August 8th, 2010

INTERVIEW

• Girl Talk With Joanna Philbin
  Talk show host Regis Philbin's daughter Joanna talks about her YA debut novel, The Daughters (Little, Brown, 2010), about three BFFs in trendy New York City. School Library Journal caught up with Philbin, who grew up attending private schools in the Big Apple and now lives in California, to discover how much of her book parallels her own teenage years.
  
  Lizzie is the only daughter of a supermodel. Carina is heir to a media empire. And Hudson's mother is a pop icon. So which one of these characters most closely resembles you?
  
  Like Lizzie, I wanted to be a writer from a young age. And like Lizzie, I didn't feel that I quite fit the role of being the child of someone who was on TV. I was shy and sensitive, and always felt more comfortable alone reading a book or hanging out with my friends than being out with my parents at a glamorous event.    more » » » 

NEWS

• Richard Moore's 'Boneyard' Goes Quiet
  After eight years telling stories about a 2,000-year-old vampire named Abby, a demon named Glumph, and the silent Brutus, graphic novelist Richard Moore is burying his 'Boneyard' series, with the July release of Volume 7 set to be his last.
  
  "It would be easy to keep going indefinitely–and I certainly had enough story arcs planned to keep Boneyard (Nantier Beall Minoustchine Publishing, 2001-1009) going for many years–but I have a lot of other projects that I wanted to get to," says Moore by email. "Also, difficulties with the publisher just made it easier to move on to something else."    more » » » 
• Comic Books Put The "Pow!" Into Literacy
  To Deborah Ford, getting a child to read a book is the end game. And whether that book is a novel–or a graphic novel–there's still a narrative, words on a page, and literacy involved.
  
  "There is a misconception that a reader is someone who reads a big fat novel that someone dead wrote a long time ago," says the resource librarian for more than 180 K-12 schools in the San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD) and author of Scary, Gross and Enlightening Books for Boys Grades 3-12 (Linworth, 2010). "But reading is reading."  more » » » 

WATCH AND READ

• Loser/Queen: An Online Reading Experience for Teens
  The serial novel meets the 21st century with the launch of an innovative online book from Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing. Penned by New York Times bestselling author Jodi Lynn Anderson, Loser/Queen, presented on the web in tantalizing weekly installments, includes fun-to-access links, and features a plot determined by reader feedback. The site is hosted by the online community LivingSocial's Visual Bookshelf and is sponsored by national retailer JCPenney, both working in partnership with S&S.    more » » » 

REMARKABLE READS

• At the Racetrack
  We've all heard it: "I just want books about horses!" Next time that happens, whip out this list, and you'll be able to keep these readers busy for a long time. These aren't just horse stories, they're also novels of suspense, intrigue, coming of age, and friendship. Put out a display, and the covers alone will sell these titles.    more » » » 

LIBRARIAN'S INTERNET

• Mosquito Mayhem
  www.cbc.ca/kids/games/skeetersplat
  
  Mosquitoes can ruin a picnic, a camping trip, and even a walk in the park. Kids spend most of the summer scratching their bites, so why not let them have fun getting a bit of virtual revenge by playing "Skeeter Splat," created by the folks at CBC television in Canada, which is home to even bigger mosquitoes than we get here in the States.   more » » » 

JOB OF THE WEEK