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There are two important deadlines in the Kidlitosphere today. First of all, nominations for the 2013 Cybils close tonight, October 15th, at midnight PST. This is your last chance to give props to the well-written children's and young adult titles that you think will most appeal to kids. Don't know what to nominate? Bloggers from all around the Kidlitosphere have been publishing lists of titles that they would like to see nominated. Start here and here for links. Many thanks to everyone who has nominated, suggested titles, and/or generally spread the word about the Cybils this year!
Second of all, today is the deadline to obtain our group discount for the KidLitCon hotel (the Sheraton in downtown Austin). You can still register for the conference until October 24th, but you may find it harder to find a hotel nearby. MotherReader (who negotiated our hotel discount) adds:
"Yes, other hotels around will be cheaper but this one is about .5 miles from the conference site, and is between the conference and dinner location. It looks lovely and has a lounge where we can hang out! I'm sorry, I mean where we WILL hang out."
I have to tell you that one of my very favorite parts of KidLitCon is sitting around a hotel lobby or lounge late into the evening, with a glass of wine in hand, talking with my peeps about all things books (and life). If you'd like to join us, today is the day to sign up, and lock in the discounted hotel rate. Contact me if you need more details.
We've also finalized some details about the conference, and the Friday pre-conference event. See the beautiful flyer below for details (with thanks to Tanita Davis and Sarah Stevenson).
In case you're having trouble viewing images, here is some of the key information in text form:
Join keynote speaker Cynthia Leitich Smith, readers, bloggers and
friends at the 2013 Kidlit Con at Austin. Kickoff meetup will be held Nov. 8 at the UT-Austin iSchool Campus, Tocker Lounge 1-4 p.m. The main conference will be held November 9, with coffee starting at 9:15, and the keynote at 10 a.m. Rekindling Your Love of Blogging. Panels and discussion,
catered luncheon. Round out the day with a buy-your-own group meal at Scholz
Beer Garten in downtown Austin. Conference Fee: $65. Registration deadline: October
24. See Kidlitosphere Central
for more information. Register here.
I posted last week about the registration and call for proposals for the 7th annual Kidlitosphere Conference. Today, I'm happy to share the news that the keynote speaker for the conference will be the fabulous Cynthia Leitich Smith, children's and young adult author and long-time blogger at Cynsations. Cynthia will be speaking on Saturday morning to kick off the main conference, and she's sure to be a hit.
KidLitCon will be held November 9th in Austin, TX, with a precon event in the works for Friday. You can register for KidLitCon here. If you register by October 11th you'll receive a $10 discount off of the already quite reasonable $65 registration fee. We're also accepting sessions proposals for KidLitCon here. The deadline for proposals is this Friday, October 4th, so please get yours in soon.
Here are links to other posts about KidLitCon from:
"Once upon a time, this was an idea - then a potluck - and now for seven years running, a place where many people meet up with Their Tribe. Will you be there?"
The seventh annual KidLitCon on November 9th in Austin, Texas is officially accepting registrations!
While we would love to be ahead of schedule with well, a schedule, we invite you to register now to help your organizers plan for attendence. Registering early will also give you a chance to suggest topics that YOU would like to see at KidLitCon 2013. Register before October 11th for $10 off the registration fee and a chance to win a prize package of books and goodies!
Once you register, you will receive a confirmation email with instructions for sending your check or money order. Hotel information will also be available, hopefully with a discount for our group.
We are still accepting proposals for workshops and panel discussions. Past KidLitCon sessions have included topics such as ethics of reviewing, diversity in children/teen literature, effective marketing, kidlit social media, and online community building. If you are interested in presenting at KidLitCon, please submit a proposal soon.
Look to this website for updates to the schedule, including our Friday evening event.
Lots more info to come. For now, start spreading the word! Be a fan on Facebook! Follow us on Twitter! And best of all register to attend KidLitCon 2013.
