It’s been another eventful week around the Kidlitosphere. Here are some links, for your perusal:

April is National Poetry Month. There are a host of activities going on around the Kidlitosphere in celebration. Happily, Laura Evans of All Things Poetry has compiled a list (which I in turn copied from Finding Wonderland - you can find more details there):

• 30 Poets/30 Days in April 2010 @ GottaBook
• New GLBTQ Teen Poetry @ I’m Here, I’m Queer, What the Hell Do I Read?
• Poems about Teaching @ A Year of Reading
• Poetry Book Giveaway @ Irene Latham
• Poetry Makers @ The Miss Rumphius Effect
• Poetry Potluck @ Jama Rattigan’s alphabet soup
• Poetry Tag @ Sylvia Vardell’s Poetry for Children
• Poetry Postcard Project @ Jone MacCulloch
• Thirty Days, Thirty Students, Thirty Poems @ Jone MacCulloch
• Share a Poem @ Laura Purdie Salas
• Original Poem-A-Day Challenge: The following people are challenging themselves to write a poem a day. Poems will appear on the poet’s site: Susan Taylor Brown; Mary Lee Hahn; Andromeda Jazmon;
Irene Latham; Jone MacCulloch; Elizabeth Moore; April Halprin Wayland.  

This week I was honored to receive not one but two blog awards from Dawn Little of Literacy Toolbox. Like my co-honoree Terry Doherty, I’m not one to pass along awards like this - I don’t like picking sub-sets of my favorite blogs, according to anyone else’s criteria. But I am delighted to be in such wonderful company with the other names on Dawn’s list.

I was also happy to have my blog listed as a resource recently on the Education and Social Sciences Library (ESSL) Children’s Literature Blog. Katelyn Edds chose a selection of blogs based on “how often the blogs were updated, their layout and content, and how often the blogs were cited by others as being authoritative.” I’m in excellent company there, too, with blogs like Fuse #8, Readergirlz, and Guys Lit Wire, to name a few.

Speaking of Terry Doherty, her writer’s prompt at Booklights this month is a fun one - Mad Libs. Oh, how I loved Mad Libs when I was in middle school. She talks about some different versions of the Mad Libs idea, shares some memories, and discusses why Mad Libs and related word games are an excellent literacy tool. Fun stuff! Ann also talks about writing prompts for kids in her monthly Booklights post. Great minds thinking alike, I guess.

Accredited Online Colleges has a fun post this week: 10 Children’s Books Every Business Student Should read. It’s a nice mix of older and newer titles, and includes Chris Barton’s The Day-Glo Brothers. Thanks to Emma Taylor for the link.

Liz B responds at Tea Cozy to a recent New York Times article by Julie Just about problem parents in young adult literature. I agree 100% with Liz’s conclusion: “Just as parents need to get out of the way for their teenagers to mature into adults, so should we adults who read and review young adult books get out of the way of the intended audience — the teens. Yes, we can read and enjoy those books; but let’s not ask for those books to be written to reflect our reality of adults and parents.” But do read the whole post. Monica Edinger chimes in on the Times piece, too, though more briefly.

At the Book Whisperer, Donalyn Miller continues her series on resources to help teachers discover books for kids. This time, she discusses Twitter (where you can find her at @DonalynBooks). She gives tons of great examples of the fun that is following the kidlit twitterverse.  

The NCBLA blog reports on the start of the Exquisite Corpse Adventure Mystery Author Contest. The idea is for school classes to “Play Twenty Questions with other Exquisite Corpse Adventure readers around the country to help identify The Mystery Author! Every class that solves the mystery and emails in the correct guess will be entered into a drawing to win a collection of books valued at over $500 for their classroom or library, plus a phone conversation with The Mystery Author!”

Quick Hits:

• I haven’t mentioned it in a while, and thought that I would draw your attention to the latest installment of Sherry Early’s Saturday Review of Books at Semicolon. Every week, Sherry asks contributors to link to their reviews from the week - resulting in links to dozens of book reviews.
• Mitali Perkins shares an inspiring plea from 8th grader Anisha N. on behalf of her school library. 
• Lenore’s International Book Blogger Mentor program is up and running. She shares some of the featured bloggers at Presenting Lenore.
• At the Tidy Books blog, Ian Newbold is wondering whether or not children’s books should come with warnings (e.g. if a character dies).
• Doret wraps up her fun 9 Authors - 12 Baseball Questions series at TheHappyNappyBookseller.
• If you need more kidlitosphere news, check out the latest FuseNews from Betsy Bird at A Fuse #8 Production. There are also some interesting news links in Joanne Meier’s Food for Thought post at Reading Rockets this week.
• And finally, Kate Coombs has this week’s Poetry Friday roundup at Book Aunt.

I’ll be away from the computer tomorrow, celebrating Easter as well as baseball’s Opening Day (finally!). Wishing you all a Happy Easter or Passover, or anything else that you might celebrate, and a happy spring.

© 2010 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson’s Book Page. All rights reserved.
You can also find me on Twitter and at Booklights from PBS Parents.
All Amazon links in this post are affiliate links, and may result in my receiving a small commission (with no additional cost to you).

There continues to be lots going on around the Kidlitosphere. Here are a few quick highlights on this beautiful day:

The winner of the 2010 Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award was announced this week (I first heard about it from Tasha Saecker at Kids Lit). Congratulations to Belgian illustrator and author Kitty Crowther, who won a prize of 5 million kronor ($620,00 US). I love that this award celebrates the creator of Pippi Longstocking, and the importance of children’s literature. The size of the award is a strong statement about the value of children’s literature and its creators.The ALMA website explains:

“Astrid Lindgren is one of Sweden’s most important authors. Her works have been translated into more than 90 languages. She renewed children’s literature and combined artistic integrity with commitment to the rights of children and young people. Astrid Lindgren passed away in 2002 at the age of 94, but her stories will live forever. To honour her memory and to promote interest in children’s and young adult literature around the world, the Swedish government has founded an international prize in her name, the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award.” 

