Finding Wonderland – Becky Levine

So I just signed up for the Saturday session of KidLitCon, which is going to be held in Sacramento this October. Yay! I can manage on just one hotel night and some caffeine for the late night drive home. I’ve been wanting to go to this for years, and I was waiting for it to come to our neighborhood. Thanks so much to Jen Robinson of Jen Robinson’s Book Page and Tanita Davis and Sarah Stevenson of Finding Wonderland for pulling this all together.

I thought, for a Saturday Six, I’d do six reasons that I want to attend this year.

1. You may have noticed I don’t appear at my blog all that often these days, although I’ve been trying to shift back lately. I’m feeling like I need a new burst of blog energy, and where better to get that at a conference for kidlit bloggers?

2. I am a huge fan of Jen Robinson’s Book Page and, even more, of Jen’s commitment to literacy and reading and all things kids books. Anything she’s a part of is going to be good.

3. Mitali Perkins will be Saturday’s keynote speaker. Since I got started with blogs, Mitali has been challenging us to think outside our auto-perspectives, to stretch our writing and reading, and I want to hear what she has to say. It’s going to be important.

4. I’m feeling like I want my blog to be facing out a bit more for a while, less directed–as they say–at my own navel. The theme for this year’s conference is “Blogging Diversity in Young Adult and Children’s Lit: What’s Next? I posted about #weneeddiversebooks early on in the movement, and I’ve definitely been reading more diverse books, but if I’m doing it just for me, then–really–I’m doing it too quietly. Maybe this is the “out” I want to face.

5. Kind of a corollary to #3 is that I talk a lot about writing at my blog and, often, about writing for kids. But, you know, I wouldn’t be a writer if it weren’t for the kids’ book that made me fall in deep, deep love with the whole reading thing when I was little and that keep me reading in that genre years after I’ve given up jumping rope, trying to keep a hula hoop above my ankles, and writing angsty 12-year-old thoughts into my diary. Kid Lit gives me air to breathe and passion to create. I’m pretty sure that, at the conference, I won’t be the only one who feels that way.

6. This program. And this list of attendees.

Last week, diversity in books was the hot topic. At least in my world. The thread has faded a bit from the internet, but it hasn’t gone away. A few posts to share, and then a starting list from me.

From the Cybils, my source for so many of the books I love: Diverse Book Recommendations for #WeNeedDiverseBooks

From Jen Robinson at her Book Page: Roundup of Diversity-Themed Links I Shared this Week

From Mother Reader: The Ninth Annual 48 Hour Book Reader Challenge (Note: I have been wanting to do this challenge for years, and it has always been “a bad weekend for reading.” Yes, even I have the occasional one. And this year–my parents come visit on Thursday, my son graduates on Friday, and there will be major sleeping of the son and visiting of the family on Saturday. But you know what? What else am I going to do with Sunday except recover. So I’m thinking I will do my own, little, baby 24-hour challenge along with every one else. I could do it with picture books and read, like a gazillion. Or maybe a half-gazillion. Right? Right.)

And from Jen Robinson and Sarah Stevenson at Finding Wonderland, the 8th Annual Kidlitosphere Conference, FINALLY IN NORTHERN CALIFORNIA and already on my calendar.

And from me, because the only really good intentions are the ones with which you follow through, the list of books I put on hold at the library today, all from the longer list of titles I’ve been building from those #WeNeedDiverseBooks posts.

Tag: Finding Wonderland

Saturday Six: KidLitCon

A Little Bit More on Diversity