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First Book is proud to announce that select meteorologists across the country from Boston to Los Angeles participated in The Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs Challenge issued by Today meteorologist Al Roker.

The challenge, in celebration of today’s release of the animated movie CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF MEATBALLS, generated more than 20,000 assorted new books to First Book organizations serving children in need. NBC-affiliate meteorologists had the opportunity to deliver new books and lead a special story time with the children.

First Book would like to thank Sony Pictures Animation, Columbia Pictures, Simon & Schuster Children’s Publishing and television stations across the country for their generosity and commitment to spreading the joy of reading.

And be sure to check out this video of highlighting books provided to kids in Phoenix as part of the Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs Challenge (video opens in Windows Media Player).

Below is another reflection on the life of a publicist from Michelle Rafferty. Rafferty has been a Publicity Assistant at Oxford University Press since September 2008. Prior to Oxford she interned at Norton Publishing and taught 9th & 10th grade Literature. Every Friday she is chronicling her adventures in publishing and New York City, so be sure to visit again next week.  Follow Michelle on twitter here.  Follow the OUPblog here.

This week the founders of Twitter defended the decreed “viral craze du jour” with responses ranging from tweeting yourself out of natural disasters (see Maureen Dowd’s grilling session) to mending relations between the United States and Iraq (see Jack Dorsey on CNN). It’s a good thing I finally decided to take this social networking craze seriously. I signed up for Twitter about two months ago, but I could never really make myself commit. I came up with a few forced posts, but the whole time I was thinking “I really don’t have the time for this” and “there isn’t enough room” and “what the heck is RT?” I had trouble making myself stay on the thing for more than five minutes. Then I found Perez Hilton.

It began Tuesday morning. I was haphazardly scrolling through my tweets when I noticed that The Today Show tweeted Matt Lauer’s interview with Miss California Carrie Prejean and Perez Hilton. I wanted to know what Hilton thought of all of this, so I went to his Twitter profile and began scrolling through his posts, which essentially gave me a play-by play of his reactions as the Miss America debate swept America. Throughout the day I continued to return to his profile while I pestered Oxford’s fearless blog leader Becca for tweeting tips (how do you retweet? How do you cram a URL into 140 characters? And what does the “@” mean?) By the end of the day I was reading Heidi Montag and Miley Cyrus’s opinions on Perez and Jesus (in case you are wondering, they support both).

After work I came down from my Twitter high and had the same sense of regret I felt in college after spending two hours on Facebook instead of working on a paper that was due the next day. Shel Silverstein’s poem “Jimmy Jet and His TV Set” came to mind: He watched till is eyes were frozen wide,/And his bottom grew into his chair./And his chin turned into a tuning dial,/And antennae grew out of his hair. Silverstein is no doubt rolling in his grave.

I also had a strong sense of déjà vu—hadn’t I seen this on the cover of US Weekly before? I realized that Twitter was doing what blogs had started years before: transform the static, speculative, and photo shopped tabloid duals into real time virtual wars. Although I would argue that this event is a whole lot more complex and substantive than the never ending Jen and Angelina showdown, it is similarly PR driven: in her Today Show interview Prejean admits she wouldn’t have had the opportunity to sit next to Lauer if this all hadn’t happened; Perez comments on how good he looks on Larry King; and is it really a coincidence that notorious celebrity feuder Donald Trump is involved? There are serious issues at hand, but all of these players also have images to uphold, promote, and protect.

I know I shouldn’t be admitting that the Miss USA pageant debate is what finally got me into Twitter, but when I analogize it to the Young Adult novel argument, it don’t think it seems so bad: people who support YA Literature think of it as a stepping stone, a hook for young leaders, Stephanie Meyer will lead them Bram Stoker. In the same way I have moved from “Celebrity Twitter” to “Muck Rack”—an amalgamation of tweets from the most influential members of the news media. This week I’ve learned that I can use Twitter to find out what editors, journalists and bloggers are writing and thinking about (the aforementioned “Muck Rack” makes this especially easy). And while Twitter seems to be the latest and greatest way to get the news, it also shows promise for being the book publicist’s best new tool. I can use tweets to figure out who might want to cover a particular book or interview a certain author. This type of information is especially useful for newbies like myself who are still trying to learn names and personalities in the media industry. Twitter can also be another element of the publicity campaign—I can tweet our Oxford author reviews, interviews, and events—and in a best case scenario get some retweets (that is, after I get some followers). If I make an effort to limit my time on Twitter (no “Twitter head”!), I think it could be something that actually makes me more productive at work.