Gregory K has announced the lineup for his upcoming 30 Poets/30 Days celebration of National Poetry Month. It’s quite a star-studded list. And I love the new logo, created by Greg’s kidlitchat co-host, Bonnie Adamson.

Lots of people are raising a rallying cry for libraries this week. Dawn Morris has a heartfelt post about libraries at Moms Inspire Learning. And Jennifer R. Hubbard from writerjenn inspired a whole library-loving blog challenge, which has spread to dozens of blogs. The basic idea is that the participating bloggers promise to donate to libraries based on the number of comments that they receive. There are too many participants for me to highlight them all here, but I did want to mention that The Texas Sweethearts will be making a donation to the Reading Tub for their challenge. How great is that?

Trevor Cairney has a fun post today at Literacy, families and learning on choosing great educational toys for children. He breaks the post down by type of play, from timeless construction toys to toys that allow kids to create things. He concludes with a few principles that he follows when choosing toys (like “Do they stimulate creativity and learning?”).

Based on the responses to her recent survey about blogging books for boys, librarian Ms. Yingling has started sharing some themed booklists, aimed at middle school age boys. This week, she shares a host of books about war, neatly categorized according to which war is covered. She says: “While not all of the books on this list have a lot of fighting, they have all been popular with my boys.”

There seems to be a bout of spring-induced sports fever spreading in the Kidlitosphere:

• Doret from TheHappyNappyBookseller is doing a fantastic Baseball Lineup series in which she asks nine authors of baseball stories for kids a series of 12 questions each (3 per day). Personally, I haven’t been able to resist chiming in on the first two posts, to share my responses, too. They’re great questions for baseball fans of all ages.
• Colleen Mondor takes on sports books in the latest installation of her What a Girl Wants series at Chasing Ray. She asks her band of author friends: “What books can you think of about famous female athletes in history? Do we honor them on the same level as male athletes? And what about game playing girls in MG & YA novels? Can you think of some great ones and do familiar teen girl tropes (like mean girls and romance) play into those novels? In other words, is a book about boys playing ball crafted the same as one about girls playing ball? Is the sport enough when selling a book about girl athletes?” Thoughtful responses abound.
• At The Miss Rumphius Effect, Tricia features a baseball poem about Forgiving Buckner. She speculates that baseball just might be “the true harbinger of spring.” I can’t disagree with that. Speaking of poems, this week’s Poetry Friday roundup is being hosted by Julie Larios of The Drift Record.

Other quick hits:

• I enjoyed The Reading Countess’ recent “Have a Seat!” post, in which she shares pictures of the many reading nooks that she has available in her classroom.
• Betsy Bird has a detailed recap of week 2 of School Library Journal’s Battle of the Kids Books at A Fuse #8 Production.
• At Shrinking Violet Promotions, Mary and Robin have an excellent interview with Lee Wind about his new blog, The Zen of Blogging.
• At Roots in Myth, P.J. Hoover shares five reasons (for authors) to visit a juvenile detention center.
• And for more links, check out Tanita Davis’ Sequel Rambles post at Finding Wonderland, Cynthia Leitich Smith’s latest Cynsational News post at Cynsations, or Abby (the) Librarian’s latest Around the Interwebs post.

And that’s all for this weekend. Happy reading, and happy spring. Only 8 more days until Red Sox Opening Day!

© 2010 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson’s Book Page. All rights reserved.
You can also find me on Twitter and at Booklights from PBS Parents.
All Amazon links in this post are affiliate links, and may result in my receiving a small commission (with no additional cost to you).

Happy Spring! Happy March Madness! A belated Happy Saint Patrick’s Day! Here are a few links from around the Kidlitosphere, for those who are actually indoors on the computer this fine weekend:

First up, I was delighted to see that Jen Funk Weber profiled me this morning as her first Extreme Reader, a new series that she’s doing at Needle and ThREAD: Stitching for Literacy. She shares my story about reading on a raft in a lake in New Hampshire as a kid. Jen is looking for other extreme reader stories, as well as extreme stitcher stories, if you have any to share. And have you seen her tutorial for stitching Readergirlz bookmarks? Anyone interested in both books and needlework should really be following Jen’s blog.

Betsy Bird is up to #17 in the Top 100 Children’s Novels poll at A Fuse #8 Production. You can also enter a challenge to predict the top 10 titles. I got an extra kick out of seeing Matilda and Charlie and the Chocolate Factory side by side at #18 and #19. The book-loving Matilda is one of my all-time favorite characters from children’s literature. And I’ll always have fond associations for Charlie, because I taught myself to type by copying Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. There’s also a top 100 YA books poll going on at Persnickety Snark.

Speaking of Matilda, great fan of reading, Terry Doherty has started a list/widget at The Reading Tub with books about kids finding a love of reading. She would welcome your suggestions. Also, my congratulations to Terry for being the latest Featured Sweetheart at the Texas Sweethearts blog. There’s a great interview!

Helaine Becker believes that kids enjoy reading. Inspired by a recent visit as guest author at a bookstore, she shares her thoughts on why kids sometimes get a reputation for being non-readers. I think she makes some good points, especially: “Kids don’t like to read books that are “good for them” or jammed down their throats.” 

