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We’ve received a lot of email over the last few months about our long neglected website and podcast. Among other things, the audio files would no longer play. It turns out that was one of many other bigger problems with the site. It’s taken some time and there’s still more work to be done, however, I’m happy to report the site, audio files and feed are back in working order.

Over the next few weeks, I’ll continue to repair the site, add comments that were trapped in moderation limbo and fix an array of bizarre characters that appear in the posts and comments.

I’d be grateful if you could alert us to any problems you find with the site — things such as broken links, missing photos, bizarre characters, etc… Please leave a comment on this post (since you’re already here) and I’ll add it to the list and keep you posted.

Thanks, again, for your continued enthusiasm for our site and amazing children’s books. Some new video content is on its way.

We’ve launched the website WeCanRebuildHer.com to document our journey to making Andrea a breast cancer survivor. The site will feature our views as the patient and supporter and carries the tagline Better than she was before… better, stronger, happier — A Breast Cancer Journal.

Besides being therapeutic for us, we hope the site proves to be a valuable resource for others who are affected by cancer.

Our first post is now live. It features audio from Andrea’s head shaving party which took place at our place on Sunday night. Twenty of our friends joined us for munchies, drinks, cake and to show support as we shaved Andrea’s head. We plan to post some video today or tomorrow.

Watch for us to blog and podcast our road-to-survivorship experiences and thoughts regularly at WeCanRebuildHer.com.

The Just One More Book!! children’s book podcast will be taking an indefinite hiatus so that Andrea and I can focus on making Andrea a Breast Cancer survivor.  We received the results of Andrea’s biopsy, yesterday. This morning we met with a surgeon and discussed the treatment process.

Note that before we stop production we still have two interviews and four audio essays to publish.  We also plan to do a “so long for now” show.  If you’d like to be a part of that show, please leave a short comment on our voice feedback line, 206-350-6487. We’ll include as many comments as is practical and reserve the right to edit any comments. We don’t know when we’ll publish the show so get your comments in quickly!

Just One More Book by the numbers:

• 1,362,954: total downloads in the last 18 months; an average of 2100 downloads per day (more than 2 million downloads since we launched in July 2006).
• 623: the number of regular episodes published
• 21: the number of shows in our Rock Stars of Reading documentary series
• 392: number of review episodes published
• 220: number of interview episodes published
• $0.00: the amount of money we accepted for JOMB (we self-funded the full production as well as all travel, accommodations and expenses and donated all of our time)

Thank you for being a part of our community and helping to promote great children’s books, the people behind them and a love of reading.

Best wishes and live strong!

Sincerely,
Mark and Andrea

It’s Poetry Friday and, since I’ve been pushed beyond my limits by members of the book industry’s dark side, we present a poem I wrote back in the spring of 2005 to lament the loss of CBC Ottawa’s much loved afternoon host, Brent Bambury.

I’ve loved doing Just One More Book!! and it will be sad to turn my back on it.

While I’m reflecting on the future of what has been a huge part of our family, every single day for more than three years, I thought it was appropriate to share this era-ending poem (read by its recipient, Brent Bambury).

A Capital Lament — by Andrea Ross, May 2005.

That April day, infused by May, seemed clearly heaven sent,
The Gomery mess couldn’t bug us less — we’re listening to Brent!
Big news from Rome, then Pow! our own calamitous event,
We’d lost our man, and thus began our Capital Lament.

In two aught two, when Brent was new, our cautious ears we lent,
But soon his pace, words, voice and taste led to enravishment.
Who know his stint would be a glint? That Go! would lead to went?
And we’d be left a town bereft, despite all blandishments.

Robert Fontaine, comedien, now who will he torment?
Will Lucy sob? Or grab the job? To whom will Laurence vent?
We’re sure of this, we’ll sorely miss our host omniloquent.
You’re lane to fame is Hog Town’s gain. Best luck and Thank you, Brent.

Read Mark’s post about Just One More Book!! as a member of our family: The baby, the bathwater, or both?

Just One More Book!! is featured in a fantastic article by Suzanne Gardner for Quill & Quire, Canada’s Magazine of Book News and Reviews (see Ottawa Couple Picking Up Book Coverage Slack).

Ms. Gardner did an amazing job balancing the highlights and realities of our efforts to promote great children’s books and the people behind them through our blog and podcast, something we do on our own time and with our own money.

Welcome to readers of Quill & Quire.  We hope you’ll take a moment to leave a voice mail message introducing yourself and telling us about one of your favourite children’s books.  Our community hotline number is 206-350-6487.

