MotherReader

If you’re a parent, you know of The Reading Game and have probably been forced to play along. Unsure? Maybe this will ring a bell: “Well, we can’t tear little Jacob away from the Harry Potter books. He’s sooooo advanced. What is your child reading?” Ah, yes — parental competition as practiced through one’s children. At Booklights, I talk about the only way to win The Reading Game, along with ways to help your child and your child’s teacher this school year. Head over and add your opinion. (And no, winning does not involve my trademark response of, “Oh, my girls are really into Balzac right now.”)

My special articles at ForeWord are done, but my relationship with this wonderful review site continues as part of their blog network. I believe they are still tweaking the format, but they’ll be pulling some blog posts over with a blog aggregrator, and MotherReader will be among them. That is, until they realize how I really write.

We’re continuing the last-week push for registrations for the KidLitosphere Conference, but are keeping it fun with a meme for past conference attendees. It has started to make the rounds at Jen Robinson’s Book Page and Finding Wonderland. Posts are on the schedule for Fuse#8, 7-Imp, and Lee Wind. You don’t have to wait to be tagged to participate — in fact, I’d prefer that you not wait. Because while we are sure to have a flurry of posts after the conference that makes people wish they could have gone, what we need now is a flurry of posts about such conferences that makes people decide that they will go. The conference will likely be in the Midwest next year, so East-Coasters especially won’t want to miss this chance. Register now.

There are two more days to vote for the awards for Book Blogger Appreciation Week. In the Kidlit category you are on your own to choose among Jen Robinson Book Blog, Fuse#8, Seven Impossible Things, Maw Books, and Shelf Elf. I won’t direct you there or in the YA Book Blog category.

But I will draw your attention to several kidlitosphere blogs that are showing up through the rest of the categories. Pop over and put in your vote for such blogs as Chasing Ray, I’m Here, I’m Queer, What Do I Read?, 100 Scope Notes, Semicolon, Becky’s Book Reviews, BookDads, The Story Siren, Collecting Children’s Books, Guys Lit Wire, Color Online, and me.

Oh, and the winner of the Hiccupotamus books from the MotherReader tour is Deliah. Hey there Deliah, enjoy your prize!

Today I’ve got a few penguin books over at Booklights. Wow, that sounded even more boring as I typed it. Maybe you should visit Jen’s post on series books instead.

At ForeWord I pulled together some of our thoughts on book buzz from the KidLitosphere Listserv discussion. Laurel Snyder contributed her extremely clever, funny and spot-on summary of the issue. I then attempted to categorize different types of buzz with examples, key words, and actor equivalents. I know you all have opinions on the topic, so head over and share them at ForeWord.

I missed the Carnival of Children’s Literature because I was in Virginia Beach getting in our last ocean visit of the summer. But actually, that works out well because the Labor Day weekend is bound to be a quiet blogging week, allowing all of us some blog reading time. And what better place to see the best posts of August then at the official round-up of such things at the Carnival of Children’s Literature? Go and enjoy.

Now with the middle-school Open House behind me — where the kids looked like real teenagers, heaven help me — I’ve got the elementary school version today along with school supply shopping. I know. We’re like the only place in the country who isn’t back to school yet. In Virginia they call it the Labor Day Law, and we’re soooo happy with it. Not.

I’m so excited about the things I have to share with you today. Not in a braggy way (well, not entirely), but because they all would greatly benefit from your participation, contributions, and opinions. So rev up your commenting power to eleven and let’s go.

Yesterday I posted a new article at ForeWord about saving time, money, and energy at your library during this difficult economic climate. I’m psyched about this post for two reasons. First, because I think it represents an ultimate community venture, where the post will pick up more value as more people share their own saving tips in the comments. So please pass it on to your colleagues. The second reason I’m excited is that the article gave me one of those Magical Moments in writing. See, I had the bones of it for a week, but I couldn’t get happy about what I had written. Then I wrote a new opening paragraph, and it changed the whole feel of the piece. Now I totally love it and I’m reminded how cool writing is.

Now over at Booklights, I’m taking on the Color Me Brown Challenge with three picture books featuring children of color. If you’ve profiled a book for the younger set this month, leave a link in the comments at the post and add to the list. Since I wrote about the opportunities available by leaving comments, I realized that I myself was missing the opportunity to highlight other blogs of the kidlitosphere. I had been leaving that task to Jen because she does it so well. But from now on, I’ll be asking myself What Would Jen Do? and I’ll be working harder to showcase more of your work. So let’s say that we all learned something.

Last, but certainly not least, my proposal for a book blogs session at the ALA 2010 Summer Conference in Washington, DC, was accepted!!! The session will be within the track for Association for Library Services for Children. I was in a rush for a clever name, so went with Book Blogs: Not Just for Geeks Anymore. Honestly, I’m not crazy about the title and I’m pretty sure that I can change it. Do you have any suggestions? Keep in mind that the concept of the session is to introduce librarians to using book blogs in their collection development, reading selection, program planning, and book clubs. I’ll be talking more about it after...