And now back to me. Why should you sign up now to attend KidLitCon 2013, when there isn't even a schedule posted yet? Because attending KidLitCon is one of the most rewarding things you can do as a children's and/or young adult book blogger. KidLitCon is not like other big, monetization-focused, swag-focused conferences that you may have heard about. KidLitCon is a small conference (between 50 and 100 attendees), populated by children's book bloggers and authors. KidLitCon is:
A chance to meet face to face people you have interacted with only online, and confirm that yes, you are really friends.
A chance to be surrounded by people who share your passion for children's literacy and literature.
A chance to learn more about blogging if you are new, and to recharge your energies if you've been doing this for a long time.
A chance to talk about things like the ethics of blogging, the relationship between authors and blog reviewers, blogging new releases vs. backlist titles, and much more. (If you register now, you can give your input into which specific topics should be discussed this year).
I wasn't able to attend last year's KidLitCon due to illness, though I had attended the prior five. I missed it terribly. KidLitCon is where I connect, face-to-face, with my peeps. It's a place where everyone around me knows what the Cybils are, and when the next Divergent book comes out, and who the National Ambassador for Children's Literature is. KidLitCon is home.
The registration fee is $65, plus $20 for the Friday precon. This is a very reasonable conference fee indeed. If you can at all swing travel to Austin in early November, and you love blogging about children's books and encouraging kids to be readers, you should come. You won't be disappointed. Submit a proposal if you like, but no pressure on that front. The important thing is to come. Register now! The dealine to register is October 24th.
Regular readers of this blog may have noticed that my once-steady stream of book reviews has dried up of late. In fact, it dried up much earlier than was visible on the blog, because I was fortunate enough to have a backlog of 20 or so reviews. This enabled me to keep posting reviews for more than a month after ceasing to write them. But eventually, the reviews ran out, and my blog posting has been rather sparse ever since.
Most people who have been blogging for a long time (I'm coming up on 8 years in December) go through periods of blog doldrums. Blogging is something that we spend a lot of time and energy on, for which most of us don't make any appreciable amount of money. And there's the pressure implied by the steady stream of books that appear on one's doorstep, or in one's GoodReads and NetGalley queues. It sometimes requires periods of rest, or refocusing one's efforts, to recapture the energy to keep going.
For me, my period of blog doldrums started because I was ill, and I for quite a while didn't have the energy to even think about blogging. I've been having recurring pneumonias for nearly 2 years now. This summer things got worse, and I ended up hospitalized a couple of times. But the good outcome of that was that we finally learned that I had an obscure bacterial infection that was causing the pneumonias. A month or so of very strong antibiotics (via home IV line) seem to have beaten back the infection (though they had their own less than fun side effects). And finally, I'm doing better. I still tire easily. I'm still trying not to do too much, or travel. But I'm ready to think about what I want to do with my blog going forward.
During the time that I've been sick, I've been reading primarily adult titles, catching up on the genre that I've always most enjoyed, mysteries. This started out because I didn't want to feel guilty about reading children's or young adult books and not having the energy to review them. But as my energy levels have come back up a bit, I've found that I still don't really feel like reading things that I think that I should review. That is to say, reviewing has started to feel like a bit of a chore. Homework. Unpaid work. However you'd like to put it. It's not that I don't appreciate the books that publishers send to me, because I do. I have books that I've been really looking forward to reading. But ... the piles feel overwhelming.
As I was coming to this realization about my reluctance to dive back into reviewing, I came across a two-post discussion launched by Sarah Stevenson at Finding Wonderland. And it turned out that Sarah and I were in the same boat. Sarah started with Rekindling My Love for Blogging, Or Is the Thrill Gone?, saying:
"Sometime over the past year or two, the whole blog thing became a chore. Posting, commenting, writing book reviews, "maintaining an online presence"--it wasn't so much fun anymore."
Sarah was mostly just telling people, explaining that she didn't expect to be blogging quite so much. But she got a lot of good suggestions in the comments, and she later posted More Monday Thoughts on Blogging and Kidlit, in which she captured some of the comments from the earlier post. I was particularly taken by these three points:
"Gail Gauthier said that starting some new features has really helped her regain momentum for blogging."
"Melissa Wiley talked about going back to the original roots of why she started blogging in the first place--something that really resonated."
