Every Friday, we share a handful of links we found interesting, provocative, funny — or just plain cool. We call it In Our Feeds. Have a great weekend!

Since Halloween was last week, we hope it produced some creative thinking. Here's why creativity thrives in the dark.

Discarded books from the old Birmingham central library have been transformed into works of art at the new Library of Birmingham. Check them out here.

Tour the Wizarding World on a trip to London from BuzzFeed Travel. How cool is the Durmstrang ship!

We really love this pop-up reading room!

Who wants a Butterbeer? Evidently, you can now order one at Starbucks.

Speaking of Harry Potter, this chart shows your character counterpart on the MBTI personality test. PS- I am Prof. Snape!

The toy lover in me wanted to pull up the rug in my living room after reading this. Someone found a life size Monopoly board under their carpet!

We leave you this week with a heartwarming story from a Middle School Football team. Alex recommends you have tissues ready!

My holiday shopping is done. I've wrapped and labeled most of the gifts already.

This may seem slightly crazy but December is my busiest time at work and shopping then is pretty much out of the question. So I start early.

This year, though, I think a lot of people are going to be starting early. This year, it is the shortest possible holiday shopping season (the time between Thanksgiing and Christmas) so we are spending the next two weekends highlighting the best and brightest of our Holiday gifts at The Scholastic Store!

This weekend is all about Books and Crafts. (Next weekend, we bring out the Toys.) We'll be crafting Toolbox Jewelry and trying out the new Nail Style Studio from Klutz. There will also be a special guest storyteller - a Radio City Rockette from the annual Christmas Spectacular!

What will they be reading? Here's a few of our favorite books this year?

• Dinosaur Christmas
• Jedi Academy
• Spirit Animals Book 1: Wild Born
• The Last Present
• Train
• Cinderelephant
• Ripley's Special Edition

We also think that The Hunger Games Paperback Boxed Set and new Harry Potter Boxed Set are going to be big gifts this year!

Forgive my Friday morning pun but I couldn't help myself. Not only do I love the classic book From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler but I love a recent discovery made here at work. You really never know what you may find when you work with a program which has a history spanning over 90 years.

The Scholastic Art & Writing Awards has some powerful milestones and many of them come with great stories. For example, discovering this photo of Andy Warhol wearing his Gold Key was pretty amazing. And continuing the Warhol story, his grandniece won a Silver Key this year AND the Art.Write.Now Tour of traveling student works is going to be in the Andy Warhol Museum in Pittsburgh this February.  Pretty awesome. 

I have a new story for you. Scholastic, also more than 90 years old, has lots of packed away files in our offices and a literal archive. To our surprise, some recent file reorganization led us to an unexpected discovery.  A box of slides featuring individual winning student art of Scholastic Art & Writing Awards from the 1940s!!!  In it, we found beautiful pieces confirming what we've always known: teens are crazy talented. And to our surprise, Robert Clark's winning work (shown in this post) was among the pieces. You may not know that name right away but that's because when he became a well-known for his LOVE sculpture, he was already going by Robert Indiana. Again, pretty awesome.

We’re always looking for more stories. If you’re an alum of the Scholastic Art & Writing Awards, don’t be shy.  Share your memories with us. And if you are an aspiring teen artist or writer, don’t forget to submit to the Awards this year to join this impressive legacy.

Every other year, the federal government (specifically, the National Assessment Governing Board, which is appointed by the Secretary of Education) administers a national assessment known commonly as NAEP, or the Nation's Report Card.

As of now, it's probably the best barometer for measuring student performance across the country in math and reading. Scores have been ticking up very slightly in recent years. Still, only a little more than a third of all 8th graders score at the "proficient" level in reading and math.

This morning, the 2013 NAEP results were released. Scores showed another modest uptick, enough for Secretary of State to call them "absolutely encouraging." They showed that 36 percent of 8th graders were "proficient" in reading and math -- up from 33 percent in reading and 34 percent in math in 2011.

In a post over on our frizzle blog, Scholastic's Chief Academic Officer, Francie Alexander, suggested three areas of focus that could lead to significant improvement in these scores in the future:

1. Early learning: Too many students arrive at school on day 1 underprepared and unready to learn. We must provide families and communities with enriching educational opportunities starting at birth, and we must put into place programs in the early grades that meet every child at his or her level and propel them forward.
2. Technology: We must take advantage of the promise of technology – using it in ways that support proven instructional practices, provide opportunities for differentiated learning, and extend teaching and learning beyond the four walls of a classroom.
3. Common Core: It’s crucial that teachers and school districts have the resources they need to effectively implement the Common Core in their classrooms and schools – to ensure students get the most out of their school experience, and are prepared for college, careers and life. Otherwise, like other reforms before it, Common Core may fail to deliver for our students.

Do you agree?

You're going to want to remember the name Vega Jane.

Today, USA TODAY revealed the cover and excerpt of the new middle grade novel we're publishing that hits stores March 4, 2014: The Finisher, written by bestselling author David Baldacci!

The Finisher centers on 14-year-old Vega, who lives in the bleak village of Wormwood. Residents are told that outside the town's walls, there's nothing but the Quag, a forest filled with beasts. But everything changes when Vega's mentor disappears and leaves her a note hinting of what's more on the other side.

And if you're a film fan, listen up: the book  was optioned for film in September by Sony, to be produced by Matt Tolmach (The Amazing Spider-Man).

