A blogging bonanza.

I have so much exciting stuff to share with you that you'll want to hold on to your yellow hat.

-- Voting for the Children's Choice Book Awards is in full swing to prepare for 2010 Children's Book Week, coming up in May. Heavyweight contenders include Suzanne Collins, Jeff Kinney, and Rick Riordan. Make sure to have your say at the voting page!

-- Speaking of voting, School Library Journal's Battle of the Books has also started (we're actually into week 2 already). Watch great novels and nonfiction duke it out for the admiration of your favorite authors.

I can't really fathom how their selection process works as it seems completely arbitrary -- or maybe that's exactly how the selection process works -- but it makes for pretty high drama when they pit Newbery winner When You Reach Me against NYT Best Illustrated Tales from Outer Suburbia and expect poor Julius Lester to pick one. Picture Survivor, but with kids' books. (You'll have to go see for yourself which one he chose. I don't envy him the decision!)

-- I blogged yesterday that we're giving away pairs of tickets to Curious George Live! but then we realized that getting four tickets would be twice as fun. The first two people each week before the shows (weekend of April 23-25) who come to the Hut and mention they read the blog will get FOUR vouchers redeemable for Curious George Live! tickets.

-- In addition to more (!!!) fairy godperson gifts of books showing up for me, yesterday brought an ARC of Linger, the second Wolves of Mercy Falls book by Maggie Stiefvater. Unlike magical, serendipitous Penguin packages, this was one I had been expecting (thanks Nikki at Scholastic!). Super-receiver John is probably relieved that my almost-daily ants-in-the-pants ritual of "Is it here yet?....How 'bout now?" is, at least for the moment, over. And there was much rejoicing in the Hut. The new Penguin books are Laurie Halse Andersen's Wintergirls and Gayle Forman's If I Stay. I read Wintergirls when it first pubbed in hardcover and loved it, so Natasha snatched it up. I'm looking forward to If I Stay, which I've heard nothing but good things about. Thank you Penguin!