I interrupt recapping to say...

Cybils nominations open October 1st (aka TOMORROW).

Get thee hence!

NOMINATE!!!! (well... after midnight!)

Kitlit08 (even quicker)

There are so many great posts about the Kidlit08 Conference up already (and wonderfully collected here), that I ended up spending the day reading them instead of formulating my own thoughts and blogging them. And now, frankly, the weekend has caught up with me... and I only have one thought: bed.

OK, fine. I'm also thinking that I don't understand how come nobody brought a dozen maple/bacon donuts back to the conference!

But for deeper conference related thoughts... tune back in soon.

Kidlit08 (quickly)

Kidlit08 was faboo. I'll have more to say this week, as right now I gotta type and fly, but I just wanted to say what a blast it was and how grateful I am to Jone and Laini for all their work.

There will, I suspect, be a lot of posts about the conference, and to find them you can head here.

My brother popped in and live-blogged my session. (thanks, bro!). That post is on his blog. It's remarkably thorough, considering how fast I talk! Also thanks to Jon, we've gotten a fresh copy of the Book Promotion Wiki up for all to read, use, and add to. Come on by!

My first impression of this year vs. last year is that the community continues to grow (and be populated by wonderful people) and that we're all still learning our way to some extent or another. The potential reach and upside and options for bloggers, individually and collectively, truly is astounding.

More later, but I gotta book!

Oddaptation: Where's Waldo?

It's been some time since I posted an Oddaptation, and since Waldo just turned 21 last week and was in the news, it seemed like a good time to Oddapt Waldo. (For those new to Oddaptations, they are kinda like Cliff Notes with attitude... or distillations of the reading experience in rhyme (and with attitude). There are links to all the prior Oddaptations on the right hand side of the blog or through the label below.) And so, with no further ado....

WHERE’S WALDO?
by Martin Handford
Oddaptation by Gregory K.

Where is Waldo?
I can’t tell.
Boy, he’s hidden really well.
I tried to find his pointy hat
But sadly had no luck with that.
I failed to find his stripy shirt.
I’ve looked so long my eyeballs hurt.
I cannot find his wavy hair.
I just can’t find him anywhere!
I will not take another look.
It’s time to throw away this book.
I’m angry now and full of rage!
I... THERE HE IS!!!!
Hooray!
Next page!


Here are this week's Poetry Friday links courtesy of the Miss Rumphius Effect.

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!

Collectively we are... what?

I'm heading off to Portland tomorrow for the second annual Kidlitosphere conference, and there I'll meet many, many bloggers. So I was wondering what the collective term for bloggers might be. Flock of seagulls, herd of cows, murder of crows... we know them. But what about a web 2.0 collective?

A bunch of bloggers?
A cacophony of bloggers?
A glob of bloggers?

Whatcha think? Any and all suggestions welcome!

Cybils time!

I'm quite excited to be judging the Cybils, once again, as one of the poetry judges. I can tell that the first round judges are gonna hand us fabulous books, but then it'll be up to me, John Mutford, Sylvia Vardell, Jama Rattigan, and Liz Garton Scanlon to pick the Cybil winner. I can't wait, frankly, as it's always invigorating (and good reading, too!).

Nominations open October 1st, so get yourself ready to be part of the process, too.

Another Carnival!

It's time for another Carnival of Children's Literature! This one is hosted by Jenny at the Wonderland of Books. It is chock, chock, chock full of good stuff, so why not head on over and check it out?

I'm Pretty Well Connected -- A Web 2.0 poem/an online poem/a social network poem

I’M PRETTY WELL CONNECTED
(a Web 2.0 poem)
By
Gregory K.

I’m pretty well connected:
Facebook’s got my face.
I AIM and blog.
Of course I vlog.
Come see me at MySpace.

I Flickr, and I Twitter.
I wiki and Squidoo!
I’m Live. I Ning.
I’m there on Xing.
I’m really LinkedIn, too.

I Hulu, Yelp, and Google.
My YouTube channel’s hot.
I share Goodreads,
Have many feeds,
And Digg and link a lot.

Second Life and Classmates?
Xanga? RateItAll?
I’m on those four
And dozens more
Plus some I can’t recall.

I’m pretty well connected:
My friends are EVERYWHERE.
I bet I’d meet
Them on the street...
If I’d just leave my chair.


Happy Poetry Friday (with this week's links collected here by author amok). I've posted an original poem that I can't wait to revisit in years hence to see how many of those hyperlinks still work!

