10 for 10 Picture Book is Coming!

Dear Cathy,

I have to be honest with you.   I don't have a clue what my #pb10for10 will be about this year.  If you recall last year I was SO ahead of the game and even changed my plan up to focus on a theme.  I don't know if you realized how big this was for me.  I like routine and by just tweaking my list each year a smidge, I've been comfortable with our project together.  However, since I had the list already by this time last year and it had a theme I am sweating just sitting here in my kitchen.  

What will I do?  This year life is a bit calmer because I'm going to be teaching second grade again.  Yahoo!  Maybe I can ponder what kinds of picture books I want to use right away because August 10th is my first teacher work day with students coming on the 12th!  Maybe I can think of a content area I need to collect books for.  Maybe I can make a collection for a writing or reading unit.  But wait, maybe I can collect some poetry books to share with my students.  Oh my, this idea of a theme has endless possibilities and while I'm thinking about all of the content theme areas why not a list of books to enjoy on any day of the school year, just because.  If I don't want to stress out about something new, I could always go back to an old list and think about tweaking that.  

I certainly hope our #pb10for10 friends will join us and stay tuned to my dilemma this year and that my thinking above helps them generate some ideas.  

Participating

We are hoping you will join us.  

1. Contact Us:  Contact us on our blogs, on Twitter (@mandyrobek or @cathymere), or by e-mail to let us know you are joining this event.  This way we can try to be sure we don't miss anyone on the day of the event.  

1. Grab a Badge:  Add the Picture Book 10 for 10 Badge to your blog.  

1. Choose your favorites:  All you need to do is choose ten picture books you cannot live without for whatever reason.  Believe me, that's not as easy as it sounds.  Here are some tips that might help (Choosing Picture Books and More About Choosing Picture Books). 

1. Write Your August 10th Post:  Write a post telling us about the 10 books you cannot live without.  Share your post on August 10th and link it to our Google Plus community, which Cathy will provide more information on and I will update that here.

1. No Blog?  No Problem:  If you don't have a blog this might be the perfect time to start one --- or you can find alternate ways to participate here.  Cathy and I are not huge rule followers so feel free to adjust as needed.  

1. Enjoy August 10th:  It's such a fun day to be in the blogging/twitter world!  We feel fortunate to have so many friends new and old join us and share some book love.  This is our 6th year and each year we aren't the only ones reserving lots of library books and/or increasing our personal book budgets!

Pass the news along to all your crazy picture book friends.  Educators, media specialists, parents, book enthusiasts are all welcome!  The more the merrier!