First, the blog reviews: we’ve gotten some nice ones about our Follow That Food Chain series lately, and I realized I’ve neglected to compile them here.
SimplyScience blogged about our temperate forest book, saying, “Interactive and entertaining, A Temperate Food Chain provides a fun-filled trek though the forest habitat as it shows specific examples of energy [...]
Husband and I were talking about this with friends this weekend. Do you have a a place online that you frequent regularly–but that would surprise everyone to know about? (And no, I’m not talking about THOSE kind of websites. I’m a children’s librarian, for heaven’s sake! Please don’t spoil my innocence.)
My website confession was this one: [...]
Looking for a non-scary Halloween book to read? Go find Fran Cannon Slayton’s When the Whistle Blows. Each chapter features a different All Hallow’s Eve adventure as Jimmy Cannon grows up in his West Virginian railroad town.
Recently, Fran answered a few questions about her book…
Tell us about your book.
When the Whistle Blows is a coming of [...]
A librarian from Florida contacted me earlier this month. She is retiring and looking for new homes for some of her books. She was wondering if I’d like her autographed copy of Adele Comandini’s 1956 biography of Dr. Kate Pelham Newcomb, Angel on Snowshoes. Autographed not by Adele Commandini, but by Dr. Kate.
Oh, my.
Who is this [...]
Here it is. My latest project.
Wow. I always feel a little awed and mystified as to where all those words and pages came from when I first see it printed. Anyone else?
And now to figure out how to get it to all make sense….
1. I’ve returned to LJ. (Some of you may remember me as the Livejournaler rhwojahn.) I abandoned all extraneous writing 3 years ago under the pressure of a new job and a school/library series to write. The series is done now. And I’m settled in my job. So I’m back—I really missed the writerly connections [...]
Trying to get back in the swing of things with my author and illustrator interviews…. Man, you get behind in one thing and it’s impossible to catch up in everything else. How are you doing with the flu where you are? Our poor little school is swimming in germs right now. 1/3 of the fifth [...]
The very first animal I wrote about in the Follow That Food Chain series was a black bear. She and her cubs were in the proposal that ended up selling and becoming our habitat series. So I have a special fondness for them. And living in northern Wisconsin, you see black bears. Sometimes in the [...]
I have a new gig. I’ve started reviewing for Booklist. Yes, I’ll be getting sneak peeks at new picture books! But what I’m really, REALLY excited about is that Booklist is going to be cleaning my bathrooms!
Huh, you say? Well, stick with me here….a while back I banned myself from all other kinds of writing [...]
It’s not DONE done, or even Done done, but it’s done: I finished my draft of MALCOLM. Whew! It’s only been….um…a little over two years. Granted, I did have 13 other books under contract that I had to write during the first year and a half. But, yeah, I’m a slow writer. Both my boys [...]
Take the Mummy and Run: The Riot Brothers Are on a Roll by Mary Amato
Orville and Wilbur Riot are two brothers who never stop. Never stop talking, stop joking, stop hatching plans. Whether it’s Pufferbelly Point Punt (popcorn table hockey) for breakfast or leading a lost mummy to the Egypt room at the museum, [...]
Mac Barnett, picture book and middle grade author, talks about his new middle grade mystery, The Brixton Brothers: the Case of the Case of Mistaken Identity. The Brixton Brothers is a funny mystery starring Steve, who’s obsessed with the Hardy Boys-like Baily Brothers book series. So when a true mystery crops up in Steve’s life, [...]
