A New Storytime Song

Hee hee.

Thanks to Bridget, who sent me the link to Jim Dale's Cellphone Song.

Tomie Tribute

Tomie dePaola turned 75! Check out this great blog, a tribute from other children's illustrators: Three Kisses for Tomie. It will make your day!

"It Was a Dark and Stormy Night..."

Check out this list of great first lines for YA books!

Family Fun

Disney puts out a magazine called FamilyFun that's full of neat ideas for parents, but I use it all the time to plan programs here at the library, and have used their printables for crafts or storytime components.

Here's an example of the type of stuff they pull together: check out their Fourth of July activities!

Where You Headed?

Have you seen the PSAs for the Library of Congress' Lifelong Literacy campaign?

If not, take a minute and go to Oz.

In Between Books?

When you're in between books this summer, you can put your hair in a bun, slide on your work glasses, and stitch one of these designs on your old jeans jacket.

I Love My Library

A friend of mine just tipped me off to the kids' band Lunch Money and their Bestest Ever Song: I Love My Library.

Listen to it & catch the lyrics. If this doesn't make your day better, I don't wanna know about it!

Off the Cuff

The Cuffies were announced! Every year Publishers Weekly asks booksellers for their top picks in a number of categories. So...who won "Favorite Book Jacket"? What was the "Book You Couldn't Shut Up About?" or the "Book You Wish Everyone Would Shut Up About"? Follow this link to find out!

Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade

Here's the list of giant balloons (and other attractions) that will be in this year's parade! Click on Parade Information, then Parade Line-Up to view--I can't get a direct link, sorry!

Horton the Elephant will be making an appearance this year. What other children's book characters would you love to see? I think Maisy would make an excellent balloon!

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Scary Stories

Happy Halloween!

What was the scariest story you ever read when you were a kid? Was it a chapter book, short story, or picture book? Give us the title and author and tell us just what creeped you out so much.

Mine was The Ghost in the Swing by Jill Patton Smith. I read a lot of spooky stuff--John Bellairs and Zilpha Keatley Snyder were two of my fave authors--but this one got me so bad, that after a few chapters I would only read it if I were in the same room as my mom.

This girl goes to visit her aunt and discovers a ghost in the house. She tries to discover where the ghost came from. One night she hears flute music up in the attic, and heads up the attic stairs...

That's as far as I got! I never finished it! I could never convince myself to go through the attic door.

Now it's 200 bucks on Amazon. I may never find out the ending! :)

The Very Hungry...Curtains?

OK, more just for fun: Eric Carle has licensed some patterns to Andover Fabrics!