Symphonies around the world are looking for new ways to woo younger audiences into the concert halls, as their traditional audiences age and ticket sales dwindle. If young people won’t come to the symphony, the obvious thing to do is bring the symphony to them. [images from morguefile.com, composite by moi]

The Oregon Symphony: Playing Outside the Box

The Oregon Symphony did just that … took their the music to the streets with their  Classical Close-Up and Blitz Concerts. All intended to make the world of classical music accessible to all, in  fun and informal settings such as Powell’s Books, outdoor plazas, churches and cafes. They hope to bring new friends and families to the symphony, while sharing their passion for music.

Flash Mob Philharmonic: Copenhagen Metro

The Copenhagen Philharmonic went one step further… They took their music right onto the train flash-mob style, playing Peer Gynt to a car full of amazed and delighted commuters.

Bus Station Beethoven

At the Haymarket Bus Station in Newcastle, England, a pianist took the interactive approach. He engaged willing commuters to help him play what he calls Beethoven’s “Bus Station Sonata”. A refreshingly fun endeavor.

Metro Maestro: Joshua Bell Incognito in a D.C. Metro

A conversation about extraordinary music in everyday places wouldn’t be complete without mentioning Joshua Bell’s 2007 performance in a Washington D.C. metro station at rush hour. Many of you may have already heard about the experiment initiated by Gene Weingarten for The Washington Post. The purpose was to see how many harried commuters would take the time to listen to Joshua Bell, one of the nation’s greatest violinist, if he appeared incognito as a typical busker. You can read the full story here. It’s amazing. The premise of the experiment was…

 In a banal setting at an inconvenient time, would beauty transcend?

Sadly, in this case it didn’t. People rushed by, some kind enough to toss a few coins or a dollar bill into his open violin case. But the majority of the crowd didn’t even acknowledge his existence. He made a total of $32.00 in the 45 minutes he played on that Friday morning. That’s not counting the $20.00 given to him by the ONE person recognized him. Though, what was truly mind-boggling was over one thousand people couldn’t spare a few minutes to  listen to some of the most exquisite music in the world played on one of the most priceless instruments. Beauty brought right to them … on their way to work … only three feet away.

In 2007, I wouldn’t have recognized Joshua Bell as the world-class violinist that he is. But I think I would have stopped to listen to him play. I was fortunate enough to hear him play at Davies Symphony Hall in San Francisco, and there is a visceral energy he brings to his music that borders on otherworldly.

Extraordinary talent can be found in the most ordinary places. But the performers don’t have to be world-famous to be worth our time. Appreciate the beauty they bring into the world. Stop and listen. Enjoy the music.

Have you ever had an encounter with unexpected beauty,
musical or otherwise?

You know the song…

It means no worries for the rest of your days… It’s a problem free philosophy…

WARNING! Fart jokes ahead.
But seriously, what do you expect from a warthog?

Hakuna Matata

[From The Lion King, by Walt Disney Studios]

Well, you’ve got to get in the Dance-Party mood somehow.

But if that’s too much, too soon… Maybe a reminder about what’s really important is in order …  just the bare necessities…

This bear’ll get you dancing in no time…

[From The Jungle Book, by Walt Disney Studios]

That beat had to put a sway in those hips. No, I’m not inferring they are as big as Baloo’s! Chill, will ya?

Now go get your boogie boots. And make John Travolta wish he were like you-hoo-hoo! Note: Hula skirt, headdress, and coconut face mask are optional.

Dance it out!

[From The Jungle Book, by Walt Disney Studios]

If you couldn’t make The YAppiest Day on Earth, never fear! The YAppiness keeps rolling with giveaways of epic reads by each of the 17 authors.

This is the 3rd YAppiest Giveaway! See the “Here’s How” rules for a chance to win. For a complete list of upcoming giveaways, go here.

Ditched ~ A Love Story, by Robin Mellom

Food, a cell phone, and my dignity … all things I did not have.

