Books Read in April
Dreamdark: Silksinger: Laini Taylor

Friday Afternoon Visits: May 1

Kidlitosphere_button It's been another hectic week around the Kidlitosphere. The number of starred items in my Google Reader keeps growing by leaps and bounds. Here are a few highlights (with more literacy and reading focused news to come on Monday):

The Edgar Award winners (from the Mystery Writers of America) were announced this week, as reported by Omnivoracious. They include: Best Young Adult Mystery: Paper Towns by John Green, and Best Juvenile Mystery: The Postcard by Tony Abbott.  

Jacba_bookseal-150x150 In other award news, the 2009 Jane Addams Children's Book Awards were announced. I found the news at PaperTigers. From the press release: "Books commended by the Award address themes or topics that engage children in thinking about peace, justice, world community, and/or equality of the sexes and all races. The books also must meet conventional standards of literary and artistic excellence. Planting the Trees of Kenya: The Story of Wangari Maathai... is the winner in the “Books for Younger Children” category. The Surrender Tree: Poems of Cuba’s Struggle for Freedom... is the winner in the “Books for Older Children” category."

The five British Children's Laureates recently each selected their seven favorite children's booksTasha Saecker has the lists at Kids Lit, saying "Great reads are timeless as this list shows. Just reading the list brings back flashes of memories. Lovely." I agree. I especially liked Jacqueline Wilson's list, with favorites like Little Women, A Little Princess, The Railway Children, and Ballet Shoes

Newlogorg200 The Readergirlz will be focusing on Red Glass by Laura Resau this month. Little Willow has all the details at Bildungsroman. Red Glass was also a Cybils short list title for young adult fiction in 2007. 

Iblogo Mary Hershey and Robin LaFevers have launched their third annual National Independent Booksellers Appreciation Month at Shrinking Violet Promotions. They've also just started a Shrinking Violet's Yahoo Group, "the brainstorming, buddying-up, and support arm of the Shrinking Violet Promotions blog. It's a place where introverted authors can discuss (and commiserate with!) the ins and outs of marketing and promoting their books." 

May is also National Asian Pacific American Heritage month. Tanita Davis is participating at Finding Wonderland, responding to an interactive poll with questions like "Favorite Asian, South Asian or Asian American writers and their works".

School Library Journal's Battle of the (Kids) Books continued this week, with the semifinal winners identified. Melissa has a nice little recap at Book Nut. Like Melissa, what I'm curious about is: "will final judge Lois Lowry go for a huge, sprawling work of genius or a hip, intense dystopian novel? " Me, I'm a huge fan of The Hunger Games (which won the Cybils award this year for YA fantasy/science fiction), so I know what I'm pulling for... 

The Last OlympianI'm guessing that a potential Cybils and SLJBoB candidate for next year will be the final book in the Percy Jackson series, The Last Olympian. Rick Riordan links to a feature article about Percy Jackson in the Wall Street Journal. Pretty impressive for a kid with ADHD who keeps getting kicked out of schools. Seriously, though, Mheir and I are planning to attend Rick's upcoming signing at Kepler's in Menlo Park, and will hope to see some of you there. 

The online auction to benefit fellow kidlit blogger Bridget Zinn (who is battling cancer) has begun. Matt Holm has the full details of the call for action. The auction site is here (a blog, appropriately enough), and there are lots of great items up for bid already. Please do consider participating - you can get great, one-of-a-kind items, and help one of our own at the same time. I've already put in a bid for an item that I want... But more items will be added in the next few days.

The Book Chook has a fun post about places that people read. She notes: "I love that reading is so portable. ... When I go on holiday, my packing order is books: first; clothes: if I remember. That portability has enabled me to read in planes, trains and automobiles, on the Great Wall of China, and once while resisting anaesthetic before an operation." I commented there and shared some of the notable places that I enjoyed reading as a child. Click through to see.

I also enjoyed this post at Ink Splot 26, about the five best sidekicks from books. Some of my favorite characters are the sidekicks, especially Bean from Ender's Game and Sam from The Lord of the Rings.  

NationalPoetryMonthLogo In round-up news, Elaine Magliaro rounds up week 4 of National Poetry Month in the Kidlitosphere at Wild Rose Reader. See also individual NPM round-ups at Susan Taylor Brown's blog, Gotta Book (Gregory K's blog), and Kelly Fineman's blog. Also Chronicle of an Infant Bibliophile rounds up a host of children's books about animals, with links to full reviews.

NORTHlogo[1] And finally, congratulations to Miss Erin, winner of Justina Chen Headley's North of Beautiful Find Beauty Challenge. (My review of North of Beautiful is here.)

Wishing you all a peaceful and book-filled weekend.

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