Around the interwebs before the snow

It's supposed to snow 6-8 inches tonight and tomorrow morning. Um, yeah. That will be a fun time to drive to Glen Ellyn for Anderson's Children's Literature Breakfast. But I'm pretty sure nothing can stop my friends from meeting Meg Cabot, so... ;)

Have you been reading Douglas Florian's blog? If not, I encourage you to start because it is fantastic. For instance, check out his Poetry Friday post: Poemagram. By using an anagram finder, you can find all the anagrams of your name... and then make them into a poem! His is suitably creative and wonderful.

Oooh this is one that the kids at my library will salivate over: Jen Robinson's got a press release about the final Percy Jackson book. She reveals the cover (which I'm stealing) and a bunch of special stuff that is happening before the release of the book on May 5.

Sarah's got another Hot Books in My Classroom post, so head over there are see what books are popular in her class. I love seeing what books her 6th-graders are crazy about!

Mary Lee wrote about 5 things her students expect when picking up a fiction book. That's definitely something worth thinking about for all of us and I love getting insight into what kids think about reading and books.

If you haven't seen this yet, you should definitely check it out: the AL Focus video of many of the 2009 Youth Media Award winners getting The Call. It's fun and funny and feel-good. (Thanks to Liz and Lisa for the link.)

John Green posts this kinetic typography video of a section of Paper Towns:



(What is wrong with me that I still haven't read Paper Towns??) And, um, kinetic typography is really freakin' cool. If you like Blink 182, check out this video, too.

Remember that there's still time to enter Steph's Dust of 100 Dogs contest. Purchase Dust of 100 Dogs by A.S. King and send proof to Steph by March 1 to be entered to win lots of awesome prizes including over $100 in gift cards and a whole bagful of signed books! I haven't read it yet, but I'm thinking that trekking through the frozen wasteland to my favorite independent bookstore tomorrow might be the perfect opportunity to procure the book and enter the contest... HMM. :)

And speaking of contests, there's still time to enter my giveaway for an advance copy of Something Maybe by Elizabeth Scott! Leave a comment on the giveaway post by this Saturday at midnight (that's tomorrow!!) for your chance to win this very sweet and fun book. If you like YA romance like Sarah Dessen, you'll want to check out this book!