"It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse races."

LeVar Burton, a children's literacy advocate and a former star of Star Trek: The Next Generation, plans to make an ambitious comeback, giving the once-loved Reading Rainbow brand a 21st-century upgrade.

Reading Rainbow: The Next Generation - The iconic brand returns--with a 21st-century upgrade for iPads.

Today is International Literacy Day!

International Literacy Day, traditionally observed annually on September 8, focuses attention on worldwide literacy needs. More than 780 million of the world’s adults (nearly two-thirds of whom are women) do not know how to read or write, and between 94 and 115 million children lack access to education.

Here is a list of every book the Reader-in-Chief has read since taking office.

It's the birthday of the British author of the "Harry Potter" series: J.K. Rowling, born in Yate, near Bristol, in 1965.

She was born Joanne, with no middle name; when the time came to publish her first book, Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (1997), her publishers wanted initials rather than her first and last name. She needed a middle initial, so she took her grandmother's name: Kathleen.

She studied French in college, and after college she went to work for Amnesty International as a secretary. She was on a train coming home to London from a weekend looking at flats in Manchester in 1990, when she suddenly got the idea for a novel. "I was looking out of the window at some cows, I believe and I just thought: 'Boy doesn't know he's a wizard — goes off to wizard school,'" she said in an interview with Stephen Fry. "I have no idea where it came from. I think the idea was floating along the train and looking for someone, and my mind was vacant enough, so it decided to zoom in there."

She found a publisher in 1996, and was paid an advance of £1,500, about $2,500. Six more books followed. Her rags-to-riches story is legendary: In five years' time, she went from being on public assistance to being a multimillionaire. She's now one of the richest women in Britain, even richer than the queen, and Forbes magazine estimates her net worth at 1 billion U.S. dollars.

Pottermore turns out to be a site where J.K. Rowling will sell e-book versions of her famous Harry Potter books.

What's coming from novelist J.K. Rowling in 5 days???
Publishers say it's not another book, so what is it???

Reading is sometimes an ingenious device for avoiding thought.
--Arthur Helps, writer (1813-1875)

The future of libraries in the e-book age.

In the current climate, libraries worry they'll become obsolete. Publishers are afraid they won't be able to make any money. That's why HarperCollins came up with a new e-book policy that says an e-book can be checked out 26 times, after which it has to be repurchased.

It's Read Across America Day.

You're never too old, too wacky, too wild
To pick up a book and read with a child.

You're never too busy, too cool, or too hot
To pick up a book and share what you've got.

In schools and communities, let's gather round,
Let's pick up a book, let's pass it around.

There are kids all around you, kids who will need
Someone to hug, someone to read.

Join us March 2nd in your own special way,
And make this America's Read to Kids Day!

In 1731, Ben Franklin founded America's first circulating library so that people could borrow books to read even though they might not have been able to afford to buy them.

One day when Franklin was dining out in Paris with some friends, one of the diners posed the question, "What condition of man most deserves pity?" Each guest proposed an example and Benjamin Franklin said,

"A lonesome man on a rainy day who does not know how to read.

It was on this day in 1843 that Charles Dickens published "A Christmas Carol".

Boulder Library offers free e-book rentals.
But they couldn't get a license for Amazon's Kindle...

Today is the birthday of Mark Twain. He was born 175 years ago in a log cabin in Florida, Missouri (1835).

Interestingly enough, his most popular book during his lifetime was "The Innocents Abroad"."Tom Sawyer" and "Huckleberry Finn" would be the winners today.

He decreed that his autobiography not be published till 100 years after his death. It came out just this fall, and was on the Bestseller list two weeks before its release.

Today is the birthday of C.S. Lewis, born in Ireland in 1898. The author of many famous children's book (as well as theological books) said:

"When I was ten, I read fairy tales in secret and would have been ashamed if I had been found doing so. Now that I am fifty I read them openly. When I became a man I put away childish things, including the fear of childishness and the desire to be very grown up.