"Adrienne's feelings about the situation really paralleled my own, too: "It got so I couldn't do book reviews anymore, for a lot of the reasons you all have mentioned--feeling overwhelmed and feeling obligated."
I took a few days to think about Sarah's post, and particularly Adrienne and Melissa's feedback. Thinking about why I started blogging, and what it is about blogging that excites me. Here's part of what I commented on the second post on Thursday:
"what motivated me at the beginning, as this person with no kids who wasn't a children's book writer or anything, was this passion that I have for encouraging kids to love books. Not sure WHY I feel so strongly about that (besides the obvious wanting other people to share in the joy that I got from books, and the opportunities that came from being a strong reader). But the blog was an effort to "do something" instead of just thinking that it was important.
And I guess these days, I find I'm more motivated to skim other blog posts and newsletters to find the good stuff that helps with that (growing bookworms) than I am to write reviews of individual books. But a bunch of Twitter and Facebook links doesn't really make for an exciting blog..."
So I've been thinking about that, particular the bit about going back to why I started the blog in the first place. And suddenly, yesterday, I found myself coming up with ideas for blog posts. Posts that I wanted to write, rather than posts that I felt like I should write. I wrote about Roald Dahl day, and my two favorite Dahl books. I drafted a post about the five series that I'm most looking forward to reading with my daughter, and started sketching out thoughts for a post on bedtime reading vs. other types of reading. And I can feel other ideas percolating behind the scenes.
In terms of the books, I'm thinking of doing some mini-reviews or themed lists of picture books, rather than putting pressure on myself to review all 30+ titles that are in "worth talking about" stack. And I think ... that I'm going to just start reading children's and young adult books again, and trust that my desire to talk about them will come.
My thanks to Sarah, Gail, Melissa, and Adrienne, all of whom have helped me, I think, to get my blogging groove back. Only time will tell! Thanks for listening.
First of all, the main character's favorite thing to do in his free time is...WRITE! Gregory K. and his friend Kelly get together after school to write, they trade notebooks and read each other's work, then write some more.
The second great thing about this book is Gregory's math teacher, Mr. Davis, a teacher worthy of a spot on our 100 Cool Teachers in Children's Literature list! When Gregory is in danger of failing math, Mr. Davis doesn't make him do more math, he plays to Gregory's strength and has him keep a math journal. Brilliant!
The third great thing is that there's lots of PIE in this book...along with the pi.
Here's the deal with Gregory and math -- he's the only person in his family who doesn't eat, sleep, breathe and live for math. And here's the deal with author Greg Pincus -- he tangles his character up in so many problems, the reader just about can't believe things will ever work out for him.
This is a fabulous debut novel!! More, Mr. Pincus, MORE!!
4 Comments on The 14 Fibs of Gregory K., last added: 9/5/2013
I've been thinking a lot lately about ways to make it easier for parents to learn about high quality children's books. There are lots of wonderful individual blogs that I follow, but I realized that I do know of several good sources at which people can find out about multiple books at one time. Here are a few highlights:
The Children's Book Review Wiki. This is a site at which a number of children's book bloggers (including myself) archive their reviews. You need a login ID to add links to the archive, but anyone can browse the links. You can browse books by category, or search for particular books. Clicking through the review links takes you to the original contributor's blog. The nice thing about this site is that visitors have access to thousands of reviews. The downside, then, is that it can be a bit overwhelming in terms of volume. And it's not a push system at all, but rather a reference to be searched.
The Cybils blog, specifically the Cybils shortlists. The Children's and Young Adult Bloggers' Literary Awards are given in ten categories, ranging from in age from picture books through young adult, and in genres poetry through graphic novels. Each year, panels of bloggers come up with 5-7 book shortlists in each category (some of the categories are further separated by age range). These shortlists are a fabulous resource for parents. The Cybils selection criteria requires that the books be both well-written and kid-friendly. Shortlists since 2006 are available on the website. Printable lists can be found in the right-hand sidebar.
