Oh my gosh, I’m getting excited. As you know, I’m a first-round judge for the Fiction Picture Book category in the Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards. The nominations are pouring in, and I’ve been perusing the ever-growing list with happy anticipation. My fellow panelists and I will be responsible for reading every book nominated and putting the very best among them on a shortlist for the finals. Then I will go off and have a baby (or so the plan is), and the finals judges will choose winners to announce in February.
So now you know how I plan to spend my third trimester: parked in a comfy spot, reading lovely picture books to my younguns. Beanie in particular is going to enjoy this particular ‘assignment’ of Mom’s. Wonderboy and Rilla too, no doubt. Nominations are open through October 15th, so get on over there and enter your favorite books from 2008 (one nomination per person per category, I believe—oh, and I’ve heard the Easy Reader category is especially in need of suggestions). Beanie is counting on you.
That sounds just delightful! Do you know anyone who has a complete list of what’s been nominated so far? I am looking for blog posts that are up to date on what is missing or what we have so far, in order to help those who leave it till the last minute to add their picks. I’d love to see a round up on the Cybils site. If you have the list please join in!
(A roundup post with links to my notes and reviews)
Hey, what happened to all those booklists you used to have in your sidebars at the old blog?
They're still accessible at melissawiley.typepad.com, where this blog lived from January 2005-March 2008. You can also find all my Lilting House posts there, or try the search bar here. All my previous Bonny Glen and Lilting House posts have been imported to this site.
Every day is complicated, messy, and full of friction. And every day has glorious or cozy moments worth celebrating. I seldom bother to chronicle the friction and the mess because writing time is fleeting and precious—and childhood even more so. I’d rather capture the small joys that I might forget—or take for granted—if I don’t take time to set them down in words.
(Excerpt from this post about Real Life, quoted here because I don't want anyone to be under the impression that things are always perfect around here! Heaven knows we are anything but. Perfect, frictionless, orderly? Nope. Happy? Most of the time!)
Be like the bird
Who, pausing in flight
On limb too slight,
Feels it give way beneath her,
Yet sings,
Knowing she has wings.
—Victor Hugo
Twitter Updates
“Exploration,” says John Stilgoe, author of Outside Lies Magic, “is a liberal art, because it is an art that liberates, that frees, that opens away from narrowness. And it is fun.”
Yes: it is so, so much fun, and that is why I write these posts all chattery with excitement over this or that connection the kids made today. (Or that I made myself!) I know I get carried away, but that’s the point, isn’t it, that way leading on to way has carried me away?
And yet—and yet—I think we are at once ‘carried away’ and made more fully present in the now, more rooted, by these relationships between ideas about things past and future. The joy of connection makes me want to celebrate this moment, this brief encounter with wild-haired child and broad-trunked tree, bus going by, sign on church wall, Scottish warlord creeping over the tower wall and startling the English soldier’s wife who has just put her babe in arms to sleep by crooning that the Black Douglas won’t get him. Child, laughing, shouting “Dinna ye be sae sure aboot that!” across the courtyard outside the library. How can I not celebrate this freedom?
Oh my gosh, I’m getting excited. As you know, I’m a first-round judge for the Fiction Picture Book category in the Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers’ Literary Awards. The nominations are pouring in, and I’ve been perusing the ever-growing list with happy anticipation. My fellow panelists and I will be responsible for reading every book nominated and putting the very best among them on a shortlist for the finals. Then I will go off and have a baby (or so the plan is), and the finals judges will choose winners to announce in February.
Now see, I should envy you but I don’t. I can’t think of no better, beautiful, pregnant mommy who should spend her third trimester reviewing books.
‘Cause Melissa Wiley knows her books!
Plus this just makes so much more sense than, say, reviewing ski resorts.
Posted on October 7th, 2008 at 1:35 pmOops. Ignore that double negative.
Posted on October 7th, 2008 at 1:36 pmIf the job gets to be too much for you and you find you really need an assistant…:)
Posted on October 7th, 2008 at 10:38 pmThat sounds just delightful! Do you know anyone who has a complete list of what’s been nominated so far? I am looking for blog posts that are up to date on what is missing or what we have so far, in order to help those who leave it till the last minute to add their picks. I’d love to see a round up on the Cybils site. If you have the list please join in!
Posted on October 11th, 2008 at 5:17 pm