Mine at last!

     

This came today, from a friend on the island:



I don't know if you can see it, but the sign says "SOLD" -- sold to me.

The plot I own is TINY, and behind the tall stone wall. It looks out onto the fields on the right -- and the ocean.

I plan to plant it with meadow grass and wildflowers, and IF I get planning permission, put a shepherd's hut on it. Shepherds' huts were used in the lambing season by shepherds, which is why they have wheels. Mine will look like this one -- but it's a bit bigger (7.5 x 16), dark green outside, a yellowy cream inside; and it will have more windows.

If I don't get planning permission, the builder will ship it here (to America). Either way, it will be the perfect place to write and I'm thankful to have it.
And I am thankful for the land, and for the magical months I've already spent on the island.

And so this has something to do with children's books: Raoul Dahl did all his writing in a real (original) shepherd's hut. His I think was bright yellow but I will have a better chance of getting planning permission with a more conservative color: British racing green will suit the landscape better anyhow.

Happy Thanksgiving to all!

beautiful readers!

I actually have a backlog of photos sent to me via e-mail for my Starry River of the Sky Giveaway! Aren't these beautiful readers?

I have more photos to share but keep them coming! You can win a special edition pocket pacy or your portrait painted by me! More details HERE!

A thousand readings

I've been collecting, reading, admiring, and creating children's books for a good long while now. Until recently, I thought it a relatively easy task to pick a picture book up and determine if it will capture the attention of a child and offer them something of value. I'd flip through the pages, take in the illustrations, and read through it quickly to look for flow.

But becoming a mom has turned all that on it's head. I now read Tilly's favorites over and over, day after day, morning, noon, and night. Soon into those kind of repeat readings, the true quality of the writing becomes plain as day, and the book takes on a different feel. Some books that I first found sweet, I've come to dread slogging through. I trip on their clunky turns of phrase, mouthful of syllables, and jarring jumps in plot. I find myself editing them as I read.

Then others just glide off the tongue and virtually read themselves. It's made me realize how important it is for children's book creators to spend a lot of time reading to children, at some point in their career.

Here we are reading Peter Rabbit (best done in a lion suit).

And here are some of our other favorites; Tilly never tires of them and neither do I.

  

  

Glad to Be Back!

 

Sorry that I have been away from Blue Rose Girls for so long. I’ve been busy taking care of my granddaughter Julia and with renovation plans for our new home. (You can see some pictures of our new place it here.)

We plan to have some built-ins installed--a china cabinet in our dining area and bookshelves in our upstairs den/office--before we move in. I really need a place to put the thousands of children’s books that I have acquired over the years. I want to keep them for Julia. She LOVES books! She so enjoys looking through her books, pointing to things in the illustrations, and talking as if she is actually reading them. It is such fun to watch and to listen to her—and to have her sit on my lap when I read her the same books.



Yesterday morning, I walked into her bedroom just after she awoke. She stood up in her crib and pointed to the basket of books in a corner of her room. I knew which book she wanted—Clare Beaton’s Action Rhymes. It's one of her favorites. I fetched it for her. She then sat down in her crib and began “reading” it. Sometimes, she insists that we take the book downstairs with us.



I will definitely miss the library that we built in our basement after I retired in 2004. It took me that entire summer to bring all of my children's books home from school.

Here are pictures of my present library.



At Wild Rose Reader today, I have some poetry and two song videos for Thanksgiving.

 



 

more pocket pacy adventures!

This Pocket Pacy is having a fabulous time with the Wu family. They've brought Pocket Pacy south to Grand Mound WA for some water fun at Great Wolf lodge:

Then north to Rice Lake in North Vancouver (BC Canada) on a hike:

Then over the ocean to  Kihei Public Library and found my books in Maui, Hawaii:

And finally, into SPACE via a Star Wars X-Wing, accompanied by R2D2:

Ha! Doesn't that look fun?

Don't forget, you can win your own pocket pacy (as well as a chance to get your portrait painted by me) if you enter your photo in my Starry River giveaway! More details HERE!

Children's Book Art Events in Western MA

If you find yourself in the happy valley of Western Massachusetts anytime soon, there are a couple worthwhile stops to make. Yesterday marked the opening of the yearly celebration of children's book art at the Michelson Gallery. Sadly I wasn't able to make the opening as in past years, but the exhibition is looking fantastic!

