Nominate Your Favorite Children's & YA Books for the Cybils, Dewey's 24-Hour Read-a-thon is Coming, and Win Free Books for Life

Nominate Your Favorite Children and YA Books for the Cybils Awards Now! Have you read some wonderful children's books this year? Fabulous YA books? Did you know that anyone can nominate a wonderful children's book or a fabulous YA book for the Cybils Awards? The details about nominating are here, and the guidelines for each category are here, but basically the book you nominate must be published in the US or Canada between Oct. 16, 2015 and Oct. 15, 2016. You can nominate one book per category. The categories are Audiobooks, Board Books, Early Chapter Books, Easy Readers, Elementary Nonfiction, Elementary/Middle Grade Graphic Novels, Elementary/Middle Grade Speculative Fiction, Fiction Picture Books, Juvenile Nonfiction, Middle Grade Fiction, Middle Grade Nonfiction, Poetry, Young Adult Fiction, Young Adult Graphic Novels, Young Adult Nonfiction, and Young Adult Speculative Fiction. (If you are an author or a publisher, please wait until after October 15 to nominate your book.)  This is my tenth year working with the Cybils. Over the years, I've nominated many, many books in many, many categories, but I'm proud to say that eight of my nominees have been finalists and one book was the winner in its category.  It's easy to nominate a favorite children's or YA book published in the last year. Go here and nominate away! Dewey's 24-Hour Read-a-thon is Coming! Have you ever tried reading in Dewey's 24-Hour Read-a-thon? Dewey's Read-a-thon was the first blogging event I participated in, way, way back in 2008. I visited other blogs, "met" other bloggers, played book-ish games, won book-ish prizes, read books, and blogged. It was over-the-top fun.  Since then, I've participated in lots of read-a-thons. I've only read for twenty-four hours one time, but I've won lots of prizes and had oodles of fun.  Dewey's 24-Hour Read-a-thon is coming up on Saturday, October 22, 2016. Could you read for 24 hours straight? How much could you read? Could you win some prizes? Play some book-ish games? Sign up now here. Win Free Books for Life! I don't play the lottery, but this giveaway made my heart go pitter-patter and I had to share it with you. Heywood Hill Bookshop in London is giving away free books for life. To celebrate the shop's 80th anniversary, Heywood Hill is giving one person the chance to win a recently published hardcover book each month for the rest of his/her life. The giveaway is open to anyone in the entire world. To enter, go here. The contest is open until the end of October. What are you reading today? What is the Sunday Salon? Imagine some university library's vast reading room. It's filled with people--students and faculty and strangers who've wandered in. They're seated at great oaken desks, books piled all around them,and they're all feverishly reading and jotting notes in their leather-bound journals as they go. Later they'll mill around the open dictionaries and compare their thoughts on the afternoon's literary intake....That's what happens at the Sunday Salon, except it's all virtual. Every Sunday the bloggers participating in that week's Salon get together--at their separate desks, in their own particular time zones--and read. And blog about their reading. And comment on one another's blogs. Think of it as an informal, weekly, mini read-a-thon, an excuse to put aside one's earthly responsibilities and fall into a good book. Click here to join the Salon. The Sunday Post is a meme hosted by Kimba at Caffeinated Book Reviewer. It's a chance to share news and recap the past week. Mailbox Monday was created by Marcia at The Printed Page. We share books that we found in our mailboxes last week.   It is now being hosted here. Stacking the Shelves is a meme hosted by Tynga's Reviews in which you can share the books you've acquired. It’s Monday! What Are You Reading? is where we share what we read this past week, what we hope to read this week…. and anything in between!  This is a great way to plan out your reading week and see what others are currently reading as well… you never know where that next “must read” book will come from! I love being a part of this and I hope you do too! It's Monday! What Are You Reading? is now being hosted at The Book Date.