The other day, I helped out on a field trip with my kids' third-grade class. We went to a nature center (where the class maintains a garden) and had several stations with different activities pertaining to nature. My station did haiku writing (coincidence? I think not, Mrs. Sayen! :)

However, I've never written a haiku before. Ha! My CP Deanna writes them, but I don't write "poetry" ever, so this whole thing was new to me too. It was a lot of fun and it really is not my fault that, like, 60% of the poems ended up pertaining to the food chain in some way. SERIOUSLY!! I am apparently a master of subliminal suggestion or something because even though I did not set out to influence these young poets, A LOT of the poems ended up touching on my pet topic. Or maybe it's just because these were 8-year-olds and you know, that's what my inner 7-year-old simply aspires to be. Hee hee :)

Anyway, the kids all did a great job and I *think* they understand haiku, basically, but one of the kids REALLY understands haiku, as you will see below. This is my son Jack's poem (and I have to add that I am so freakish about not giving my kids special attention when I'm supposed to be helping other kids too that I usually give my own kids LESS help than the other kids- so this really did come from him with limited help- i.e. I think I helped steer his subject choice to squirrels and then he was on his own!)

The brown squirrel can fly
to escape from the wildcat.
Webbed wings are so cool.

There was a lot of dispute over how many syllables "squirrel" has, but if you read it with two, he's happy to change the first line to "The brown squirrel flies..." since I steered him to one, which is probably wrong. See, I don't write haiku!

But, you tell me: are we looking at a future writer here or what??? Ha!

I'm so proud! :)

Remember the Cars On Mars book I raved about a few posts ago?


Well, if you enjoyed that book, or are in the process of getting your hands on it (I understand, these things take time, but please make sure you do- you won't be disappointed), you can check this out too: the Mars rovers have a twitter feed! I had no idea. How cool is THAT?! COOL! And it's interactive learning, that is- the best kind.

Now, that is where my book tie-in part of the post ends, but you can also check out NASA's general twitter feed for all sorts of other space-related goodness.

Seriously, you're on twitter, RIGHT? Phenomenal resource.

:)

How badly would I like to go to a huge event like the National Book Festival that was held today in Washington D.C.??

Um, badly. Very, very, badly. They don't hold too many events of that magnitude up here. But I'd love to go to a big city and lose myself in a huge book-related event for a WHOLE DAY. Sigh. I'd even go in the rain! Even if I had to take a train! Haha- you can see where I'm headed with that.

Anyway, I've been listening to all these fabulous people twitter about the "NBF" all day (well, the children's portion of it...) and heck YEAH I would like to see Scieszka and DiCamillo and Blume and Kinney and on and on and on. Wow. Just wow.

But probably the coolest thing I've heard about from the NBF was the official unveiling of The Exquisite Corpse, a sort-of online literacy project that sounds completely awesome and totally unique. The first chapter is up and it's here. Now go read it!! And then send the link to every kid you know- they'll think you're really cool ;)

I won! I won! I love winning things. And winning books? Yeeeaaahhhhhhh :)

I found Bri's fantastic blog through TWITTER (say it with me: twitter is very cool) and I loved her interview with Nova Ren Suma and I entered their nifty contest to win this book:

because I have been dying to read it. Just look at that cover. I love noir!

To enter, we had to do a little creative thinking and come up with a great noir character name. I won't tell you how long I played around with my entry until I came up with the perfect name (really, you don't want to know), but I had a lot of fun doing it. And it paid off! Thank you, Bri's mom- you have excellent taste :)

Well, anyway, how can today get any better, I ask you? Okay, I could already be reading the book, yes, that would be better, but I also like the whole looking-forward-to-reading-a-good-book feeling too, so I'm good for now. Besides, I gotta go finish this book:

which I am loving, by the way. Yay Robin and Kelly!

:)

I blather on a lot about reluctant readers, but if YOU were a reader with a NON-READER son, you would understand my pain. Or maybe you do and I should stop shouting, huh? Ha!

Anyway, this is a cool post about building a library collection from the ground up. Fascinating stuff, but especially because the 000's (which I never realized before!) are a reluctant reader's non-fiction dream! Boys. I'm talking specifically about BOYS here. These books, in this post, will interest boys. All grouped neatly together with a few maybe-they'll-try-this-one-too's thrown in among them. Hallelujah!

