And for your books of Fibonacci poetry...

What about a Fibonacci bookcase? How cool is that piece of design? Tres, I think. Feel free to ship one off this way!

Big thanks to book-loving friend and fellow blogger Gentle Reader for shooting me the link.


And hey, speaking of links, after you've looked at the above two, why not head on over to Chicken Spaghetti for the Poetry Friday roundup? You know you want to....

It's the cheese.

Since I'm gearing up for the poem-a-day madness of April, I'm skipping the last Poetry Friday in March, at least in terms of posting something new (or something by someone else that's wicked great and will make my April offerings pale!).

So what do I offer today on regular old Thursday? What about the poetry of... cheese.

OK, it's not written poetry. It's really kinda mental poetry. Or maybe it's...
Oh, it's cheddarvision is what it is.

Today, there was going to be action there, per the New York Times. I missed it. Did anyone catch it?

I have decided that to keep the cheese looking so good on camera, someone is off to the side saying "say 'person!'" to it over and over. Regardless, once again I find myself saying "boy, I love the internet!"

I'm sorry, but I just don't know....

Ah, yes, if I could speak to the folks whose search queries get them here, I believe that the title of this post would be my most common answer.

"What is mode 2, 3, 5, 8, 11?"

"What do you do when you live in a shoe?"

"What is main hurts in falling in love poem?"

"When is hat frenzy?"

"Painful white spot between my baby toe and the toe next to it. What is it?"

I'm sorry, but I just don't know....

Running to stand still...

This has been a three day period of constant motion that a normally sedentary type like me is never prepared for. It's not just the actual running around (which has all been fun), but in work time, I've been cycling through ideas and projects at an alarming rate of speed. This has not proven efficient, though it has caused some rather curious notes to appear on yellow pads:

"I drank a cup of coffee.
I don't know why I did.
If I move the 920s to the bigger room, then I'd have free shelves for the poetry books.
Call the phone company AGAIN!
Telephone poem????
But where do I put the historical fiction?
I drank a cup of coffee."

Now, I suppose I could post something just like that as one of my poems of the day in April, but I think I can do better. Only time will tell, however. Only time will tell.

Oddaptation: Guess How Much I Love You

It's Oddaptation time once again, and for those new in these parts, I hope you'll look to the links to the right to get a fuller sense of what that means. But in short, I like to think of Oddaptations as being like Spark Notes or Cliff Notes of picture books (usually in rhyme and with the synopsis and the... uh... analysis all wrapped together. If you can call it analysis as opposed to saying I need analysis!).

Anyway, with no further ado, I hope you can all guess how much I love you. Or, if you can't, I hope you read the Oddaption of the same name....


GUESS HOW MUCH I LOVE YOU
by Sam McBratney

Oddaptation by Gregory K.

Said Big Nut Brown Hare to Little Nut Brown Hare
“No matter how much you love, I will love more-r
I’ll always love you more than you’ll love me.”
“No you won’t.”
“Yes I will.”
“No you won’t.”
“Yes I will.”
And Little Nut Brown Hare thought long and deep
And knew it was pointless… so drifted to sleep.


Hey, hey, it's Poetry Friday, and Elaine at the Blue Rose Girls has the roundup of links.

Ch-ch-ch-changes?

Look at me! I switched to what was once Blogger Beta but is now Blogger in the same way Blogger was when I first started. It's like running to stand still. Still, now I get to play with labels and move things around way easier and... uh... well, we'll see.

"What other changes might will we see around here?" I hear you ask.

Geez, do you have to ask such tough questions? OK, this isn't exactly a change from the past, but it's a change from the norm:I've decided to do an original poem a day every day in April in celebration of National Poetry Month, just like I did last year. So there'll be poetry AND exceedingly important witty bantering posts like this one. Hard to top. And it's really alllll for y'all, having nothing to do with finding an excuse to make me sit down and write poetry. Nope. Not that at all. Honest. As always at GottaBook, it's all about you!

