Children's Literacy and Reading News Roundup: End of January

The end of January Children's Literacy and Reading News Roundup, brought to you by Carol Rasco, Terry Doherty, and me, is now available at Carol's blog, Quietly. I'm sharing a few of the highlights here. 

Lots of events are taking place in children's literature in late January and early February, from last week's ALA Youth Media Awards to:

• 28 Days Later ("a month-long showcase of the best in Picture Books, Middle Grade and Young Adult novels written and illustrated by African Americans") at The Brown Bookshelf throughout February.
• The announcement of Cybils winners (well-written, kid-friendly titles in 10 delightful categories) on February 14th.
• International Book Giving Day ("a volunteer initiative aimed at increasing children’s access to and enthusiasm for books ... (by) encouraging people worldwide to give a book to a child on February 14th").
• With more events coming up in March... (I'll highlight some of those in the mid-month roundup.)

Also of note from Carol:

• Regarding the ALA Awards: "In the midst of all the excitement, however, I found myself wishing and wishing with each announcement there would be more minority authors, illustrators, characters in books awarded prizes outside the awards so designated. It is a concern, and clearly I am not the only one by a long shot concerned. Read Mitali’s Fire Escape and that of Fuse #8 (scroll down to Whitey Whitey Whiteville) on the same issue."
• On needing passion and curiosity, not just IQ: "An article I’ve reviewing a great deal recently was written by Thomas Friedman: It’s P.Q. and C.Q. As Much As I.Q.. In noting the world is now not simply more connected but instead “hyper-connected” Friedman states “How to adapt? It will require more individual initiative. We know that it will be vital to have more of the “right” education than less, that you will need to develop skills that are complementary to technology" -- I enjoyed this article, too. 

And here are a couple of additional tidbits that I ran across in the past few days:

• The hidden benefits of reading aloud, even to older kids. GreatSchools.org shares Jill Matthiessen's interview with Read Aloud Handbook author Jim Trelease (via Reshama at Stacking Books, shared on Google+).
• Six tips for nurturing a child's love of reading, by Mary L. Weimer at Babble (via @tashrow).
• An update on the spread of 1000 Books before Kindergarten programs by Marge Loch-Wouters.
• A pretty fine list by Cate Allan at Suite101 of 10 Great YA Novels with Strong Female Characters. Of course I could think of others to add, but I liked the range of the list. I was especially pleased to see Mare's War (by my friend Tanita Davis) on the list. Found via Cate Allan's post on Google+.

Speaking of Google+, I never found it all that useful until the recent addition of Communities. I'm now a member of the Great Books for Kids community (created by Bethany at No Twiddle Twaddle, now with 300+ members), and have been enjoying the discussion there. I'm dabbling in a couple of other communities, too, but they aren't as active. You can find me here on Google+.

I'm also (not on Google+) enjoying the weekly Children's Bookshelf, where bloggers can share children's book-related links each week (Co-hosted by Bethany with What Do We Do All Day?, Smiling Like Sunshine, The Picture Book Review,Sprout's Bookshelf, My Little Bookcase, Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns, and  MemeTales). I like that through these new communities, I'm expanding my access to book and literacy ideas from bloggers and parents. 

Check out Terry's post at The Family Bookshelf for some additional links, and do visit the full roundup at Quietly. I'll be back on February 15th with the mid-month roundup, and will be sharing news as I find it @JensBookPage in the meantime. 

This post © 2013 by Jennifer Robinson of Jen Robinson's Book Page. All rights reserved.