Poetry Friday and Nonfiction Monday. The Kidlitosphere has two weekly themed events: Nonfiction Monday and Poetry Friday. Bloggers are encouraged to add links to book reviews or other relevant posts to each theme (e.g. an original poem), and many participate each week. While the hosts change each week, you can find the 2013 schedules via the preceding links (maintained, respectively, by Anastasia Suen and Mary Lee Hahn). This week's Nonfiction Monday roundup is hosted at Sally's Bookshelf. Last week's Poetry Friday was hosted at My Juicy Little Universe.
Monthly Themed Carnivals. Zoe Toft at Playing by the Book hosts a monthly themed carnival, requesting children's book reviews on a particular topic. This month, she is looking for books about Ancient Civilizations, especially Ancient Egypt, Ancient Greece and the Romans.
Charlotte's Middle Grade Science Fiction and Fantasy Roundup. One individually-curated roundup that I wanted to mention is Charlotte's Library's weekly roundup of middle grade science fiction and fantasy. For this post, bloggers don't have to submit entries (though they can add their links in the comments). Instead, Charlotte scours the blogs each week for middle grade fantasy and science fiction reviews, author/illustrator information, and other tidbits of interest to fans of the genre. If you have a child who enjoys this genre, Charlotte's roundups offer a treasure trove of new book ideas each week.
There are lots of other great sources of information about children's books available, of course. But these are a few that offer multiple ideas (sometimes many ideas) in a single location. I hope you find them useful. I'll highlight others in the future.
The end of October Children's Literacy and Reading News Roundup is now available at Quietly, Carol Rasco's blog. The roundups are brought to you twice monthly by Carol Rasco from RIF, Terry Doherty from The Family Bookshelf, and me. This time around, Carol notes a slew of literacy and reading-related events, plus some literacy and reading research news, and a couple of suggestions for growing bookworms. I hope that you'll head over to check out the whole thing, but in the meantime, here are a few highlights:
"A first assignment for each of us on “What can I do to help in the aftermath of Sandy?” is to check outKidLit Cares organized by Kate Messner. And what is Kid Lit Cares? Check the webpage, all the details for this auction are there for you to study."
"First Book to give 100 millionth book in November! Check out their TEN BOOKS EVERY CHILD SHOULD OWN and vote for YOUR favorite. This voting will help First Book choose just what that 100 millionth book will be!" (Jenny Schwartzberg also sent me this one.)
"”Books about Books” was a recent post by Amy at Literacy Launchpad where she gives us all a good “reminder” of the great books available to help us learn more about books for children whether we are studying as a parent and/or a teacher!"
And here are a few additional tidbits from me:
A neat cross-blog event is taking place today, organized by Greg Pincus, Lee Wind, and Colleen Mondor. It's called Why I Vote, and it's a non-partisan event centered around encouraging people to vote (whatever their politics are). Participants are sharing their own personal reasons for voting, ranging from "It's a bit like putting your money where your mouth is" from Greg to "because I'd feel ashamed if I didn't" from Charlotte. As for me, I vote because otherwise I would feel like a hypocrite if it ever came to lamenting outcomes that I didn't like. You can find the roundup of Why I Vote posts at Chasing Ray, or search for #WhyIVote on Twitter. (Logo design by Colleen Mondor and Sarah Stevenson.) And while this might seem not directly related to literacy, well, if you can't read, you can't be an informed voter, can you?
Yesterday (November 1st) marked the start of Picture Book Month. Founder Dianne de Las Casas reported via email that yesterday the website had "nearly 3,000 visitors and 250+ registrations (people pledging to celebrate Picture Book Month). One school in Budapest, Hungary is making a goal to read more than 5,000 picture books this month! WOW! One U.S. school district is featuring a picture book a day in all of their school's staff lounges. Another school is creating a Picture Book Month wall and public libraries across the U.S. are creating Picture Book Month displays." Pretty cool! As for me, I'm using Picture Book Month as an incentive to get through my entire stack of To Be Reviewed picture books. Because of course I'm reading picture books with Baby Bookworm every day, no matter what month it is.
