Thanksgiving is a time to reflect on all the blessings in our lives. For us at Youngzine, the past year has been an eventful one thanks to our wonderful community of parents and children. 

We thank so many of you who voted for us daily in the public vote for the Pepsi Grant. Your comments in the blog and the Pepsi site made our day. It was our first attempt and we were going against established non-profits from all over the country. It was definitely worth the try and a great experience!

This week's issue has fewer articles than usual -- last week being Thanksgiving, many children were out with their families and did not get a chance to check out the Youngzine articles. Our team members were also on vacation, spending time with their families. We will be back in full force from next week.

Your thoughts?

Did you notice that the Sports tab is now gone, replaced by UWrite. Why did we do that? We wanted to create a dedicated UWrite section to showcase the different types of articles we are receiving from our readers.

You will now see three categories of articles.

1. U-Report : This section showcases children who are doing something proactive in their communities or are reporting on an event. We recently saw Meera's perspective on the Occupy protests, and Saira efforts to help her flood affected community. With holiday season around the corner, perhaps you would like to submit an article on how you are helping those in need. Or report on an event in your corner of the world.  

2. U-Review : Perhaps you have read a new fiction or non-fiction book. Or seen a movie that you would like to share with your peers. U-Review is just the place.

3. U-Write : Here we showcase original poems, stories and thought provoking articles from Youngzine children.

We received a request from one of our readers for a U-Tube channel where we put up home videos produced by our readers -- perhaps a game that you created, or a dish you whipped up, or a place you visited. It will require parents approval first of course.

We would like to hear you thoughts -- is U-Tube a good idea? What else would you like to share with other children like you from around the world?