Earlier this week, Becky suggested:

I was thinking that it might be nice for those bloggers who are Weekly Geeks to pay tribute to Dewey in the next week or so. To take the time to post to their blogs a “Weekly Geek” post about Dewey–maybe share their favorite posts from her site, maybe share a memory or two about participating in weekly geeks, the bookworms carnival, the 24 Hour Readathon, or one of Dewey’s challenges, maybe just share a favorite memory of Dewey in general, what they’ll miss most, how they’ll remember her, etc.

Becky’s tribute to Dewey was posted this earlier this weekend.

In my post on Tuesday, I said:

Dewey was dedicated to book blogging, and didn’t bring her personal life to her blog very often. She had a husband and son whom she mentioned now and then, and she made occasional references to health issues but had never discussed them in detail on the blog, so this post was a shock to many of us…Dewey was a valued member of the book-blogging community not only because of her insightful reviews and generous book giveaways (I won a couple of those myself), but because she did so much to help build and strengthen that very community.

I found Dewey’s blog through her participation in a MotherTalk Blog Tour some time last year (I can’t remember which book it was for), and to be honest, I was a little intimidated at first. She seemed like such an accomplished blogger and book reviewer that I was surprised when I later learned she had started blogging later than I did! Before long, though, I was subscribing to her blog feed and becoming a sometime commenter.

Dewey’s book reviews were thoughtful and insightful – I tried to learn from her to make my own reviews better and more informative. She encouraged the blog conversation by responding to comments regularly, and I can think of several books she brought to my attention.

Dewey excelled at cultivating the book-blogging community. I don’t go in for reading challenges myself, so I didn’t participate in any of hers, but I was enthusiastic about Weekly Geeks from the time she launched it this past spring, even though I didn’t play every week – I don’t go in much for photo-blogging, so I passed on most of those assignments. I liked the blog-hopping assignments when I had time to do them – I added quite a few new blogs to my Google Reader feeds thanks to those. However, I think my very favorite WG theme came along early – Weekly Geeks #3, which asked us to share memories of our favorite childhood books. That actually inspired the theme for one of my best blogging experiences ever, which was also in connection with Dewey – hosting Bookworms Carnival #14: You’re Never Too Old, which focused on kids’ and young-adult literature. It was fun to put the carnival together and discover more new-to-me book bloggers, but what made it even more fun for me was recruiting some of my non-book-blogging online buddies into participating too, because the topic was pretty universal. I’d love to host another Carnival – maybe next year.

I regret that I never did participate in one of the 24-Hour Read-a-Thons, but the last two were on weekends when I was already committed to something else. Maybe I’ll get the chance next spring.

There will be future chances to join in the Read-a-Thon, the Bookworms Carnival, and Weekly Geeks – book bloggers are committed to ensuring that Dewey’s community-building projects continue, and I’m honored to be part of the group that’s working to make it happen. It won’t be the same without Dewey, though. She was a friend to many and an inspiration to even more, and I’ll miss her.

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