Fast forward

We've been busy reading and making, gardening and baking.  All of it with support from our local library: I think we have a record number of books checked out.  Okay, over a 100 (how many do you have out right now? I'm curious).  I had several times that number checked out from the Grad Library at Michigan for years while I was writing my dissertation, so 100 library books doesn't sound like that much to me, but it seems to concern the librarians.  We've never lost one yet! I tell them cheerfully when they remark on it.  It's true: we keep them all in their own bookcase unless they're being read at bedtime.  Bedtime books are on the nightnightstand.

I have been hanging on to some of our library books longer than usual, just so I could write about them here: please look for a lot of short posts this week as I try to catch up.  Thanks for reading!

Miscellaneous Picture Books Now Organized by Color

This is the miscellaneous picture books shelf in our living room.  Yesterday there were about twice as many books all haphazardly jammed onto it; these are the ones that didn't get sorted into some other, more logical place or category.  I never (never!) thought I would organize books by color, but now I think it actually makes sense--for the miscellaneous picture books, at least.  The kids love the new arrangement, too: Leo helped me line the books up; and even three-year-old Milly can put them back (when she wants to, that is).

[If you think I'm crazy:  I saw this brilliant and beautiful book, Apples for Jam: A Colorful Cookbook by Tessa Kiros (Andrews McMeel, 2007) at Williams-Sonoma today.  The recipes are organized by the color of the food.  Thankfully, there's also an index (I checked).]

RIF

Reading is Fundamental is asking us to act now to reinstate RIF's funding.  From their website:  "The President's proposed budget for fiscal year 2009 eliminates the Inexpensive Book Distribution Program, which is the RIF Book Distribution Program. Unless Congress reinstates funding for this program, RIF would be unable to distribute 16 million books annually to the nation's youngest and most at-risk children."  Please consider contacting Congress in support of RIF via this link  (it's easy!).  And thank you to the children's lit bloggers who brought this to my attention.

[I love the cover image on The Art of Reading: Forty Illustrators Celebrate RIF's 40th Anniversary (Dutton, 2005)--Fred Marcellino's cat and mouse remind me a little of my kids when they're reading together.]

Listmaking

2008 is not even a week old and already I've lost track of what I've read this year.  Not quite, maybe, but that's where I'm headed.  Now is the time to set up some sort of system, but what?  I could try:

• A website like Goodreads or Library Thing
• An unpublished blog post
• Pen-and-paper.  Tricia keeps a list of titles in a notebook in her purse [see her helpful comment for how she keeps track of different kinds of books: picture books, teaching-related books, her own reading.  Thank you, Tricia!]
• Christie recommends BookCat, a database program designed to catalog book collections [see her helpful comment for more on how she uses BookCat to catalog picture books.  Thank you, Christie!]
• She also recommends keeping an annotated list with links (saves time later)
• Something else entirely

How do you do it?  Please advise.

[Oh, and what about picture books?  I read hundreds (upon hundreds, probably) of picture books.  I don't think it makes sense to keep track of all of them:  maybe just new releases and books we love?]