Here a link. There a link.

Everywhere a link, link!

It's Poetry Friday, and while I've missed even posting on the last couple, today I can link ya in to the roundup (at Adventures in Daily Living).

And, if that's not enough, the January Carnival of Children's Literature is up at Lisa Chellman's Under the Covers. Get on over and check it out....

A modest proposal...

Ya know, I think I've got a solution for the economic woes of the country, and I suspect many parents of school age children will say "Well, duh! Of course!" when I tell you my idea.

The government should sell wrapping paper as a fundraiser.

Seriously, if we all bought just a couple rolls... well... not only would our money go straight to the federal coffers, but we'd also all need to buy gifts to put inside the wrapping paper! It's a win-win scenario.

I do see one potential problem, though. We'd probably ask other nations to buy wrapping paper from us, but they might be selling it, too... and we'd feel obligated to buy from them. But these are details I'll leave to others to sort out....

That's a lot of things!

Over at Mother Reader, she's celebrating her third blog-o-versary by reprinting her 100 things about me list. Mighty entertaining and a nice way to celebrate. I, on the other hand, have a 3rd anniversary coming up next month where I have no similar plans. But MR has raised the bar again, so I figure I either have to coast in under the radar or do something to celebrate. Hmmmm.... Hmm............

Once again...

... I was not nominated for an Oscar for best actor. This is consistently the case, of course. Perhaps no surprise.

But I'd note that beyond the Oscars, it's awards/best of season elsewhere, including in the Cybils and the upcoming Newbery. I can safely say that I've got no predictions, but I love tooling around and reading all the "mock" awards on the net where people who have read 10 times what I've read predict with, well, usually with more accuracy than me!

But I'm still stinging over my Oscar overlook, so I'll just have to wait a spell before I go mocking....

Poetry in the spotlight

How nice to have (for the fourth time ever) a poem read at the inauguration. I know you're all clever sorts, and I suspect most everyone who ends up here saw or heard Elizabeth Alexander's poem, but just in case and for the record....

Here it is!


And if there's another poem any time soon read before an audience of millions, I'll probably link that, too.

Inkheart, the movie. Seen with my own eyes, I tell ya!

One of the advantages of living in Los Angeles is that every now and then you get to see a movie first... or at least early. So this morning, I got to see Inkheart, based on Cornelia Funke's book of the same name. I'm not a reviewer nor will this be a review, but I will say that more important than my reactions (which were positive, by the way) is that everyone in the target age range seemed to be loving it.

What was particularly fascinating to me was seeing a movie that's all about books and words and writing. There were certainly things that the writer-me laughed at that flew over the heads of... well... perhaps everyone who isn't a writer. But beyond that, the movie is steeped in book references and images and that alone is worthy of celebration, seems to me.

Inauguration read-alouds?

I'm curious if any of y'all have great read-aloud ideas for the Presidential inauguration? I'm thinking that there aren't any inauguration-specific stories ("If You Take a Mouse to an Inauguration" excepted, of course), but I'm open to being proven wrong. Or just to getting good ideas!

Piles. Big piles.

This week I dismantled big piles of books in my office. You know the piles I'm talking about -- books I'd planned to read. I assume I'll still read them, but I needed to redistribute them to shelves and other places so I could start fresh.

It's not that I don't plan to read them all. I do. And it's not that I never made progress on the piles. Instead, they grow faster than I can read. I think this is a good thing, but if you were waiting for me to have a convo with you on any specific book title, you might want to find someone else to chat with!

I expect build new piles, of course, and can only imagine that it'll include books I recently shelved. But for now, I feel like a huge amount of progress has been made!

The Happy New Year Conundrum

No, that's not the title of a lost Robert Ludlum novel (too many words anyway, I think). Rather, it's the question I'd posed on Facebook but seems worthy of blog discussion as well:

When does one stop saying "Happy New Year!"?

There were many thoughts on this, including Mary Hershey's statement that January 26th was the last acceptable date... but she had no proof! Besides, Mary has been known to go for humor....

Still, I know I said "Happy New Year" a lot today, because it was the first time I'd seen many folks this year.

So, have I gone too far? Is it like wearing white pants after Labor Day? Does anyone know????

Resolutions -- A New Year's Resolutions poem/a broken New Year's resolutions poem

RESOLUTIONS
by
Gregory K.

Every year on New Year’s Day,
I grab myself a pen.
I write my resolutions down to look at now and then.

Two years ago, I’d written twelve.
I broke them all by June.
Last year I broke them faster still (the first of March at noon).

This isn’t great, I must admit,
But now I’ve got it solved.
And so, this year, on New Year’s Day, here’s what I have resolved:

Bug my dad, annoy my sis,
Distract my oldest brother.
Skip a chore, create a mess, and once ignore my mother,

Chew some gum, devour pie,
Eat burgers, fries, and cakes,
Teach my baby brother all the joys of chocolate shakes.

My resolutions could go on.
Instead, I’ll stop right here.
Just once I’d like to keep them all...
And this might be my year.

The first Poetry Friday roundup of the year is here over at A Year of Reading. Go on and check it out!

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And Happy New Year!

The Cybils' short lists are up!

The short lists (aka, the finalists) for the Cybils are up right here. Like with all such lists, it's fun to check 'em out and learn of new books or argue about what's missing. So jump on in and see what's what. As per usual, I'm facing what's sure to be a tough choice in the poetry catagory, with a couple books I was expecting to be on the list not even making it. Good times. Good times indeed.