Eight Things on a Tuesday

1. The National Book Awards. I was super excited to hear that Franny Billingsley's Chime is included in the nominations. But I was less than thrilled to hear about the colossal faux pas that followed the botched nomination announcement. If you haven't already heard, Lauren Myracle's Shine was accidentally named a nominee. Libba Bray wrote a wonderful (and very swear-y) post on the rest of the story:

However, the NBA stated afterward that, based on its merits as a work of excellent literature for young adults, SHINE would remain on the finalists list. Crisis averted. Or so it seemed.
 
What happened after that is worthy of a soap opera called “As the Incompetence Turns.” Over the next few days, a back-and-forth of “we’re keeping it,” “no, we’re not keeping it,” “it’s worthy,” “no, it’s not worthy” was played out in the media and over the Internet in a very public, very hurtful way that did not seem to take into account that at the center of all this was a real live human being, an excellent writer, whose work and reputation were being dragged through the mud as if it were no big thang while the ruffled feathers of injured egos were patted down in a backroom somewhere.

Lauren Myracle was asked to withdraw from the award proceedings.

I haven't read Shine yet, but I interviewed a high school librarian last week for a grad school application essay who said that one can feel light shining through this book. "It's one of those books where the sun just rises," she said.

There's a good round-up of more reactions at A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy.

2. RainyMood.com. The website that does nothing but make it sound like it's raining outside. I visited the website last week, and for a few minutes, I forgot that it wasn't really raining. (via Stephanie Perkins)

3. Books. I'm in the middle of Laini Taylor's Daughter of Smoke and Bone, and I have Stephanie Perkins's Lola and the Boy Next Door waiting on my bookshelf . . . but I cannot pick them up again until I finish my English colloquium revisions and the books I'm supposed to be reading right now. Sigh.

4. Cat pictures. They make life better. My kitty turned eighteen last week. Here are some pictures my mom took of her last fall:

Kitty yawn! There has to be a hilarious caption for this photo, but my brain is too fried to come up with one right now. Suggestions?

5. Pumpkins. We have a happy one in our living room:

6. Veggie pizza. Last Friday, my friend Kirstie and I went to the grocery store and picked out some random ingredients. We give you yellow squash, yellow pepper, and potato pizza with basil:

And FYI, putting potatoes on a pizza turned out to be a surprisingly good idea. (And if you try it, you should know that we fried the veggies in some olive oil on the stove before putting them on the pizza, because otherwise they would have spent only 10 minutes in the oven, and they would have been very, very crunchy...)

7. My Judy Moody doodle was still alive on Sunday. The kids at the library left the whiteboard alone for TWO WHOLE WEEKS. Unbelievable.

8. Pan Am. I got mostly caught up on the TV show this weekend, and am enamored with the clothes and all the spoken French. Also, I can't get over how the ladies carry their purses. I'm not sure I could do this all day:

Happy Tuesday,

Read for the Record

I'm surfacing from my piles of homework and portfolio edits for my senior English colloquium (due at the end of the month . . . gulp . . .) to talk about Read for the Record. This Thursday, October 6th, people across the nation will come together to set a new reading record and support literacy. The book that all these people will be reading is Anna Dewdney's Llama Llama Red Pajama. The book is available for free online reading, and Pearson will donate a copy of this book to a child for every time someone reads Llama Llama Red Pajama online. (Click on through to read the book or learn more about Read for the Record.)

Happy Wednesday, and Happy Reading,

More exciting news of pie + picture book controversy + last-minute Christmas present DIY

First, two things about PIE, both via Cakespy:

1. Candy cane cream pie recipe at The Inky Kitchen. It looks beautiful and sounds delicious, but if I made it I'd probably take a shortcut and buy a premade oreo crust. I'd also probably use more cream cheese, and less heavy cream. But I guess it wouldn't be a cream pie anymore if I did that...

2. Lo and behold, a small pie shop chain called High 5 Pie exists, and is opening another location in Seattle. This is rather far away from my neck of the woods, but I remain optimistic about the spread of pie shops.

Second, have you heard about this book yet?

Image from The Gloucester Times

I heard about it at work this week. The basic plot includes a monkey and a donkey. The monkey has a book, and the donkey asks what it is. He wants to know if you can scroll up and down, access Wi-Fi or tweet with it. The monkey says, "No" each time, and at the end of the book the monkey says, "it's a book, jackass."  Take a look at the book trailer:

I think it's a cute and clever concept, but I can understand why some adults in Massachusetts are against allowing a literacy group to donate copies of It's a Book to first graders. Charity is a thornier issue than library access to the book--in the case of a library, it is a parent's right to bar their child from checking out It's a Book and/or make sure their child does not hear it during storytime. But not allowing a group of well-meaning people to donate it in schools? Hmm. That's a tougher one.