Middle school librarian Ms. Yingling is shifting the focus of her blog a bit to focus more on finding books for boys. She’s reformatted her blog, added a list of other blogs that suggest books for boys, and declared Guy Fridays. It’s always interesting to me how people shift the focus of their blogs over time, as they discover areas that they are particularly passionate about.

Sara Zarr, on the other hand, wants to know if blogging is dead. She notes: “I don’t have time to read and comment on blogs the way I used to, and that seems to have led to fewer comments on mine, or folks do their commenting on Twitter and Facebook where my blog feeds—or commenting has been replaced with sharing, liking, and reTweeting.” The post is a bit slanted (understandably) towards author blogs, but the discussion has implications for us all. I think it depends on whether you’re blogging FOR the sense of community, or to share particular things that lend themselves more to the longer format of the blog (vs. Twitter or Facebook).

Lee Wind (co-founder of the Kidlitosphere Comment Challenge) has a new blog about The Zen of Blogging. He says: “This is my new on-line home for sharing weekly inspiration and how-to tips about blogging with you.” 

Speaking of the Comment Challenge founders, Pam Coughlan has a great post this week at Booklights about Thrifty Reading, with suggestions for acquiring books during tough economic times (and no, shoplifting is NOT among her suggestions). See also Susan Stephenson’s suggestions at The Book Chook for finding free reading material online. Also at Booklights, Susan Kusel suggests checking out holiday-themed books from the library EARLY.

Quick hits:

• At Maw Books, Natasha discusses the two types of book owners (basically those who do and don’t derive part of their satisfaction from actually owning the book). Which type are you?
• Poetry Friday this week was at Some Novel Ideas. Charlotte’s weekly roundup of middle grade fantasy and science fiction reviews is up at Charlotte’s Library.
• Congratulations to Laurel Snyder, who has an article in today’s Boston Globe about fairy tale novelizations.
• The deadline to submit posts for the March Carnival of Children’s Literature is Thursday, March 25th. The March Carnival will be hosted by Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect.
• As usual, Abby (the) Librarian has more links in her weekend Around the Interwebs post, and Laura has some on her Happy St. Patrick’s Day Links post at Bib-Laura-graphy.

© 2010 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson’s Book Page. All rights reserved.
You can also find me on Twitter and at Booklights from PBS Parents.
All Amazon links in this post are affiliate links, and may result in my receiving a small commission (with no additional cost to you).

It’s been a while since I had time to do a Kidlitosphere news roundup. I don’t have a ton of time this afternoon, but I wanted to at least share a few things.

Terry and I were both pretty caught up in the Share a Story - Shape a Future literacy blog tour last week, and so we have no children’s literacy round-up for you all this week. I did do a post at Booklights today highlighting some of the links from each day of Share a Story that I thought would be of particular interest to parents. I’m also happy to report here that I won a giveaway - a set of four books from Sleeping Bear Press will be donated to the Santa Clara City Library (where I’m on the Foundation Board). This came about because I was a finalist in the RIF Multicultural Books giveaway. Many thanks to everyone who participated in Share a Story 2010!

Speaking of Booklights, Susan Kusel was kind enough to share some board book suggestions for me at Booklights last week. I’ve added many of them to my wish list for the baby.

Betsy Bird is up to number 21 in the Fuse #8 Top 100 Children’s Books poll. She’s going to share out the top 20 books one by one, so we all have a while to wait to see who the winner is. But I think it’s safe to say that they’ll all be wonderful books from here on out.

Mitali Perkins has a lovely post profiling 5 outstanding literacy warriors who are on Twitter. All five are organizations that I’m already following and retweeting on a regular basis, but I’m thrilled to see Mitali spreading the word and drawing more people’s attention to these excellent programs. Mitali also has a slightly longer list of literacy champions that you can follow - I just double-checked, and found a few new people to follow. Mitali also shared a useful list of a dozen YA novels with Asian guy protagonists last week.

The SLJ Battle of the (Kids) Books started this week. You can read Liz B’s thoughts on Round One, Match one at Tea Cozy, or view the full schedule here. SLJBoB is “a competition between 16 of the very best books for young people published in 2009, judged by some of the biggest names in children’s books.”

Shannon Hale has had a couple of interesting posts recently about the shortage of female characters in movies these days (especially animated movies), and what, if anything, concerned parties can do about this. She says: “what changes things is money. Even more specifically: the Opening Weekend. That’s all that really matters. If women and girls flood movie theaters the opening weekend in support of movies that are led by or even have a realistic ratio of female characters, those accountants will notice and things will change.”

Speaking of female protagonists, Doret has put together a “list of titles with strong and smart female protagonists” at TheHappyNappyBookseller. As she notes, the list is by no means complete, but it’s an excellent place for anyone to start looking for strong female characters in books.

Meanwhile, David Elzey is still working on helping people to build better boy books at Fomograms, writing last week about nonlinearity in books for boys.

Quick hits:

• Today’s Nonfiction Monday roundup is at In Need of Chocolate. The most recent Poetry Friday roundup is at Becky’s Book Reviews.
• Heidi R. Kling has declared this week author appreciation week. I learned about it from Becky Levine, who is planning to participate.
• Just a reminder: Abby (the) Librarian is working on a roundup of audiobook reviews for April 1st. You can find more details here. I don’t usually review the books that I listen to on audio, because I like to be able to include quotations, but I’ll definitely be tuning in for ideas.
• See also Abby’s latest Around the Interwebs post for additional Kidlitosphere news.
• Dawn Morris defends the use of read-alouds in middle school at Moms Inspire learning.

Hope you found some links of interest!