The sun is coming up after an all-night prom-apalooza, and Justina Griffith is lying in a ditch at the side of Hollister Road. She’s been ditched. Literally and figuratively.

What’s worse is that her hideously stained thrift-store prom dress holds the only clues to how and why it happened. The throbbing bump on her head isn’t helping much in the memory department.

Justina isn’t the type of girl who dreamed of going to prom. So she wasn’t expecting her best friend, Ian Clark, to ask her. But he did … promising her the most amazing night ever. Ian, the one person who knew exactly when she needed licorice (for her low blood sugar), and always knew just the right thing to say…

Justina wonders how  ”the best night of her life” turn out so horribly wrong? It takes reliving the night of shame–stain-by-stain–in a tell-all confession to a couple of been-there-done-that women at 7-eleven for her to figure out how she ended up dateless and ditched.

Surprising & Funny  = Positively Delightful!

This is so not your typical prom-night-from-hell story. Trust me. DITCHED is fresh and surprising in more ways than I can say, without committing serious spoilers. Which you would hate me for later. No doubt.

What I can tell you is…

Justina is as honest and funny as the map of stains she traces along her iridescent blue prom dress to unravel the mess of her life. Curry, chicken marsala, soy sauce, and butter all play their part … as do the french-fry-shaped bruise, the ripped zipper (fixed with old bong-cleaner wire), and her new Tinkerbell-on-a-meth-binge tattoo. “So cliche,” Justina tells her 7-eleven confidants, “go to prom and end up with a tattoo.”

Then there’s the wonderfully quirky supporting cast of characters:

• The best friend: Hailey, who has a reputation for being wild, but knows how to spin it. Roll & deflect. That’s her motto.
• The guy: Ian, her best friend and — as she only recently realized — serious boyfriend material. He looks out for her low blood sugar, is the boy of every mother’s dreams, and asks her to prom with Hallmark promises.
• The mom: Seriously type-A and can’t help micro-managing Justina’s life — the  pride-parade-blue prom dress and dyed-to-match shoes were totally her idea — while making the best vegan curry on the planet.
• The Mikes: Justina’s pot-head lab partners, and their girlfriends — Serenity and Bliss, from the wrong school and equally wrong side of town — turn out to be the best comrades-in-arms a girl could be dumped with.
• The character arc: Justina’s inner journey is as comically cathartic as her outer one, but without the visible stains. Justina realizes her penchant for “assuming the worst” ensured just that … and then is brave enough to step beyond I’m-not-worthy to meet true love.

Shaken — not stirred — with copious confusion…

This just-right blend of riotous comedy and heartfelt truth makes for a read so delicious you won’t want it to end. I haven’t read anything this funny since Meg Cabot’s When Lightning Strikes (1-800-Where-R-You series). And that’s saying A LOT.

Bet you want to win a FREE copy now, don’t you?

Here’s how…

NOTE: The FREE giveaway of a copy of this book is open to residents of the United States and Canada only, due to shipping costs. My sincere apologies.

1. Leave a comment on this blog by midnight, May 20th (1 entry).
2. Tweet about this giveaway, including #yappiest in your tweet (1 entry).

I’ll tally the entries and choose a winner at random, then announce it on this blog on Saturday May 25th. Good luck!

Stay tuned for more YAppiests Giveaways!

The 2nd YAppiest Giveaway is for “BETA“ by Rachel Cohn. And because you are all so awesome … TWO lucky people will each receive a FREE copy of this amazing book!

And the Winners Are…

… Drum roll …

~oOo~

Sue Herondale

and

Barbara Forte Abate

CONGRATULATIONS LADIES!!!!

*** Tosses copious amounts of confetti! ***

~oOo~

Coming Up Next!

The 3rd YAppiest Giveaway for Ditched: A Love Story, by Robin Mellom is just around the corner, so…

Stay Tuned!

For a complete list of YAppiest Giveaways, go here.

