By William Hageman, Tribune Newspapers
3:57 p.m. CST, March 11, 2010

A child is never too young to visit the library.

To hear Thom Barthelmess and Marisa Conner tell it, you should stop off on the way home from the maternity ward.

"I believe that library visits can begin right away. And by right away I mean as soon as the child has arrived in the world," said Barthelmess, president of the Association for Library Service to Children, a 4,000-member division of the American Library Association. "One of the biggest areas of public library development is programming for babies."

Conner, youth services coordinator for the Baltimore County Public Library, is all over that. She's organizing a conference called "Active Learning Environments for Children" at the Public Library Association's annual meeting this month in Portland, Ore. She also has launched Storyville (bcplstoryville.org/storyville_home), an interactive early-literacy learning center for kids 5 and younger.

"Reading is a bonding experience between parent and child and early literacy behaviors (such as vocabulary, comprehension, etc.) are developed from a very early age," Conner wrote in an e-mail.

A study in School Library Journal in 2008 suggested the promotion of early literacy resulted in higher reading scores in elementary school. The study (schoollibraryjournal.com/article/CA6590044.html) found that of states in the top half of reading scores, 82 percent also ranked in the top half on circulation of children's library materials.

Conner pointed out other ways libraries are targeting young visitors: children's arts and cultural programs, enhanced children's spaces, children's computers with age-appropriate games "and, of course, lots and lots of books."

These programs aim to be a baby's introduction not only to the library but to books and literacy, Barthelmess said, helping kids "with what we call early literacy, which is everything a child needs to know about reading before she learns to read, things like understanding that letters exist, and that words exist, and that words are built up on the page with letters.

"We know that for kids to take the next step and become avid and fluid readers they need to know all this stuff," he said. "And a library is a great place for all that knowledge to happen."

Because most kids don't start school until age 5, there are few free resources for them and their parents, Conner says.

Today's public libraries see serving young children and their caregivers as one of our primary goals," she said, "promoting early literacy and a lifelong love of reading and learning, providing parents with the resources they need."

Everyone has the potential to be a children’s writer. We’ve all been children. A lot of us are still kids at heart. Furthermore, you probably know (or are) a parent figure and have some insight into parental concerns. This gives you the knowledge to make an interesting children’s book.

Be Original

In a genre with such a rich history, it is easy to get wrapped up in clichés. Talking animals and fairy princesses are great, but strive for originality in your story. Make your tale different from the many other children’s books available. Ideas could come from researching hot topics in publishing for your age group. For example, multicultural books are very popular right now.
Foster originality by thinking back to when you were a child. Try to remember your thoughts and feelings when your imagination ran free. What type of book would you have liked to read? What type of book would you have written? It may also be helpful to look up some information on child psychology. Researching children’s thinking may help you find some interesting topics that you wouldn’t have thought of otherwise.

Avoid Talking Down

You probably remember very simplistic children’s books from when you were younger. Today’s children’s books aren’t the same. The stories told now are sophisticated and creative, encouraging readers to imagine a world or situation they’d never thought about before. Today’s youths have access to so much information and entertainment that it takes more to hold their attention.
Don’t assume that your audience can’t follow a somewhat complex story. The purpose of a children’s book is not only to entertain, but also to bridge the gap between childhood and the adult world. Use rich language that will initiate learning and curiosity. A story will be more entertaining and worthwhile if it challenges your reader to think and ask questions. Remember, children want to learn.

Get Input

Share your work with children you know, as well as parents, teachers, and childcare professionals. Listen to their ideas, and use their constructive criticism. Chances are, they have good ideas that you haven’t thought of yet. Be open to advice and welcome new perspectives. Your willingness to learn and grow will make your children’s book the best it can be.
Also, don’t overlook editing. Many children’s writers make the mistake of assuming that children’s books don’t need editing, because of the simplified writing style. There’s always room for improvement, so the more sets of eyes that see your writing, the better.

Deadline: 5th of every month - Writers' Forum Ongoing Short Story Competition
Prizes range from a minimum 1st prize £300, 2nd prize £150 and 3rd prize £100 with an annual trophy and a cheque for £1,000 for the best story of the year. The competition is open to all nationalities but entries must be in English.

Deadline: 15th of every month - Writers' Forum Ongoing Poetry Competition
Poets are invited to enter their unpublished poems for a competition to be held in each issue of Writers' Forum. There will be a first prize of £100 and three runner-up prizes all published in the magazine.'

Deadline: March 1, 2010 - The Tawani Foundation Pritzker Military Library Literature Award
The Pritzker Military Library Literature Award honors authors that have made a significant contribution to the understanding of American military history. Entries can by academic, non-fiction, fiction or any combination of the three. The submitted work must be written in English. Winners recieve $100,000 as a cash prize.