Kidlitosphere Conference! You didn’t really think we were getting out of this post without a mention of KidLitCon09, did you? I have to give a shout-out to Liz Burns for the best title, the best post I’ve seen on the grassroots nature of our gathering, but I’m so appreciative to all of you who’ve written about and promoted the Kidlitosphere Conference on your blogs. Our collaborative effort is what made the YA/KidLit bloggers the first group to be able to put together a book blogging conference three years ago, and now our continued support can make this year’s meeting another great success. With the extra posts and Twitter reminders, I’ve received some more registrations in the last few days, including one from the amazing Young Adult author Elizabeth Scott. Next week I’ll have an updated list of participants and activities. We need to get everyone signed up by the time we lose our fantastic hotel rate on September 16th. But since it is possible that we could fill up our available participant slots before then, please register for the conference soon. Or like, now.

So to summarize: saving tips for libraries, profiles of POC books, book blogging session names, and promotion of KidLitCon. Now go forth with your contributions, comments, opinions, and tweets.

I can’t say that I love Twitter, but I’m beginning to use it better and see some applications in my Online Social Media Approach (OSMA). However, I do see that Twitter appears to be sucking the blog commenting right out of us, and that’s a shame. It is definitely easier to reply on Twitter, where brevity is a virtue. Commenting on a blog post can feel daunting, with its space to write using as many characters as you want and its chance to add something of value to the conversation. But people, we  — and by we, I mean you — are missing out on some incredible opportunities to network by commenting.

For the past few months, I’ve been writing at Booklights, which is a blog at PBS. Every time I put up a post there, I mention it here. Jen Robinson does the same with her posts. Sometimes we get a fair number of comments. Occasionally we really strike a chord, like with Susan’s First Time Reads post about the children’s books you wish you could read for the first time. We certainly like it when we get comments, but this isn’t about us. It’s not even about me (as surprising as that may seem to those of you who know me best).

This is about you. Because you have the opportunity to write a comment on a blog at PBS where other thoughtful people might read it and take a look at where you blog, who you are, and what you’ve written. Maybe the PBS blog will need guest bloggers and look in the comments for bloggers who’ve shown interest in the blog and topic areas. Maybe parents or teachers or librarians are reading the comments after a post and might see your insightful addition — perhaps to Back to School picture books that I’ve posted about today — and then might follow the link back to your blog for other ideas.

Yesterday, I posted at ForeWord about summer reading programs, reading lists, and prizes. I know book bloggers have opinions about these topics. It seems like a good idea to share some of those thoughts in the comments of a respected online journal. One that obviously employs — and by “employs” I mean “gives money to” — guest bloggers, one of whom you could be if ForeWord knew about you. I’m just sayin’.

I don’t want to come off as angry or peevish, and I hope that those of you who follow me understand that. I do think commenting is important and is something that we are losing in our community to the detriment of all. Lee Wind and I even ran a Comment Challenge to that effect in November. Certainly, we’d all like more comments. But my point here is for the bloggers who wonder how to get their blog noticed, how to get it to the next level... well, sometimes opportunity isn’t tweeting.

Of course, if you’re busy twittering about how hot it is in August — clearly an underreported topic — well, I don’t want to interrupt you.

Today I’m guest blogging over at ForeWord, talking about library summer programs, reading lists, and prizes. Come by to talk about what your library does to promote reading in the summer. Share your thoughts on prizes as incentives for encouraging reading or trinkets that devalue the book experience. Or somewhere in between. How about reading lists? Does your area have required reading for summer or lists of suggested books? Head to ForeWord and unload your Summer Reading angst.

Today I’m also deciding what blog posts to submit for consideration for Book Bloggers Appreciation Week. It’s been very interesting going back over this calendar year of posts while thinking about what writing best defines me and my blog. Honestly, I’ve learned so much in forcing myself to select my favorites and get a good sampling of what I write. It was a great exercise in seeing what direction I’ve been taking, what books are driving my best writing, what features are filling my pages.

I realized how few book reviews I’ve been doing lately. Now, part of this was a conscious choice — I was feeling overwhelmed by keeping up with the books, and rather than let myself burn out, I backed off for a while. But I think I backed off from reviews more than I thought I had, which surprised me.

I stumbled on posts that I thought were great only to find that they had no or few comments, making me question whether I know what my readership is looking for. If I know what I’m looking for. And yes, along the way, I also cracked myself up with my own little bits of funny or whole posts.

With some new insight under my belt, I’m more excited than ever for the KidLitosphere Conference. I can’t wait to talk to other bloggers in person, and with more than 140 characters. I always come away energized and ready to try new things, and I’d highly suggest the conference to anyone in children’s or Young Adult literature who blogs or would like to learn about blogging. More information and the registration are available at KidLitosphere Central.

I am magic. I can make books disappear.

