Read Across Oklahoma 2011

I had one halibut of a time at the Oklahoma City Zoo on Tuesday last week. My book, Rope 'Em, was chosen as the Read Across Oklahoma Book 2011. The event is sponsored by Target, the Oklahoma City Zoo, OETA, and bunch of other really nice folks. They bought 1500 copies of my book and handed it out to kindergartnes in at risk schools across the city. Then, on Tuesday, we put on a shin dig for them at the Zoo. Spaghetti Eddie was there to sing. There was a roper, The Oklahoma Kid. And there was me, reading my book.

The weather played along, yippee! It was 70 and sunny. Perfect.

And the kids were amazing. They sang. They danced. They counted. We really had a really neat time.

Thanks Target, OETA and the Oklahoma City Zoo for picking Rope 'Em. I had such a blast. I wish I had a picture book a year coming out so I could go back next year. It's that much fun!!!

Check it out next year if you get a chance. There is a performance open to the general public, and they even had a few extra books left to give away.

A Cover! A Cover!

A cover! A cover! I actually got a cover for my upcoming picture book, Rope 'Em. This is a red letter day (or, in this case, purple :-)

We writers spend most of our lives waiting. Waiting that centers around the slow but steady movement of an idea to a rough draft to revisions (If I could, I'd put in one of those repeat symbols for music because this is where waiting turns into something like Beckett's Waiting for Godot) to a manuscript to finding an agent to a sale to revisions - or, again, lots of revisions - to corrections, to ARCs, to, dare I say it...an actual, bona fide, hold-in-my-hands book.

The waiting can sometimes get to us writers. We suffer. Despair. Call each other and vent or moan, or both. But when that cover arrives, oh, is all the waiting worth it. So worth it!

So, here it is. The gorgeous cover for my next book. The hope that, yes, Stacy, it will really appear as a book in March. Really!

I am in love with the illustrations. So light-hearted. Fun. Silly. The illustrator, Bret Conover, is from San Diego, which is where the publisher, Kane Miller, sits as well. Barrie, San Diego really is the place to be, isn't it? This is his first picture book, and I think he hit a home run. Yeay!!!!

In other, slightly less exciting news, the new silkworms arrived. They have started to hatch. Two have already died on the artificial formula, but we have at least ten going strong. Oh, let them go all the way. Let there be silk!

The Book Review Club - The Accidental Adventures of India McAllister

The Accidental Adventures of India McAllister
By Charlotte Agell
middle grade
(151 pp with some b/w illustration)

I won the advance arc for this book on Sarah Laurence's website and eagerly awaited its arrival. My youngest daughter is a serious Junie B. Jones, Judy Moody, Flat Stanley, Geronimo Stilton, you-name-the-series-she'll-read-it kind of kid. I wondered if India would fit the bill.

She more than lived up to my expectations. One of my pet peeves with series books these days is the flatness to the characters. This is not to say they don't have their own quirks, but rather, that they all seem to come from the same amorphous, fictitious middle America neighborhood. It's a great marketing ploy, but gets a little boring after a while, at least for me.

Which is what drew me into this book immediately. India is a adopted from China. Her parents are divorced. Her dad is gay and in a relationship with another man. Her mom is a self-sufficient artist (that really sealed the deal). India lives in a real place, Wolfgang, Maine. It is not middle America. It is a little town with a forest where you can get lost! There is so much texture to this story and its characters. The adventures India has are regular kid adventures. She has a boy who is her friend but not her boyfriend, Colby. He has a crush on a girl India cannot stand. India and Colby sleep out in a field to watch for UFOs. India spends time with her elderly neighbor next door. And all around these adventures is the enticing flavors of real setting, modern day family, and real life.

Go India!

Add to that the gentle illustrations with which Agell enlivens the pages, and it's a winning combination. I cannot wait to read more.

For more adventurous tales, hop over to our fearless leader, Barrie Summy's blog!

On a tangentially related note, I got to see the inside illustrations for my upcoming picture book, ROPE 'EM, that comes out in March 2011 with Kane Miller. Gorgeous (author swoons).

I'm in love!!!!!!!!!!!!!!