Everywhere I have sought rest and not found it, except sitting in a corner by myself with a book.

--Thomas a Kempis, monk and author (1380-1471)

These are not books, lumps of lifeless paper, but minds alive on the shelves.
- -Gilbert Highet, writer (1906-1978)

It's Banned Books Week Check out the 10 most challenged books at this link.

"Reading furnishes the mind only with materials of knowledge; it is thinking that makes what we read ours."

--John Locke, English essayist, born 1632
His ideas were a foundation for much of the Declaration of Independence and the U.S. Constitution.

Google counts the world's books. Says there are 130 million.

Beverly Cleary's mischievous heroine, Ramona Quimby, comes to the screen in "Beezus and Ramona".

"She has an imagination," Beverly Cleary says of her most famous creation. "And some of her things just don't turn out the way she expected."

There are many little ways to enlarge your child's world. Love of books is the best of all.
--Jacqueline Kennedy

Today is the birthday of E. B. White, author and essayist. HIs wonderful children's books include "Charlotte's Web" and "The Trumpet of the Swan" He earned his living in the City, but was also a gentleman farmer in upstate New York, and this exposure to animal life gave him insights that shone in his writing.

E.B. White said: "I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve the world and a desire to enjoy the world. This makes it hard to plan the day."

It's the 50th anniversary of the publication of "To Kill a Mockingbird"

I totally remember the experience. It's just all these people In this town, and you are visiting and you stay, and then at the end, you can't believe that you have to leave, and then sooner or later, you go back again and revisit them all over again. "To Kill a Mockingbird" is probably in the top three of books like that, where you utterly live in the book, and walk around in the book, and know everyone down to the ground in the book, and then leave, and then inevitably come back.

One Book, One Twitter voters chose Neil Gaiman's 2001 novel American Gods as the club's first selection.

George Washington has two overdue library books....and a fine of $300,000.

It was on this day in 1833 that America's first tax-supported public library opened, in Peterborough, New Hampshire. Today, there are more than 9,000 public libraries in the United States, including the Peterborough Town Library, which is still going strong.

"I have always imagined that Paradise will be a kind of library."
--Jorge Luis Borges

It's the birthday of writer Douglas Adams, born in Cambridge, England (1952), best known for his five-book "trilogy" The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, a series of comic science fiction novels that sold more than 15 million copies, was translated into more than 30 languages, and inspired a cult-like following.

"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so."
--Douglas Adams

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

Dr. Seuss spent nine months composing "The Cat in the Hat". It uses just 220 different words and is 1,702 words long. He was a meticulous reviser, and he once said: "Writing for children is murder. A chapter has to be boiled down to a paragraph. Every word has to count."

Today is the birthday of the author who created Paddington Bear and wrote several children's books about the endearing ursine, Michael Bond, born in Newbury, England (1926).

He was out doing some last-minute Christmas shopping for his wife in 1957 when he came across a small toy bear sitting on a shelf. It was the only one in the display that had not been sold, and Bond thought the bear looked "very sorry for himself." He bought the bear and then named him "Paddington" because he and his wife lived near the Paddington underground station in London.

The bear is from Peru and had been sent to England — along with a jar of marmalade — by his Aunt Lucy. He wears a label that says, "Please look after this bear." Throughout a series of children's books, Paddington Bear gets into troublesome situations, but always emerges safely and everything turns out fine.

Joyce Meskis, owner of the Tattered Cover Book Store, says this about e-books:

"Will the e-book be the end of the book as we have come to know and love it…ink on paper between boards? No, culturally as a society I believe we also need the book as a physical manifestation of the thought it conveys."

Will 2010 mark the end of books?

For the first time, Kindle e-books outsold physical books at Amazon.com. On top of that, the Kindle e-reader officially became the most gifted item in the company's history. As we enter 2010, is this the future of literature: slim, streamlined frames filled with endless texts, polished with a modern veneer?

