How will you celebrate? Check with your local library and/or school to see if they are planning events.

The Children’s Book Council offers 25 Ideas for celebrating Children’s Book Week. One of my favorite suggestions is to work some Children’s Book Week puzzles. Big surprise, eh? Another of my favorites is to hold a Read-In. I’m just full of surprises today, aren’t I?

There is a whole series of official events in New York City this year. I won’t be attending any of them, but if you’re near NYC, maybe you can. I believe official events are going to be held in different cities from year to year.

The Children’s Choice Book Award winners will be announced on Wednesday, May 14, and if you can’t attend the Gala in NYC to hear the results, I’ll post them here, or at least post a link to the results here.

Whatever you decide to do to celebrate, be it alone at home or out with a group, it’s a great time to notice and appreciate the abundance and diversity of children’s books.

I’m going to think about that as I bake chocolate chip cookies. Nothing says “celebrate” like homemade, ooey-gooey chocolate chip cookies, right?

Mike has three pictures in a new book published by Greatland Graphics, Denali Wild: A Nature Portfolio, with images from Alaska’s #1 tourist destination, Denali National Park. All three pics were taken during our winters caretaking for the Kantishna Roadhouse, where we were snowed in for eight months at the end of the ninety-mile Denali Park road.

If you’d like a copy of this book, I recommend coming to Alaska to get one, though I suppose you could order one online.

First Book has teamed with the eBay Foundation, the charitable arm of eBay Inc., for Community Gives, an “online fundraising campaign designed to engage the eBay Community in supporting First Book’s mission to provide new books to the children who need them most.”

First Book is one of three nonprofit organizations the eBay community has chosen to support this year through the Community Gives program. The Foundation kicked things off on Monday with a $1 million donation, split evenly between the three nonprofits. For each person who donates during the campaign, the Foundation will contribute an additional $1, up to $100,000.

Another way to give to the project is buying and selling through eBay Giving Works. Items raising money for First Book are here. Unfortunately, there aren’t many.

Would you believe I’ve never bought or sold anything on e-Bay? Mike has, if that counts. I’m not much of a shopper. This is an interesting campaign, though, and I’m contemplating ideas for if and how we might participate in it or something like it.

Since we’re finishing the Challenge, it seems appropriate to talk again about finishing bookmarks. Janet, from The Cross Stitch Station in Miami, FL, uses a finishing technique in this bookmark that is near and dear to me.

This is a picot (say “PEE-coh”) edge, which is currently my favorite needlework edging. It has the best physical rhythm when being stitched, very relaxing and a cinch once you learn it. I use it on my bracelet and tag patterns, among other things.

Janet concealed the raw hem edges and needlework back by slip stitching a wide jacquard ribbon to the back, inside the picot edging. Her pattern choices coordinate beautifully, don’t you think?

It’s a snap to work a split ring or jump ring through one of the edging holes so that you can add a ribbon or shepherd’s hook to the bookmark, allowing the needlework to drape outside the book and be visible.

This edging allows us to use any fabric at all for a bookmark. It’s a sturdy edge, though it looks delicate and lacy.

On May 13 & 14, librarians and library supporters will descend on Washington D. C. to advocate for libraries.

Did you know that:
• U.S public library cardholders outnumber Amazon customers worldwide by 3 to 1.
• Reference librarians in the nation’s public and academic libraries answer more than 8 million questions weekly. Standing single file, the line of questioners would stretch from New York City to Anchorage, Alaska.
• Americans spend about $31 a year for public libraries, about the cost of one hardcover book. They also check out an average of seven books a year. (Hmm. I check out seven books in one visit.)
• There have been several different approaches to considering returns on public library availability and use. All showed substantial returns exceeding taxpayer investment. Florida’s public libraries return $6.54 for every $1.00 invested from all sources. (Jose-Marie Griffiths et al., “Taxpayer Return on Investment in Florida Public Libraries: Summary Report,” September 2004)

Millions of people pass through the library each year, but without adequate funding and support, these resources may not be there when we need them. Everyone loves libraries. But libraries cannot live on love alone.

Support your local library. Ask if they are doing anything for National Library Legislative Day, and see if you can help. Urge your representatives to support libraries.

National Library Legislative Day is sponsored by the American Library Association, Chief Officers of State Library Agencies, the District of Columbia Library Association, and the Special Libraries Association.

