For my purposes, the term "kidlit" includes young adult literature as well.

For many reasons, I'm looking to become more active in the kidlit community.  I know who the major blog players are.  I'm a member of the Kidlitosphere listserv.  I'm also a member of Child_Lit.  I'm just wondering if there's anywhere I'm missing where really great conversations are going on.

Suggestions, anyone?

Today is my birthday (yay!) and I'm going to give you the gift of some posts from other bloggers that I think you might find especially interesting. Are you ready? Here goes!

How to Get Over Writer's Block Sonja asked her Twitter followers for advice and they gave her many and various answers, which she then compiled in this post for your reading pleasure.

Literature on the Web cloudscome shares a list of resources she developed for her collection development class in library school. So many resources!

Important News for Bloggers MotherReader provides links to three different articles about how the FTC is planning to begin regulating blogs. This especially affects those of us who receive review copies or use affiliate links in our blogs.

Naming Names Melissa Wyatt shares how she arrived at the names for several of her characters. Fun insight into an author's thought processes.

Enjoy!

Photo by D. Sharon Pruitt.

We in the Kidlitosphere are probably queens and kings of book clutter. I think I must have fifteen boxes of books in my attic, and the few shelves I have available are always overcrowded. It runs in the family; I recently visited my parents' new home in Ohio and found piles of books everywhere, waiting for new shelves to arrive.

Most of us would probably find we have a tendency to acquire books which then sit around for years and years, never having been read or read once and then never touched again. I've recently decided to release my book clutter, and I thought I'd share with you the blog posts that have helped me through the process.

• Bringing your bookshelves back to order discusses how to decide which books to keep.


• 20 Ways to Get Free or Cheap Books, and Give Away Your Old Ones is an excellent list post, and helped me with my dilemma of what to do with ARCs. (I list them on BookMooch and just put in the notes that they are uncorrected proofs. Voila! The books aren't destroyed, but they're not sold/donated in the place of actual finished copies.)


• Read a book and pass it on contains a list of six questions to ask yourself upon finishing a book to help you determine if it's worth holding on to.


• Get rid of that library of clutter lists a few non-profit organizations that would be happy to have your donations.


• How to use Powell's Books for uncluttering describes one blog reader's experience selling her book clutter to Powell's.

I just received an email from my advisor/YA Lit professor with a list for what we'll be reading this semester.  It's at least a few books a week (so I'll be achieving Jo Knowles's recommended amount!).

Here's the list with my notations:

Levithan, David. Boy Meets Boy.
Cormier, Robert. The Chocolate War. - Own it, haven't read it.  (Bought it at a library sale.)
Head, Ann. Mr. And Mrs. Bo Jo Jones.
Lipsyte, Robert. The Contender.
Hinton, S.E. The Outsiders. - Read it in middle or high school.
Anderson, Laurie Halse.  Winter Girls.
Frank, E.R. America.
Johnson, Angela.  First Part Last.
Dessen, Sarah. This Lullaby. - Sarah Dessen lives in Chapel Hill and I think both of her parents are professors at the university.  (I think her mom, in fact, is a Classics professor who spoke to my students once when I taught in Chapel Hill.)  It'd be cool if, you know, she came to our class.  She probably won't, though.
Gaiman, Neil and Terry Prachett.  Good Omens. - Read it a few years ago, and I'm pretty sure Will owns it.
Lynch, Chris. Slot Machine.
Zusak, Marcus. The Book Thief
Blundell, Judy.  What I Saw and How I Lied
Nixon, Joan Lowery.  Name of the Game is Murder.
Meyer, Stephenie. Twilight. - Read it a year and a half ago and gave my copy away.  I wish I'd thought to keep it, but I know it won't be hard to find again.  (I just hope I can get it used instead of new.)
Jones, Diana Wynne.  The Pinhoe Egg.
Westerfeld, Scott. The Uglies. - Read it a little more than 2 years ago, still have it.  It'll be good to re-read as I never finished the series.
Myers, Walter Dean. Here in Harlem.
Freedman, Russell. Freedom Walkers: The Story of the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Helfer, Andrew. Malcolm X: A Graphic Biography.
Pardes, Bronwen. Doing it Right: Making Smart, Safe, and Satisfying Choices about Sex.
Alexie, Sherman. The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-time Indian.
De la Pena, Matt. Mexican WhiteBoy.
Yang, Gene Luen. American Born Chinese.
Hale, Shannon, Dean Hale and Nathan Hale. Rapunzel's Revenge.

