In my bag of tricks for tonight’s reading are What the Sun Sees/What the Moon Sees by Nancy Tafuri, The Dog Who Loved the Moon by Cristina Garcia, Kitten’s First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes, Stars! Stars! Stars! by Bob Barner, How to Catch a Star by Oliver Jeffers, Sun & Moon by Lisa Desimini, The Sun’s Day by Mordicai Gerstein, and Star Climbing by Lou Fancher.

Had I miraculously figured out a way to bring my iPod back from the dead, I might have entertained the kids with one of my favorite They Might Be Giants tracks, “Why Does the Sun Shine?” and perhaps for scientific accuracy, their follow-up song “Why Does the Sun Really Shine?” but since neither will quite work for an  a capella tune I will probably stick with old standbys like “Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star” and “The Itsy Bitsy Spider” (because the sun comes out to dry up the rain.)

Do you have a favorite celestial bodies story? A favorite celestial bodies tune?

I’m thinking the life of a pre-internet writer pretty much consisted of sitting at a desk and writing. If they needed to look something up there was probably a dictionary close at hand. Something requiring more research might have involved a short note and a trip to the library at some point.

Modern writers have a wealth of information at their fingertips. Unfortunately, all that information can be a bit distracting. When I need to look something up, I just pop open my web browser (Who am I kidding? It’s probably already opened.) it can be anything from a complex research question to a very basic spelling question. Even though I have a dictionary within reach, it’s still easier to go to Google and let the search engine correct me on my misspelling.

Of course, once I have my answer all I need to do is head back over to the old work in progress, but usually I don’t. I remind myself that’s it’s been awhile since I’m visited those great lands of timesuck known as Twitter and Facebook. Also, I should check my email. I then waste three and half minutes watching the funny video someone sent me. Then I remember to read that blog I like, but there’s a link to another blog, and another. I discover a blog I’ve never read before and am instantly hooked, and oh look she’s soliciting captions or inspired stories for a funny photo so I have to use some of that creativity I should be using on the WIP.

By the time I get back to work, my stomach’s telling me it’s time to take a meal break. The illusion is that computers let us write so much faster than having to write things out by longhand or fighting with a typewriter, but I have a feeling that only computers without web access really let us work faster.

Well, now that I’ve caught up from my internet hiatus, it’s time to get back to work. Well, just as soon as I figure out how to fix my busted iPod. I should probably look that up on Google.

Still, I’m a little bit confused. Perhaps the movie’s producers missed out on this post from last year. Surely, if they were aware of the fact that my friend and I used to spend hours in her basement emulating penguins, jumping from the ping-pong table to a chair to an improvised penguin slide, they would certainly want to bring me in to help with all those penguin stunts. Hollywood, I know everything there is to know about penguin stunts, well as long as those stunts are being performed by kids with overactive imaginations and not actual penguins. Who am I kidding? It will probably be all CGI anyway.

Well, perhaps I just have to be content that a new generation will discover the magic of Mr. Popper’s Penguins and parents everywhere will find the furniture in their basements shoved into odd configurations while their children inexplicably waddle all over the place.

You can read the first chapter here, but I should warn you that the book will not be available until January. After reading this chapter, you’re going to wish you could get your hands on the book right away!

What books are on your to-read list?

So, if you’d like to learn a little bit more about me and find a great new blog head on over to The Book Scout.

That was nearly as bad as the time I sent my cousin an email about how I had won a writing contest. The only problem was that I had typed it as “one a writing contest.” I don’t know what was worse, the ironic typo or the fact that it was pointed out to me by my art major cousin.

Thankfully WordPress has a built in spellchecker or my most inadvertently funny typo would have been misspelling the word “inadvertently” in the title of this post. It took me three times to get it right.

So, be honest what’s the funniest typo you ever made?

Teenagers of today, if you will permit me a moment of geezerness, you don’t know how lucky you are. Not only do you have a huge collection of great books to read, you also have great library programs to take part in. I hope you make good use of booth! OK, my geezer moment is done.

Oh, and despite all that sleep deprivation, I still managed to get my first newsletter out by today’s deadline. I want to send out a quick congratulations to June at Writing Is a Blessing, who was the winner of the $50 gift certificate. And if you didn’t win this month, don’t worry next month could be your lucky month. I’m still figuring out next month’s prize, but I promise it will be good.

And now, in case you were wondering, I’m off to catch up on some more of that sleep!

I’m bringing along a nice stack of stories and depending on the patience of my attendees I’ll be reading some fish tales: The Pout-Pout Fish by Deborah Diesen and Shark in the Dark by Peter Bentley. Then there’s a story about a snail and a whale called appropriately enough The Snail and the Whale by Julia Donaldson. Penguins love the water too so I’ll be reading the classic Tacky the Penguin by Helen Lester and one that’s new to me, Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers. You can never go wrong with a Froggy book so on tonight’s agenda is Froggy Learns to Swim by Jonathan London. I found a fun and slightly more challenging counting book about a backyard pond called Splash! by Ann Jonas. Finally, I saved the gators for later with A Girl and Her Gator by Sean Bryan and Egad Alligator by Harriet Ziefert.

We’ll be tracing our hands to make our own octopi, and since some smart aleck will likely point out that alligators (update: thank you, Sarah, for picking up on this goof. I have yet to meet any 8-tentacled alligators, and I don’t want to either!) octopi have 8 tentacles and not 5, I will explain that our pictures will be all a matter of perspective. Those other 3 tentacles are simply hiding behind the other 5.

I hope that tonight’s storytime as well as your day goes swimmingly!

Oh, and just a reminder that you’ve still got time to get in on my own giveaway by signing up for my monthly email newsletter.