Bloggiesta Mini-Challenge--Make some pages!

Yay for every one who took part in this challenge! Here's the list of page-makers as of Sunday afternoon.

It's Bloggiesta time, a wild and whacky marathon of blog improvement. Whether it's simply writing posts for the future, or doing major revamps of your layout, Bloggiesta is the time to make your blog better! Bloggiesta runs from March 30, 31 & April 1, and it's not too late to sign up!

One of the most enjoyable parts of Bloggiesta is taking part in mini-challenges--I know that I myself have found tips and tricks that never occured to me taking part in these in the past. This year I'm hosting my own mini-challenge, and, since the organizers have asked for links to be sent to the main site in advance of the weekend, I'm posting it now (I'll be adding a link to the challenge site when it's up).

Here's my challenge--Make Pages!

Pages are simply permentent posts that contain whatever information you want--the titles of your pages generally appear at the top of a blog, beneath the header. Lots of bloggers use pages for information about themselves and their review policies, which is fine, and clears the sidebar nicely. If you haven't done this, it's an easy and useful thing to do.

But I'm challenging you to put pages to an even better use!

If you are like me, you feel sad that so many great reviews are languishing in the depths of your blog, unvisited and unappreciated. You can use a permanent page to index your reviews, which is fine; however, this might not actually draw that many new readers. Instead, or in addition, why not have themed pages?

I myself have several of these. I have permanent pages in which I've organized links to all my time travel reviews, my multicultural sci fi/fantasy reviews, my fairy tale retelling posts, and my reviews of historical fantasy. Because these pages have titles that are search engine friendly ("time travel books"), they bring many more visitors to my blog than searches for specific books. I've also noticed that many more visitors click on my pages than on my labels--labels will pull up a thematic group of posts, but it's hard to skim a large number of reviews presented in their entirety.

My Time Travel page is the fourth most visited part of my blog, and it is awfully pleasing to see visitors click on multiple review links. At the top and bottom of this example pulled from yesterday's blogcounter log are examples of regular visitors; in the middle is someone who came to my blog, saw the time travel page, and stayed for almost 42 minutes to click through a gratifying number of the links (the bright pink box is the Time Travel page, the white boxes are mostly specific reviews. You can click on them for yourself, if you are very curious!):

ip98-163-107-32.dc.dc.cox.net [Srv]		Mar 27, 15:23:43	[0:00:00]
rrcs-64-183-221-202.sw.biz.rr.com [Srv]		Mar 27, 15:17:00	[0:41:58]
c-24-60-121-73.hsd1.ma.comcast.net [Srv]		Mar 27, 15:12:59	[0:00:00]

As a blog writer, this sort of visitor makes me feel like it's all worthwhile, and that I've created a Resource. As a blog reader, I'd love it if more people had thematic lists for me to peruse!

So here's how to make a page in blogger (you can have up to twenty):

click on new post
click on edit pages
click on new page
fill your new page with whatever you want it to have!
click publish

And here's how to do it in Wordpress:

Select the Administration > Pages > Add New option to begin writing a new Page.

The amount of information you put in your pages is of course up to you. I think the point is to make it easier for people to find books that interest them, and so whatever you think is useful should go into your list. Here's an example of a nice list at Ms Yingling Reads--the title of the page is "Adventure Books," and inside she's broken her list into various subcategories--outdoor adventures, spies, etc. She's also gone the extra step of short summaries.

So I challenge you--make a page! Make lots of pages! Use your labels as a starting point, perhaps. If you've reviewed lots of books about ghosts, or werewolves, or France, or hedgehogs--stick links to them all in a page on Sunday! Bring your old reviews out into the open again!

And just because challenges are more fun if there's a giveaway, anyone that makes a new page during Bloggiesta, and comes back to leave a link to it here (and I'll add all the links to this post) will be entered to win their choice of the following:

An ARC of Unbreak My Heart, by Melissa Walker (YA)

or

An ARC of Above, by Leah Bobet (YA)

Happy Bloggiesta! And many thanks to our hosts, Danielle of There's a Book, and Suey from It’s All About Books.

The Haunting of Nathaniel Wolfe, by Brian Keaney

The Haunting of Nathaniel Wolfe, by Brian Keaney (Hodder & Stoughton, April 1, 2012, middle grade, 240 pages).

On a smoky, foggy, fetid March evening in Victorian London, young Nathaniel is engaged in his usual occupation--selling tickets to his father's show, one that promises that the dead will speak from beyond the grave. The audience is desperate to receive news of their departed loved ones (or not so loved ones), but Nathaniel knows it's all trickery. But even though his father spends the bulk of the money drinking, at least it keeps a roof over their heads....

