Friday Afternoon Visits: September 11

September 11th will never again be just another day. One can't even think about the date without remembering the events that occurred 8 years ago. My heart goes out to the friends and family members who are still grieving. The people lost on 9/11/01 will never be forgotten.

But I think that remembering terrible things only makes it that much important to take positive actions when we can. In doing so, even when the actions are small, we send out a tiny light into the darkness. And so, this Friday, September 11th, I bring you the news from the largely joyful place that is the Kidlitosphere. First, some September 11th-related remembrances and reviews:

At Rasco from RIF, Carol Rasco shares RIF's plans for the first official September 11 Day of Service and Remembrance. She says: "The tragic events of September 11, 2001 unified us as a nation. The memory of that day continues to inspire us to serve our neighbors, our communities, and our country. We are pleased to join this national effort and thank the President for making this call to service." 

At The Reading Tub, Terry Doherty shares her personal response to the book 14 Cows for America, saying: "Although September 11, 2001 is the backdrop for the story, Deedy is offering us a timeless, universal story of empathy, compassion, and shared dreams of hope. Sharing this book with a child will open their minds to other cultures, traditions, and belief systems."

And at Finding Wonderland, Tanita Davis intermingles her memories of 9/11 with a review of David Levithan's Love is the Higher Law. She says: "David Levithan is a New Yorker whose own impressions of that bewildering, horrifying, terrifying day are reflected in these pages. Few readers, teens and adults alike, will be able to experience this novel without remembering their own story -- where they were that day, what they did." Jackie Parker reviews the book, too, at InteractiveReader. She says: "I read it because it was David Levithan writing about 9/11. I know that Levithan is a New Yorker. And I trusted him as an author to deal with this subject with barefaced honesty, never pandering, never with any sense of self-importance or false heroism, or anything else that sullies that day." 

At The Simple and the Ordinary, Christine M. shares her fragmented but crystal clear 9/11 memories. Sarah shares hers at The Reading Zone, and Susan hers at Chicken Spaghetti.  Me, I was in Austin, Texas on a business trip, and I heard about the events in New York on the car radio, on my way to work. During the course of that half hour drive, the first tower fell. And things were different. We all remember.

But, now, because life does go on, I'll go on to the regular blogosphere news:

Sherry Early has been running a great feature at Semicolon. She's going through the shortlists for Book Blogger Appreciation Week, checking out each blog, writing a short blurb about the blog, and identifying her pick in each category. For example, here's her assessment of the Best Thriller/Mystery/Suspense Blog category. I've flagged several of her posts to go back to, as I seek out new blogs to follow myself. (In the interest of full disclosure, I should admit that Sherry has some nice things to say about my own blog, shortlisted in the Best KidLit Blog category. But I would think it was a neat feature in any case, I'm sure.) See also a thoughtful post at Chasing Ray, in which Colleen Mondor shares her opinion about shortlisting blogs, in general. Incidentally, voting for BBAW closes at midnight Saturday night. I hope that if you have opinions about any of the categories, you'll take a few minutes to vote. And stay tuned for lots more BBAW activity next week.  

Thanks to the talented and hard-working Sarah Stevenson, new Cybils Bling is now available for purchase at Cafe Press. All of the new merchandise (t-shirt, mugs, buttons, tote bag, etc.) features the snazzy new Cybils 2009 logo. You can find details at the Cybils blog. Personally, I have my eye on a new mug, to go with my assorted Kidlitosphere Conference mugs from years past.

Pam and Susan have both hit it out of the park at Booklights this week, in my opinion. On Wednesday, Susan wrote about the ups and downs of reading aloud. She offers practical advice for parents who might be disappointed by their young kids' unwillingness to sit still for read-aloud. Her conclusion: "Go easy on yourself and your children when it comes to reading aloud. And enjoy the wonderful moments when they happen." Then yesterday, Pam used her Thursday Three feature to offer reading help for "the three people involved in your child's reading development - the teacher, the child, and yourself." I especially liked her strong suggestion that parents try to avoid The Reading Game (parental competition over kids' reading levels and books). Both of these posts have the same general message for parents: raising readers works best if you keep it fun, and keep from being too hard on yourself or the kids. And that, my friends, is why I'm so happy to be working with Pam and Susan (and Gina, who guides us all, and Ann, who reinforces what we're doing) at Booklights.

Terry Doherty wrote a guest article for this month's Children's Book Insider (subscription required) that some of you may find of interest. It's about generating cyberbuzz (or, how to get your book reviewed online). Terry offers tips based on her experience in moderating book review requests at The Reading Tub. She also makes an interesting distinction between "stories written for kids, titles adults like for their kids; and books meant for adults." There's also a followup interview between Terry and CBI's Laura Backes here. Terry also has a guest piece in the Examiner, as part of Jennifer Finke's series on Toys with Imagination. Terry talks about engaging toddlers and kids with interactive books (no batteries required!).

