On to 2005 in my tenth anniversary retrospective.  It’s a year which also saw some amazing reads!  Here are my Top Ten 30 reads of 2005:

  

Becoming Naomi Leon by Pam Munoz Ryan (reviewed February 17, 2005)

Boy Proof by Cecil Castellucci (reviewed April 12, 2005)

Elsewhere by Gabrielle Zevin (reviewed August 20, 2005)

  

A Good Night Walk by Elisha Cooper (reviewed September 3, 2005)

Guji Guji by Chih-Yuan Chen (reviewed March 4, 2005)

Hungry Hen by Richard Waring, illustrated by Caroline Jayne Church (reviewed March 8, 2005)

  

If You Decide to Go to the Moon by Faith McNulty, illustrated by Steven Kellogg (reviewed September 8, 2005)

I, Coriander by Sally Gardner (reviewed December 2, 2005)

Inexcusable by Christopher Lynch (reviewed December 12, 2005)

  

Invisible by Pete Hautman (reviewed July 8, 2005)

The Last Apprentice: Revenge of the Witch by Joseph Delaney (reviewed August 21, 2005)

Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert (reviewed August 23, 2005)

  

Magic or Madness by Justine Larbalestier (reviewed October 2, 2005)

Magyk by Angie Sage (reviewed June 12, 2005)

Mercy Watson to the Rescue by Kate DiCamillo, illustrated by Chris Van Dusen (reviewed October 15, 2005)

  

Mimus by Lilli Thal (reviewed September 7, 2005)

The Minister’s Daughter by Julie Hearn (reviewed October 5, 2005)

Naughts and Crosses by Malorie Blackman (reviewed July 7, 2005)

  

Peeps by Scott Westerfeld (reviewed October 28, 2005)

Prom by Laurie Halse Anderson (reviewed April 29, 2005)

Rhianna and the Wild Magic by Dave Luckett (reviewed August 21, 2005)

  

A Room on Lorelei Street by Mary E. Pearson (reviewed July 12, 2005)

Runny Babbit by Shel Silverstein (reviewed April 15, 2005)

The Sacrifice by Kathleen Benner Duble (reviewed December 17, 2005)

  

The Safe-Keeper’s Secret by Sharon Shinn (reviewed March 16, 2005)

A Splendid Friend, Indeed by Suzanne Bloom (reviewed September 14, 2005)

Traction Man Is Here! by Mini Grey (reviewed August 22, 2005)

  

Under the Persimmon Tree by Suzanne Fisher Staples (reviewed August 9, 2005)

Will of the Empress by Tamora Pierce (reviewed July 14, 2005)

Wrecked by E. R. Frank (reviewed July 19, 2005)

Continuing the celebration of the 10th anniversary of this blog, here are my Top Ten 30 Reads for 2004. 

  

Al Capone Does My Shirts by Gennifer Choldenko (reviewed August 6, 2004)

The Battle of Jericho by Sharon M. Draper (reviewed February 8, 2004)

Be More Chill by Ned Vizzini (reviewed October 13, 2004)

   

Bubble Gum, Bubble Gum by Lisa Wheeler, illustrated by Laura Huliska-Beith (reviewed June 5, 2004)

Buddha Boy by Kathe Koja (reviewed February 25, 2004)

Chasing Vermeer by Blue Balliett (reviewed June 6, 2004)

  

Colibri by Ann Cameron (reviewed April 7, 2004)

A Crack in the Line by Michael Lawrence (reviewed September 11, 2004)

The Crying Rocks by Janet Taylor Lisle (reviewed May 30, 2004)

  

Double Helix by Nancy Werlin (reviewed April 23, 2004)

A Fast and Brutal Wing by Kathleen Jeffrie Johnson (reviewed December 22, 2004)

The First Part Last by Angela Johnson (reviewed February 29, 2004)

  

The Game of Sunken Places by M. T. Anderson (reviewed July 30, 2004)

Great and Terrible Beauty by Libba Bray (reviewed May 3, 2004)

Gregor the Overlander by Suzanne Collins (reviewed March 30, 2004)

  

Ida B. by Katherine Hannigan (reviewed September 30, 2004)

Inkheart by Cornelia Funke (reviewed March 17. 2004)

