photo from ichabodhides’s photostream.

Alrighty then.

Can you hear that faint jingle of sleigh bells? Eep! Christmas is only 24 days away. Hope you had a good Thanksgiving. In my next life I’m coming back as pie. Actually, after this weekend, I’ve already become pie. Just call me pumpkin or chocolate pecan.
November 29th and 30th are very good days for literature. Born on the 29th: Louisa May Alcott, Madeleine L’Engle, C.S. Lewis, Katherine Paterson. Born on the 30th: Mark Twain, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Jonathan Swift, Margot Zemach. 
The incomparable Maira Kalman (Pursuit of Happiness) created an amazing Thanksgiving picture essay,"Back to the Land." She visited Alice Waters at Chez Panisse, a couple of edible schoolyards, walked to California in her head a couple of times, met Michael Pollan, and makes a great case for America becoming "less fastly fastly and more slowly slowly" when it comes to growing our food. Don’t know how she does it, but each month Maira tops herself, and I have to say this one is my favorite so far. Don’t miss it!
Corinne at the Paper Tigers Blog recently mentioned the OllyBolly Online Picture Book Project from Korea. Anyone with internet access can watch animated stories from various countries around the world. So far, Vietnam, the Philippines and Mongolia are represented. They will be building their list of culturally diverse offerings to include West Asia, South America and Africa in the coming months. Stories can be heard in English, Korean, or their original language.
Exciting announcement! Tarie of Into the Wardrobe has a new blog featuring children’s and YA books set in Asia, or with Asian characters by both Asian and non-Asian authors and illustrators from around the world. Asia in the Heart, World on the Mind, is a much needed resource in the kidlit blogosphere. We congratulate Tarie on this new venture and look forward to lots of reviews and interviews, and learning about titles we would otherwise never encounter through traditional channels. Tarie will also continue posting about general children’s and YA books at Into the Wardrobe.
If, like me, you plan to give a lot of children’s books as holiday gifts, make sure to check Chicken Spaghetti’s Best of the Best List as well as the nominated titles for the 2009 Cybils Awards for recommendations. Also, if you plan to order from Amazon, click through from the Cybils website widget. The small commission earned from the sale will help purchase prizes for the winning authors and pick up the tab for a few other minor expenses. 
If you happen to notice a little strangeness with my LJ cuts (text hidden behind a link), it’s not because I’m seeing double or making mistakes to get your attention. Ever since LJ updated its Rich Text Editor to FCKeditor 2.6.5., whenever I try to use LJ cut, instead of (Read More), it does this: (Read More)(Read More). It’s driving me crazy and I’ve put in a support request. Others are experiencing similar probs, so we’ll just have to be patient and hope they fix this bug soon. Till then, I hope you’ll continue to (Read More)(Read More)(Read More) . . .
Don’t forget to watch Grace Lin on the NBC Today Show this Friday, December 4th at 9:45 a.m. (EST)! Her wonderful middle grade novel, Where the Mountain Meets the Moon, was selected for Al Roker’s Children’s Book Club. Can’t wait to see the famous red dress!
Happy Monday and happy shopping and wrapping and mailing and eggnogging and decorating and partying and caroling. More 2009 Fall for Restaurants fun coming up in December! 

Copyright © 2009 Jama Rattigan of jama rattigan’s alphabet soup. All rights reserved.