What do you think?

(Further info on It's a Book can be found here and here at NPR, where it is recommended and discussed in relation to the e-reader explosion, respectively.)

Third, I was having difficulties completing my mother's Christmas present until I saw this rice pillow project at Wise Craft. I wanted to surprise her with something small, because I asked her point-blank what she wanted for Christmas, and . . . well, she won't be too surprised, since that's what I got for her. (And I wasn't very secretive about it.)

Image from Wise Craft

My mom used to have a cherry-pit pillow that she heated in the microwave, and this is a similar thing. It also looks super easy and nicely cheap--since I have a bin of suitable fabric scraps, I only need to run to the grocery store to buy rice to make this.

I started wrapping Christmas presents tonight. I love making them look all pretty and seeing how cleverly I can disguise gifts with boxes, tissue paper, and wrapping paper. Enthusiasm doesn't make me good with wrapping paper, though. I still wrap presents as clumsily as I did when I was in elementary school. I like to think it makes my gifts look more endearing. (Endearing sounds better than sloppy.)

Here's a video from Jackson Pearce on how to wrap a gift correctly. I might pay closer attention to it next year.


Merry (Early) Christmas,

Of cupcakes, libraries, and pop culture

Cupcakes are good. They're also quite popular at the moment. There are the TV shows--Cupcake Wars, DC Cupcakes (both ridiculously easy to get wrapped up in, FYI)--and, of course, the cupcakeries, as in bakeries that exist to make the pretty little cakes.

My friend Kirstie and I recently made a couple trips to Oh My Cupcakes!, a recent cupcakery--and the only one--in our 150,000 population city.

Cupcakes are pretty easy and inexpensive to make (although I accidentally started a small fire in the oven when making some a few years ago, which is another story for another post), but there's something cutesy and magical about walking into a building dedicated to them and looking at rows and rows of choices through glass displays, picking one, and eating it from a little blue plate.

YUM.

Anyway. Cupcakes have always been good, before special shops and TV shows and whatnot. At the library where I work, someone recently pointed out an NPR article, "Why The Next Big Pop-Culture Wave After Cupcakes Might Be Libraries."

The article cites various signs of libraries' advancement in pop culture, one of them being YouTube spoofs like this parody on Old Spice ads, which if you haven't seen yet, watch now, because it's kinda sorta really awesome:

Awesome, right?

Wrapping up here, as the article suggests, cupcakes and libraries currently have a couple things in common: They've always been great, and pop culture attention is fun, but they'll keep being fantastic with or without it. And I guess that's my point. Before I read the NPR article, I hadn't put much thought into it, but I can see libraries becoming more talked-about recently--they're economical, green, etc.

Hmm. Thoughts to think and culture to contemplate. Cupcakes to eat...

Shakespeare Thief Arrives for Court in Silver Limo!

"For an earlier court appearance, he wore a kilt and came in a horse-drawn carriage led by a Scots piper."

Happy release date, Lauren!

From author Lauren Mechling's blog (Lauren Mechling - the blog):

"Today is a special day. Yes, it's MacKenzie Phillips's birthday. But I'm talking about the fact that it's the release day of the Dream Girl paperback! If you have a yen for a funny story starring a half-French girl detective, or know of late-middle/early-high school girls who might, you're in luck . . . ."

Two Exciting Things About Beautiful Creatures by Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl

I've been waiting very impatiently for this book. I also know that a lot of other readers are way excited to read it.

So here are two pieces of fantastic news:

1. Beautiful Creatures is already listed as in stock on Amazon.com and is also available for online purchase at Barnes & Noble's website. The book's release date is December 1, 2009. It's early November right now.

2. There is a super awesome Beautiful Creatures ARC and swag contest going on at beautifulcreaturesthebook.com. The rules? One point for every comment left at the Beautiful Creatures website and one point for every link you post to the contest by November 15th. Unlimited entries, four winners.

Release Date: December 1, 2009
Publisher: Little, Brown for Young Readers
Age Group: Young Adult
Pages: 576

Summary:

Lena Duchannes is unlike anyone the small Southern town of Gatlin has ever seen, and she’s struggling to conceal her power and a curse that has haunted her family for generations. But even within the overgrown gardens, murky swamps, and crumbling graveyards of the forgotten South, a secret cannot stay hidden forever.

Ethan Wate, who has been counting the months until he can escape from Gatlin, is haunted by dreams of a beautiful girl he has never met. When Lena moves into the town’s oldest and most infamous plantation, Ethan is inexplicably drawn to her and determined to uncover the connection between them.

In a town with no surprises, one secret could change everything.
(From beautifulcreaturesthebook.com)

Find out more at somelovesarecursed.com
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