If you blog long enough and are active on Twitter, Facebook, Tumbler, and insert-social-media-platforms-here, while still trying to meet your own writing goals, and balance the demands of a full-time job, family, or both… You’re bound to reach a point when the more you do seems to accomplish less and less. Watch for it, because it’s sneaky. And it’s a sure sign of impending burnout.

Burnout can happen to the best. But only if we let it.

Elizabeth S. Craig, wrote a wonderful post (on her Mystery Writing is Murder blog)  titled, Doing What We Can. In another post she offers 7 Tips for Controlling Social Media Time.

I’ve found another way to keep the social media craziness in perspective, though. Laugh about it. Nothing provides a better reality check than finding the humor in a stressful situation.

The old adage, “laughter is the best medicine” is true. It worked for Norman Cousins (as described in his book, Anatomy of an Illness) and I’ve found that it works for me too.

Don’t get me wrong. I’ve done my share of stressing over “doing more” on social media. But the other week I finally realized the frame of mind all that stressing put me in, and it looked a lot like Lucy in the chocolate factory … except without the calories or the silly hats!

So today I invite you to sit back and laugh, chortle, giggle, snicker, and outright guffaw with me at the absurdity of stressing over the social media treadmill by watching the following clip…

Lucy and the Chocolate Factory

What helps you to cope with social media overload?

Sharing is caring!

Much like those Flash Gordon serials, an awesome group of writer friends started a round-robin adventure story in which each of us contributes a chapter to the story, picking up where the last person left off.

The talented Laird Sapir provided the title and graphic for our tale: Lather: The Twinkle Jackson Story.

WARNING! If you don’t like to laugh and are easily offended by anything clever and fun, stop reading and RUN AWAY NOW!

If you’re the adventurous sort that enjoys a good chuckle, then I highly recommend you read ALL of the previous chapters. However, if you’re in a hurry … the remarkable S.M. Hutchins created a terrific summation that I’m carrying forward here (with a spoiler alert advisory!)…

Here’s what you missed…

• Chapter 1 by Tami Clayton – In which we meet Twinkle, his father Geraldo, and his mom Juniper Jackie who leaves to pursue her passion for tree climbing acrobatics. Twinkle is summoned by the Sparkle Sudz Soap spokesmodel (The Golden Goddess) through his television.
• Chapter 2 by Mike Schulenberg – In which we meet arch nemesis Lord Lobstar, his army of Shrimperators, and a cloaked figure named Jupernia.
• Chapter 3 by Liv Rancourt – In which we learn that The Golden Goddess is Jupernia’s sister.
• Chapter 4 by Ellen Gregory – In which Jupernia goes to Twinkle’s house for help, but Lord Lobstar lands his crustaship in the garden and Twinkle is captured.
• Chapter 5 by Richard Monro – In which Twinkle is tortured by the Shrimperators but manages to ward them off with Sparkle Sudz Soap.
• Chapter 6 by Kim Griffin – In which Jupernia tells Twinkle that soap won’t work against Lord Lobstar and we learn that Jupernia is actually long-lost Juniper Jackie.
• Chapter 7 by Jodi Lea Stewart – In which we learn Jupernia is from a planet of trees and Lord Lobstar plans to ruin her planet as well as earth. He’s a little angry ever since SpongeBob stole his girl.
• Chapter 8 by Cora Ramos – In which Jupernia explains to Twinkle and Geraldo why she really had to leave and devises a plan to thwart Lord Lobstar using paprika, soap, and lavender. Alas, Twinkle has run off.
• Chapter 9 by S.M. Hutchins – In which we meet Twinkle’s girlfriend, Surnia and her ducks, and discover that Twinkle and Geraldo secretly harbored cell phones. Twinkle learns the Golden Goddess is his aunt, and the two sisters are cooking up a plan with Sparkle Sudz Soap, paprika, and lavender.

Now for the next installment of the riotous saga…

~oOo~

Lather: The Twinkle Jackson Story
Chapter 10

The roar of rocket engines ripped through the sleepy town, drowning out the quacking ducks, and the yelling the sisters too. The sky above the Surnia’s cottage glowed branding iron red. Lord Lobstar’s battleship had arrived.

