The Book Standard has an interesting article: Jessa Crispin Pops A Question To Borders. In it Crispin, author of the great Bookslut blog talks about Borders’ choice to not carry Pop, a teen novel by Aury Wallington. They will special order it by request but will not have it on their store shelves. Why? Sex, sex, sex. I guess in this case, sex does not sell?
In the article, the Borders spokesperson pulls out the old no room on the shelves comment. Sigh. Don’t they know that librarians have long perfected excuses about why they don’t carry certain materials. Shelf space is so old hat. Instead try, “The binding is not high enough quality” (used by many libraries when talking about Madonna’s Sex book) or “It would just get stolen anyway.” (used when talking about any book with “sex” in the title and in conjunction with the previous example when talking about Madonna’s book.)
Lame excuse, Borders, especially when your competition has found room on their shelves for it. One would think that a national bookseller would have more courage than this.

Library Goddesses is a fairly new group of blogs that any librarian (retired or currently working) is welcome to join. They have a blog for picture books, one for fiction for ages 5-8, fiction ages 9-12 and nonfiction. You can subscribe to just the blog you are interested in and it can be by email or RSS feed. Very nice.
This is a great opportunity to review books that interest you without having to maintain your own one-person blog. A nice entry-way into the world of library blogging.

ALA has a nice article with recommended holiday titles: Children’s librarians recommend books for the holidays. It offers a gift-giving guide for children from preschool to 8th grade with picture books, fiction and nonfiction. Best of all, it is not overpowered by Christmas books, but offers a wider range of holidays.

ELLEgirl Magazine may no longer be in print, but it has reinvented itself as an online-only teen magazine. In their debut “issue” you can see Marie Antoinette fashions, learn about great costume jewelry, find out about your favorite celebrities, take quizzes, play games, and of course, read about boys.

The New York Times has a surprising story: Married and Single Parents Spending More Time With Children, Study Finds, that shows that today’s parents may work more outside of the home, but they spend more time with their children than any other time in the last 40 years!
I post this here, because though our lives may be busier, we still see families making time to bring small children into the public library. My concern is that when those children enter school, the public library becomes less of a destination for the family. Now that we know that parents are spending more time with their children, not less, we can start to focus more on how to draw those families in.
How do we remain a destination for elementary age children? We know that we have the materials that interest them. We know that when they come through the doors we can lead them right to books that will wow them. But how do we get them through those doors, and more importantly, how do we get their parents to spend their precious time with their children AT THE LIBRARY?

Bookseller Chick is the blog of an anonymous someone who works in a bookstore. While her writing is excellent and great fun, it is her incredible blog roll that outshines all others! It just goes on and on and on and on, with link after link to great children’s lit blogs. Like I need an even longer list of blogs to read! 😉

Got an email from JacketFlap, a children’s literature portal, this morning telling me that my blog had been added to their service.  How nice! And when I visited their site, I found much more than I expected.  They have an incredible list of children’s publishers, an active forum, a children’s publishing blog reader that follows 161 blogs, an enormous blogroll that has my fingers itching to explore by clicking around, and a free customizable personal page for visitors to select the blogs they wish to follow.  It is all professionally done, with a crisp clean feel that invites you to explore.

You will notice a link to them on the right side of my blog as well, so that you can easily start reading this blog via their interface. 

Got an email announcing the debut of Three Cats Write (Three Hollywood Cats — One Serial (but not serious) Novel, a new blog that will serialize The Amber Baboon written by Apollo Kerley, Asta Nethery and Jemima Wing, all feline authors.
What a great idea! Three children’s book authors: Barbara Kerley, Natasha Wing, and Mary Nethery collaborate to create a blogged book featuring three cat heroes. The blog is clever and the writing lots of fun.

If you have never attended the SirsiDynix Institute, then you should! They offer free online workshops for librarians (and you don’t have to be one of their customers!) On October 10th, the Institute will be doing a program called Engaging Youth on their Own Terms: Instant Messaging and Gaming in Libraries. It is about listening to our teen patrons and serving them in the way they want to be served. MySpace, iPods and blogs will also be discussed. I am all registered and hope to see you there!