Did you miss me?

It's been a couple of months since I last posted here, and boy, were they busy!  I had a couple of big commitments that took over my free time, and the holidays added to the hustle and bustle.  I'm back now, hoping to blog more regularly in the future.  I'm cutting myself some slack when it comes to book reviews, so if my posts are shorter or less detailed than before, it's done in hopes of not ending up, as I did last year, with an enormous pile of books awaiting review, and having to eventually face the fact that I am not going to get them reviewed at all.  This year, I'm working under the assumption that a brief review is better than no review.  Of course, I'll write longer ones when possible.

Also, this year I didn't do my predictions for the ALA Youth Media Awards as I have in the past.  That was partly because I was busy, but also partly because I was serving on the Geisel committee, so I would not have been able to talk about picture books, anyway, since they fall within the purview of that committee.

Here are the books our committee selected as particularly distinguished:

I am pleased and proud of our winners, and of the work done by our committee.  And I'm looking forward to getting this blog back up and running!