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I've been trying to keep up with my blog reading but am failing miserably. This is report card writing season so I have to keep blogging as a reward for good teacherly behavior. This morning I am doing well so I got to read up on Poet Mom's blog. She linked to these interesting sites on Boarders bookstore's websites: "Borders (the book-store chain) had created a sort-of interactive section on

Second graders in the library (while flipping through Time magazine): Kid 1: "Who do you want to win, the girl or the brown guy?" Kid 2: "The girl, because her husband was president already." Kid 3: "No he wasn't because if he was a president before now he would be dead." Kid 2: "No he isn't. But I want the brown guy because my mom wants me to be the first mixed girl president when I grow up."*

I read this at Chicken Spaghetti today: "The literacy organization Reading Is Fundamental needs our help. From its web site, a message from Carol H. Rasco, president and CEO:"President Bush’s proposed budget calling for the elimination of Reading Is Fundamental’s (RIF) Inexpensive Book Distribution program would be devastating to the 4.6 million children and their families who receive free books

I don't know about you but I'm getting excited about February starting next week. Not just because it means winter is half over, but because the Brown Bookshelf blog 28 Days Later is going to be featuring African American authors and illustrators every day of the month. They are covering some of the wonderful folks who are new to the publishing world or have been somewhat overlooked by the top

Make It a Day ON, Not a Day Off! Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. sought to forge the common ground on which people from all walks of life could join together to address important community issues. On January 21st, 2008, millions of Americans across the country will once again honor his legacy by taking part in a wide range of

At the Reading Workshop I attended last week before the ALA Midwinter Meeting we were given a packet of some very interesting articles relating to reading and library media centers in schools. Several of the best articles are available online so I thought I would put together a post of links for reference. If you have comments on any of them I'd love to hear your reactions and discuss them

I was browsing over at the Cybils site this morning, checking to see what other Cybil nominee books may have won an ALA award that I missed, and I saw this post about a new way to link book information from my blog. It's called Selective Blue and here's what Anne at the Cybils blog said: "You'll notice tiny blue boxes next to many Amazon links. Click on a blue box and you can compare prices at

NOTE TO SELF: AS A *WORDSMITH*, *IT IS WHAT IT IS* USING CERTAIN WORDS OR PHRASES


Go figure that someone would create a list subscribing that certain words and phrases are useless. We're talking words that most of us have used over time and now they're - Lake Superior State University - suggests that we find others.

In all there are 19 words or phrases that appear in its List of Words Banished from the Queen's English for Mis-Use, Over-Use and General Uselessness.

The school in Michigan's Upper Peninsula released its 33rd list Monday, selecting from about 2,000 nominations. This year's list derives from more than 2,000 nominations received through the university's website, www.lssu.edu/banished. Word-watchers target pet peeves from everyday speech, as well as from the news, education, technology, advertising, politics, sports and more. A committee makes a final cut in late December. The list is released on New Year's Day.

Here is the 2008 list:

PERFECT STORM
WEBINAR
WATERBOARDING
ORGANIC
*WORDSMITH/WORDSMITHING
AUTHOR/AUTHORED
POST 9/11
SURGE
GIVE BACK
BLACK FRIDAY
BLANK
BACK IN THE DAY
RANDOM
SWEET
DECIMATE
EMOTIONAL
POP
*IT IS WHAT IT IS
UNDER THE BUS

If you surf on to the university's site here: http://www.lssu.edu/banished/current.php there's a list of who nominated the words i.e. ordinary people who claim they have a pet peeve against one of the above-mentioned words/phrases, and the reasons or rationale behind their distaste for them.

Looking them over can't say that any of them particularly upset me. For me the mere concept of accepting words nominated by...anybody for no good reason, is ludicrous and a reason not to take this seriously. Strikes me that the university is using their annual listing as a ploy to attract potential students.

