Awesome news and I am bursting! I landed a two-book deal with Walker Books! Here's the blurb from PM:
Author of the forthcoming debut VIOLET RAINES ALMOST GOT STRUCK BY LIGHTNING Danette Haworth's THE HOTEL OF BLUEBERRY GOODNESS and ME AND JACK, again to Stacy Cantor at Walker, by Ted Malawer at Firebrand Literary.
I feel so excited! Thank you Ted and Stacy for your hard work and belief in my writing. Thank you to all my friends on Verla Kay who've already sent heaps of congratulations and you go, girl! and thanks to LindaBudz, who told me about the PM blurb, and thank you to Kim Kasch and her sons who sang a song of celebration for me! I keep clicking into Kim's blog to watch it--it's awesome! Click here to watch the video. *Spoiler alert* These guys are gorgeous!
I'm going on a little vacay, but I'll post more details next week!
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By: Danette Haworth,
on 7/30/2008
Blog: Summer Friend (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Violet Raines Almost Got Struck By Lightning, Me and Jack, Kim Kash, The Hotel of Blueberry Goodness, Add a tag
By: Danette Haworth,
on 7/8/2008
Blog: Summer Friend (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Violet Raines Almost Got Struck By Lightning, Add a tag
The phone's been ringing off the hook and I've had all kinds of delivery men dropping off boxes for my husband (the gadget man) and just now, UPS pulls up and I'm like What else has he ordered? but when I pick up the package I see it's for me. But I already got my Brian Regan DVD the other day and I'm tired, so I don't remember what I ordered, and I can't make out the return address and why am I standing here, I'll just open it and see.
I rip it open.
I gasp.
My little boy yells "Are you okay?"
I cannot answer.
It's my book. It's my book! I feel like crying just looking at it. I can't wait for my mom to see it and all my family and friends.
I am so moved receiving this copy Violet Raines. Feeling the heft of it--a HARDBACK!
My neighbor is home. I imagine her opening the door and me pushing my book at her. I know she'll be happy for me. But my vision does not stop there--why not go door-to-door and show all of them? They like me! They smile and wave when we check our mailboxes. But it's thundering and lightning! If I go door-to-door right now, I'll almost get struck by lightning. Of course, a slight graze might be good for sales, you know, the lightning and all.
I decide against this sort of publicity and instead repeatedly dial my mom who does not answer. BMZ are all excited for me. One of them wants to know if we're famous now. No, no, I say, as I secretly envision the movie. I wonder if I can appear as an extra in the crowd scenes.
No matter, when Hollywood calls, I will be ready. For now my book is here--MY BOOK IS HERE!
By: Danette Haworth,
on 5/14/2008
Blog: Summer Friend (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Violet Raines Almost Got Struck By Lightning, Add a tag
Hooray! It's here! This is the cover for Violet Raines Almost Got Struck by Lightning. Hooray! The designer, Daniel Roode, really captured the spirit of the book. I can't wait to post this everywhere!
By: Danette Haworth,
on 4/4/2008
Blog: Summer Friend (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Violet Raines Almost Got Struck By Lightning, Violet Raines, www.danettehaworth.com, Add a tag
The website for Danette Haworth (me!) and Violet Raines Almost Got Struck by Lightning went live last night! Some pages are "coming soon," but the main pages are up and working. I don't have a cover yet, but the site does include an excerpt from Violet Raines. And a little about me.
Come visit! Danette Haworth or Violet Raines--both roads lead to my new house.
I'll be adjusting the blogs, too, might change the look of Summer Friend to match the website. And I'll shut down the Danette Haworth blog now that the site's open.
Come on over, then, and tell me what you think!
By: Danette Haworth,
on 4/2/2008
Blog: Summer Friend (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: Violet Raines Almost Got Struck By Lightning, Violet Raines, Add a tag
I almost fell out of my chair after performing my daily ritual of searching for my book's title, Violet Raines Almost Got Struck by Lightning--Violet Raines is listed on Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, and Borders!
And I received the galleys today!
And I've been blurbed!
I'm not able to share the cover yet, but I am excited to quote two wonderful authors who took time from their own schedules to read my book. Here's what they had to say:
"Danette Haworth has written a wonderful story that is as warm and bright as the Florida sun, and eleven-year-old Violet Raines--loyal, hilarious, and true--is the best friend any girl could have."
Lauren Tarshis, Emma-Jean Lazarus Fell Out of a Tree
"Haworth's rich sense of place and telling detail embrace the reader like a hammock on a shaded porch, inviting them to while away the day. Danette Haworth creates characters so real they stand out on the page. They tell a story of friendship on the cusp of adolescence so full of spunk and humor I read more slowly as I approached the last page. This is a lovely debut."
