Wednesday Afternoon Visits: February 18

The blogs were relatively quiet over the holiday weekend, and I was in Lake Tahoe with friends myself. But now that I'm catching back up, I have a few things to share with you:

I know I already shared the recently released cover of the last Percy Jackson book. But I also just ran across this fun interview between Percy and Blackjack the Pegasus (who are both pictured on the cover). It's on Rick Riordan's blog.

Mary Lee has a lovely little post at A Year of Reading about the top five expectations that her students have when they read fiction. For any adult in the business of evaluating fiction for kids, this is a useful post. I, of course, like the emphasis on story. See also this recent post by Donalyn Miller, the Book Whisperer, about students looking for expert opinions about books that they value. She says: "I know from your posts that you are readers, too. Why not join the conversation? Submit a quote about a book or two you would like to recommend. Celebrate your reading expertise and share it with us all!"

Carlie Webber from Librarilly Blonde has a new article in Publisher's Weekly, What they don't know won't hurt them: Persuading adults to read YA literature. Carlie says: "My advice is simple: lie and cheat. To get more adults to read and enjoy YA literature, the lie of omission often works." And she gives some concrete examples of books that will work perfectly well for many adults, if the books aren't pre-judges as "for kids". She also suggests that "Teen books must make an appearance outside the teen section. Staff picks and themed book displays should include teen books." I certainly agree!

MotherReader has started planning for "the Annual KidLitosphere Conference — or if you’d prefer, The Society of Bloggers in Children’s and Young Adult Literature Annual Conference." Nothing firm yet, but the weekend of October 16th in Arlington, VA is starting to look promising. I'm hoping that having the conference in DC, and not in conflict with any other major conferences, will result in the highest attendance yet. Stay tuned for more details!

Bookwitch has a new resource that I think a lot of people are going to find useful: the Aspie Books Page ("any fiction which I feel is the slightest bit Asperger/Autism/ ADHD related can be listed here for reference"). Bookwitch writes from the UK, so it's possible that some books will be unfamiliar to US audiences, but I found several favorites there (including recent Cybils winner for middle grade fiction: The London Eye Mystery, RULES, and the aforementioned Percy Jackson books).

The Book Chook has a new two-part feature: the Read Aloud Roundup (part 1 and part 2) in which she asks "some people who love books to choose their favourite book to read aloud." She also shares "great tips to add extra value". Don't miss this fun new feature, focused on the joys of reading aloud with kids.

Becky Laney from Becky's Book Reviews is doing quite a bit of thinking about the rights and wrongs of copying (after her blog content was shamefully stolen by another site). She discusses links vs. quotes vs. memes, etc., and seeks reader feedback. All I have to say is that I own a software company, and this has made me very very respectful of other people's intellectual property. (I should also mention that some of my "afternoon visits" posts are being reposted on the Kidlitosphere Central news blog, but that's happening with my full knowledge and consent. I'm on the board there. What Becky's talking about is copying without permission. And that's nothing short of theft.)

Speaking of theft, Guys Lit Wire has a post by Kristopher about writing-related scams.

And speaking of the potential co-opting of other people's intellectual property, there's been quite a bit of conflict lately around Facebook's Terms of Service. They seem to have backed down a little bit on some recent changes that they made, in response to a storm of controversy, but I think that people are now being extra-careful about what they put on Facebook.

And that's all for today! Happy reading. -- Jen Robinson