Thanksblogging

Because "Shoshana is a Sap Who Needs a Whole Month to Express Gratitude" would get annoying to type after a while, welcome to Thanksblogging, a series that's like Thankful Thursday except that it's going to last through November.

I'll start with a basic one: I'm thankful for the children's lit community in all its forms.

Before I'd heard of Simmons College and its Writing for Children program, a group of my Goucher College friends started a Children's Literature Circle. It remained pretty informal, but we did wax nostalgic about our childhood favorites and foster love-ridicule relationships with some children's series. At the time, it seemed like an obscure, quirky focus for a group of college students.(Of course, the publishing industry hadn't told us yet that we were "New Adults.")

Since then, I've learned that while children's literature can indeed be quirky, it isn't obscure, nor should it be. Lots of smart adults take seriously the importance of creating good books for kids and helping kids find them. I'm thankful that I've found a heck of a lot of those people and that that community extends far beyond Simmons. I get to spend a lot of time exchanging opinions with friends about books for kids and young adults, and at the risk of preaching to the choir, I've got to say that it's a lot of fun.

Happy November! Feel free to chime in with your own expressions of thankfulness, literature/writing-related or not.