Boo! At the @alscblog

Happy Halloween, everyone!! 

I'm over at the ALSC Blog today talking about some slightly scary and Halloween-y books that just might still be on your library shelves, even if the rest of your Halloween books are checked out! Just click the book below (a suggestion from one of my AWESOME Twitter friends for this post!) to head over there and check it out. And make sure you leave your own suggestions in comments!

AudioSynced and Librarian Favorites at the ALSC Blog

Hey, I'm still on hiatus here, BUT I wanted to pop in and tell you that Kelly at STACKED posted a fabulous AudioSynced Roundup with tons of great audiobook reviews and news! I no longer have a commute, but if you do, you'll definitely want to check out some of those audiobooks for your drive.

Also, I have a post up at the ALSC Blog today: Librarians' Favorites: Thinking Beyond Themes... It's all about my very favorite storytime readalouds. Be sure to click on through and leave us YOUR favorites in comments!

Debriefing Summer Reading

I'm over at the ALSC Blog with reflections on Summer Reading today! Head on over there for my thoughts on the theme, some of the things I'll change next year, and a collection of Summer Reading links from around the blogosphere! (Did I miss your Summer Reading post(s)? Leave me a link in comments and I'll update!)

I'm Bloggin' About Women's History Books

Um, it totally slipped my mind that yesterday my guest post on Kidlit Celebrates Women's History Month went up!

So go over there and check out my post on great women's history titles to booktalk!

Don't Miss the Summer Blog Blast Tour

Check out this fabulous schedule of author interviews up at Chasing Ray: Summer Blog Blast Tour!

Don't forget! Don't forget!

1) Kelly's hosting this month's AudioSynced Roundup over at Stacked, so if you've reviewed or posted about audiobooks in April, get a link to her so she can include it! (You still have time - the roundup will run May 1!)

2) Adele of Persnickety Snark is compiling the Top 100 YA Books poll and there's still time to submit your top ten! Make your voice heard and submit your list by April 30. I will share my list soon - I'm so excited to see what the top 100 will be!

Don't mind me, I'm just blogging

Check out what my department's doing for Black History Month and tell me what your library's doing over at the ALSC blog: How are you celebrating Black History Month?

And hey, it's my very first post on the ALSC blog, so help make me look good by commenting on the post, okay? ;)

Around the Interwebs

Is it just me or has this been the busiest week ever? Here are some links to check out in your free time (HA!).

In case you missed it (like I did), here's the clip of Where the Mountain Meets the Moon author Grace Lin on the Today Show:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Definitely worth a gander.

Need book recommendations for holiday giving? First, check out my 12 Days of Giving posts, but if that's not enough, check out Jon Scieszka's Holiday Reads for Your Kids. I mean, he is our ambassador after all... Thanks to A Fuse #8 Production for the link.

Speaking of gift guides, if you're shopping for tweens, don't miss Sarah's Tween Book Buying Guide for the Holidays. She's got lots of great suggestions! And while you're buying books for those on your gift-giving list, you might consider throwing in a few for the Book Angel Charity Contest. You can benefit kids of all ages and you just might win a fabulous prize for yourself!

And speaking of giving, I know you've got books on your shelf that you don't need (or maybe that's just me...). Consider giving them in honor of blogger Dewey who passed away just over a year ago. Participate in The Dewey Tree. Again, you could win fabulous prizes in addition to helping out an organization in need.

Kelly over at Stacked is wondering "Where have all the fat girls gone?" She looks at the covers of books that feature overweight protagonists and finds a disturbing, though not entirely surprising, trend.

Meghan McCarthy reflects on writing nonfiction. From the post:

...what I must conclude is that there is no one truth for anything. It's all a matter of perspective. Nonfiction writing is a job of taking what people say and then making your best educated guess as to what the truth really is.

Do read the rest of the post. Food for thought.

Whether you're a New Moon fan or not, this LOLCats parody is freakin' hilarious. Thanks to bookshelves of doom for the link.

If you have as many Diary of a Wimpy Kid fans as we do at my library, you might think about doing a program for them. But what will you do? Jennie answers that question in her post about the Wimpy Kid party she did at her library.

This is not the Rainbow Brite I remember! Thanks (I think) to Sarah at GreenBeanTeenQueen for the link.

And that's all I've got for you today. Now, back to your busy week!

Nonfiction Monday Round-Up!

