BBAW: Future Treasure and a Few Thank You’s!

Before I move onto the topic for BBAW today I wanted to take a minute to say THANK YOU!

I’ve had a fantastic week with just the BBAW topics and posts, but the announcement that my site won for Best Kid Lit Book Blog this year completely blew me away. I woke up Monday morning to numerous messages on twitter and comments on posts offering congratulations, and I could hardly believe it. I’m truly beyond excited and so so honored. I’m so grateful to everyone who placed their vote for There’s A Book. Your comments, votes and daily conversations make me continually excited to jump back on each day. For this stay at home mom living in a practically new city it’s nice to know I already have some of my greatest friends all over the world, only a few clicks away. Thank you so much for your support, it truly means the world!

Thank you!

Book Blogger Appreciation Week is drawing to a close and I have to say I’m a bit sad. It’s been a fantastic week of getting to know new blogs, chat with new & old friends and find great new reads. Fortunately though, it doesn’t stop once the week is done and we will all still be able to enjoy each others company again & again. I’m truly looking forward to so much this coming year and the topic for today’s meme for BBAW fits in perfectly with this. So, without further hesitation, my goals for this year and suggestions for next years BBAW:

My Site Goals for the Coming Year:

• Review more! I review quite a bit now, but I’d like to change my site up a bit to offer more reviews in Children’s, MG and YA each day.
• Change up the site. Like I said, I want to review more. Don’t worry, the background and the little girl are going no where, but there are some things I’d like to do to make it a little different. So you’ll just have to wait and see what happens in the next few months!
• Comment more! I LOVE to comment, but recently I’ve been extremely bogged down with life. I’d like to free up a little more time to comment instead of just lurking.
• Participate in a few reading challenges. I didn’t jump in with any this year, because I was a bit too new and still figuring things out. This year I’d really like to try a few, like The O.W.L.’s In the Middle Grade Reading Challenge, as well as a few others, just to see what I end up reading because of it.
• Become more involved with the larger children’s literacy community. I know this one may seem silly, but I know there is a larger world of children’s literacy on the web (I read quite a few of the “big” blogs for them) and I’d like to get to know them better as well as learn from them. This is especially fitting as the Turkeybird and Littlebug will be in very different, but important, stages of learning on the literacy spectrum.
• Attend both BEA and ALA. I’ve already got things planned for ALA mid-winter and I’m getting things set up for BEA, so I’m hoping to make it to both. Primarily because I’d like to meet more bloggers and I’d love to meet, in person, some of the fantastic people I’ve worked with so far in publishing. It would be fantastic!

As for Book Blogger Appreciation Week Hopes for next year…

• More involvement. I know there are those still lurking, still wondering, if this is quite the right event for them and I’d love to be a part of the group that encourages participation, because it’s truly a wonderful event.
• Nominations. I know, I feel terrible for the board, because they’ve done a spectacular job this year. Thank you! If there was anything I’d change about the nomination process (because I did hear grumbling about the changes this year) it would be to have an option to nominate a blog. In that way, if there is an unknown or maybe someone too shy to step up on their own they could be “invited” to participate after having been nominated. I think this would be much more comfortable for some who are hesitant to “toot their own horn”.

That’s it for now! Thank you again to everyone on the Board for Book Blogger Appreciation Week as well as all the other unknowns who put in time and energy. It’s so appreciated! And thank you so much for all the fantastic comments and participation this year, I truly had SO much fun!