Since September I am excited to find that many of the adults in my building are talking about books every chance we get; passing in the halls, in between meetings, over lunch or at the coffee machine. I discovered there was a network of best sellers being passed around the office and I decided to tap into it. We set up a book exchange shelf in the faculty lounge where anyone can drop off a book

Every year I try to do more to simplify our family holidays. I like to find ways to share our wealth and contribute to other's needs even as we celebrate our family and express our love for each other. Last year I wrote this about simplifying the holidays and this year I am doing many of the same things. We all have long lists of people we want to buy gifts for and I like to see that as an

If you are thinking about buying video games or a new game system this holiday season, you would do well to spend some time at the esrb, or Entertainment Software Rating Board site studying up on the latest information. Here is how they describe themselves and their mission: "The Entertainment Software Rating Board (ESRB) is a non-profit, self-regulatory body established in 1994 by the

One of the things I really love about Saturdays now is that I have a whole day of poetry to read! I can't be online as much on the weekends because of these short people running around always hungry at my house, but I keep trying to find little snatches of time when they are busy to come here and read poetry. YAY! This week you can go right here to my Friday Poetry roundup and click all the

My friend at Mom Unplugged has weekly projects going with her kids. This past week she was writing haiku with them, and she asked for suggestions for haiku books to read with kids. I got to thinking about it and browsing our shelves. Here are some of my favorites: Today and Today, Issa Kobayashi Cricket Songs, Harry Behn Cricket Never Does, Myra Cohn Livingston One Leaf Rides the Wind, Celeste

Have you seen the new blog called The Brown Bookshelf? Here's how they describe their mission: The Brown Bookshelf is a group of 5 authors and illustrators, brought together for the collective goal of showcasing the best and brightest voices in African-American Children’s Literature, with a special emphasis on new authors and books that are “flying under the radar.”Be sure to check out our new

So, I joined NaBloPoMo. I just can't help myself signing up for one more thing. Friend me? And here is my photo mosaic for October's Project 365 . I am posting the photos one at a time each day on my photo blog, and you can also see them in the flickr set here. I have enjoyed getting out doors as much as possible this month for the fall colors.

Today I joined the NAACP. It's open to folks of any color, race, or ethnicity; did you know that? From the web site: For more than ninety five years, the NAACP has been growing on the courageous shoulders of thousands of people. People of all races, nationalities and faiths united on one premise ----that all men and women are created equal. Are you a member?I read on

In case you don't have enough to do online... Here's a new time suck: (Text copied from a review sent to me in an email by a friend) 'Google Sky' turns computers into telescopes The heavens are only a few mouse clicks away with Google's latest free tool: A new feature in Google Earth, the company's satellite imagery-based mapping software, allows users to view the sky from their computers. The

October sunshine; maple leaves flag the breeze with warm honey drizzle I cross-posted this at the Autumn Haiku 2007 blog I just joined. It's a group blog full of haiku, senryu, tanka, haiga, or haibun and open to all haiku poets. Check it out! Also: My new addictive online vocabulary game: Free Rice! Play, learn, donate to hungry people. Watch out, you won't want to quit. Thanks to Finding

One of my favorite kidlit blogs Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast has this post up today:

By now, you have probably read the very sad news of the death of Robert Mercer, Grace Lin’s husband, at the end of last month, due to cancer.

You may remember from our May ’07 interview with Grace that she was the driving force behind the Robert’s Snow: for Cancer’s Cure fundraising effort after Robert was initially diagnosed with Ewing’s sarcoma and after writing Robert’s Snow (Viking Books; 2004) soon after that diagnosis. The fundraising effort entailed the auctioning off of special snowflakes, created by children’s book illustrators, whom Grace had gathered together in the name of raising money for the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute (DFCI). The auction raised a great deal of money in its first year after the publication of this book, which features these illustrators, many of them award-winning, and their creatively and uniquely designed wood snowflakes for the cause. One hundred percent of the royalties from the book’s sale went to the DFCI to support sarcoma research. Robert’s Snow is in its third year and has already raised more than $200,000 for Dana-Farber. (You can see the 2005 snowflakes here).

