Other Blogger Notes

Yesterday I watched Bridge to Terabithia and The Lives of Others in quick succession. Literally one hour passed between the two. In that state of .... severe mental confusion is the only term that comes to mind, I was not able to write up my Review of the Day (and it's a doozy too) or even scout out much interesting info. So here are just a couple things I saw recently that caught my eye on other blogs as particularly smart/funny.

First up, books you love to hate. Or, rather, the ones you couldn't finish. When Leila Roy saw an article in The Guardian discussing the books your average British reader couldn't get through (check out #2), she opened up the topic and there definitely been some interesting comments. Who knew Francine Green couldn't hold her own?

Your average Pixie Stix Kids posting tends to come in a clump. There won't be anything for a week or so, and then suddenly you'll find yourself inundated with intelligent conversation. The most recent piece of interest? A trendwatch on emerging graphic forms for children. The hypothesis is thrown out that the graphic-centered book is a trend. Which is to say, it may go away. I think it is not a trend. Feel free to discuss. (UPDATE: Oh my God, she wrote even more information on the topic! I feel exhausted just looking at it).

Now I'm always delighted when editors take the time to give some advice to their authorial charges. Cheryl Klein is one of the best, so her recent piece Slush Pile Saturday, Ms. K offers her thoughts on, "The number one problem in novel submissions," poor first chapters, and the importance of killer last lines.

Speaking of advice, here's some from another sector entirely. I'm always terrible when it comes to promoting the latest publication of the online kidlit webzine The Edge of the Forest. Well, it's out now (go, shoo) and MotherReader's Pam Coughlan has a great piece in it entitled Be a B-List Blogger. If you have ever wondered how to increase stats on your kidlit blog, this piece may help.

Sometimes we're so smothered in snark that we have a hard time appreciating the "nice". And I'm talking actual "nice" here. Not ooey-gooey saccharine-filled "nice". So there's this new thing at 7-Imp that they're trying out where every week-end people will, "gather and discuss what Beautiful and/or Kick-Ass Things Happened to You or That You Read or That You Noticed This Week." Sounds good. It'd be cool if there were a blog program that could waver between a blog and a wiki whenever the mood struck you. Technology not having progressed quite so far, this will do in the interim.