School Library Journal announced their best books of the year. I love seeing the excellently weird What If…? among their picture book picks. Click here to see the whole thing.

Kirkus always seems to have one of the biggest Best of the Year lists. It’s out and about now. Some titles you’ll know, some you likely won’t. Personally, I now need to get a look at I’m a Dirty Dinosaur. Click here to see the list.

ALSC recently released the 2014 update to their Graphic Novels Reading List, and you need to get over there and make sure you have them all. Click here to see the lists.

Tricky Vic: The Impossibly True Story of the Man Who Sold the Eiffel Tower by Greg Pizzoli. Out March 10, 2015

You probably know Greg Pizzoli from his Geisel Medal winning book The Watermelon Seed, but did you know that in a few scant months he’ll be switching gears to nonfiction? Tricky Vic tells the story of a con man who pulled an unbelievable scam with the Eiffel Tower as bait. Be on the lookout.

One of my favorite posts of the week comes from teacher Colby Sharp, who shares his Five Thoughts on Author Visits. A great reminder of all the positive things an author visit can bring to a school. If you’ve never hosted an author visit and you want to pitch your administrator or PTO, this is the perfect support.

This is useful. @PWKidsBookshelf has put together a free PDF of all their 2014 starred reviews. I also like the Accidental Bestsellers feature at the front of the guide. Who doesn’t want to hear the story behind Pete the Cat? Click here (or the tweet above) to read

I found this video thanks to Jen Robinson, and it is great. Third-grader Madison gets inspirational talking about the glory of Little Free Libraries. The more you watch, the better it gets.

Did you know there was such a thing as Kirkus TV? I did not, until I saw this video with Shannon and Dean Hale, the wife/husband team who most recently brought us The Princess in Black. Here they are talking about their collaboration.