We also need to keep a journal about these, informal, to refer to during class discussions.  I think my reviewing process here has prepared me really well for that.  Yay!

If you enjoyed this post, please subscribe to my feed so you will get my other posts about library school.

Photo by Sister72.

From Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast:

"Welcome to our weekly meeting ground for taking some time to reflect on Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week, whether book-related or not, that happened to you."

Here are my kicks, which will cover a couple of weeks:

1. I had last Sunday to recover from what had been a very social weekend, with outings Friday night, Saturday afternoon, and Saturday night.

2. At the Saturday night event (a party/meeting), I was elected an at large member of the board of the Durham Savoyards, one of only two theatre groups with which I’m currently active.

3. I went to Target on Monday and discovered that Frito-Lay offers a “Smart Pack” giant bag which contains 20 small bags of baked snacks. It’s hard to find snacks that are both easy and safe for my sensitive tummy, so this was a big happy.

4. On Tuesday I flew to Cincinnati where I got to spend the evening with my family, including my dad, who left for Boulder on Wednesday.

5. On Wednesday I spent the day with my mom and brother, and had another food-related glee when I discovered oatmeal in tiny packets sweetened only with evaporated cane juice and maple sugar. (Unfortunately it was meijer store brand, and we have no meijer here at home.)

6. On Thursday my mom fitted me for my wedding dress, which she is making. My top and my bottom and my front and my back are all different sizes, so if clothes are going to be stunning on me they have to be so fitted as to approach being haute couture. The pattern I’d bought for the dress required a few alterations, which my mom expertly made in some muslin to make a second, properly fitted pattern to use before she started cutting the satin she’ll use to make the dress.

7. On Friday, my sister called and asked me to dinner because she didn’t want to go home to her empty house yet.

Here’s to a new week full of shiny new kicks for all!

The Collaborative Summer Library Program is at it again, with different programs for children (pre-K through Grade 5), young adults (Grades 6 - 12), and adults (everybody else).  I registered through my library, which seems to be applying the young adult program theme to their adult program.  I'm good with that.  I made it my goal to finish 7 books between June 20 and August 10.  Eminently doable, considering I'm about to fly to Cincinnati to see my parents and brother (and have my mom fit me for my wedding dress).  Flying time = Reading time, as does Sitting Waiting to Board time and Standing Outside Waiting to Be Picked Up time.

But not Walking Through the Airport time, mainly because I am not as familiar with airports as I am with other places (my neighborhood, the schools where I've taught).

Have you signed up with your library's summer reading program?  Or has anyone you take care of (children, siblings, pets)?  What's your goal?

Last year I wrote a fairly comprehensive Summer Reading Round-up. Many of those links and resources are still useful.

Photo by emdot.

1. How to Be a Budget Fashionista, Kathryn Finney [re-read]
2. Worlds of the Imperium, Keith Laumer
3. Our Lady of Weight Loss, Janice Taylor [re-read]
4. Health at Every Size, Linda Bacon
5. The Automatic Millionaire, David Bach
6. Smart Women Finish Rich, David Bach
7. Queen Victoria's Bomb, Ronald W. Clark
8. The Anubis Gates, Tim Powers
9. Lessons from a Dead Girl, Jo Knowles
10. How to Be Popular, Meg Cabot [audiobook]
11. Ghosts of Albion: Accursed by Amber Benson and Christopher Golden
12. Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson [audiobook]
13. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell [audiobook]
14. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor [audiobook]
15. Ghosts of Albion: Witchery by Amber Benson and Christopher Golden
16. Death's Daughter by Amber Benson
17. French Kiss by Sarra Manning
18. Stop Pretending by Sonya Sones
19. The Queen of Cool by Cecil Castellucci
20. Accidental Love by Gary Soto 

I didn't keep track of any blogging or networking time, because I did so little of it.  Next year.

Total Time Spent Reading: 9 hrs 14 min
Total Pages: 1120

Books Completed: Death's Daughter, French Kiss, Stop Pretending, The Queen of Cool, Accidental Love.

