Books I Read in March

I know we're already a few days into April, but I have fun putting these videos together.

Since I spent the first part of March getting over yet another cold, and the second part of March in a lot of waiting rooms while I dealt with my cat's medical emergency, a lot of the books this month were "comfort" reads. Those tried and true favorites that I've read and reread many times, and yet I never get tired of. But, I also read a few other books in there too, including a book from my "guilty pleasure" series, The Clique. That book, by the way, isn't worth it although I still like reading the series.

As always, comments/suggestions are appreciated! I did have someone ask what music I was using last time, is that something that you would want to know? Or do you even care? Anyway, without any further delay, here's my video for the month of March.



Now, I'm off to go get some reading done, so hopefully next month's video will be a little more interesting!

Judges Application for Book Battle 2010

Okay everyone. Here's where I need your help for the YA Bloggers Debut Book Battle 2010. I can't judge these things myself, so I need your help to act as judges!

Each judge will be required to read the two nominated books in their bracket, pick a winner, and then write an explanation that will be posted on your blog on the designated day (or if a non-blogger then emailed to me to post for you).

Judges do not need to be a blogger to participate, but if you are you will be asked to submit your blog link. Your blog should be somewhat established (older than 2 months) and must contain a reasonable amount of original content. You must also blog about Young Adult books (meaning you can blog about other things too, but you need to have posted about YA lit before).

So, ready to volunteer?

*Applications Now Closed*

If you a non-blogger and would like to participate, you will be asked to provide one or two review samples by email.

If more judges sign up then there are available spots then they will be chosen at random. I would like to have at least two judges for each bracket, so we'll see what we get.

Applications will be taken until April 18th, 2010. I got lots of enthusiasm for this project, so don't you all let me down now by not submitting an application. :)

By the way, have you submitted your nomination yet?

If you have questions, feel free to contact me at shadyglade(AT)mail(DOT)com.

Nominations Open for Book Battle 2010

Welcome to the Nominations Page for the YA Bloggers Debut Book Battle 2010! This is the place where you can nominate the book YOU think should win the battle.

Your nominated book should follow these requirements:
1. It must be a debut book (if the author has written books since, only the FIRST book they wrote is eligible)
2. It must be either Young Adult (or high middle grade)
3. It must have been first published between January 1st, 2009 and March 31st, 2010 (this is the narrow the field as much as possible so our judges have a chance to read the nominations!)

So, have a book you want to nominate?

*Nominations Now Closed*

PLEASE only nominate one or two books. Otherwise the list will be too long!

Nominations will be open until Sunday, April 18th, 2010. At that point we will narrow down the nominations if necessary and post the judging brackets. Then the battle will be on!

If you have any questions, feel free to email me at shadyglade(AT)mail(DOT)com.

Now, nominate away!

And you can volunteer to be a judge too!

Edited to add: DO NOT leave your nominations in the comments! They won't count unless you use the form. Thanks!

An Introduction to the YA Bloggers Debut Book Battle

So what is the YA Bloggers Debut Book Battle?

Well, it started as a crazy idea. An idea that seemed popular (to my surprise) and it kind of took off from there.

The YA Bloggers Debut Book Battle is a bracket-style judging contest to pick the best nominated debut work published in the last year (and a little bit of 2010).

Here's how it will work:

People will have a chance to nominate a book of their choice to take place in the battle. After nominations close, the books will be narrowed down and fit into brackets for our lovely volunteer judges to read. Starting in late April each judge will read two books and choose a winner. One will move on, one will not. It will all come down to two books in a epic book battle to choose the best!

Latest Updates:

9/9 - The wrap-up post has been put up, concluding the 2010 Battle. You can catch up on everything and leave your feedback here.

9/4 - The final winner has been announced! This post has the winner.

7/8 - Round 4 Winners have been announced. Check out the announcement post to see which books have made it to the finals.

6/28 - The Mystery Revived Book is... The Iron King! It will get a second chance to battle during Round 4. Results coming soon!

6/22 - If you haven't been keeping up with the announcements, make sure you check out this post to see all the winners for Round 1, Round 2, and Round 3.

5/10 - Winners from Round 1 have been announced. Check out this post to see which books are coming out on top.

5/9 - Round 2 has started! Winners coming soon!

And they're off! Get the details from the Battle Starting Line.

For those cheering us from the sidelines, find out all the ways you can keep up with all the action.
The brackets are complete! Check out which books will be battling which books here.

The Official Nomination List has been posted, so you can check out the 24 books that will be in the running for the top spot. Make sure you also check out the Battle trailer while you're there.

You can also grab the battle button in the left sidebar, or view our Goodreads group to stay up to date with the latest happenings.