The contemporary building interior of the Bookstore Selexyz Dominicanen was designed by Merkx+Girod architects ... for the Dutch booksellers Selexyz Dominicanen. Merkx+Girod were commissioned ... to convert the interior of the former Dominican Church in Maastricht into a modern bookstore. ... The unique location in Maastricht however asked for a very different approach. The store demanded 1,200 sq m of commercial area where only 750 were available.

Church converted into magnificent bookstore

It's the birthday of horror novelist Stephen King, born in Portland, Maine (1947). His father, a merchant seaman, deserted the family when he was two. He has no memories of the man, but one day he found a boxful of his father's science fiction and fantasy paperbacks. That box of his father's books inspired him to start writing horror stories.

... we thought it would be fun to take a look at what’s on the bookshelves of some of our favorite authors. What books do they love, or consider to have been particularly enlightening, informative or just plain fun? What books do they keep? So we asked one of our all-time favorites, Neil Gaiman, if he’d be willing to give us a peek into his personal library, and he graciously agreed ... Naturally we’d assumed that someone whose work is filled with references ranging from literary to mythological would have a fairly extensive library but even so, we were a bit unprepared for the scope of what he sent us. In the basement of his house of secrets we find a room that’s wall-to-wall and floor-to-ceiling with books ...

Shelfari: Neil Gaiman's Bookshelves

"Reading Rainbow", the third most popular children's show on PBS since 1983, is coming to an end. A change in philosophy regarding how to teach kids to read is behind the demise.

I'm not the only one who takes a lot of books when I go on vacation Here is a list of the books President Obama took to Martha's Vineyard: (which add up to 2,352 pages)
There are three novels - The Way Home, Lush Life and Plainsong
and two works of non-fiction - John Adams and Hot, Flat and Crowded.

Of special note--Plainsong is written by Colorado author Kent Haruf, and is set in rural eastern Colorado.

Today is the birthday of author J. K. Rowling. She used her birth date (though not the year) as the birthday of her main character, Harry Potter.

Rowling grew up in rural England. She tried writing a couple of novels, but never finished them. One day on a cross-country train trip, the idea of Harry Potter just appeared in her mind. She didn't have a pen to write things down, so she said: "Rather than try to write it, I had to think it. And I think that was a very good thing. I was besieged by a mass of detail, and if it didn't survive that journey, it probably wasn't worth remembering." As soon as she got home, she started writing what she did remember.

Adams County Libraries shelve the Dewey Decimal System.

JD Salinger, author of the acclaimed American novel Catcher In The Rye, has gone to court to try to block the publication of an unauthorised sequel written by a fan calling himself John David California.

It's Read-Across-America Day
Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

Stephanie Rosalia's fifth-grade classes in the library are about more than books. School librarians today give their students a grounding in Internet research skills. Ms. Rosalia, 54, is part of a growing cadre of 21st-century multimedia specialists who help guide students through the digital ocean of information that confronts them on a daily basis. These new librarians believe that literacy includes, but also exceeds, books.

The artist brings something into the world that didn't exist before, and he does it without destroying something else.

John Updike, writer
(1932-2009)

A really amazing and stylish pop-up book:
ABC3D by Marion Bataille.

Jon Scieszka has been chosen the first Library of Congress National Ambassador to Children's Literature.

Infinite bookshelf can't hold infinite number of books, but looks cool anyway

An interview with the Guardian of "Beautiful Books"

This year marks the 100th anniversary of the publication of the Anne of Green Gables series. These beautifully written books were among the first to have a spunky female as the main character.

At the end of the first book, Anne muses

"Dear old world, you are very lovely , and I am glad to be alive in you."