But then the unexpected happens.

"Up there on the stage beside his father was a shadow, a shape, blurred at first but becoming clearer with every passing moment until finally he was looking at the figure of a woman, dressed in a long white robe. Her eyes were the palest blue and they were fixed directly on him. With every fibre of his being he knew her for what she was: a ghost."

And so Nathaniel finds himself unwilling drawn into a dark mystery as he tries to find out just what this ghost wants....and how she died.

He's not alone in his quest--a new friend named Lily, a plucky servant girl, has her own part to play in solving the mystery. But as Lily and Nathaniel come closer to figuring out what happened to the dead woman, their own lives become at risk. Murderers don't always stop at just one victim....

This was a very satisfying murder mystery for young readers--I guessed a key aspect of the plot early (because of having read the right Dorothy Sayers) but that didn't keep me from being enthralled by Nathaniel and Lily's adventures. Although my credulity was a tad stretched toward the end, when Queen Victoria made an appearance, the mystery itself unfolded very nicely, and I was quite anxious on behalf of Nathaniel and Lily. Nathaniel in particular is a character for whom I found it easy to care--his life is of neglect and poverty, yet he manages to keep going bravely (without being annoyingly Plucky) .

The book might perhaps be hard sell for young readers who aren't drawn to historical fiction, but once the ghost starts haunting Nathaniel in earnest, the pace picks up. I think it's one where the cover will do a good job of sorting out the readers who will like it from those that won't, in as much at it's a cover of historical, spooky atmosphere, as opposed to a cover of Exciting Adventure. It's certainly one to offer any kid looking for a good ghost story, and I'd recommend it in particular to fans of Avi's historical fiction, or perhaps, moving in the other direction, to readers of The Wolves of Whilloughby Chase, by Joan Aiken, who found the farcical fun of that book a bit over the top, but enjoyed the historical mystery.

Here's another review, at Serendipity Reviews

(disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher)

A Stitch in Time, by Penelope Lively, for Timeslip Tuesday

Penelope Lively began her career as a writer for children, with the publication of Astercote (my review) in 1970. She continued to write for children up to the end of the 20th century, before turning entirely to adult books in the 21st. This, to my mind, is a shame, because her children's books are awfully good! Not least among them is today's Timeslip Tuesday book, A Stitch in Time (1976).

Maria is the dreamy only child of distant parents who make little effort to truly engage with her. They aren't bad parents--after all, they are taking her on a seaside vacation away from London to a rent house in Dorset, near the famous fossil cliffs of Lyme Regis (where Mary Anning made her discoveries). But still, Maria is used to being alone with her thoughts.

The house where Maria is staying is a Victorian period piece, and the past seems particularly close to the present. She begins to hear things that aren't there--the creak of a swing, the barking of a dog. When she sees the sampler embroidered by a Victorian girl named Harriet whose home it was, she begins to wonder, and worry, about what happened to that long gone girl...until on an expedition to the cliffs past and present collide, to give Maria a glimpse of a day long ago, when tragedy struck...or maybe not.

And in the meantime, Maria grows fascinated with fossils, and makes her first real friend--the boy staying in the house next door, who becomes her companion in exploration. As the days pass, she grows in confidence, until even her parents are forced to re-evaluate her as a person in her own right. To a large extent, the book is a character study of this lonely, intelligent girl, and it was lovely to see her change as the story progressed.

Up until the climax, which lasts only a page or two, the timeslip element is somewhat understated--more echoes of the past, than traveling to and from it. Even the pivotal scene has a dream-like quality. But the past is present enough enough so as to make this an intriguing mystery--like Maria, the reader (me at least) becomes more and more anxious for Harriet....

This isn't one for those who like Exciting Plots, but I'd say it's pretty much a must read for quite, bookish, imaginative girls, who will enjoy it lots.

I myself enjoyed it quite a bit because I've actually been to the very beach Maria so enjoyed exploring. Here are the boys and I enjoying a beautiful March day--the fossil cliffs of mudstone are (sort of) visible on the right.


I wouldn't let the boys scramble on the cliffs, which are indeed very dangerous looking, but the beach was littered with bits of the fossil-bearing mudstone, which we happily cracked open, and we came home with a number of scrappy ammonite fossils, even though we failed to find our own ichthyosaur.

And even though the weather didn't cooperate that first day, we had a lovely time, and I would love to go back someday now they are older--sadly, they were too young to really remember it.

We stayed in Charmouth, right next to the beach, at a lovely bed and breakfast called Swansmead. Here's the view of the beach from our window.
Reading A Stitch in Time, with all its lovely references to the fossils (they ever are included in the Victorian sampler that give the book its title) brought it all back...