THIS Saturday, April 12th, is national “Drop Everything and Read” day.

To celebrate, BookSwim has put together the “Drop Everything and Read” Central Park Challenge!  We’re getting out 10-20,000 (that’s THOUSAND!) people to Central Park to set aside at least 30 minutes to Drop Everything and Read!!

We want to assemble readers in such large numbers as to show all of New York (maybe even all of America) that people still care about reading!

So, this Saturday, bring a book, a snack and a blanket to Central Park and meet us between 86th and 90th Street, along Central Park West (take the A, C or B, D subway to 86th Street).  We’ll be there all day, from 8am-6pm.

When you get there, you’ll be entered to win a 4-pack of tickets to Madison Square Garden for the NY Liberty opening day.  We’ll be giving away hard tickets all day long!  Then, when you complete at least 30 minutes of reading, we’ll have a prize bag for you.

NY Knicks’ John Starks and Randolph Morris, will be there reading, as well as NY Liberty’s Kym Hampton and other special guests!  Get more info about BookSwim’s “Drop Everything and Read” Central Park Challenge at BookSwim’s D.E.A.R. page.

The New York Public Library, Harper Collins Children’s Books, The Princeton Review, Gather.com, Verizon Wireless and the 92nd Street Y are all helping get the word out, but this won’t happen without your help!  Please put it on your calendar in pen, forward this e-mail on, create an e-vite and recruit your friends.

So it was timely that I happened on Friday to scan a copy of WAIT! Don’t Move To Canada! a strategy guide for despairing liberals to buck up, reclaim the word and the principles and reform the country by speaking out, blogging, writing letters and not giving up

I read today’s post on The Thin Red Line and started writing a comment that kept getting longer and longer.  The more I wrote, the less it felt like a comment and the more it felt like a post of its own.  i ended up leaving part as  a comment over there and the rest will be my post for today.

I’m sucking up to Alan over at The Thin Red Line because at work today (he works at a library) he snagged himself some Encyclopedia Brown books on my recommendation.  He is going to read them and do a feature on them.  I am cunningly starting a very low level movement to get a new generation of kids exposed to Leroy "Encyclopedia" Brown and his tough-girl bodyguard, Sally Kimball .  I’ve already started at work by loaning my copies to a coworker for her son.

From Wikipedia:

The enduring popularity of the Encyclopedia Brown books stems, at least partially, from the author’s refusal to talk down to his young audience. Many adult readers also find the mysteries challenging. In 1975, the Mystery Writers of America honored Sobol and his Encyclopedia Brown series with a Special Edgar Award.

Attempts by parents and teachers to persuade boys to read more are being undermined by publishers whose insistence on using lurid “Barbie” pink covers on books is turning away young male readers in their droves.

Wendy Cooling, of Bookstart, a charitable programme that encourages children to read, said she was dismayed that publishers were now using gender-specific marketing for certain children’s books. Whereas girls were not put off boys’ books, which tended to have primary colours, few boys dared to be seen reading a pink or purple book, even though they might otherwise enjoy it.

“Publishers are getting the covers wrong. Some stories are perfectly attractive to boys, but they are needlessly put off,” she said,

It says something very unpleasant about our society when the marketing people working for publishers feel they need to make their products outward appearance in a way geared towards attracting the attention of a single gender.

I know that when I was ten or twelve, I might have found it acceptable to read a pink or lavender book in my room with the door locked, but I wouldn’t have been caught dead carrying it around at school or other places.  The other boys already called me queer (ok, so they were right about that) and I would have sooner died than give them more ammunition.

I now read more on my Palm Treo than I ever thought I would.  As a result, book covers mean far less to me since I do not see them when I sit down to read one tiny screen at a time.