Friday, December 16, 2011 at 03:33PM When your class skypes with me, may I suggest you serve (what else?) O.J.?
May I also suggest you decorate your walls with book-based art? Authors love that!
Thanks, Mr. Carlson's class at Northwinds Elementary in Buffalo, MN!
Thursday, December 15, 2011 at 10:25PM Tis the season when listmakers - myself included - make lists.
I am happy to report that When Life Gives You O.J. is making its way onto many lists of late ("best of" lists compiled by other people, that is!). In fact, I'm downright giddy. Here's a quick wrap-up:
Travis Jonker and John Schumacher's Best 20 Books of 2012 (#14!)
The Washington Post's Holiday Gift List (extra points will be awarded for referring to me as the author of "the beloved Chicken Butt series"... That's right, people, BELOVED. Could be a typo for "bewildering" or "bizarre" but I will take it regardless).
Tablet Magazine's Best Jewish Children's Books of 2012
Many of these lists have other great suggestions, too. Which is good because I am waaaay behind on my Hanukkah shopping. I'm starting with Tablet's list (Marjorie Ingall's annotations are making me drool... I want ALL these books) and going from there. You should, too.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011 at 11:40AM Today, I had the pleasure of visiting Alice Deal Middle School here in Washington, DC to participate in Career Day. Humorously enough, due an editorial error (my nametag had the wrong room assignment, so instead of being routed to an English class, they sent me to a Social Studies class), I ended up sharing a bill with U.S. Park Ranger Garcia, pictured here with me.
The unexpected benefit of this was that I learned a lot about the National Monuments. The kids had just visited them the week before, so they had a lot of stats at their fingertips. When it was my turn, I talked about my books, read from WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU O.J. and shared my video (which the kids liked so much they begged to watch it again... always a good sign). I donated two copies each of WHEN LIFE GIVES YOU O.J. and VINTAGE VERONICA to the school library, to add to those already on the shelves, since the kids seemed pretty pumped to read them.
At the end, the nametag error was discovered and I was asked to come back the following week to present to the class I should've met with in the first place! Luckily, as the assistant principal explained, "it's not just career day... it's career month here!"
Wednesday, October 19, 2011 at 10:06AM Yes, you heard right. The National Book Foundation has announced three additional books that will be competing in the Young People's Literature category. The NBF regrets its failure to include these worthy titles in the original announcement, explaining, "We read a lot of books. Occasionally, we get confused."
They are, SLIME:
CLIMB,
and, of course,
Wednesday, October 12, 2011 at 11:58AM Yup, that's right: today's Washington Post's KidsPost feature was an article about me and When Life Gives You O.J. And it was a great article, too - well-written and geared toward the KidsPost readership. I was super-thrilled to shuffle out in my slippers and pick up my copy. And I've gotten some very nice calls and emails about in (who says no one reads the paper any more?), which has been great.
Here's the story, by the way, though I encourage you to pick up a print edition for several reasons:
1) You can enjoy seeing an interview with a children's book author positioned higher on the page and taking up more column inches than a piece on Rosie O'Donnell and Russell Brand (poor dears, they are relegated to the spot below the fold).
2) The headline - "Messy Journals Inspire Neat Story" is about as good as they come.
3) When you're done reading about O.J., there's the crossword puzzle (like Russell, also below the fold).
Enjoy!