In other news, equally interesting and important news, the incomparable Jon Scieszka has redesigned his guysread.com site. Can I say it's really pretty? Okay, um, how about very cool-tastic?? If you know of a better resource, a funnier resource, than this, for finding books for boys to read, please do let me know. Until then, go lose yourself here. I know I will.

:)

Why yes, I do have a few piles of books around here that I haven't read yet. I mean, picture books are pretty easy to plow through, so there aren't often many of those in it. If there are, most likely they are NF or I've already done one reading and want to study them for a few successive reads.

It's the chapter books and mid-grades that do me in. I'm a slow reader! And I don't really write them, so I feel guilty spending writing time (please note: all time not spent taking care of my kids is writing time) reading them. Although as children's books, they're still research. And a lot of them are by writers I know, or are books I've heard so much about that I just HAVE to read them so I'm not out of the loop. And I'm going to write a chapter book. Soon! So I need to read like 1,000 of those beforehand so I really understand the structure.

But anyway, all of this is to say that I have LOTS of piles of books around here. LOTS. Ask my family! No wait, don't ask them. They might sound annoyed with me- ha! Let's just say you can't stand anywhere in my house and swing a chicken without hitting a book :) But this post over at The Happy Accident made me feel a whole lot better. Not better enough to share my ridiculousness with the general public by way of a photo, mind you, but a personal kind of better. Piles of books? Enjoy, I say!

:)

I know when I continually send my readers elsewhere it makes me look both lame and lazy. I should be entertaining enough on my own right here, right? (And not so busy- ha!) Well, when there is stuff this good elsewhere on the internet, it's really my duty to make sure you know about it.

You've all read a bajillion interviews of authors who have written books you've read. I know I have. But how about interviews of authors people don't yet know about? The unsung unknowns that will, sooner or later, write books you will read. And love! They are just as interesting, if not more so, than any number of us blah-blah-blah-published-blah-blah people.

And you can read all about some of those fabulous almost-theres at Frolicking through Cyberspace, a lovely blog from Heather Ayris. She calls them The Unread. How perfect is that?? I know, when I see interviews of people like Mike Jung, who she had the pleasure of interviewing in the latest post, I'm jealous I didn't think of it first too.

Enjoy!

:)

I am lucky enough to already have an agent. A fantastic agent, I might add, who is a J-O-Y to work with.

BUT, if I didn't have one?

My first stop would be Casey L. McCormick's blog.

Wow. Just... wow.

:)

All the Non-Fiction Monday posts around the blogosphere are so interesting to me. I have grown to love non-fiction in the time I've been a children's writer and I'm the first to admit I didn't always care for it. As a kid, I didn't touch NF unless I had to for school. I was fiction all the way.

But it seems like there is a wider variety of really creative NF on the market these days, especially in picture books. Is it just me or is this true? In any case, we're reading a lot of it around here and my kids love it too.

I tend to be a fan of narrative nature-themed NF and splashy-art biographies- Abe Lincoln Crosses A Creek, What To Do About Alice, and, well, anything by Jonah Winter have been big favorites. Oh and The United Tweets Of America was awesome! And The Lincolns Scrapbook by Candace Fleming- amazing, although technically not a PB. And all those moon-landing books I raved about back in May! So, so cool.

Lately I've come across some other gems too. I'm still reading this one-



Fan-tas-tic! It is, however, taking me forever because I want to read every word and study every picture. So well done- it's a beautiful book.

Another lovely little book is The Busy Tree by Jennifer Ward (who has a terrific website, by the way)-



This is one of those simple yet charming nature books that I WANT TO WRITE- ha! Put it on the list with An Island Grows by Lola Schaefer and Birds by Kevin Henkes and An Egg Is Quiet by Dianna Hutts Aston. I loved it, my kids loved it- it's a great pairing of an interesting nature concept with unique art that will just hold your attention from cover to cover. Hmmm... the cover... I wish they'd chosen a brighter, more exciting one. The interior art is really more creative than the cover suggests. But that's okay- we all know not to judge a book by its cover, right?

:)

Okay, so I jumped on the Twitter bandwagon. And I really like it! So much information, which I just love to soak up any way I can. It's fast, it's furious and it's much easier than I thought it was going to be. In the slow publishing business where writing is always harder than I think it's going to be, Twitter has been a refreshing jolt for me. Nice.

