Ta-Dah!

OK, so I'm on twitter, though I can't do it from my phone and I'm really not quite sure what the point is but it's fun to catch up with people in these little tiny slices-of-life bits that they usually seem to post. So today several folks were twittering (is that really the right verb? or tweeting?) the ALA Midwinter meeting, because the big children's/YA lit awards come out today. And I was following tweets directly from the ALA Youth Media awards, and from John Green and Mitali Perkins and Susan Marie Swanson and Neil Gaiman. And then actually I had to go to a meeting and I wasn't online right when the big awards were announced, but...

well, check this out

Also this

I really loved The Graveyard Book, and I'm so excited that it won! (Hurriedly thinking about whether I can include it in my English Children's Fantasy course this summer if it has won an American award...) (Yes, I'm teaching that course at Oxford again...what fun!)

I also need to get The House in the Night on my TBR list, stat!

There were more awards, and you can see the whole list here. I'm excited about the awards, don't get me wrong, but I'm also fascinated by the means by which we are all learning about them these days... (2nd Life? Are you kidding me? I am too old for some of this stuff...)

I'm a winner!

Jeanne from Necromany Never Pays passed along a cool award to me a while ago, and I hadn't gotten around to posting about it here. So here it is. Yes, that does say "for the coolest blog I ever know," and yes, everyone else who's gotten it--including Jeanne--has commented on the bizarre (ok, wrong) grammar there. Whatever. I'm still happy to have the award, especially because I've been so lax at posting lately. (Ah, is this her secret plan? To get me to post more often? Or, perhaps, to reward me for not posting? Hmm...)

I haven't posted much not because I haven't been reading, but because I've been too busy reading--and preparing for my new semester--to comment on what I've been reading. And I'm afraid that state of affairs may continue for a while yet, but I can still find time to reward some other great blogs that make me think. These aren't all children's lit blogs--in fact, they mostly aren't--but, hey, it's my blog and I can do what I like.

OK, so here are the rules:
1. Put the logo on your blog.
2. Add a link to the person who awarded you.
3. Award up to ten other blogs.
4. Add links to those blogs on yours.
5. Leave a message for your awardees on their blogs.

I'm terrible about following bloggy rules, but I think I can manage those.

So here are my awardees:

Monica Edinger at Educating Alice offers great reports on reading and teaching from a fourth-grade classroom that makes me want to go back to elementary school.

Speaking of elementary school, my daughter spent second grade in Room 204, and now her former teacher is blogging! Write Now in Room 204 is third grade the way it should be.

Susan's blog, Reading Writing Living, is inspiring me right now to be more organized and to make more time for my writing.

Laura at 11D is another of my must-reads. She finds news that I haven't seen yet, and comments on it so intelligently and clearly that I feel as if I've figured something out all on my own.

I've just recently discovered Outside Voice, and it's another one that's quickly made my must-read list. The tagline says it all for me: "In which motherhood and academia are juggled. Barely."

There are lots more I could hand out awards to (including all the ones I gave the Thinking Blogger award to almost two years ago), but I'm going to stop here and let the rest of you come up with some more must-reads. (Or, not. Like Jeanne, I'm not going to come after you if you don't follow the rules.) Have fun!

The Invention of Hugo Cabret

Everyone already knows what a good book Brian Selznick's The Invention of Hugo Cabret is, right? After all, it won the Caldecott medal (the longest book ever to do so). So I'm, as so often, late to this party, but I still have to say: it's a really good book.

I'm not a big fan of illustration.* This is not to say I dislike it, only that I don't know a lot about it and don't require it in the books I read. But Selznick came up with a way to tell a story through words and pictures that works perfectly, evoking the feel of the early motion pictures to which the book serves as a kind of homage. The story--a mystery, an orphan tale, and a little bit of a chase--carries us into the past, but a past that is recognizably important to our own present. Magic, dreams, and mechanical invention all come together. It's a lovely book, a read-aloud worth dwelling on with younger kids as well as a satisfying solo read.


*Nonetheless several of my favorites lately: The True Meaning of Smek-Day, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, Un Lun Dun, and now Hugo Cabret, are all illustrated novels in which the illustrations form an integral part rather than simply feeling like decoration. So I may have to revise my statement above.

Smek-Day and the Cybils

My new column is up over at Literary Mama. In it I talk about why I liked our fantasy/sf winner in the middle-grade category, The True Meaning of Smek-Day, and what intriguing commonalities I found in the books we read. Here's a taste:

the story [of Smek-Day] is as action-packed and adventurous as [several of ] the others . . . which feature plot twist after plot twist, fascinating superpowers (invisibility and flight are the best), and intriguing ways of engaging with technology -- hovercars, a super-reinforced Mercedes, cellphones, convenience stores. These are not, that is, "sword-and-sorcery" fantasy novels, but books fully engaged with modern life and imagining how magic or the supernatural might interact with our technologically-enhanced world.

Read the rest here...

Carnival!

The January Carnival of Children's Literature is up, and it's an awards show--fitting in this month between the ALA Youth Media Awards and the Cybils. Nothing from me, as I somehow couldn't find anything to say about awards last month, but there's plenty of fabulous stuff to read.

Award Announcements

The American Library Association has announced the winners of the 2008 Caldecott, Newbery, Printz, and many other awards for literature for children and young adults. You can read all about them here. I am chagrined to realize how few of these books I've read. One honor book (Repossessed, by A.M. Jenkins) is on my TBR list for the Cybils Science Fiction/Fantasy award, and I'm sure I'll read many of the others, but for the moment my time is occupied with reading for other awards, and I need to get back to that, now. Congratulations to all the award winners and honorees; I look forward to some great new reads.

My first goal for 2008...

...will be to read the Cybils nominees in fantasy and science fiction. This is my first time as a Cybils judge and I'm pretty excited--and a little anxious. I don't think ten books in just over a month is an issue--but I have another short list to read through as well, for the ChLA book award, and between the two I expect to have a busy reading month.