Maw Books

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

Who cares about the New Year right?  More important things are here – like the Cybils shortlist announcements! I’ve been waiting months to find out what books have been chosen by Children’s and Young Adult Bloggers as the cream of the crop this past year.  And today is the day!

Visit the Cybils website to find shortlists in the categories of Easy Readers/Short Chapter Books, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Graphic Novels, Middle Grade Fiction, Non-Fiction Picture Books, Non-Fiction in Middle Grade and Young Adult, Poetry and Young Adult Fiction.

And last but not least the Fiction Picture Book category.  It was this category that I was fortunate to serve as a panelist.  To narrow down our list of 262 books to a mere 7 books was incredibly difficult.  There were MANY deserving books which we desperately wish could all make the shortlist.

Oh, how I loved so many of the nominated books.  Seriously, I love picture books and you will, no doubt, love this Fiction Picture Book shortlist. In no particular order:

• Flora’s Very Windy Day by Jeanne Birdsall, illustrated by Matt Phelan
• Chalk by Bill Thomson
• The Cow Loves Cookies by Karma Wilson, illustrated by Marcellus Hall
• Shark vs. Train by Chris Barton, illustrated by Tom Lichenheld
• A Sick Day for Amos McGee by Phillip Christian Stead, illustrated by Erin Stead
• Interrupting Chicken by David Ezra Stein
• A Beach Tail by Karen Lynn Williams, illustrated by Flody Cooper

I think you will agree that each of these books are incredibly special!

The gift of love. The gift of peace. The gift of happiness. The gift of good reading.  May all these be yours this holiday season and the entire new year.

Wishing you a very merry Christmas from my family to yours!

It’s already time for the fourth edition of Bloggiesta! Are you a blogger? (With apologies to those who are not).  If so, this event is just for you! Bloggiesta is scheduled for January 21st, 22nd, and 23rd. The beginning of the year is a great time to evaluate your blog, see how you’re doing, and get re-energized for the rest of the year!

Some of you may be asking what is Bloggiesta? In short, it’s a blogging marathon.  A opportunity to cross those nagging items off of your to-do list and improve your blog while in the good company of other awesome bloggers doing the same thing. Our awesome mascot Pedro (Plan. Edit. Develop. Review. Organize) is ready to break out the nachos, enchiladas, drinks, mariachi music and whack a pinata or two!  It’s nothing short of an awesome fiesta!

What to do during the Bloggiesta?

• Write reviews.
• Write backup posts for a rainy day.
• Write that great post idea from three months back.
• Work on series posts.
• Write guest posts.
• Put out invitations for guest posts.
• Conduct and edit author interviews.
• Create template posts for your future reads (ie: title, images, linking, tags, etc,) so you can open up, write review and post without being bogged down with technicalities
• Clean up your tags, archives, books reviewed list, etc.
• Create a text file (or Google Doc) of cheat sheets (html codes, post url’s, etc)
• Improve your blog template, clean up sidebars, add a favicon, install those plugins that you’ve been meaning to do.
• Add or edit your about me page, review policy, disclosure policy, privacy policy, create landing pages (for example – an about me for Twitter readers page) or any other pages you might have.
• Any bloggy type housekeeping that you’ve been neglecting.
• Clean up and update your challenge lists.  Link up your posts with hosts.
• Make sure all of your social network profiles are up to date.  Be consistent in those profiles with color scheme, images, etc.
• Go get a gravatar.
• Visit the Blogging Tips group on the Book Blogs Ning and find ways to improve your blog.
• Work on any specialized projects that you may have going.
• Clean out and organize your feed reader and blog subscriptions.
• Create an elevator pitch.
• Make business cards.
• Find a blogging buddy.
• Analyze and re-evaulate your blog.
• Back up your blog.
• Learn more about blogging, read great articles, get inspired.
• Make sure you have properly copyrighted your blog and know what to do when somebody reposts your material.
• Brainstorm blogging topics.
• Manage your feedreader.
• Help other bloggers, answer questions, share your expertise (let’s face it – this is the best part of Bloggiesta!)
• The sky’s the limit!

How to play:

1. The date is Friday, January 21st  Saturday the 22nd and Sunday the 23rd. You can really start whenever you want within that time but official hours are 8am to 8am (wherever you are).  That is a total of 76 hours, the hours spent on the challenge do NOT need to be in a row. Use the entire 76 hour time frame and see what you can do with it.
2. It’s your call as to how much you want to put into it.  But you have to put something into it or it’s not a challenge. So stay up all night or sleep and take care of kids when you need to.
3. When you start the challenge, come to this blog and  to the “starting line” post and link to your specific post about beginning the challenge which is posted on your blog. That way I’ll be able to track participants and know who’s really at the party.
4. How many updates (if any) you want to do is up to you.  Make it work for you.  Personally, I like making a to do list and then crossing off items as I accomplish them.  There will be bloggers hosting mini-challenges as well.  These are great to learn new information.  To get an idea of the mini-challenges last time, check out the list.
5. If you are on Twitter, use the hashtag #bloggiesta to join the chatter.
6. Your final summary post needs to be posted no later than end of the day Monday, January 24th. Come back to the finish line and link to your specific summary post (again- can be that same post you’ve been updating).  Your summary should include the number of hours spent on the challenge, what you accomplished, links to mini-challenge hosts if you completed them and any other experiences you’d like to add.
7. Sign the Mr. Linky now if you intend to join the fiest so I have an idea of how many people are participating. (Now that Bloggiesta is underway – go straight to the starting line post). Subscribe to this blog, so you’ll be notified of  future bloggiesta posts.

