I am in the middle of reading Knucklehead by Jon Scieszka right now.



I don't need to tell you that I love it. That would be like Moxy Maxwell saying that she is a huge procrastinator. Duh.

I will walk across a bed of flaming hot coals to read anything written by Jon Scieszka. I can even spell his name faster than I can spell my own!! Ooooh, **STALKER ALERT!** maybe I shouldn't admit that on a public blog...

But anyway, in case you haven't read it yet, I thought I'd share, so far, the lines which made me snort with laughter and which might, just might, encapsulate the essence of the book for you:

"I learned to read because I wanted to find out more about real things like dogs in cars and cats in hats."

"We took him home and said, 'Sorry, Mom. We broke Gregg.'"

And, ahhhhh.... Chapter 18- Model War. It has, possibly, the secret key to a boy's brain stated in one, simple genius sentence:

"Which is why we needed to light them on fire."

Exactly.

Now, go away!! I need to finish reading!

:)

Okay, my first instinct was to say Holy Guacamole! like SkippyJon Jones would, but it really had nothing to do with this post. And it's only funny if you say it in a Mexican-Siamese-Cat accent, that is. Which I can. Because the SkippyJon Jones books are among the TOP read-alouds on my shelf.

But I digress.

So I picked wombats instead, in honor of one of my favorite picture books, possibly the MOST favorite (but don't tell the others), Diary Of A Wombat.


If you are unfamiliar with that book, go buy the darn thing. Now. I'll wait.

Diary Of A Wombat is a perfect picture book. Don't just check it out of the library, because after you read it, you will realize that it must be read many, many times and therefore you must have it on hand, at all times, because you just never know when you'll need a wombat fix.

But, actually, this post really has nothing to do with Diary Of A Wombat either. Kind of false-advertising. But all of this is kinda-sorta related to what I wanted to say in the first place.

You see, wombats, and Diary Of A Wombat, and Jackie French, are all Australian! AND...

just take a look and see where Hush, Little Dragon has taken up residence!!

Aye, mates, I'm jealous of those dragons. Just hope they don't run into too many mischievous wombats down there :)

The children's book business is an interesting one to be in. It has its ups and downs, just like any other line of work. You'll find lots of worry, anxiety, and pressure. Your patience will be tested. There can be disappointment lurking in the corners. And did I mention all the waiting?!? There is so much waiting....

But at the heart of it all, we do good work. We entertain kids and get them to read! And hopefully, we remember that along the way and have some fun ourselves, right?

Tammi Sauer is having one heck of a fun week over on her blog. She and her awesome illustrator, Dan Santat, made some cool author photos for their book Chicken Dance. AND Tammi has big, big, BIG illustrator news about another book of hers, Mostly Monsterly- it's going to be illustrated by Scott Magoon!!!!

That is the kind of stuff that makes all the... uh... waiting worthwhile (did I mention all the waiting??!)

:)

Yesterday was a really cool writerly day. It didn't start out that way, because in the morning I inadvertently but completely sucked the soul out of my WIP, which the previous day had been the start of the best thing I've written in a long time, and now I don't know what to do about it, and yes, that is the opposite of progress, but not an uncommon occurrence in the average day of a writer, but that's a topic for another day. As is sentences that are too long :)

Anyway, I've been revising my next book for my editor, and in the time since she bought it from me, I've become curious about how she envisioned the ending. When I originally submitted it to her, I removed the final stanza at the last minute. The second-to-last stanza, I thought, naturally led to the ending I envisioned, and the last stanza was really more of a telling one that would simply be shown in the illustrations. To me, this ending was perfectly obvious and hilarious.

But as I have gotten to know my editor better over time, I started to realize that it was a little strange she was on-board with my ending. She has a terrific sense of humor and can appreciate the dark side, so to speak, but I don't think she's exactly as deeply into it as I am. She's more reasonable- ha! And she reins me in by reminding me that we are writing for children, after all, and our intention is not to give the majority of them nightmares. As a fan of the Slightly Demented Picture Book, I also do realize that there is a fine line between humor and horror and that's maybe, just maybe, why I left off that last stanza in the first place. Maybe somewhere deep down I realized I'd crossed that line but didn't know what to do about it.

So when I sent my revision to my editor yesterday, I tacked that last stanza back on to the end of the manuscript and said hey, this is what I see here, is it what you see too? Just to be sure, you know?

Well, surprise! That wasn't what she thought happened at ALL! It never even occurred to her that was what I intended. And she started mumbling stuff about "inducing panic" and other stuff that kind of made me start to panic... BUT... she also told me what she saw. And it is just perfect!! YAY!! And problem solved. Phew.

I think yesterday is an example of what is great about picture books. The text is really only half of the story- the illustrations need to tell the rest. If every minute detail is laid out in the text, there is no need for illustrations and you don't really have a picture book. But my text, though I saw it one way and one way only in my own head, was actually open to different interpretations and that is where the genius of the illustrator can come in and make the half-of-the-story a whole, complete one. Hopefully, of course, the author and the illustrator "see" the same story, but I'm sure they don't always. It makes me wonder how many times the final product is not what the author intended- and how often they feel it makes it better. Mine will be one of those now!

If I did not have such a great relationship with my editor, I might not have ever asked about that ending and been knocked for a big old loop when I saw the actual illustrations later on down the line. In this case, I would have been very happy with it, but it made me realize just how important this whole text + illustration = picture book concept is!

AND what a great editor I have :)

So, while this has nothing to do with children's books, it has everything to do with my life for the next six months (at least I'm still an optimist) so I feel I can complain about share this with you:

The snow is here.

Do you know about snow in th U.P. ? If you don't, I'll give you a good visual via the Keweenaw Snow Meter which we visited this summer. To get the proper perspective here, you need to squint and see my kids standing at the base of the meter. The red arrow about two-thirds of the way up on the right marks how much snowfall we got last year.



Here's a close-up of the top:



And here's the sign next to it for historical context:



And just like those Eskimos who have so many different native words for snow, we Yoopers have a lot of things to say about the snow, too. But nothing I can repeat on a children-friendly blog. Ha!

:)

Shhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

I'm revising.

:)