© 2010 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson’s Book Page. All rights reserved.
You can also find me on Twitter and at Booklights from PBS Parents.
All Amazon links in this post are affiliate links, and may result in my receiving a small commission (with no additional cost to you).

I’ve been spending some time weeding through my ridiculously large to be read pile this weekend, after a relatively hectic work-week, so I haven’t had much time for reading blogs. But I managed to do a bit of catch-up today. Here are some links that I thought people might be interested in.

This year, for the first time, you can purchase stickers to place on your Cybils finalist and winning titles. All of the information, and samples of the stickers, is available at the Cybils blog.

Speaking of book-related contests, School Library Journal’s annual Battle of the Kids’ Books starts tomorrow. This contest pits book against book, until a field of 16 is narrowed down to one by an illustrious panel of judges. Betsy Bird has the details at A Fuse #8 Production. You can also follow the action on Twitter at @SLJsBoB or at the Battle of the Kids’ Books blog.

At The Reading Tub, Terry Doherty has an interview with Liz Burns from A Chair, A Fireplace and A Tea Cozy. Terry says: “We *know* a lot about Elizabeth Burns’ book, TV and movie interests from A Chair, A Fireplace and a Tea Cozy, but she doesn’t talk much about her job as the Youth Services Consultant at the New Jersey State Library Talking Books and Braille Center. In fact, she makes it clear on the blog that what she says there is her opinion and not her employer’s. Last fall, after reading several articles about Braille literacy, I asked Liz if we could do an interview.”

Speaking of Tea Cozy, Liz has sparked a discussion about the difference between “lit blogs” and “book blogs”. All of the discussion is in the comments, so do go beyond the main post if you’re interested in this. Personally, right at the moment, I don’t have the energy for any clique-ish behavior or finger-pointing. But I’m glad that Liz is sorting things out. [See also Liz’s thoughts on the new CommonSense Media ratings at Barnes & Noble’s website.]

Colleen Mondor has the 12th edition of her What a Girl Wants series at Chasing Ray, with musings and book recommendations from authors about “Bad Girls” in literature. She says: “This month the panel discusses just what good and bad have to do with sex and the teenage girl, why we persist in labeling girls so much more harshly than boys and books that help readers navigate these ever present and always turbulent teen waters.”

Amy has an interesting post at Literacy Launchpad about watching movies made from books, and why it’s important to use them as an addition to, rather than a substitute for, reading the book.

And speaking of movies made from books, check out the new Percy Jackson Reads! poster from the ALA store. There are also bookmarks available. I think this poster would be a great classroom addition - let’s by all means jump on the coattails of the popularity of the book and the movie and use them to encourage reading. I’m sure that Rick Riordan agrees.

David Elzey continues his great series about building better boy books. Part 7 is about keeping things short. He says: “There are readers, many of them boys, who will pick up that book and judge it by its girth, by its font size, by the amount of white on the page. As a former bookseller, if I had a dollar for every boy I ever witnessed fan a book’s pages as a method for deciding whether or not to read it, I’d have enough money today to buy a small publishing house.”

Greg Pincus is offering a free consultation from his blog, The Happy Accident. He says: “At conferences recently, besides doing my main presentations, I’ve also been giving individual, shorter social media consultations (see below for the details of how they work). Because they’ve proven to be so popular, I’ve decided to start offering that same service here through The Happy Accident. To kick this new offering off  (and to help celebrate my fourth anniversary of blogging over at GottaBook), I’m going to give one of these consultations out for freeeeeee.” Comment by midnight tonight with a recommended blog or blogs to enter. You’ll already find a great list of recommended blogs in the comments.

Today is the last day of The Brown Bookshelf’s 28 Days Later celebration of African American authors and illustrators, featuring Charles R. Smith, Jr. Of course, one of the great things about blogs is that it’s easy to go back and look over the posts from the entire month, if you’ve missed them.  

Quick hits:

• Franki from A Year of Reading rounds up various posts about the recent Dublin Literacy Conference.
• KatieD at Creative Literacy has some nice tips on becoming a better blogger. Like “Take breaks and keep coming back”.
• As reported in Publisher’s Weekly, John Grisham announced that he’ll be writing a new series of legal thrillers for middle grade readers, starring a 13-year-old legal whiz. Now, I tend to be a bit skeptical about prolific adult authors verging into KidLit territory. But I have to say that I think that Grisham’s writing style, as exemplified in his lighter titles for adults, like The Firm, will translate well to books for kids.
• Episode 12 of the Exquisite Corpse Adventure, written by Lemony Snicket, is now available. Thanks to Monica Edinger for the link.
• At TheHappyNappyBookseller, Doret and her commenters are discussing the question of how early to post reviews ahead of publication date.
• Elaine Magliaro has an extensive list of links for the upcoming Women’s History Month at Wild Rose Reader.
• At Book Moot, Camille shares advice for authors on school visits, with nuts-and-bolts dos and don’ts.
• The Featured Sweetheart at The Texas Sweethearts blog this week is Kelly Holmes, who launched the Unsung YA Heroes celebration a few weeks back at YAnnabe.
• And for more links, check out Betsy Bird’s latest Fuse News, Laura’s latest Sunday Links at Bib-Laura-graphy, or Abby’s latest Around the Interwebs at Abby (the) Librarian.

And now it’s back to my towering stacks of books. Eventually, my creating order from the books will translate into more reviews for you. In the meantime, Terry will have this week’s Literacy and Reading News round-Up tomorrow at The Reading Tub.