Audrey Couloumbis, Newbery Honor winner, Getting Near to Baby
By: Kate Messner,
on 2/18/2008
Blog: Kate's Book Blog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: nonfiction monday, interviews, benedict arnold, jim murphy, nonfiction monday, jim murphy, pairing nonfiction & historical fiction, benedict arnold, pairing nonfiction & historical fiction, Add a tag
If you've spent any time around middle school kids, you know they devour Jim Murphy's works of nonfiction. Murphy has won two Newbery Honors for his books The Great Fire and An American Plague: The True and Terrifying Story of the Yellow Fever Epidemic of 1793. His latest book, The Real Benedict Arnold, was brought to my attention this fall by a Vermont librarian who purchased it as a non-fiction companion to go along with my middle grade historical novel Spitfire, about a young girl who disguises herself as a boy to join Arnold's fleet on Lake Champlain during the American Revolution. 
Jim was kind enough to take time out from his writing to answer some questions for blog readers.
Thanks so much for joining us, Jim! Your most well-known works of non-fiction for middle grade readers have focused on disasters — fire, the blizzard, the yellow fever epidemic. What drew you to write a book about Benedict Arnold?
Yes, I’ve done a lot of books that focus on one or another form of disaster. In fact, my friends jokingly call me the Master of Disaster. I try to write nonfiction that reads like a good “you are there” story and a fire or blizzard or whatever has the built feature of having a beginning, middle, and an end. What’s more, these are often dramatic events that people who survive write about in vivid and dramatic prose. Combine the event and the people and the result has the potential to be a book that allows readers to experience a part of our history in an active, involving way.
So you’re right that The Real Benedict Arnold was a bit of a departure for me. I was drawn to him because most books about the American Revolution or about Arnold simply paint him with the traitor brush and never try it discover why he turned against the Cause. In addition, very few give him proper credit for his military abilities. He was, in my opinion, the best field general that the colonies had and deserves a great deal of credit for the ultimate American victory.
Where did your research for this book take you? Were there many surprises along the way?
Researching The Real Benedict Arnold was a nightmare. I ended just about every day with a massive headache and the feeling that I’d only scratched the surface. But after six or so years the path to the finished began to look clearer. Here’s why it proved to be so difficult. I found that many, if not most of the negative stories about Benedict surfaced after he’d turned traitor. I wondered how many were invented by people who wanted to distance themselves from Benedict or saw it as an opportune moment to get even. I also wanted to find out the truth about the negative stories that existed before he went over the British. So every event in his life had to be evaluated as if it was a potential crime scene and my job was to trace every story (positive and negative) back to its origins and then evaluate it as carefully as I could. The biggest surprise for me was how many of these stories were completely fabricated and false, and then passed along as fact by succeeding generations of historians.
You’ve written both non-fiction and historical fiction. How does your writing process differ with those two genres?
Research for both my nonfiction and historical fiction is pretty much the same. I’m a bit obsessive about assembling facts and trying to “see” what the person or event was really like. The writing process itself is different. In nonfiction I can include only information that I’ve been able to verify with at least two reliable sources. This means stopping frequently to discover, for instance, what the weather was like every day during Benedict’s march with his troops through the Maine wilderness. With my historical fiction, the emphasis is on the characters – what are their conflicts or aspirations, what problems get in their way and how to they overcome them, etc. Still, I try to create characters that are historically accurate. This means shying away from giving them obviously modern opinions and ideas (say about the environment or war in general).
Many teachers are using your books in the classroom, particularly as companion books alongside historical novels. I know that my school has a class set of An American Plague that we use with Laurie Halse Anderson’s Fever, and I’ve heard from another school that’s planning to use your new Arnold book as a non-fiction companion to go along with my own historical novel, Spitfire. As an author, how do you feel about the trend of fiction & non-fiction being paired in the classroom?
On a purely selfish level, I love to have my nonfiction books paired with someone else’s historical fiction counterpart. In general, kids will much more readily seek out historical fiction than nonfiction (historical fiction comes with a promise of action and drama, while nonfiction seems like tons of facts). So using one of my nonfiction books and historical fiction together in a classroom allows more readers to get a taste for the way I write history and might even convince some that it might even be fun to read.
I like the pairing of nonfiction and historical fiction for another reason. Reading historical fiction allows readers to see the past through a character’s eyes and, hopefully, might prompt a series of opinions or questions. Readers can then use the nonfiction book to check out their ideas or get a fuller understanding of our past.
Are there other works of historical fiction that you like to recommend as companions to your non-fiction titles? Have you heard about novels or picture books that teachers like to use along with Blizzard and The Great Fire?
