The Meanderings of a Diseased Brain

Or something along those lines, anyway.  Here are your daily diversions.

• If you’re anything like me, you wouldn’t naturally gravitate towards something bearing the moniker of The Calvin Festival of Faith and Writing in Grand Rapids. Then you take a gander at their line-up of speakers. Joan Bauer, Barry Moser, John J. Muth (HMOCL possibilities, you think?), Kadir Nelson, David AND Katherine Paterson, and more. Sheesh. That’s a group I’d pay good money to see. Figures that I’d be stuck in podunk Manhattan instead.

• Speaking of kidlit engaged entities that I have never paid proper attention to, the NENE Award is rather fun. A Hawaiian children’s award sponsored by the Hawaii Association of School Librarians, Hawaii Library Association, and the Friends of the Library of Hawaii, it celebrates an interesting array of books. Now they’ve put out a 2008 Recommended Book List that I just think is superb. It’s not just the titles.  It’s the links. For each book they’ve three interesting links connected to the title in question. Makes me kind of wish I had my own website to do this kind of thing on. How does one go about getting a website these days anyway?

• The Hawaii Library Association may be where the temperature is the warmest, but it’s the Montana Library Association that’s got people actually removing their clothing.  In the realm of hot Montana librarian flesh (and you just know someone has Googled that phrase in the past), we’ve the MLA’s newest calendar. 10 female and 2 male. Thanks to Kane/Miller for the link.

• How fares your voice? Is it melodious? Odious? If you think you’ve got the chops, maybe you should consider auditioning for Full Cast Audio. This audiobook publisher is looking for folks to participate in the recording of these three authors: Tamora Pierce (Emperor Mage), Tim Green (Football Genius) and Bruce Coville (Dark Whispers). Thanks to ShelfTalker for the info.

• There’s an interview with Ralph Nader on the blog Tales from the Rushmore Kid. He’s asked what his favorite book was when he was a child.  The answer is worth the price of admission right there.  I may have to add this puppy to my blog links. It’s run by children’s author Tina Nicols who recently won the SCBWI costume contest. I like that woman’s style/frightening dedication to costume craft.

• Check out this little top that Siobhan found recently.

  

  
  Teacher walks into a classroom with that? Teacher gets attention. And yet, ironically, with its $84 price tag, no teacher I know is going to be able to afford it. *sigh*

• Thanks to Adam Rex I see that a new image of my favorite little alien has just been created for auction.

• Chad Beckerman has been kind enough to display the four titles selected by the Society of Illustrators Original Art Exhibition of his publisher on his blog. Does anyone know where I could find a full list of all the selected titles?

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