Maw Books

Maw Books – book reviews, book recommendations, book lists, author interviews and more!

Book Bloggers Appreciation Week (BBAW) is an annual celebration to recognize the hard work and contribution of book bloggers to the promotion and preservation of a literate culture actively engaged in discussing books, authors, and a lifestyle of reading.

The week spotlights and celebrates the work of active book bloggers through guest posts, awards, giveaways, and community activities. The theme for the week is Celebrate Books! and will run from September 14-18th (this coming week).

I’m thrilled that the Maw Books Blog was shortlisted for the following awards amongst some amazing other bloggers.  Each blogger submitted five posts to the judging panel, which I disclose mine below.

Best Kidlit Blog

This blog covers children’s and middle grade books. The reviews are great and you’ve even gone out and bought books on this blogger’s recommendation for your own children or other children.

• 7 Impossible Things Before Breakfast – Have you seen their interviews alone?  Amaaazing!!!

• Fuse 8 at School Library Journal – Besty is a riot!  I met her in NYC and her passion alone is amazing.

• Jen Robinson’s Book Blog – I know I nominated Jen in this category.  I always trust her reviews and her round-ups alone are worth her weight in gold.

• Shelf Elf – I must admit that Shelf Elf is one of the very first kidlit bloggers I discovered and linked to.  I discovered Deborah Ellis purely on her recommendation.

• Maw Books Blog – And then there is little old me.  Blogging is what turned me on to middle grade fiction titles and my own two boys inspire my love for picture books.   For those who may not be familiar with my children’s reviews or interviews these are the posts I sent to the panel:  Chicken Butt!, 14 Cows for America, Shooting the Moon, Interview with Ken Mochizuki, and the LA Times Festival of Books.

Best Challenge Host

This blogger sets the bar for challenge hosts. They’ve come up with a great idea, stay involved in the challenge, and cheer on those who are participating in the challenge.

• Stephanie’s Written Word – Stephanie is hosting the Everything Austen challenge and I see links for it everywhere!  From the excitement I see on Twitter alone, I know she’s got a good thing going!

• Find Your Next Book Here – Jenners hosts the Take a Chance Challenge which is really creative.

• Mother Reader -  Pam’s 48 Hour Book Challenge was so much fun!  I did it for the first time and had a blast.  In all honesty, the Bloggiesta was patterned after the the 48 Hour Book Challenge – that’s how cool the set up was.

• War Through the Generations – Anna and Serena are who I nominated for this category!  To tell you the truth, their challenge is the most organized and supportive of their participants of any reading challenge that I’ve personally participated in.

• Maw Books Blog – I was nominated for hosting The Bloggiesta, which for those new to my blog,  is a 48 hour blogging marathon with blog improvement in mind.  You can catch up with the event with the Bloggiesa tag but it basically includes these five posts:  the unveiling, let’s begin the festivities, pinata time, the finish line, and wrap up.

Best Blog Post

This is hands down your favorite blog post you read all year. It made you laugh, it made you cry, or it reminded you of truth.

• Hey Lady, Whatcha’ Readin’?: This Blogging Thing Reminds Me of High School - Oh yes.  I remember this one on the title alone.

• Things Mean a Lot: On Fantasy and Why I Read It - Fantastic commentary on the fantasy genre.

• My Friend Amy: Write the Words of My Heart – On how a book finds expression for the longings, secrets, desires, wounds, and hopes of our hearts.  Amy always has a way with words.

• The Little Giant of Aberdeen County by Tiffany Baker (Maw Books Blog) – It’s funny because I considered this the worst review I had ever done!  Goes to show you!  Just go read it to find out why.  And wow – the only book review of the bunch.

Most Extravagant Giveaways

You wonder how the blogger comes up with such fantastic giveaways! You want to win these giveaways, and you also wish you’d thought of these great giveaways for your own blog.

• Anna’s Book Blog – I must admit that I’m not familiar with Anna’s blog.  I’ll be off to check her out myself.

• Stainless Steel Droppings – Carl has some awesome giveaways!

• The Story Siren – Yeah, I wish some of Kristi’s giveaways were my own as well.

• The Tome Traveller’s Weblog – I met Carey in NYC at BEA.  Random tidbit.  Go check her out!

• Maw Books Blog – While I have a HUGE stack of books still waiting for me to mail out and may not be the most timely mailer (you know you are), I always get excited to put together fun giveaways.  The posts that I submitted to the panel for this were a signed Wintergirls by Laurie Halse Anderson, seven signed Jodi Picoult books and a signed The Graveyard Book by Neil Gaiman. And I do want to mention that these particular giveaways were not publisher sponsored. I had the opportunity to meet each of these authors at different signing events and couldn’t help but pass on the love.

Most Altruistic Blog

This blog doesn’t just focus on itself but seeks to make a difference in the lives of others through raising awareness and funds for various causes.

