Comments for 100 Scope Notes

Comment on Cover Curiosity: Dissimilar? Neigh. by Travis

Travis — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:29:29 +0000

Yes!! I mean, thank you for your comments – and for your excellent blog.

Comment on Cover Curiosity: Dissimilar? Neigh. by Alea

Alea — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 19:07:41 +0000

Haha! Thanks for your kind words! Being a graphic designer I think seeing lookalikes is just part of my nature. But I will say I have a lot of great people that submit them to me, I have a giant backlog of them to post! But here you have indeed beat me to it, I haven’t seen this one!

Comment on Cover Curiosity: Dissimilar? Neigh. by Brenda Kahn

Brenda Kahn — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 11:16:17 +0000

Oh snap! Good on you! While I always thought the horse on the cover of War Horse was beautiful, after I read and reread the book, I kind of wished they found one with the facial markings. That would have been something.

Comment on Photo: The High Interest Book Cart by Travis

Travis — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 03:46:21 +0000

Yeah, this seems to be a topic that doesn’t get much attention, but holds a pretty big interest with kids.

Comment on Morning Notes: Sweet Brevity Edition by Sondy

Sondy — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:45:06 +0000

I’m sorry, but the “gender gap” is not at ALL statistically significant. Those numbers could EASILY have happened by chance, not bias. And I believe they did happen by chance. Last year, the speakers at the banquet are women; this year they will be men. This is not some nefarious plot; it’s happenstance.

The fact is, a 50% probability doesn’t really constrain things until you get to very large numbers. Even looking at a decade at a time (and certainly looking at only one year), there’s a wide wide range of values that could so easily happen by chance.

This, by the way, is why so many people have theories about how you can tell the gender of a baby before it’s born. Their theory is right half the time, and they can get quite a good streak going.

Comment on Morning Notes: Sweet Brevity Edition by Travis

Travis — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:18:31 +0000

Erin – While my normal mode in arguments is to come down somewhere in the middle, I think I’m with you and Sam here. I do like how Janice takes a hard look at possible causes of the gender gap (it is certainly surprising), but it does seem like there are a lot of variables at play here. I appreciate the discussion.

Comment on Morning Notes: Sweet Brevity Edition by Travis

Travis — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 21:13:00 +0000

Thanks for your post, Janice. I appreciate your line of thought. It’s interesting to consider why the Caldecott numbers are so in favor of male illustrators. I don’t think my reasoning lines up with yours (call me naive perhaps, but I don’t feel there’s much of a bias to speak of, conscious or unconscious) but whenever the gap is this wide it is worth exploring – thank you for doing that.

Comment on Photo: The High Interest Book Cart by adrienne

adrienne — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 19:00:18 +0000

I was excited about that Wild Outdoors series, too. We get a fair number of requests for books about hunting, and there seems to be very little out there about it for kids.

Comment on Morning Notes: Sweet Brevity Edition by Erin E. Stead

Erin E. Stead — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 16:48:36 +0000

The women/Caldecott argument leaves me a little exasperated. As an illustrator with some perspective on the issue, I hope they do not (and will not) consider gender in that room. I am not sure what the endgame for this discussion is, and I feel it is not completely fair to the history of the award. The very first winner in 1938 was a woman, in a time when you could only be a secretary, teacher, nun, or a wife. We should all try to make good books. It is not as easy as it seems. If a man or a woman makes a very very good book, then I am happy that a very very good book has been made. There are other, larger problems in the industry and I’m disappointed with the apparent rise of this one. I’m with Sam.

Comment on Photo: The High Interest Book Cart by Deb Marshall

Deb Marshall — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:44:22 +0000

YES on Mary Downing Hahn, love all her books, reading them, book talking them. There’s some titles on here I’m not familiar with, will get them read. Thanks and happy reading to your students!