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Happy Labor Day!  I’ve no special post of my own but I know someone who has created the ultimate list of Labor Songs. That would be Professor Phil Nel and at this point I’ve only seen the first of three posts but it is truly fantastic.  For one thing, he includes Moxy Früvous on his round-up, and they were a band I adored back in the days of my youth.  I’d forgotten all about “I Love My Boss” until now.  Go!  Look!  It’s worth your time.

Now I’ve been amiss in not mentioning the speaking engagement I have at the upcoming Kidlitosphere Conference.  I won’t be there in person, but through the magic of technology I’ll be Skyping alongside the hugely talented Mary Ann Scheuer of Great Kid Books and the simply marvelous Paula Wiley of Pink Me.  Our topic?  Mary Ann came up with the notion of covering book app features.  What we like, what we don’t, what to look for, etc.  And if you cannot attend, we may be able to put something on our blogs afterwards.  Stay tuned or read more about the talk here.

New Blog Alert: Speaking of apps, ever wonder why there isn’t a children’s literature blog dedicated to the digital realm?  Turns out, there is and it’s called dot.Momming.  Children’s author and founder of the Hyde Park/South Side Network for SCBWI-Illinois, Kate Hannigan, provides reviews as well as multiple interviews with folks working in the field.  I’m a fan, and not least because an app I helped advise (Hildegard Sings) shows up as number one on her Top Picture Book Apps list.

I like to see good work rewarded.  And Kate Messner’s efforts to bring attention to the libraries devastated after Hurricane Irene certainly qualifies as more than simply “good”.  The fact that School Library Journal highlighted her work in the piece Author Kate Messner Helps to Rebuild Local NY Library Devastated By Hurricane Irene is just icing on the cake.  And much to my astonishment it include a photograph of a Paddington book that I apparently read as a child but had entirely forgotten about until I saw it in the article.  Wow!  It’s been a long time since that happened.

Need a good website for writing exercises?  Have you seen the delightful They Fight Crime?  Try it.  Then try again and again.  My current favorite is, “He’s a globe-trotting drug-addicted hairdresser on the edge. She’s a tortured belly-dancing vampire operating on the wrong side of the law. They fight crime!”  Hours of time wasting fun to be had there.

Every other day an adult author gets it into their head that writing for children is a snap (sometimes with horrific results).  Children’s authors rarely go the other way around.  Now Eoin Colfer has decided to change all that.  A comedic crime thriller called Plugged is 5 Comments on Fusenews: Haggis and Hash Browns, last added: 9/5/2011