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"It followed her to school one day, which was against the rule." Sharpie Marker Illustration Original Character by Arnoldo L. Romero©

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Hampshire Book Award Won By Canadian

Canadian author Kenneth Oppel has won the 2012 Hampshire Book Award with his book, Half Brother.

Stephen Davies came third with Oulaw and LA Weatherly's Angel second..

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Leeza Hernandez’ debut book hit the bookstores the week of June 10th.  That Friday night we celebrated in NYC with Leeza at her book party.  It was so much fun getting to see Leeza shine.  The picture on the left is Leeza and Connie Colon.  Notice the necklace that Leeza is wearing?  The ornanment on the chain is a dog bone – so cute!  She even had rice crispy treats made up in the shape of dog bones.  And the dress she wore was a knock out.  The whole thing should have made the society page or the book section of the New York Times.  Anyway, I thought I would show off Leeza a little on Illustrator Saturday to help you get to know the next New Jersey SCBWI Regional Advisor a little better.

I asked Leeza to share the journey to getting Dog Gone Published.  Here’s Leeza:

Dog Gone! has been in the making for almost three and  half years, so it’s wonderful to see it out in the world now. Early in 2009, I was invited to the Putnam office at Penguin to meet with art director Cecilia Yung, publisher Nancy Paulsen and editor Nicole Kasprzak. The meeting was a result of winning the Tomie de Paola portfolio award at the New York SCWI winter Conference that same year. I remember being so excited but crazy nervous, too! 

I shared my portfolio and we talked about ideas that I had for picture books. Cecilia pointed out a dog sample in the portfolio and asked if there was a story to go with it.

It just so happened I had with me what I call an ‘ideas’ book. It’s like a small portfolio but filled with loose sketches, notes and random papers. Luckily, there was a copy of the story tucked in the back. Nancy, Cecilia and Nicole read it. I sat quietly for what felt like hours and then Nancy said “Let’s take it.” It was that pinch-me moment when a good poker face can come in really handy. I gave a silly, goofy grin and managed to suppress the girlie squeals, but inside I was running round the office as if I just scored a hat trick at the World Cup! 

Writing a story wasn’t the plan, but thanks to an art director who requested a dog sample from me a year prior (there were only cats in my portfolio at the time), an idea germinated from simple word play on dog terms—“Hot Dog” became “Top Dog” which led to “Doggone it” then a-ha,“Dog Gone!” a story idea appeared about a puppy who runs away.

While working on the book, I have made a number of revisions, mostly to the illustrations; had the book release pushed back twice; saw a change in publisher and switched to a new editor. All par for the course apparently, although at the time I had no idea what to expect throughout the process, especially when a publication date gets changed. That’s hard to take when you are so excited and have to wait another six months or maybe a year before you get to see the book in hand.

Working with Susan and Cecilia has been great. Marikka Tamura was the designer on the book and nailed the type design to suit the illustrations perfectly. Everyone helped shape the book into what it is now and I could not have done it without them, for sure. You learn to appreciate very quickly that making children’s books is a collaborative team effort.

 Some other things I learned during the creation of this book:

Communication is key. Anything and everything is as simple as a conversation, so don’t be afraid

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The coming week’s bookish radio delights to listen out for include:

Sunday 1 July

09:00 – 10:00 and 16:30-17:30 Radio 4 Extra Anna Sewell – Black Beauty
A well-bred horse hits hard times and poor health due to overwork. With Adam Godley.

Monday 2 July

16:00 – 17:00 Radio 4 Extra The 4 O’Clock Show
Mel Giedroyc introduces the first part of a Horrible Histories series on the Groovy Greeks

Tuesday 3 July

16:00 – 17:00 Radio 4 Extra The 4 O’Clock Show
Mel Giedroyc introduces the second part of the Horrible Histories series on Groovy Greeks.

Wednesday 4 July

10:00 – 11:00 and 15:00-16:00 Radio 4 Extra Jane Austen’s Persuasion
Old Friends and New Meetings
1/3 Anne Elliott meets her fiance Fredrick Wentworth again after eight years apart.

16:00 – 17:00 Radio 4 Extra The 4 O’Clock Show
Mel Giedroyc introduces the third part of the Horrible Histories series on Groovy Greeks.

Thursday 5 July

10:00 – 11:00 and 15:00-16:00 Radio 4 Extra Jane Austen’s Persuasion
Accidents and Encounters
2/3 Anne Elliott is surprised to hear news of an impending marriage. Stars Juliet Stevenson.

