With all news about Hurricane #Sandy , it may be scary for children, good time to get out the books & read to them.Read.gov

— Craig Fugate (@CraigatFEMA) October 29, 2012

As Hurricane Sandy nears the East Coast, FEMA administrator Craig Fugate urged parents to read with their children.

If you want to know how Hurricane Sandy will affect your state, visit the State-by-State  Guide to Hurricane Sandy at The New York Times.

Readers have been using the #StormReads hashtag to talk about the books they are reading during this difficult time. We’ve embedded some of these tweets below.

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The Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators (SCBWI) revealed the winners of the 2012 Golden Kite Awards and the winner of the Sid Fleischman Award for Humor. Each winner will receive $2,500 at the Golden Kite Luncheon on August 5th.

In the fiction category, Ruta Sepetys won for her historical fiction debut, Between Shades of Gray. In the nonfiction category, Candace Fleming won for her biographical profile Amelia Lost: The Life & Disappearance of Amelia Earhart.

In the picture book text category, Kate Messner won for Over and Under the Snow. In the picture book illustration category, Melissa Sweet won for Balloons Over Broadway. Chris Rylander won the Sid Fleischman Award for Humor for his middle grade novel, The Fourth Stall.

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Today author Kate Messner shared heartbreaking photographs of Wells Memorial Library in New York, a small town library virtually destroyed by flooding from Hurricane Irene.

Her long post also explained how publishers, authors and readers can help this library rebuild its collection. UPDATE: The West Hartford Public Library in Vermont also needs support after the hurricane.

Here’s more from the site: “They lost virtually their entire children’s collection. All of the picture books. ‘They were all on the lower shelves,” library director Karen Rappaport explained, “so the kids could reach them.’ She looked at the heap of books in the yard, then out toward the river, quiet in the background today, and shook her head. ‘We’ve just never seen anything like this.’ She let us walk through the building to see just how devastating the flood waters had been. Old books and documents from the library’s special collections were spread out on tables to dry.”

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