• Color Online – Susan aka LaTonya works with young girls at a local non-profit and runs a library of more than 3,000 titles comprising 80% of works from women of color about people of color.

• Guys Lit Wire – This is who I nominated for their initiative in the Book Fair for Boys which puts books into the hands of incarcerated boys  In all honesty, I would have been seriously upset had they not been shortlisted.

• My Friend Amy – Whether it’s her recent Beth Kephart book drive, or Buy Books for the Holidays, Amy is always a strong supporter of literacy, authors and putting books into the hands of readers.

• She Is Too Fond of Books – Dawn blogged about walking 60 miles over 3 days, raising funds and awareness about breast cancer detection, treatment, and the search for a cure.

• Maw Books Blog – If you’d like to vote for me simply because of the Darfur Awareness Campaign, well . . . don’t.  I received this award last year for the same thing and certainly don’t need the recognition twice.  I do, however, always try to use my blog to raise awareness of various causes be it child abuse, modern slavery, or genocide.  It’s been awhile since I’ve raised funds.

Best Series or Feature

This series or feature is the one thing you always read on another blog. You may or may not participate in it, but you think it’s a great idea and love reading the posts on this series or feature.

• 451 Fridays at As Usual, I Need More Bookshelves – Inspired by Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury each Friday Elizabeth asks bloggers which book thy are so passionate about that they would save by memorizing to pass on to future genarations.

• Scene of the Blog at Kittling: Books – Every week Kathy showcases a different blogger and their space in which they blog.  It’s always fun to see just where those blog posts are created.

• Spotlight on Bookstores at She Is Too Fond of Books – Dawn runs a weekly series of guest posts spotlighting various bookstores and sharing anecdotes about what makes them special.

• What a Girl Wants at Chasing Ray – Every week Colleen rounds-up an awesome group of authors and posts a single question and then their answers as they talk about what a girl wants and what she gets – when it comes to reading.

• Author Recipes at Maw Books Blog – In every author interview I conduct, I ask an author to share a recipe with us, particularly if the recipe plays an importance in their book.  I must admit that these are some of my favorite posts to write.  And I love it more when I hear back from bloggers who have made the recipes.  The five posts in this series that I submitted were:  Katherine Center’s Mexican Tomato Lime Tortilla Soup, Shana Burg’s Butter Bean Cookies, Donna Gephart’s Lemon Square Bars, Mary Ann Rodman’s Tomato Aspic and Kirby Larson’s Lemon Lenquine. So far I’ve collected more than 30 recipes which you can find in my author recipes archive.

Best Community Builder

This blogger inspires community through their posts, their comments, and their work on book blogging events.

• 5 Minutes for Books – Jennifer and the other gals over at 5 Minutes for Books are awesome and always have so much fun stuff going on.
  

• J. Kaye’s Book Blog – J. Kaye has always been known for helping other bloggers.  While browsing through the BBAW meme, it seemed everybody mentioned J. Kaye for helping them one way or another!
  

• My Friend Amy – Let’s be honest.  With Amy in this category, nobody else has a chance!  And honestly?  That’s the way it should be.
  

• Maw Books Blog – I’m thrilled to have nominated and shortlisted.  It’s the community that makes this whole blogging thing worth it and I’ll do anything to help bring it together.
  

In addition to these categories I thought I would mention the other categories that I was nominated in simply because I haven’t yet said thank you to those who nominated my blog.  I  mostly want to recognize you for being so kind to me.

Thank you for nominations in:  Best General Review Blog,  Best Challenge (Bloggiesta), Best Post (On Library Overdue Fees), Most Prolific Blog, Best Commenter, Best Reviews, Best Writing, Best Cultural Review Blog and  Most Eclectic Taste.

Receiving sixteen nominations and shortlisting in seven *faints*  is certainly humbling, and yet, gives me the drive to continue to bring you content that you enjoy.  If nobody read this blog, I wouldn’t be doing this.  Seriously, thanks for sticking around and giving me a pat on the back!  Although I don’t know who nominated me, you know who you are.  Thank you.

So what do you do now?

Peruse the shortlisted bloggers and then caste your vote before THIS Saturday, September 12th at 11:59 EST.  Whether it’s for myself or for others, go support the book blogging community with your vote.  You do not need to be a book blogger to vote.  So if you are reading this, well, I’m calling you to action.

And as Amy, the amazing Amy, reminded us, the awards are only a part of BBAW and are not meant to be the only thing that BBAW is about.  It’s fun to recognize the blogs we love, yet ultimately our personal favorites may likely not be shortlisted.  If you are a book blogger and participating in BBAW, then I encourage you to participate in the daily blogging topics, including recognizing your favorites this Monday.

I’ll be participating each day in BBAW, so if you follow or subscribe to this blog regularly, I hope you look forward to the daily posts that will introduce you to some more great book bloggers who are always good for a great book recommendation or two!

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