© 2010 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson’s Book Page. All rights reserved.
You can also find me on Twitter and at Booklights from PBS Parents.
All Amazon links in this post are affiliate links, and may result in my receiving a small commission (with no additional cost to you).

So I’ve been struggling through a bout of laryngitis this week. It’s made me a bit cranky (or perhaps general malaise has made me cranky - whichever). But the nice thing about the whole online world is that I can still interact with people, without needing to talk. And so, here are a few tidbits from the Kidlitosphere and twitterverse.

First up, the Kidlitosphere’s own Betsy Bird was profiled in Forbes today (online anyway)! Author Dirk Smillie calls her “the most powerful blogger in kids’ books”. And really, who could dispute that? I think she uses her power for good, though, don’t you? I especially liked this part, a quote from Dan Blank: “She channels her oddness into this niche blog, which then extends beyond its niche. Why was she born to do this? Who knows?” But do read the whole article. It’s great stuff!

Speaking of Betsy, she’s at the halfway point in revealing the results of the top 100 children’s books poll, with today’s reveal of titles 51 to 55. The list of titles is a wonderful resource in and of itself. And what Betsy’s doing with the posts, profiling each book, including cover images and quotes from contributors - it’s truly a labor of love. She’s made me want to go and read, or re-read, every single one of these titles. See also an interesting analysis of titles 100-71 by Eric Carpenter at What We Read and What We Think. Eric looks at things like distribution of votes, distribution of titles by decade, etc. His post is well worth a look.

While I love many of the titles on Betsy’s list, the genre that catches my attention most reliably is dystopian and post-apocalyptic fiction, especially when published for young adults. There’s been plenty of activity within my pet genre this week:

• Lenore is still hosting dystopia month at Presenting Lenore. She has a very tempting list of upcoming sequels here.
• Scholastic released the title (Mockingjay) and cover of the third Hunger Games book, due out August 24th.
• Amy Sturgis at Redecorating Middle-Earth in Early Lovecraft has published an update to her tremendously comprehensive list of YA dystopias. (Thanks to Jenny Schwartzberg for the link).
• And PW ran an in-depth feature by Karen Springen today about the popularity of dystopias among teens. (Via PW Children’s Bookshelf newsletter)

My fellow Cybils panelist, Sam from Parenthetical.net, has posted mini-reviews of all of the non-winning finalists in our category, middle grade fantasy and science fiction. I’m not sure if or when I’ll get to this myself, so I refer you to Sam’s comments. They line up pretty well with what I would say, anyway. I’ll also note that Joni Sensel’s The Farwalker’s Quest is a post-apocalyptic title, and thus had my automatic attention. Melissa also has a Farwalker’s Quest review at One Librarian’s Book Reviews.

Speaking of the Cybils, special thanks to Rocco Staino for a lovely writeup about the Cybils winners at School Library Journal.  

The February I Can Read Carnival (an idea launched by Terry Doherty, now in its second moth) is running right now at Anastasia Suen’s 5 Great Books blog. Fittingly enough, Anastasia was the category organizer for the 2009 Easy Reader and Short Chapter Book committee of the Cybils. She has lots of excellent links for new readers.

Quick hits:

• David Elzey continues his series on the aspects of books that appeal to boy readers. He talks about violence/conflict, action, and emotion in parts 3 through 5.  
• At the Spectacle, KA Holt expresses her concern about lexile ratings being used to steer kids away from books that they want to read.
• Travis has a very fun post at 100 Scope Notes predicting what books will be like in 3001. He is ridiculously creative, isn’t he?
• The Texas Sweethearts have named their newest Featured Sweetheart: Mitali Perkins. Great choice, wouldn’t you say? You can read the interview here.
• Liz B writes again, at Tea Cozy, about why it’s wrong to sell advance reading copies, or place them in library collections. If she keeps saying it often enough, perhaps the message will get across. There’s an extensive discussion going on in the comments.

And that’s all for today. Hope you all found some news of interest.

© 2010 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson’s Book Page. All rights reserved.
You can also find me on Twitter and at Booklights from PBS Parents.
All Amazon links in this post are affiliate links, and may result in my receiving a small commission (with no additional cost to you).

There has been a lot going on around the Kidlitosphere this past week. Here are some links for your perusal:

The biggest news is that Betsy Bird has started reporting the results of her Top 100 Children’s Books Poll at A Fuse #8 Production. Betsy asked readers to share their list of top 100 children’s books of all time. She’s compiled the results, and is reporting the list in small chunks, complete with commentary and assorted covers for each book. These posts (see 100-91, 90-86, 85-81) are truly an amazing resource, filled with quotes and memories about beloved books, new and old. Even though we’re only 20 titles in, I would venture to suggest that the completed list is going to make an excellent recommended reading list. In fact, I actually dreamed about reading these posts last night. Stay tuned to A Fuse #8 Production for the rest of the Top 100.

For anyone who might be snowed in this week, Joan S. at the First Book blog suggests: “Settling in to enjoy a GOOD BOOK doesn’t require electricity or a wireless connection. Satellite dishes may be covered with snow, wires may be down, but READING A BOOK just takes a quiet nook and a willingness to enjoy the moment.”

I noticed two posts today about creative classroom activities dedicated to popular books. At Educating Alice, Monica Edinger shares a mural that her students created after reading When You Reach Me together as a class. And at Learn Me Sumthin’, Tony’s class is tracking Percy Jackson’s adventures using Google Maps. Here’s a snippet from Tony’s post: “Some very unexpected and wonderful things started to happen. The classroom conversations about writing became stronger, because I think the kids really started to see the connection that fiction, even fantasy like The Lightning Thief, is more ‘real’ when the author can layer in events, details that are real. Also the importance of setting, which can get lost of 4th grade writers is now more apparent.”

