I Love Your Blog Award for me - THANKS, Ms. Yingling!

I got some exciting news when I opened my email today, and it was that Ms. Yingling had nominated me for an "I Love Your Blog" award! And now I get the joy of nominating other awesome blogs that I enjoy. I'd encourage you to check out these blogs, too.

Before I get so busy telling you how great these blogs are, I'd better give you the fine print (the rules of getting this award)

1. Add the logo of your award to your blog (which of course I proudly did!)
2. Add a link to the person who awarded it to you.
3. Nominate at least 7 other blogs.
4. Add links to those blogs on your blog.
5. Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs.

Ms Yingling Reads is one amazing blog you should definitely check out. Ms. Yinlging is a librarian in Ohio (where I have a niece and 2 nephews, so I feel extra connected to her), and she's on on a quest to read every book in her library. Unlike me, who just pretends I've read every book (all the kids think I have anyway!), she's really doing it! I love how she basically creates my order lists for me with her excellent reviews.

Here are 7 other blogs that I really like. They're interesting and fun, and I always learn a lot when I check them out.

Sarah Dessen is my very favorite YA author, and her blog is hilarious. She talks about writing, of course, but she also talks about all these other things, like shopping, shrimpburgers, television (she's a TV junkie!), and her adorable baby. She's a very stream of consciousness writer in her blog, and I feel like I know her personally even though I've never yet gotten the chance to meet her. But someday I will, I'm sure of it. I'm pretty sure we'll be BFFs as soon as we do meet.

Justina Chen Headley's blog is another author blog of someone who's writing I really enjoy. She has two books out now, Nothing But the Truth (And a Few White Lies) and Girl Overboard. And she has a new book coming out soon which I'm excited to read. Its title is North of Beautiful. I just came across her blog recently when I was checking out some Readergirlz stuff - she helped start that website - and I thought it was really great. She's living in China this year - lucky duck - and there are a lot of funny stories about her experiences there. She' coming to Portland next week for the Oregon Association of School Libraries conference, and I'm really hoping to meet her. Meeting an author for me is like meeting a rock star for most people.

I mentioned Justina helped create Readergirlz which is an online book community for girls and here's a link to their blog. Their website is also very cool. They often have contests and fun stuff going on. It's totally worth checking out. during Teen Read week they're going to have live online chats with authors. There's more info about that in a previous entry on my blog.

Fuse #8 is another fantabulous blog I like to check out. It's more for librarian type people, or booksellers, but if you're interested in finding out some cool books or interesting things going on in the publishing world, I'd highly recommend it. I guess this is technically now a School Library Journal blog, but I still call it Fuse #8.

The children's book buyer who's studying to be a children's librarian and writes on Wizards Wireless always provides me with interesting possibilities and she (well, I think it's a she, although I don't know if I've ever seen a picture now that I mention it...have I?) always has these fun little polls on her site that I love to do. Plus pictures, lots of pictures. It inspired me to put more pictures on my blog!

Here's how the YA YA YA's describe themselves: Three Young Adult Librarians blather about YA literature, YA librarianship, and maybe even the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. And they write about YA (young adult) all the time. How could you not love a group that incorporates the name of a book and a genre into their blog name and it fits so perfectly?

Sometimes as a middle school librarian I find myself struggling to find literature that is, well, I guess "wholesome" might be the word, although that sounds a little old-fashioned. But it's hard to find a balance between things that are appropriate for older, more mature readers and younger, less mature readers and to ALSO find stuff kids will enjoy. That's where Deliciously Clean Reads comes in. They will only recommend books that are free of profanity, sex and graphic violence. It's a great resource for me, and I appreciate that someone out there is hitting this angle.

So that's seven of the blogs I like to read that I feel are definitely award worthy. I hope you'll find sometime to check some of them out and get some great new ideas!

As Sarah Dessen always says, have a great day, everyone!