This year, more than 200 well-known children’s book illustrators from around the world have been given a five-inch wooden snowflake to decorate at will. Like actual snowflakes, each design is unique. The 2007 online auctions for bidding on these hand-painted snowflakes will take place in three separate auctions, open to everyone, from November 19 to 23, November 26-30, and December 3-7. You can read here for more information (the image above is a publicity image for the upcoming auctions, used with permission from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute. You may click on the image itself to launch the Robert’s Snow site).

Trisha at Miss Rumphius Effect is doing a Monday Poetry Stretch on list poems this week. Since making lists is much on my mind as we get ready for school to start next week, I thought I would give it a whirl.

To Do List for the Last Week in August

Clean cookie crumbs from the children's car seats
Knit three pairs of wool pants
Scrub fruit bins in the fridge
Buy new shoes for all of us
Pick ripe figs and learn to make fig cookies

Eat all the fig cookies
Sit still, watching monarch butterflies
Find and hang more bird feeders for the goldfinches
Wander down the beach searching for sea shells
Make more fig cookies

Take everyone to the dentist
Get oldest son new glasses
Sort and take old toys to re-sale shop
Pick zucchini & make zucchini bread
Grate and freeze more zucchini
Rub noses with littlest son and whisper I love you

Plan more play dates
Read the rest of the books on June's list
Sign middle son up for soccer
Sew buttons on baby sweater gift and MAIL IT
Finish last year's scrap books
Sit in porch swing & gaze at the moon rising

Play trains on the living room floor
Make fig ice cream (zucchini?)
Stay up late watching stars
Grill burgers & call the neighbors over
Light sparklers and dance in the dark
Chase soap bubbles at 7 am in PJs

Write lesson plans for the month of September.

-Andromeda Jazmon

Suzanne from Adventures in Daily Living gave me the Blogger Reflection award last week. I am so tickled to be on her list! Here's how she describes the award:

this award should make you reflect on five bloggers who have been an encouragement, a source of love, impacted you in some way, and have been a Godly example to you. Five Bloggers who when you reflect on them you get a sense of pride and joy… of knowing them and being blessed by them.

1. Woman of the Tiger Moon: "Writing about single motherhood, homeschooling, gardening, gender constructs, and attempts at finding serenity and grace in the daily joys, blessings and vicissitudes of family life."
2. The Whole Self: "I love touching yarn, attachment parenting, doulas, midwives, stacks of books, debriefing, black and white photos, cuddling, human anatomy and physiology, baggage, memories, organic eating, holistic health, knitting, trolls, anais nin, being spartan, children's books, fabric, family, herbs, houseguests, iced coffee, letterboxing, the idea of yoga."
3. Mother Rising: " Mother, Artist, Vegetarian... and Chocoholic!"
4. Lucky Beans: Writer, artist, gardener, and mom to three gorgeous children. They've just moved back to the States from Zambia.
5. Gluten Free Girl: "food, stories, recipes, love" Shauna has just married the Chef. Her writing makes me hungry happy to be alive.

I am so deep into reading HP VII I forgot to mention:

The Play's The Thing! July 2007 Carnival of Children's Literature

This week for Friday Poetry I want to share with you an online poetry zine I just discovered. I am sure others of you are already reading it, but it's new to me. It's called Mamazine and it's full of poetry. Today I am linking to an interview by Kate Hopper with the poet Deborah Garrison, discussing her latest book, The Second Child. She has some poems quoted and they are just lovely. Hopper quotes:

The poem begins with a description of peonies: "tumbled and heavy along/ a fence, fully exploded, nodding/ at the ground…" And it ends like this: "I wasn't sure/ our love would come again,/ and here I am, almost/ kissing the grass like that,/ bursting and rich, cracked/ all over like broken cake—/ makes you cry but still sweet."

Kyra E. Hicks, author of Martha Ann's Quilt for Queen Victoria and Black Threads: An African American Quilting Sourcebook the blog Black Threads in Kid's Lit is collecting a list of all the children's picture books written or illustrated by an African American and copyrighted in 2007. She is compiling monthly lists. She started the project after noticing there were no discussions of mock Coretta Scott King awards, as there are for the Caldecott and the Newbery. She's asking for suggestions of books you would add to her lists. What do you think?

Thanks to Devas T. for the heads up.