Book: Accidental Love by Gary Soto
Time Spent Reading It: 1 hr 31 min

Another cute, fun read.  (Aside from Stop Pretending, which had me sniffling a good bit, that's what I was really going for this weekend.)  Marisa, a girl with a penchant for fighting, accidentally switches cell phones with Rene, a nerdy boy from another school.  When they meet to switch back, she realizes she kinda likes him.  This was a very sweet book.  I kind of like this type of romance better than French Kiss - sweet, youngish, with all of the problems externally generated.  (I'd much rather have parental disapproval be an obstacle in a romance than the fact that both of the love interests are incredibly moody, for example.) 

Total Time Spent Reading: 9 hrs 14 min

Even though I technically have another hour and a half in my 48 hours, that's probably going to do it for me.  I'll be back with an official summary later this evening.

So I've read 4 books in the past couple of days, which is more than I've read in the past several weeks.  I'm at the point now where I'm not loving the book I picked up.  Granted, I got sleepy part of the way in and took a nap.  But I'm actually motivated to clean my office/craft room, so I'm going to take advantage of that motivation when I have it.

I was all, "But that's not reading!"

But you know, this is a FUN thing, so if I need to do something else to keep it fun and not work, so be it.

There's less than 4 hours left in my time, so I don't think I'm going to make it to the 12 hour mark, but that's okay.  I still did a lot more reading than is typical of me on a weekend.  (Though I hope the amount that is "typical reading" for me changes once it's properly summer.)

Book: The Queen of Cool by Cecil Castellucci
Time Spent Reading It: 1 hr 15 min

I really enjoyed this book.  It surprised me in many ways.  I'd never read anything by Cecil Castellucci before, but I know a bit about her (I almost interviewed her once, then decided I couldn't take the time to do the interview justice) and expected her main characters to be kind of hipstery thrift shoppers with cool glasses and entertainingly affected speech patterns.  You know, the kind of people I like to have as friends.  Instead, I found out that the Queen of Cool was ACTUALLY, you know, cool, like, popular-kid cool.  At first I was disappointed, but as I read on, it was really refreshing.  There are tons of teen books about not fitting in, not being part of the popular crowd, being a nerd and a loser (and let's face it, the book-reading population probably skews heavily towards the less "glamorous" kids - I know I was horribly unglamorous as a middle and high schooler except for the few times I tried really hard, when I was fabulous) but you don't get many books from the popular girl's perspective.  It's always nice to be reminded that, oh yeah, popular kids are people too.  And then, it's also nice to read about all the stuff "cool" kids do that you didn't and not feel like you were actually missing anything at all by being unpopular, because you gave your friends silly awards and did absurd fashion shows from your childhood dress-up box with the boys who were your friends and invented silly games and generally made your own fun.  A good, fast, fun read.  I recommend it.

Total Time Spent Reading: 7 hrs 43 min

I haven't been keeping up with my blogging/networking, but I think all told it comes to less than an hour.  Maybe closer to half an hour, even.

Next up: Accidental Love by Gary Soto

So since I last posted, I spent a lot of time going to dinner, wandering around stores, hanging out at my sister's house, and sleeping.

And a little time reading.

Two mini-reviews for you:
Book: French Kiss by Sarra Manning (Diary of a Crush: Book 1)
Time Spent Reading It: 2 hrs 7 min

It's a cute, quick read.  It falls squarely in the category of romance, which means there's not much of a plot besides the romance part.  That made me a bit sad, because romance on its own just isn't that interesting to me.  I'm much more in favor of adventure with a little romance.  This was just a sixteen year old British young woman bopping around France with a bunch of 19 year olds and having a bizarre, intense attraction to a moody art boy.  If you're looking for a sweet romance, it's a good read.  It treads carefully in the department of sex, having the main character emphasize how she knows she's not ready for it while she's in the midst of all of these university-aged other kids who are hooking up all the time.  I think it's a very good perspective. 

After Death's Daughter and French Kiss, I was ready for something more serious...

Book: Stop Pretending by Sonya Sones
Time Spent Reading It: 29 min

Boy, howdy, did this one take me in a new direction.  This is a verse novel about a twelve-year-old girl whose older sister has a breakdown.  It's based on Sonya Sones's actual experience when her sister had a breakdown.  It made me cry a lot.  Mental illness is an important issue to me, and reading about it always kinda pokes me in a vulnerable spot and is a bit like pushing down on a bruise - it doesn't hurt when you're not touching it, it's easy to forget it's there, but then when you do touch it, boy is it intense.  I was so happy to read in the note Sonya Sones wrote at the end of the book that her sister is married and a librarian and stuff.  It was such a nice thing to know, that her sister wasn't forever stuck in a mental hospital unable to connect with anyone or do anything besides just be crazy.  (I know it's not PC to call folks crazy but when you're on the inside looking out, it's easier to call it like you see it.)

