Sunday Afternoon Visits: February 25

I was traveling for work this week, and am still trying to catch up. I didn't have any time to visit the Kidlitosphere between last Monday night and tonight, though I managed to post a couple of times. Clearly, I missed a lot. Here are a just a few highlights, gleaned in my very limited blogging time today:

• I completely missed the 11th Carnival of Children's Literature, posted with Mother Reader's classic wit. What's particularly nice to see is that the roll call of people participating in the Carnivals (as with Poetry Friday and Semicolon's Saturday Review of Books) is ever-growing. I'm on deck to host the April carnival, and I'm looking forward to it.
• Cloudscome, aka Andi, from a wrung sponge took the time to dig into a report that I linked to in my last Children's Literacy Round-Up. The report is about the effects of television watching on young children. Andi summarizes the main findings from the report, and asks visitors how they manage TV and media at home. Important stuff, I think.
• People are still talking about the whole Higher Power of Lucky scrotum reference debate. While opinions on the book vary, there does seem to be consensus that Pixie Stix Kids Pix has the most comprehensive and informed wrap-up around. And, not surprisingly, Leila from bookshelves of doom has the t-shirts, recently mentioned at Gawker. Thanks to Liz B. at Tea Cozy for both links.
• Reinforcing my impression of them as three classy women who deserved to win Newbery Honor awards, Cynthia Lord, Kirby Larson, and Jennifer Holm published a solidarity statement in support of Newbery winner Susan Patron in this time of conflict. They in turn have received much positive feedback from their fans, and from Susan Patron (in the comments here).
• I've been waiting until I have more time to talk in detail about a new site, Readergirlz. But since I'm not doing so well with the "more time" thing, I'll just send you over there now. Readergirlz is an online community focused around helping teen girls, started by four divas of young adult literature: Justina Chen Headley, Dia Calhoun, Lorie Ann Grover, and Janet Lee Carey. Their mission is "celebrating gutsy girls in life and lit". The idea is to inspire girls, and keep them reading and discussing books. They're working on a list strong girls in books (and of course I'm on board with that), among other projects. In keeping with audience, they also have a MySpace page, and have lured me into creating a MySpace page so that I can participate. I think that what they're doing is amazing and important, and I recommend that you check it out.

I'm traveling again this week, but I expect to be back with some book reviews next weekend. Happy reading!