What Do Professors Do All Summer?

In an effort to dispel any misinformation surrounding the purportedly leisure-filled lives of full-time professors, this series of posts details a week of summer days spent by one such professional. By nature, I think “day in the life” posts are fascinating… but this particular professor happens to be esteemed children’s literature scholar – Phil Nel of Kansas State University. Spoiler alert – he works hard in the summer to do all sorts of un-salaried projects in and around academia, but because those things sometimes include reading YA books aloud to his wife, talking about his upcoming biographies of kid lit authors, and other such industry bits, this series is EXTRA fun to read!

Thanks, Maurice

I am still sad about Maurice Sendak’s passing, still thinking about the man and his work. This was one of my favorite tributes – a series of artwork by the likes of Tomi Ungerer, Jon Klassen, Marc Rosenthal and the like.

 The Disreputable Analysis of Frankie Landau-Banks

If you were ever wondering why I loved my children’s literature program, please, allow me to enlighten you. These are alums of my program, including a professor of mine, a famous author, and other kidlit elite… aaaand they are talking about one of my favorite books – about feminism and field hockey and what exactly the author is saying. There are like, a zillion videos here. I just watched one while I ate lunch at my desk. Enjoy.

You Can Like What You Like

One of my favorite things about the kidlit/YA world is that reading is always part of the conversation – I don’t think that happens much when talking about adult lit, other than judgmental “Chick lit will rot your brain” stuff. Anyway, I’ve been thinking about my own reading tendencies and purposes lately, and I enjoyed Kelly’s Stacked post on reading independence. It’s fine to analyze, to try to read certain books or genres, to read with purpose… but in the end, you read what you want, and that’s fine.

YA Books Flowchart

Another Stacked lead, from a post featuring the bloggers at Readventurer. This is probably the most brilliant flowchart I have ever seen. I want to make one!!

8 Truths About Home Organization I Learned from the Berenstain Bears

I know, I know – children’s books that is overtly didactic in nature is the anathema of children’s lit champions.

However, if you take a look at my apartment, you will understand why I loved this post and why I wish I would have taken this particular volume of the Berenstain Bear more seriously as a child and learned a few things.

 

Girly Games, Games for Girls, and Girls Who Game

As a Girl Who Games but has never identified as a “Gamer,” I found this article about the history and tradition of Games for Girls to be really interesting. In other news, a friend just texted me this week and is bringing me a copy of Viva Pinata, a decided girl Xbox game.

 Looking Fat in Photographs

My darling friend Lindsey wrote this piece about Facebook and body acceptance. She is a rockstar and is awesome. The end. Post script: Lindsey, come to Boston and hang out with me. When I get some vacation time, I will come down and hang out with you.

Zen and the Art of Constructive Criticism

I know this might come as a major league surprise to some of y’all, but I am really the most sensitive flower alive. I remember mean (read: slightly critical) things people have said about me from THE FOURTH GRADE. Urgh. Anyway, this is something I work on pretty much on a daily basis, so I liked this article about both giving and receiving the better kind of criticism, the kind that doesn’t make the receiver want to curl up and die… for more than a few hours, anyway.

15 Ways to Stay Married for 15 Years

Again, I am getting an A in marriage. I liked this common sense advice. I think the world needs more common sense advice, sometimes. Okay fine, most of the time.