Inside Out by Terry Trueman (reviewed August 19, 2004)

  

Keesha’s House by Helen Frost (reviewed February 15, 2004)

Messenger by Lois Lowry (reviewed April 20, 2004)

No Laughter Here by Rita Williams-Garcia (reviewed April 26, 2004)

  

Outcasts of 19 Schuyler Place by E. L. Konigsburg (reviewed April 22, 2004)

A Perilous Power by E. Rose Sabin (reviewed July 5, 2004)

Saving Francesca by Melina Marchetta (reviewed November 2, 2004)

  

Secrets in the Fire by Henning Mankell (reviewed March 5, 2004)

The Star of Kazan by Eva Ibbotson (reviewed December 9, 2004)

Target by Kathleen Jeffrie Johnson (reviewed February 22, 2004)

  

Tending to Grace by Kimberly Newton Fusco (reviewed October 26, 2004)

Truesight by David Stahler, Jr. (reviewed September 17, 2004)

The Year of Secret Assignments by Jaclyn Moriarty (reviewed June 3, 2004)

To celebrate blogging for ten years, here are my Top Ten Twenty books from 2003:

  

Alchemy by Margaret Mahy (reviewed September 20, 2003)

Boy Meets Boy by David Levithan (reviewed November 23, 2003)

The City of Ember by Jeanne DuPrau (reviewed September 28, 2003)

  

A Cool Moonlight by Angela Johnson (reviewed December 26, 2003)

Dead Girls Don’t Write Letters by Gail Giles (reviewed September 2, 2003)

Diary of a Worm by Doreen Cronin (reviewed September 6, 2003)

  

The Dream Bearer by Walter Dean Myers (reviewed September 29, 2003)

East by Edith Pattou (reviewed December 14, 2013)

Eragon by Christopher Paolini (reviewed October 7, 2003)

  

Feed by M. T. Anderson (reviewed October 18, 2003)

Friction by E. R. Frank (reviewed December 1, 2003)

The Goblin Wood by Hilari Bell (reviewed August 26, 2003)

  

A Northern Light by Jennifer Donnelly (reviewed August 19, 2003)

Olive’s Ocean by Kevin Henkes (reviewed October 31, 2003)

The River Between Us by Richard Peck (reviewed November 14, 2003)

  

Roller Coaster by Marla Frazee (reviewed September 15, 2003)

Saffy’s Angel by Hilary McKay (reviewed October 18, 2003)

Sahara Special by Esme Raji Codell (reviewed December 4, 2003)

 

Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants by Ann Brashares (reviewed November 3, 2003)

The Tale of Despereaux by Kate DiCamillo (reviewed October 26, 2003)

1. First Real Post

Linked to the CCBC’s 40 Books About… bibliographies.  I love the CCBC, which is one of the jewels in our University of Wisconsin.  The link is now broken (since it is 10 years old) but CCBC still offers great bibliographies and book lists, including their amazing CCBC Choices every year.

2. First Book Reviewed:

The Treekeepers by Susan McGee Britton (The link is to my review.  My hope is that my writing improved over the last decade.)

3.  First comment:

On August 24, 2003 on The Treekeepers review in #2.  Yup, made no sense back then and doesn’t now either. 

4. First Link to a News Article:

Was a link to a Boston Globe article on celebrities writing children’s books.  Sigh.  Nothing has changed, has it?

5.  First Link to Another Children’s Lit blog:

I only knew of one other children’s lit blog when I started a decade ago: Mrs. Rabbitt’s Bookbag, now defunct.  I certainly didn’t see the future coming with such a robust and diverse group of people blogging about children’s lit.

6.  First Link to an Author’s Website:

Amazingly, the link still works and Ellen Jackson still has a section on her rejection letters that charmed me ten years ago. 

7. First Teen Book Review:

Since I was making this up as I went along, I never really focused my blog on one age.  Looking back, I probably should have since then, but I so enjoy reading the wide span of children and teen books.  The first teen book I reviewed was Dark Waters by Catherine MacPhail.

8. First Awards Announcements:

The Children’s Book Council of Australia winners of 2003.  I’m looking forward to the announcement of the 2013 winners!

