Hollywoodreporter.com
Cool! A movie based on The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants. Amber Tamblyn (star of Joan of Arcadia) has signed onto the project.

MTV.com – News -Is Alicia Keys The Next Nancy Drew? Singer Planning ‘Street Mystery’ Series
Alicia Keys, the singer, is working on a multi-book deal. One book of poetry and one book based on her diaries.
“But it’s her idea for “Alicia Keys’ Street Mysteries” that is the most unexpected portion of the proposal. The young-adult series, with each book titled after a Keys song, would present the singer as a 16-year-old attending a Harlem performing-arts high school, who dreams of being a singer but also has a “sometimes-dangerous penchant for investigating — and solving — heart-pounding whodunits.” So in between auditions, demo sessions and dating, the Alicia character would track down kidnappers or clear friends framed for murder. Recurring characters would be Alicia’s best friends, Lavinia “Lovey” Ramon, a Puerto Rican dancer whose father is a detective for the NYPD, and Schulyer “Skye” Franklin, an aspiring actress who helps bluff her way into almost any situation.
The series, which would combine “the hipness and diversity of the ‘Cheetah Girls’ and the timeless appeal of ‘Nancy Drew,’ ” would be written by the husband-and-wife writing team of Cherie Bennett and Jeff Gottesfeld, whose work includes writing for the WB’s “Smallville” series, as well as mass-market book tie-ins to “Smallville” and “Dawson’s Creek.””

The Official Harry Potter Website
Brand new website for Harry Potter! It is filled with fun things to do like be sorted by the sorting hat (I am a Ravenclaw), play Quidditch online, post to the message boards, read the Daily Prophet and much much more. A great place to send Harry Potter loving kids to.

Vampire Kisses by Ellen Schreiber (0-06-009334-X)
A great goth novel with a marvelously accurate tone and voice. Readers are immediately caught up in “Dullsville” with the town goth 16-year-old Raven. Raven is known as the strange one in town until a new family moves into the town’s abandoned mansion. And best of all is Alexander, the teenage son of the new family who seems to be Raven’s dream vampire.

Lemony Snicket’s a Series of Unfortunate Events Dominates March 21 New York Times Best Sellers List
“On the March 21, 2004 New York Times Best Sellers List, A Series of Unfortunate Events held seven out of ten slots on the Children’s Chapter Book List-a feat only duplicated by the Snicket series itself on May 5, 2002; Feb. 9, 2003 and April 13, 2003.
No series has ever dominated a New York Times Best Sellers list like A Series of Unfortunate Events. The seven titles on the March 21 list-The Bad Beginning, The Reptile Room, The Wide Window, The Miserable Mill, The Ersatz Elevator, The Austere Academy and The Slippery Slope-have been on the New York Times’ list a total of 448 reported weeks. The series as a whole has been on the list in excess of 600 weeks.”

Sci Fi Wire — Muppets Head for Oz
There will be an upcoming Muppet version of The Wizard of Oz! Best of all is the final sentence of the blurb that tells us it will be based on the children’s book, not the 1939 musical! Hurrah!

TheStar.com – A hip-hop approach to lit
Article on a bookstore that specializes in urban literature for teens. It also speaks of the increase in black imprints responsible for many of the new urban books.
Via [places for writers].

The BookHive
An online guide to children’s literature from the Public Library of Charlotte and Mecklenburg County in North Carolina. The site offers book reviews, a place to hear stories, activities and a spot for young authors to post their work.

USATODAY.com – Harry hits his teens
Nice article on the next Harry Potter film with tantalizing glimpses into the changes from the first two films.
“Light, or lack of it, will play an important part in the film. Cuarón has created a distinctly different look, with the colors darker and more muted, the music more haunting, and the tone edgier.
He used more wide-angle shots than in the first two films to heighten the sense of drama, says cinematographer Michael Seresin. “The story is more dramatic, so the lighting is more dramatic, high contrast, more shadows. It has a very different look and feel from the previous films.”
Plus, there will be visual treats for the careful viewer.
“There are lots of extraneous little bits of magic appearing in the background,” says Craig. “Strange animals that live in Hagrid’s hut, for example. There’s somebody’s tail poking through the floor. They’re real throwaways, but there’s extra richness, extra detail in these wide shots.””