Another Award, Attention Authors & Teaser Tuesday!

Thanks to MizB!

"She felt an irresistible draw toward her hooked target, followed by a strange snap sensation. She was within Chen Yong's being."
pg. 49 Silver Phoenix by Cindy Pon

Also authors if you are sending me books for the September giveaway extravaganza, would you please contact me (so that I know it's to giveaway not keep!)?

And I got another award :D

It's from Linday at Just Another Book Addict Thanks so much!
The Lemonade Award is a feel good award that shows great attitude or gratitude. Nominate this award to 10 blogs. In random order....



1. Wdebo from the Electrical Book Cafe

2. Susan at Color Online

3. Prodhi at Between the Lines

4. Kelsey at the Book Scout

5. All the Ya Ya YAs

6. Evelyn at Evelyn N. Alfred

7. Cheryl & Amber at Just Your Typical Book Blog

8. Diana at Diana Rodriguez Wallach Blog (I love her blog, she's so funny! Help her get on the Colbert Report :)

9. Tarie at Into the Wardrobe

10. Liz B. at A Chair, A Fireplace & A Tea Cozy

Love all your blogs, keep up the great work!

Teaser Tuesday & Why The Lack of POC Contests?

As always thanks to MizB for this meme!

"Now my clunky clogs come in handy-because I kick Zeus on his left Adidas under the dining room table. After a few seconds of silence, Caterina realizes that we aren't going to break away from twenty years of covert tradition, not even for our five minutes of fashion footage, so she continues probing with supa-catty questions."
-Catwalk by Deborah Gregory pg. 155

Now for my question. It's the same as a question I posted on my No New Crayons post but there was so much information in that post and I was being random so I decided to ask it again because I really do want to know people's thoughts about this and I'm basically just thinking out loud (or typing out loud!)

Question: Why are there very few (I can think of one right now and it's a challenge!) contests for YA books about people of color? In my case it's due to a sad lack of funds and I don't receive ARCs or anything like that (although from what I've read/seen there don't seem to be a whole lot of ARCS being sent to teens about people of color) so I'm way limited (my contest ends at midnight!). Am I missing something or has anyone else noticed this?

So I got to thinking, what can I do? And I realized I have no idea. I'm very shy about contacting authors/publishing companies because I don't want to seem too rude or forward. I'm certainly not blogging for the free books and I'd be giving them away so it's not so bad, but I just don't know. So authors or my more experienced fellow bloggers is that the way to go? Should I email the authors or the publishing companies or both?

Here's what I was thinking. My birthday is in September and I would love to throw a huge contest with YA books that are ONLY about poc. Ideally I would have at least one book or two books from each culture (Asian, Native American, Latina, African American). It'd be great if I could do multiple packs (like a historical fiction pack, realistic fiction, sci-fi, etc.) or a different culture a week kind of thing. So either I can try to contact authors or publishing companies and if that fails (or even if it succeeds) I can reach out to my fellow bloggers and see if they'd be willing to add a book to the giveaway or offer another idea or something.

Teaser Tuesday

Teaser Tuesday was thought up by MizB at should be reading

"Joyce studied Uhmma's eyebrows, which had begun to look slightly off center and crooked now that the swelling had receded. Joyce didn't want to say anything to make Uhmma more upset." The Fold by An Na pg. 149

Oh and I got my first award! How cool :) It's from Jessica at Eat Sleep Dance Read (the title of her blog pretty much sums up my life as well!) Thanks so much! This is probably the first time I've ever been called creative!
I'm supposed to list 7 of my fav things and nominate 7 bloggers.

These are a few of my favorite things
1. Reading
2. Hanging out with my friends (and laughing with them)
3. Dancing
4. Sleeping in
5. Watching my fav TV shows (So You Think You Can Dance, Gilmore Girls, Greek, Bones, The Closer & Lincoln Heights)
6. Not having to drive
7. Playing field hockey, soccer or basketball.

And the nominees are (*Oscar presenter voice* in random order)...
1. Taste Life Twice
2. The epic rat
3. The HappyNappy Bookseller
4. The Dreamer Reader
5. Steph Su Reads
6. The Shady Glade
7. Stop, Drop and Read!
Yay nominees! Yay Jessica! Yay Creativity! :D

Oh and I got to be a guest blogger at authorslatino.com for author Jo Ann Hernandez!. Check out my post!

Also storycasting.com is a lot of fun to play with! It's a website where you pick a book and then select various celebrities to play various characters in the book. A Wish After Midnight is there as well as Flygirl by Sherri L. Smith and So Not the Drama by Paula Chase (I recommended Flygirl & SNTD, they are really good about finding the books/actors you request!). I highly encourage everyone to check out the site!

*Update on Black weblog Awards: I am not a finalist. I'll take down the image in the sidebar so as not to cause any conufsion. So that's why no one could vote, I didn't make it to the finals. No worries, there's always next year!

Teaser Tuesday and Guest Blogging

Thanks to Should be Reading for this idea! Grab the book you are currently reading and open to a random page. Type two sentences that are on the page.

"Mattie squirms on the bed and rolls her lips together, trying to keep her questions inside. I can tell she has waited a long time for this moment."
-A Wish After Midnight by Zetta Elliott pg. 93
It's really good so far! :D

Also I guest blogged for Justine Larbalestier! So cool, and generous of her to allow me to do that while she traveled :) You can read my posts here and here I got such a wonderful and positive response! A great feeling of hope swelled within me, due to all the warm comments about white people trying to diversify their reading. And I have enough books in my tbr pile to last me the whole first semseter of school so thanks for that everyone! I met some great people while I guest blogged and learned about some new fabulous websites and blogs that will be added to my blogroll asap.

Teaser Tuesday & Blogging Help

Thanks to Should Be Reading for thinking of and sharing this idea.
Teaser Tuesday is when you pick a book you are currently reading to a random page and share 2 teaser sentences from that page.

Teaser: "Maybe Unlce Sam doesn't care about Thomas. Maybe a colored soldier doesn't have a chance in the world. But I do, mama. So what if they think I'm white? Let them see what they want to see, I'm still me." pg.55
-Flygirl by Sherri L. Smith
This isn't really a spoiler since part of this teaser is explained in the summary of the book. It's really good so far!

Also I need some blogging help. my sidebar is MIA. Well I know where it is, but it isn't at the side where I need it to be. I went to the Blogger help forum, but the answer they gave confused me a bit. Anyone know how I can change my floating sidebar, to put it right next to my posts? I'm one teenager who is technologically challenged. ;)

Another thing, the It Chicks review may be posted later today or pushed back till next week. I had a rough day today, so I'm not really up for writing a review.

One more thing. My Whale Talk review is my favorite review thus far. Please read and comment/email me your thoughts. Is my writing style too choppy? I was told that I write like I'm in a conversation, which I know I do. But I kinda like it that way, I see my reviews almost as a conversation. However, I also understand that writing that way can be confusing and I don't want my readers to be confused. What's your opinion on that? To write write or converse write? :P