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Children's Literature Resource Round-Up

Wow! That's just about all I can say at the end of this day of inaugural events. I thought this Wordle posted by Daniel Pink was a beautiful depiction of Obama's speech today and a fantastic way to start this resource round-up.

There are lots of great resources in today's post.
HarperCollins is providing free online access to Neil Gaiman's Coraline, Coraline: the Graphic Novel Adaptation, The Graveyard Book, The Dangerous Alphabet and more! Yep, you read that right...FREE! Go. Check it out. Now.

Over at the I.N.K. blog, Kathleen Krull highlights several exciting 2009 nonfiction titles you will want to put on your wish list.

Bestbookihavenotread
has an interview with Kathi Applet, author of The Underneath, which many think will win the Newbery.

Award-winning poet and educator Nikki Giovanni has a new book of poems focusing on love. The legendary writer talks about her 27th work, Bicycles: Love Poems on NPR.

Open Wide, Look Inside highlights two poetry books about counting: One Leaf Rides the Wind and Ten Times Better. Excerpts from each book and ways to use these books in the classroom are provided.

Read, Read, Read! posted a video of how the newly released Diary of A Wimpy: The Last Straw was printed and packaged. The video is rather long, but would be very interesting for kids to see how books are made!

AdLit.org is making available free for download the first three chapters of Walter Dean Myers' new book, Dope Sick. In Dope Sick, Walter Dean Myers breaks new ground and stretches the boundaries of realism to bring forth a tale of second chances, redemption, and the promise of hope. There is also a free Dope Sick reading guide and extension activities.

Author Linda Sue Park announced on her blog What I'm Reading the release of A LONG WALK TO WATER, a Breakfast Serials production. "Breakfast Serials takes a novel-length piece of fiction and syndicates it for publication in newspapers, one chapter a week. Here's a link to their site, where you can read two sample chapters of the story: A LONG WALK TO WATER featured on the Breakfast Serials website. A LONG WALK TO WATER is based on the true story of Salva Dut, a Sudanese refugee who fled his home village at the age of eleven because of war. Salva became one of the 'Lost Boys', immigrating to the U.S. in the 1990s. He is now President and Chief Operating Officer of the charitable foundation Water for Sudan."

Douglas Florian's new poetry book Dinothesaurus received a starred review from Publisher's Weekly. On his blog, Florian Cafe, he has posted a poem from the book titled, Tyrannosaurus rex. Florian also posted a review of As Good As Anybody, written by Richard Michelson and illustrated by Raul Colon, a book about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel.

Recently, Lee Bennett Hopkins was named the winner of the prestigious National Council of Teachers of English Award for Excellence in Poetry for Children for 2009! Tracie Vaugh Zimmer has an interview with Hopkins on her blog.

Publisher's Weekly reports the results of the 2008 Cuffie Awards: the “Off the Cuff” awards in which children's booksellers choose their favorite (and not so favorite) books of the year.

That's it for this week's round-up. Enjoy!

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