Growing Bookworms Newsletter: KidLit '08 and Cybils Nomination Edition

Tonight I will be sending out the new issue of the Growing Bookworms weekly email newsletter. (If you would like to subscribe, you can find a sign-up form here.) The Growing Bookworms newsletter contains content from my blog focused on children's books and raising readers. There are currently more than 380 subscribers.

This week I have four book reviews (one early reader, two for upper elementary and middle schoolers, and one for young adults). I also have an announcement about a book previously reviewed that is now available (Inkdeath by Cornelia Funke) and an announcement about the nominations for the 2008 Cybils. That is all that I have this week for the newsletter. My blogging time has been completely taken up by first traveling to Portland, OR this weekend for the KidLit Blogger Conference, and then by my efforts to spread the word about the Cybils (I am the official Literacy Evangelist for these children's and young adult literary bloggers' book awards). I do urge you, my faithful newsletter subscribers, to read the Cybils announcement, and to participate by passing the word along to people you think might be interested and/or by nominating books for this year's Cybils. Nominations open first thing tomorrow (Wednesday).

The Kidlitosphere conference was excellent. I haven't had time yet to do a full write-up, but I share a picture of the group to my left. If you'd like to find out more about the conference, you can find links to tons of posts (41 so far) here. Highlights for me were presenting information about the Cybils with Sarah Stevenson and Jackie Parker, and discussing the author/blogger dynamic with Laini Taylor. Plus hanging out with many of my blog buddies, some who I had met before, and some who I met for the first time, and also meeting some incredibly nice authors, several of whom gave me books. Hopefully I'll find time for more detail later in the week.... 

Reviews coming out over the next week (only because I wrote them before the conference) include Piper Reed: The Great Gypsy by Kimberly Willis Holt, Dodger and Me by Jordan Sonnenblick, and Violet Raines Almost Got Struck by Lightning by Danette Haworth.

Thanks for reading, and for growing bookworms! And please don't forget to participate in the 2008 Cybils. Thanks!