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• Some me stuff to start us off.  NYPL turned its handy dandy little 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing 2014 list into an interactive bit of gorgeousness.  So as to help it along, I wrote a blog post on the library’s website (I have two blogs, if you want to get technical about it, but only one of them has my heart) with the following clickbait title: They Put THAT Into a Book for Kids?!  Forgive me, oh blogging gods.  I couldn’t help it.  It was too much fun to write.  Oh, and while we’re on the NYPL blogs, I really enjoyed Andrea Lipinski’s post about our old (and I mean OLD) Books for the Teen Age lists.  How can you resist this cover, after all?

• Recently I was alerted to two older but really fascinating links regarding ARCs (Advanced Readers Galleys) and their procurement and use in the book world.  Over at Stacked Books one post discussed the current state of handing out galleys at large national conferences like ALA.  The other one took the time to poll people on how they use their ARCs and what they do with them.  Both make for magnificent reading.  Thanks to Charlotte Taylor for the links.

• It’s sort of nice when our reference librarians, both past and present, get a little acknowledgment for the super difficult questions they have to field.  Boing Boing recently related a piece on some of the crazier questions the adult reference librarians have to field.  Children’s librarians get some out there ones as well, but nothing quite compares to these.

• Ah. It’s the end of an era, everyone.  In case you hadn’t heard the ccbc-net listserv has closed its doors (so to speak) for the last time.  Now if you’re looking for children’s literary listservs you’ve PUB-YAC and child_lit.  Not much else to read these days, I’m afraid.  Except bloggers, I suppose.  *irony laden shudder*

• In happier news there are book finalists popping up like wildflowers.  Cybils on the left!  Nerdies on the right!  Something to tide us over until the ALA Media Awards, at any rate.

• In the meantime, if you’re looking for a compilation of all the Best Children’s Books of 2014 lists out there, Susan Thompsen has pretty much been creating them single-handedly for I don’t know how many years now.  Times changes.  Blogs come and go.  But Chicken Spaghetti?  It’s forever, man.

• One thing I learned about writing Wild Things: Acts of Mischief in Children’s Literature with Jules Danielson and Peter Sieruta?  It’s simple.  Heirs = good.  Estates = headaches.  And the recent piece Rosenbach contests Sendak value just backs me up on this one.

• I was over at Monica Edinger’s apartment the other day when she showed me this little beauty:

She’d already blogged a quickie review of it, so when the news came in that it won a UK Costa Award I had the odd sensation of being, if only momentarily, inside the British book loop.  And if you looked at that cover and thought to yourself, “Gee, that sure looks like a WWI sequel to E. Nesbit’s Five Children and It” you’re sort of right on the money.

• So I’m prepping my branches for some hardcore Día programs (El día de los niños/El día de los libros or Children’s Day/Book Day) by buying them lots of Día books.  I go on the Día website to order off of the book lists they have there, and what do I find?  Some of the coolest most up-to-date STEM/STEAM booklists I have EVER had the pleasure to see.  They’re so good, in fact, that I had to alert you to them.  If you’re looking for STEM/STEAM fare, search no further.

• Daily Image:

Pretty much off-topic but while strolling through Bryant Park behind the main library for NYPL, my boss and I came across the fountain back there.  Apparently when the temperatures plunge they figure it’s better to keep it running rather than risk bursting the pipes.  Whatever the reason, it now looks like this: