This Week’s Peanut Gallery

These Peanut Gallery posts are where we put up whatever we’ve found around the web responding to the latest BOB news. Be sure to let us know in the comments if we’ve missed yours and we will either add it here or put in our next Peanut Gallery post.

Reads for Keeps explores the Newbery Curse: Diving into the Absurd, wondering, “…how the books would fare if BoB occurred before the ALA Youth Media Awards? Does the Newbery sticker create a subtle bias on the part of the judges, who want to highlight books that didn’t get Official Award recognition?”

The Card Catalog considers Matches 1-4 and 5-8 and asks, “Will there ever be a year when none of the Battle of the Books judges use the old apples vs. oranges cliche?”.

Tales from a Loud Librarian’s Mock BoB finishes Round One with Matches 5 and 6 and then 7 and 8. As for Round Two, she’s going online. “I have collected blurbs from all the students about all the winning books. I am going to create an electronic survey for the students to use to vote. ” Check it all out here. 

Reading Adventures of a Librarian makes her picks for Round One, Matches  6, 7, and 8, noting that “It has been a triumphant week for middle grade.”  She then made her picks for Round Two here.

Liz B caught up with Round One, Matches 3,  4, and 5. What she liked best about Match 5? “How much I laughed. And not from being shocked so laughing — as I did with Match 6, more on that later — but just because Angleberger is funny.”

The dirigible plum gets caught up too writing about the judges’ decisions, ” …what I love even more is reading a piece that reframes a book for me, that makes me think about something, see something, admire something, in a book that I hadn’t thought about or seen or admired before.”

Random Musings of a Bibliophile is “…loving the battle this year so much. I don’t love many of the books, and I don’t agree with all the decisions. BUT. The decisions themselves have been amazing.”  See her picks for Round Two here.

Sondy’s got her second and third round picks here.

Eric Carpenter pointed fans of March: Book One to this delightful video of Congressman Lewis’s happy dancing.

As for tweets, here are a bunch  (and we’ve cut out the links, handles, and such to make the pithy comments easier to read):

• Patrick Ness ‏It’s been a slaughterfest on SLJ’s Battleofthe KidsBooks Like the Red Wedding. But with indie teens and whimsy.
• Cecilia Cackley It’s going to be REALLY hard to pick just one quote from today’s #sljbob match. 
• Patrick Ness ‏The Thing About Luck innocently pushes Rose Under Fire down the stairs in today’s SLJ Battleofthe KidsBooks
• Shawna Martin I’m loving this bit of Book-based bracketology sooo much the Battleofthe (kids) Books
• Patrick Ness ‏  “PS Be Eleven” takes “Midwinterblood” behind the woodshed in today’s SLJ Battleofthe KidsBooks
• carolyn gryphon Battleofthe Kids‘ Books ’14: some great reads. I was sad to see Doll Bones go, but agree with Eleanor & Park’s win. 
• LizB I hope @malindalo is happy for destroying my @SLJsBoBbrackets! (ok, so a few other judges did, also.) (all about me)
• brandymuses Even when I haven’t agreed with the decisions, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed the honest criticism all the @SLJsBoB judges have shown this year.
• citymousedc It’s going to be REALLY hard to pick just one quote from today’s#sljbob match. 
• 100scopenotes “Hokey Pokey is sort of Peter Pan times Pilgrim’s Progress times the Teletubbies.” 
• reads4keeps Today on #sljbob, a spectacular drawing of a blue raccoon-book hybrid…did Bingo eat too many dewberries?

Filed under: 2014, Peanut Gallery