Lots of good links to start the week:

• The benefit of the MFA in the work force.
• We’re just outside of the Twelve Days of Christmas, but this bookstore version is too cute to save until next year.
• Fair use, books, and Google.
• Mister Rogers makes everything better.
• Classic literature + tasty food = I’m there.
• Reading is really good for you. Thanks, science!
• Perfectly tongue-in-check post about writing the perfect YA heroine.
• “How to name a baby” is also helpful for “how to name your teenage characters.”
• Kentucky Wildcats, may the odds be ever in your favor.
• Kate DiCamillo is the new National Ambassador for Young People’s Literature! More about DiCamillo and her work here.
• A great post about those of us reading as teens in the 80s and 90s. Keep an eye out for my contribution!
• Stop the side-eying and hand-wringing over millennials, already.
• Love this poem by Mary Oliver.
• 11 things you probably didn’t know about The Hobbit.
• Erin Bowman shares what she learned debuting in 2013.
• “The book was better.” The stats agree!
• To thine own selfie be true.
• Shannon Hale on how people use YA tropes to disparage the teen experience.