And hey... 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!

Simple

I got an email today asking me for the "simple way to write a rhyming poem in iambic pentameter."

Hmm.

I guess my answer would be "just think in iambs, count to five, and rhyme!"

It must be the start of the new school year, where homework questions come to me via email or in various comments. Good times! I'm sure many of you get the same, particularly those of you who review books I'd imagine, but it treads that fine line between amusing and head-scratching to me. Brave new world, indeed!

Time value?

Not so many years ago, I was a fantasy baseball addict. True. I could watch a game on TV or in person and calculate how it impacted my team. In fact, sometimes I'd peek at a box score online just to see... as if knowing somehow made a difference since my team was set and not changing. It was, I must admit, a blast.

But then I realized that it was taking time and mental space away from... well, I'm not sure what. But it was definitely taking time and mental space.

I share this now because I have been filling up those same moments with reading... bits o' this... bits o' that. And of course, this doesn't in any way feel like procrastination or filling time (even though, I must add, I'm not always reading for work in any way, shape, or form!). It's strange how this works, but I'm embracing it.

Though I sure do miss my fantasy baseball team!

Poetically, he says...

"Eeeps!!!!"

That describes the day and week and leaves me to link to the Poetry Friday roundup, kindly hosted over at the Biblio File (where you should go to read her review posted in her Poetry Friday post. That's a must have!). I have been so remiss of late that I'm setting myself a goal to make next Friday an original poetry post. I expect harrasment should I fall short of my goal!

I blame the super-collider

I have a theory. I believe that unknown to anyone in Los Angeles, there is a super-collider underneath us. Furthermore, it is directly underneath my office where particles collide and create tiny black holes. No, they don't destroy the earth. Rather, the black holes suck in much of my free time, many of my best thoughts, and all the chocolate I expected to find in the third drawer from the top (to the right of the sink).

I cannot prove this theory (perhaps the proof, too, has been black holed?). But I can't disprove it either, and it explains a lot!

Kidlit08 is fast approaching!

Good to see the ever-growing list of the 2nd Annual Kidlitosphere Conference everly growing. Are you on it?

Why not? There's still time to come hang out with your favorite bloggers. You'll be glad you did....

Time for that first read-aloud choice again....

Hmm... this is the week where I'll (probably) pick the first read-aloud of the year. I'm not saying there's added pressure or anything... but what should it be? Different, most likely, for the incoming K students than for the returning and now fifth graders... but maybe not. Hmmm....

As always, I'm open for any brilliant suggestions!

Whew!

The week is done, and I couldn't be happier. This was the (abbreviated) first week of school for us, and that's always exciting and draining. It was also a week of no unpacking o' library books, as other projects popped up (and we have a bookcase shortage!). It was a week of working on my own projects, too. And, of course, it was a week of going Bananas.

And as usual, the sign of a long week hereabouts is that I don't get anything together for Poetry Friday, though now that the school year is here, I vow to be more diligent. But not today. Nope. Now I gotta book....

Hold the bus!!!

For a few of you, I suspect the above title will spark an immediate pop-culture reaction: you'll imagine four costumed characters running around crazily, bonking into each other and anything else in their path with great zeal. For the rest, lemme just cut to the chase: I'm talking about the Banana Splits!

Why, you might ask? Well, because not terribly long ago, I was lucky enough to be involved in writing some new material for the Splits -- a slew of one to two minute interstitial skits. And now, I'm pleased to say, it's coming out all over the place: the Splits' website, Cartoon Network, and Boomerang for starters. There's even a new album coming out (the Splits, lest you forget, were and are a band (performing in Myrtle Beach, by the way)).

It's pretty fun and funny stuff, I say with bias. And since I know at least a few of you who watch TV with your kids... some of you might even run into one or two of the skits I wrote. I know I'll be watching....

Boxes o' surprises

Over the summer, we gathered a lot of books for our school libraries (yes, now there are two!). One day this week, I'm gonna get to go through about a dozen boxes for the first time. I love this, as when you get donations, you really have no idea what will turn up. Besides the board books we'll re-donate, the books on parenting, the far-too-old Time-Life books, there are always remarkable gems and obscurities. We've been given first editions, children's readers from the 1800s, books by Cat Stevens and Fred Gwynne and Saul Bass, and more copies of The Giving Tree than anyone could possibly need.

What will this year's boxes reveal? I have no idea, but can't wait to find out!