But I've also got this small affection for e-mail, and Facebook, and my Google Reader (which makes it ridiculously easy to read TOO MANY blogs), and Goodreads, and the blueboards, and my To Read pile, and my To Do list, which gets longer and longer every day.... but the thing is, I got into all of these things because of my writing. Writing BOOKS. Did I mention I'm a WRITER?

I guess to call myself a "writer", I actually have to "write". And, uh, now that my kids are in school, I have no excuse three days a week to NOT be writing. You hear that, Self?? NO EXCUSE. And if you don't get a move on, Self, I'm not going to let you call yourself a "writer" anymore.

There. Just had to get that off my chest. No need for anyone to comment and tell me I seem a little crazy today. I already know that. I mean, I think it's kind of obvious myself. But it HAD to be done.

Whew.

Now I gotta go write something....

What is so cool about Twitter? I'll tell you (bear with me...)

I follow a lovely editor, not one of my editors, but one whom I've met before, who re-tweets something interesting another editor tweeted (an editor I've heard of, but know little about), so I click through, and that editor is back-and-forthing with a different editor I've never heard of, but he has a link to his blog in his profile, which I click on, and it takes me to a blog post which is rather old (from June) in which he interviews a junior editor he knows, and it must be kismet because I think I've heard of the junior editor before, but I'm not sure, so I read the old blog post... and the editor who is being interviewed has the SAME TWO favorite picture books OF ALL TIME as I do. Well, I like a lot of picture books and probably couldn't pick just two, but these two would most likely be in my top 5 and they are NOT your run-of-the-mill standard favorites like Goodnight Moon or The Snowy Day or the au courrant Where The Wild Things Are or whathaveyou that people always blather on about. This information is interesting! These two books are fun and hilarious, but generally, woefully, underrated books, not ones people in our industry vaunt as being THE BEST or ABSOLUTE FAVORITES very often, if ever. I LOVE her taste! And SO, this editor, THIS editor I just discovered via Twitter? I think this editor just might like something I write someday. See, I haven't written anything so far that is very similar to those two favorite books we share, but I would say they are big influences in my writing, they are of a certain type of humor and structure that I try to emulate in my own way, and I dare say she would now be someone to keep in mind to send my manuscripts to in the future. And if I ever (in my wildest dreams, mind you) were to sell a book to this editor, someday, ever, it would all be because of Twitter!

Powerful little thing, that Twitter.

Remember way back in January when I raved about my second-favorite review ever (sorry, Bookie-Woogie, the San Francisco Chronicle's was #1, but you're a VERY close second!)? Gracie called Hush, Little Dragon a "funny, cute, little, horrifying book..." . I swooned.

And I've been a regular Bookie Woogie reader ever since. I never get tired of hearing what kids have to say about books. They have a great post up right now about the "story behind the book" of their dad's first picture book, The Hiccopotamus. Inspiring stuff and fun to read- check it out!

:)

I caved.



I'm Twittering!

Well, I'm trying anyway. I'll remind you: I'm not pithy.

And I don't have much to say! But I knew that going in, so I'm not surprised.

I must admit, I like that the fast pace of it counterbalances the overall slowness of the publishing industry.

It just might keep me from obsessing over my submissions going crazy!!

:)

This is an old picture of my grandma that I just love:



I think she would have loved my first book. I'll never know, because she died a few years before I started writing. She and I always understood each other though, if you know what I mean, and we definitely had the same sense of humor. Man, was she funny and did we love to laugh. She didn't talk down to me, ever, and I never talked down to her either. I learned an awful lot about the world from her. She is a big reason I am the way I am as a person. I think she would have been fine with my people-eating dragons and probably found them just as funny as I do. But would all grandparents? Do grandparents buy my book? Hard to say... but I am excited to be the Children's Book Author Of The Week profiled in Grand magazine, an online magazine for grandparents. Because grandparents are just made of awesome!

:)

Kelly DiPucchio, esteemed author of this book:


and this book:



and THIS ADORABLE-LOOKING (swoon- it's Tricia Tusa!!!) forth-coming book:



is blogging. BLOGGING I said!! She's funny and she's savvy and I can't wait to see what she has to say...

:)