Thanks to a generous offer from blogger Bianca Schulze,  Andrea had the honour today of guest blogging at The Children’s Book Review.

A huge thanks to Bianca for the invitation!

It was a true pleasure to have the opportunity to write — rather than gab — about the payoffs for parents who read aloud.

We hope you will pop over and check it out at:
The Family that Reads Together… (aka What’s in it for ME?)

Related chats on JOMB:

• How old is too old for reading-aloud?
• The Family that Reads Together

We’d love to hear how reading has benefited your family. Leave us a comment below or, better yet, leave us a voice message on our JOMB listener hotline, +1-206-350-6487, so we can include your audio in our show.

Just One More Book!! is honoured to be mentioned in the Resources section of the recently published The Raising Readers Handbook: inspire your child to be a reader for life.  The book, written by Michelle Kadarusman (with Chandra Wohleber, editor), shares book recommendations and activities to help bring books alive for children from preschool through grade six.

All proceeds from the sale of the book go to The Raising Readers Literacy Program, a registered charity that supports literacy in early childhood.

We’ve updated the printable list of books featured on the Just One More Book!! children’s book podcast.

To download the PDF of the May 2009 edition of our featured children’s book list, click on the image immediately to the right of this text.

To download your very own Just One More Book!! bookmark, click on the image of the bookmark that appears just below the image of our brochure in the left sidebar of our website.

For the week of May 4 through May 8, we will be publishing audio interviews recorded during our Rock Stars of Reading road trip.  We will be featuring the following guests:

• Author/Poet Lesléa Newman (May 4)
• Author/Poet Paul Jacobs (May 5)
• Illustrator Jane Dyer (May 6)
• Author/Illustrator Mordicai Gerstein (May 7)
• Authors Jane Yolen and Heidi Stemple (May 8)

We will return to our regular book talk publication schedule next week.

We’ve updated the printable list of books featured on the Just One More Book!! children’s book podcast.

To download the PDF of the October 2008 edition of our featured children’s book list, click on the image immediately to the right of this text.

To download your very own Just One More Book!! bookmark, click on the image of the bookmark that appears just below the image of our brochure in the left sidebar of our website.

Nominations are now being accepted for the third annual Cybils Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards so pop over to www.Cybils.com and nominate your favourite book of 2008 in each of nine categories from picture books up to young adult fiction.

Nominations close on October 15 2008 so do it today, since, as Horrid Henry says, later often happily turns to never…

This year, I have the honour of joining the following fabulous KidLit Bloggers on the Non-Fiction Picture Books committees :

First Round Judges:

David Judge of Adventures at Wilder Farm
Tricia Stohr-Hunt of The Miss Rumphius Effect
Becky Bilby of In the Pages
Debbie Nance of Readerbuzz
Jone MacCulloch of Check It Out

Final Judges:

Fiona Bayrock of Books and ‘Rocks
Candice Ransom of Ellsworth’s Journal
Andrea Beaty of Three Silly Chicks
Andrea Ross of Just One More Book!
Emily Mitchell of Emily Reads

so be sure to nominate some great non-fiction and make our job a tough one!

Wishing you were neck-deep in KidLit experts, creators and enthusiast, but stuck at home, like me?

You can follow the kidLit08 Conference in Portland, OR minute-by-minute here.

HOLY COW!!!

Just One More Book!! is featured on page 109 of the October 2008 issue of Disney’s Family Fun Magazine. The banner of the feature identifies JOMB as “A Site That Makes It Easy to Find Great Kids’ Books” and a “Web Site We Love”.

What an honour to be in the magazine and to be featured alongside Esmé Raji Codell’s PlanetEsme.com (click here to listen to an interview we did with Esmé) and ILoveLibraries.org.

Thank you to Ruth Spiro and Family Fun Magazine, and welcome to all of the Family Fun readers!

Click here to view a large version of our Family Fun Magazine collage.

Today we will be sending out sent out the first edition of our Just One More Book!!  e-Newsletter.

This edition contains announcements about our upcoming:

• Picture Book Pilgrimage,
• children’s book and literacy related conference activities, and
• exciting autumn guests

as well as extra, unpublished audio from our recent conversations with:

• illustrator Lane Smith; and
• middle-reader author and elementary school principal Gregory Walters.

If you would like to subscribe to our free newsletter, you can find a sign-up form here.

Thank you to Alicia for notifying us that there was a problem playing the Interview with Diane deGroat on our website.  The issue has been confirmed as fixed (thanks, again, to Alicia).

If you missed the interview with Diane deGroat, be sure to go back and listen to it.