9.  First Apology (and not the last!)

On August 17, 2003, my email went down for quite a period of time, leaving me unable to respond to comments. 

10.  First (and Last) Name Change:

All of the others were during August of 2003, but one big event that can’t miss this list was when my blog moved to its own domain and completely changed its name.  It used to have the very catchy title of Kids Lit.  Even I could never remember if it was one or two words.  I quite prefer Waking Brain Cells.

This week this blog turns 10 years old.  Expect to see some Top Ten lists to celebrate! 

Most importantly, I want to thank all of you for reading, for caring about children and the books they read, for being such a warm community of readers, teachers, librarians and parents.  Thank you for letting me create a little space of my own online and for coming to visit me here. 

It has been an honor to blog this long and I plan to just keep on going.  After all, they keep on publishing books and I could never stop reading. 

Two weeks worth this time!

Here are the links I shared on my Twitter and Pinterest accounts these last two weeks that you might find interesting:

CHILDREN’S BOOKS

1st Welsh publisher dedicated to children’s books to help tackle literacy and tell great stories – Wales Online http://buff.ly/1730o64

BBC News – Authors back ‘malnutrition hits literacy’ study http://buff.ly/153zOq0

Book News: Kipling Admitted Plagiarizing ‘Promiscuously’ : The Two-Way : NPR http://buff.ly/12OL1IQ

The Book Smugglers | Progressive Publishers Doing Cool Things: Lee & Low Books (& Giveaway) http://buff.ly/112Ivfo #kidlit #publishers

Gwyneth Rees’s top 10 books about siblings | Children’s books http://buff.ly/12SuTX1 #kidlit

Hear the Classic Winnie-the-Pooh Read by Author A.A. Milne in 1929 | Open Culture http://cultr.me/17mLKHJ #kidlit

JK Rowling-Annotated Harry Potter And The Philosopher’s Stone Sells At Record Price http://buff.ly/13KYCmY #kidlit

New Great Chapter Books for Kids and Summer Reading : PragmaticMom http://buff.ly/13KZDeL #kidlit

Picture books for children still popular – Pittsburgh Post-Gazette http://buff.ly/1730JG3 #kidlit

Read, Write, Reflect: Reflecting on Picture Books http://buff.ly/17OtxlE #kidlit

What books for toddlers can match the allure of Peppa Pig? | Children’s books http://buff.ly/1atOnng #kidlit

EBOOKS

HarperCollins makes it easier for authors to give away their ebooks — paidContent http://buff.ly/159lufC #ebooks

"OverDrive’s Big Library Read Boosts Checkouts, Sales" http://buff.ly/1azgKRe #books #libraries

‘Real Books From Real Trees for Real People’: Microsoft’s Fun eBook Predictions From 1999 – The Atlantic http://buff.ly/187BMcB #ebooks

LIBRARIES

‘Artists in the Archives,’ at Greenburgh Public Library in Elmsford – http://buff.ly/13HYPYj #art #libraries

BBC News – Paperless public libraries switch to digital http://buff.ly/10LSMMZ

Gun Violence, Videogames, and Libraries | American Libraries Magazine http://buff.ly/16OIMe4 #libraries

Librarians: Your Most Valuable MOOC Supporters – http://buff.ly/10G19tx

Libraries as Content Creators | American Libraries Magazine http://buff.ly/1138O56 #libraries

A library revolution, started in part by Jane McGonigal’s TED Talk | TED Blog http://buff.ly/168SJDP #libraries

Miniature Libraries http://buff.ly/10M3MxQ

Suspended Boxes Transform Trees Into A Free Library – PSFK http://buff.ly/13KZBnc #libraries

PRIVACY

Unprecedented e-mail privacy bill sent to Texas governor’s desk | Ars Technica http://buff.ly/16nXVDU #privacy

PUBLISHERS

Barefoot Books Stops Selling to Amazon http://buff.ly/10M5uvg #publishers

READING

10 Benefits of Reading: Why You Should Read Every Day – Lifehack http://buff.ly/12s0sX4

25 Signs You’re Addicted To Books http://buff.ly/118CoKF – I won’t tell you how many I exhibit…

Is He Reading? – Digital Book Today-Digital Book Today http://buff.ly/17OtXZe #reading

