The long lists for The National Book Award have been announced, including the category we care about – Young People’s Literature. Hmm, let’s see here – some middle grade, YA, a bit of nonfiction, fantasy, historical fiction – yep, just about everything. On October 15 the group will be pared down to a shortlist before the winner is announced on November 19. Click here to see the books.

A Fuse #8 Production is in impish mode. How else to account for her Newbery and Caldecott predictions with just a touch of excellent out-of-left-field flair? Click here to read.

Over at his site, Colby Sharp interviews Melissa Sweet about her latest book with Jen Bryant, The Right Word. Sweet takes her responses to the next level, illustrating each and every one. So cool. Click here to read.

And in “so there!” news, Millennials are reading more than older Americans. Click here to read more.

Excuse the dust over at Booklist, where they just totally redesigned their blog structure. Dubbed The Booklist Reader, it’s a one-stop-shop for all things Booklist bloggish – including my favorite, Bookends. Click here to check out the new look.

Return to Augie Hobble by Lane Smith. Out May 5, 2015.

Hot off the presses! The cover for Lane Smith’s upcoming novel (yes, novel) just hit the internet. Anyone else curious about this? Click here (or the cover image) to read more about the book over at Parade.

I love this. Marc Tyler Nobleman, author and all-around creative guy, has a great post this week: Kidlit Mashups (AKA merged children’s book sequels).  Characters from two different books brought together for our enjoyment. Here’s one:

Click here to see them all.

@shannonozirny brings us a mashup of a different kind.

Every year Scholastic puts out a video to help promote a batch of recent books that will be sold at their book fairs. This year Raina Telgemeier’s Sisters (100 Scope Notes review) is one of the featured books, and they visited the author to talk about it.