Now, get ready to battle!

Clear Away The Clutter Read-A-Thon

Okay, so I had totally though I had posted this weeks ago, but it turns out I never fished it out of draft form. *forehead smack*

So since it starts TOMORROW, I figured I needed to finish this up quick.

As part of her Clear Away the Clutter Mini Challenge, Kate from The Neverending Shelf is hosting a Clear Away the Clutter Read-A-Thon. Yay! Here's a chance to read some of those books from my Clear Away The Clutter post.

Who can participate
Anyone!

When
Begins: 7am, Monday, April 5th
Ends: 11pm, Sunday, April 11th

You'll need to head over to Kate's post to sign up, but you should join me!

I'm setting really small goals because although this is a week long thing, I don't have Spring Break and I'm really busy with my job. So I don't know how much I'm going to be able to read. My goal is to read at least two hours a day. We'll see what happens...

Starting tomorrow I will be trying to spend my free time reading rather than blogging. I have several scheduled posts that will go up anyway, but if you email me I may be a little longer in responding. Again, we'll just have to see!

As far what I'm going to read, I'm pretty much sticking with my list from my original CATCC post. With these few additions:

Scripture reading (I do this every night, so why not count it?)
Green by Laura Peyton Roberts
The Wish Stealers by Tracy Trivas
Wherever Nina Lies by Lynn Weingarten (I started it weeks ago, I need to finish!)

Need a button

All of you creative graphics people out there, listen up. I'm painfully poor at creating buttons, and I need one for the upcoming YA Bloggers Debut Book Battle. And since I'm so not creative when it comes to button making, this is where you come in.

But wait! There's incentive. :-) I have a copy of Golden by Cameron Dokey, a copy of Never Bite a Boy on the First Date, or a Beautiful Creatures t-shirt that I'll send to the person who makes the button we use. So if more than one person submits one, then the one we use gets it.

So get out there and be creative! I'm open as far as design goes, but I would like it to say "Debut Book Battle" on there somewhere at least. Any other writing is fine too, just go with what you think looks best.

If possible, if you could please have them to me by April 8th that would be great!

Email me at shadyglade(AT)mail(DOT)com with your entries or your questions.

Good luck!

LOL of the Week: Cookies

I know I normally do these on Sunday, but Sunday is going to be pretty busy with the upcoming Book Battle, so I'm posting this today since I don't have anything else planned while I'm busy preparing for that.

So without further of my rambling, here's this week (well, next week's, really) LOL:


If you'd like to learn more about LOLcats, you can check out the website, or read my review of the book.

Have a great week!

Project is a Go!

Well, since I had a lot of positive response, the book battle is on! The official title will be the YA Bloggers Debut Book Battle. Okay, so it's a working title. If you have a better suggestion, please let me know. I'm horrible at names.

Anyway, I will be busy the next few days getting things organized. Nominations will open on Sunday April 4th. That's also when I will be asking for volunteers to judge the rounds. So look for more information then.

Thank you everyone for the response!

And if anyone wants to make a button for this, please let me know. :)

Want to Join Me on a Crazy Idea?

So I've had this thing percolating around inside my head for a couple weeks and I've decided it's time to share. Ever since I heard about both Nerds Heart YA and School Library Journal's Battle of the Books, I've really wanted to try something like this on my own. But I couldn't really figure out a good focus. SLJ focuses on award winning books and bestsellers of the year, while Nerds Heart YA is more about under appreciated YA lit. But yesterday I finally got an idea:

A Battle for the Best Debut Book

So what do you think? Because although this sounds fun to me, it would be a big enough project I couldn't do it on my own. I would need help with a whole bunch of things including:

1. Judging

2. Nominations

3. Promotion

4. and of course Cheering the contenders on!

So, I guess the point of this post is, do you want to join me? If I get enough positive response, I'm going to move forward with this, so if you think it's a good idea, leave me a comment below!

Ahem...

Well, I have an announcement to make. I hadn't decided when I was going to post this, but seeing as my brother spilled the beans in his blog post on Sunday** I guess it's time for me to share the news.

The reason I've been gone so much of the past few weeks is I've been working on a job application. This job application:


That's right. I'm going back to work at Walt Disney World this summer. Readers who have been with this blog since 2008 (and before) now that I started by Disney-related blog, Disney World Girl, to chronicle my adventures during my experiences of The Disney College Program. Well, now I've been invited back to participate in an alumni program from May to August this summer.

So what does this mean for you? Well, this will have a big impact on my blogging schedule, although I don't know how much. Last time I pretty much only did Disney blogging, and that took a lot of time. But I will try to keep up the book blogs this time too, because I did A LOT of reading last time around. So we'll see.