SOCIAL MEDIA

Facebook crafts new policies to better combat hate speech – Computerworld http://buff.ly/112D4Nz

Online video will be more popular than Facebook and Twitter by 2017 — Tech News and Analysis http://buff.ly/1ayC7BZ

Teens are tired of Facebook ‘drama,’ find refuge on Twitter and elsewhere, says Pew | The Verge http://buff.ly/10LSGoK

Yahoo revamps Flickr and offers a terabyte of free storage – Computerworld http://buff.ly/12SumEm

TEEN READS

Novels for young adults are reaching more (adult) readers – http://buff.ly/17OtypO #yalit

TLT: Teen Librarian’s Toolbox: Relational Reading Revolution: How you can change the landscape of reading http://buff.ly/1atOkYK

Top 10 young adult books for summer http://buff.ly/10QWJzZ #yalit

Top Ten YA Road Trip Novels by Ben Kuhlman | Nerdy Book Club http://buff.ly/17P4E9z #yalit

I’m usually really bad at remembering anniversaries, so I am probably unduly proud to have managed to recognize this milestone.  This, my friends, is my 5000th post on this blog.  To take a look back, I searched around on The Wayback Machine and found my very first post on August 5, 2003.  Yeah, that’s not the date I’d been celebrating as my anniversary.  Told you I was bad at this sort of thing.

Strangely, I have memories of reading that Jerry Seinfeld book to that class.  It was a blast.

At that time, I was posting via Greymatter, one of the earlier blog platforms. 

I moved to a hosted WordPress blog, hosted and maintained by my library system at the time in 2005.  It looked something like this.  Throughout these early years, my focus was more on news and resources than book reviews though in 2005, I was starting to review books each week:

If you can believe it, they were even shorter than the ones I post now.  Yet I know they took much longer for me to write.  After posting 5000 posts, you get a system and rhythm down!

In 2010, I changed the name of my blog to Waking Brain Cells, since I was moving away from my hosting library system and into a new job and library.  In my new job, I am still welcome to work on my blog, and I donate the books from publishers that I receive to my library.  It’s a small way for me to thank them for the support they offer.

So thank you everyone, for those of you who have been reading for awhile to those who have just joined in.  This blog has been a way for me to connect in so many ways.  It is a way for me to connect to my love of books for children and teens, a way for me to contribute to the public libraries I am so passionate about, a way for me to work on my writing (yes, I cringed to put up those earlier posts), and a way for me to connect with all of you: readers, librarians, teachers, publishers and authors.  This blog has brought me so much more than I ever anticipated when I started it almost a decade ago. 

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Celebrate the 60th anniversary of the New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Books by reading!  This is a great list of some gorgeous books.  Here are the winners:

Bear Despair by Gaëtan Dorémus
The Beetle Book by Steve Jenkins

House Held Up by Trees by Ted Kooser, illustrated by Jon Klassen

The Hueys in the New Sweater by Oliver Jeffers

Infinity and Me by Kate Hosford, illustrated by Gabi Swiatkowska
Little Bird by Germano Zullo, illustrated by Albertine

One Times Square: A Century of Change at the Crossroads of the World by Joe McKendry
Red Knit Cap Girl by Naoko Stoop

 
Stephen and the Beetle by Jorge Luján, illustrated by Chiara Carrer
Unspoken: A Story from the Underground Railroad by Henry Cole

Thank you everyone who has made this such an amazing nine years of blogging.  I’m so happy to be part of the growing children’s literature blogging community.  I love all of the passion, the debates, and even the moments of drama that demonstrate how seriously we all take both blogging and children’s literature.

Over the years, this blog has changed and hopefully grown.  It’s been hosted on three platforms (anyone else remember Greymatter?) and had two names.  Personally, I know that I write now with greater confidence than I used to.  I’ve been part of debates over the years and have continued to blog in my own way, with no negative reviews (who has the time?) and focusing on book news and great reads.

I’m sure that I’ll continue to evolve, since I have no intention of stopping blogging any time soon.

Again, thank you for reading, for giving me of your precious time and attention.  It’s been a great nine years!

Photo from http://www.flickr.com/photos/lwr/4507500068/