I am happy to host this week's Nonfiction Monday round-up! Please leave a comment with a link to your post and I'll compile and post throughout the day. I'm excited to see what nonfiction everyone's been reading this week!

ETA (11:05AM): Wow! We're getting a lot of great posts this week. I'm finding great books to add to my TBR list... keep 'em coming!

BookMoot's starting us off today with a review of Winter's Tail: How One Little Dolphin Learned to Swim Again by Juliana Hatkoff, Isabella Hatkoff, and Craig Hatkoff.

Sarah at In Need of Chocolate posts about The Usborne Encyclopedia of World History, a book she'll be using for her homeschooling.

Liz at A Chair, A Fireplace, & a Tea Cozy is getting all Novembery on us with a review of Mayflower 1620: A New Look at a Pilgrim Voyage by Plimoth Plantation with Peter Arenstraw, John Kemp and Catherine O'Neill Grace; photographs by Sisse Brimberg and Cotton Coulson.

Betsy at A Fuse #8 Production has a review of I and I, Bob Marley by Tony Medina.

Head over to Playing By the Book and check out their cool family tree project as well as a review of My First Family Tree Book by Catherine Bruzzone, illustrated by Caroline Church.

Oh, yeah. And I posted about Just the Right Size: Why Big Animals Are Big and Little Animals Are Little by Nicola Davies, illustrated by Neal Layton. Which happens to be one of my favorite nonfiction books of the year, so don't miss it!

Charlotte's got a review of Children's Book of Art by DK over at Charlotte's Library.

Shirley of SimplyScience Blog goes under the sea with A Coral Reef Food Chain: A Who-Eats-What Adventure in the Caribbean Sea by Rebecca Hogue Wojahn & Donald Wojahn.

Over at Wild About Nature, check out a review of Pumpkin Circle by George Levenson, photographs by Schmuel Thaler.

Lori Calabrese chimes in with a review of Louis Sockalexis: Native American Baseball Pioneer by Bill Wise.

Roberta of Wrapped in Foil examines the mysteries of Mold, Mushrooms, and Other Fungi by Steve Parker.

Carol Hinz of Lerner Publishing Group shares a fascinating post about what a nonfiction book editor does. Potential authors and those interested in process take note!

Robin at thebooknosher has posted a review of A Really Short History of Nearly Everything by Bill Bryson.

Elnice at Ellz Readz talks about The Great Grammar Book by Marsha Sramek.

Wendie over at Wendie's Wanderings takes a look at Steve Jenkins's Never Smile at a Monkey and 17 Other Important Things to Remember.

Owl in the Library is joining Shirley under the sea with books about seahorses this week. Ahoy!

Picture Book of the Day is remembering the World Series with The Best of Pro Baseball by Matt Doeden.

Freaky reviews several animal books over at 3T News and Reviews.

Doret posts about Marching for Freedom by Elizabeth Partridge over at The Happy Nappy Bookseller.

Jennie's looking at a whole slew of Cybils nonfiction nominees over at Biblio File.

And Ms. Mac of Check It Out joins us with a review of Life-Size Zoo by Teruyuki Komiya.

The big bad library denies children books

PA Library Tells 7-Year-Old: You Can't Borrow Books reads the headline in SLJ. With a big picture of a wide-eyed child.

Okay, the situation stinks. A library in Pennsylvania erroneously issued a free library card to a family that lives outside its district. When the child's picture appeared in the paper, library staff realized that the family lives in a district that doesn't pay for the library. When the child's library card expires in January, they won't be able to renew it. Instead they'll have to go to a different library where their burrough does pay for library use.

Now, I don't know how all this was dealt with. The article mentions that the family is embarrassed, so I'm guessing that it could have been dealt with better. If library staff recognized the child in a photo, they must be heavy library users. I'm hopeful that the Memorial Library of Nazareth will examine the incident and figure out what they could have done differently to spare the feelings of this family.

But you know what? Libraries need money. You pay for your local public library through your property taxes. Maybe your county or city or state funds the library, also. If you live in an area that doesn't pay a tax for the library, you may have to pay to get a library card.

It would be wonderful if everything could be free and everyone could have a library card and get free books and magazines without paying a single cent. That is the dream, folks.

But someone's got to pay for the books, the salaries, the internet access, the databases, the newspapers, the electricity, the tiny pencils with no erasers (I hate those things)... et cetera.

