Linktasticness: The Young Readers' Edition

I'll admit it: children's literature has gotten short shrift from me lately. I know, I know. It's just that, with all the bacon and wine out there, I was momentarily distracted. But I'm about to remedy that and give kids' books their due.

• Teen blogger extraordinaire, Miss Erin, has a new look to her blog. Lovely. It inspires me to change my look at some point, as I used the generic Blogger design when I started up. Someday soon...
  
• So this is late of me to be reporting, but SLJ has kicked off their 1st Annual Battle of the Books. BOB has their own blog, and Brown Bookshelf also had a great post about it. I've filled in my picks and I'm hoping my friend/colleague Lori will compete with me: winner gets a bottle of Casa LaPostelle Sauvignon Blanc - one of our shared favorites. Like everyone, I can't believe the Frankie/We Are the Ship match-up...come ON!


• I just got the inside tip - and hopefully it's okay to share - that School Library Journal will be hosting their first-ever Day of Dialogue (but they're spelling it Day of Dialog?) at BEA this year. It will be on Thursday, May 28th. Stay tuned for more news!
  
• Books of Wonder here in NYC is having a ridiculous amount of events coming up. I would love to meet Dan Yaccarino and, while I don't feel the need to attend the event, I do have to compliment Viking for Troll's Eye View: A Book of Villainous Tales : that cover is absolutely wicked awesome! Not to mention that the book is a veritable who's-who of children's and YA authors. Well done!
  
• I was forunate enough to meet one-on-one with the Director of Children's Publicity and Marketing at Chronicle Books recently to hear about their upcoming titles. It doesn't come out until September, but I am particularly excited about Creature ABC by Andrew Zuckerman, which is a concept book version of his adult title Creature . It's stunning and will appeal to a large age range - keep an eye out for it.


• At a publisher's preview yesterday, a couple of us were bemoaning the fact that we hadn't read anything truly exciting lately. What's going on? Even if I'm hearing buzz about the book, it usually has a cover that so turns me off that opening the book becomes all but impossible. Lots of meh. Especially in the middle-grade fiction department: I keep joking with my YA compatriots that they get all the good stuff! Picture books are faring better - here are a couple of the books I'm really excited about*:

- The Lion and the Mouse by Jerry Pinkney (Little, Brown, 9.09)
- Tsunami by Kimiko Kajikawa, illustrated by Ed Young (Philomel, 2.09)
- Birds by Kevin Henkes, illustrated by Laura Dronzek (Greenwillow, 2.09)

- Rhyming Dust Bunnies by Jan Thomas (Beach Lane, 1.09)

- Dinotrux by Chris Gall (Little, Brown, 6.09)

- Wink: The Ninja Who Wanted to be Noticed by J.C. Phillipps (Viking, 3.09)

• Eli, Peyton, and Archie Manning have signed with Scholastic to publish a picture book called Family Huddle. I'll admit it: I'm totally judging this before I see it. And so are you.
  
  

* Based on what I've seen so far. For instance, I haven't seen Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Gennady Spirin or A Book by Mordecai Gerstein yet. I also really want to see Redwoods by Jason Chin.

Slightly OT: mad people, international languages, and kids' empty heads

* Miss Erin once again proves her awesomeness. Squeaky Books interviewed her for their newsletter and, in the interview, Miss Erin lists this as her favorite quote of all time:

"The only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones who never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn, like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars…" ~Jack Kerouac

That. Is. Awesome. I've never read that quote before; I particularly love "desirous of everything at the same time." That very brief phrase describes me entirely.

* Thanks to my AL Direct email, I have discovered Livemocha where you can take online language courses (free!) and chat with fellow language learners around the world (free!). I signed up for a course in French but I haven't had lots of time to get into it. I'd like to take Spanish too, just to learn some basics to get along. But I'm stoked. This is a great idea!

* Last, from my AL Direct email again, this picture was in the sidebar of the email:

Am I the only one who finds this image deeeeply disturbing????

It will be mine. Oh, yes, it will be mine.

Yes! I just got word from Bloomsbury's raddest editor, Liz Schonhorst (hi, Liz!), that my copy of Rapunzel's Revenge is on its way!

Now I can finally stop turning shades of green over Miss Erin's well-deserved good fortune!

Miss Erin's Novel Challenge June 2008

I’ve been enjoying Miss Erin’s blog for a couple months now – her voice is fresh and friendly, and her posts have a lot of variety. So am I the only one who realized, when she posted about herself and her family, that she’s so darling…and so friggin young?! Wow. Puts my own life in perspective when I see a teenager with so much eloquence and with a successful blog to boot. On the upside, it helps restore my faith in America’s youth. I don’t know what her future plans entail, but I certainly hope an education and career in NYC are included in them...we need her!

To top it all off, she’s posted a Novel Challenge June 2008.

Aspiring writer? Then go check it out. I’m half-tempted to accept the challenge myself… As Miss Erin says, “We all have a novel somewhere inside of us.” Indeed, I do. But who has the time to actually write it???

Color me way impressed with Miss Erin.