Speaking of classrooms, Everybody Wins! reports: “MrsP.com has created some beautiful literary-inspired valentines — that you can download for free at www.MrsP.com. They are perfect for teachers or mentors to use in the classroom this week. They are created for readers of all-ages and perfect to give to the book lovers in your life.” Here’s the direct link. They are very cute! 

And in other Percy Jackson news, Amanda from A Patchwork of Books reports: “The Guardian has an awesome interview with author Rick Riordan (of Percy Jackson fame) about his son’s dyslexia and ADHD preventing him from enjoying reading. Well Mr. Percy Jackson’s story helped fix that!”. Of course, the Lightning Thief movie comes out on Friday, too, so we’ll be hearing lots more about Percy in the coming weeks.

David Elzey is writing a series (based on work that he did as part of a graduate residency) on building better boy books. You can find part 1 here and part 2 here. Part 1 is introductory, while Part 2 is about grabbing the attention of boys by using humor. David says: “there are subtleties to some forms of humor that boys respond to above others that can be incorporated into fiction. Knowing these elements might help explain what makes many boys – both readers and characters – tick.”

At Booklights, Susan Kusel discusses reading Charlotte’s Web aloud to young children (who might not cope well with Charlotte’s death). Susan notes: “As a librarian, I frequently get asked what age the book is appropriate for. My answer is always that it depends on your child. Will they be able to handle it?” Commenters seem to agree.

Also at Booklights, Terry Doherty has launched a new monthly column called A Prompt Idea. She says: “Each month, I’ll talk about writing and suggest ways to add writing to children’s literacy diet. Even if your child isn’t ready to put pen to paper, prompts can open the doors to building vocabulary, honing communication skills, and being creative. Varying the outlets for writing and communicating is as important as offering different types of reading materials.”

Abby (the) Librarian and Kelly of Stacked are starting a new monthly roundup of posts about audiobooks. Abby says: “We want to encourage people to listen to audiobooks and to post about them. We want to provide a place for people to find out about great audiobooks.”

The Cybils winners will be announced this Sunday (Valentine’s Day). In the meantime, the Cybils blog has been running a fun series about the inside scoop on the nominees in various categories. Here’s Part I, Part II, and Part III. I continue to be wowed that Deputy Editor Sarah Stevenson manages to keep up her own blog, and keep coming up with creative content for the Cybils blog, too.

Quick hits:

• A new edition of the monthly Notes from the Horn Book e-newsletter is now available. This edition focuses on the recent ALA award winners. Roger Sutton has more details.
• Kate Coombs shares a lovely story at Book Aunt about the enthusiastic response to Caps for Sale from a 6-year-old Latina child being treated for cancer. As Kate says: “that, my friends, is what children’s books are all about.”
• I’m not generally a big interview person. But I did enjoy Jules’ recent “questions over breakfast with Jennifer L. Holm and Matthew Holm” post at 7-Imp. There are many Babymouse references, as you might imagine.
• Steph Su shares her thoughts on Team Peeta vs. Team Gale. If you don’t know who I’m talking about, do give The Hunger Games and Catching Fire a look. Me, I’m Team Gale, and hoping to hear more from him in Book 3.
• This week’s Nonfiction Monday roundup is hosted by Mary Ann Scheuer at Great Kid Books. Mary Ann also hosted last week’s Poetry Friday roundup. Her linking muscles must be tired out! 
• Laurel Snyder wants to start a campaign to get Ruth M. Arthur’s A Candle in Her Room back in print. I would certainly buy it (or any of Arthur’s others) - I adored her books when I was in elementary school.
• Shrinking Violet Promotions has a post by Laurie Helgoe (author of Introvert Power: Why Your Inner Life Is Your Hidden Strength) about how to gather with introverts (who, by nature, resist gathering).
• Colleen Mondor has written a new article for Bookslut about diversity in young people’s literature. Liz B has some follow-on discussion at Tea Cozy, as does Colleen at Chasing Ray. See also Mitali Perkins’ proposal for faces and YA book covers at Mitali’s Fire Escape.
• Sarah/aquafortis has an interesting post at Finding Wonderland about how young adult literature often crosses genres, with YA novels appearing “between the cracks.” I love this about YA (and children’s) literature.
• Another Sarah reports at the Reading Zone about a lovely success story, in which a student learns that “reading is fun”. Who knew?
• For more Kidlitosphere links, check out Laura’s Superbowl Sunday Links post at Bib-Laura-graphy.

And that’s it for today. I’m feeling much better having the starred items in my reader cleaned up, and I’m off to watch the Duke/UNC game with a friend. Happy reading, all!

© 2010 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson’s Book Page. All rights reserved.
You can also find me on Twitter and at Booklights from PBS Parents.
All Amazon links in this post are affiliate links, and may result in my receiving a small commission (with no additional cost to you).

The Kidlitosphere has been largely dominated by news about the ALA awards and a couple of book cover controversies this week. Still, I did manage to find a few other links, too. Hope that you find some tidbits of interest.

After a brief absence, the monthly Carnival of Children’s Literature is back. Anastasia Suen has taken over organizing the carnivals from founder Melissa Wiley. The Carnival is a monthly celebration of children’s literature. A different person hosts each month. Participants submit either their best post from the current month, or (in some cases) posts according to a particular theme. For January, Jenny Schwartzberg will be hosting the carnival. The theme is Winter Wonderland (fitting, since the carnival will be held at Jenny’s Wonderland of Books). Submissions are due by midnight January 29th, at the Carnival submission page. I’ll let you know when the Carnival is available for viewing.