Libraries need money. I'm not trying to make the argument that people who don't pay taxes don't deserve library use. I'm just saying that money doesn't grow on trees.

The situation stinks, but I don't know that the Memorial Library of Nazareth deserves to be made out as the Big Bad Evil Library Denying Children Access to Books Mwa Ha Ha!!!

ETA (12:58): Or, we could just lighten up and laugh about it. Colbert style. Thanks, Jill. I needed that. ;)

Things that made me glad I got up this morning

Travis's gallery of debut YA covers we made up.

And John Green answers questions about love and romance.

"The Venn diagram of guys who don't like smart girls and guys you don't want to date... is a circle."

It's raining and it was really hard to get out of bed this morning, so thanks, boys. :)

Around the Interwebs: Really, Really (Part 2)

Okey doke, Around the Interwebs, Part 2.

Sarah's hosting a giveaway for Suite Scarlett by Maureen Johnson! Definitely head over there and enter because it's a fabulous book.

Liz posted a press release about Class of 2k9 member Albert Borris, author of the upcoming Crash Into Me, who suffered a stroke and is still recovering. The kidlitosphere's great at showing support, so do check out Albert's book.

Adrienne pointed me to this great interview with Jan Thomas, author of What Will Fat Cat Sit On? and Rhyming Dust Bunnies (among many other fabulous books).

And speaking of authors of my favorite storytime books, check out a sneak peek of Mo Willems's upcoming easy reader, Cat the Cat. And don't forget, Mo has the best dining room ever (I have such house envy).

Susan reminds us about the wonderful Mid-Continent Public Library's awesome listing of series and sequels. If you don't know about this site, you seriously need to check it out. It's my first resource to find out what the third Pony Pals book is or print out a list of all the Junie B. Jones books.

Carlie's wondering if Twilight and Harry Potter are the best choices for the preteens who want to read them. From the post:

I can sort of see why Harry Potter trickled down, though I personally refuse to recommend it to anyone younger than sixth grade. At its opening, it's a fun adventure-in-magic-school story. By book three, though, the layers have built so thick and dark that the book beyond its surface is best enjoyed by readers with more life experience. IMNSHO. I still think third-graders are better served by books other than Harry Potter.

And that's it for Around the Interwebs this time around. What have YOU been surfing lately?

Around the Interwebs: Really, Really

This is what happens when you don't think you have time to blog (is it blog flu? Nahhh...): you end up with over 20 starred items and all of them are really cool (in my opinion). Tell you what... I'll post the first half of this now and promise more interwebby fun for later tonight or tomorrow.

If you're looking for some great non-fiction to read this summer (I know I am!), check out ACPL's first 2010 Mock Sibert reading list. And better yet, join in the discussion of these titles on their Mock Sibert blog! If that still doesn't give you enough reading suggestions, check out which books made Sarah's sixth graders say "You HAVE to read this!"

Got a school/public library partnership that you're proud of? Submit it here. And speaking of the ALSC blog, I am pleased to see posts about programming for kids with special needs. This post, the first in a series, has a lot of great information and ideas!

Many of you are involved with it already, but if you're wondering what the point of Twitter is, John Green's happy to give you an answer.

TO BE CONTINUED....

Around the interwebs

Are you doing the 48 Hour Book Challenge this weekend? Pam's posted the starting line, so don't forget to sign in! Still thinking about it? Check out the rules and the prizes (and yes, Pam is giving away not one but TWO ARCs of Catching Fire - one to the winner and one to a random participant). Also, if you're tweeting about the challenge, don't forget to tag using #48hbc.

Speaking of Twitter, follow Sarah Ockler to join in the tweet party for her book Twenty Boy Summer. It's tonight (Friday) from 7pm-11pm Eastern. And I'll be reviewing the book next week (along with a special surprise...), so keep a look out for that.

Ready to dive into summer reading? Check out what some of your favorite authors have on their summer reading lists. (Link via Mo.)

The ALSC has posted more sites to their list of Great Web Sites for Kids. Kiera has a post up about doing programming for kids with autism. Definitely something public children's librarians should read. And if you're promoting early literacy (and who isn't?!) you should check out this post about Follow the CAR.

Ever wanted to have a cat at your library? Meet 8 of them in 8 Library Cats (my favorite is Nyx). J, are you falling over with the adorableness? ;)

And a plea for Pixar to include some (non-princess) girls among their protagonists. YES, PLEASE.

