Monday Linky Goodies, including Medieval Humor

Since I just got this rather large packet of printed proofs from my publisher on Saturday, ready for my proofreading perusal, this week has suddenly become rather busy. Therefore, today I’ve just got a round-up of interesting links that have come my way recently.

• Giving back: Via the Goodreads newsletter (BTW do NOT be checking my Goodreads updates right now because I am sooooo behind) comes another wonderful-sounding book charity called Raising a Reader, which helps out by training parents to help kids be readers and by giving kids bags of books. I just loved the photo on the Goodreads blog with those cute kids holding their book bags, faces full of glee.
• Marketing Multicultural Books is going to be the next topic on the CBC Diversity blog’s It’s Complicated series. Local Oakland librarian Nina Lindsay will be one of the contributors, and it promises to be another exciting conversation. (One in which Tanita and I, of course, have a vested interest.)
• Do You Remember Bridget Zinn? She was a kidlit blogger and writer, and she died tragically early of colon cancer, and she was a truly lovely sweet person whom I had the pleasure of meeting at Kidlitcon in Portland some years ago. Her husband, Barrett, and her many blogging friends are trying to get some buzz going for the posthumous release of her fantasy novel Poison, which comes out in March. If you’re interested in helping, as an author, blogger, reader, tweeter, parent, or whatever, check out more information here.
• Graphic Novel Goodies! I owe my ability to stay abreast of this topic to GraphicNovelReporter’s wonderful newsletter. In their last edition, there were a couple of  items I got excited about, including a monograph of Daniel Clowes‘ (author of Ghost World) art, and an interview with Lucy Knisley, who just wrote a food-related memoir-ish graphic novel called Relish: My Life in the Kitchen.
• Hey, Teachers: Have you seen Edutopia? It just looks like a super cool site and they very  nicely have a rotating feature on bloggers who join their community.



• In LGBT News, my blogging friend Lee Wind alerted me via his newsletter to the good, as well as the bad and somewhat ugly. And then, if you want cheering up after reading that last item, just read any of Lee’s book reviews or his recap of his many wonderful and inspiring school visits.
• More Cheer: Minh Le of Bottom Shelf Books never fails to crack me up, from medieval-inspired library admonishments to snarky book cover comparisons to Willems Shakespeare presents: Hamlet (starring the Pigeon).