I leave tomorrow to spend a week in Kansas City, and my email access will be thin to nill. Please contact my husband, author Greg Leitich Smith, if you need to get in touch with me. Thanks! Also, over at spookycyn, I offer a myriad of thoughts on the Time magazine special report on “Being 13.”

Linda Sue Park was awarded the 2005 Chicago Tribune Prize for Young Adult Fiction for Project Mulberry (Clarion, 2005).

YA Authors E. Lockhart and Libba Bray will be featured at the YA Authors Cafe on Tuesday, August 16 at 8:30 Eastern time, 7:30 Central, 5:30 Pacific. It’s easy! Simply go to www.yaauthorscafe.com and click the cafe chatroom icon (which is a brownish and slightly obscure box, located on the lower right hand side — it says Cafe Chatroom, but not “enter chatroom” so you have you just have faith and click on the thing), and join the chat by logging in with a screen name, kind of like AIM. E. Lockhart is the author of The Boyfriend List (15 guys, 11 shrink appointments, 4 ceramic frogs and me, ruby oliver)(Delacorte, 2005); Libba Bray is the author of A Great And Terrible Beauty (Delacorte, 2004) and Rebel Angels (Delacorte, 2005).

The Oklahoma Center for the Book has released its 2006 Call for Entries for the 17th Annual Oklahoma Book Awards. Eligibility criteria is: any individual, organization or company may enter in any category; books considered must have an Oklahoma-based theme, or entrants (authors, illustrators, designers) must live or have lived in Oklahoma; books must be published between January 1 and December 31, 2005; books (hardcover or paperback) previously entered are no long eligible. Categories include: Fiction; children/YA; design/illustration; non-fiction; and poetry. The deadline is Jan. 6, 2006; finalist will be notified in February; winners will be announced at the awards ceremony on March 11, 2006. No entry fee is required; entrants are responsible for shipping fees. Download entry form (PDF file); note: the Web site hasn’t been updated but OCB has sent out a mailing requesting entries. Write with any questions or comments. Note: two of my books, Jingle Dancer (Morrow, 2000) and Rain Is Not My Indian Name (HarperCollins, 2001), were finalists for the Oklahoma Book Award.

“Charlie and the Chocolate Factory:” A Teacher Movie Review by Jay Fung from CBC Magazine.

For Young Readers: Picture Books For Late Summer from the August 7, 2005, Washington Post. Includes Kindergarten Rocks by Katie Davis (Harcourt, 2005).

Padma’s book page: official author site features a short description of books of particualr interest to South Asians, South Asian Americans, Teachers and Librarians interested in multicultural juvenile literature. Padma’s latest book is: The Forbidden Temple, a collection of short stories set in India’s historical past.