Okay, that's all I've got for you and it's time for me to start my errands. I'm starting the 48HBC tomorrow morning, but good luck and go-go-go! to everyone who's already started or is starting tomorrow. My cheerleading will be back in full force tomorrow afternoon.

Reading rocks indeed!

I visited Cake Wrecks, one of my favorite blogs, this morning and found, to my surprise and delight, a post all about book-inspired cakes!

Mmmmmmm. Do check it out. On that note, I'm going to go in search of breakfast. :)

Around the interwebs

Color me jealous of everyone who's gallivanting around BEA right now. Not getting my act together in time + starting new job (so no vacation time yet) = no BEA for me this year. Next year, I will be there for sure.

For those of us left at home this weekend, here are some great sites/posts to check out:

I can't imagine that anyone hasn't seen Betsy's Top 100 Picture Books, but do check it out if you've missed it. She ran a poll, collecting readers' top ten picture books of all time, and she's written great, detailed posts about each of the top 100.

Y'all remember that I loved Linda Ashman's Come to the Castle, right? Well, The Children's Book Review is giving away a copy, but you have to act fast and enter by June 1 (Monday!).

Editorial Anonymous has been discussing the Coretta Scott King Award, something which people seem to be divided on. Check out what she says in The CSK is Dead (Long Live the CSK) and then read CSK: Redux. Very interesting points are brought up in the comments of both posts. I'm not quite sure where I stand on the issue, so I guess all I will say is that librarians do love their book awards.

There have been several posts around the Kidlitosphere about the Emily Strange/Nate the Great lawsuit, but I loved Liz's. The whole situation is very bizarre.

Thanks to Sarah for letting me know that The Vampire Diaries is going to be a TV show!!!! I loved that series when I was in middle school (high school? I have no idea) and I'll definitely put that one on my DVR and give it a whirl. I need to get the new volume that was recently published. *eyes teetering TBR pile* Hrmm.

SPEAKING OF TV SHOWS, DID YOU WATCH GLEE?! In case you missed the preview episode, you can watch Glee online all summer long. It fills my heart with joy and I can't believe we have to wait until fall to see more. Good on you, Fox!

In completely unrelated happenings, if you're writing a grant you might be interested in this Grant-Writing Tips on the ALSC blog. As competition for funding gets more and more competitive, we can use all the advice we can get!

Maybe you've had that experience of recommending your favorite YA book to a layman and getting that "Oh, that's YA... No, thanks..." response. Well, Kelly's got 5 Ways You Can Convert YA Scoffers.

And last, but not least, Susan's got a post up on Booklights about diverse board books, which is something I'm always interested in. If you're looking to add some diversity to your board book collection, check out that great list and the suggestions in the comments.

On that note, I'm out. Tomorrow's our Summer Reading Club kick-off and I have about a million things to do today. Hope everyone at BEA is having a great time and collecting lots of great ARCs. Please leave some ARCs for me to collect at ALA kthx. ;)

Around the interwebs: getting settled version

I'm almost back, you guys, I promise. I'm in Louisville and getting settled into my new apartment. I've had this week off between jobs and it's been nice to have time to get things done, but I am so ready to get back to work!

Regular posting will resume next week and thanks for your patience during this hiatus. In the meantime, I wanted to bring your attention to what I've been reading around the Kidlistosphere.

You've been keeping your eye on the Bridget Zinn Auction, right? Well, if you're looking for more ways to give back, consider buying something for the Guys Lit Wire Book Fair for Boys. From their post:

We are moving today into the second phase of GLW, where we put our money where our mouth is and physically act on getting books into the hands of boys that otherwise have none. Today we start the first two week Guys Lit Wire Book Fair for Boys to help the teens incarcerated in the LA County Juvenile Justice System. They have no books - at all - and they need them; they need them desperately.

(Thanks to bookshelves of doom for the link.)

You also might want to check out the Libraries Are Free But Books Aren't book drive benefiting the Louisville Free Public Library. Whether or not you want to donate, this is something for all libraries to note: if you have a wish list, people might buy you books! So think about that, librarians and teachers!

Travis gives us such great tips for our libraries and here he is with Using Unshelved in Your Library. How can you use this deliciously geeky web comic to promote books in your collection?? Click through and find out.