“Just in time,” Geraldo mumbled, glancing over at his wife and her sister. He didn’t need to hear what they were saying to know they didn’t have a clue. The waving arms and their tense expressions said it all. His throat tightened at the poignancy of the scene. All these years and she never guessed the truth. I did it for her … I did it for my boy. 

Geraldo’s shirt pocket fluttered, a vibration pulsed against his heart signaling the beginning of the end. No time for sappy sentiment.

Geraldo pulled out his trusty carving knife with military efficiency. He’d taken his knife everywhere and nobody ever looked at it twice–certainly not his wife or son. It was how he was able to keep his secret all of those years. The top of the knife handle flashed red. The corners of Geraldo’s mouth turned up in a smile. Everything’s going according to plan.

The engines of Lobstar’s space ship idled to a hum, just as Geraldo pressed a button on the knife handle and spoke into the blade. “Yes, Mr. President. Operation Lobstar Bisque is a go. We’re set to frappe.”

Geraldo flicked off the device, slipping it back into his pocket. Then he turned to the group with their wide eyes and open mouths. “What?” Geraldo asked, trying to hide his satisfaction. He’d finally prove to his wife and son that he wasn’t a half-witted whittling hoarder. No. He’d been deep undercover on a ulta-top secret mission to defend the nation and the world from its deadliest enemy.

“You were talking into your knife? To the President of the United States?” Jupernia asked, the words sounding stranger outloud than they had in her head. “Are you insane?”

“No, m’ am, he is not,” a deep voice boomed from the silent gray shadow that hovered over head, the stealthiest of aircraft. “For your safety and the well fare of this planet, follow agent Willis’ orders. NOW!”

Jupernia sucked in a deep breath, as if she’d been sucker punched.  Geraldo’s face flushed with pride at the respect that sparked to life in his son’s eyes.

“You’re a secret agent?” Twinkle asked with awe. Geraldo nodded. “That is so cool.”

“Agent Willis?” Was all Jupernia could muster.

“Bruce Willis,” Geraldo corrected her, pulling off a wig to show off his clean-shaven head, then pointed to the still hovering aircraft. “We’ve got to move, or even they won’t be able to save us.”

Agent Bruce Willis (a.k.a. Geraldo) barked the orders. “Surnia, get the duck militia into a flying wedge formation at the edge of the clearing where Lobstar is landing. Jupernia, you and your sister take the paprika cans to the opposite side of the clearing. Twinkle, you come with me.”

“What do we do with the paprika?” Jupernia asked, looking to her sister and then back to her husband. The paprika, lavender, and Sparkle Sudz Soap plan had all been so clear minutes ago. Now her mind jingled like the spurs on her boots.

“It’s not paprika, dear. Those cans are filled with gold dust. None of the items on the shrink wrapped pallets in our house are what they seem. I was paid in gold for the sacrifices I made … we’ve made…. all these years. Now we’re going to use some of that gold to lure the greedy Lord Lobstar and his shrimpernators out of their craft, so Twinkle can…”

“We’re rich?” Jupernia interrupted, more surprised by this than finding out her husband is a super-top-secret spy.

“Obscenely,” Agent Bruce Willis replied, with a thrust of his chin. Jupernia was about the throw her arms around his neck and place a big wet one on him, when the ground vibrated beneath their feet.

“Earthquake?” Twinkle asked, grabbing hold of a tree to steady himself. “And my girlfriend … is she a secret agent too?”

Agent Bruce Willis shook his head. His son was a little slow of the uptake  at times. “No earthquake. It’s the reverse thrusts of Lobstar’s craft. They’re landing. As for your girlfriend… that’s her story to tell.”

“Come on, Sis,” Jupernia called, jumping into action. “We’d better get kickin’ to give Lobstar his lickin’.” She was determined to take Lord Lobstar down. After all, she had a family and new found fortune to fight for!

“What about me?” Twinkle asked, edging closer. “What am I supposed to do?”