*Sign Up (Name and Blog url):*

(Now that Bloggiesta is underway – go straight to the starting line post to sign up).

Who can play?

• Anybody!  While obviously hosted by a book blogger, I’d love to welcome anybody who has a blog who would like to write content or improve their blog to join in.  In addition to adult, kidlit, YA, romance, mystery, historical fiction, non-fiction, and publishing book blogs  any other bloggers are welcome.  Movie blog?  TV blog?  Mommy blog?   Gardening blog?  Photography blog?  All are welcome!

Will there be prizes?

• I hope so!

What can you do to help?

• Spread the word!   The more we have join the challenge, the more moral support we’ll have during the challenge!  And lets face it.  It’s going to be one awesome party! fiesta!

Ahh the Festival of Trees!  Our favorite time of the year!!  Here in Salt Lake City, the Festival of Trees, is an annual event where individuals, groups, and organizations decorate and donate Christmas trees, wreaths, centerpieces, quilts, gingerbread houses and gift items.  Everything is auctioned off and every single penny (I literally mean every single penny – everything is done on a volunteer basis) goes to the Primary Children’s Medical Center.

It is their largest fundraiser and raises millions of dollars.  Between 70,000 and 80,000 people attend the festival each year and there are hundred of trees.  Many of the trees are donated in somebody’s name or by friends and family of children who have either passed or have received compassionate care at the hospital.  Many of the stories and photos of the children will make you cry.

To say that I adore this fundraiser is an understatement. It is simply amazing!!  Each year, I have taken special notice of the literary themed Christmas trees so I can share them with you here.

Anne of Green Gables themed Christmas tree:

There is always a Harry Potter inspired tree:

And while there is a Twilight inspired Christmas tree every year, this year there was not one, not two, not three, not four but five Twilight Christmas trees.  Obviously, a lot of fans around here.

Three Wizard of Oz trees:

Peanuts tree:

Dr. Suess is always a popular tree:

This Dr. Suess tree is titled, “Oh, The Places You’ll Go:”

This tree was gorgeous! Complete with bookish quotes, a fireplace underneath, and all kinds of wrapped books:

Goodnight, Moon:

The Jungle Book:

Lot’s of snowmen books under this snowman tree:

The name of this tree was A Critter’s Christmas and it had a lot of bug type books included:

Winnie the Pooh is another tree that we see every year:

The Secret Garden inspired Christmas tree:

A picture book Christmas tree complete with a paper mache Where the Wild Things Are. I didn’t get it in the photo but there was also a good sized bookcase full of books included.

These little elves were just too cute.  And fun books too!

Christmas picture books included with this tree:

While this tree was not inspired by one particular book, it was just too adorable to pass up.  Lots of princess books were under the tree.

I loved Raggedy Ann and Andy when I was little:

The books that were with this little tiny tree were almost as big as the tree which was titled, A Christmas Story:

Only one Nightmare Before Christmas tree this year.  My little boy said this theme was what he would be watching for.

A Jane Austen Christmas:

Diary of a Wimpy Kid:

This little tree was set up on a gorgeous Lord of the Rings chess set:

And while these last few may not particularly be literary inspired, they get honorable mentions here because they were so creative. Although, Cookie Monster shows up in a lot of books though right?

And this surfing Santa was made with four leaning Christmas trees:

And yes, these are tires:

And two of my boys favorite trees that they couldn’t get enough of:

Did you have a favorite?! Tell me which one you loved the most. And if you didn’t get your fill, check out year’s past for more.

Today’s post is day 6 of the 2010 Virtual Advent  Tour – where every day bloggers are sharing their thoughts about Christmas. Do follow everybody’s posts!

. . .  I am obviously not blogging. Breaks are good even when they are unannounced and no reasons nor apologies given.  That blogging rule that goes: “you should always post regularly and consistently?”  So not me this past month.

We’ve had a great fall and with all the snow on the ground we are well into winter around here.

We had pho (our favorite!) on Thanksgiving day.

Not to worry though, we did have the traditional dinner later that weekend with 3 of my 5 siblings, my in-laws, my parents, and a myriad of nieces and nephews.

And while it was outside doing this:

We stayed inside and put up our Christmas tree:

(Notice our box of holiday picture books underneath?)

We have also been hosting out of state family for the past two weeks. It’s been a blast!

I might add though, that I have in fact also been doing a lot of reading, particularly picture books for the Cybils.   Thus far 232 books read out of 264.  So. Much. Fun.