Um... I kinda forgot to mention on the 12th that The Chosen One is now available, but it is! Hurrah! You won't want to miss this book. And you also won't want to miss Steph's Epic Contest. She's got FIFTY COPIES to give away in various ways. There are many things you can do to win and you have until June 1st to enter (but don't delay!).

Malinda Lo has an incredible interview with superstar fantasy author Tamora Pierce over at The Enchanted Inkpot.

And Carlie wonders at the wisdom of increasing the age range of "Young Adults" to include college students and 20-somethings. She says:

I think YA librarians taking on the 18-25ers is a great way for YA librarians to do more work for the same amount of pay and to devalue the work we're already doing.

I can totally see her point and I don't think anyone should be on board with doing more work for the same pay. At the same time, I wonder how libraries are reaching out to that age group? How can we bring them in and who should be developing programs for them? Anyone got some great programs to share? Read the post at the YALSA Blog: Start Something New With YALSA and chime in with your own thoughts.

And there is still time to sign up for the 48 Hour Book Challenge!! You know you want to. Do it. Doooo iiiit.

And that's it for now. I'll be back next week with book reviews and all that fun bloggity jazz!

Around the interwebs: transient version

I just wanted to check in and let y'all know that the move is going just fine (so far). We've completed Phase 1 (acquiring and loading the truck) and Phase 2 will be tomorrow (wrapping things up here and driving all the stuff down to Louisville). Phase 3 (moving into the new apartment) will be happening Monday. Today was my last day of work. I'm going to miss that place like crazy (but I'm excited to start my new job the week after next).

And since I'm checking in, I'll point out a couple of things I've been browsing lately.

ETA (May 9): D'oh! How could I have forgotten to mention the auction?! I'll make it for that oversight by planting it here, front and center.

Three things happened to Bridget [Zinn] in February:
1. She got an agent for her young adult novel.
2. She got married.
3. She found out she had Stage Four colon cancer.

And what do you think members of the Kidlitosphere did when they found out about this situation? Well, they up and created an auction of fabulous items with proceeds going to help Bridget pay medical bills. What a wonderful and supportive community we blog in. So head on over there and check out the auction. I bid on (and was promptly outbid on) a few choice Babymouse items and new items are being added all the time. They've got everything from signed books and original artwork to manuscript critiques and publicity services. And with the proceeds going to such a great cause, how can you go wrong?

Sarah at GreenBeanTeenQueen alerted me to the fact that the movie rights to The Forest of Hands and Teeth have been sold. Parts of that book were seriously creepy (the baby! The baby!), so I'm not sure I'll go see that one. Maybe if someone holds my hand...

Laini Taylor has a great post about The YA Ghetto. She says:

...it's the adults who need to get over themselves and read good books regardless of what shelf they're on at the bookstore, rather than making books of interest to teens harder for teens to find.

Hear, hear! (And, um, someone pointed me to that link, but I'm not sure who anymore... apologies!)

Tricia of The YA YA YAs pointed me to this interview with Sarah Dessen in The Horn Book. Sarah's one of my favity-faves, so I loved reading her thoughts on writing for girls.

Ever wanted to host a sleepover in your library? Stacy Dillon tells us how it's done.

Have you been over to check out Booklights yet? This blog on the PBS site stars some of the Kidlitosphere's own: Pam from MotherReader, Susan from Wizards Wireless, and Jen from Jen Robinson's Book Page.

Speaking of MotherReader, have you signed up for the 48 Hour Book Challenge?! I was FINALLY able to do it last year and it was great, great fun. I'm totally doing it again this year even though my college roommate is being ordained that weekend. I'm not sure I'll be in the 20+ club (hours, that is), but I'll do what I can. The 48 HBC will be held June 5-7 and you can go on over to MotherReader's post to read the rules and sign up.

And has everyone seen this Twilight cake on Cake Wrecks? Yeah, thought so.

And on that note, I have a long day of packing up and driving (with two cats in the car... oy) tomorrow, so I'd better hit the sack. I'm not quite back from my hiatus, but rest assured I have some great posts* pending and I should be fully back some time next week. Thanks for sticking around!

*Topics include the following: an Elephant and Piggie Party, an author interview with Linda Ashman, and a review of The Beef Princess of Practical County (among others!).

Around the interwebs

Let's see... what have I been surfing this week?

