Closing for the Summer

The book shelves are getting pretty tight as all those fabulous books are coming back to the library to hibernate for the summer. I'm going to miss my little library regulars but I'm sure they'll be enjoying plenty of books over the summer. In fact, the Saratoga Library children's librarians came to Marshall Lane today to present their Summer Reading Program. You can find out more about it here. If you click on the orange "kids" button, you can find lots of ideas for what to read next. There are lists by grade level or you can subscribe to Next Reads to get recommendations by email. Another great place to find out about books is Kidsreads.com. At Kidsreads, they have a team of reviewers reading and reviewing lots of new kids books. They keep archives of their reviews so you can read about older books. They also have author interviews, previews of coming releases, plus contests and giveaways.

As for what I'm doing this Summer, I'll be heading to New Orleans to attend the American Library Association's annual conference later this month. There will be some authors there (Jeff Kinney!), so I'm hoping to add to my author shrine and get some books signed. Then, as soon as I get back from that I'll be heading up to Berkeley to see Neil Gaiman on his American Gods 10th anniversary tour. Last fall I went to an American Gods event at the House on the Rock in Wisconsin. You can read about that here and here. And you if haven't read American Gods yet, grown ups, I highly recommend it.

The last Harry Potter movie will be coming out in July so I'm kind of nerding out over that. In fact, I'm participating in a knitting challenge on Ravelry.com called Nerd Wars. I'm on Team Dumbledore's Army and I'm currently working on knitting a year one Gryffindor house scarf for the team spirit challenge. If you want to learn more about Nerd Wars, you can read about it here. And, of course, while I'm doing all this knitting in anticipation of HP7P2, I'll be listening to books 1-7 on my nano.

Finally, I'm thinking of another project for the Summer, having to do with books, but it's kind of super secret right now. If it gets off the ground, I will let you know and share it with you, but if not, I will let you in on my failure. In any case, getting it out of my head and into other people's expectations will surely motivate me to act on my idea.

Well, Mr. Richards just told me it sounds like I'm writing a paper over here so I must have written enough by now. One more quick thing: the Fabulous Room 3 is working on a 90 Second Newbery film of Charlotte's Web! They have been working very hard and I can't wait to see the results!

Have a great last 3 days of school! Don't forget to check the blog over the summer, I'll be here!

Odd Fish, Film Festivals, Yarny goodness and a poodle.

So this is exciting: the esteemed Mr. James Kennedy, author of The Order of the Odd-Fish, the ostensible winner of the 2009 Newbery Award and co-curator of the 90 Second Newbery Film Festival, left a comment on my blog entry in which I talked about the 90 Second Newbery Film Festival. This made me even more determined that Marshall Lane should be involved in this so I approached one of our 4th grade teachers, who had told me they were already working on re-imaginings of the Island of the Blue Dolphins story, and she was very enthusiastic about it. They are going to be pretty busy until the end of March but once they get started on it, I will report on their progress here.

My favorite student story of the week comes from one of our 5th grade teachers who witnessed the 1st graders playing "Zombie Apocalypse" during recess. He said a first grade girl actually used the words 'zombie apocalypse' and asked him if she was a good zombie as she held her arms out in front of her and dragged a foot behind her. He, of course, assured her that she was, indeed, a good zombie. I guess it'll be a few more years before steampunk and dystopian fiction trickles down to the elementary level.

My sweet poodle got a hair cut today, isn't she adorable?

I realize my posts have been a bit sparse lately but I have been knitting like a mad woman. This is some of what I've been working on:

Items of interest

I have no review this week, I've been reading grown up things lately but I'll get back to the kidlit soon. In the meantime, if you are looking for something new to read there is a great website called kidsreads.com. They have a whole team of people there who read and review books. There are reviews on new books every month plus you can see what's coming soon and they have author interviews as well. It's a great place to find new things to read.

Also, I saw this on my Twitter feed this week. It's called the 90 Second Newbery Film Festival. It's a contest! James Kennedy is challenging kids to make a 90 second film of their favorite (or least favorite, or most forgotten) Newbery winner (or honor book). Here is an example:

"A Wrinkle In Time" In 90 Seconds from James Kennedy on Vimeo.

Pretty funny, huh? Neil Gaiman also tweeted that he would give a signed copy of The Graveyard Book to his favorite 90 second version of his Newbery winner. Does that get your creative juices flowing? It does mine!