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).

I’ll tell you - leave the computer behind for a few days, and hundreds of posts pile up in the reader. But I found digging out to be a good excuse to also spend some time weeding out inactive feeds. Anyway, here are a few highlights from the Kidlitosphere of late:

Terry Doherty just published this month’s roundup of new resources for literacy and reading at The Reading Tub. This monthly series is an offshoot of the weekly Children’s Literacy Roundups that Terry and I do together, one that Terry has largely taken responsibility for. This month, she focuses on several resources related to literacy and reading, including a new service for recording books for your kids.

MotherReader has provided a FAQ for the upcoming 2010 Comment Challenge (co-hosted with Lee Wind, and which I previously described here). You can sign up tomorrow (Friday) with either MotherReader or Lee Wind.

This weekend is also Bloggiesta, hosted by Natasha from Maw Books. As MotherReader put it, “It’s a chance to spend some time improving your blog, catching up on your reviews, and taming your Google Reader.” I don’t know that I’ll be formally participating in this one, since I’ve been catching up on my blog quite a bit this week already (and because I really MUST do some reading this weekend). But I’ll be there in spirit.

The deadline is approaching to submit titles for the ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year Awards. You can find more information at the ForeWord website. “ForeWord Magazine’s Book of the Year Awards were established to bring increased attention to librarians and booksellers of the literary and graphic achievements of independent publishers and their authors.”

It’s also time to submit titles for Betsy Bird’s Top 100 Children’s Fiction Chapter Books poll at A Fuse #8 Production. This is a follow-on to the previous Top 100 Picture Books list that Betsy compiled. Readers have until January 31st, 2010 to submit their top 10 middle grade fiction titles of all time (NOT just 2009 titles). No early readers, no young adult books. This poll is focused squarely on middle grade fiction. You can find more details here. There’s also a young adult poll brewing at Diane Chen’s School Library Journal blog, Practically Paradise. Diane says “These are the titles that appeal to teens including young adult novels, nonfiction, and picture books for teens (ages 13-19)”.

John Green has an interesting article in School Library Journal about the future of reading. It’s quite long, but well worth the time to read. For instance, in regards to the future of book distribution, he says: “Just this: if, in the future, most books are sold either online or in big box stores like Costco and Wal-Mart, you (librarians) will become even more important to American literature. How you choose to build your collection, whom you buy from, and how you discover the works you want to share with your patrons will shape what Americans—whether or not they ever visit libraries—will read and how they will read it.” And “There’s no question … that librarians are to thank for the astonishing growth of YA fiction over the last decade.“ Oh, just read the whole thing. I found this link at The Miss Rumphius Effect.

As previously mentioned, the Cybils shortlists are now available, and the Cybils judges (myself included) are reading away. For those in need of more reading suggestions, however, Cybils Deputy Editor Sarah Stevenson has a compilation of recommended reading lists from Cybils panelists. She notes that they are “not predictions, DEFINITELY not hints, and probably not prophecies, but certainly a great source of reading material if your TBR pile is getting low.” Now, this is not a problem I ever expect to have again in my life. But still, they’re nice lists. Elaine Magliaro also has a roundup of some more “official” best-of lists at Wild Rose Reader. And Sherry Early has a roundup of reader-submitted year-end booklists at Semicolon, 138 and counting. And last, but definitely not least, Betsy Bird has a scaled back version of her must-read Golden Fuse Awards (including such helpful categories as Best Swag of the Year).

Speaking of the Cybils, in response to the previously mentioned discussions about lack of diversity in the Cybils shortlists (more a symptom of a larger issue than any criticism of the panelists themselves), Colleen Mondor calls upon readers to demand diversity in publishing. She says: “We have to make this a big deal. No more holding a diversity challenge and thinking that is enough. No more having an event where we look at books by POC or with diverse protagonists. No more making diversity something we look at on special days or for special reasons.” See also Doret’s take at TheHappyNappyBookseller. What do you all think?