Total Time Spent Reading: 6 hrs 28 min

Next Up: The Queen of Cool by Cecil Castellucci

So I've been "participating" for almost 17 hours now and spent less than 4 of it reading.  Oops?

Non-48HBC activities have included sleeping, eating, and trying to find a crochet pattern to make as a present for a friend.  (In the end, I found something in my stash of already-made items to give her, yay.)  Maybe watching Pushing Daisies, too?

I'm just updating as I complete each book.

So, let's begin the update itself.

Book: Death's Daughter by Amber Benson
Time Spent: 3 hrs 52 min
Total Time Spent on Challenge: 3 hrs 52 min

Quick Review:
Death's Daughter is a fun, quick read.  (Less than 400 pages.)  It's Amber Benson's solo debut.  It's supernatural chick-lit, which I'm not sure if that's an actual genre, but if it isn't, it should be.  (I know it's a subgenre of romance novels.)  It read like a less-graphic Mary Janice Davidson novel.  It provoked me to think a lot about the whole ... is it a genre?  trope? thing... with 20-something apparently-shallow ladies finding out that no, they're actually very competent individuals.  For a fun read, it brought in some good weighty themes like family (the inevitably of being part of them, and the ways in which that's both pleasant and un) and women's sexuality.  A good time all around.  Expect a more detailed review later.

Next Up:
French Kiss by Sarra Manning (Diary of a Crush: Book 1)

It's time for MotherReader's 48 Hour Book Challenge!

I'll be starting at 8:15 pm local time tonight and continuing until 8:15 pm local time Sunday.  I will be taking breaks for eating, sleeping, and perhaps a bit of socializing, but I brought no grading home (yes, there's still a little to do) and have no intention of spending any portion of the weekend cleaning.

Stay tuned for my book reviews.  I'm going to experiment with writing reviews short enough to tweet, but I will probably post longer ones here, as well.

First up: Death's Daughter by Amber Benson.

See you on the other side!

1. How to Be a Budget Fashionista, Kathryn Finney [re-read]
2. Worlds of the Imperium, Keith Laumer
3. Our Lady of Weight Loss, Janice Taylor [re-read]
4. Health at Every Size, Linda Bacon
5. The Automatic Millionaire, David Bach
6. Smart Women Finish Rich, David Bach
7. Queen Victoria's Bomb, Ronald W. Clark
8. The Anubis Gates, Tim Powers
9. Lessons from a Dead Girl, Jo Knowles
10. How to Be Popular, Meg Cabot [audiobook]
11. Ghosts of Albion: Accursed by Amber Benson and Christopher Golden
12. Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson [audiobook]
13. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell [audiobook]
14. Roll of Thunder, Hear My Cry by Mildred D. Taylor [audiobook]
15. Ghosts of Albion: Witchery by Amber Benson and Christopher Golden

From Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast:
As a reminder, our 7 Kicks posts are our weekly meeting ground for taking some time to reflect on Seven(ish) Exceptionally Fabulous, Beautiful, Interesting, Hilarious, or Otherwise Positive Noteworthy Things from the past week, whether book-related or not, that happened to you. So, let’s kick it up. Absolutely anyone is welcome to list kicks — even if, or especially if, you’ve never done so before.

Hello, all! Here are my kicks:

1. I read all the comments prior to me on this weeks 7 Kicks post.

2. I can see a Little Willow comment a mile away, long before I get to the part where it actually says her name. That’s a good feeling.

3. Today, I went to lunch with my sister and her fiance.

4. Yesterday, I saw a good friend in a show which was an amalgamation of several famous fight scenes from theatre, film, and video games. It was a raucously good time, and I may audition for their company next time they open it up. Additionally, their 10-people-rep-company model inspired me to re-commit to my dream of having a community theatre group with minimal political machinations, someday.

5. Friday night, Will and I went to a party hosted by one of my colleagues. I was so happy for him to meet all of them, and they gave us a lovely card and gift both as congratulations for our upcoming wedding and a good-bye to me, since I’m going back to school.

6. Tuesday, I went to the chiropractor.

7. Monday, I had tea with my best friend, who is also my wedding photographer, and hashed out the details of my wedding photography. (I basically said, “I trust you. They better be good,” and then gave her free reign.)