Yep, that too.

Much for the same reasons I missed the Carnival, I also failed to mention that my March Book Talk column is up over at the always-worth-a-visit momready.com.

I'm sure there's a lot else I've failed to keep y'all informed about, though at the moment, I'm thinking it largely little stuff like winning the lottery, cleaning my desk, and discovering an original Declaration of Independence in the piles of paper on my desk. But if I think of anything else, I'll be sure to come on back and tell ya. But for now... I gotta book.

Eggsactly!

Thanks to the talented and faboo Lee Wardlaw and her equally fab blog, I now know that today is National Poultry Day. So I was wondering... how does one celebrate such a day? Do you celebrate by scrambling eggs, or conversely by becoming vegetarian? Do you go kiss a chicken? And here in L.A., where would I find said chicken?

Then I started to wonder if she got things confused with the upcoming, with-a-weird-accent-it's-homophonic National Poetry Month? Suddenly, I started jotting notes.

Now when folks ask where writers get ideas (and as every writer reading this blog knows... folks DO ask that!), they never think they pop out of the ether from something as goofy as this.But I will admit I plan to write some poultry poetry just because the very name amuses me. Sure, I've waxed poetic about eggs before, and I'm not saying I'm writing verses on turkeys and pheasant. But as a writer, ya just never know what idea you might hatch or what might inspire you on any random day.

And if YOU need inspiration... why not hop over to Midwestern Lodestar for the 12th Carnival of Children's Literature? I am verrrrrry sorry to say that I do not have a post in here (the first one I've missed since starting off in number 2) due to my own lack of time/time management skills of late. But man oh man, is it chock full of way great stuff. Get thee hence and read.

Now THIS is a talent!

Once again, it's hard for me to find the words to describe the talent you'll see on display when you watch this video. I could even have made this more children's literature related by linking to the Peanuts' theme, but I found Bohemian Rhapsody to be more of a tour de force performance (though Witch Doctor, Maybe I'm Amazed, and many others rank right up there).

You'll laugh. You'll sing. What more could you want?

Old Seuss, New Seuss.

Unable to find time to do a worthy Poetry Friday (links collected here by Liz) post of my own, I borrow from other sources (thanks, Fuse!). But really, what better than a glimpse at a long unseen Dr. Seuss story? Not much for one like me.

Clickie here: Children's Picture Book Price Guide: A Story of Two Fish: Dr. Seuss Out of Water.

Yes, go take a gander at Gustav the Goldfish AND Fish Out of Water. You know you wanna.

Blog Blog Blog (link, link, link)

By popular demand, the Disco Mermaids are selling Newbery Jewels gear (and donating money to a LIBRARY at the same time). So go support scrotums and Newberys and all that good stuff.


Also, I know some of you missed the teleseminar I did with the Blog Squad about viral blogging. And I know you're now kicking yourself over your tragic mistake. But kick no more -- thanks to this link right here you can go order the CD and transcript (and get the roadmap we put together, too). I lobbied for tossing in a free ginsu knife, but in the end we couldn't figure out why that made any sense at all. Anyway, it's enough without the knife, I tell ya.

Then when you're done with all that, why not go check in on Lisa Yee's blog-a-story-a-thon and see how it's progressing. Haven't joined in? Don't know what it is? Clickie here!

If a Fib is...

... a fib can a Fab be a fab?

Now, I have no clue what that means, but someone out there typed that into Google and came to my blog (unsurprisingly into The Fib). I'm open for theories, or if the searcher him/herself cares to delurk, I'd love to hear the answer to the question.

For that matter, I'd love to ask the person who searched "it's the first day of school and you don't know what to wear" if they figured out what to wear. I'd recommend, I dunno, a t-shirt and jeans. But that's just me....

And for something a little less silly, why not head out and check out the winning Fibs in the flashquake.org contest? Mighty interesting stuff, indeed.

