Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for August 19, 2925

 This Alabama author's books are well-researched and just gross enough to get middle graders excited about science! They include "Something Rotten: a Fresh Look at Roadkill," "Who gives a Poop? Surprising Science from One End to the Other," and "SICK! The Twists and Turns Behind Animal Germs." I was fortunate to meet her at the Highlights Non-Fiction Nature Retreat last week, where she led a small group of us out at night to watch for Perseid meteors and pointed out constellations. And there were lightning bugs, which I hadn't seen since I was a little girl in Massachusetts! Find her name in my recent blog posts about my time at Highlights.

Highlights is Magical continued

 The classes at Highlights are top notch, and they're also known for chef Amanda's fabulous food! Everything is locally sourced and healthy, but also delicious. Best bratwurst I've ever had, amazing mashed potatoes made with Boursin, and carrot cake with caramel sauce in the middle!

                                                              

  When the time came to meet one-on-one with Miranda Paul, I was so hopeful that she would like the changes I'd made to my story TOYS AHOY! It's about a spill of 28,800 plastic tub toys into the Pacific, and what it taught the world about plastic traveling from one ocean to another and lasting for years.  And she did! She didn't have any major suggestions and said she thought it would sell. She suggested submitting it to Charlesbridge, so I did, and now I'll submit it confidently to other agents and publishers. Thanks, Miranda!

                                                                                     

One of the absolute best things about Highlights is meeting other writers and making dear friends so quickly. I shared a ride from Newark airport to the campus with Emily Starr, and I so hope her family can come to visit us in Colorado someday! She's talented, smart, generous, fun and wonderful! And she introduced me to geoducks! 😮Thank you, Highlights, you never disappoint.

                                                                                    

Highlights is Magical

 I recently spent four days at the Highlights Barn in the Pennsylvania woods, and it was heavenly. I hadn't been in years, and I treated myself since I've signed three picture book contracts. So many coincidences--On June 13 (my wedding day) I got a letter from agent Miranda Paul saying she was really intrigued by my non-fiction story Toys Ahoy, and that she would look at it again if I revised. Two days later, I got an email that there was an opening in the non-fiction workshop in August--with Miranda Paul!  So I signed up. Would Miranda like my revisions? 

  The first picture book, due out next summer, is Nighty Night, Dinos,. Guess what I saw at O'Hare?

And when I got to my room at the lodge, all the paintings were of dinosaurs!

Another faculty member was award-winning science writer Heather Montgomery.  She took a few of us outside one night to lay on blankets and watch for meteors while she pointed out the many constellations that were visible. And I saw an amazing Perseid meteor shoot across the sky! I had tried so many times to see meteors at home but our skies just aren't dark enough.

  The next day, while I was working outside, I got an e-mail from my son that the High Five magazine had arrived for 3 year-old Oliver, and that I had a poem in it! 

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for August 12, 2025

 This author grew up outside of Boston, and her mother took her to the library every week to take home a pile of books. She loved stories, and she considered careers in journalism and writing ad copy. But after she married a children's book illustrator, she fell in love with picture books. One of her most well known books tells a story backwards: "Before she was Harriet, she was..." and on back through the slave's life. I was fortunate to hear her read her book at a Highlights workshop in the woods of Pennsylvania, and that's where I'm headed today, to learn from other authors.

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for August 5th, 2025

    This Connecticut-born Yale graduate was living in New York City when he took the subway home one night and heard a cricket chirping at one of the busiest stops. A story formed in his head in minutes, which went on to become a beloved book in 1960, sometimes compared to the classic Charlotte's Web. He wrote many other books but none achieved the popularity of  The Cricket in Times Square. The author is George Selden.

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for July 22, 2025

 Born in Beaver Dam, Wisconsin in 1934, this author/illustrator grew up in a happy home filled with art supplies, scraps of lumber from her father's workshop and fabric from her mother's sewing room. Her favorite medium was collage, and after graduating from the UW/Madison she went to art school in Milwaukee and worked as a freelance illustrator. Her first book as an author and illustrator was Growing Vegetable Soup in 1987, but perhaps she is best known for her artwork in the book by Bill Martin Jr. where the alphabet climbs up a coconut tree. The book, chosen by President Obama to read to visiting children, is Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and the artist is Lois Ehlert. 

Tuesday Kidlit Trivia for July 14, 2025

 He was the author, she was the illustrator for numerous books featuring animals, including Emmet Otter's Jug Band Christmas and a novel called The Mouse and His Child. The couple married in 1944, and they are perhaps best known for their series of picture books in the 1960's about a young badger who loves bread and jam. The couple divorced and the husband remarried and moved to England, where he described why writers and artists create. "They can't help it...Art, like babies, is one of the things that life makes us make." This is Russell and Lillian Hoban, creators of the books about a badger called Frances.