The Graphic Novel Review has its January 2005 issue available online. It contains interviews, reviews, and a sneak preview.

JS Online: School libraries are seen as central to life, learning
Milwaukee Public Schools have received a grant of $316,000 to expand school library services with the goal of demonstrating how a strong school library strengthens reading success in students. The money will be used in ten Milwaukee schools to keep libraries open after school and offer some summer hours, provide more training for librarians, and encourage collaboration between librarians and teachers.
A great quote from the article:
“At Green Bay Avenue School, Dennis Juno, the librarian, says, “Every person has to become so valuable that they’re not going to be let go.”
He called the grant “a key to making libraries invaluable . . . which we should be. We should be the heart of the school.””

Lore: An E-Journal for Teachers of Writing has some great articles on academic blogging. I am including this on Kids Lit, because it pertains not just to college blogging, but also blogging in primary and secondary schools.

Play Me – take a Journey to Wonderland offers an fascinating journey into the rabbit hole. Kids can create their own mini-films of Alice’s story, print out activity sheets, listen to the book online complete with pictures from different editions of the book, or discover the true story of Alice. NOTE: This site must be viewed on IE not Firefox, because it does not resize to fit the window on Firefox.

Papertigers.org is a site that specializes in books for children from and about the Pacific Rim and South Asia. Their book of the month is one of my new favorites, Tiger on a Tree by Anushka Ravishankar. The site also includes book reviews, interviews, essential reading, and resources.

Kiddie Records Weekly from Basic Hip Digital Oddio will offer a weekly MP3 recording of a children’s record from the 40s and 50s. The first, released this week, is Walt Disney’s Robin Hood. Items in the archive will be available, but the high quality version will only be on the site for a week.

Mid-Continent Public Library provides an incredibly inclusive list of Juvenile Series and Sequels. The list includes over 18,000 books for young readers, grade schoolers and young adults. It can be browsed in several ways including series title, series subjects, book title, and author.

Notes from the Windowsill is a great page dedicated to children’s books, “celebrating children’s books loved by adult readers.” They publish bibliographies as well as a journal about children’s books that is published several times a year. Both the bibliographies and the journals are available at no charge on the website.

The New York Times: Girl Power Fuels Manga Boom in U.S.
For the first time since the 1950s, girls are starting to buy comic books. This time, the comics are manga from Japan. This is an important trend for librarians to be aware of. The article lists some of the top publishers and series.