There does seem to be some cognitive dissonance going on among Twitter users. We laugh at the satirical YouTube shorts and the absurdity of the word “Twitter” and all its variations; I had to mock shame when passing up on a lunch with co-workers after my Twitter rampage ate up all of my morning work time.   So, until Twitter starts getting us out of earthquake rubble and initiating world peace, it looks I will need some sort of justification for my tweeting. Luckily it has become my newest job requirement.

Below is another reflection on the life of a publicist from Michelle Rafferty. Rafferty has been a Publicity Assistant at Oxford University Press since September 2008. Prior to Oxford she interned at Norton Publishing for a summer and taught 9th & 10th grade Literature. She is chronicling her adventures in publishing every Friday so be sure to visit again next week.

While growing up in the Midwest my understanding of New York City was formed by shots of Rockefeller Plaza on the “Today Show,” and Monica Geller’s apartment in Friends. At the same time a different, more romantic notion existed in my head, similar to what Woody Allen envisioned when marrying an old and new New York in the film Manhattan: a city that “existed in black and white and pulsated to the great tunes of George Gershwin.” Since moving here 10 months ago, I’ve dispelled my preconceived, romantic notions of New York, learned that Manhattan has more to offer than Rockefeller Plaza, and am now just another commuter with a vacant stare and headphones, unmoved by the subway screeches and jolts I used to find alarming. But in many ways I’m still in awe and I and wonder if I always will be.

In E.B. White’s famous essay, “Here is New York,” he recalls “what it felt likes as a young man to live in the same town with giants”—his giants being those columnists, critics, and poets he idolized as an aspiring writer himself. White writes that being on the same island as them made him burn “with a low steady fever,” and when he walked by the house of F.P.A., “the block seemed to tremble…the way Park Avenue trembles when a train leaves Grand Central.” I myself am constantly in awe at the “big giants” I find myself in proximity with everyday. I have conversations with authors renowned in their respective fields; I’m always one or two degrees separated from the producers, editors and reporters of the publications, radio, and television programs I revere, which makes it difficult at times not to blurt out “I love your work!” And our enormous contact database, well it would be a lie if I said I was never tempted to abuse it.

In my short time here, I’ve learned that on the outside, becoming a New Yorker doesn’t take long: wear all black, don’t advert your eyes, and only carry a map if it can fit into your wallet—better yet, get a Blackberry with access to Google Maps. But what is a New Yorker on the inside? Does amazement have to stop? If it did, why else would everyone continue to cram themselves in such a tiny space? This seems to be what E.B. White is getting at when he wrote, “the city makes up for its hazards and deficiencies by supplying its citizens with massive doses of a supplementary vitamin—the sense of belonging to something unique, cosmopolitan, mighty and unparalleled.” I think that only when this supplementary dose stops taking affect, when amazement has manifested itself in every way possible, a person can leave. And then maybe, nostalgia leads them back to where they came from originally.

In Manhattan, Diane Keaton’s character, Mary, tends to disavow her New Yorker prowess in moments where her intellect and sexuality leave her feeling vulnerable. She says things like, “I’m just from Philadelphia: I mean, we believe in God,” or “I’m from Philadelphia. My family’s never had affairs.” Although Mary’s words are superficial, they are poignant because they show how New York can suddenly make us encapsulate the “virtue” of the places we left behind—whether we believe in that virtue or not. For example, I’m from Indiana where we “watch the fireplace for hours in the winter and take long country road drives in the summer.” Those New Yorkers who truly miss virtues like these return to them. Those who are content with keeping them a romantic notion until the day they die will stay on the island. Or they will continue their search for something else, and maybe even tell their tale of New York to a stranger in a pub along the way. And that stranger will decide they want to take a shot at it. So they come to the city and live their New York story, which is passed along, maybe even in the form of a novel, poem, portrait, or script. That is how I imagine the “greatest city in the world” stays alive. And maybe it is youth tinged optimism, but I hope my own New York story goes on for a long time.

A question that gets asked again and again. My husband sent me this Today Show link, and surprisingly in the media eyes Tween is attached to Twilight. And Twilight (in the movie version) is the only book related thing spoken about in the blurb. Where are the books?