It's hard to believe it's already November! That means it's officially time for hot apple cider, cozy sweaters, and, of course, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo, for short).

Started in 1999 as a way to encourage anyone who has ever thought about writing a novel to simply take the first step and get their thoughts on paper, NaNoWriMo is now a popular challenge. In 2012 alone, 341,375 participants walked away novelists. (Why sign up? Great answer here.)

I've toyed around with the idea of signing up for NaNoWriMo for the past few years, but have always chickened out at the last minute. It's so easy to make excuses: I don't have enough time. I don't have a good idea for a book. It's too hard to write 50,000 in just 30 days. But this year, I decided to just bite the bullet and go for it. What do I have to lose?

Fellow OOMer Morgan has participated in NaNoWriMo in years past, so I went to her for some advice. I found her top five tips to be super helpful, and wanted to share them here:

1. Don't save all your writing for weekends. Do a little bit each day so you're not scrambling to finish at the end of the month. If you make writing a regular part of your routine and go "bird by bird" as author Anne Lamott suggests, the task will seem much more manageable.
2. Check your perfectionism at the door. Many writers -- myself included -- are super critical of their own work and like to treat each sentence carefully, making edits as they go. Unfortunately, that's not the best strategy during NaNoWriMo, when the goal is quantity, not quality. (Don't get me wrong--quality's obviously important. But if you stop to contemplate every single sentence, you'll wind up frustrated.)
3. Baby steps are ok. If you want to participate but aren't sure that you want to commit to writing 50,000 words, it's okay to challenge yourself on a smaller scale. Start by telling yourself you'll write 20,000 words or 25,000. So long as you're getting your thoughts down on paper (or screen), it's still more than you'd have written if you chose not to participate at all.
4. Take advantage of the forums, pep talks, Twitter chats, and other resources that NaNoWriMo offers. It's much easier to write when you know you're not alone! Turn to your fellow writers for support, and remember to offer the same in return. It's a great way to build your social network and strengthen your online presence. (Be sure to use #NaNoWriMo when tweeting!)

Though I'm only four days in (and a few hundred words behind where I should be), I wanted to add to Morgan's awesome advice. Suggestions from a NaNoWriMo newbie:

1. Keep motivation at your fingertips. I'm going into NaNoWriMo knowing that writer's block will inevitably strike, and wanted to have an arsenal of inspiration at the ready for when it does. So, like any true fanatic, I turned to Pinterest. Looking at a board full of reassurance from the writers I admire certainly makes me feel better than staring at my cursor blinking in Microsoft Word.
2. Squeeze in writing time whenever and wherever you can. In an ideal world, I'd write my entire novel in a quaint little coffee shop; unfortunately, that's not exactly realistic. I've learned that inspiration can strike anywhere, so I keep a Moleskin notebook and pen in my bag at all times. (I also rely heavily on my phone for note-taking on the go. If I happen to overhear a snippet of conversation that triggers a thought, it's more stealth to go that route than to whip out my notebook.)
3. Carve out writing time for yourself. It's tempting to prioritize others (especially if it's a means by which to procrastinate...) but if you don't make the time for it, who will? I like to treat my writing sessions as if they're a set plan with friends. I literally block off my calendar, hoping that will make it something I'm more likely to adhere to.
4. Tell other people that you're participating in NaNoWriMo. Not everybody, of course. No need to burden your parents AND your roommate AND your coworkers AND the barista at Starbucks. But formally saying the words "I'm writing a novel" aloud make it much more real, and then you begin to feel held accountable. Same goes for sharing on social media: no need to post your daily word counts on Facebook, but the occasional #NaNoWriMo tweet doesn't hurt.

Are you participating in NaNoWriMo? We'd love to hear your thoughts in terms of what does and does not work for you when settling into a writing routine. Best of luck with your novel!

Image via qrevolution

This week, as part of our Art of Read Every Day campaign, we're highlighting the work of children's book illustrator Yuyi Morales! 

Since emigrating to the USA in 1994, Yuyi Morales has created some of the most celebrated Latino works for children’s books, including Just a Minute and Just in Case, both winners of the Pura Belpré Medal. Yuyi says she “strives to capture the beauty of the everyday forms.” In her artwork for our Read Every Day campaign, she celebrates her Mexican heritage by illustrating our mission in Spanish: "Lee Todos Los Dias, Vive Mejor."

In her interview for this project, Morales says she discovered the existence of the public library shortly after arriving in the U.S. She fell in love with the children's book section in particular, where she could "learn anything I wanted to learn...from making puppets to baskets to handmade paper." Morales devoured books from the public library, which helped her discover she wanted to be an artist, and helped her hone her craft. 

Visit our Art of Read Every Day collection to view Morales's artwork and you'll also discover free companion resources for classroom, which includes:

• An interview with Yuyi Morales, where she discusses her first impressions of the United States, her early love of libraries, and the story behind her artwork for this project.
• A video of Morales reading aloud from Niño Wrestles the World (this is a MUST-WATCH if only for the voices Morales uses for each of the characters!)
• Common Core-ready discussion guides (best for grades K–2, 3–5)

Enjoy!

