I Spy With My Little Eye, Something That Rhymes with Vaughnfest

I don't suppose that this sort of thing is limited to librarians, but certainly members of my profession would take an interest in the prizes. DK Publishing is riding the publicity machine via a contest. Whaddaya win?

GRAND PRIZE
One grand prize winner will receive 100 Eyewitness books* of their choosing!
(*based on availability)

RUNNERS-UP
Five Runners-Up will receive a set of the four new Eyewitness titles, plus a set of the eight re-launched backlist titles!

THIRD PLACE
25 Third Place winners will receive a set of the four new Eyewitness titles!

Eyewitness has its charms. Nobody in their right mind would ever use it as a reliable reference text, but for those kids who bat their long lashes at you and plead for something ANYTHING on one topic or another, they tend to do very well. Go wild, pretty kitties.

Cho Chang's Eyes Are Nothing Like the Sun . . .

Don't waste your artistic inclinations on poorly plotted Harry Potter slash fiction and online conspiracy theories. Let your true feelings flow. Poet it up, peoples. There's a Harry poetry contest in the works.

To enter the contest, we want you to compose a poem dedicated to Harry Potter. It can be anything from a limerick to a haiku to a love poem to an elegy to a sonnet. Be creative – the finest poem about the Boy Wizard will win and we’ll also publish the best ones on AbeBooks. There is no limitation on length. You can enter up to three times separately but each entry must contain just one poem. AbeBooks’ Jordan Gordon, an account manager, has started the ball rolling with his own poetic composition - read the poem here.

Yeah, I know. Could be lame. Then you see the prize.



Awwwwwwwwwww yeah! The artist creates furniture out of books like so:


Wouldn't mind me some o' that.

Thanks to Educating Alice for the link.

Sketchy or On the Up-and-Up?

This is a good example of a contest that could be legit or could be a gigantic swindle. I present to you the Peppermint Awards.

Do you write for children?

The mission of the Peppermint Awards is to reward and expose undiscovered writers, opening doors with recognition, endorsement and promotion.

If you are a children’s book writer or screenwriter in the business of making quality family entertainment, enter the 1st Annual Peppermint Awards!

Deadline for Submissions
May 21, 2007
(Late Registration June 18, 2007)

Winners announced:
September 24, 2007
It's not a big contest. If you win in the children's book category you get the following:

CHILDREN’S LITERATURE
Prizes for each of the 7 Categories:
1st $100
2nd $75
3rd $50

* The Peppermint Awards Official Seal of Approval

# The first place winners of the children’s books category will also receive a full color cover art for their book created by a talented experienced illustrator.

If you explore the site you'll find very little saying exactly who is giving out these prizes and even who this "talented experienced illustrator" would be. Plus they're asking for fees on submissions. $20 for picture books. $40 on chapter books. Most peculiar. What think you? I could go either way.

Oh, There Once Was a Blog from Nantucket...

From author Mitali Perkins comes the following contest:

In honor of my birthday, I'm emulating Bilbo Baggins and giving away a bag of my favorite savory, nutty, spicy Hot Mix and a signed copy of Rickshaw Girl. To win, you must supply the best 9-syllable last line of advice in one of two limericks.

Smart people that you all are, I'm sure you'll come up with multiple answers to her samples. Me? Not so much. Rhyming is best done when you're playing a game of Balderdash at 2 a.m., have had a touch too much to drink, and you've started rhyming all your answers with a kind of way-hey gleeful abandon. Or is that just me?

Speaking of Bilbo Baggins though, check this out:


I got this from Saints and Spinners and I believe that what we may have here is the very first Hobbit home I've seen that I actually like. Especially if it was made for kids. I mean, when you compare it to this and this, there is no comparison.

Contesty-westy

While Scholastic was hopping the Al Roker train for big-time publicity fun, Harper Collins decided to go a different route. "Hey!," say they. "Let's pair with Johnson & Johnson and do one of those Win a Chance To Be an Author" things. And so they did. Thus was the Internet spotted with sentences like the one below:

"Every parent is a storyteller because as a parent, you possess the unique ability to see the world through a child’s eyes. Has your child inspired a story you wish to tell?"

Yes. My child that I do not have has inspired me to write a story about a blowfish named Larry. Free money please.

Here's what I find particularly amusing. Check out the description of the Grand Prize: "One Grand Prize Winner will have his or her story brought to life – printed and illustrated by HarperCollins. The winner will also receive a $1,000 Gift Card, a library of classic children’s books from HarperCollins and a JOHNSON’S®. Baby Gift Set, featuring JOHNSON’S® BEDTIME BATH® & BEDTIME LOTION®."

No mention of any book rights there, eh buddy? Just a gift card, some books, and lotion. Woo-boy! Check out the print run too. 5,000 books. Foof. Good luck with all that then.

Fight! Fight! Fight!

This is a little confusing, but I think I've gotten the gist of it.

There is currently a book blogger office pool going on. In conjunction with the March 8th Tournament of Books sponsored by Powell's Books, a contest has begun that allows one lucky reader the chance to, "win every book jousting in the tournament."

"How so?," says you.

Simple. The Book Blogger Office Pool. A group of book bloggers looked at a list of books nominated for the Tournament, decided which ones people would love the most, and filled in the standard "brackets" to guess the final winner.

Where do you come in? Well, as the Powell's blog described it, ". . . you pick a blogger, email TMN with his/her name, and they'll randomly select one reader for each blogger — and the winning blogger's reader wins a copy of every single book in the tournament."

Cool, huh? The list of bloggers is here. More info:

To enter the 2007 ToB Book Bloggers’ Office Pool Contest, please select one of the book bloggers listed (Kate’s Book Blog, Book Nerd, The Millions, Condalmo, Brockman/Powells.com, or Shaken & Stirred), type it into an email’s subject line, put your full contact info into the email’s body, and then send it to talk@themorningnews.org by 6 p.m. EST, Wednesday, March 7, 2007; only one entry per person. We will then randomly select an entrant to be assigned to each of the office pool bloggers; the winning blogger’s entrant will receive all of this year’s tournament books after the end of the ToB, courtesy of Powells.com. Good luck!

And hey. I don't want to tell you how to vote. Maybe you're a fan of The Millions or something (too much information for me), but insofar as I can tell, Shaken & Stirred, is the closest thing we have to a kidlit representative. I say you lob her some support. Go, Gwenda Bond, Go!! WOO!