On a lighter note, Laini Taylor today described a Reader’s Retreat in New Hampshire, organized by Elizabeth MacCrellish, that sounds (and looks - she has photos) wonderful. Here’s the gist: “Reading reading reading, a juicy stack of wonderful books, and taking breaks for yummy meals prepared for you, in the company of other lovely kindred spirits who have also been living inside books all day?” This event, a Squam Arts Workshops (SAW) session scheduled for September 1-5, sounds amazing to me. Perhaps someday…

Quick hits:

• The Readergirlz spotlight title of the month is The Disreputable History of Frankie Landau-Banks by E. Lockhart. Little Willow has all the details.
• Last week’s Poetry Friday roundup was at A Year of Reading. Tomorrow’s is scheduled for The Miss Rumphius Effect. This week’s Nonfiction Monday roundup was at Picture Book of the Day. Next week’s will be at All About Children’s Books.
• If you’re looking for weighty topics to post about, check out Liz B’s “terribly important to post about list” at Tea Cozy. I look forward to reading her eventual posts on all of these topics.
• Jules has a simply mind-boggling 2009 retrospective post at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast.
• At Everyday Reading, Janssen shares her techniques for fitting reading time into her regular life. There are some additional suggestions from readers in the comments, too. I agree with Janssen and commenters that audiobooks are a great way to eke out some extra reading time. I listen while I’m cooking, folding laundry, and when I’m driving anywhere.
• And if that’s not enough linkage for you, Betsy Bird has a huge new edition of Fusenews at A Fuse #8 Production. Really, it’s well worth a look.

© 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).

Things have quieted down on the blogs this week as Christmas approaches. But me, I’ve finished my shopping and my wrapping. Work has quieted down. And I find myself with a bit of time to catch up on the blog posts from the past few days. Here are some things that caught my eye. Consider this an early Christmas present for those of you still online…

One of my favorite posts of the season is the Shrinking Violet Promotions Holiday Survival Guide for Introverts. Here’s a snippet: “A plea on behalf of all the introverted children out there in the world—for introverted children, having to get up in Santa’s lap and TALK to this perfect stranger, usually IN FRONT OF other perfect strangers can be the 6 year old equivalent of public speaking.” Robin and Mary understand, from deep down, what it means to be an introvert. [Image credit: Microsoft ClipArt Gallery]

Margo Rabb has an interesting essay in the New York Times about people who steal books from bookstores. Who would have thought that a certain demographic would consider stealing books cool? And you’ll never believe which book is the most frequently stolen. See also Liz B’s commentary on the piece at Tea Cozy. Liz talks about how stealing from the library is even worse than stealing from bookstores, because this keeps other people from being able to access books.  

At Book Moot, Camille talks about the advantages of board books, complete with some recommended new titles. She also discusses how essential she considers a bookshelf in every nursery (I certainly agree with that!). On a related theme, Lori Calabrese lists several of her favorite Christmas-themed board books. And, though not board book-focused, see also Esme Raji Codell’s Christmas Book Picks.

Colleen Mondor has a lovely post about remembering where we came from at the holidays. Here’s a snippet: “when I look at this picture (from 1972) all I know is that in every way that mattered, it was. I have always been, and still remain, the lucky daughter of wonderful parents and the little sister of the best brother in the world.” Sniff!

For those feeling a bit grouchier around the holidays, MotherReader has her annual Festivus post, for the airing of grievances. You can click through to see mine. Speaking of MotherReader, she’s selling Snowpocalypse shirts in her Cafe Press store, in honor of the recent East Coast storm.

Various people and institutions have been coming up with their “best of” lists for 2009. Sarah Stevenson is going to round some of those up on the Cybils blog soon. But there are a couple that I couldn’t resist sharing here.

