I’m a sucker for seemingly standard news stories where children’s literature unexpectedly pops up. That’s just what happened when Sen. Ted Cruz read Green Eggs and Ham from the Senate floor Tuesday night in the midst of an all-night speech against Obamacare. This seemingly incongruous choice of books (since Green Eggs is about trying things before you reject them) resulted in a twitter meme and a number of “get a load of this” news stories – like this one from NBC news (side note: who’s the Dr. Seuss historian quoted in the article? Our Nine Kinds of Pie pal Phil Nel!) There’s even a video of the reading:

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(Thanks to my wife Allison for the link)

This story is just crazy to me. Plans for a giant Hulk statue at Northlake Public Library library (to be crowdfunded through indiegogo) were about to be scrapped due to lack of support until, well, someone happened to have a giant Hulk statue to spare. Click here to read.

(Thanks to ALDirect for the link)

Real headline alert! Click here to read.

In “how about that!” news, it appears the number of independent bookstores has risen since 2009. Granted, the overall number fell off a cliff in the preceding years, but it’s still a good thing to see. One of the reasons cited for the increase? You can’t do a book signing at Amazon. Click here to read.

(Thanks to Boing Boing for the link)

The 7th annual Kidlitosphere Conference is taking place on November 9 in Austin, TX. If you’re a children’s lit blogger, attending might just make your year. Click here for information.