Pink me, pink my kids, pink my sofa!

Here's something I've been wanting to do for a long long long long time.

I started reviewing children's books online because I could never remember which books I wanted to remember and which books I wanted to forget. I needed a place to stash thumbs-up / thumbs-down opinions that I could get to at home, work, and school. But more than 500 book reviews later, I find that I... well I kind of have an agenda. A goal. A wish, at least.

I never want a kid to have nothing fun to read. The kids I help at work, the kids at school, my kids' friends, my friends' kids, my neighbor's niece. I want each of those kids to have a book or two around that they will voluntarily choose to read. I want reading to be a leisure activity on par with playing games, playing outside, and whatever else.

 

 

Now, it's true, I do book selection for school libraries, and therefore I am always looking for books that have legs, that can stretch into lesson plans and activities and discussions and field trips. But my first priority is finding books that convince kids that reading is FUN.

Corollary to that goal is the need to convince parents that fun books are good books. Yeah yeah he needs to read Rifles for Watie this summer for school, but let's also pick him up Daniel Boom, ok? That's why my reviews read the way they do. I need to entertain parents into listening to me.

And that's why my site now has this beautiful, sophisticated, cool picture as my banner.

It's always been a little galling to me that my site looked so boring. I review kid books, for pete's sake - everything associated with kid books should be interesting to look at! But I am no artist, and not much of a designer. And I am sure as heck not going to learn CSS or XML or HFS or whatever else. I learned Assembler when I was 8, all those capabilities are used UP.

Luckily, I have all these fabulous talented artist friends, chief among them the fabulous talented Toddfather, Todd Brizzi. Graphic designer, illustrator, coffee roaster, father of triplets. Yeah TRIPLETS. Could you do triplets? I didn't think so. Respect.

I've been wanting to ask Todd to draw something for my site forever. He has made the logos and graphic identities for loads of businesses and events in our neighborhood - it could safely be said that his look is the look of our little corner of Baltimore. This neighborhood is known to be hip and happy because of designs like these, for the Chop Shop, for Zeke's Coffee, for our neighborhood kid music festival.

One of Todd's designs modeled by a couple of the neighborhood urchins, Destroyer of Worlds and Zhou.

I didn't know what image I wanted for Pink Me, though, until halfway through this summer. This hot summer, my boys are 7 and 8, and we have done nothing. No camp, no organized activities. It's been fantastic. We go to the pool, we read books. No laundry - when you go directly from pajamas to swimsuits to pajamas again, there's not much to wash. Very little cooking. We eat sandwiches, burritos, sometimes I fry chicken. Frying chicken is less cooking per se than a craft project.

You see where this has led. This is an image I want to keep with me forever.

I hope to spend many years on the couch with my kids, buried in books. I hope Todd spends many years with his trio of non-sequitur-spouting spawn ("Mama! When you put your skeleton off and your skin off, no person! No person at all!"), buried in books (and art supplies). I hope everyone who stops by this site will find a book to share with a kid that makes them both happy.

And I hope it doesn't rain this afternoon so we can go to the pool.

Comments

[librarymama]

My dream summer! I intend to have a summer like this next year! Thanks for all the great reviews. I always look forward to reading them.

[Imee Baronda]

I thought it was all about the color pink which is my favorite :)...I will read the review to help me clarify...If the issue is pink, I'm getting curious...Oh! it's because I was pink fanatic...

From the Philippines,
Imee
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