Sunday Afternoon Visits: Cool Girls, Anonymous Bloggers, and Dumbledore

I missed out on a lot of the happenings around the Kidlitosphere this week because I was away on a business trip, and just generally had a lot going on for work. However, I did manage to store up a few highlights:

• The Robert's Snow Blogging for a Cure event has been a big success in terms of visibility and interesting content. Hopefully that visibility will translate into dollars in the eventual auction. Kudos to Jules & Eisha, and the 65 other bloggers involved, for a job well done. (I'm not participating directly, but I have been trying to help promote the event, and I hope to score a snowflake once the auction begins.) See also this post at Wild Rose Reader about the logistics around which illustrators are included in the blog event.
• Nominations are continuing to trickle in for the Cybils, though the pace has slowed a bit. We will be accepting nominations until November 21st, but would be happy to have your nominations as early as possible, so that we can get started reading the books. In middle grade and YA nonfiction, in particular, I would love to see more nominations. We've also started featuring reviews by our committee members of some of the nominated titles on the Cybils blog.
• The Readergirlz 31 Flavorites Event is also moving along swiftly, and has generated a uniformly positive response. Chats that I've seen have included from 200 to 500 posts, with lots of great discussion between authors and readers. Miss Erin has some highlights from the chats.
• In honor of Teen Read Week, MotherReader shares advice for booktalking to middle schoolers and also offers a list of recommended humorous books for teens, classified by age. Both lists share MotherReader's trademark blend of useful content and entertaining delivery.
• Cheryl Rainfield links to Angieville's list of Top 10 Kick-A** Heroines of YA Literature, and includes her own suggested adds. These are like the teenaged particularly spunky cool girls from children's literature. Cheryl also has a roundup of book contests for winning teen fiction or picture books.
• Congratulations to FirstBook for being selected as a signature charity of the Quills Literacy Foundation.
• Stacy DeKeyser offers a bit of rant against anonymous bloggers (she calls them cowards) at Reading, writing, and chocolate.
• Emily Beeson at whimsy shares her son's response to a list prepared by the Public Library of Westland, Michigan of 100 books Your Child Should Hear Before Starting School. There are some wonderful titles included.
• This week the 7-Imps interviewed Jackie Parker, my fellow readergirlz postergirl and Cybils coordinator. Be sure to especially check out Jackie's response to their question about what she would like to hear God say when she arrives at the Pearly Gates. Her childhood picture is also adorable.
• Monica Edinger points to a Guardian Unlimited article by Imogen Russell Williams about dystopian fiction. Williams shares her reasons for and guilty pleasure in reading dystopian fiction, and discusses several specific titles in detail. Must-read stuff for fans of this sub-genre of fiction.
• Via Tricia at The Miss Rumphius Effect (who in turn learned about it from Don Tate), Lee & Low Books have a thought-provoking article about how diversity helps literacy.
• Amy from Literacy Launchpad is seeking input on striking the right balance between working on literacy skills and making reading fun in the classroom. If you have any thoughts on this, please share them with Amy, because her stated goal is well worth supporting. She says: "I want these kids to LOVE reading and to WANT to read."
• Good news from Rick Riordan's blog: "the Fox movie studio has bought the rights to make the Lightning Thief feature film. They’ve had it under option for almost three years while they’ve worked on the script (twice) and negotiated with Chris Columbus, who will direct. Now they’ve exercised that option and bought the rights, which means they’re fairly confident the project is going forward."
• And, ok, you've probably heard this from a million other sources already. But just in case you missed it, J. K. Rowling has announced that Dumbledore is gay. See reactions at Worth the Trip and Wizard's Wireless (and congratulations there to Susan on her hundredth post). Susan is also compiling a roundup of reaction posts to the Dumbledore news, so let her know if you would like to be included. All I can say is that it hadn't occurred to me that he was gay, but it does explain a lot about Dumbledore's motivations in regards to Grindelwald. And I like the idea that these characters are so real to J. K. Rowling that there are other major facts about them that she hasn't had a chance to share with us yet. (Though lots of people strongly disagree with this view, like Gail Gauthier, for example).
• Susan Taylor Brown has an impressive roundup of Poetry Friday roundups from 2006 and 2007 on her blog. It's amazing how this little idea of Kelly Herold's has grown and become formalized over the months and years.
• Anne Boles Levy is starting Gross Out Week at Book Buds, featuring "some good ol' fashioned disgusting fun" (like books about bugs) just in time for Halloween.

And now, I'm signing off in honor of game 7 of the ALCS. Go SOX!!!