Sunday Evening Visits: October 15, 2006

I've had a lot going on lately with work, and I haven't been able to keep up with visiting the kidlitosphere nearly as much as I would like. I've recently tried using Google Reader (which is like bloglines). I find that it's nice for keeping up with less frequently updated blogs, but for prolific blogs, it's just demoralizing. I spent four days in Austin, then couldn't get to surfing right away when I returned, and the next thing I knew three of my favorite blogs had 51, 44, and 33 unread posts, respectively (Fuse, Big A little a, and bookshelves of doom). The truth is that I've snuck in visits to all three sites, so there aren't really that many posts that are unread. But still, it's quite daunting. I think what I'm going to end up doing is using Google Reader for the sites that have something like less than 7 posts per week, and using Firefox tabs for the others.

Anyway, I did manage to pick up a few tidbits for you:

• First off, congratulations to Jay from The Disco Mermaids for landing his first book contract! I especially enjoyed his photos of sharing the news with his family, and with Robin and Eve. What I was also pleased to see was the outpouring of support and good will in the comments on his site and on other sites. It makes a person happy to be part of this children's literature community, seeing how pleased people can be about each other's success.
• Moving on, Sherry takes up the topic of life lessons learned from children's books over at Semicolon (I wrote about this here). She includes lessons from a number of beloved picture books. Also, if you haven't seen them, check our Semicolon's weekly Saturday Review of Books posts, in which bloggers submit links to their own reviews. There's always something interesting.
• I was pleased to see this Book Page included on Alice Yucht's list of recommended Kit Lit blogs on the Youth Services Blog List, originally created for the New Jersey State Library's Youth Services Forum. I also learned about some new blogs there. Thanks, Alice!
• Susan Taylor Brown was interviewed in the most recent issue of Byline Magazine, about writing the verse novel. Unfortunately, I don't believe that the interview is online anywhere. But I enjoyed reading it.
• Bookseller Chick put up a post on Friday entitled: Where do you read? She describes her favorite reading spot, and asks readers to chime in with their own. It's fun stuff!
• Stephanie at Children's Literature Book Club takes up the negative book reviews question (which was heavily discussed on this site, as well as several others, earlier in the week). She is in favor of "negative" reviews, as long as they give a clear indication of why the reviewer didn't like the book, and notes that sometimes an allegedly negative review will make her want to read a book, because of her different perspective on the issue.

That's all for now. It's the merest tip of the iceberg in terms of what's been going on in the kidlitosphere. But I hope to catch up more next weekend. Happy reading to all!