The holidays are nearly upon us!  Time to buy things!  To chop down trees.  To find books for the small fry!  I can’t help you with the first or second of these necessities but #3?  Here’s a bit of an aid for you.  As you may know, Rocco Staino and KidLit TV have together been interviewing all the heavyweights in the children’s literary field.  Now he has a kind of holiday special (cool, right?) with three of my favorite folks: Jenny Brown (Children’s Editor for Shelf Awareness, director of the Center for Children’s Literature at Bank Street College), Susannah Richards (Associate Professor of Education at Eastern Connecticut State University), and Luann Toth (Managing Editor School Library Journal Reviews).

You can see the full roster of their recommendations here.

Not to be outdone, Candlewick sent their holiday greetings as well.

I sort of wish the guy in the bear suit had turned out to be Jack Gantos or Tobin Anderson or something.

Now can you keep a little secret?  This is a good one.  Here it is: If you would ever like to watch me grapple with my own personal hell, make me do a TED Talk.  This is nothing I fear more.  I like public speaking.  I like people looking at me.  But for whatever reason the prospect of doing a talk, like the one presented here by expert speaker and children’s librarian Shannon Ozirny of Vancouver, reduces me to a quivering mass of goo.  Fortunately, Shannon’s a pro.  Watch this:

Thanks to 100 Scope Notes for the link.

And now, this series. It appears to be a sort of Dr. Who meets Buffy concoction.  I’m just amused that it’s supposed a group of adults with MLIS degrees and yet not a single one of them is wearing glasses.  Ah, Hollywood.  How you hate frames so.

Thanks to Marci for the link.

And finally, for our off-topic video, I never post cute cat videos.  Life is too short.  I’m not that kind of gal.  Certainly there are enough fabulous videos out there that I’d never have to rely on . . . OH!  Whack-a-Mole!