Comedy (of the Newbery/scrotum ilk)

Leave it to the Disco Mermaids to be over-the-top clever yet again. Don't they get tired of that? Apparently not. Anyway...

Behold inspired comedy!

Too bad...

I had a great hour planned out today: desk cleaning, answering emails, filing, intense blog reading and a brilliant blog post, but wouldn't you know that today was the day that was an hour short? It's too bad... but I had to pick an hour to give up, and sadly, it was that one.

Instead, I've managed to squeeze in a post just before the day has ended. And in it, instead of any sterling example of my own thoughts, I send you off to Bookshelves of Doom for her great piece on the Nancy Drew classic, Nancy's Mysterious Letter. But really, tomorrow's the full 24 hours, so I'll have no excuses!

Smartly, Smartly

I happen to know that a few GottaBook readers have entered the SmartWriters.com Write It Now! competition in the past or maybe already this year. I've even won an Honorable Mention in it, much to my happiness.

But there's much else over at SmartWriters, including the monthly Smart Writers Journal. And if you happen to follow that link, you can read an article (or as I call it for Ms. SmartWriter/author Roxyanne Young, a smarticle) written by yours truly. It's on "blogging smart," and I hope you'll head on over and read the Journal 'til you find me (I'm the second goatee, down and to the right).

A Cuckoo Story -- a clock poem

Aha! I'm an early participant in Poetry Friday this week. Or early in my time zone, anyway. So, with no further ado (and really, I'm not sure there was any ado at all), here's my contribution....


A CUCKOO STORY
by
Gregory K.

Our cuckoo bird has flown away,
I guess to join his flock.
So now up there upon our wall,
We have an emu clock.

(for your procrastinatory pleasure, links to this and other poems here on GottaBook are collected to the right under the headline "The Poems".)

If you want to get all my new poems (and only the poems) emailed to you for freeee as they hit the blog, enter your email address in the box below then click subscribe!

Son of Chaaaaarrrrggggeee!

Sigh. Remember how, a few weeks ago, I said I thought we'd tame the beast that is what I will now call the LWIVL (Library Where I'm the Volunteer Librarian)? Well, doesn't matter if you remember or not... the point of today's post is to say it's not gonna happen just yet. For those of you who take librarians for granted... you really gotta stop that. Now, if we simply had books on shelves and no one ever using or needing them, that'd be one thing. But we've got bustle and hustle and reading galore, and we volunteers spend all our time simply keeping things at a baseline rather than moving beyond. Yes, it's a good baseline, but still....

On the very big upside, however, I'm about to put 1500 books onto the shelves, having had some stellar folks cataloging them for me. PLUS, thanks to some loverly blogging pals, new donations are showing up, and they are GREAT books. I'm such a softie that when we get new books in I've been known to run around showing them to everyone at the school. Anyway, we have a shelf space issue, so looks like I'll be doing some weeding in the next couple weeks. Or in other words... see y'all later, but now I gotta pull books!


Some of the recent library readalouds:

Willy the Dreamer -- Anthony Browne
Raven -- Gerald McDermott
Show Way -- Jacqueline Woodson; illustrated by Hudson Talbott
The Tale of Rabbit and Coyote -- Tony Johnston
Duck and Goose -- Tad Hills
Tar Beach -- Faith Ringgold
Oh! and Ah! -- Josse Goffin

The day after....

Well, I must say, I had a great time talking with the wonderful, witty Blog Squad yesterday on our teleseminar. I hope all of y'all who joined us found it worthwhile. I'd love to hear feedback or answer questions that might have come up, so feel free to e-mail me. Heck, folks who weren't in the seminar can e-mail me, too. Don't be shy.

And once you're done with me, why not head out to Terry Pierce's blog where she's starting a fun list of invented "celebrity children's books" such as...

