emotion I thought I’d kind of outgrown: jealousy. Everywhere you look in the children’s literature world, you see the name of Elizabeth Bird and her blog, “A Fuse #8 Production.”\u00a0 I’d decided that I hated … Continue reading Jealousy, thy name is Abby<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-623","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-childrens-literature","category-librarianship"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=623"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":876,"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/623\/revisions\/876"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=623"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=623"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abbykingsbury.org\/books\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=623"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}