Yesterday the National Center for Family Literacy celebrated Family Literacy Day (and November as Family Literacy Month) by announcing developments in four programs: Toyota Teacher of the Year, Litera-Seeds, Cultivating Readers (Cultivando el hábito de la lectura), and Wonderopolis. Click through for details.
It's also National Year of Reading in Australia. Terry found a piece in the Herald Sun by Jane Howard about Mem Fox's efforts to spread the word about the importance of reading aloud to children. I appreciate this part: ""There are educators in positions of influence today who believe that reading aloud to children is a waste of time," she says. "Such a belief is not only foolish, it's frightening and dangerous."" Indeed! Do check out the whole article.
According to a report in GreenvilleOnline.com, "Greenville County’s United Way is providing a one-time $150,000 grant so that 22,000 low income kids will have books in their homes, a spokesman said. Mike Posey, a United Way vice president, said that grant will sponsor the “Reach Out and Read” program, which focuses on early literacy and school readiness." Via Jenny Schwartzberg.
If you happen to be in Ithaca, the Family Reading Partnership is holding their 15th annual Kids' Book Fest on Saturday, November 10th. This year's theme is "Count on Books". The Family Reading Partnership's ultimate goal as an organization (per their recent newsletter) is "that 100% of babies in our community are read to -- early, often, and with pleasure." One very easy way to support this important goal is to buy their 2013 Read to Me Calendar. We have the 2012 version up, and the 2013 version waiting in the wings. Baby Bookworm and I both love them.
Speaking of Baby Bookworm (age 2 1/2), I had a "Mommy Bookworm" success last night. After dinner, she announced her intention to go upstairs by herself and read in her "little corner" (a reading nook that I put together for her a couple of months back). Admittedly, she only lasted about 3 minutes. But I still count it as a success. I also count it as a success every time she laughs over a picture book, every time she references a book in general conversation, and every time she requests a particular book. All steps along the pathway towards becoming a reader.
We’ll be back soon with a mid-November Roundup. And in the meantime, we’ll be sharing reading-related news on Twitter @CHRasco, @TheReadingTub, and @JensBookPage. Thanks for reading, and for caring about children's literacy.
A stack of middle grade and young adult books from various publishers*
Caffeine and a fresh bar of Trader Joe's Belgian chocolate
Assorted Post-It flags
A notebook (for tracking time)
An MP3 player (I use the Sansa Clip), fully charged**
A Kindle, fully charged and with two unread middle grade books***
Looks like I'm ready to start MotherReader's 48 Hour Book Challenge. I look forward to this all year, and I'm so happy that it's finally here. Many thanks for the opportunity / motivation, Pam!
*I find that for me personally, it's better to read books that are on the shorter side. One of my greatest enemies to success during the #48HBC is falling asleep - variety helps, as does stopping more frequently to write reviews. I also try to read from a range of publishers, to keep things fresh.
**Audiobooks are invaluable in continuing to read during times that would otherwise be lost (making lunch, flossing teeth, etc.). This is something I try to do all the time, but especially during the #48HBC.
***This will be the first year that I may mix in Kindle books. Then again, I may not, since I'll be at home with my big stack of books anyway. The Kindle books are very useful in reading while out and about, but I hope not to be out and about for the next 48 hours. Still, I did add a couple of new titles to my virtual drive.
New this year, MotherReader has asked that participants pledge to donate to RIF's #BookPeopleUnite campaign for each hour of reading. Like Pam, I hope that together we can make a positive impact for RIF, an organization that has been making an impact on children's literacy for longer than I've been alive. RIF (particularly CEO Carol Rasco) has been a huge supporter of the Kidlitosphere for years, and I love that we can use the 48 Hour Book Challenge to give something back.
Happy 48 Hour Book Challenge weekend to all! I am in as of 9:38 am Friday (Pacific Time).
Hi Everyone, As promised, we're hosting Kidlitosphere Interview Wednesday here today! Below are links to recent interviews related to children's/young adult literature. If you have an interview you'd like to share with us, please post a comment containing the url. The interview should meet the criteria listed at the end of this post.