“What we practiced every night before you went to bed. Sing your song, my boy. But this time like your life  depends on it. Because it probably does.”

“Sing? Really?” Twinkle asked, with a confused shake of his radiant curls.

Agent Bruce Willis pulled a plain looking wooden recorder out of his pocket, and held it up. All those years I spent carving were to make this, an instrument with perfect pitch. This recorder’s tonal quality, combined with the harmonic resonance of your voice, creates a cataclysmic weapon.”

Twinkle shrugged. “Dude, if you say so… But seriously, I don’t get it.”

“You will son. But not if we don’t hurry.”

Agent Bruce Willis (aka Geraldo) and Twinkle skidded into the clearing just as the engines of Lobstar’s airship went silent. Portals opened, and long, slender ray guns pushed out through the crusty hull.

Agent Willis looked to the left and nodded to Surnia. The ducks were in formation, and Surnia was poised with the duck whistle ready. To his right, Jupernia and her Golden Goddess sister held the paprika tins filled with gold dust. No small feat, since the Costco-size super-value tins easily weighed fifty pounds each. Twinkle stood by his side. Everything was in place.

The silent gray shadow pressed down, like a dingy accoustic ceiling. “Stand down, Lobstar! We’re prepared to make the trade,” General Quackenbush boomed from above.

“You’ll give up the boy without a fight?” Lobstar asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

“I’m not a boy!” Twinkle shouted, not that anyone was listening.

“Better. We’ll give you gold,” Quackenbush countered. “We know about your plans to sell Twinkle on the black market. We’ll give you twice his going rate, if you leave in peace.”

A strange and disturbingly disgusting gurgling reverberated from Lobstar’s ship. Twinkle wrinkled his nose in disgust.

“He’s salivating,” Agent Bruce Willis whispered. “It’s working.”

Agent Bruce Willis motioned for Jupernia and her sister to bring the gold into the clearing. And as they did, they removed the lids so the gold dust sparkleed in the sun the late afternoon sun.

Lobstar’s ship door slid open, his claws clanking as he waddled down the ramp. The shrimpernators followed in their master’s wake, eyes fixated on the luminous metal.

“It’s enough to win my true love back,” Lord Lobstar mumbled.

Agent Bruce Willis held his breath until Lord Lobstar reached the overlarge tins of shimmering gold. As soon as Lobstar dipped his gigantic crusty claw into the sparkling metal, he signaled the Attack Quacks into action and yelled, “Yippee frappe mother duckers!”

Surnia blew her whistle sending the gaggle quacking into flight. The  volume and pitch of the ducks created severe neuroligical side effects in the crustaceans, causing them to hop and twitch like they had ants in their pants.

But that was just the “one” of the “one-two” punch. Agent Bruce Willis nodded to Twinkle, then raised the recorder to his lips, playing the notes to Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. Twinkle threw back his shoulders and belted out the song — his song — with such a rich resonance and timber that it brought tears to Jupernia’s eyes.

“My son’s an opera singer,” she sighed, dabbing her eyes with her kerchief.

Twinkle’s fabulous voice had quite the opposite effect on Lord Lobstar and the shrimpernators. They might have been crusty on the outside, but their delicate nervous systems couldn’t withstand the power of Twinkle’s voice, augmented by Agent Willis’ secret weapon recorder. The crustaceans dropped to the ground and flopped around, like bacon sizzling on the griddle. But just like grease when it gets too hot, the crustaceans exploded in syncopated crustacean combustion .

“Works better than Sparkle Soap Sudz,” remarked Twinkle nodding with approval, just as Surnia threw herself at him, wrapping her arms and legs around him.

“My shining star,” she sighed, ripping off her wig to reveal lustrous curls that only Twinkle’s could rival.

~oOo~

To be continued … we hope…

If you couldn’t make The YAppiest Day on Earth, never fear! The YAppiness keeps rolling with giveaways of epic reads by each of the 17 authors.