Interested in outreach to your Latino communities? (And what library isn't targeting this population?) Check out the ALSC blog's podcast Outreach to Latino Populations and a post from Adriana Dominguez, expert on Latino authors and books. Adriana talks about her blog Voces, which she describes as "A place for and about Latino authors and their books, Spanish language translations, and news from the Latino book industry."

Sarah's got our YA movie news over at GreenBeanTeenQueen. You'll want to check out the pic of the wolf pack from the upcoming New Moon.

Speaking of Sarahs, Sarah from The Reading Zone pointed me to this article from the Seattle Book Examiner: Reader-in-Chief: Read-aloud Tips from President Obama. The article gives great tips on reading aloud and explains how our President demonstrated them. From the article:

Encourage the audience to act like the characters. After reading about Max’s magic trick to calm the Wild Things, the President asks, “Can everybody do that? Try to stare without blinking.” When kids do something the character in the book does, they feel empowered and connected to the book.

A Twitter novel? Hmmmm. I haven't read much of it yet, but check out Kathleen Duey's experiment: Russet: One-Wing and follow along to stay up to date. Definitely interesting. And what fun to write! I wonder if NaNoWriMo would be easier if done on Twitter... HMMM.

I'm always a sucker for videos about how illustrators and authors do their work and Travis has a great one over at 100 Scope Notes: In the Studio with Mark Teague. And I have to link to his recent post on banned books because this sentence made me laugh:

Reporting (and I use that term very loosely) on the most challenged books is like reporting the contents of my lunch bag - ain’t much changing.

It's funny because it's TRUE! Read the rest about the ALA Most Frequently Challenged Books of 2008.

And lastly (for today), I want to point you to The Almost Librarian where Valerie has a cool early literacy activity idea: Adventure Notebooks. They'll involve your preschoolers while you're out running errands, giveyou plenty to talk about, and give your kids a chance to practice those pre-writing (and even pre-math!) skills. Early literacy for the win!

Around the interwebs

Reading is Fundemental invites you to join the 2009 Read With Kids Challenge and help them collectively log 5 million minutes of reading with kids. Log minutes spent reading with kids between April 1 and June 30 and you could win a trip to Disney World! (Plus, you'll have the absolutely joy of reading with a child you care about, which is a reward in itself..)

The Winston Breen Puzzle Party kicks off today at A Patchwork of Books! So head on over there and solve the puzzle for a chance to win the newly-released book The Potato Chip Puzzles. (But if you don't try too hard, that's a-okay with me since it'll up MY chances of winning... Mua ha ha ha!!!)

Speaking of things you can win, the lovely Sarah at GreenBeanTeenQueen pointed me to a giveaway at Brooke Taylor Books for an ARC of Geektastic: Stories from the Nerd Herd! Tell me this is not a book all us geeky blogger types want to read... So head on over there (or not, y'know, since if you enter it decreases MY chances...)

Steph's collecting first-pub stories for a new feature on her blog: Pub Stories. First up is Cindy Pon, author of the YA Asian fantasy Silver Phoenix. (Trisha's got a review of Silver Phoenix, so check it out.)

ETA (1:06PM): Annnd Steph's holding a giveaway for an ARC of Silver Phoenix, so make sure you head over there and enter!

John Green's participating in Blog Every Day April and answering questions sent in by readers. I found this post about Twilight and YA fiction particularly interesting. A quote:

I believe that we as readers should read both as a sweet devouring (as Eudora Welty famously put it)--but that we should also be able to read critically at the same time. Which is to say that I think one can read, and love Twilight while simultaneously being troubled by the manner in which it romanticizes and objectifies the other.

In honor of National Library Week, The Picnic Basket is serving up a few words from authors about how awesome librarians are. Awww. *blush* We try. ;)

And Shannon Hale writes about taking risks with her writing, specifically trying new genres and writing the stories she wants to write. From the post:

Alas, here I am. Not a smart businesswoman, but a weird little hausfrau still in my pajamas clicking away at a scifi trilogy one word at a time and biting my nails while I await reaction to my new book for adults. I knew I was taking a risk when I decided to write the actor and the housewife, hands-down the biggest risk I've taken as a writer for so many reasons. But I chose to do it anyway.

And that's all I've got for you this morning! The sun's finally peeking its head out today and it looks like it's going to be lovely in Chicagoland today. C'mon spring!!