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!

Happy Friday, friends! We're kicking off November with a bunch of great links. Grab some of your leftover Halloween candy, snuggle up, and read on.

What happens when you celebrate National Cat Day and Halloween in the same week? This. (h/t Mike.) And speaking of Halloween, Megan sent over this awesome playlist, along with a piece about fictional literary ghouls. (Her favorite? Virginia "Woolfman.") It looks like Megan and Emma are on the same wavelength, because they both emailed me regarding some shocking news: Jane Austen's banknote portrait has supposedly been airbrushed -- or so says one biographer.

Also on our minds this week: lots of science. Anne sent over a really cool article from The Atlantic about the 50 greatest breakthroughs since the wheel. (Spoiler alert: #1 is the printing press! We're certainly thankful for that one.) Meanwhile, Morgan came across an NPR piece about the importance of encouraging childhood exploration. "Every child is born a scientist, testing hypotheses and pushing things to the limit to see what happens," Marcelo Gleiser writes. To that point, Brittany came across a beautiful video in which kids tell their mother how they really feel about her. (Grab tissues!)

As an avid Hunger Games fan -- I dressed up as Katniss for Halloween -- I loved the article that Morgan sent from the Shutterstock blog. In honor of the film adaptation of Catching Fire, which hits theaters November 22, Shutterstock scoured its footage library and created its own idea of what the 12 Districts of Panem might look like when presented to an outsider. So cool.

Lastly, I came across this BuzzFeed round-up of quotations that will inspire you to write more -- perfect, since NaNoWriMo starts today! (Good luck, fellow writers! May the odds be ever in your favor.) Have a great weekend!

Halloween has always been one of my favorite holidays. I take my costumes very seriously and it’s the one day when candy can supplement my every meal. Yesterday Halloween came early to Scholastic, as the book publishing division celebrated its sixth annual Halloween party and costume contest. Clad in costumes inspired by children’s books, members of the book publishing division enjoyed an abundance of sweet treats, snapped photos in front of a festive holiday backdrop, and showed off their costumes to an esteemed judging panel that included author R.L. Stine.

This Halloween party perfectly encapsulates everything I love about working at Scholastic. The entire division comes together to celebrate children’s books while simultaneously appreciating the creativity and passion of our colleagues. 

While you may not be able to judge a book by its cover, you can get a pretty clear sense of someone’s personality through his or her Scholastic Halloween costume. Some highlights this year included Assistant Editor Emellia Zamani dressed up as Frida Kahlo from Frida by Jonah Winter and illustrated by Ana Juan, the marketing team, who were inspired by David Shannon’s Bugs in My Hair! and choreographed a dance to “Jitterbug”, and the marketing creative services group who drew their inspiration from The Raven Boys by Maggie Stiefvater.

It's Halloween. And it's Thursday. This gave me only one option: create a Halloween-themed #ThrowBackThursday sildeshow. Yes, I've collected old photographs of the On Our Minds bloggers, all decked out in Halloween 80's and 90's awesomeness. You can refer to the top left-hand corner of each photograph to identify who is who!

I hope you treasure them as I have.

And HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

USA TODAY has been curating their bestseller list for 20 years now. In looking back at it, they wonder: what does the list say about what we read, and how we read it?

For starters, we sure have changed.

Back then, when USA TODAY began its best-seller lists, "J.K. Rowling was a struggling unknown writer teaching English in Portugal" and "Suzanne Collins was helping to write a children's TV show for Nickelodeon called Clarissa Explains It All." Today, of course, they're household names -- all thanks to books. They have a combined total of 225 million copies in print of their two bestselling series, Harry Potter and The Hunger Games (in case you needed a reminder!).

A lot more has changed in the past 20 years, though. For instance:

• The rise and fall of self-help: "Self-help and other advice titles were big during the first five years (1993-1998) when most books were bought in physical bookstores."
• Children's books shocked the world: "Rowling triggered Dickens-like excitement about reading and demolished the conventional wisdom about children's books in the second era (1999-2008), when online sales grew."
• Unexpected genres and formats: "Since 2009, fiction (as a percentage of best sellers) has risen to all-time highs and erotica went mainstream as e-books became the fastest growing part of the market."

The story highlights Harry Potter as part of the "British kids' books" trend, noting how "Rowling's boy wizard zapped" the notion that kids' books had limited market appeal.

"Rowling reinvented the idea of a series," Scholastic's president and CEO Dick Robinson told USA TODAY. "Young kids love to read the same stories over and over again and older kids love to read new versions of the characters they know. What J.K. did so brilliantly was to age the characters in her books, so her readers grew up with them as the books became more complex."

Check out the whole story, and an awesome slidehow featuring some familiar photos, right here.

How would you say your reading has changed over the past two decades?