• At 100 Scope Notes, Travis offers a toast to 2009 Children’s Lit: The Year in Miscellanea. He has topics like “most uncontroversial children’s lit controversy” and “YA cover trend that was too popular to mention.” Fun stuff!
• At A Fuse #8 Production, Betsy Bird shares her Best of the Decade: A Look Back at Children’s Literature from 2000-2009. She discusses the rise of the children’s book “phenomenon”, the rise of YA fiction, and the rise of blogging and online media, among other relevant topics. This is a don’t miss it post. See also Monica Edinger’s response to Betsy’s post at Educating Alice. Monica responds to most of Betsy’s main points, and adds a few observations of her own about self-publishing, and the evolution of quality nonfiction.

You can also share your “best of” lists in a special January 2nd edition of Semicolon’s Saturday Review of Books. In this post, Sherry explains how the Review of Books works in general, and invites people to participate in the regular and special editions.

Lois Lowry has been sharing some recent insulting reader feedback on The Giver (here and here). She notes that the vast majority of the emails that she receives aren’t like these, but I think it’s brave of her to shine a light on these negative ones. I think that these messages say something about the decline of politeness in our culture.

Quick hits:

• Friday’s Poetry Friday round-up was at Susan Taylor Brown’s blog. Nonfiction Monday was at the Simply Science blog.
• Literacy Toolbox has an essay by Links to Literacy about how to choose nonfiction picture books.
• At Jenny’s Wonderland of Books, Jenny Schwartzberg has an article about using the Internet to help with collecting children’s books.  
• At The Spectacle, KA Holt muses on speculative fiction that creates such wonderful worlds that she feels pained that they don’t really exist (like the world of the Harry Potter books).
• At The Reading Tub, Terry Doherty offers tips for helping kids write letters to Santa, and including literacy in the process.  
• In honor of a recent watching of the movie The Day After Tomorrow, Abby (the) Librarian asks: “If you were trapped in the New York Public Library and had to burn books to stay alive, what sections would you start with?”
• Justine Larbalestier offers her suggestions for blog commenting etiquette.
• Kim and Jason suggest 61 Ways to Put the Brakes on Holiday Stress at the Escape Adulthood blog.

And that’s all I have for you today. I’m off to watch It’s a Wonderful Life in front of the fire with Mheir. Wishing all of you who celebrate it a Merry Christmas!!

© 2009 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’d like to share a couple of tidbits with you all this morning:

First up, I have a new post at Booklights today. It’s the fifth entry in my Tips for Growing Bookworms series. This week’s tip is about taking children to libraries and bookstores. Timely for the holiday season, but a good practice year-round. I hope that you’ll check it out.

Next, many congratulations to Betsy Bird from A Fuse #8 Production, Jules Danielson from Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast and Peter D. Sieruta from Collecting Children’s Books on their new book contract. You can find their write-ups here, here, and here. This must-read title, due out from Candlewick in September of 2012, is tentatively titled Wild Things! : The True, Untold Stories Behind the Most Beloved Children’s Books and Their Creators. Very cool!

Third, Meghan Newton from Goodman Media shared a link with me today that I had somehow missed. It’s an article by Jon Scieszka from the Huffington Post, musing on the close of his tenure as National Ambassador of Children’s Literature. It’s classic Scieszka - breezy and fun, but full of concrete tips for helping reluctant readers. This is must-read stuff.

And:

• SeriesPalooza kicks off at GalleySmith today.
• Today’s Nonfiction Monday is at In Need of Chocolate (one of my favorite blog names).
• Colleen Mondor muses on who will step up to the plate in light of Kirkus Reviews closing.
• Mary Hershey has an excellent Introvert’s Holiday Wish List at Shrinking Violet Promotions.
• Darla D shares a well-thought-out review policy at Books & Other Thoughts.
• Lee Wind highlights a new blog dedicated to picture books for children about having a gay parent, family member, or friend.
• Kate Coombs shares her top middle grade fiction picks from the past 100 years. Many of my favorites are there.

Wishing you all a wonderful week!

© 2009 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).