During the 2007 Bookmark Challenge, stitchers and independent needlework shops donated 429 bookmarks to libraries, schools, and literacy programs. Nordic Needle collected 171 of those bookmarks.

Naturally, I hope the program will grow and that we’ll top last year’s results this year. Well, as of May 1, Nordic Needle had collected–drum roll, please–396 bookmarks.

Wa-hoo!

Now I have two new hopes:

• I hope Nordic Needle single-handedly tops last year’s cumulative results.
• I hope that the other participating shops will combine to top Nordic Needle’s results.

I admit it: I want to turn this into a competition. (Life’s a Game and Everything’s a Competition)

Hmm. We could divide the shops into teams and have the teams compete to see who collects the most. We could make regional divisions: East vs. West. Or age divisions: Older shops vs. Younger shops. We could, we could…

Someday we might; this is just too fun to stop! To me, this is the best kind of competition because in the end, we’re all on the same team, and everyone wins.

But I digress.

Nordic Needle held their annual retreat April 17-20 and included in the weekend a bookmark exchange. About fifty stitchers participated in the exchange, and many brought extra bookmarks to donate to the Bookmark Challenge. Because the shop collects so many bookmarks, they are able to donate them to several programs, and we will hear more about where this year’s bookmarks have gone at the end of the Challenge.

Seeing the pictures, it’s not hard to believe that Nordic Needle has outgrown their display and had to move it. Congratulations and a mountain of thanks to Nordic Needle stitchers for their enthusiasm, generosity, and tremendous stitching talent. Aren’t you just dying to get a look at this board up close and in person?

For information about Nordic Needle events, sign up for their newsletter on the Nordic Needle Web site.

Kat is a needlework designer and owner of Cross Eyed Kat. She’s designing a bookmark for the Needle and Thread: Stitching for Literacy program next year. (Right, Kat?) No, really, I think it’s already on her schedule.

Here are Kat’s thoughts on reading and bookmarks, written en route to Germany, and sent via iPhone. (How cool is that?!)

For me, books and bookmarks are closely related to memories. I remember learning to read in first grade. I have a distinct memory of the teacher instructing the class in long and short vowels. Now there are very few days when I don’t pick up a book and read, and I’m always on the lookout for new authors to enjoy. I often re-read books I particularly enjoyed.

No more dog ears. Use a bookmark and leave some memories with the book.

I have one bookmark that lives inside a particular book. I thought of it while typing this post. The book is within arm’s reach, Writing for Children & Teenagers, by Lee Wyndham, revised by Arnold Madison. It’s so old you can buy a used copy for $.01 at that link! It’s the first writing book I ever owned and read. I’ve read it cover-to-cover three times, and referenced sections more often than I can count. Hey, it’s still within arm’s reach of my computer.

The bookmark that lives in it moved in during my first trip to Hawaii, where I read the book cover-to-cover for the second time. The bookmark has nothing to do with the book or the trip, but it conjures memories of those things. Go figure.

Kat’s right. I will start leaving bookmarks in books that I re-read.

Oh, the bookmark that lives in the writing book:

That’s my friend, Shelly’s, 180-pound dog, Caesar. He’s been dead for quite a while now, but I remember him every time I open this book.

A bookmark you’ve made for the 2008 Bookmark Challenge will soon be in the hands of a stranger. Imagine what s/he will recall every time s/he sees that bookmark.

A wonderful thing about a book, in contrast to a computer screen, is that you can take it to bed with you. –Daniel J. Boorstein

The test of literature is, I suppose, whether we ourselves live more intensely for the reading of it. –Elizabeth Drew

One always tends to overpraise a long book, because one has got through it. –Edward M. Forster

One sheds one’s sicknesses in books — repeats and presents again one’s emotions, to be master of them. –D. H. Lawrence

No matter how busy you may think you are, you must find time for reading, or surrender yourself to self-chosen ignorance. –Atwood H. Townsend

The best effect of any book, is that it excites the reader to self-activity. –Thomas Carlyle

Reading a book is like re-writing it for yourself. You bring to a novel, anything you read, all your experience of the world. You bring your history and you read it in your own terms. –Angela Carter

Reading furnishes the mind only with material for knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours. –John Locke

Reading is a basic tool in the living of a good life. –Mortimer J. Adler

Reading makes immigrants of us all. It takes us away from home, but more important, it finds homes for us everywhere. –Hazel Rochman