Thanks for Two Years of Mixed-Up Fun

photo from http://www.freefoto.com/

Today marks two years since we launched From the Mixed-Up Files…of Middle-Grade Authors.  It’s been a busy two years for us.  We’ve seen dozens of Mixed-Up Authors come and go.  We’ve published 486 posts on various topics, including author interviews, book lists, writing tips, giveaways, and behind-the-scenes info on the children’s publishing industry.  We’ve created 48 pages of resources for writers, teachers, librarians, parents, and kids.  We’ve added 175 news items to our OhMG News sidebar.  We’ve given away hundreds of books donated by authors, editors, publicists, and our own members.  We’ve connected 25 authors and schools together through our Mixed-Up Middle-Grade Skype Tour. And we’ve read every single one of the 6,389 comments our readers have left us.

It’s those comments we treasure the most.  Thank you, dear readers, for joining us in this great middle-grade conversation.  We wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for you.

To celebrate two fabulous years, and as a thanks to our readers, we here at From the Mixed-Up Files would like to give one lucky reader a NOOK Simple Touch and a $25 Barnes and Noble gift card to purchase a few e-books.  (May we recommend A View From Saturday; The Mysterious Edge of the Heroic World; Jennifer, Hecate, Macbeth, William McKinley, and Me, Elizabeth; and/or our namesake, From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, all by E. L. Konigsburg?)

To be considered for this giveaway, simply leave a comment below.  You may earn extra entries by blogging, tweeting, or sharing a FB update about this giveaway, following us on Twitter (@MixedUpFiles), or liking our FB page (http://ow.ly/bp5GB).  Please add each entry as a separate comment below.  This giveaway is open internationally.  The winner will be chosen Thursday, June 14th.

Looking forward, we do have plenty we are hoping to accomplish in the coming year.  Right now our members are hard at work updating and revamping our resource pages.  We are also working on adding links to other MG blogs that have popped up since we started this site.  In addition, we are in the process of creating a place here to list book bloggers who review middle-grade books.  And we will be branching out through Goodreads and Tumblr as well.

We’ll be rolling out these changes in the coming months.  We hope they’ll make this site more useful to those looking for information about middle-grade books, and we hope they’ll bring our middle-grade book community closer together.

Here’s to another great year at From the Mixed-Up Files!  We hope you’ll stick around to share it with us.

Elissa Cruz