Given the bustle of the holiday season, I’ve had trouble keeping up with Kidlitosphere news lately. But here are some highlights from the past couple of weeks (at least those that I think are still timely).

Michelle is running a Cybils Award Challenge at Galleysmith. She says: “The Cybils Award Challenge is where participants are encouraged to read from The Cybils Award nominees for the given year.” The challenge runs through the end of 2010, so you have plenty of time to participate.

Speaking of the Cybils, several Cybils bloggers were nominated for this year’s EduBlog awards. You can find the list at the Cybils blog. And, of course, it’s not too late to use the Cybils nomination lists (and past short lists) to help with your holiday shopping!

Speaking of holidays, in honor of Hanukkah, I’d like to bring to your attention a podcast at The Book of Life, in which Heidi Estrin, Esme Raji Codell, Mark Blevis, and Richard Michelson discuss a variety of topics, including their predicted winners for the 2010 Sydney Taylor Book Award. For my Jewish readers, I wish you all a Happy Hanukkah!

Book lists abound this time of year. I mentioned several in Monday’s post at Booklights, but have a few new ones to share here. Lee Wind offers a list of GLBTQ books for middle schoolers. Another list I like a lot is Kate Messner’s list of her favorite 2009 titles, broken into creative categories (starting with my favorite, dystopias). Colleen Mondor has an excellent three-part piece with book recommendations for girls from several authors (the regular participants in Colleen’s What a Girl Wants series). And, Library Lady from Read it Again, Mom! shares her lists of Best Picture Books of the Decade and Best Chapter Books of the Decade. Finally, for a fun list of movies, Susan Taylor Brown shares over 200 movies about the literary life.

This is very late news, but the Readergirlz author of the month is Tamora Pierce. Little Willow has all the details at Bildungsroman.

Liz B. at Tea Cozy was inspired by the recent School Library Journal cover controversy to start a list of “books where an alcoholic (including recovering alcoholic) is portrayed as something other than the evil, abusive person”. (Have I shared that? People were offended because the librarians mentioned in Betsy Bird’s SLJ article on blogging were shown on the cover having drinks in a bar.). Also from Liz, see the William C. Morris YA Debut Award shortlist.

Speaking of recent controversies, Steph Su has a thoughtful post on the recent situation by which certain young adult titles were removed from a Kentucky classroom in Montgomery County (see details here). What I especially like about Steph’s post is that she links to comments from a blogger who she doesn’t agree with, so that she can understand both sides of the debate. My personal take is that the county superintendent is using a specious argument about academic rigor to remove books that he finds personally offensive from the classroom. See also commentary on this incident from Laurie Halse Anderson, Colleen Mondor, and Liz Burns.

Quick hits:

• Excitement is building for the January 5th announcement of the next National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature. Reading Rockets has the scoop. Whoever is chosen will have some big shoes to fill, coming after Jon Scieszka.
• Janssen has a truly beautiful post at Everyday Reading about her family’s last Christmas with her younger brother, Shepard. It’s a tear-jerker, but also a nice reminder about what’s really important.
• This week’s Poetry Friday round-up is at Random Noodling by Diane May. See also an explanation of Poetry Friday from Susan T. at Booklights, and the results of this week’s Poetry Stretch at The Miss Rumphius Effect (an assortment of poems that mention time).
• This week’s Nonfiction Monday round-up is at Rasco from RIF.
• This week’s Middle Grade Fantasy and Science Fiction review round-up is at Charlotte’s Library.
• Becky Levine said some nice things about my blog last week, and I just wanted to thank her publicly. She also recommends several other blogs of particular interest to writers. Those are well worth a look. Also worth a look are the 31 Blogs You Might Not Know that Susan Taylor Brown is highlighting each day this month.
• For more links (including author Grace Lin’s appearance on the Today Show) visit today’s Around the Interwebs post from Abby (the) Librarian. See also Travis’ most recent Morning Notes post at 100 Scope Notes and Omnivoracious’ latest YA Wednesday post from Heidi. 
• And, of course, you can always find lots of news in Betsy Bird’s Fuse News posts at A Fuse #8 Production (here and here, for example). Betsy also broke the news this week that Kirkus Reviews (a journal heavily used by librarians for collection development) will be closing.

