Wow! Free books galore!

I wanted to put a poem up—one of my favorites from my childhood—and I was searching to see if it was in the public domain. Not only is it available online, the book it was in, Silver Pennies, is all there, pictures and all.

So here is The Child Next Door, by Rose Fyleman:

The child next door has a wreath on her hat;
Her afternoon frock sticks out like that,
All soft and frilly;
She doesn’t believe in fairies at all
(She told me over the garden wall)
She thinks they’re silly.

The child next door has a watch of her own;
She has shiny hair and her name is Joan;
(Mine’s only Mary).
But doesn’t it seem very sad to you
To think that she never her whole life through
Has seen a fairy?

Go check out the book, Silver Pennies, and the site that hosts it, Arthur’s Classic Novels.

Could it be a message from God that I’m not supposed to blog?

I upgraded my WordPress the other day and ever since then, whenever I open up the control panel to the “write” pages, I freeze up my browser. Ugh.

So I can’t even open a browser window to give you links, but Thomas Nelson is also doing a bit of upgrading. Downsizing, but upgrading, I think. They may run into a few glitches but they’ll get rid of the bugs in the end, I’m thinking.

If you want some interesting reading and you’ve not been to Michael Hyatt’s blog, From Where I Sit, I think it’s called. Try michaelhyatt.com/. If not, Google it and check out the last couple of posts (April 27 and 28, 2008 or thereabouts). Even if you aren’t interested in CBA doings or in Thomas Nelson you should go look because when one big company moves it has an impact on other big companies. Also check out Chip MacGregor’s blog at chipmacgregor.com, I think. He posted on Mr. Hyatt’s posts and on the state of affairs in CBA.

I haven’t had time to enter these into my sidebar yet, but I wanted to direct you to some wonderful blogs by, for, or about children’s book writers and children’s book readers.

Never Jam Today
This gal’s a children’s librarian, she’s brilliant, and her blog is full of short book reviews.

I.N.K. Interesting Nonfiction for Kids
Full of facts. ha ha

Miss Erin
She’s a Shannon Hale fan, so ya gotta love her.

Young Readers
Some wonderful reviews for the PB crowd.

Bookwyrm Chrysalis
A gorgeous site by yet another young person–this gives me hope for a bright future–if you love fantasy go visit the Bookwyrm Chrysalis and find great books to read.

ShelfTalker: A Children’s Bookseller’s Blog
On Publisher’s Weekly

Blogzone
check out her March 2008 archives if you want to write a picture book.

Editorial Anonymous
She’s kind of the Miss Snark of the Children’s writing world. I enjoy her!

We’re in the middle of TV turnoff week, which I knew nothing about since we don’t have TV. Well, we do have TVs but we use them to play games and watch movies–we don’t have any TV channels.

But here are two contests that your kids can enter. The deadlines are May 30, so even if you missed this week as TV turnoff week, you might have your own turnoff time next week and have your kids work on these contests. The first one is a poster contest. And there is also an essay contest.

The Great Debate looks like a fun way to spend a summer. If you have high school juniors who like politics and debate, set them off on this trail.

A debate about who was the better president, Washington or Lincoln, with good prizes for sixteen kids and for two, really great prizes. In the final debate 150,000 dollars goes to the winner and 50,000 to the loser.