16:00 – 17:00 Radio 4 Extra The 4 O’Clock Show
Mel Giedroyc introduces the fourth part of the Horrible Histories series on Groovy Greeks.

Friday 6 July

10:00 – 11:00 and 15:00-16:00 Radio 4 Extra Jane Austen’s Persuasion
Friendly Persuasion
3/3 Anne Elliot begins to suspect that she was wrong about Captain Frederick Wentworth.

16:00 – 17:00 Radio 4 Extra The 4 O’Clock Show
Mel Giedroyc introduces the final part of the Horrible Histories series on Groovy Greeks.

Saturday 7 July

14:30 Radio 4 Saturday Drama
The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

All these radio programmes are available to listen to online worldwide, usually for one week after initial broadcast in the UK.

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On The Closing Of The Village Voice Bookshop, Paris

Details on the reasons why this English-language bookshop is having to close, with quotes from the owner Odile Hellier.

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Last week-end, many of us enjoyed beautiful weather in California while learning more about libraries, librarianship, and how to improve services to children. We also made time to visit the Exhibit Hall, network with colleagues, and celebrate quality children’s literature.

Ten bloggers volunteered to “live-blog” from the conference. Unfortunately, a serious hardware outage at our provider prevented us from from doing this.  Tomorrow and Monday,  some of us hope to share some of the things we learned and experienced at the ALA Annual Conference last weekend.

Feel free to add YOUR thoughts about what you learned at the Midwinter Conference in the comments below.

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       In The Guardian Stuart Jeffries has a solid profile of John Banville: a life in writing.
       Banville's Ancient Light is just out in the UK (get your copy at Amazon.co.uk) but only due out in the US in October (pre-order your copy at Amazon.com) -- though look for that date to be pushed up if it gets Man Booker-shortlisted, as Banville (tongue quite deeply in cheek, no doubt) is certain it will:

"I think they may as well call the whole thing off and give me the prize now !"

       (Several Banville titles are under review at the complete review, including his Man Booker-winning The Sea.)

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       In The Guardian Julian Barnes recounts My life as a bibliophile.
       He seems to have long been a pretty diehard one, recognizing (just) how far his obsession went (goes ?):

I also bought books it made no sense to buy, either at the time or in retrospect -- like all three volumes (in first edition, with dust-wrappers, and definitely unread by the previous owner) of Sir Anthony Eden's memoirs. Where was the sense in that ?

       (Several Barnes titles are under review at the complete review, including his Man Booker-winning The Sense of an Ending.)

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Though it's pretty cute.

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       The second volume in Deborah Harkness' 'All Souls Trilogy', Shadow of Night, is due out shortly (pre-order your copy at Amazon.com or Amazon.co.uk), so I've finally gotten around to the first volume: the most recent addition to the complete review is my review of A Discovery of Witches.

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Having been reading and enjoying the History Girls blog for the last few weeks, I thought perhaps I might do a History Girls-type post here, about how I researched a book I wrote, and perhaps when you've read it you might like to check out the sample chapter I have on this blog. It's the story of the April Fool's Day bungled robbery, of which more later.

About four years ago, I decided to take a term off from school, on long service leave. I had no special plans, except a bit of travel and some writing of articles and short fiction. I was just about to start my nice long break when I received an email from Paul Collins of Ford Street Publishing. I had written some short fiction for Paul before, but he knew I had written a lot of non-fiction(in fact, I'd recently completed an article about forensic science for the NSW School Magazine, at their request.)

Paul explained that his partner Meredith Costain had done a book called Fifty Famous Australians and he had an idea for a book on fifty infamous Australians. Would I be interested in writing it?

Is the Pope a Catholic?

When you write non-fiction for children, you have to be prepared to write about anything, and I had been doing that. Sometimes I suggested the topic; more often I was commissioned. I love writing about something unfamiliar, because I learn something new.

I did know a little bit about crime, due to my forensics article, and all the Underbelly gangland stuff in the newspapers. I'd read about it over the years. Who hasn't heard of Ned Kelly? And then there was the gruesome story of the Batavia, mutiny and murder.

