Noel De Vries, Alpo Blogger

There's a new Jammy Blog (well, site, really) on my sidebar: Kidz Book Buzz, brainchild of Sally Apokedak, a fellow writer who decided the blogosphere needed someone to schedule and orchestrate blog tours for children's/YA authors and publishers. "Sally," she asked herself (hypethetically), "Why not give it a whirl?"

And boy, has she got people buzzing. Among several:

Kelly at Big A little was worried about bloggers losing their credibility by reviewing a book just to receive a free copy. She even wondered if Independent Bloggers needed a special button on their site to differentiate from Buzz Bloggers.

Chasing Ray voiced similar concerns. One commenter on her blog went as far as to say, "I would love to see a list of those "guaranteed" blogs. Most of us would immediately delete them from our bloglist."

And then there was Becky, a fellow (tentative) Buzzer. Thank you, Becky, for your honesty.

When I first saw those posts, my reaction was swift and aghast: what have I gotten myself into? I mentioned the controversy to Sally, who graciously offered to remove my name from the list of participants.

But then I started thinking. All of these dissenting bloggers are nice people. They're wonderful at what they do. However: should their arguments, valid and otherwise, chase me away from a project I was looking forward to?

Thus the name. Noel De Vries, Alpo Blogger. Who knows, maybe at some point I'll get virtual Alpo dropped down the back of my leotard. But I'm still one of the Book Buzzers. Come check us out!