To start out, I'm excited to remind everyone about Esther Hershenhorn's terrific interview with teacher, author, and children's literature expert Leonard Marcus here on our TeachingAuthors blog last Wednesday. Leonard has just released The Annotated Phantom Tollbooth, which includes not only background information about the writing of the novel but also Leonard's own comments on the text. Read Esther's interview here for some fun (and funny!) behind-the-scenes stories, and be sure to enter for a chance to win your own autographed copy of The Annotated Phantom Tollbooth. Entry deadline is this Friday, November 4, at 11 pm (CST).
Here's the round-up so far. I'll check back later to add more links as they're submitted.
TeachingAuthors' follower Lois Barr suggested we take a look at the Whole Megillah blog, which recently featured an interesting three-in-one interview with the author, editor, and illustrator of the picture book Sadie’s Sukkah Breakfast, written by Rabbi Jamie Korngold, edited by Joni Sussman, and illustrated by Julie Fortenberry.
Here's an interview with Eric Kimmel that appears on Wordswimmer this week: http://wordswimmer.blogspot.com/2011/10/one-writers-process-eric-kimmel.html Thanks!
Leone Castell Anderson said, on 11/3/2011 1:12:00 PM
Sheila Kelly Welch's interview on Cynthia Leitich Smith's Cynsations: http://cynthialeitichsmith.blogspot.com/2011/10/guest-post-sheila-kelly-welch-on-how.html
And - her guest post on K5 Learning: http://www.k5learning.com/blog/books-engage-grade-4-and-5-readers
I'll be hosting the Kidlitosphere Interview Wednesday roundup here on our TeachingAuthors blog tomorrow. I'll be sharing links to interviews that meet the following criteria:
1.The interviews must be with someone in the field of children’s/young adult literature, including authors, illustrators, editors, agents, and librarians.
2. Interviews may feature writing tips, illustration tips, cyber tips, etc., as long as the information pertains to children's/young adult literature.
3. Interviews may be written, audio, or video.
If you have or know of an online interview that meets the above criteria and would like to share the link early, please post it in the comments below. I'll include qualifying links in tomorrow's roundup. Meanwhile, don't forget to check out Esther Hershenhorn's recent interview with Leonard Marcus here on our TeachingAuthors blog, and enter for a chance to win an autographed copy of The Annotated Phantom Tollbooth.
Happy writing! Carmela
3 Comments on Interview Wednesday Here Tomorrow!, last added: 11/1/2011
Thanks, Tabitha. That was quick! Your url didn't take me to the interview, but to the giveaway winner post. I assume you meant to give me this link: http://tabwriter.blogspot.com/2011/10/interview-with-greg-fishbone.html
The 2011 Kidlitosphere Conference (being held at the Hotel Monaco in Seattle on September 16-17) is shaping up nicely. The multi-talented author and artist Sarah Stevenson created the beautiful logo to the left. Our hardworking co-chairs Jackie Parker and Colleen Mondor have scored a great hotel, and put together an amazing (tentative) agenda (including a keynote presentation by Scott Westerfeld). Colleen reported on Twitter that as of Friday, 68 people were registered. You can see some of them here - registration coordinator Pam Coughlan has been traveling, but should be updating the list soon.
And I'm delighted to report that I finalized my own travel plans this weekend. I'll be arriving at KidLitCon on Thursday afternoon, September 15th and leaving late Saturday night. Things won't really get started until Friday at noon, but I wanted to squeeze in an extra evening talking about everything and nothing with my KidLit peeps. For me, that's what KidLitCon is all about. But I am scheduled to present twice:
Friday 3 – 3:50 pm
One is Silver and the Other’s Gold: A Discussion on Blogging Backlist vs. New Releases, and Why It Doesn’t Have to Be Versus
Presented by Maureen Kearney, Terry Doherty, Melissa Madsen Fox, Jen Robinson
Four reviewer-bloggers will discuss the different advantages to blogging the backlist and blogging about newer titles, and how having a variety of books strengthens your blog and your voice.