You can read the excerpt from the book over on USA TODAY. Meanwhile, what do you think of the cover? Pretty great, right?

Baldacci has also authored The 39 Clues: Vespers Rising, and even hosted an amazing virtual field trip at the Smithsonian called Decoding History. Go check them out!

I don't know about you, but I'm counting the days until the next movie in the Hunger Games series, Catching Fire, hits theaters (16 days, to be exact)!

Storia is giving five customers the chance to see the movie on them! If you purchase any Hunger Games title on the Storia eReading app from now until November 15th, you'll be entered to win one of five $50 gift cards which can be used to buy your tickets!

Storia is a free app available on PC, iPad, Kindle Fire, and selected Android tablets. If you're a first-time user, you'll get five free eBooks to get you started! There are tons of titles available that will keep you and your kids occupied until it's showtime!

Check out the official rules here, and then head over to Storia to pick out your books!

...you'd think it was election season or something ;)

No, but seriously: both Entertainment Weekly and Goodreads are giving readers the chance to vote for their favorite books!

Over at EW, they're hosting a March Madness-style bracket for Best YA Novel of All Time. (Sounds ambitious.) We're pretty thrilled to see such great titles in there -- including some of our favorites, like Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, the Shiver trilogy, The Invention of Hugo Cabret, The Arrival, and Born Confused.

Meanwhile, voting is also now open for the 2013 Goodreads Choice Awards! Scholastic has some great titles up for contention:
 

• Picture Books: Exclamation Mark by Amy Krouse Rosenthal and Tom Lichtenheld
• Middle Grade: The 39 Clues: Trust No One by Linda Sue Park; The Runaway King by Jennifer Nielsen; and Prisoner B-3087 by Alan Gratz

So go get your vote on!

In honor of Election Day, we've rounded up a few of our favorite election-themed books and teaching resources. Which election book would get your vote? Any others you'd add to the ballot? Share your thoughts in the comments below!

• Class Election from the Black Lagoon by Mike Thaler. Mean Mrs. Green is forcing everyone to run in the school election, but everyone just wants to run for their lives. (This title is also available as an enriched Storia ebook. A free teaching guide is available here.) 
• Clifford for Presidentby Norman Bridwell. Clifford the Big Red Dog is back, and this time he's running for President of the Birdwell Island Dog Park. Will he be the big winner?
• D is for Democracy by Elissa Grodin, Illustrated by Victor Juhasz. From "A for amendment" to "Z for Zeitgeist," "D is for Democracy" covers many of the basics of the United States political system.
• Duck for President by Doreen Cronin, Illustrated by Betsy Lewin. When Duck grows tired of his chores, he organizes an election to pick someone kinder as head of the farm. (There's even a free lesson plan associated with this book!)
• LaRue for Mayor: Letters from the Campaign Trail by Mark Teague. Ike finds his civil liberties at risk when Hugo Bugwort promises to crack down on free-roaming, fun-loving dogs. Ike is compelled to join the political fray and run for mayor himself.
• Presidente de la Claseby Johanna Hurwitz. It's election time, and Julio is pretty sure he can't win, especially not against smart, perfect, popular Cricket. Lucas, on the other hand, might stand a chance, and so Julio concentrates his efforts on campaigning for his friend.
• The Ballot Box Battle by Emily Arnold McCully. On election day in 1880, Cordelia prompts her neighbor to tell the heart wrenching story of her own childhood.
• The Kid Who Became Presidentby Dan Gutman. Judson Moon returns as the President of the United States in this hilarious sequel to The Kid Who Ran for President.

I can't believe it's already the holiday shopping season. I really want to give my niece and nephew the "gift of reading" this year, but are you just as overwhelmed as I am picking the right book for kids this holiday season?

Luckily, there is a great resource to point you in the right direction. Welcome to the The Spotlit Collection!

This is THE place to find guaranteed great reads. Scholastic recruited leading experts in the fields of education and children's books to hand-pick the top 50 books every kid should read per grade level (from pre-school to middle school). That's a total of 400 books!

The Spotlit collection aims to find books that are original, diverse, inspiring, re-readable and memorable, appealing to a wide range of kids' interests. It was no small task as our committee of 27 experts (ranging from librarians, teachers and book professionals) needed to carefully choose their top picks out of over 8,000 nominations.

To kick-off SPOTLIT this holiday season, I wanted to give our readers a "sneak peek" into what our collection has to offer. Here are two great infographics to check out and share on social media! Tweet away, my friends.

The first infographic highlights the diverse range of animal protagonists showcased in our SPOTLIT collection, ranging from dinosaurs to monkeys to penguins. Talk about a menagerie of heroes.

The second infographic showcases the numerous awards the books collectively have ranging from Newbery Medal Winners to National Book Awards and Finalists. 

To see the entire infographic, please go to our latest article on Scholastic Reading Club's blog  Book Box Daily.

Asa Butterfield visited our offices the other day to record this special reading message. "I'm not just an actor, I'm also a reader," he stresses in the video. He also talks a lot about the feelings one gets when reading a riveting book, and how neat it can be when that translates on the big screen. Butterfield knows a thing or two about books and movies; the actor has starred in many films that originated as books—Hugo (The Invention of Hugo Cabret), The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas, and most recently, Ender's Game.