Deadline: March 10, 2010 - Next Generation Indie Book Awards
Self-published authors can enter in one or more of the sixty categories in the Next Generation Indie Book Awards. Entries must be written in English and have a 2009 or 2010 copyright. Winners recieve a cash prize, national exposure and possible representation by a leading literary agent.

Deadline: March 20, 2010 - IPPY Book Awards
The 2010 IPPU Book Awards are accepting entries for books with 2009 and 2010 copyrights or release dates. Categories include 67 subject national awards and regional awards for 8 U.S. and 2 Canadian regions.

Deadline: March 31, 2010 - National Indie Excellence Awards
The Indie Excellence Book Awards have issued a call for entries for the 2010 award competition. Entry is open to self-published books with publication dates from 2007 to 2010. Entrants must pay a fee of $65 and submit one copy of the book per category.

Teens turn to dystopian novels
By Karen Springen -- Publishers Weekly, 2/15/2010 12:00:00 AM
Sure, teens are still reading about vampires, but end-of-the-world scenarios are bigger than ever.

Happily ever after? Not so much. Ruth Leopold, 15, of Wilton, Maine, loves dystopian books like The Hunger Games (teens fighting to the death in a televised, government-sponsored game), Gone (kids trying to survive in an adult-free world) and Life As We Knew It (an asteroid hits the moon and wreaks havoc on the Earth's weather). “I like the fantasy in it—and thinking about how it would be if I were in the future in those places,” she says. She imagines hanging out with Katniss, the 16-year-old heroine of The Hunger Games. “Sometimes I even have dreams that I'm in that world,” she says. But in the end, she is glad she's not: the gloomy tales make her feel lucky she lives “a good life with my family and everything I need.”

Like Leopold, hundreds of thousands of today's teens are reading future-as-a-nightmare novels—and not just the 1984 and Brave New World classics required by their teachers. Publishers will be releasing dozens of new dystopian titles over the next few years. Among the scenarios: no more gas, no more water, viruses run amok, genetic manipulation gone awry, totalitarian leaders, reality TV gone too far, and so on.

Why now? Newspaper headlines about swine flu, terrorism, global warming, and wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are inspiring authors—and making kids feel uneasy. Some publishers also point to publicity surrounding December 21, 2012, the end of the 5,126-year Mayan calendar—supposedly an apocalyptic sign.

Still, most editors and authors credit lingering unease from the World Trade Center attacks. “After 9/11, it seemed people started thinking about the destruction of the world,” says Karen Grove, who edited Susan Beth Pfeffer's This World We Live In, the April 2010 release that will end the trilogy that started in 2006 with Life As We Knew It. “Then we got hit with New Orleans and earthquakes.”

Uncertainty plays a role, too. “There's so much mystery about what the future will hold,” says Lauri Hornik, president and publisher of Dial Books for Young Readers and Dutton Children's Books, publisher ofthis season's Incarceron and the upcoming book Matched.

Lauren Barack -- School Library Journal, 2/22/2010

So says a new study from Pingdom, a Swedish-based Web-monitoring firm, which examined Google’s Ad Planner data from 19 of the nation’s most popular social networking sites, including Facebook, Twitter, Friendster, and even Ning. Their findings? It might be Dad who can’t refrain from updating his friends, rather than Junior.
Adults between the ages of 35 and 44 made up 25 percent of all users of these sites—nearly double the 15 percent of all children up to 17 years old who chat away online. But don’t assume that number increases as teens hit college, as only nine percent of adults between the ages of 18 and 24 spend any time on social networking sites. And the age group that connects with friends online the least? Those 65 years old and up, just three percent of the user base. At least for now.
"Although we can’t say how this will change over time, at the moment the older generations are for one reason or another (tech savvy, interest, etc.) not using social networking sites to a large extent," say the authors of the study. "It is also noteworthy that social media isn’t dominated by the youngest, often most tech-savvy generations, but rather by what has to be referred to as middle-aged people (although at the youngest end of the spectrum.)"
However, that’s not to say that Mom and Dad are frequenting the same sites as their children—or that a high school junior is likely to bump up against their school librarian on Ning. In fact, 64 percent of Twitter users and 61 percent of Facebook users clock in at 35 years old and up.
So where do teens crop up the most? On Bebo, a relative newcomer to the social networking group, founded in 2005, with 44 percent of its users aged 17 and younger.
Yet, with Pingdom’s study putting Bebo’s average user at 28 years old, it’s likely the days of Bebo being a teen favorite are quickly coming to an end. Where they will congregate online next, Pingdom can’t predict.