Saturday 3:00 – 3:50 pm
Moving Beyond Google Reader: Taking Your Blog to Where Your Readers Are
Presented by Jen Robinson and Carol Rasco
Because of the large number of blogs in the Kidlitosphere these days, it is difficult, if not impossible, for people to follow them all, even when using a blog reader. Fortunately, a variety of tools and services, new and old, exist to help bloggers take their content to where their audience is. These include Feedblitz, Twitter, Facebook, and the new Google+ service. In this session, we will share tips for using these tools effectively, to get your blog posts into the hands of people who are interested in them, without oversaturating and turning off your audience. We’ll also include some tips for blog readers on how to use these tools to cut through the clutter, and find interesting content.
There are tons of other sessions planned, and all of them look interesting. Here is the full schedule (without session descriptions - click here for those). Note that this schedule is tentative, and likely to change a little bit. But it should give you a nice picture of what the conference will be like.
KidLitCon 2011 Schedule
Friday, September 16
12:00 – 12:50 pm
Registration begins. Regardless of whether you are attending the day’s sessions, you can regist
The April Carnival of Children's Literature is now available at Rasco from RIF. I hope that you'll take a few minutes [or hours ;-) ] to check it out. Carol Rasco has anchored the carnival with a lovely photo of a maypole, and taken the time to include images throughout the carnival. [Image credit: Rasco from RIF]
Not sure how I let this one go by without submitting an entry, but I'm happy to have this opportunity to catch up on other people's posts for the month. I was especially taken by Aaron Mead's comprehensive post on Finding the Best Children's Books: Reviews, Lists, and Blogs.
In light of Carol's efforts on this carnival, and all of her support of the Kidlitosphere in recent years, it's been especially nice to hear about the upcoming KidLit drink nights organized in New York and Nashville in support of RIF. As Jules explains at 7-Imp, "Since a bill was recently signed that eliminated funding for RIF, the nation’s largest organization providing free books and literacy resources for children, this cut means that they need folks’ support now more than ever."
They were the only way we had of looking around and saying, "Hey, there ARE other people out here who love and adore and are passionate about children's and young adult books."
And we said, "This is cool!" and we read each others thoughts and we commented and build a community that is today the KidLitosphere. Then came Facebook and Twitter and a listserv and the Cybils and an annual conference and we had so many other ways of communicating and sharing that the blog commenting was no longer the primary way of discussing and discoursing.
In January, MotherReader offers us the chance to revive and return to the venue that brought us together, the Comment Box. Sign up now at MotherReader's post about the event and start commenting. There are prizes! Lee Wind also writes about the challenge and his post will energize you for sure.
3 Comments on Comment Challenge, last added: 1/13/2011
Thanks so much Camille! I am looking forward to the challenge. Your blog has been inspiring me, and linking me to other great places for over a year now. What did I ever do before?
Just a couple of quick updates from the Kidlitosphere:
First up, MotherReader and Lee Wind are once again hosting the Comment Challenge. Pam explains that January is "the perfect time of year to make a new resolution to connect more with your fellow bloggers. Since it is said that it takes twenty-one days to form a new habit, we’re going to run the Comment Challenge for the next three weeks — starting Thursday, January 6, and running through Wednesday, January 26, 2011. The goal is to comment on at least five book blogs a day. Keep track of your numbers, and report in on Wednesdays with Lee. We’ll tell each other how we’re doing and keep each other fired up. On Wednesday, January 26, I’ll post the final check-in post for the Comment Challenge. A prize package will be involved".
Also, Colleen Mondor just announced a new survey for past and future KidLitCon participants (survey developed by the multi-talented Sarah Stevenson). If you've ever attended KidLitCon, or you've thought about attending, or you might attend if only x,y,z change was made to the planning, please take a few minutes to share your thoughts with this year's organizers.
Things like the comment challenge and Kidlitcon are what make the Kidlitosphere a real community, instead of just a random collection of self-referential blogs. I hope that some of you will decide to participate in these events.
Wishing everyone a book-filled/comment-filled/fun-filled weekend!