Happy week to all!

I was reading some posts over at Oz and Ends (a lot of fun) and a couple of them were about comic book related things.

I love comic books as a medium, even though they're a little work for me.  I have difficulty following the sequence of panels.  Nine or so years ago, I was all about purchasing comics.  It would be incorrect to say I ever really kept up with a series; I mostly bought back issues or collected editions (those giant "ESSENTIAL" ones from Marvel more than any proper Trade Paperback).

But I haven't bought any new comics in a long time, and the last few times I did, I ended up buying copies of issues I already had.  (Both for Buffy Season 8 and Astonishing X-Men.  Joss Whedon is apparently the only person who can get me into a comic book store anymore.)

So I started thinking, why?  I live very close to a comic book store.  What's keeping me from buying new ones, keeping up, etc?

It comes down to a few things I think:
1. Comic book issues are very short.  Much like I've become a person who prefers TV-on-DVD to actually following a series, I like to consume my stories in one sitting.  Especially with Buffy Season 8, it feels like each issue is one act of an episode -  maybe 9 minutes' worth of entertainment.  So, then, I get very excited about my new comic book and boom, the excitement is over so quickly because the stories are so short.

2. I forget.  If I were clever enough to subscribe to a service (say, from Things from Another World, for example) that delivered comics directly to my house, this would be much less of a problem.  So why don't I do that?  I don't know.

3. I like to get in on the ground floor or have an easy way to catch up.  Oddly enough, this was NOT the case for Buffy the show - it was before the days of entire seasons on DVD - but I came in shortly before the show was syndicated, so that did make it easier.  I love the ESSENTIAL books for just this reason.  I can tell you all about the X-Men from the time when Wolverine joined (not the first group, but I'm told I'm not missing much by skipping to the second iteration of the X-Men).  I can talk about Spiderman's earliest days, before he even had his own book.  I hadn't been BORN yet, but it's easy for me to find these things.  So if I can't easily jump in from the start, then that's a bit of a barrier.  (Fortunately, this is not such a problem.  TPBs really have made it possible to start at the very beginning and get caught up fairly quickly.  YAY!)

4. I don't really like the comic book store near my house.  The people there aren't MEAN, by any stretch of the imagination, but I don't know that they themselves are especially fond of comics.  They're always slightly patronizing, which I think is partly because I'm a woman.  It is not an especially female-friendly shop.  It's not hostile, or anything.  It's just... not comfy.  When I go there, I grab what I'm looking for, pay, and get out ASAP.

But you know what?

When I go back to school, every day I'm on campus will be a day within easy walking distance of an excellent comic book store, one where I feel very comfortable just browsing.  Additionally, the library of the school I'm attending has the first volumes of several comic books/TPBs, so I can check out new stories without spending any money.

I won't have the same amount of disposable income I have now, but if I'm very careful, I think that maybe comic books and I can get back together.

Won't that be nice?

1. How to Be a Budget Fashionista, Kathryn Finney [re-read]
2. Worlds of the Imperium, Keith Laumer
3. Our Lady of Weight Loss, Janice Taylor [re-read]
4. Health at Every Size, Linda Bacon
5. The Automatic Millionaire, David Bach
6. Smart Women Finish Rich, David Bach
7. Queen Victoria's Bomb, Ronald W. Clark
8. The Anubis Gates, Tim Powers
9. Lessons from a Dead Girl, Jo Knowles
10. How to Be Popular, Meg Cabot [audiobook]
11. Ghosts of Albion: Accursed by Amber Benson and Christopher Golden
12. Rabbit Hill by Robert Lawson [audiobook]
13. Island of the Blue Dolphins by Scott O'Dell [audiobook]

I was sick yesterday and so I did not post this. Here it is, a day late.

Today's Schedule
Jenny Davidson at Chasing Ray
Rebecca Stead at Fuse #8
Ryan Mecum at Writing and Ruminating
Lauren Myracle at Bildungsroman
Kristin Cashore at HipWriterMama
Rachel Caine at The YA YA YAs

Don't forget the Guys Lit Wire Book Fair for Boys!

Today's SBBT Schedule
Siobhan Vivian at Miss Erin
Alma Alexander at Finding Wonderland
Laurel Snyder at Shaken & Stirred
Cindy Pon at The YA YA YAs
Thalia Chaltas at Bildungsroman

Don't forget the Guys Lit Wire Book Fair for Boys!