Just One More Book!! made its first television appearance, yesterday.  We were guests of Daytime, a magazine show on Rogers Television. Hosts Derick and TL asked us about podcasting in general and the origins of Just One More Book!! before exploring our love of children’s books.

After a short break, we recorded a review live on television (that review will be published tomorrow). That means not only did we record our show in a setting we’re not used to recording in (our favourite coffee shop), we did it in front of the hosts, crew, a collection of cameras and a live television audience. It was very exciting!

After the review, Derick and TL asked us about the review process and how we find great children’s books. Some of that audio may find its way into our Saturday show along with impromptu reviews we recorded with Tuule (someone we met in the green room) and Erin (the Producer of Daytime).

Thanks to everyone at Daytime and the folks we chatted with in the green room!

Tarie of Into the Wardrobe has given us the compliment of a Brillante Weblog Premio - 2008 award. Thank you, Tarie!

Now its our turn to pass the award along to seven online resources that we think are brillante. With all the amazing content that is out there it is very tough to pick just seven, but here are seven of the many…

• LD Podcast
• CLIP Podcast
• Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast
• Jen Robinson’s Book Page
• Chicken Spaghetti
• Big A, Little a
• Three Silly Chicks

We hope you enjoy them as much as we do!

Earlier this week we announced that our 399th episode will be released this Saturday (July 12). Our 399th episode will actually be released this Friday (July 11). It seemed like a fun idea to celebrate 399 rather than 400. However, we want the celebration to remain on Saturday which means we’ll be celebrating the big 400.

To be a part of our anniversary celebration, call our listener hotline (206-350-6487) by the end of the day Friday July, 11 2008 and tell us your name, your website or blog address (if you have one) and the title of a favourite children’s book on the theme of birthdays or summertime. If you’re tech savvy, you can email an MP3 recording to [email protected].

Sorry about the confusion.

It’s an exciting time here at Just One More Book! This Saturday, July 12 2008, marks our 399th episode and the following Tuesday July 15, 2008 marks our second anniversary.

We’d love to include your voice in our celebration!

If you take a couple of minutes to tell us your name, your site address (if you have one) and the title of a favourite children’s book on the theme of Birthdays or Summertime, we’ll include it in our 399th show and link to you from our show notes.

Send your MP3 recording to [email protected], or phone it in to our JOMB listener hotline (206-350-6487) by the end of the day Friday July, 11 2008.

We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

Photo: Whitney Hoffman (ldpodcast.com)

We are thrilled to announce that the Just One More Book! podcast was featured, along with Daniele Rossi’s Stuttering is Cool and Melinda Mason’s My Marilyn podcasts, on this morning’s edition of “Sounds Like Canada” – one of CBC’s two flagship coast-to-coast morning shows.

What an honour!

If you are a SLC listener who is stopping in for the first time, welcome! We’re glad you found us!

If not, you can listen to the SLC podcasting piece at the last 15 minutes of the audio segment here.

There’s only three days left in our call for illustrations for our Love of Reading Gallery. The submissions continue to arrive and we expect that there will be a rush as we head towards the June 15th wrap-up.

We are now conducting interviews with the participating illustrators (children included) about their submissions, style and the of impact children’s books have had on their lives. We’ll begin publishing those interviews as part of our 400th episode/2nd anniversary celebrations.

Details on how to participate in our Love of Reading gallery are available on the gallery page.

It’s been a big week for our Love of Reading Gallery. More illustrations arrived in the last five days than any two previous weeks combined — and they arrived from all over the world.

Be sure to check out the amazing artwork in our growing gallery.

We are now scheduling interviews with the participating illustrators (children included) about their submissions, style and the of impact children’s books have had on their lives. We’ll begin publishing those interviews as part of our 400th episode/2nd anniversary celebrations.

Details on how to participate in our Love of Reading gallery are available on the gallery page.

Illustrations for our Love of Reading Gallery continue to arrive on a regular basis. It’s exciting to receive the amazing artwork and we’re extremely happy that so many illustrators and children are participating. Be sure to check out the amazing artwork in our growing gallery.

We are preparing to invite all of the participating illustrators (children included) for interviews to discuss their submissions, style and the of impact children’s books have had on their lives.

Details on how to participate are available on the gallery page.

We continue to receive fantastic illustrations for our Love of Reading Gallery, and have even spied a sneak preview of a work in progress by one illustrator. Yesterday, we were surprised when we received the illustration that appears at the right of this post. Can you guess who created it?

Don’t forget to stop in to our Love of Reading Gallery to see the great artwork that’s on display for everyone to enjoy.