The November Carnival of Children's Literature is now available. Host Wendy Wax has done a remarkable job, with everything from a custom-designed graphic to poetry to cheerful multicolored fonts to quotes from all of the posts. I don't know where she found the time, but the result is not to be missed. There are tons of book reviews this month, as well as author interviews, posts about how illustrations are made, and even a few writing tips. Fans of children's literature and literacy will not want to miss the November Carnival.
First up, Aaron Mead, who blogs at Children's Books and Reviews, recently featured me in his ongoing series of children's book blogger interviews. You can find the interview here. While Aaron asked a number of interesting questions, my favorite was: "If you were standing on a soapbox full of children’s books, what advice would you give your audience?" You'll have to click throuugh to read my answer (though regular readers won't find it a surprise, and Reach Out and Read was kind enough to tweet the soundbyte). Aaron also interviewed Marya Jansen-Gruber last month, and has more interviews to come.
Second, and much more important to the Kidlitosphere at large, the Cybils (children's and young adult bloggers' literary awards) just issued the 2010 call for judges. For all you children's and young adult book bloggers who have seen the amazing Cybils shortlists and winners, and envied the bloggers who select them, this is your chance to get involved. It's a lot of work, but participation is a tremendous opportunity to participate in the Kidlitosphere, and read and recommend excellent books. I'll be continuing my somewhat nebulous position as Literacy Evangelist for the Cybils (something along the lines of a cheerleader and promoter). I'll start that by saying: isn't the new logo, designed and updated by Sarah Stevenson, beautiful? You can download it here in various sizes. To participate as a judge, please follow the instructions here.
And that's two posts in one day, which makes me very happy. Wishing you all a wonderful week!
Oh, you are more than welcome, Barbara! I can't wait to read your book. I can't believe I never write on my blog anymore but I still read all the time. I also still read everyone else's blogs everyday. Guess that is why I ran out of time to write my own blogs. ;) Love...
We’re on the cusp of April and so now is an apt moment to announce National Poetry Month. Check out this American site for information and this site for events in Canada. The kidlitosphere will be active with blog posts celebrating the month. Check out A Wrung Sponge’s blog post for a tour of bloggers and their poetic activities for the month. Have any events or activities to announce? Leave a link in our comments section!
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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 <
Sally Apokedak is hosting the newCarnival of Children's Literature at Whispers of Dawn. The carnival is a monthly celebration of children's books, authors, and literacy. Sally says: "I found bunches of new and interesting blogs this month and a shelfful of books that look really good. (Yikes! Shelfful is a funny looking word!) No matter what you’re looking for, if it involves children’s books, from author interviews to marketing tips for authors, or from edgy YA novels to nonfiction books for youngsters, you’re bound to find something of interest in this carnival."
She's done a beautiful job of laying out detailed categories, and formatting to make the carnival easy to read. The new carnival is well worth your time, and the perfect way to start the weekend.
Also today, Jone MacCulloch is hosting Poetry Friday at Check It Out. She starts with her own "Ode to Poetry Friday", and closes with an announcement about her annual Poetry Postcard project, with lots of poetry links from around the blogosphere in between.
The January 2010 Carnival of Children's Literature is now available at Jenny's Wonderland of Books. Jenny Schwartzberg has a host of links, lovingly organized, annotated and illustrated, on topics from book reviews, interviews, poems, and author visits to reading and literacy. Fans of children's literature should certainly stop by. It's a great way to start a winter weekend.
A Quick Note On eBook Pricing and Amazon Hijinx « Whatever – Author John Scalzi on Amazon’s eBooks: “I personally don’t buy ebooks with DRM on them, because I actually like to own the books I own. It’s a funny twitchy thing of mine. I’m not sure why other people are so willing to let that slide.” Ayup.
Godsbody: The Eternal Smile by Gene Yang & Derek Kirk Kim – Matthew Lickona writes, “I think the book is kind of genius, and anything but modest, seeing as it takes careful aim at the unhealthy escape from reality that can be sought in both comics and religion, two things which are both hugely important to the writer. I’d call that pretty ambitious.”
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Sounds great! Just added it to my list--Thanks!
Heading over to buy it now!
Sounds like an excellent choice for my library...heading over to get it now.
Can't wait to read it. Congrats, Greg!