I mentioned briefly in my last roundup that a new tempest had blown up around the Kidlitosphere. I wasn’t even sure how to write about it, because I was running across posts everywhere. Fortunately, MotherReader is on the job. She has a summary of the most important links regarding the issue with the cover of Magic Under Glass by Jaclyn Dolamore, another Bloomsbury title featuring a protagonist of color, and a whitewashed cover.

In related news, and I’m blatantly lifting this blurb from Betsy Bird’s latest FuseNews, “Little, Brown & Co? You got some ‘splaining to do. Both 100 Scope Notes and bookshelves of doom bring up a bit of whitewashing that I was assured at the time was a one time printing mischief on the first cover … unaware that it happened again on the second. And the third. You know what I’m talking about, Mysterious Benedict Society.”

YALSA has come up with their Quick Picks for Reluctant Young Adult Readers and Best Books for Young Adult lists. These lists are amazing resources (the links go to more detailed posts at Kids Lit). Speaking of recommendations for young adult literature, at YAnnabe, Kelly is collecting recommendations from different blogs for unsung young adult novels. She has links to 47 lists from across the blogosphere so far. She invites people to post their own lists through Sunday. And at Interactive Reader, Postergirl Jackie Parker shares her 2009 Top 10 (or so) for Readergirlz.

Also via Kids Lit, the 2010 Edgar Nominees were awarded this week by the Mystery Writers of America (for kids, young adults, and adults). There were quite a few strong nominations for children and young adults this year - I agree with Betsy Bird’s assessment that 2009 was an excellent year for mysteries.

At The Reading Tub, Terry Doherty has a heart-felt plea for authors and publishers to make sure that early readers are actually welcoming to new readers. She illustrates visually how hard it is to read text that’s too small, and doesn’t have illustrations, and suggests that “Although the content of easy readers spans myriad subjects and might even have chapters, there are definite differences between an easy reader and a book for independent readers, even newly minted ones. The two easiest criteria to remember are big margins and illustrations.”

At the Cybils website, a lovely printable flyer about the contest, complete with the 2009 finalists, is now available. Also, thanks to Danielle Dreger-Babbitt for writing a lovely introduction to the Cybils for the Seattle Book Examiner.

Quick hits:

• I was sad to hear about the sudden death of author Robert Parker this week. Though better known for his adult mysteries (most notably the extensive and entertaining Spenser series), Parker did publish a few books for kids, too. Omnivoracious has the details.
• Kim has a nice post about life balance, using a grocery shopping analogy, at Escape Adulthood.
• Poetry Friday is at Liz in Ink today, a delightful meal-by-meal collection of blog visits. This week’s Nonfiction Monday roundup was at Wendie’s Wanderings.
• Marge Loch-Wouters has a mini-rant at Tiny Tips for Library Fun that resonated with me. She laments the “pervasive “You’re-Not-the-Boss-of-Me” attitude” that she sees in library patrons, by which people are completely unwilling to accept any limitations on their behavior. I think, sadly, that this behavior is everywhere these days.
• For more Kidlitosphere news, check out Abby (the) Librarian’s latest Around the Interwebs: Shiny awards edition.

Wishing you all a relaxing and book-filled weekend!

© 2010 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson’s Book Page. All rights reserved.
You can also find me on Twitter and at Booklights from PBS Parents.
All Amazon links in this post are affiliate links, and may result in my receiving a small commission (with no additional cost to you).

There is a lot going on around the Kidlitosphere this week. Here are a few highlights:

MotherReader reports that this is National Delurking Week (the graphic is one that she downloaded from Paper Napkin in 2007). The idea is to encourage people to take a few extra minutes to leave a comment on blogs that they visit regularly (instead of just lurking silently in the background). Fits in well with the 2010 Comment Challenge, doesn’t it? (I’m continuing to enjoy the Comment Challenge, by the way. I find that once I start leaving comments as I go through my reader, it’s impossible to stop at just five. And I love receiving comments on my reviews. Kind of motivates me to publish some more.)

In the End-o-the-Week Kid-Lit Roundup, Paul from Omnivoracious links to an interesting Economist article about the global economic impact of the Harry Potter series. Most of the article is about the market side of things. But I liked this part: “even at their clumsiest the books are well-plotted and full of invention. They also avoid the temptation to sneak ideology into children’s heads by wrapping it in fantasy. C.S. Lewis’s children’s books, to which Ms Rowling’s are often compared, are spoiled by creeping piety. Philip Pullman’s suffer from strident anticlericalism. Although the Harry Potter series endorses traits such as bravery and loyalty, it is intended above all to entertain. It has, hundreds of millions of times.”

Terry Doherty is looking for suggestions and ideas for the upcoming 2010 Share a Story - Shape a Future literacy blog tour (March 8-13). I’m hosting Friday, Reading for the Next Generation. Terry explains: “Jen has invited guests to answer some of the things parents wrestle with, like being the opposite reading personality of their child, or feeling pressured to create a reading superstar, among others.” I this description inspires you to want to write something, please do drop me a line. [Logo by Susan Stephenson, The Book Chook.]

James Kennedy emailed me about a gallery show that he’s organizing in Chicago for fan art for his novel The Order of Odd-Fish. You can find the call for submissions here. He says: “It’ll be not only an art show, but also a costumed dance party and theatrical hoo-hah. I’m working with the Chicago theater group Collaboraction to decorate their cavernous space to portray scenes from the book (the fantastical tropical metropolis of Eldritch City, the digestive system of the All-Devouring Mother goddess, the Dome of Doom where knights fight duels on flying armored ostriches, etc.).” Doesn’t sound like quite my sort of thing, but it definitely seemed like something that readers would be interested in.

Another email request came to me this week from Nick Glass of TeachingBooks.net. Nick wanted me to mention “the Coretta Scott King Book Award Online Curriculum Resource Center—a free, multimedia, online database for educators and families featuring more than 250 original recordings with award-winning authors and illustrators and hundreds of lesson plans.” He says “It is a great reading resource as teachers, librarians, and families plan for Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and Black History Month. The resource center includes more than nine hours of originally produced audio with Coretta Scott King Book Award (CSK) authors and illustrators talking about their books in two- to three-minute clips.” And speaking of Black History Month, at Wild Rose Reader Elaine Magliaro shares her list of resources for Black History Month.

At the Reading Tub, Terry just announced the January I Can Read Carnival. She explains: “The first carnival (or MEME if you prefer) for celebrating Easy Readers and Short Chapter books is here at the Reading Tub. I am really excited about the chance to regularly collect books that will engage and excite new and developing readers. I Can Read! is a three-day, mid-month carnival whose host rotates each month. To see the list of hosts, check out the list on the right sidebar… If you have a post that reviews an easy reader or short chapter book or offers ideas for helping new readers, we’d love for you to participate in the carnival. Your post can be up to one year old, so posts back to January 2009 can be included in this inaugural event.” 

Congratulations to Mitali Perkins and Melissa Wiley, each asked to write the foreword of a reissue of a favorite childhood book (both books part of the Betsy-Tacy series). Melissa says: “Can you hear me smile? I am so honored. I’m pretty much over the moon!” I especially identified with Mitali’s response: “Anyone have a time machine? I want to find nine-year-old Mitali scouring the NYPL shelves for anything Maud Hart Lovelace and tell her the news.” That’s how I’ve felt (on a smaller scale) with merely emailing with favorite authors from my childhood. My heartfelt congratulations to nine-year-old Melissa and Mitali, and their successors.

At Galleysmith, Michelle has the scoop about an upcoming conference for book bloggers. This is not to be confused with KidLitCon (now in planning for the 4th annual conference), but is a broader conference for all sorts of book bloggers. Michelle says: “the first annual Book Blogger Convention is open for business! Being held on Friday, May 28th, 2010 participants are welcome to join us in New York City for a great day of food, fun and education.”

At Presenting Lenore, Lenore recently announced: “I would like to continue supporting international book bloggers and have decided to start the International Book Blogger Mentor Program. Any book blogger who blogs in English about books and lives outside the US and Canada can apply. Each month I will pick one blogger to send 2-3 of my most recent review copies to. Upon request, I will also look over the reviews you write for the books and suggest improvements. Once you post your first review, I will feature you and your blog on Presenting Lenore.” Nice display of community spirit, I think.

And in another display of community spirit, Sherry Early shares 12 Tips for New Bloggers at Semicolon. Seems to me that Sherry’s tips will be useful to all bloggers, not just new ones. For example: “Title your book reviews with the title of the book and the author. This tip may seem self-evident, but it’s tempting to try to come up with catchy titles for books reviews. However, when someone searches for a review of X book on Google, they won’t be as likely to hit your blog if you called your review “A Look at the Newest Great American Novel” instead of X book by Z author.” It’s all good stuff!

At Chasing Ray, Colleen Mondor questions a Heavy Medal blog discussion by Jonathan Hunt about Rebecca Stead’s When You Reach Me, a discussion criticizing Stead’s decision to include a non-white character without identifying the specifics of the character’s racial background. Colleen says: “What bothers me about this is the double standard at play here. A Caucasian character can be described as white with no one blinking an eye but Julia must be more than her skin color because it is not specific enough.”

Quick hits:

• The 2010 Sydney Taylor Book Awards were announced this week. Tasha Saecker has the scoop at Kids Lit. Also, via email from Heidi Estrin, “a blog tour featuring winning authors and illustrators will take place February 1-5, 2010. The schedule will be posted on the Association of Jewish Libraries’ blog People of the Books at jewishlibraries.org/blog.”
• Justine Larbalestier has an excellent post on how to conduct an author interview (and how not to).
• Betsy Bird has an extra chock-full edition of FuseNews at A Fuse #8 Production today. Betsy also has an informal poll going about whether or not we children’s and young adult book reviewers are sexist in our selections. I counted up my reviews from last year, and must admit to having reviewed many more titles by women than men (though this was never a conscious plan).
• In a timely post, Mitali Perkins shares a list of children’s and young adult books set in Haiti. Tricia also adds to the list at The Miss Rumphius Effect.
• Also at The Miss Rumphius Effect, Tricia suggests some fun reads in honor of National Puzzle Month.
• Becky from Becky’s Book Reviews has direct links to all of the posts in Shannon Hale’s fabulous How To Be A Reader series.
• Melissa at One Librarian’s Book Reviews has a thoughtful little piece on the books that stay with us. She says: “I wonder about those memorable books of my formative years. Were they so powerful because of the age I was when I picked them up? Or do they have a timeless nature that can affect people at any age?”
• Sara Lewis Holmes muses on what makes a good magazine at Read Write Believe.
• And last, but not least, Episode 8 of The Exquisite Corpse Adventure is now available, with a contribution by Tuck Everlasting author Natalie Babbitt.

Hope that gives you some food for thought. Happy reading!

© 2010 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson’s Book Page. All rights reserved.
You can also find me on Twitter and at Booklights from PBS Parents.
All Amazon links in this post are affiliate links, and may result in my receiving a small commission (with no additional cost to you).