Monday Metablogging (and a Call for Help)

Did you know there's a blog devoted to blog quotes? Well, there is. It's called Blogtations and it's a fascinating endeavor. And, I was quoted today!
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The Children's Book Review wiki is chugging along, with new reviews being added daily. Thank you all for contributing and making CBR a great resource for readers. I do want to emphasize that Children's Book Review wiki is a resource for the community and not my project. So any and all suggestions and improvements (and, yes, even complaints) are welcome.

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Call for Help: And speaking of Children's Book Reviews...its existence has spawned a new creation called Redux Review. You see, the centralized wiki resource has inspired more than one author to ask me whether or not a print review of their book could be archived as well. So...in order to make this happen, a new blog was born. I've sent letters to journals asking for permission to post published reviews of individual books, and two journals (so far) have agreed! Reviews will only be posted upon request of the author, illustrator, or a reader and only by permission of the publisher.

Here's where I'm looking for help: 1) A co-blogger or co-bloggers: Someone who is willing to throw a review up there once or twice a week; 2) Graphics: I'd love a cool black-and-white header for the blog, ideally with an image of one of those old-fashioned reel-to-reel tape players.
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I missed Non-Fiction Monday this week, but you can find all the fabulous entries at Anastasia Suen's place.

Children's Book Reviews wiki

Jen Robinson has been kind enough to mention the Children's Book Reviews wiki recently on the kidlitosphere listserv. She reminded me that it's been awhile since I've mentioned it. Here's the deal:

• Children's Book Reviews wiki is an online database of reviews of children's books written by bloggers.
• Anyone is welcome to contribute their reviews. All you need is a password and a set of instructions from me. Send me an e-mail if you'd like to start archiving your reviews.
• I get a substantial number of hits from the wiki--20 to 30 a day--almost as many as from google searches. So, people are using it as a resource. (I'm behind on my archiving too--to the tune of six months.)
  

This is the post in which I finally admit...

I've bitten off more than I can chew.

You all may have noticed that I love to organize. I also adore a good project. But in cleaning up my own archives, review notifications, and boxes of books this month, it's time to accept some facts about my limitations.

In a way, this sad post relates quite nicely to a meme tag from NYCTeacher: The Summer Goals Meme. So I'll be combining the two in a tidy Summer Goals/Facing the Facts list.

1. The Edge of the Forest. The Forest is my great love. And, I really wanted to avoid a June/July issue this summer. But, due to conferences and summer research/travel, I'm going to have to publish a June/July issue instead of two separate ones. The upside is that June/July and August will both be big issues. The downside is that I feel like a failure.

2. Children's Book Reviews. Children's Book Reviews is another of my pet projects. I really wanted to create a central place on the web where kids and parents can find blog reviews of books. Multiple reviews of the same books, even. I entered in the archives of about 10 blogs including my own and planned to continue down my list of 12 more blogs. But I can barely keep up with my own and the Forest's archives. I have to admit defeat here as well. However, I intend to still host Children's Book Reviews and invite anyone who'd like to enter in their reviews to send me an e-mail and I'll teach you how to do so. It's very easy, especially if you archive already. I get several hits a day from CBR, so someone is using it. (Fuse #8--I failed you most of all.)

3. Okay. So these are my big disappointed-in-self issues. Try to accept and move on to other goals.

4. Say no to all but one community/school volunteer "opportunity" for the next academic year. DO NOT agree to everything.

5. Participate in MotherReader's 48 Hour Challenge.

6. Exercise 30 minutes a day, even if it's only walking.

7. Write, write, write.

8. Enjoy hanging with the kids this summer.

9. Use the term "man flu" at least once a week for the next year.

On to more archiving, notifying, and stacking of books!

Out and about in the Kidlitosphere

It's a busy morning in the kidlitosphere. Here's what's going on:

• Don't miss the 12th Carnival of Children's Literature over at Midwestern Lodestar. ML did a fantastic job putting the submissions together! (My cholesterol is up by 10 points just by reading.) Speaking of carnivals, Susan at Chicken Spaghetti gives us the 411 on running and submitting to carnivals.
• The fantabulous Jen Robinson has been 7-Imped. It's a fascinating interview.
• Margo Rabb (Cures for Heartbreak) begins her blog tour over at Colleen Mondor's Chasing Ray.
• The children's book wiki is now located at a lightning fast server.
• For those of you who have been archiving your reviews at Children's Book Reviews, I've switched over to PB wiki's new editing platform. Now adding your links is as easy as posting them in a blog entry or e-mail. Let me know if you have questions.

Happy Monday!

Update on Children's Book Reviews

With The Cybils, I got really behind with Children's Book Reviews. Some of you have been great about updating and I really appreciate it. Now I'm getting caught up. I've added in my own reviews (since October!) and half from The Edge of the Forest. By tomorrow, I'll be able to get to Fuse #8 reviews and then to the rest of the list.

If anyone would like to archive their reviews, please let me know.