My magic isn’t always strong. It ebbs and flows with the seasons and even the days of the week. My magic isn’t all-powerful. There are books that continually resist my charms. My magic isn’t reliable. It sometimes works or fails when I least expect it.

But I am magic, and I am not alone.

My skills can be taught, and I am breaking the great vow of the magician to share my secret. It’s astonishingly simple, yet I can make books disappear from shelves and reappear in the hands of readers...

The rest of the article is over at ForeWord, where I’m guest blogging this month. It has useful information for librarians, booksellers, authors, publishers, and reviewers. Yes indeedy.

I don’t think I ask a lot of my readers. I mean, other than the MotherReader allegiance blood oath. But today, I do have a favor to ask of you. Well, maybe two.

If you work in a public library or school library, please take a look at my article in ForeWord and comment about your own public or school library situation. Basically, I’m talking about centralized control of libraries and its effects on the library and staff. I’d love to get some other opinions on the topic, especially as it would give the post more weight. So if you can, please go by the article, which I was going to title “Sub Libraries” but ended up giving it a title from my first sentence: “A Man Goes Into a Sub Shop...”

Also, I learned about the elimination of RIF funding through A Wrung Sponge. Seems that Reading Is Fundamental is less than fundamental to the current administration. RIF has made it very easy to register your opinion on this issue with your members of Congress and President Bush, and I’d encourage you to do so. (One tip: Know the four-digit addition to your zip code if you live in a very populated area.)

We now return you to your regularly scheduled blog, already in progress.

I have an article over at ForeWord today, part two of my suggested Black History Month Picture Books. There’s some great stuff on the list, so be sure to take a look. Please.

One of the books I included and totally love is Langston’s Train Ride, by Robert Burleigh, illustrated by Leonard Jenkins. The fantastic illustrations make this book a complete pleasure to peruse, no doubt about that. But the reader will also enjoy being taken along on a journey with Langston Hughes as a young man. As he rides on a train across the country, he is moved by the crossing over the Mississippi River. Words and phrases rush into his head, especially the phrase, “I’ve known rivers,” which he jots down on an envelope.

My thoughts roam. Suddenly, I feel the history of my people flowing right up to this moment — to ME. Yes, I feel I’ve lived other lives on those muddy riverbanks. Somehow, somewhere, I’ve heard the dusky waters of all those rivers lapping and singing. It’s true, it’s true. I’ve known rivers.

I keep the envelope flat on my lap. I’m madly scribbling words down now, rapidly one after another. (Poems are like rainbows, don’t you think? They escape if you’re not quick!) I turn my head to get one last look at the sun-tinged Mississippi. Going, going, gone. I scrawl the last line:

My soul has grown deep like the rivers.

And the poem is done.

Read and listen to the poem “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” at Poets.org. The Poetry Friday round-up is hosted by AmoXcalli. And don’t forget to check out my two-part piece on picture books for Black History Month over at ForeWord and comment with other picture book suggestions for the month.

Today my first article is posted at ForeWord — or will be any minute now. I wrote about the picture books that should be in every public and school library — and certainly some home libraries — for Black History Month. Some of the books are nonfiction and some are historical fiction. Several I think blur that line, making me — and who knows, maybe you — question the nature of a nonfiction book. It’s certainly easy when your book is titled Bees and it’s all facts about, you know, bees. But it gets trickier when the book’s about a person and some blanks have to be filled in to complete the story.

So Henry’s Freedom Box is historical fiction because it’s based on a true story, but all the details aren’t known. But Only Passing Through is a biography of Sojourner Truth, though there are parts that read like a story. How about last year’s Caldecott Honor Award winner Moses? It is considered a biography in my library, but I dare say that the parts where Harriet Tubman is addressed by God make it more of a fictionalized account by my definition.

Take Martha Ann’s Quilt for Queen Victoria, by Kyra E. Hicks. I was certain that the book was historical fiction, mainly because it reads like a story. In 1830, Martha Ann and her family bought their freedom, and with the assistance of the American Colonization Society, moved to Liberia to live. The children could attend school in Liberia, and they were finally free from slavery in America. Even after a deadly fever took away her mother and father, the children decided to stay in the country far from their home. When the queen of England sent ships to patrol the coast of Liberia to keep slave catchers away, Martha Ann made herself a promise to meet Queen Victoria someday. Through years of waiting and some hard times, Martha Ann never forgot her goal, and worked to make it come true. I liked this book because it shows a different perspective on this time in history, and offers a lesson in reaching for our dreams. When I went to the Library of Congress catalog entry, it appears I’ve been reading a straight biography all along. Who knew?

So for Nonfiction Monday at Picture Book of the Day, let me wonder what pushes these books into one category or the other. For more on the perfect picture books for Black History Month — not like I wasn’t offering huge hints on what I’ve included — head over to ForeWord’s blog and put in your own suggestions — but only up to 1899, because I’m covering the period from 1900 onward with Friday’s entry.