I’ve been holed up revising my new book, UNWORTHY, for the last month or so… and I’m almost finished! It’s been a totally new experience working on a deadline and getting early feedback. I’ve found it scary to share such raw material, but also very rewarding. But something I’ve missed desperately is having the time [...]
Haiku Review: Wonderstruck by Brian Selznick
October 13, 2011 – 2:38 pm
Wolves, lightning, silence. Cabinet of Mysteries, Built out of pictures.
Haiku Review: Beauty Queens by Libba Bray
August 3, 2011 – 2:44 pm
Snark and bullets fly! Pageant queens find girl power… They wave at danger!
Haiku Review: Lips Touch Three Times by Laini Taylor
July 11, 2011 – 4:03 am
What is in a kiss? Souls? Magic? Hell? The answer is: This mesmeric book.
Firegirl
August 25, 2010 – 1:53 pm
Recently, I was blown away by Tony Abbot’s Firegirl. It’d been on my reading list for a while now, ever since it won the Golden Kite. Now I understand why it received the award! This book is an incredible example of voice guiding you through the story. Strangely, the title character is not the first [...]
Tears or Glitter?
April 25, 2010 – 5:19 pm
This weekend I had the privilege of hearing Kate DiCamillo (Because of Winn-Dixie and The Tale of Despereaux) speak at the LA Times Festival of Books. She was one of those wonderful authors whose real-world presence is exactly the same as her writing presence. She speaks with the same quiet, humorous confidence that comes across [...]
One Penguin at a Time…
September 30, 2009 – 2:54 pm
Doesn’t this picture make you ANGRY! I mean how dare donkeys go to the police with their problems! Do they even pay taxes? What? Oh. What I meant was how dare William Steig portray the police as pigs! That is outrageous. And this poem… it just really gets under my skin. Clearly, it’s teaching materialism [...]
Lost Art? Really?
August 19, 2009 – 12:45 pm
Ok… a friend of mine posted this article, The Lost Art of Reading, on my Facebook page yesterday. You can pretty much guess what it’s about. The author proposes that, in this culture of constant buzzing, finding the quiet mental space to commune with a book is becoming increasingly rare. My question then is, Why [...]
Collect Them All!
August 5, 2009 – 6:00 am
So… as I may have casually mentioned… THE SCBWI SUMMER CONFERENCE IS COMING! For me, this means checking out great stacks of books from the library, doing my homework on editors, and hitting the thrift store for clothes that say, ‘I’m professional, yet artsy, and you should give me a heap of money.’ I’ve never [...]
Comic-Con 2009
July 30, 2009 – 2:18 pm
Mid-July always feels like christmas to me. That is, if Santa was a Trekkie who loved kids’ books. July means Comic-Con and right on its heels comes the SCBWI Summer Conference. I can’t imagine any two events more saturated with great minds, creative talent, and genuine inspiration. So it was with a huge grin on [...]
Summer (conference) Reading
July 22, 2009 – 11:37 am
When I was a kid, my library, like many others, had a summer reading program. Every book I read racked up points towards stickers or McDonalds french fries or, my most coveted prize of all, the knotted pencil. How did they even do that?? It was the highlight of my summer and I always read [...]
Field Trip!
July 15, 2009 – 5:57 pm
There’s nothing like a field trip to break out of the routine and make some trouble. Today, a group of illustrator/writer friends of mine packed our lunches, got on the bus, and descended upon the best kids’ book store in LA. And by “the bus,” I mean our gumless, bully-free cars. And by “packed our [...]
Not, not, not a box!
August 26, 2008 – 3:01 pm
*First off, apologies to Antoinette Portis and her modern classic picture book, Not a Box for leaning on her wonderful pictures and themes. Go buy Not a Box! * A box is a cozy place to be. It’s dark and quiet, with plenty of corners to curl up in. You can touch the walls around [...]