Review: Please Don't Upset P.U. Zorilla!

Ah, the smell of skunk. You just can't escape it. You're driving along a country road and WHAM!

So how do you cope when you're the Mayor and you receive the following letter?: "My home was replaced by a shopping mall. I am looking for a new home. I am kind, hardworking, generally smell fine, and am good with children and animal. May I come to your town to live? Sincerely, P.U. Zorilla."

The mayor is a kindhearted sort of fellow, so he welcomes P.U. Zorilla "with open arms." Unfortunately, the "generally" in P.U.'s letter speaks volumes. His gig driving the school bus goes well until a fight breaks out in the back rows. His job at the pet store begins swimmingly--until a snake slithers in. With every new job, there's a new problem.

Lynn Rowe Reed's Please Don't Upset P.U. Zorilla! will be a huge hit with kids who like talking about disgusting smells. Oh, wait, that's all of them--at least in the two- to eight-year-old range.

Reed's kinetic illustrations will please as well. Please Don't Upset P.U. Zorilla is bright (much brighter than the image above) friendly, and funny. Reed uses collage, colorful childlike paintings, and real objects to illustrate this charmer of a picture book.

Please Don't Upset P.U. Zorilla is highly recommended for kids ages 2-8. It would make for a fun (and noisy) read-aloud in libraries, schools, and reading groups. Just gather a small crowd for maximum effect.

Weekend Reviews (II)

A few more reviews have trickled in here and there. Here's a roundup:

Ghosts! The Ultimate Guide for Ghost Hunters, by Richard Brassey, is the Times Children's Book of the Week. (Reviewed by Nicolette Jones)

Mary Harris Russell reviews books "For Young Readers" in the Chicago Tribune. Books reviewed include:

• Mommy? Art by Maurice Sendak, scenario by Arthur Yorinks, paper engineering by Matthew Reinhart ("Will be most appreciated by Hollywood horror fans, but Sendak is always Sendak, bringing us all to where the wild things are.")
• So Sleepy Story, by Uri Shulevitz ("This book is so quiet it's difficult to read it much above a whisper.")
• Extreme Animals: The Toughest Creatures on Earth, by Nicola Davies, illustrated by Neal Layton ("Neal Layton's accompanying drawings are a perfect match for Nicola Davies' prose")
• Endymion Spring, by Matthew Skelton ("The most compelling part is actually Blake's developing sense of his own gifts and of the personalities of his parents.")
• Flotsam, by David Wiesner (shows "careful looking shows new vistas")
• The Adventures of Marco Polo, by Russell Freedman, illustrated by Bagram Ibatoulline ("The larger-than-life scale of Kublai Khan's world comes across strongly, as does the unusual quality of his tolerance for all religions. ")

Weekend Reviews (I)

Here's an early roundup of weekend reviews:

Elizabeth Ward reviews Peter Pan in Scarlet for the Washington Post. And, she really likes it:

• "If her tale is not also as dark, that's because McCaughrean just doesn't give a toss about Barrie's iron bars. Grown-ups can get back to Neverland in her book. Hook can stir our sympathy. Autumn can revert to summer. Sequels are possible. And for once, we believe."

Interesting teen reviews in the Times. Four teens review the Booktrust Teenage Prize shortlisted titles. The shortlisted books are:

• The Foreshadowing, by Marcus Sedgwick
• Exchange, by Paul Magrs
• Henry Tumour, by Anthony McGowan
• Beast, by Ally Kennen
• A Swift Pure Cry, by Ally Kennen
• Angel Blood, by John Singleton

More tomorrow, I'm sure

Weekend Reviews (1)

I hope everyone is having a great weekend. I'm off to a late start today, just now rounding up the first of the weekend reviews.

• Kathryn Hughes reviews Lyn Gardner's Into the Woods for the Guardian and finds it is a "glorious mish-mash of ancient and modern." It's only now I've noticed Into the Woods is illustrated by Mini Grey. I am really going to have to look for this book soon. Gardner is blogging about her experience as a first-time children's novelist for the Guardian's Culture Vulture blog.
• Elizabeth Ward finds Pratchett is "back on track" with Wintersmith, the focus of this week's "For Young Readers" column in the Washington Post. Ward also reviews The Silver Donkey, by Sonya Hartnett (a "luminous story")
• Kathryn Ross recommends many a book for the mid-term holidays in the Scotsman.
• Larklight, by Philip Reeve (ill. by David Wyatt) is the Times' "Children's Book of the Week" (reviewed by Nicolette Jones). Jones likes Larklight, writing, "He deftly balances the historical and the fantastical, drawing on Victorian voices and references while creating something out of this world."

Update: Children's Book Review

Bookshelves of Doom has been added to the Children's Book Reviews wiki.

If you haven't taken a look at the review archive lately, head on over and take a peek. With Leila's two years of reviews, the Young Adult section is very strong.

I'm now moving on to A Fuse #8 Production. Next up: The Children's Literature Book Club.