From: Ginny Moore Kruse <gmkruse>
Date: Wed, 06 Jan 1999 12:46:15 -0600

I'm delighted that Brenda Bowen sparked the first messages of the January discussion! I had planned to come to the CCBC on Saturday or Sunday to write some CCBC-Net announcements and introduce the January discussion. I guess you all know that the central Midwest experienced an "old?shioned" blizzard containing many many inches of blowing, fluffy snow during those days.

Throughout the weekend, I was reminded in several ways of my favorite book from early during the vigorous December discussion: Snow by Uri Schulevitz (Farrar, 1998). The sky became lead-grey, any child who has experienced the hours preceding a heavy snow would be able to predict it, just like the little child in Snow - regardless of what the TV and radio reports proclaim. It does take a lot to get adult attention, it might even take a blizzard. The wonder and delight expressed in the words and pictures of Schulevitz' marvelous book were present for us over the weekend - if we bothered to look up or around. And It all ended with the brilliant blue sky with which the book also concludes.

Thanks to everyone who wrote about favorites. I expanded my own list based on what you all wrote. I'm sure most of us did. I'll place those postponed announcements within our Sports Literature Discussion with several announcements during the next few days. When I finally began writing these announcements we had some difficulty with our e-mail and I lost the message. Courage...

Meanwhile, you've gotten going on Sports Literature, which is great. Thanks, Brenda and Jennifer! Just as we always thought! We're really not needed, as long as the CCBC-Net community is awake!

And thanks to Tom Hurlburt, who has already introduced himself to the CCBC-Net community! Tom has agreed to be one of our guest experts this month; he is a reviewer of hundreds of sports books for School Library Journal and a children's librarian in LaCrosse Public Library in LaCrosse, Wisconsin.

Let's continue the current discussion with Tom by thinking further about what kind of sports books kids actually read? Who are these kids, anyway? Is this all they read?

Tom, when you see a new sports book do you know immediately that it will be popular? With whom? Why?

Examples, please, everyone, when you give your opinions..... Ginny

Ginny Moore Kruse (gmkruse at ccbc.soemadison.wisc.edu) Cooperative Children's Book Center (CCBC) A Library of the School of Education (www.soemadison.wisc.edu/ccbc/) University of Wisconsin - Madison
Received on Wed 06 Jan 1999 12:46:15 PM CST