This is the 2nd YAppiest Giveaway! See the rules below for a chance to win. For a complete list of upcoming giveaways, go here.

BETA, by Rachel Cohn

Earth. After the Water Wars. Scientific breakthroughs have restored the planet’s ecosystems, and provided the ability to create new ones. BETA takes place on a bio-engineered island paradise where only the fabulously wealthy can afford to visit, much less live. Bio-engineering made advances in other areas too, such as the ability to clone humans. Clones whose sole purpose is to serve humans…

Elysia is a sixteen-year-old clone, a trial teenage model called a Beta. She wakes up in a laboratory after being replicated from a human teenage girl who had to die for Elysia to exist. Or so she is told by the doctor who made her, along with the facts that she has no soul, no feelings, or desires. Everything has been programmed into her data chip, and clones that deviate from their programmed behaviors are defects that are expired.

Aesthetically perfect, Elysia is purchased as a companion for a wealthy family. Her life is idyllic, until she discovers she can taste and enjoy chocolate, something only a defect could do. Determined to keep her defect a secret, Elysia goes to great lengths to serve her human family. The island paradise is heaven on earth, still Elysia soon sees that the human inhabitants are filled with discontent. Then come the hushed rumors of turmoil among the island’s worker clones.

Elysia wouldn’t dream of fighting for her freedom, until the clone boy she falls in love with is taken away from her. Emotions she doesn’t understand consume her: rage, terror, and desperation. But if she’s to survive and find the boy she loves, she must be stronger than she ever thought possible.

A Spellbinding Tour De Force

This story is wonderful on many levels. I as hooked by the first line:

It’s me she wants to purchase.

Written in the first-person, Elysia — the Beta clone — takes us on her journey of awakening and self-discovery. We experience the island paradise through her eyes, as well as the self-centered family who buys her and their discontented friends.

BETA is a compelling love story where horrifying stakes unfold. Elysia lives in a world where clones are brutally tortured and murdered, if they show the slightest sign of individual thought or emotion. This makes Elysia’s defect experiences all the more dangerous.

To us, owning slaves is a repulsive, archaic practice. But this story puts a new spin on the age-old question: Is it right to own another living thing? Just because we *think* something doesn’t have feelings, doesn’t mean it’s true. Elysia, shows us that her subjugation is every bit as real and painful as it would be for any human.

In order for Elysia to change her destiny, she has to dig deep for the courage to fight back and go after what she loves. It’s ironic that in her decadent and corrupt world, Elysia–the Beta clone–is more compassionate and alive than the humans she’s come to know. We’re left hoping Elysia finds the boy clone she loves, and that the insurrection succeeds in winning clones their freedom. But we’ll have to wait for the sequel to find out…

Awesome, right?
Want to win a FREE copy?

Here’s how…

NOTE: The FREE giveaway of a copy of this book is open to residents of the United States and Canada only, due to shipping costs. My sincere apologies.

1. Leave a comment on this blog by midnight, May 7th (1 entry).
2. Tweet about this giveaway, including #yappiest in your tweet (1 entry).

I’ll tally the entries and choose a winner at random, then announce it on this blog on Saturday May 11th. Good luck!

Stay tuned for more YAppiests Giveaways!

The first YAppiest Giveaway is for  ALL THESE THINGS I’VE DONE and BECAUSE IT IS MY BLOOD, by Garbrielle Zevin.

And the Winner is…

… Drum roll …

~oOo~

Emma Snow

~oOo~

CONGRATULATIONS!!!!

*** Tosses Confetti ***

The YAppiest Giveaway for BETA, by Rachel Cohn is just around the corner, so…

Stay Tuned!

For a complete list of YAppiest Giveaways, go here.

Today is Shakespeare’s 449th birthday! If you missed last year’s Bardacious Birthday post on YA-spin adaptations of his plays, you can read it here.

This year I wanted to do a celebratory shout out for Shakespeare’s happy plays … the romantic comedies. Rom-coms, in the current vernacular

Shakespeare’s comedies are my favorites, shallow (but happily so) as that may be. Though I’m not alone, if you consider how long they’ve been hits … 400+ years!