Also, the Eric Carle Museum is marking it's 10th anniversary with an exhibition from their permanent collection:

Iconic Images: Ten Years of Collecting for The Carle November 6, 2012 - March 10, 2013

To celebrate its 10th anniversary, The Carle is mounting an exhibition, Iconic Images: Ten Years of Collecting for The Carle, which will draw on its permanent collection of more than 10,000 illustrations. Visitors will have a chance to see examples from the extraordinary collection the Museum has been able to build in a relatively short time thanks to the generosity of artists, artists’ families, and collectors who want their artwork preserved and shared. Artists on view will include Leo Lionni, William Steig, Ludwig Bemelmans, Maurice Sendak, Margot Zemach, Petra Mathers, Arnold Lobel, Rosemary Wells, Ashley Bryan, Simms Taback, Jerry Pinkney, and Trina Schart Hyman.

Kid-Lit Cares

         

I'm busy preparing for our Fall/Winter 2013 Focus meeting (where editorial introduces the books on the list to the sales, marketing, publicity, etc. groups for the first time), so I'll keep this brief.

As I mentioned last week, there's a wonderful auction going on to benefit victims of Hurricane Sandy. There are still many items available from Round One here, and today also starts the Round Two auction, which I will be participating in.

You can see the Round Two auction items here (this will be updated with a full listing of auctions as they are posted).

They’ll also be posting the auctions to their Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/KidLitCares

And the host of Round Two, Joanne Levy, will be tweeting about the auctions, so feel free to follow her on Twitter if you don’t already: @JoanneLevy and use the hashtag: #KidLitCares.

My auction item should be posted tomorrow (November 13).

Thanks to all the bidders!

***

On Friday, I'm heading off to Las Vegas for the NCTE (National Council of Teachers of English) Annual Convention, followed by the ALAN (Assembly on Literature for Adolescents) Workshop. I'm looking forward to some stimulating conversations with teachers, authors, and publishing folks. If you'll be there, stop by the Little, Brown booth and say hi! See you in Vegas, baby!

come to my bookclub

Okay, it's not really my book club. But I'm going to pretend it is. The Foundation of Children's Books is having a special book group party with yours truly! So if you've read the book and want to talk about it, come and join! This event is FREE but space is limited so you must RSVP. Official copy below:

The Foundation for Children’s Books (FCB) invites you to a special event for adults and kids featuring Newbery-Honor winner Grace Lin. We’ll talk about Grace’s wonderful new novel, Starry River of the Sky, with the author herself. That’s pretty amazing! We’ll hear about how the FCB brings authors like Grace Lin into under-served schools in Boston. And we’ll enjoy some awesome refreshments— because all book groups have refreshments!

Who: We hope that adults and kids in grades 3-7 will join us. Adults are welcome without kids, but kids should come with an adult.

When: Sunday, December 2 from 1-3 p.m.

Where: Park School Library, 171 Goddard Ave., Brookline

What’s Next: Buy the book and start reading! You’ll also be able to buy the book (and others) at the event, but it will be more fun if you’ve already read it. Bring your books to have them signed!

 RSVP: Email the Foundation for Children’s Books at admin@thefcb.org or call us 617-469-7222 by Wed, 11/28.

Voting day

I hope you all stayed safe in the storm last week. We were very lucky out here in Western Massachusetts and had not much more than some heavy rain and wind. My heart goes out to our neighbors in New York and New Jersey who have suffered so much loss.

It is with a strong feeling of community and concern for our collective future that I headed out to the polls this morning. I've been as wrapped up in this election as anyone, even more so after the storm, which reminded me how important it is to have leaders with a strong sense of social responsibility. It felt so good to walk in to our local elementary school, cast a ballot, and collect my sticker.

With Tilly starting day care this week I have more time at my desk than I've had for a long time and there is much to catch up on. But I am far too nervous to write today. So instead I'll fill my work time with small tasks... until tomorrow, when hopefully all the ballots have been counted.

Hurricane Sandy--how to help

         

fallen trees in Prospect Park after Hurricane Sandy

I spent much of last week glued to the news on TV and online as horrific images of the destruction caused by Hurricane Sandy swept in. I was lucky to be in a part of Brooklyn that never lost electricity, and amazingly, I never lost internet or cable, either. But many of my friends and colleagues were hit hard--some are still without power, which is getting more and more problematic as the temperature drops.

The Hachette Book Group offices were closed on Monday and Tuesday, and had skeleton crews the rest of the week--as most of the public transportation was down all week, it was difficult for many to make it in. I made it in Wednesday and Friday, but had over two-hour commutes each way--and half the time ended up walking the 6 miles--on Wednesday night I walked home with two colleagues through pitch-black lower Manhattan and then over the Manhattan Bridge:

a dark street in the East Village

one generator-powered light on the Lower East Side

On the Manhattan Bridge--we finally reached light halfway across--this is looking back on the Manhattan-side darkness.

