How to use this Page

Thanks! Busk, busk...

Oh, drat, I thought my Thirteen Reasons Why You Should Read Thirteen Reasons Why was a unique idea - I should have known it was more obvious. ;-) Anyhow, peek at my blog tomorrow for something that MIGHT be related to 13RY.

Thanks for the shoutout. And thanks SO MUCH for sending me to that great post at Disco Mermaids. Who needs MFA's when the teens tell ALL?

Very funny!

Good one!

Dude, it's a HIGH horse, a high horse. So, it's not going to look... natural.

Seriously, though, it looks great. And I'm unbelievably annoyed by this yammering on and on on this topic. A lot of ASSuming is going on.

I try not to think about it too much, but I know what you mean. Love the cartoon! It does all boil down to free speech, and people trying to defend an elitist old guard that others don't care about.

I had dinner with a friend last night who struggles to find good books for his three kids to read, because he wants them to be readers. And he said that reading my blog helps with that. And that's really what it's all about, for me.

That's great, Jen! I love to hear that. I always feel like I'm doing someone a service when I can point them to great sites like yours, or Edge of the Forest or any of the other great sites out there, when they're looking for reading material for their kids.

GREAT cartoon, Sarah! It's perfect.

BTW: I grew up in Hemet, believe it or not :) It was great when I was a child, but has gone downhill since! I then went to Berkeley for undergrad and UCLA for grad school. Now I'm in IOWA. Ah, the academic life. It's a lot like the military in the sense that you can't always choose where you live.

Oh, how funny! My stepdad used to work at an optometrist's office in Hemet.

Coincidentally, I also went to Berkeley for my undergrad. It was a nice change from Riverside, let me tell you!

Cool, Sarah! He didn't work at Dr. King's office did he?

Berkeley was a nice change from the old Inland Empire--though the first guy I dated could tell "I came from a small town." Sigh. I thought I had them all fooled :)

No, I think it was Dr. Scruggs, but that was a long time ago so I'm not sure...my stepdad's career has gone through various incarnations and since then he has become a high school science teacher! (At San Gorgonio, which you probably know of!)

And Tyrell is still on my TBR list... hey, I can simply say I'm waitlisting it 'til the 48 Hour Reading Challenge. Hey, that sounds good, doesn't it?

Isn't Coe female?

Oh! Could be. I should look these things up, eh?

I love it! Especially since I used to say "oh I just discuss books" and thanks to the recent kerfuffle decided to say "yes, I review books, so what?"

HA! I love it too!

Let me see, I do book sharing and snarking.

Haha! I think I can cram in one more word balloon...

This is great!

Too funny! Thanks for giving me my daily giggle.

Hey, I thought the meeting was supposed to private! Don't blow our cover!

I love this!!!

Lord, it's all over now. Me in my horns and everything...

I love it!!! Your cartoon really captures the whole controversy. Great job!

Tee hee! Thanks, guys. Whenever something annoys me, it usually helps to try to laugh about it...

Some 14 years ago, when I was a freshman in college (wow, that's a disturbing number), I got irritated with some dorm-mates, so I drew a cartoon poster of everyone who lived in my dorm hallway, all 18 of us including me. I'm not sure everyone appreciated it, but I sure felt better.

HA HA HA HA!!!

Perfect!

ha! The "conspiracy" revealed! Love it : )

Hey, never underestimate the potential corruptability factor of a free ARC.

Thanks for making me laugh1

Speaking of corruptability, I think the glue is almost dry on my ARCs.

So funny!! Thanks for a good laugh. Love the t-shirts that the people are wearing.

Don't you just love the word nefarious?

- Jay

(Hey! Anyone wanna read a free ARC? Cost: the low low price of one good review!!!)

hee!

Yes, yes, yes and yes. To everything you said. I couldn't agree more wholeheartedly.

Great post! I like how you address the blogging ambivalence, too. There are days I wanna give it all up, but then you really connect with a reader or some such thing . . . and it's all worth it again.

Thanks, Jackie and Jules!!

Nice post . . . kudos to you. :)

I work as a teacher in an urban school in Salt Lake City. After working all day, I come home to be with my three recently adopted daughters who are still mastering English and who are still becoming passionate readers. My first steps into the kidlitosphere were through Esme Codell's blog. I gradually expanded the blogs I read, and have often added and often pruned my personal blog roll.

I am very grateful for the constant flow of thoughtful recommendations provided by bloggers in kidlit land. Due to time constraints, and my reasons for being here in the first place, I often lurk, but rarely post. This discussion, however, merits the input of folks like me. To all the blog naysayers, I'd reply: give me some credit. I don't rush out and buy every book I see recommended. I don't read every blog with the same level of trust. Bloggers have to earn my trust to keep my attention. I have a nifty link to my local library in order to quickly request books I see recommended. But I only request a small fraction of all the books I read about, and I only share with my daughters and students the best of the books I check-out. But after these several levels of discrimination, my students and my girls end up with plenty of excellent books. Please know that the work that you do is well appreciated. My list of great books I first heard about on a kid lit blog (in the year I've been hanging around reading them) would likely include about 250 titles. That's a lot of books, which are now part of my teaching repitoire, books I can match and share with lots of great kids.

Very nicely said. I couldn't agree with you more.

We inform each other and learn from one another, and so yes, I do feel responsible for the quality of what appears here--I want it to be informative, or useful, or entertaining.

Yes! Well said! I'm with you.

AF, quoting makes me sound so intelligent!

I was entirely inarticulate on this subject, but you've done a great job with this. And thank you, Jackie, Jules, Erin Amy, Hip Mama and Clouds for speaking up. We wouldn't be us without you...