When Brain Overfloweth, Bloggeth the Brain

• Where’s my head? You may have noticed that it has gone AWOL. At the moment I’m trying to get rid of the picture that’s been gracing this blog lo these many months. The hope is that I could get a far more interesting one up instead. So far, the blog template has not been as accommodating as I might have hoped. Fingers crossed then.

• Oh, I never really gave proper props for the Kidlit Drink Night we had the other day. Turnout actually was perfect when you consider how small the space was when we got into it. Many many books were donated. Books that editor Cheryl Klein single-handedly lugged to her offices at Scholastic whereupon they were picked up by the Children’s Aid Society the very next day. Please thank her next time you see her. She’s mighty mighty.

• I was delighted by the lovely little article on my library in The Wall Street Journal at the end of last week. Called Books of the New World and the Old it’s about my current branch (closing in May, by the way).  Sometimes it’s a relief to read a piece that praises libraries rather than relegates them to the fuddy duddy past. Extra points to the author, a Ms. Lucette Lagnado, for this final thought: "But Donnell had changed. There were rows of computers where once there had been bare tables. And rap music was playing in the young-adult section where I used to hear only the sound of shushing librarians. I guess the library is still assimilating new immigrants to American culture. It’s just the culture that’s shifted." Thanks to Jennie for the link.

• Live in Vancouver? Of course you do. Who doesn’t live in Vancouver these days? Well, if you’re there at the moment, you may wish to hop on over to the Atelier Gallery which is going to feature the art of one Ms. Julie Morstad. Who is Julie Morstad, you say? Why, she is only the illustrator of one of my favorite children’s books When You Were Small. And you can buy her art too, if you fancy. Or you could buy it for me. I wouldn’t mind. Not really. Thanks to Crooked House and Ms. O’Leary for the link.

• I kind of feel that if I get news from the e-mails I receive via American Libraries Direct that it’s, I dunno, cheating in a way. But if the news is fluffy enough, I can’t help but link to it. Particularly when it’s a piece talking about how this shirt is now out-of-stock due to its popularity.  The name of this shirt, should you wonder, is November Was a Good Month.

Do you ever find yourself wondering if other professions do this too? Are there physicist blogs that link to t-shirts? Conductors? Welders? Professional kite flyers?

• Them crazy kids is at it again.  Attention up-and-coming children’s book authors and illustrators: Wanna take a gander at a piece of well-played marketing?  Observe the alliance between Bottom Shelf Books and Jarrett Krosoczka both here and here.  Now combine all that with Jarrett’s appearance as the first author to come on NPR’s new podcast Book Tour and his raffle of original art (benefiting the Central Massachusetts Arts Assembly) and you can see why this may well be the hardest working man in show business today.

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