March Merriment Giveaway - WINNERS!

Hello, dear readers.

So guess how many people entered for the giveaway?


zero.

Yep, exactly zero people entered to win two of my favorite books ever. To say I was surprised would be putting it extremely lightly.

So I've decided to make what could be a crushing disappointment (does no one care enough to enter? Do I have a bad taste in books?) into a great opportunity.  I am donating both of these books to the library. You can click here to read my post about how great libraries are, and so now I'm going to do my part to help out and give them these two books.

So the big winner of the March Merriment double-giveaway is: The Los Angeles Public Library! I'll get the books over there as soon as I can and I'm sure they'll be on the shelves in no time. (Who knows, maybe I'll be the one to shelve them!)

Until tomorrow, with some BIG NEWS!!

Save Los Angeles Libraries!

A few days ago, I wrote a post talking about how important bookstores are. After volunteering at the library today, I recieved a fact sheet about the cuts made to Los Angeles libraries, and I'm convinced that libraries are even more important.

Some of the facts I recieved:
- 160 library employees fired (July 1, 2010)
- serivce days cut to 5 (July 16, 2010)
- libraries closed on Mondays
- service hours cut from 41.5 to 34.0
- fewer story times, youth activities, adult programs and books
- additional cuts and firings proposed for library services, hours, programs, and staff  by Mayor and City Council of LA (October 2010)

Luckily, in the coming elections, Los Angeles has put an option called Measure L, which will increase the Los Angeles Public Library's share of city funds. Measure L will provide additional funds to:
- help restore 6-day services at all libraries and eventually 7-day services at 9 neighborhood libraries
- purchase books
- support library programs including after-school/summer youth, student homework help, adult literacy, and job search programs.

Additionally, here is a speech I found given by Philip Pullman about saving Oxfordshire libraries, which I found well-reasoned and expertly written. http://falseeconomy.org.uk/blog/save-oxfordshire-libraries-speech-philip-pullman

I don't have anything for PBM right now - today was totally devoid of inspiration - but I'm going to try to get something up before I go to bed.

This Weekend

...has been crazy.

First, I volunteered at the library again, which was very fun. I re-shelved the books in the large print section, crossed out the bar codes in discarded books and magazines, and I made a poster display for the YA section. It was incredibly fun, even more than last week.

And then  I went to my friends birthday party which was SO FUN and we stayed up until all hours of the night. Yay! By the way, starting a movie at 11:30 - so great. Custom Apples to Apples (where you make your own cards before the game starts) - best game ever. Happy Birthday Emi!

And then I got home today, realized I didn't write a picture book yesterday, went to turn on my computer, and... nothing happened. My computer would not turn on. At all. So I took my computer into the mac store (I have a mac) and they said they could fix it, but it would take them a week. A WEEK. So started freaking out because all of my schoolwork (including notes) is on my computer. And then I realized all of my notes for PBM are on my computer. But I didn't really have a choice because my computer wouldn't work even if I brought it home, so I might as well have them fix it.

So I went home and called my friend (thank you!) for the notes from last week (I backed up my computer last weekend, thank goodness so I'm only missing stuff from last week, which includes everything for PBM) and borrowed my brother's computer, a PC which I can barely use (with lots of "gahh"s and "darn it"s and "oh my gosh this freaking computer"s but which I'm using now, and I'm going to make do for this week.

Except that by the time I finished my homework after all of this, it was 11. And I just didn't have the energy to write 2 picture books without any of my notes. And my brother's computer doesn't have photoshop, so I can't draw covers and be done with it.

That is my excuse for why I missed two days in a row. And it's a much better excuse than "I had a lot of homework" which I'm sure I'm going to use a bunch of times in the coming weeks, especially in the week before finals (gack!).

I'm going to try to write THREE tomorrow (yeah, right). I'll probably end up with 1 completed book and 2 ideas. And since spring sports start tomorrow I'll be too exhausted to make those 2 ideas into 2 full books. Which is what double frees on Tuesdays are for. I also want to finish the drawing I started for the inside page of Fox & Sparrow (which may have to wait since it's on my computer) and make a cover for Green Yarn. Goodness, I have a lot to do.

Until tomorrow,

Community Service

My school has a 20-hour project as a community service requirement, due at the end of the year. I recently started thinking about things I love that could be turned into a community service project. So, this weekend, I volunteered my first 2.75 hours at my local public library. It was incredibly fun. I took down a display about online homework help, helped to catalog duplicates in the mysteries section, and organized magazines in chronological order and took out all editions from 2009 to be archived. It was a great experience and I'm going to come back for my next 17.25 hours. If your local library takes volunteers, I'd recommend trying this out. In addition, next weekend I'm going to go a bit early so I can check out some of their picture books, because by then I'll be in the thick of PBM. So excited for Tuesday and finally being able to start writing!

On another note, I got a bunch of new books this weekend from my Omi Mary and my great-aunt Mady. Thank you both so much! Also this week I'm receiving a bunch of pre-ordered books. It seems like as much as I try to keep just a few books on my nightstand at a time, they come in waves, like they want to be sitting there for weeks. I suppose it's better than sitting on the bookshelf for months or years. The new books for this week are:

- The Heavenward Path, by Kara Dakley
It hasn't arrived yet but will be coming any day now.
- Leviathan, by Scott Westerfeld
Last time I got it from the library, but this time I'm keeping it, and I will read it over and over for years to come.
- Fire, by Kristin Cashore
I own Graceling, but I liked Fire just as much. If you scroll down, you will see that I read Fire on January 6th, but I want to reread it. And besides, it just came out in paperback yesterday
- Incarceron, by Catherine Fisher
I made myself curious with my post about Incarceron and The Maze Runner. I heard that The Maze Runner is much creepier than Incarceron, so I'm starting with the latter.
- Midnighters, by Scott Westerfeld
I've come to the conclusion that anything Westerfeld has got to be good. I haven't been proven wrong yet.
- Animal Farm, by George Orwell
I read 1984 over the summer, and wanted to read Animal Farm immediately afterward, but NN lost my copy (well, not mine, technically, but the one NN was going to give me after NN was done using it for school), so I didn't get a new copy until now.
- Cloaked in Red, by Vivian Vande Velde
It's finally coming! It's supposed to arrive today! Yay!
- Amulet (Books 1-3), by Kazu Kibuishi
I love graphic novels. Who doesn't like graphic novels? I'm pretty sure this is going to be a middle-school level book, but with graphic novels, it doesn't really matter. For example: Rapunzel's Revenge (Shannon Hale) is one of my favorite books. Ever. And my little cousins love it too, so there you go.
- A True Princess, by Diane Zhaler
Same general idea as The Thirteenth Princess, but rather than a retelling of The Twelve Dancing Princesses, this is a retelling of The Princess and the Pea. Comes out on Thursday!

Until tomorrow,