And that’s all I have for you today. I hope that you find some tidbits worth reading, and that I can do better at keeping up with the Kidlitosphere news in the future. Happy weekend, all!

© 2009 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 hope that you all had a lovely Thanksgiving. The Kidlitosphere has been relatively quiet of late, but I do have a few links to share with you all this weekend.

Abby (the) Librarian has launched her annual Twelve Days of Giving series, where she “post(s) for twelve days and recommend books for your holiday giving!”. She started on Friday with suggestions for buying books and making the world a better place, and added suggestions for a two-year old today.

See also a fun post from Terry Doherty at Booklights with “ideas for ways to give the gift of reading that don’t require batteries, computers, flashcards, or workbooks.” I especially liked the section on ways to “promote your little detective”. Also at Booklights, Pam Coughlan discusses ways to give a book (a continuing theme that’s she’s presented at MotherReader over the past few years). In the Booklights post, she shares some common themes, such as “giving the book along with a handmade gift certificate for a movie date for a rental or a theater release.” 

Liz Burns shares a post about giving books for the holidays at Tea Cozy. The post is a republication of something she wrote for Foreword Magazine a couple of years ago, but it remains timely today. Rather than a list of book suggestions, Liz includes tips for both giving and receiving books (like “Be Obvious About What You Want”). This is a post that many of us will want to quietly share with our friends and relatives.

Speaking of giving books, Anne Levy has gritted her teeth and written her annual Cybils fundraising post. She shares ways that you can, in conjunction with your holiday shopping, send a bit of financial cheer in the direction of the Cybils organization. I also talked about this idea a bit in my post about choosing Cybils books for holiday gifts.

Leila from Bookshelves of Doom is accepting orders for TBR Tallboy #2, a short story magazine featuring stories by a variety of talented writers (including Tanita Davis and Sarah Stevenson from Finding Wonderland). I’m kind of curious about the story on “a pizza delivery guy who has an experience straight out of a pulp-horror magazine”.

Speaking of talented writers, Colleen Mondor has an introspective piece at Chasing Ray about how she does (and does not) talk about being a writer when she’s at holiday parties. Here’s a snippet: “They just shake their heads when you say you are a writer and they laugh a little bit inside. And they look down on you as foolish or flighty or deluded. That doesn’t happen though when you say you own airplanes; in fact when you say that they don’t have any damn thing to say back at all.”

At Maw Books, Natasha has an interesting guest post from author Bonny Becker. Bonny says: “Bad things happen. As a child, I found it scary, intriguing—and encouraging—when bad things happened in books… Now, as a grown-up writer of picture books, I wonder if we’ve gone too far in stripping “bad things” from our mainstream picture books?” She gives some great examples.

At Confessions of a Bibliovore, Maureen muses on series books, and the way that some series (“especially the ones that get up to about four or five books with no end in sight”) lose their pull after a few books, while others don’t. She asks: “At what point does a series lose the pull, that Oooh, What’s S/He Going to Do Now and become More of the Same? What has an author done that has pulled it out for you?”. I shared what I think in the comments at Maureen’s.

Quick hits:

• This week’s Poetry Friday round-up is at Becky’s Book Reviews.
• For more Kidlitosphere links, check out Travis’ Morning Notes post at 100 Scope Notes, Betsy Bird’s latest Fuse News at A Fuse #8 Production, and Cynthia Leitich Smith’s latest Cynsational News & Giveaways.

That’s all for today. I’ll be back Monday with this week’s Children’s Literacy and Reading News Round-Up (prepared with Terry Doherty) and a new post at Booklights. Hope you’re all enjoying a restful weekend!

© 2009 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).