When I was a little girl my mom and dad read to me all the time. They also read books for pleasure themselves, as well as magazines and newspapers and the backs of cereal boxes. Once I could read, I read books. I had lots of books, we went to the library all the time, and I was praised for reading. Bedtime always involved a story - either from a book or from my mom and dad’s memory. My dad, in particular, was great at bedtime stories and I learned all the Greek myths before I was 6 years old from his night-time re-tells.

I was little in the 70s and I don’t remember ever having cable, if it even existed, and we got 3 channels in most of the places we lived if we were lucky. So - lots of books, no TV, and obviously, no video games or computers (because I’m too old for that), and people who modeled that reading was an activity better than pretty much anything else you could do.

That’s how to raise a reader! I’m a professional in the book industry (writer, publisher, and librarian) but I’m also a mom who is raising 2 readers of her own. Both my boys have access to stuff I didn’t have - computers, video games, and way more channels on TV than a person could ever need - but we limit their access to screens and we never limit their access to words. If given the choice, guess which thing they spend more time doing?

You’re right: reading.

So, apparently you are never supposed to apologize for not writing in your blog. It’s bad blog manners or something. So I’m not saying I’m sorry or anything like that, but people, I have been busy! Work, holidays, my little publishing business, and now the CPSIA.

If you don’t know what it is, go to my other blog and read about it. Or Google it. Or read this in Publisher’s Weekly. Educate yourself. Because if you have anything to do with children’s books - be it writer, publisher, librarian, parent, reader - whatever - you need to know what it is and how astonishingly devastating it will be for the children’s book industry.

There are some FABULOUS websites out there that you can use to read good quality picture books with kids - completely free! At school, I’ll often use these sites when I want to read a book I might not have in the library, or sometimes I have books about a certain topic in the library but I know the teachers want to use them (like when all of 1st grade is learning about the gingerbread man, for example), or I know kids want the books (like holiday books). I’ll also project books that we have in the library because sometimes it’s just fun to see them really, really big.

I probably use Lookybook the most, since it has a good search engine and the most possibilities, but Storyline will read the book to kids, which is great for a center activity, or for a tired teacher or librarian It also makes the books more like a movie if someone else is reading it, which could make little ears a little more attentive. As a parent, I could see reading from these sites with my child in my lap, and as someone who often tries to get work done at home with my kids running around, I would use these sites as a way to include my child in whatever I was trying to get done on family time.

Here’s a list of sites where you can get full text picture books on-line:

International Children’s Digital Library
Storyline Online
Lookybook
Clifford Stories (English & Spanish)
Kids Corner (Classics)
Lil’ Fingers
Between the Lions
Kids Zone: Myths and Fables from Around the World
Room 108 Kids Stories
Big Universe

First, an apology.

I have not been reading a book a day OR writing about a book a day. I have been busy doing other things, which makes me a little sad. In all honesty, reading a picture book every day and writing about it takes about 30 minutes in total, and it was something I really wanted to do for myself.

But life gets in the way.

So I shall try, try, try to keep up with this. But reading a book a day may have to be a New Year’s Resolution. It was actually a new school year’s resolution, but you see how I’ve managed that.

It’s writing about a book a day that is!

I am now 3 days behind in this blog, but I’m determined to stick with it. So the next blog I will do will be on 3 books! All books about snow: The Snowy Day, by Ezra Jack Keats, Owl Moon, by Jane Yolen, and Dream Snow, by Eric Carle.

In my other blog, Idea Girl, I’ve written a bit about Facebook and how I’m not sure how to really work the social networking angles of it. After all, that blog is meant for a specific, niche audience: anyone who cares about d.i.y. publishing first, publishing for children second, and my trials as an overworked mother, wife, and Day Job employee, third. And most of my friends on Facebook could care less about any of those things, except perhaps the last thing. And if they see me in person then they hear enough of that from the source, and if they only remember me from times past I’d like to avoid making them listen to me whine.

But now I’ve found a new social networking site: JacketFlap. It’s specifically for anyone involved in the children’s book industry: writers, illustrators, publishers, librarians, reviewers, agents, blah de blah de blah. And since I am at least 4 of these, I’ve signed up. I actually signed up under 2 e-mails, since I write 2 blogs, but this blog is the one I’ve entered all the data on. If you want to link to me, HERE I AM. Please befriend me. I’m feeling inadequate with just 2 friends, one of whom is the founder of the site. She practically HAS to befriend everyone…

We shall see how it goes and what purpose it serves. Obviously, it’s a lot more targeted audience than Facebook in general. But I also don’t know many people on the site. I shall have to work it…in my free time.

HAHAHAHAHAHA.

So - I started and stopped this blog over the course of a week earlier this year, but, truth be told, it happened to be a very bad week. I’d just started up work again, my kids had just started school and I was in the midst of launching my small press’s most recent book. Plus, my other blog, Plus, my other books…

Too much!

But now I feel back up to the challenge of writing about (at least) one children’s book a day. Recently, I read an advice column in a magazine that said something like this: find a way to package the things you are compelled to do. If you can do that, the author said, you will have found a way to make a living doing something you love.

Well, I am compelled to write, and I am compelled to read. And since I most like to write and read books for children, I think I owe it to myself to work on this blog. And if, eventually, I’m able to make some money doing this - then I will have made it.

Sadly, I got too big for my britches with this review blog. By itself, it’s not a problem. But combine it with full-time work, a family, a small publishing business, and my small press blog and I can’t handle it.

I will try again some time in the future.

Posting to join technorati:
Technorati Profile