This is a great question for which I have no answer. I tend to muddle along day to day struggling to get words on a page, so I haven’t devoted much thought to additional pairings. And most teachers I’ve spoken with have spoken about the pairings mentioned above, but not offered new ones. Maybe the notion is so new that most of us don’t think about it in a regular way. Besides, I have a feeling most of your readers a better qualified to make such pairings. Or maybe someone out there should write an article about it for SLJ….
(How about it blog readers? Any thoughts on novels or picture books that would work well as pairings for Murphy's other books? Betsy Bird, doesn't that sound like a blog post in the making?)
Readers always love a sneak preview, Jim. Can you tell us what you’re working on now?
What am I working on? Well, I’ve written a nonfiction book about the Battle of Antietam called A Savage Thunder. It’s a look at how Robert E. Lee and George McClellan managed their armies both before, during, and after the battle, but the story line is driven by scores of firsthand accounts of the fighting. It will be published by Simon & Schuster in spring, 2009.
I have two other nonfiction books in the works. One is entitled Truce: The Day the Soldiers Refused to Fight (and is about the famous Christmas truce in 1914). The other as yet untitled book follows George Washington from his disastrous performance in the Battle of Long Island to his miraculous victory at Trenton. Neither book has an official pub date, but (if someone somewhere smiles upon me) might appear in 2009.
Finally, my wife, Alison Blank, and I are writing a history of tuberculosis (which is much more interesting and scary than it sounds).
Jim, thanks so much for joining us for Nonfiction Monday! We'll be looking for those new titles in 2009.
By: Danette Haworth,
on 2/13/2008
Blog: Summer Friend (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: cover art, Violet Raines Almost Got Struck By Lightning, Violet Raines Almost Got Struck By Lightning, Add a tag
I've seen the preliminary cover art for Violet Raines Almost Got Struck By Lightning! It's fantastic!
My editor emailed me, and upon opening the attachment, I felt my heart lift! The image captures the spirit of the book--outdoors, fun, exciting. It's thrilling to see how another artist can interpret your work and project it in a different format. The cover art is spot-on.
I always thought when my book got published, my name would stand out to me, but it was the title treatment I couldn't take my eyes off of. The typeface conveys the very essence of Violet, the story's main character. It's spunky and unusual, not afraid to be different. The font is loaded with personality.
The designer is making his finishing touches to the cover. I can't wait to show it to you!
By: Danette Haworth,
on 1/7/2008
Blog: Summer Friend (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: copyedit, snowman, Violet Raines Almost Got Struck By Lightning, lizards, lizards, Violet Raines Almost Got Struck By Lightning, copyedit, Add a tag
Back to your routine? I am. The snowman is in, the bells are down; no matter these things are standing in my living room, the neighbors can't see them, so they think I'm all packed up like they are.
I had a bit of a problem bringing the snowman in--I didn't know it, but a lizard had stowed away and clung to the snowman until we got into the house. He waited until I closed the door before he jumped off. Screaming comes naturally to me. Some reactions people verbalize only when others are around, such as laughing at a TV show, but for me, screaming works with or without an audience.
Part of getting back into the routine includes organizing and cleaning. I've done the easy part. I've bought stuff to organize and clean with. That counts, right?
I finished the copyedit for Violet Raines Almost Got Struck by Lightning, and FedEx is taking it up to New York today. This being my first novel, it was also my first copyedit. I knew it wouldn't involve the broad suggestions of the editorial letter or the turning of phrases in the line edit, but I wasn't really sure what to expect. Here's what the copyedit addressed: a few word changes, a few tense changes, mechanical issues (punctuation, italics/Roman, compound or hyphenated words), and some queries to confirm the material. The copyeditor did a great job; I learned a few things and I might have to pass my Danette-the-Dictionary crown (acquired in sixth grade) to her. She also left smiley faces on the manuscript here and there--you can't beat that!
By: Kate Messner,
on 11/7/2007
Blog: Kate's Book Blog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: spitfire, benedict arnold, middle grade non-fiction, jim murphy, the real benedict arnold, the real benedict arnold, Add a tag
Jim Murphy has done it again -- crafted a work of non-fiction so compelling that it will keep kids hooked like an action-packed novel. The fact that Benedict Arnold's life reads like a novel helps. Murphy asks important questions about the man whose name has become synonymous with the word "traitor" and explores those questions with an open mind and an eye for historical detail. THE REAL BENEDICT ARNOLD takes a look at the man behind the label, his early days of the war, his motivations, and the reasons for the decision that ultimately made him infamous.