But there was a lot to do here, not merely the fifty, but a whole lot of snippets for "Did You Know?" boxes. I prepared a long list of possible entries and visited my publisher to be briefed and discuss. This was a book for children. As such, it had to be written carefully so that there wouldn't be anything too detailed in the descriptions of the crimes. I knew that, Paul didn't have to tell me. At the same time, this was a history of crime, children Iove gruesome and I was adamant that this was not going to be a book to help with homework. Potentially it could help with homework, but it was for entertainment. Anything called Fifty Infamous Australians would sound like homework material. In the end, I didn't come up with the title Crime Time: Australians behaving badly, but at least it didn't imply homework!

There had to be a mixture of men and women, grim and humorous, scary and quirky and a vague historical timeline. I would start with the Batavia incident, when a Dutch ship was wrecked off the coast of Western Australia in the seventeenth century and while the captain was gone for help, members of the crew mutinied and murdered passengers and anyone who wouldn't join them.

In the end, though, I wrote the entries in no special order, deciding to sort them later. I knew a book on Australian crime without Ned Kelly would be like a history of women in science without Marie Curie, but I also learned that there was a Kelly brother, James, who lived to a ripe old age as a pillar of the community. And with the other bushrangers there was a lady called Mary Ann Bugg, the wife of Captain Thunderbolt, who was brave and strong and who kept them alive in the bush. I devoured books about Australian crime, from the Batavia to the present day. I read the newspapers for contemporary crime stories, including those I could use for the "Did You Know?" boxes.

Australia is rich in crime stories, the only problem being how to choose among them. There were some who,like Ned Kelly, couldn't be left out. Paul requested some and I duly researched them.

Because I understand how history writing works, I made sure that each of my entries had at least two, preferably more, sources. I remember one Internet source about the Hoddle Street massacre was suspiciously sympathetic to the murderer, for example. Likewise, there were articles pr

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Welcome!

Thanks for visiting the official site of children’s author Artie Knapp!  

Where Alligators Bowl, Roosters Moo, and Elephants work at car washes!

Use of any of the content on this website without permission is prohibited by federal law

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Publisher: Entangled Publishing (June 12, 2012)
Paperback: 400 Pages
Series: Lost Souls # 1
Genre: Tiffany's Website| Blog |Twitter

From Goodreads. What if you were mankind’s last chance at survival? Sixteen-year-old Tess lives in a compound in what was once the Western United States, now decimated after a devastating fourth World War. But long before that, life as we knew it had been irrevocably changed, as women mysteriously lost the ability to bring forth life. Faced with the extinction of the human race, the government began the Council of Creators, meant to search out alternative methods of creating life. The resulting artificial human beings, or Chosen Ones, were extraordinarily beautiful, unbelievably strong, and unabashedly deadly. Life is bleak, but uncomplicated for Tess as she follows the rigid rules of her dystopian society, until the day she begins work at Templeton, the training facility for newly created Chosen Ones. There, she meets James, a Chosen One whose odd love of music and reading rivals only her own. The attraction between the two is immediate in its intensity—and overwhelming in its danger. But there is more to the goings-on at Templeton than Tess ever knew, and as the veil is lifted from her eyes, she uncovers a dark underground movement bent not on taking down the Chosen Ones, but the Council itself. Will Tess be able to stand up to those who would oppress her, even if it means giving up the only happiness in her life?

Review by Jess
CHOSEN ONES by Tiffany Truitt, follows Tess, a girl who struggles to do what she needs to in desperate times in a desperate place. Inspiring from the beginning to the end, readers will fall in love with the dynamic characters and fast moving plot.

I LOVED this book. When I first began reading it, I found that it was somewhat difficult to understand some of what was going on. There could have been a little more ease into the main character's world, but once it was figured out it was spectacular! Every aspect of this novel was very original to me and I felt like I hadn't read anything like it.

I've picked up quite a bit of books in the dystopian genre and Truitt did a spectacular job at WOWing me. Her world was so unique. Bringing in artificial beings that are superior to the struggling natural humans. The infertility that spread across the lives of the characters brought a harsh and original tone to the story. I loved the focus on reading and books. As a book junkie it added so much to the story!

I loved the characters, from start to finish. There is no question in regards to the characters. They all had a wonderful dynamic and I found them so real, I wanted to reach into the book and help them. The tension between the main characters Tess and James is outstanding! I could feel their frustration in me! The background characters, that are sure to play a bigger role in the future excite me. I cant wait to learn about more characters.

Tiffany Truitt constructed a beautiful and tragic story of love and betrayal, growing and learning. I was able to feel what these characters were feeling and understand them. I enjoyed reading this book immensely. Well done, I'm hooked. 0 Comments on Chosen Ones by Tiffany Truitt: Review as of 1/1/1900