Nathan Bransford, the literary agent, started an interesting discussion on his blog this week about whether or not children's books should be "content-rated" like movies and video games. As I write there are some 250+ comments - clearly this is a topic that people feel strongly about. I found this post via Dawn Morris from Moms Inspire Learning (who found it via Jon Bard from Children's Book Insider). Dawn says (on her own blog): "I wish the YA section of the library could be split in two, with books that address serious issues being put into a separate section for high school students. Why can't there be a "safe" section just for children between the ages of 10 and 14? Parents can't always read every book, after all." Me, I think it's a complicated question, because content ratings for books are such a subjective and variable thing. What's "safe" for one kid might seem edgy for the next. It's not easy. On a related note, Robin LaFevers writes about "some of the delineations in writing YA versus MG versus adult books".

Another controversy has spun up around the lit blogosphere this week. The latest Notes from the Horn Book (a monthly email newsletter from Horn Book Magazine) included an interview with author Richard Peck. Mr. Peck apparently criticized teachers for reading books aloud. The interview has evoked some dissenting opinions from teachers, of course, particularly from Sarah at The Reading Zone and Monica Edinger at Educating Alice. See also Horn Book editor Roger Sutton's take at Read Roger (he says "I think Peck was complaining about classrooms where kids' only exposure to trade books was hearing them read aloud"). But still... it's always something! 

Gail Gauthier linked to an interesting piece in the Denver Post by David Milofsky. The author posits that, as Google and Yahoo start paying publishers to link to news stories, the same might be expected of literary bloggers. A number of prominent bloggers are quoted in the article. I would tend to agree with Gail that if your blog doesn't make money, fair use would probably apply in linking to a news story. Personally, it's not like my blog is a big profit center for me. If I had to pay to link to news stories, well, I just wouldn't link to news stories. Or I'd find some other way to do it, anyway. But it's something to watch.

Quick Hits:

• This week's Poetry Friday roundup is at Wild Rose Reader. The last Nonfiction Monday roundup was at The Miss Rumphius Effect.
• Greg Pincus has an inspirational post about community and the power of #kidlitchat (a weekly Twitter chat about children's books and publishing). I'll tell you, he made me want to participate, and I'm so not a "chat" person (the introvert in me can't cope with the swirl of conversation, even when it's online).
• At Angieville, Angie has a fun post about the appeal of "bad boys" in literature, inspired by a post from Adele at Persnickety Snark. Reading both posts, it's clear to me that in literature and TV, I'm generally in favor of Bad Boys, too (I pick Pacey over Dawson any day, and I am Team Gale all the way).
• At Bookshelves of Doom, Leila is in a bit of a reading slump, and looking for "something that I'll be able to fall into, that has writing that at the very least won't make me roll my eyes, that has characters I can believe in, a story that I haven't read a million times before (unless the writing and the characters make it work), something that I'll remember for more than an hour after reading." Lots of promising suggestions in the comments.
• At Parents and Kids Reading Together, Cathy Puett Miller says that "picture books are for everyone".
• Cheryl Rainfield has pictures of a house and furniture made out of books (well, not really, but they're made to look like they're made out of books, which works, too). Very fun!
• At the Miss Rumphius Effect, Tricia links to a Fledgling post by Zetta Elliott about authors of color. Tricia says: "In addition to being a mighty strong argument for the recognition of works by authors of color, she includes links to some astounding and disheartening statistics." See also Roger Sutton's response.
• Speaking of the need for diversity in publishing, Susan has a great quote at Chicken Spaghetti from Amy Bowllan's School Library Journal blog, in a recent column about writers against racism: "Literature helps us understand who we are and to find our place in the world." 
• Responding to the recent trend of adding horror elements to classic romances (e.g. Pride and Prejudice and Zombies), Becky from Becky's Book Reviews suggests adding romance to some of the classic horror stories (e.g. a love interest for Frankenstein). I like it!
• At A Year of Reading, Mary Lee and Franki are commemorating the start of the new school year with a series of posts celebrating teachers. I especially liked Day 4, in which Franki reminds people about Mary Lee and Franki's list of Cool Teachers in Children's Literature.
• Liz Burns from Tea Cozy is one of the winners of the Color Me Brown challenge at Color Online. She links to other winners here. 
• Susan Beth Pfeffer unveils the cover of the third Life As We Knew It book, The World We Live In. This is one book for which I don't need to see any reviews. I already want it.  
• Colleen Mondor wrote a short history of Guys Lit Wire for Crossed Genres magazine.
• Mary Pearson guest blogged at Tor the other day about everyone's obsession with the future (and specifically talked about how thinking about the future led her to the ideas in The Adoration of Jenna Fox). She also has a smart post at Tor about what YA lit is and isn't (I found that one via Liz B.).
• Sarah Stevenson chimed in on MotherReader's Kidlitosphere Conference meme at Finding Wonderland. Updated to add that Betsy Bird chimed in from Fuse #8, too (and she hardly ever does memes). And Colleen makes a particularly strong case for writers to attend, at Chasing Ray. Oh, I wish that EVERYONE could come this year. At least Liz B. will be there again this year (here's her meme).
• And if this isn't enough news for you, Abby (the) Librarian has some other links today.

Wishing you all a weekend of peace. Me, I just got some good news from my brother, which definitely makes the day a lot brighter.