It’s just my luck that the minute I head off for parts unknown all the interesting news breaks.  I am referring in this particular case to the recent FTC scrutiny of paid blogger reviews.  To be frank, I didn’t know a thing about it before MotherReader filled me in. It’s well worth reading and considering.

• I knew it!  I knew it!  I knew it all along.  Oh, they called me mad at the university.  Mad!  But who’s mad now?  Twitter is for old folks! Thanks to Michael Joseph for the link.

• From Cynopsis Kids (it counts because it’s working off the book and not the movie, necessarily):

101 Dalmatians: The Musical kicks off its nationwide tour beginning in Minneapolis this October 2009 and concluding in LA in June 2010.  Based on author Dodie (Dorothy) Smith’s 1956 novel The One Hundred and One Dalmatians , the family-targeted musical is directed by the celebrated Jerry Zaks and features a score by singer/songwriter/musician and founding STYK band-member Dennis DeYoung and a book by writer/lyricist/director BT McNicholl (resident director Billy Elliot/Broadway). The musical, which will include a three week run in NYC at the WaMu Theater at Madison Square Garden in April 2010, will feature actors dressed as Dalmatians as well as 15 or so actual Dalmatians that will be trained by veteran animal trainer Joel Slaven (Ace Ventura Pet Detective, That Darn Cat and Rain Maker, as well as many stage shows etc).  101 Dalmatians: The Musical is produced by Magic Arts & Entertainment/Tix Productions , Troika Entertainment , and Luis Alvarez .

• In case you missed it, author Laurel Snyder created the antithesis of the 100 Best Books for Children.  Behold!  The very worst books for kids.

• While at the ALA Conference I met and spoke with a fair amount of publishing folks.  Some big.   Some small.  One publisher was Sterling Books, and now I’ve learned that they’re giving stuff away.  Check it:

"Help Sterling celebrate our 60th Birthday by entering for a chance to win 60 books from our list for your library. Library Marketing Director, Chris Vaccari, stands here next to about 60 books. That’s a lot of books and they could be yours!  To enter the 60 Years, 60 Books Sweepstakes please first read the official rules. Then provide us with your name, library, and email address. You must be employed by a public, school, academic or professional library to win."

• Some comic book characters do not lend themselves easily to on-screen animated adaptations (I’m looking at YOUUUU, Casper the Flying Ghost).  For others, it feels entirely natural.  Example A: The upcoming animated Owly.  Awww. It’s Owly.  In 3-D.  Feel the cute.

• I’d entirely missed the fact that Sonia Sotomayor was criticized recently by folks like Pat Buchanan for reading children’s books when she attended Princeton.  Stephen Colbert alerted me to this fact in his recent Stephen’s Sound Advice piece.  First she admits to loving Nancy Drew.  Next thing you know she’s read the stuff late in life?  My kind of woman. See it here around the 3:30 mark:

• The bookstore and the library.  Natural enemies or bestest buds?  Josie Leavitt plunks her vote down squarely in the bestest buds category over at ShelfTalker.  Why can’t we be friends / why can’t we be friends . . .

• Daily Image:

I like this.  It’s sort of a what goes around comes around situation.  We kill many trees to make books, right?  Well, here is the natural solution.

Brilliant!  Book planters.  Dunno why we didn’t think it up before.  Thanks to 100 Scope Notes (and, in turn, BoingBoing) for the pics.

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