Meanwhile, I'm starting a new feature on that other blog to celebrate the countdown of my departure for Florida. It's called Ask a Cast Member, where you can ask me any Disney-related question you can think of. Head over to the introduction post to learn more, or you can jump straight to the form too.

Anyway, now you know what's going on. More news about this as it comes, although most of it will be on the other blog, so make sure you follow that one if you're interested.

**Incidentally if you visit my brother's blog, make sure you ooh and ah at the header. I made it myself using only Paint and I am very proud of it. :)

Waiting on Wednesday: 3.24.10

I had a hard time picking a book to share today for this, but I finally chose one:

Princess of Glass by Jessica Day George

About the Book (from Amazon.com): "Hoping to escape the troubles in her kingdom, Princess Poppy reluctantly agrees to take part in a royal exchange program, whereby young princes and princesses travel to each other's countries in the name of better political alliances and potential marriages. It's got the makings of a fairy tale until a hapless servant named Eleanor is tricked by a vengeful fairy godmother into competing with Poppy for the eligible prince. Ballgowns, cinders, and enchanted glass slippers fly in this romantic and action-packed happily-ever-after quest from an author with a flair for embroidering tales in her own delightful way."

So why am I waiting on this one? It's a companion to Princess of the Midnight Ball. Do I need another other reason? I kind of like the fact that this one sounds like it has a Cinderella twist to it too. And love the cover. As usual. :)

Princess of Glass will be released on May 25, 2010 and is currently available for pre-order from Amazon.com:

The Dark Divine Nail Polish Giveaway

Now that things are settling down, it's time for another giveaway! I have bottles of wonderful purple nail polish inspired by The Dark Devine to giveaway. Three lucky winners will each get a bottle of this wonderful color, which matches the cover of The Dark Devine by Bree Despain.

All you have to do to enter is comment on this post and answer this question:

What are your feelings about forgiveness?

Open to US residents only (sorry international friends!) and ends March 31st, 2010 at midnight.

So what are you waiting for? Time to enter!

LOL of the Week: Visiting Friends

In light of the vet problems I've been having with my cat lately (he is finally pulling through!), I thought this LOL was appropriate for today:

Yeah, that's pretty much the expression he had on his face. That, and this one:


If you'd like to learn more about LOLcats, you can check out the website, or read my review of the book.

Have a great week!

Food for Thought: The Future of Publishing

Probably many of you have seen this already, but since I'm catching up on things I just discovered it myself and wanted to share.

Thanks to DK Publishing for putting together such a thought-provoking video. Make sure you watch the whole thing, don't stop in the middle:

New Wherever Nina Lies Winner

One winner of the Wherever Nina Lies Giveaway has not yet responded, so it's time to pick another winner. So congrats to:

Aik

Who is our new winner! Please email me your mailing address by Sunday (March 21) or a new winner will be chosen.

A Note For Those Waiting On Prizes

I just wanted to pop in and say I'm really behind on mailing out prizes. If you've won anything for the past few months and haven't gotten it from me yet, it will be on it's way soon. Life has been really crazy since December, but I finally have everything packaged up (I think) to go out.

If you want to double check that your prize is on my To Be Mailed list, you can send me a quick email at shadyglade(AT)mail(DOT)com.

Winners of Wherever Nina Lies

So in the confusion circulating around the last week, I completely forgot to choose winners for the Wherever Nina Lies giveaway. So here they are now. The winners are:

Adriana, ReaganStar/Star Shadow, and misskallie2000
Congrats! Please email me your mailing address within 48 hours to claim your prize. New winners will be chosen on Friday at 5:00 if needed.

Don't forget

As I posted last month, Bookmark Day is today (March 15th). If you're like me and you love bookmarks, you'll want to head over to the The Bibliophilic Book Blog and check out all the neat features, giveaways, and posts going on all day. Including a giveaway from yours truly. ;)

Hurry, since most of these giveaways are only open until tomorrow (Mar 16)!

Thank You

I just wanted to thank everyone for their kind wishes on my blogging hiatus post. You have no idea how much your support has meant to me. I keep going back and reading the comments every time I need a pick-me-up.

For those who are wondering, the cat has stabilized a little, but he isn't getting better yet, so we're still on pins and needles. I will post as I can, but again, I'm not sure when I'll be in exactly.

So again, thank you for bearing with me during this difficult time.

Cover Contest: Voting Round 2

Wow! My cover actually made it to Round 2! Not bad for a first attempt. :)

So head over to Princess Bookie to vote for your favorite cover for Round 2. But hurry, only the first 75 votes count!

Please vote for your favorite, but if you want to vote for me, I'm number 3 this time.

What are you waiting for?