On Friday morning I chose to walk over the Brooklyn Bridge--it was a gorgeous day, at least.

Lower Manhattan was much less ominous in the daylight, but it was oddly deserted--police on some intersections, a few walkers here and there, some cars, but for the most part, it was empty. No traffic lights were working, no stores or restaurants were open. I had bought a breakfast sandwich in Brooklyn, and several people asked me where I got it when I started eating it while walking in Manhattan. "Sorry...I bought this in Brooklyn!" I told them.

Power was finally returned to most of Manhattan Friday night, by midnight. Some subways started running from Brooklyn to Manhattan soon thereafter. I'm hoping my commute this morning will be fairly normal, but we'll see--there are a lot of subway lines still down, so the ones working will no doubt be more crowded. But I can put up with a long, crowded commute. I know I am very, very lucky.

There are so many people in the area who are still in need, still without power, or water, or heat, many without homes. Some have lost their lives, or their loved ones.

There are many ways to help, but the quickest is to text REDCROSS to 90999 to donate $10 American Red Cross Disaster Relief. Donate other amounts at their website here.

If you're in the New York area, check out the Occupy Sandy website for how to volunteer and/or donate.

There's also a great online Kidlit Cares: Superstorm Sandy Relief Effort going on right now at author Kate Messner's website here. You can bid on anything from manuscript critiques by editors, agents, and authors; to Skype visits; to a three-day writing retreat. I'm planning on donating something--if anyone has any suggestions, please leave them in the comments (I could do a manuscript critique, but maybe there's something else, short of a book contract, that people might find more valuable?).

Stay safe, everyone.

halloween treat!

While the world is recovering from the storm (hurricane and publishing mergers) I thought I'd post some photos to lighten the mood. It is Halloween and my baby's a cupcake!

Rain Dragon wasn't sure what her costume was supposed to be, but, luckily,  I had this book to explain it to her:

She's grown so much since the first time we read this book!

Rain Dragon thought the book was more delicious than her, but they're both sweet treats to me:

Happy Halloween!

Storm Day this and that

         




We're bracing for Hurricane Sandy to hit--and as they've shut down the NYC subway system, and for safety reasons, my offices are closed--although those of us who can are working from home. I'm reading manuscripts and hoping that we don't lose power. I hope those of you in affected areas (and heck, those of you who are not, too) are staying safe and dry!

***

In the publishing world, we've been fascinated by the news that broke last Thursday of a potential merger/purchase of Penguin by Random House--spurring guesses on what the new company name would be (Random Penguin seems to be the universal choice. For fun, I threw in the possibility of "Little, Brown Penguin"--not that we're involved--at least, not that I know of!).

And then the breaking news yesterday was that Harper Collins may also be vying to purchase Penguin. Jeepers! A RH/Penguin merger would result in a publishing house that controls 25% of the market. A Harper/Penguin combo would control 20% of the market share.

I'd hate to see either of these scenarios happen, personally, for many of the reasons mentioned in the various articles. I guess we'll all have to wait and see how it shakes out.

UPDATE: It appears that the Random House/Penguin merger has been confirmed (pending approvals). The publishing company will be called Penguin Random House. Is this really happening?! It feels...fake, somehow. Almost like a fictional dystopian world.

***

Last week's book events (that I mentioned in my previous post) were great.

At the Lemony Snicket event at Symphony Space, the highlight were the questions from kids at the end, and one question in particular stood out for me. I think it was the second-to-last question, and it went something like this:

Kid: Would you rather fight 100 duck-sized horses, or one horse-sized duck?
Daniel Handler (aka Lemony Snicket's representative): Would I rather fight 100 duck-sized horses, or one horse-sized duck? Well, I would definitely lose either fight. I think 100 duck-sized horses would be more interesting to see, perhaps. But, what would we fight about?

How would you answer the question? It's a tough decision, but I think I'd try my luck with the duck-sized horses. They'd be cute, at least. A duck-sized horse just seems way too frightening to me. The stuff of horror movies. Speaking of, have you seen this study? I need to watch more horror films!

***

Just for fun, here are the 25 Most Awkward Cat Sleeping Positions.

Halloween on the way

I've long had dreams of coming up with super creative costumes for my kid when the time came, but it would seem that we are still at the age where Tilly would likely tolerate a costume for not more than ten minutes before pulling it off and taking it apart to examine it. So this year I'm afraid I will have to settle for admiring other's crafty projects. Oh Happy Day! has been posting a number of adorable costumes in recent weeks. In particular I thought this one was sweet, based on The Red Balloon. I had the book as a kid and was totally fascinated. Do you have any big plans for your trick-or-treater?