If You Give a Mouse a Cookie, It Better Be Low-Carb -- Dr. Robert C. Atkins
A Tinkle in Time: Toilet Training by Dr. Phil

I think you get the idea. Good fun, indeed.

And don't forget...

You still have time to sign up for the teleseminar I'm doing with the Blog Squad. It's today at 5 o'clock Los Angeles time, so even if you don't sign up, whatever ya do... don't call me then! (Edited to note that no, you no longer have time to sign up to listen today)

(And hey... thanks to the Publicity Hound, Joan Stewart, for the lovely write up on me, the Blog Squad, and today's seminar in her remarkable (and shockingly free) weekly ezine The Publicity Hound's Tips of the Week! Get thee to her site and go learn a ton, I tell ya. Good stuff indeed.)

Here a congrat, there a congrat, and then...

First off, big congrats to Lisa Yee for being named the Thurber House writer in residence this summer. She gets to spend a month in the room where the bed fell on Thurber's father. That, by itself, is unbelievably cool. And that she's invited 30 other writers to come stay there and.... What? Oh. My bad.

Also congratulations to the Golden Kite winners (including editors and art directors) announced today by the SCBWI.

And finally, in the non-congratulatory realm.... I know most of you read Fuse #8 (and if not, why not?????), but I'm still gonna have to steal a link from her, since this movie is just so rocking. Watch it twice... just because you can!

Words and more words

So... as I mentioned, this weekend I got to hear four wonderful children's authors (some of whom also illustrate) talk about their work, this time to a mixed audience of adults and kids. It was quite impressive to see how Doug Cooney, Susan Patron, Julie Mammano, and Susan Goldberg Rubin were able to reach everyone in the room, thus proving yet again, I think, the universality of children's books. Either that or the charm and wit of children's book creators. Or both!

Anyway, I got to hear these four speak at the inaugural Little Women (and Men) and Words event, a kidlit-based spin off of the Los Angeles area Women and Words festival. Good times indeed, with four very entertaining, talented speakers.

And speaking of talented and entertaining... I send you off to another new kidlit blogger, Clark Childers. Clark shares my love of screenwriting as well, and also has one of the greatest kidbook "success stories" I've ever heard. Well, that is if you consider getting to read your book to a packed hall while backed by a symphony playing a piece composed specifically for your book to be a success. So also check out his books' main site here, and poke around.

You can hear me now....

The Blog Squad is gonna get me out of my low-tech doldrums. No, it's not a podcast, and yes, it's talking about the teleseminar I'm doing with them, but still, it's me, I tell ya! (Thanks, Mom, cuz I know you'll click through! Right????)

Me on your speakers!


And hey, speaking of hearing, I got to hear Susan Patron, Doug Cooney, Julie Mammano, and Susan Goldman Rubin speak (and read) this morning. Great fun. More on that later, I hope, but now I gotta book.

The Cat. You know the one. Yeah, the one in the hat.

It was 50 years ago today
Dr. Seuss brought out the Cat to play....

Ahh, forget the Beatles riff. The point is, today is the Cat in the Hat's 50th birthday (though really... the Cat just doesn't age. No grey fur? It isn't fair), so for Poetry Friday, I want to put the focus squarely on Dr. Seuss.

How?

Well, by suggesting everyone go read a book of his. Read it to a child or 10. Read it to yourself. Revel in the language and the storytelling, and marvel at the illustrations. (Then maybe even donate that book to a school or shelter or friend.)

Or go to Dylan Hears a Who and hear Seuss sung!

Whatever you do, just make it a Seuss-y day. You'll be glad you did.

Now that's what I like to hear!

Good news in the kidlitosphere today: Chris Barton done gone and sold himself a picture book! Read about it here! Not only that, but he sold it to an editor who is also on my blogroll. This, I believe, is a first here on GottaBook, I'd note (quickly turning attention back to MY part in this whole thing).

Have you gone and said "yay, Chris!" yet? Go on. I'll be here when you get back.

Congrats, Chris!