There is no easy way to define the experience of seeing, holding, or reading J.K. Rowling's The Tales of Beedle the Bard, so let's just start with one word: "Whoa." The very fact of its existence (an artifact pulled straight out of a novel) is magical, not to mention the facts that only seven copies exist in all the world and each of the never-before-told tales is handwritten and illustrated by J.K. Rowling herself (and it's quite clear from the first few pages that she has some skill as an artist). Rowling's handwriting is like the familiar scrawl of a favorite aunt--it's not hard to read, but it does require attention--allowing you to take it slow and savor the mystery of each next word.

Book Case Bedroom: it's an Igloo of Books!

J.K.Rowling will be the commencement speaker at Harvard this year.

Denver named 4th most literate city in the U.S.

According to the Denver Post, a new book of fiction is published every 30 minutes and 200,000 books are published in the U.S. annually. I think I'm doing good to read three or four a week, but obviously I'll never keep up. One consolation...not all of them are worth reading!

Gordon's Jet Flight

Gordon's Jet Flight, a children's book from 1961, took me back to a golden age of plane travel, when passengers in coach got to eat steak, kids were allowed to visit the pilots in their cockpit, and Homeland Security didn't give my teddy bear a cavity search. (via)

This week is: Banned Books Week - Celebrating the Freedom to Read

One of my favorite authors Madeleine L'Engle has died at age 88. She won the Newbery Award for "A Wrinkle in Time", one of the first science fiction books for children.

"Children's literature is literature too difficult for adults to understand. "

We need the slower and more lasting stimulus of solitary reading as a relief from the pressure on eye, ear and nerves of the torrent of information and entertainment pouring from ever-open electronic jaws. It could end by stupefying us.

Every year the Bulwer-Lytton Prize is given to the work of fiction beginning with the worst opening sentence. Read this year's winner here. The prize is named for a 17th Century British novelist who penned th

My copy of the last Harry Potter book is winging its way across the Atlantic, and should arrive by Friday or the following Monday. Ben had gotten a library copy of the American version and has started into the 760 page tome. He should be done about the

I picked up my reserved copy of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows" at the Library this morning and am now 111 pages into the 759 that make up the total book. I put the book on the scales and it weighs 4 pounds! I will have to be careful how I hold

Scientific American interviews Alan Weisman about his upcoming book An Earth Without People.

It's a c

• US Cover Art
• UK Kids version Cover Art
• Posted by Jason to Books 

Scholastic Books has announced that it will print a record 12 million copies of "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows", the last in the HP series.There will also be a deluxe edition avai

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!
And congratulations to the National Education Association for it's 10th Anniversary Celebration of Read Across America!

Each time we re-read a book we get more out of it because we put more into it. A different person is reading it, and therefore it is a different book.
~ Murial Clark

I am number 1 on the Hold list at my library for the final book in the

Without books the development of civilization would have been impossible. They are the engines of change, windows on the world, "Lighthouses" as the poet said "erected in the sea of time." They are companions, teachers, magicians, bankers of the tre

A book will never let you down.

The National Book Awards were presented last night. Perhaps the most unsual thing about the award was that a graphic novel

The things I want to know are in books; my best friend is the man who'll get me a book I ain't read.
~ Abraham Lincoln

Banned Books Week is next week. I've added a little button on the right side of the site in honor of the "celebration"

Banned Books Week: Celebrating the Free

Today, September 6 is: Read a Book Day

It's Read Across America Day today, in conjunction with and in celebration of Dr. Seuss's birthday. I'm wearing my Cat in the Hat tie, and

Ben's class is reading Harry Potter and the Philophoser's Sorcerer's Stone (Ben is reading Philophoser's Stone), and that's inspired him to continue on with the series. He's completed books two, three, and finished four last night. Rig

This habit of reading ... is your pass to the most perfect pleasure that God has prepared for his creatures. It lasts when all other pleasures fade. It will make your hours pleasant to you as long as you live.
~ Anthony Trollope

I

Jo Rowling give us an early Christmas gift

I know you all expected this to happen on Christmas day, but I was sure that those of you who celebrate Christmas have