CBC News: New prizes for kiddie lit, kiddie TV, announced
The Canadian Children’s Book Centre and TD Bank have announced a new award for children’s book authors that will be awarded next fall for the first time. The $60,000 in prize money makes it the highest prize for children’s lit in Canada.
Via places for writers.

Halloween Online
One of the largest Halloween sites online, this site offers decorating, food, music, and much more to make your Halloween even spookier.

Compy 386!!
Strong Bad is a phenomenon on the Net. He is featured in a serious of cartoons answering his email. In this one, Strong Bad has written a children’s book. A sad, sick children’s book, but what other kind would Strong Bad write?

Speak (2004)
Speak by Laurie Halse Anderson has been made into a movie. I have heard good things about it, including that it is faithful to the book.

Pumpkin Carving; Flash | Metafilter
Metafilter has a pumpkin carving flash site that is great for kids. There are a couple of others listed in the comments, but the one mentioned in the original post is the easiest for kids to play with.

Guardian Unlimited Books | By genre | Young adult fiction: Oct 24
This article from England takes a look at the new field of crossover novels that are appealing to both children and adults. It has some new items for me to add to my list of future reads.

NPR : ‘Lizard Motel’ Weighs Children’s Reading Habits
All Things Considered had on Barbara Feinberg speaking about her book, Welcome to Lizard Motel: Children, Stories and the Mystery of Making Things Up. Her book is about the dark reality books being assigned in schools.
Via joannejacobs.com.

Blogs for Kids
RSS Specifications blog has this post about using blogs with kids and the benefits that they will derive from it.

Boing Boing: Kids who support Kerry threatened with expulsion
Shame, shame, shame on a Wisconsin public school stopping kids from expressing their political opinion! I wonder how much of it had to do with Bush’s requirements for supportive crowds.