Readergirlz

I had a good Teen Services meeting yesterday. ReaderGirlz came by and gave us their spiel - and some nifty schwag. I felt even more privileged to get my new button and book mark after they revealed that they don't have any money. I thought about recommending that they try for a grant, but realized that would require them to become a 401c3, which would be a pain. I may still recommend it, but I will save it for an email.

Readergirlz is a group of young adult writers that encourage girls to read and to be "gutsy." They have a myspace page and a website. They encourage girls to contribute to their community in ways that reflect the themes of the books featured on the site.

I admire what they are trying to do, and so far they are not accepting publisher sponsorship in order to keep it from being a marketing endevor for the publishers (you should feature more Penguin books, etc.). Girls on MySpace seem to be excited about it and Readergirlz does a good job of getting them to participate in the site. When you friend them, they ask you to post your favorite "gutsy character" as a comment. They also have a myspace group where they encourage posts on all sorts of topics. One that a girl started up is about bullying in school, another is about things you should tell your parents but haven't yet. Of course they have the "introduce yourself" post as well, which has well over 50 posts now. I have tons of authors friending me (ok, maybe 5) based on my introduction.