Tomorrow is Halloween! That means we spent our day today:

A. getting some social media spooks with R.L. Stine

B. eating Halloween-themed cupcakes

C. watching scary book trailers on YouTube

D. all of the above!

It's true -- today we've done all of those things. R.L. Stine took over our social media accounts, which was great fun -- we'll share a recap later this week! I brought in some baked goods, which were pretty yummy, if I do say so myself. And Megan has been sending around links to some of the scariest book trailers on our YouTube channel! Here are some favorites:

• School of Fear by Gitty Daneshvari
• Abandon by Meg Cabot
• Clarity by Kim Harrington

Watching scary book trailers led us to talking about our favorite scary movies, of course. I love, love, love scary movies; a few weeks ago I added a ton of scary flicks to my Netflix queue, only I just realized I've only gotten around to watching one of them so far. Yikes. I guess I know what I'll be watching tonight...

How do you get in the Halloween spirit?

Emily Dickinson died more than a century ago. But the Belle of Amherst still speaks to us. Her disdain for convention would be recognizable to anyone who challenges the status quo—or is in the throes of adolescence. As Dickinson once wrote (in flowery script):
Assent - and you are sane -
Demur - you're straightway dangerous -
And handled with a Chain.

My favorite Dickinson poem from my high school days starts with this memorable line: "I'm Nobody! Who are you?"

Nearly every teenager, with the possible exception of the starting quarterback, can relate.

If you'd like to introduce your students to Dickinson's poetry, a new website makes her work more accessible than ever—that is, if your students can read script. You'll find remarkable images of poems scrawled on envelopes and scraps of paper, some adorned with flowers and doodles. The acidic musings came while Dickinson was tending to her garden and/or fretting about her health.

The site also has a lexicon with more than 9,000 words found in the poet's works.

Like every blogger, Dickinson now has her moment in the digital sun. What would she think? She told us long ago:
How dreary - to be - Somebody!
How public - like a Frog -
To tell one's name - the livelong June -
To an admiring Bog!

Bog, blog—these days, it's much the same.

Michael and I have been struggling with the age old question that faces parents of toddlers in late October – what will our children be for Halloween this year?

As with many things, that struggle turned into a conversation on what certain book characters should have been for Halloween. Our inevitable dorkiness has turned into a list. Here it is:

• In Clifford’s Halloween, Clifford dresses as a witch, a clown, a knight and even a ghost. Each of those neglects something about Clifford that should go without saying…he’s as tall as a house! So why not take advantage of that? Maybe Emily Elizabeth should rethink Halloween this year for the Big Red Dog and make him a dinosaur, King Kong or The BFG?
• Katniss probably isn’t all that interested in trick or treating, given that her take would probably include Greasy Sae’s soup and some dandelion greens but…we have a slight difference of opinion on what Katniss’s costume should be. Zombie hunter or Effie Trinket? Anyone have any thoughts?
• We are betting that Ramona Quimby would probably make her own costume. Maybe a rabbit? If so, we’re nominating Bunnicula or the Velveteen Rabbit.
• In our time at Scholastic, we’ve seen many Harry Potters (even a human sized Snitch!) but no one ever thinks of Mad-Eye Moody as a Halloween costume (except Barty Crouch Jr…) If Mad-Eye had to dress up, though, what would he be? Not known for his crafty side, we think he’d go simple – a T-shirt that says ‘Don’t call me Barty!’ or even ‘Muggle.’
• Did we mention that we have four toddlers between us? Basically, picture books are our friends these days. So we leave you with a new character – Phil from Hiding Phil! He’s an elephant and spends most of the book trying to hide (hence the title.) This exercise serves as a fantastic dress rehearsal for Halloween so we’re recommending Phil stick with the big pile of leaves. He could also paint himself red and go as a certain dog mentioned in the beginning of this post!

We hope everyone has a Happy Halloween! (Now we are off to make/buy a witch, pirate and two mouseketeer costumes!) 

By now, you should all about our new project, The Art of Read Every Day. (If not, here's a quick recap: The Art of Read Every Day features artwork from 13 of our favorite children's book illustrators, along with free companion resources for classrooms. Each week we're highlighting one of the 13 illustrators, their artwork, and the accompanying resources on our social media channels.) Got it? Good. 

This week, we're focusing on the fantastic Jeff Kinney! Kinney is the #1 bestselling creator of the Diary of a Wimpy Kid series, which has sold more than 85 million copies around the world. Know a reluctant reader? Send him or her Kinney's way; his work has been widely praised for its ability to turn struggling or resistant readers onto books.

"Dive into a good book" is the clever concept Kinney plays off of in his artwork for this project. I love that he fills a swimming pool full of books and kids reading—I think this one will definitely make kids of all ages laugh. Visit the site today and you'll find free resources for kids, including:

• Common Core-ready discussion guides (greades K-2 and 3-5)
• An interview with Jeff Kinney, where he speaks about some of his favorite books from his childhood, why he loves cartooning, and some fun facts about the Wimpy Kid series
• A video of Kinney reading aloud from The Diary of a Wimpy Kid

We hope you enjoy them as much as we do! And remember, all week long we'll be sharing these resources on our social media channels, so keep an eye out.