You know, I really should try and at least blog once a week. It's amazing, considering how much I love a) blogging b) reading and c) talking about books, that I can't manage to keep this LJ going. But hopefully, now that I've got a new job, I'll be able to be better about blogging.

And, yes, new job! I'm a teen librarian at the main branch of a county library system in Maryland. Things are going very well, and I'm looking forward to working on lots of different projects here.

As a small recap:
--BookExpo was fantastic. Lots of books, lots of good discussions with lizzb and cedarlibrarian. Highlights include Shannon Hale recognizing me on the exhibits floor and asking me how I was doing and having David Levithan note in my copy of Naomi and Ely's No Kiss List that it was the first time he and Rachel Cohn had signed that book.
--ALA was equally fantastic but in different ways. Very very few books, but lots of good hard work with Popular Paperbacks for Young Adults, hanging out with cedarlibrarian, lizzb, and princess_poddy. Oh, and the Printz reception! John Green was funny and self-deferential as always, Markus Zusak was hot and witty, Sonya Hartnett was very very funny, M.T. Anderson was wonderfully reflective, and Gene Yang was funny and smart and brought visual aids, as you'd expect.

I read Life As We Knew It last night and was completely blown away. I should do a fuller review at some point, but since it's unlikely that will happen, let me just say that it was completely and totally amazing.

And now, I need to get to work on fall programming. Yay!

Had a wondeful time at ALA, including spending time with my buddies like cedarlibrarian, Liz from A Chair, a Fireplace, and a Tea Cozy, and Sophie from Pop Goes the Library!.

But the best time, as always, is going to the Youth Media Press Conference and hearing the winners of all the book awards, especially the Printz. I loved how, when both The Book Thief and Octavian Nothing had been named honor books, you could almost hear the whole room asking, "So who won????"

What was even better was going to PPYA and seeing John Green's reaction to winning the Printz Honor for An Abundance of Katherines. I didn't know how he'd top last year's post about winning the Printz for Looking for Alaska, but he did. So, yay!

A post will be coming shortly with the first round-up of ARCs I've read, but I did want to mention an adult book that I hope will be a big success: Austenland by Shannon Hale.

( spoilers! )

Coming before the end of the week: posts that talk about the forthcoming books The Princess and the Hound, The Black Sheep, Plain Janes and Beige.

After a whirlwind, action-packed weekend in New Orleans, I'm back from ALA. Highlights include:
--having dinner with some PPYA folks and meeting Shannon Hale. And finding out that Shannon Hale is an enormous geek, too, and thus nerding out over TV and comics.
--having very productive meetings with the PPYA subcommittees I'm on.
--conducting my last meeting as chair of Youth Participation.
--rooming with lizzb and cedarlibrarian.

Lowlights:
--only having two days for the conference--I only got to do committee meetings and a quick trip to the exhibits.
--having all my flights take off late, and nearly missing my connection in Charlotte on the way home.

While I was away, some cool things happened! First, Uglies has been optioned by 20th Century Fox. Woo-hoo!!!!

Secondly, my article in The Edge of the Forest has been published. Check out the feature on Clash of the Titans: Sports Novels for Middle Grade and YA Readers. Let me know what you think--I'd love to get some feedback!

I've been busy this week with summer reading programs and the like at work, while also trying to prepare for ALA this weekend. But in all this, I did have a little moment of geek joy, when I got another sign that my iPod can think: it played "Jesus Walks" followed by "Solsbury Hill". Hee, those are practically the only two "religious" songs I have on my iPod, and they got played back-to-back.

In more serious news, I'm just waiting for my next paycheck to come in to participate in this: Dewey Donation System: Helping Books Find Libraries Since 2003.

I have three PPYA books waiting for me to read while I'm traveling to New Orleans, so hopefully there will be no boredom. Have a good weekend, and if anyone's going to ALA, I hope to see you there!