March gets madder with the Battle of the (Kids') Books

Nancy has been asked to lend her jurisprudence (not really the right word, but work with me) to the Battle of the (Kids') Books, sponsored by School Library Journal.

Several prominent authors will each be judging two kids' books to pick a winner, with each winner advancing to the next round to face another winner, until only one is left atop the bookshelf. Sort of like the NCAA basketball tournament, sans squeaky sneakers.

Nancy will be judging in the second round, but the first round has already begun! You can follow all the action via Twitter.

No wagering, please. At least not above the table.

Rules rules

(Sorry about that -- a dark side of blogging is that nobody edits the titles of posts.)

The Rules of Survival has made the reading list for the 2010 Abraham Lincoln Illinois High School Book Award. This means that in the coming months, students in grades nine through twelve throughout Illinois are going to be reading it along with 21 other titles culled from the 150 nominees. Said students will ultimately vote on their favorite in early 2010.

Last year they had over 200 participating schools and libraries, which by my math works out to a whole bunch of kids that will be reading the good stuff.

Get Melissa's book

Melissa Wyatt is giving away a free copy of her new book, Funny How Things Change. It's good stuff - you can tell, because it says so right here, and because the rumor is that School Library Journal is going to rave about it as well.

But even if you already have five copies of your own, you still want to go to Melissa's blog, because she's a lot of fun.

List of lists

I should keep track of all of the lists that Impossible has shown up on. (I won't, but I should.) It's a *lot* (two words).

Three new lists that Impossible shows up on:

• 2009 Capitol Choices: The best books from the previous copyright year for young children through age sixteen, as supported by the Library of Congress, and teachers, librarians, and specialists from seven different states.
• New York Public Library's Stuff for the Teen Age 2009: multi-format, multimedia, targeted, and teen-tested titles, discs and videos
• 2009 CCBC Choices: an annotated list of books for children and young adults published in 2008 and recommended by the staff of the Cooperative Children's Book Center, School of Education, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Judge for yourself

Nancy has a busy schedule, and gets lots of requests, so she's careful about her time. But she couldn't quite resist when asked to serve as a judge for the 2009 Massachusetts School Library Association Bookmark Contest.

Herewith the winners. Not a bad gig, huh?

New editions from Penguin!

Penguin now has Nancy's entire backlist, and behold the results: they've now made Locked Inside and The Killer's Cousin available in both hardcover and paperback. If you're not familiar with these titles, here's the skinny:

The Killer's Cousin was Nancy's second novel, originally published in 1998. It won the Edgar award as the best YA mystery in 1999, and we have the comical little bust of Edgar Allan Poe in our office to prove it.

Nancy almost did it again with Locked Inside, her third, which was nominated for the Edgar in 2001 after its publication in 2000.

You can now find both of them on the Penguin site, along with the rest of Nancy's seven novels.

Trust me -- I'm a blogger

You have to have a subscription to see the evidence, but Impossible has been named a VOYA (Voice of Youth Advocates) Editor's Choice for 2008. Linda Benson offers up her top reviewed teen titles from the previous year; you can find the list in the February issue of VOYA.