This is a fascinating book -- one that I'm recommending to teachers as a companion to my own middle grade historical novel SPITFIRE, which tells the story of two young people who were with Benedict Arnold's fleet on Lake Champlain in the fall of 1776. Just as Murphy's AN AMERICAN PLAGUE is a perfect complement to Laurie Halse Anderson's FEVER, this book will prove to be an invaluable resource for teachers looking to add some non-fiction to classroom libraries and discussions.
By: Kate Messner,
on 7/25/2007
Blog: Kate's Book Blog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: teachers, spitfire, clinton community college, benedict arnold, lake champlain, battle of valcour, presentation, Add a tag
I gave my first presentation on SPITFIRE on Monday and couldn't have asked for a more pleasant and receptive audience. Clinton Community College hosts a teachers' historical workshop about Benedict Arnold in the Champlain Valley. Facilitators Tom Mandeville and John Mockry do a fantastic job sharing knowledge about Lake Champlain history and leading field trips around the region. 
I was the after-lunch speaker on Monday. They had lasagna, and I worried about this, but only one person dozed off a little, and I think I woke him up with my bo'sun's whistle. (It's used to issue orders during battle...or to get attention during a presentation as the need arises...)
I presented my PowerPoint about the Battle of Valcour Island on Lake Champlain, the real 12-year-old boy who fought in that battle, and how I researched his life and life on board an 18th century gunboat to write SPITFIRE. I also gave teachers a sneak peak at my school presentation, showing some of the artifact replicas, articles of clothing, and other 18th century treats I'll be sharing with students this fall.
I gave my first reading from SPITFIRE to people who don't live with me, and that was a terrific feeling. The teachers were kind enough to laugh in all the right places, had nice things to say about my research and writing, and clapped when I was done.
It was a wonderful afternoon, and it was great to spend time with people who love Lake Champlain and its history as much as I do.
By: Kate Messner,
on 7/22/2007
Blog: Kate's Book Blog (Login to Add to MyJacketFlap)
JacketFlap tags: book trailers, teachers, spitfire, clinton community college, benedict arnold, lake champlain, battle of valcour, presentation, Add a tag
I'm giving my first presentation for SPITFIRE tomorrow!
The book won't be out for almost two months, but this week's historical workshop at Clinton Community College focuses on Benedict Arnold in the Champlain Valley, so it's a perfect opportunity to share SPITFIRE and the story behind it with a great group of area teachers.
I'll be presenting a PowerPoint on the Battle of Valcour Island and the real 12-year-old who fought in it, sharing some artifacts to give teachers a taste of my program for schools, and... sharing my new book trailer for SPITFIRE!
Have I mentioned how much I love iMovie?
It seems every time I come here I type the word "congratulations." You're on a roll, and I hope it never ends. The Hotel of Blueberry Goodness is another killer title. I can't wait to see it; you're writing them faster than I can read them.
Anyway, as long as I'm here, and for the sake of tradition:
CONGRATULATIONS!
CONGRATULATIONS! CONGRATULATIONS! CONGRATULATIONS!
I agree with Stephen, The Hotel of Blueberry Goodness is an aswesome title.
Congratulations, too!
I love the title, like everyone else, I'm sure. :-)
You're most welcome! I didn't realize I was breaking the news, but I'm glad I did! And ... congrats again!!
OMG! Congratulations two times over!! That is awesome news!
WooHoo! Many congrats!
Congrats!! Not one but three successes for you now!! Whoo-hoo!
OH MY G-D Danette! Holy crow! A two-book deal. That is so awesome! Are you still gonna speak to us? I mean, um, now that you are officially famous. I think 3 books constitutes for immediate fame...
I hate to sound so naive, but what is the web address for PM?
Awesome news!!!! Congratulations! I am so happy for you!
Great news, Danette, and congratulations! I want to go to that hotel, and I'm hoping it is loaded with blueberry muffins...
Big CONGRATULATIONS!!!! Woo hoo! I can't wait to read them. Enjoy the ride.
Ditto Stephen!! Many, many congratulations!!! I also love the title "The Hotel of Blueberry Goodness."
Can't wait to read Violet though....
:-)
CONGRATULATIONS! I am so, so happy for you. You're an inspiration, Danette. :) And I can't wait to read your books.
(& Happy belated birthday to the blog!)
Danette I couldn't be happier for you! Watch out world, Florida writers are going to fill up the bookshelves!
Hi Sheri!
The deal announcements come out in Publisher's Weekly, which I think I mistakenly referred to as PM. PW is available by subscription, but Publishers Lunch Deluxe and PW Children's Bookshelf are free.
Thanks for all the congratulations and comments on the blueberry title!
Thanks for the tip, Danette. Are you still on cloud nine?