1. The 2012 ALA Youth Media Awards are announced this morning at 8:30 EST. I have two extra-special reasons to be excited about this.

2. Reason #1: My adviser/head of my MA program is on the Caldecott committee for this round

3. Reason #2: Tomorrow is my internship day; certainly there should be some buzz around the office!

4. After almost a year’s worth of buzz, I finally got my hot little hands on Anne Ursu’s Breadcrumbs, and then proceeded not to read it for like, two months.

But after hearing one of my professors rave about it last week at her annual “best of the year” book talk, I decided I should kick things into gear; Lance and I took a little anniversary trip into Manhattan on Saturday and I took this book (and ONLY this book) with me to read on the four-hour bus ride.

So far, I am glad I did! I am loving the obscenely artful literary allusions, especially: she pulls from many children’s books without naming titles, relying on your kidlit smarts to catch them. Ursu gives you the impression that the heroine – eleven-year-old Hazel – exists in a world where fiction bleeds over into life just a bit. And I think most longtime readers would find this a familiar concept.

 

5. Today is the first official day of the semester. I am taking two book related classes this semester, my last semester:

• Young Adult Literature (the library edition)
• Information Sources for Children (lookin’ at nonfiction books!)

 

6. There is one thought that gives me a great deal of comfort when I am feeling stressed:

No matter what happens when you graduate in May, Jessica, one thing will happen for certain:

you will be able to read whatever you want whenever you want

for the rest of your life!

7. This will give me comfort when I am soon forced to return all the I-didn’t-get-time-to-read-you books to the library.

Goodbye, friends! We will meet again someday!