When I was researching my post, Rom-Coms ~The Lighter Side of Love, I came across an article that claimed “Shakespeare was the first [author] to make rom-coms popular.” I don’t know if that’s true. But it sounds true, so I’m going to roll with it seeing how it’s his birthday and all.

The following is a list of Shakespeare’s comedies. I’m sure you’ve heard of at least a few, and maybe even seen a movie of one or two:

• All’s Well That Ends Well
• As You Like It
• The Comedy of Errors
• Love’s Labour’s Lost
• Measure for Measure
• The Merchant of Venice
• The Merry Wives of Windsor
• A Midsummer Night’s Dream
• Much Ado About Nothing
• Pericles, Prince of Tyre
• The Taming of the Shrew
• The Tempest
• Twelfth Night
• The Two Gentlemen of Verona
• The Two Noble Kinsmen
• The Winter’s Tale

Forsooth! Formulaic or Fantastic?

I may be a huge Shakespeare comedy fan, but there are some who insist his comedies are formulaic. That he even “borrowed” the formula and used it over, and over, and over again. Whatever.

I love Shakespeare’s comedies for what they are — witty and fun. In their time, they entertained nobility and the uneducated common folk. In the same theater. No small feat, breaching a target audience gap that wide.

How now! A 16 Play Mashup!

Shakespeare was a man of his time, and if he were alive today he’d embrace the humor and whimsy of our modern world. Enter the mashup. It’s popular in today’s music, why not plays? The following mashup of Shakespeare’s 16 comedies was contrived by none other than the raucously irreverent Reduced Shakespeare Company (RSC), creators of the Othello Rap…

The Comedy of Two Well Measured Gentlemen Lost in the Merry Wives of Venice on a Midsummer’s-Twelfth Night in Winter; or Cymbeline Taming Pericles the Merchant in the Tempest of Love as Much as you like it for Nothing; or Four Weddings and a Transvestite

Trust me. You don’t want to miss the performance of the comedy mashup…

Reduced Shakespeare Company ~ 16 Comedies in 4 Minutes!

Operation Teen Book Drop (OTBD) has been a Teen Literature Day event since 2009. It was initiated by readergirlz, a literacy and social media project for teens that has been awarded the National Book Award for Innovations in Reading.

Here’s what Publishers Weekly says about OTBD…

… followers of the Readergirlz blog and others celebrate [Teen Literature Day] by taking part in “Rock the Drop,” the guerilla-style book distribution scheme in which YA fans leave copies of favorite books in public spaces for readers to pick up and enjoy.

How awesome is that?

I’m embarrassed to admit that OTBD only came onto my radar last year, when I noticed #rockthedrop on the Twitter feed. This year, I FINALLY got a clue and joined the fun!

Getting Ready to Rock the Drop!

There was a little prep work to get ready for “the drop”. This was to make sure the teens who find the books know they are a “gift” and theirs to keep.

First I printed out the  book-plate designed by the talented Lindsay Frantz! Then, I fixed a book-plate inside each book.

Next, to make it super obvious (at first glance) that the books are *supposed to* be taken, I created bookmark-style signs that I stuck in each book. Here’s my OTBD stash and prep work:

Next year I’ll be better prepared! Just days before finding out about OTB, I donated several bags of YA books to the public library. Next year they’ll all go to Operation Teen Book Drop. And I’ll custom design snazzy “TAKE ME ~ YOU WIN!” bookmark thingies too.

Note: Anything worth doing well is worth overdoing!

Rocking the Drop!

Here’s how it works:

1. Leave books in public places where teens are most likely to find them.
2. Take photos. I used Instagram on my iPhone.
3. Tweet the photos, along with the location, using the hashtag #rockthedrop.
4. Follow @readergirlz on Twitter and watch the #rockthedrop feed. Fun!

Proof I Rocked the Drop! 

Did you Rock the Drop? If not, how about next year?